Pleasantly surprised to find this is Thunder Dragon One Point Five. Got the intense pace, cathartic destruction, and calculatedly generous bombs, on a much cleaner screen. I like TD1, but its player and enemies are kinda oversized, with the aggressive bullet wobble furthering a cluttered effect. Much comfier game, here.
Stage design feels decidedly by the same people, with several familiar wave types. I particularly love the fourth stage's walker army. Just like TD1's, nothing fancy; a wall of heavy metal marching downscreen with guns blazing, the player slicing and sledgehammering through.
I will say that if you find TD1's trap waves obnoxious, SDF may prove similar. But it's significantly restrained; where TD1 gets bomb-defusal tight early in Loop 1, SDF doesn't become truly ruthless until the second and final loop's latter half. I've put barely any time on it, so way too early to say, but I could see this maturing into a nice 2ALL; compact and tough. Hugely appreciative of the set two loops; TD1 is endless after the second, never my thing.
I was going "You rude fucker!" at a couple bosses' unceremonious ramming attacks, until I remembered that ala TD1, that's what the bomb is for.
Happy to see lasers are pretty well-telegraphed by warning warmups. In front of a battleship? Get off the blue line pronto! I'd heard talk over the years of this being over-reliant on them, conjuring memories of Dragon Blaze's nightmarish late-game zaps. But it's nowhere even remotely as brutal.
Klatrymadon wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2024 1:15 amI love the muted gunmetal palette, the skilled but grimy-looking sprite work and the nastiness of the feedback (not just in the explosions but the way everything visibly splits and collapses). NMK were punk as fuck.
Feedback's definitely the word! They really captured DYRL's punishing battle aesthetic.
Tearing apart large enemies before their bristling armaments can cause trouble is ruinously satisfying, and even the tiniest zako go out with plaintive vengeance.
I like how the manual shouts out the one wingman dude whose name I can never recall, with a note that
"Yeah, just like in the film, he's gonna eat a fuckin rocket to the face immediately so make sure to grab his Armor drop." 
Poor prick's got a shout in the default HS table too.
Jeneki wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2024 2:44 am
PC Engine Fan X! wrote: ↑Wed Dec 25, 2024 5:36 pm
In the USA, Harmony Gold still retains the rights to the Macross namesake, however, it's Big West of Japan whom has the legal right to sell Macross toys, merchandise, etc, in the USA (they still don't have a USA subsidiary distribution wherehouse built yet).
One other interesting thought here: If we look at the Macross Shooting Insight western release, it's absent of any Harmony Gold logos in the western trailers or the official website for the western version. However, it's missing content from SDF Macross and Do You Remember Love. This Hamster release falls under SDF Macross content, and is also missing in the west. It seems like that particular version of Macross is more doomed than the rest.
It's all so awful. 3; All this trouble caused by an early 80s kitbash. I could afford them some charity if they'd actually localised Macross BITD, instead of mashing it with two unrelated works. As-is, it's borderline
Ken Penders suing Archie vibes.
I mean Robotech could be super rad for all I know. Collage and pastiche are legitimate artforms after all. I like the brass neck tbh. Moreso than all the tedious obstinance since, certainly.
EDIT: Did anyone else watch
Macron One back in the day? That one's at least a couple different series, too. GoShogun and some other thing. Even as a kid, I remember when they'd switch to The B Team, like "By the way kids, here's what B Team is doing elsewhere! Wow look, they're taking off to fight Other Big Bad!" Never came up besides that IIRC. Hilarious!
GoShogun's concluding OVA "The Time Etranger" (1985) is pretty unique. Worth a watch even if you don't care about the series. Downbeat elegy about what happens when the Super Robot Pilots - or anyone, really - get old and retire. It's good I swear!
EDIT2: Not to be confused with
Toki no Tabito (1986), which I see actually came out a year later.
Got an optional Medal + Rank display too, nice.
Welcome aboard, here's to another year! 
