New G.rev shmup for 3DS

[EmperorIng]

The music sounds, on a first listen, Treasure-esque, ha ha.
Not that that's a bad thing by any means!

[adversity1]

Apparently this English-speaking female musician is doing an arrange track on the soundtrack.

https://twitter.com/chibitech

[KAI]

Guest arrangers: Chibi-Tech, Kohta Takahashi and Yack.
Nice, love the new album cover.

[BulletMagnet]

A trailer, via Siliconera.

[MX7]

Apparently this English-speaking female musician is doing an arrange track on the soundtrack.

https://twitter.com/chibitech

Hate to tell you, but chibitech 'aint no woman

Awesome news though. He fucking rocks. What game is this? Ah, nevermind.

[null1024]

Chibitech is brilliant.

also goddamnit, this explains a lot, he visits a channel I OHC in, and it is filled with professional musicians [chibitech, coda(?), etc], so I always lose/get almost-last-place ;-;-

[Cuilan]

I'm pretty sure Chibitech is trans.

[mice]

See, having cards in shmups is a good idea.
Don't care much for twin stick shmups, though. How is that handled, by the way? It's not like the 3ds has two sticks...

[MX7]

I'm pretty sure Chibitech is trans.

Ah sorry. I thought Chibitech identified as a guy.

[WarpZone]

How is that handled, by the way? It's not like the 3ds has two sticks...

The shoulder buttons rotate the turret.

Tutorial video is up now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLIiLUyArcE

[Op Intensify]

The shoulder buttons rotate the turret.

inb4 guardian force

[evil_ash_xero]

I don't mean to be a negative Nancy...but this game makes me cry. I've been waiting for 7 years, for another Iuchi shmup. And you'd think G.Rev would be a good fit, since that's who he has worked with before.

And we get...this? I mean, the graphics suck. No way around that. And the game looks so....rudimentary. Like, anyone could have put it out.

I mean, it could be the most amazing thing ever, but it looks like ass....and I DOUBT it's a worthy follow up to Gradius V.

Makes me sad.

[ciox]

I didn't have hopes of a 3DS game turning out to be Project RS-3 to be honest.

[EmperorIng]

This latest video is actually the first time I noticed that there were actual backgrounds on the floor (like the cool parallax tunnel in one of the shots - reminded me of Rayforce).

I heartily approved. But it kind of strikes a bit of dissonance with the Tron aesthetic of the play-area.

[SuperPang]

Shipping now at Play Asia.

[adversity1]

Meanwhile my Grev shop order has yet to ship. ::taps foot::

[Meseki]

Someone uploaded gameplay of Stage A and some of Stage B on Normal on nicovideo: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm18988465

I like that even Stage A requires a little thinking/strategy (if you don't spam cards, at least), and lack of such can easily get you killed in Stage B.

[ciox]

Someone uploaded gameplay of Stage A and some of Stage B on Normal on nicovideo: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm18988465

I like that even Stage A requires a little thinking/strategy (if you don't spam cards, at least), and lack of such can easily get you killed in Stage B.

Yeah, this is a pretty bad time for nicovideo to be pulling that shit where it takes forever to load then only shows me the comments scrolling. FUK U GAIJIN.

[trap15]

That's not a region thing. That's a "nico sucks" thing. IIRC the only way to "fix" that is to buy a subscription Alternately, follow the instructions (leave the page, clear your cache, try again).

Nico sucks so much.

[WarpZone]

I've been looking at some videos/impressions and am wondering a few things, if anyone here can clarify (not sure who has the game besides adversity).

Basically the game looks a bit dull/easy on Normal difficulty if you take your time and slowly scroll just a couple enemies on screen and pick them off from a distance, making your movement and shot limitations less relevant. Many enemies are stationary or have shots that disappear before they even reach you. I can't find any videos of Hard and Ultimate yet.

However, your attack cards have a score multiplier which seems to give you incentive to move into riskier positions and speed kill groups of enemies before your weapon runs out. Although cards show up randomly, most are a x2 or x3 multiplier, so I imagine higher scores might stay pretty consistent provided different weapons are about equally good at taking stuff out, just forcing you to approach the situation differently. I think there's only one circle laser (x4) in the deck, so it looks like that might be helpful to save for a boss or use in an area densely packed with enemies...

Additionally it seems there's some kind of gatekeeper bonus for destroying all the enemies before the next gatekeeper.
Are there time bonuses as well, such as for bosses?

Also, is the game only about score attacking individual stages, or are full runs without dying tracked, such as via the FINAL stage score? I assumed there would be a risk/reward element in playing a longer game that takes you through more stages. Otherwise, I don't see the point in restricting your choice to adjacent stages. And I thought beating a stage upgrades its difficulty, yet it looks like difficulties + boss mode are freely selectable for each stage?

[adversity1]

Yo yo.

For people that haven't read it yet, I've posted some impressions of Kokuga here:
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=478260&page=2

I've been looking at some videos/impressions and am wondering a few things, if anyone here can clarify (not sure who has the game besides adversity).

Basically the game looks a bit dull/easy on Normal difficulty if you take your time and slowly scroll just a couple enemies on screen and pick them off from a distance, making your movement and shot limitations less relevant. Many enemies are stationary or have shots that disappear before they even reach you. I can't find any videos of Hard and Ultimate yet.

Hmm, to a certain extent you can do this but not everywhere and by no means on any stage. There are these tank enemies that will pound the fuck out of you with lasers on some of the later stages, and as soon as you pop your head into their area they're after you. Everything from D onwards is legitimately challenging on single player Normal, and if you bump it up to Hard or Ultimate you better have a friend to play with you because it gets rough.

However, your attack cards have a score multiplier which seems to give you incentive to move into riskier positions and speed kill groups of enemies before your weapon runs out. Although cards show up randomly, most are a x2 or x3 multiplier, so I imagine higher scores might stay pretty consistent provided different weapons are about equally good at taking stuff out, just forcing you to approach the situation differently. I think there's only one circle laser (x4) in the deck, so it looks like that might be helpful to save for a boss or use in an area densely packed with enemies...

Is there really a multiplier for card attacks? If there is, there's nothing shown on-screen to indicate as such at least as far as I've seen. After your laser cuts through an enemy for instance there's just a message that says "Destroyed." like any other weapon AFAIK.

I think the good news is that the card element of the game is, while randomized, constant between stages. I believe you get 16 cards on any stage, and the only thing randomness affects is which 4 cards appear and what the next card you draw is. For shooter purists, any element of chance is a bother, but for me it adds an element of unpredictability to each stage which is fine.

Additionally it seems there's some kind of gatekeeper bonus for destroying all the enemies before the next gatekeeper.
Are there time bonuses as well, such as for bosses?

There is a gatekeeper bonus.
I am not sure if there is a time bonus as such, unfortunately the only thing shown at the results screen is your Destruction Bonus and whatever Medal of Honor you've earned. There is zero info on the Medals of Honor in the instruction booklet, which is 2 pages lol, so I'll look for info on 2ch etc.

Also, is the game only about score attacking individual stages, or are full runs without dying tracked, such as via the FINAL stage score? I assumed there would be a risk/reward element in playing a longer game that takes you through more stages. Otherwise, I don't see the point in restricting your choice to adjacent stages. And I thought beating a stage upgrades its difficulty, yet it looks like difficulties + boss mode are freely selectable for each stage?

Well one big issue I have with the game is the total lack of online leaderboards, which is a bizarre mis-read on what the fanbase obviously wants. As far as I can see there is only individual scores so far, but I have yet to beat the game so maybe that will change at some point.

Yes, difficulties are freely selectable for each stage. To a certain extent yeah it would be cool if harder difficulties unlocked after beating them on Normal, but for anyone playing multi-player it's nice to have Hard/Ultimate available off the bat.

I think the reason the game is divided into individual stages is just to break up the action and let people complete something between train stations/on the toilet. Also your hand cramps after a few levels in this game so that's also one other welcome reason. As far as I can see at the moment there's not much more to it.

[WarpZone]

Thanks. Weapon multipliers are written directly on the card. I was confused at first because I thought that referred to how many were in the deck.

[adversity1]

Thanks. Weapon multipliers are written directly on the card. I was confused at first because I thought that referred to how many were in the deck.

Ah ok, yeah I see now. I thought they were number of cards at first too. I guess there is a very minimal score system here.

Incidentally, reading 2ch I've pieced together what the Medal of Honors are: basically nothing. If you play a single level 5 times you get a bigger medal and when you play it 10 times you get a large-size medal. Possibly bigger ones after that.

However since there's no score attack element almost at all having medals based on number of times you played a stage is somewhat incomprehensible. It'd be nice if there was some sort of internal rank that leveled up as you played stages, but so far it doesn't seem like there's anything of the sort. There are also no reports of unlockables so far on 2ch, so it seems like there was a lot of potential here wasted.

Incidentally, I've seen the Staff Roll at the end of game for those interested:

Iuchi is credited as Planner and Director, and Katsuyuki Fujita is credited as Co-Director and System/Game Programmer. It seems that about 10 people contributed to the game, but the core dev staff was Iuchi, Fujita, Shunsuke Ono and Yu Sakai (about 4 people). Music and Sound Effects were all done at M2. I should mention that the Sound Effects and Music are a major highlight of the game, this game probably has the best shooter soundtrack since Ikaruga.


I've played through all stages on Normal now although I still can't beat the "Final 1" boss, which is really tough. Some of my favorite stages were E, G, I, K and Final 1 and 2. Stage design is really well done IMO.

[EmperorIng]

I'm glad to hear that the levels are fun. That's the most important part!

I hope if this gets a western release, we can get the soundtrack CD release as well.

Come on Atlus, you've published worse games!

[Arcatech]

Apologies for the OT post but its G-rev related.

Was playing Border Down yesterday and was wondering what the G in G-rev stands for? I could try to guess but would be pretty foolish.

This new tank game looks like the bees knees though. If I get a 3ds I'll for sure pick it up.

[AntiFritz]

Game Revolution maybe?

[HydrogLox]

Game Revolution maybe?

http://www.gamerevolution.com/ had that one cornered since 1996. There is plenty of room for conjecture. Given that G.rev initially worked with "Treasure" it is quite possible that there is no real basis for the name other than that it "sounds cool" - it's not like "Treasure" really means anything, unless you want to believe that it is meant to suggest that the company is a "treasure" or that all its products are "treasures". Maybe G.rev wanted to be "revolutionary" instead but "Game Revolution" was already taken; "Revolution" was a bit dry (and a 1986 video game - how backward) but as some of the founders had worked on "G Darius" throwing a "G" (instead of "Game") in front of the name came naturally - though eventually the shortened version "G.rev" prevailed. Once they got to the logo things possibly got a bit more playful.

What is with the circle or disc obsession? Well typically when "revolution" is shortened to "rev", we are actually talking about "rotation" rather than "overthrow" like in "revolutions per minute". Anything off center on a rotating disc (or inside a rotating tube) experiences centrifugal forces sometimes measured in "g"s - though G.rev probably had more the image of High-G training in mind as a comparable experience to playing their games. If you follow that line of conjecture: G = 9.80665 m/s2

EDIT: Remember this is pure conjecture ...

[AntiFritz]

Company logos/names sound more complex then i thought...

[Arcatech]

lol right on. Thanks for the answer. I was gonna guess Gaijin, Gangster, or something else that I knew wouldn't work.

It makes sense that its just game though. Should have known

[Zeether]

So are we just never getting this in the US? Several weeks have passed and there's been nothing from any US publisher despite me begging XSEED and a couple of others.