New Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters game by SUCCESS

[To Far Away Times]

Oh man… I looked at the Steam screenshots and that is rough.

I think Steven nailed it, they’re making their backgrounds using google maps or something similar. My guess is they’re doing the 3D background elements this way too. It kinda reminds me of how Microsoft Flight Sim automatically generates 3D polygonal models of buildings, trees, mountains, and so on based off of real world maps. I got to fly over my own house and check it out in game. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty slick. But despite Flight Sim’s impossible scope, it still looks a 1,000 times better than the result here. With Sonic Wings, the developers can plan for exactly what you’ll see during a 20 minute shmup since the camera is on rails and the game still looks like absolute fucking dogshit.

[sumdumgoy]

x

[Steven]

Hey man I heard you like Arma so you might like Sanic Wangs



Anyway, the backgrounds don't really matter for most vertical shooters. You could simply not have a background at all and instead just black nothingness it wouldn't make a difference in most cases, aside from improving bullet visibility. We'll see, but it looking like this this close to the release date is not encouraging.

[pablumatic]

A pity. Looks exactly as I thought it would if it went 3D.

In 2025 when there's so much graphical horsepower available to developers I'd rather they just not bother if they can't get more than PSP (maybe less than that) level visuals in HD.

[mycophobia]

Anyway, the backgrounds don't really matter for most vertical shooters. You could simply not have a background at all and instead just black nothingness it wouldn't make a difference in most cases, aside from improving bullet visibility.

no???? lol

[mycophobia]

graphics and art are important folks. this genre would not be interesting at all, nor would it have lasted as long, if every game looked like, idk, rrootage or some shit. a shmup should look at least kind of good

[Daytime Waitress]

At least rRootage had that "visiting a sensory deprivation chamber after you watched Tron" aesthetic going for it - stylistically, it worked.
For that one game.

Anyway, the backgrounds don't really matter for most vertical shooters. You could simply not have a background at all and instead just black nothingness it wouldn't make a difference in most cases, aside from improving bullet visibility.

Hard no on that one.
I distinctly remember falling off of Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo precisely because it had so little visual variation.
Although I can't remember much of the gameplay, either, so that might be more towards your point.
But if you want to regale us with how Tatsujin would be just as good if you stripped away even its limited layers of backgrounds, I'd...
Well, I'd sooner sit through that dissertation than see more of what this is shaping up to be.
Yeesh.

[Steven]

If you were to remove the backgrounds, it's not going to affect the actual gameplay in most cases, unless it's something like Out Zone where you can fall in holes and need the background to know where to not go. In most cases, the background is just a picture that you can't interact with at all, so its presence or absence is purely cosmetic. Yeah, it's going to look a hell of a lot worse without it, but the actual gameplay won't change in most cases. Obviously any Super Nintendo games that use a rotating background with Mode 7 as something that the player can collide with would also be exceptions.

[Bassa-Bassa]

If you were to remove the backgrounds, it's not going to affect the actual gameplay in most cases,

Another hard no on that as well. Remove the background (and the scroll with it) and your performance will improve as your perception of the actual objects improves - drastically in many cases.

Anyway, if you think every game should look like Space Invaders, you've been missing like half the point all this time.

[Steven]

By the gameplay won't change, I meant that it won't be like removing the terrain that you can crash into in R-Type or whatever, which would completely change how the game is played. In most vertical shooters, removing the background wouldn't change the gameplay, only your perception of it, as it would otherwise be completely a identical game outside of the visual difference. Also, I've never played Space Invaders.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Yeah, I missed this line, sorry:

aside from improving bullet visibility.

Space Invaders is a fine sample as the background "image" isn't even made with game graphics.

[Hazuki]

I think the SFC port of the original game looked better than this and it's over 30 years older.

[Bassa-Bassa]

The 90s were peak game art and particularly in this genre which still got some budget, nothing odd with that.

[Steven]

Space Invaders is a fine sample as the background "image" isn't even made with game graphics.

I want to say there was some arcade game that used some sort of overlay like Vectrex games, but I don't remember if it was Space Invaders or not. I also just now learned that Space Invaders doesn't use a spinner for the controls. This probably would have been good as a spinner game.

The 90s were peak game art and particularly in this genre which still got some budget, nothing odd with that.

At least until they started shifting to those horrid pre-rendered graphics. I hate those things. StarCraft uses them and I love that game, but I can only imagine how much better it would have looked if it had been normal non-pre-rendered pixel art instead.

[pieslice]

At least until they started shifting to those horrid pre-rendered graphics. I hate those things. StarCraft uses them and I love that game, but I can only imagine how much better it would have looked if it had been normal non-pre-rendered pixel art instead.

I`m not exactly sure if this is more appealing..


I actually like how to 2017 remaster looks.

[Steven]

lol yeah, the beta art is terrible. I probably should have said good normal non-pre-rendered pixel art... we're getting pretty off topic, though...

[Lemnear]

the background (at least for me) is very important, both for an aesthetic factor, and because very often it is useful to me to remember the safe points to overcome certain patterns.
Seriously however, buying a drone and filming from above for 20min costs really little... and it made much more...
Now I seriously wonder what their budget is because it seems to be absolutely limited, much more limited than M2 (which I don't think is that limited).
Btw one of the key factors of SHMUPS was that they were graphically cutting edge, at least until the PS2 era.

[marus]

This might be reading way too deep into things, but the scores in the screenshots are all low. Like, reaaaaaaly low. Low as in they fired up the game, shot one or two enemies, then took a screenshot low. It makes me wonder how much the game has even been playtested so far.

[jehu]

The debut trailer is out:https://youtu.be/L43K3ymQa2Y

I think it's about time to get acclimated to the idea that this is how it's going to look. And acclimated to the idea that it's going to be a deeply disappointing game. Yikes.

[Steven]

This looks even worse in motion somehow. That's (probably) a first. This looks like an extremely early alpha build, and it does not look like it's going to be good at all. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I don't know if it was like this previously, but the website says that the PC version is 1P only, like the arcade version. That's weird. I'd say it's concerning, but given the trailer's badness, I think a potentially missing 2P mode that I'm never going to play isn't really that big of a deal compared to everything else.

[To Far Away Times]

Aesthetic cohesion is everything. If a game looks like ass no one is going to give it the time of day.

Until recently, Cho Ren Sha 68K only had a super short looping background for the entire run time and yet the game still looked really good because everything was very cohesive and well executed. You know, there was a lot of thought and intent that was clearly visible in the final product.

Now look at this screen shot.

The shadow on the stadium implies the sun is on our right and fairly high up in the sky. Not directly overhead, but not early morning or later afternoon either. But the deep shadows on the curves of the enemy ship imply that the sun has to be lower, near the height of the enemy plane, to cast a shadow that you can see from overhead. The enemy ship is also quite low to the ground because the stadium is so large in the background. The sun needs to be very low to the ground then, so then shouldn't the shadow on the stadium be a much longer shadow? And then the enemy ship casts shadows on itself, but not on the ground that's just below it? So where exactly is the sun supposed to be? Because I honestly don't know and I don't think the devs do either. The backgrounds are tilted at an angle - okay, so the camera must be tilted too, right? No... we are just looking straight down on the enemy ship. Why are we simultaneously looking at two different perspectives? Ugh. This might seem like nitpicking but honestly this stuff is important. If your brain has to subconsciously autocorrect for things that are impossible it can be very frustrating for the viewer. None of these objects seem like they exist in the game's world because our brain tells us these objects can't exist and interact with each other like that.

[BrianC]

Hopefully, Success won't have to change their name after this game.

[EmperorIng]

I'm not usually a graphics-whore but the team is gunna have to crunch some serious devtime to get this looking decent between now and the end of May. This is supposed to be an arcade release too. If they pushed the release back to like, November, I could at least see some time for them to polish things up.

There isn't enough gameplay to focus on (other than the promise of unlockable characters - neat! - and score medals return), other than a few sparse, quicker bullets. But this means more attention is drawn to the art-style (or rather prototype build) - compressed sprites ripped from the earlier game scaled up (like MaoMao's shot sprite or Chaika/Pooshka's towers), some very questionable pre-rendered flames and explosions. The enemies, ships, and bullets don't yet pop from the busy backgrounds. The art style is trying to add some form of cel shading to the city to compensate but I dunno if it's working right now. I hope the team didn't bite off more than they can chew but it is looking that way.

I will happily eat my words and want them to succeed, but things just look too alpha and unfinished for an actual trailer.

[DietSoap]

You guys still believe in (new) shmup release dates?

[KAI]

Glad to know early 2000's doujin aesthetic is back.

[spmbx]

It looks pretty lame in the screenshots, but honestly the moving parts in the trailer look pretty good to me. If the gameplay is fine i don't think this will bother me. I think a lot of new stuff looks way too sterile in static screenshots but without seeing it in movement it doesn't really say too much imho.

[DenimDemon]

APOLOGIZE.

Spoiler

I like how this game looks.


As for Aero....looks even worse in movement than in screenshots. The fighters animation are really poor...
I want so much this game to be good...

[Steven]

I had the chance to buy a Sonic Wings PCB about a year ago but passed on it. I kind of regret that now, as it was pretty cheap for a shooting PCB. I've only played the original Sonic Wings once for a single credit when they put it out at Mikado last year, and I have no idea how the game is, partially because I forgot the entire experience, so I'm not entirely sure how Reunion compares to the original's design philosophy, even though gauging Reunion's design philosophy on just this one short trailer is basically impossible. Seeing this trailer makes me especially curious about the original game's enemy placement and enemy shot speed, density, and patterns, as the enemy shots they've shown off for this are very fast. I guess I can go get it on ACA or something.

[Lemnear]

The debut trailer is out:https://youtu.be/L43K3ymQa2Y

I think it's about time to get acclimated to the idea that this is how it's going to look. And acclimated to the idea that it's going to be a deeply disappointing game. Yikes.

Is this a joke, right??? What the fuck are those flames in the background? Why is everything so empty?
On the website it says it costs a whopping 6,380 yen (that's $/€39.99)...

APOLOGIZE.

Spoiler

What game is this?
EDIT: ah ok it doesn't matter I found it

[Daytime Waitress]

This might seem like nitpicking but honestly this stuff is important. If your brain has to subconsciously autocorrect for things that are impossible it can be very frustrating for the viewer. None of these objects seem like they exist in the game's world because our brain tells us these objects can't exist and interact with each other like that.

I don't think this comes across as nitpicking - you've articulated why it's bad better than a lot of us here. For sure it looks rushed, shoddy and amateurish, but there's an extra something "off" that nags... and you hit on it.

I think the biggest disappointment here for me (other than it looking dog rough) is how samey it looks.
The original SW had a kind of muted palette compared to some contemporaries, sure, but each individual stage was distinct.
I know these days someone would bitch about how "tropey" the stages were (city stage, desert stage, etc.), but you could tell them apart in an instant.
Smash cut to the "COMES WITH 8 STAGES!" section of the trailer and, fuck me, if you said they were all from the same level I'd believe you: Yahoo Maps + N64 filter + modern "desaturated to buggery" colour correction.
I'd hope that it's just a causality of a lacklustre trailer, but I'm nearly out of hope with this one already.

looks even worse in movement than in screenshots. The fighters animation are really poor...

Animation aside, Mao Mao's craft at least looks to have a little weight to it, whilst Hien's gives me real bad vibes. I know he was one of the faster fighters in the OG, but here it seems more like... a completely weightless mouse cursor moving around a screen, than a fighter craft embedded in its environment and controlled by a joystick, if that makes sense. Maybe that feeling goes back to what TFAT said about internal coherence?