Sine Mora(Suda 51 shmup)

[Raytrace]

I have to say - I'll be loving the PC port - if only cos I'm so lazy that I find it a pain the ass to bring my Qanba stick from my PC (at the back of the house) to the living room (front of house) where my 360 is...

[Danny]

This game will be on steam very soon...

[Zapf]

It should be out today, according to the GMG email I got. You might still be able to get it for sub $7 as well, with the 25% off coupon


http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/p ... sine-mora/ (its still a steam game- you just get a key from them you put into your steam account)

GMG25-UAAHK-6AI9S (not sure if this still works, its no longer on the site today)

[EmperorIng]

You know, for all the wailing about this game, I'll probably still have to pick it up when it's out on steam.

[Tokyo-J]

The amount of hate I have towards this game cannot be described.

I can only sum it up to be somewhat like Edwards Norton's character during the Shower Rape scene in American History X. I am not happy about it but little I can do about it now.

[Mordecai Walfish]

The graphics look fine on PC, but the port has some issues.. of which the first would be no way to change your resolution in the game, it just plays at whatever your desktop is set at.

One other issue with the port is that on my 120hz monitor (or any, it would seem..), the game runs at double speed.. which I guess could potentially add a further difficulty level to the game, heheh. Only way to get around it is to change the desktop refresh rate to 60 and then play the game.. an option in the menus would be nice.. but if they are going to patch out "double speed mode" on 120 hz I'll probably just keep the original non-patched version for the added difficulty level ^_^

[Observer]

The amount of hate I have towards this game cannot be described.

I can only sum it up to be somewhat like Edwards Norton's character during the Shower Rape scene in American History X. I am not happy about it but little I can do about it now.

To add insult to the injury, to the big press this is essentially the one and only shmup that came out after Ikaruga that's worth checking. Nothing else is acknowledged, everything is fucking judged and contrasted with Sine Mora from now on, even if the game is older. Until the next artsy fagsy game comes.

The looks alone don't make a shooter. I got this day one just to see what was all the fanwanking and "highly lauded" fuzz about (outside of this place I mean) and I just can't see it. Akira Yamaoka's music is incidental, it just felt it's "there" and, really, I don't think he's the guy to provide a shmup OST.

Is it the achievements that have playtime tied to it to fake length? (24 hours played to reach the last one, wtf.)

Whatever, chasing power ups after you get hit, bosses that pull off Steel Saviour-worth "fuck you, I bet you didn't expect that" moves to crush you (with the game being not nearly as charming as Steel Saviour more classic designs), some problems to distinguish background/foreground threats, an overdose of checkpoints all over the place that just feels extremely bloated and makes the entire thing feel like you are playing small bits of something instead of a coherent flow and such a blatant rip off to Radiant Silvergun confusing stage structure... (This is story mode btw, I didn't try Arcade yet.)

It does look "next-gen" for what that's worth. So, while not a big stinker worth of the stinker thread, this is NOT the inflated masterpiece some made out of it. Period.

There is something in the controls that also doesn't quite feel right. I just don't know how to explain it, it doesn't seem to have inertia but at times you are pulled by some stuff and it feels "floaty". Did anyone get this?

Oh, I have to echo the resolution situation since it can look like a blurry clusterfuck on PC.

So, yeah, initial impressions on this are very underwhelming...

[Special World]

Yes, it is annoying that this has been hailed as the "next greatest shooter of all time," and it's no wonder more people aren't interested in the genre when this and Ikaruga are all they see.

But you have to take it for what it actually is, not for its hype. It's an okay game that would be great if it didn't get in its own way all the time. No reason to hate it. It's just a game, and it's not that bad.

[Observer]

Yes, it is annoying that this has been hailed as the "next greatest shooter of all time," and it's no wonder more people aren't interested in the genre when this and Ikaruga are all they see.

But you have to take it for what it actually is, not for its hype. It's an okay game that would be great if it didn't get in its own way all the time. No reason to hate it. It's just a game, and it's not that bad.

Yeah, I think this should be the line of thinking. Like I said, it's not the big stinker but nowhere near the masterpiece some people have been picturing for me.

The weird feeling on the controls is taking its toll on me though...

On the plus side, the game fires up like... instantly! That's a nice plus. And it runs very well on outdated hardware too so it's a good point for those having doubts or the eternal "will this run on my comp?". The fact this made it to PC is good in and of itself as well so that's another reason I got it day one.

I'm still delving into Story mode and will go to the arcade mode soon. Does arcade mode flow a bit better?

[Special World]

I personally found arcade mode extremely frustrating. I'm not very good at shooters, I'll admit that. But for the arcade mode (IIRC), they limit you to the harder difficulties, which doesn't really make any sense to me. If you're playing well, the rank will ratchet up, and it's jarring how obvious the difference between rank is. You'll be doing fine, and then all of a sudden you'll hit rank A and the waves are just ridiculous. Plus, the "time = lives" aspect becomes incredibly annoying, because you only have enough time to die once or twice anyways, so you may as well be playing on a really stingy credit. Then you just play another minute until you run out of time because you can't possibly get enough to finish the boss.

That was my experience playing it, anyhow. I only played for a little bit, and it was when the game was released on 360, so my memory may be spotty. But it really wasn't pleasant.

[Kiken]

There is something in the controls that also doesn't quite feel right. I just don't know how to explain it, it doesn't seem to have inertia but at times you are pulled by some stuff and it feels "floaty". Did anyone get this?

What you're 'feeling' is the fact that the camera in the game isn't still. It moves around slightly, thus causing the appearance of movement when the player is sitting still... the ship itself isn't moving, the entire playfield is. Also, there is a wind effect in the second portion of the arcade stage 1 (where you fight Hexapus for the second time) which slowly pushes the ship toward the left edge of the screen.

[Jeneki]

I'm kind of curious why the trailer on Steam has age verification on it. Oh noes, exploding planes?

[ciox]

I'm kind of curious why the trailer on Steam has age verification on it. Oh noes, exploding planes?

FailTech(TM).

[trap15]

It's really hard to read anything you say due to your signature, ciox... You should get rid of that garbage...

[parallelepiped]

Just picked this up on Steam, not really knowing any better since I don't have a 360 and was just excited to see a shmup with some production values. I'd gotten used to the analog stick with Gradius V, so I was ready for some precision dodging. Started off in story mode. It was cute - didn't even realize the pilots were furries just from the trailers, not like I play these games for the story anyway - but the game was far too easy. Grumbled at the nonsense of losing most of your powerups if you got hit, but in story mode I had so much clock it rarely mattered. First boss smacked me with a death laser, fine, try again, not like I'm putting real quarters into the thing. I was having fun blowing stuff up. Things were going decently.

And then...arcade mode hard. God, where to start.

Well how about that first boss. I have no problem with swirly bullets that force you to pilot with the flow or nip between golf-ball-size spaces, but that becomes an issue when you have a grapefruit-size hitbox, and the spiral moves like a box fan in an Arizona dorm room. The game's first boss - a miniboss at that - is like a Stage 4 Cave boss and you have one life. Yes, the reflect power makes that part of the fight trivial, but then why bother having multiple time powers to choose from?

The game is beautiful and has some fun moments, which makes the fatal balance issues all the more infuriating.

@Jeneki: The funny animal pilots drop F-bombs. It's totally out of left field.

[AntiFritz]

I only played the demo on xbla, but does arcade mode remove the horrendous ammount of dead time the story mode had? Ie too many periods of nothing following short spurts of enemies.

[Kiken]

I only played the demo on xbla, but does arcade mode remove the horrendous ammount of dead time the story mode had? Ie too many periods of nothing following short spurts of enemies.

It allows you to fast-foward (but not skip entirely) the cinematic lead-ins for bosses and level transitions. The level organization is much different than story mode though... as story mode takes the arcade stages and then cuts them up and jumbles them around.

The game's first boss - a miniboss at that - is like a Stage 4 Cave boss and you have one life. Yes, the reflect power makes that part of the fight trivial, but then why bother having multiple time powers to choose from?

You do realize that using either your sub-weapon or your special-ability resets your score multiplier? What you really want to have for that spiral pattern is to have saved a Shield item (as using that won't reset your multiplier).

[Special World]

I find it baffling that they put cool special abilities in the game and then completely disincentivized their use for high-level play.

[hermit crab]

Never heard of this game before but tried out the XBLA demo after reading this thread a bit.

It sure looked pretty but the demo didn't really give much insight into the gameplay as it didn't even really seem to get started. What was there felt kind of like Ecco more than a hori shmup. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. And even if scoring is broken it's not like EVERY GAME EVER RELEASED needs to be played for score even if you enjoy that kind of thing.

Maybe I'll buy it on some rainy day..

[geremy]

Those with the steam port: Is it DRM free? Does steam need to be up to play it? Or is it like Satazius which is has zero DRM?

[Observer]

Nope. Unlike Satazius, this is a Steamworks enabled title. Even Green Man Gaming is selling Steam keys for it so I doubt there is a DRM-free version. (Perhaps if they show up in an Indie Bundle you can bet the DRM-free version will show up, just like it happened with Jamestown.)

Thus, you need to have Steam running to play the game. At least offline mode works now.

[Zapf]

Does this version still have the autofire bug?

[Observer]

Can you describe me the autofire bug? Odds are it's probably still there but I didn't notice it.

So, yes, Arcade Mode turned to be a bitch with that brutal rank increase. So I can S all story mode but good luck even getting past the first boss in Arcade.

I agree with some of the stuff posted around, the danmaku here is unpolished as hell, it's indeed bullet vomit, not bullet hell. Jamestown at times suffered the same problem. Like, they tried to grasp the bullet hell mechanics but only came out imitating the structure yet not its soul.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Because they're dipshits with no idea how good shmup design's been working in modern shmups, in addition to forcing you to mash until you've got arthritis, they forgot to cap how quickly you can tap the shoot button. Using an autofire controller at top speed results in this. how does anyone still care about this garbage shmup

[Kollision]

Because they're dipshits with no idea how good shmup design's been working in modern shmups, in addition to forcing you to mash until you've got arthritis, they forgot to cap how quickly you can tap the shoot button.

Why mash?
Mashing isn't needed at all in Sine Mora.
Turbo controllers also aren't needed, in the very same fashion that Darius Gaiden doesn't need the autofire cheat to be played.

[BazookaBen]

I've played the first few levels and I really enjoy the game. I'm not good at shooters though, so this might be a game along the lines of Axelay; it's a fun, aesthetically interesting shooter for beginners, but the meticulous design isn't there in the harder difficulties to bring you back for scoring.

Loving the music especially, combined with the graphics it produces a lot of atmosphere for a shmup.

There is something in the controls that also doesn't quite feel right. I just don't know how to explain it, it doesn't seem to have inertia but at times you are pulled by some stuff and it feels "floaty". Did anyone get this?

Oh, I have to echo the resolution situation since it can look like a blurry clusterfuck on PC.

Your floaty movement may be attributed to your monitor. If you're not using your monitor's native resolution, and maybe even if you are, there's a chance your monitor could be lagging, many flat panels do. If you play most shmups on a different display that could explain it.

That's why I love my 21" CRT monitor. No native resolution, great color, and instant response.

[CStarFlare]

Because they're dipshits with no idea how good shmup design's been working in modern shmups, in addition to forcing you to mash until you've got arthritis, they forgot to cap how quickly you can tap the shoot button. Using an autofire controller at top speed results in this. how does anyone still care about this garbage shmup

Haha wow, I didn't realize it was that bad. Manual tapping gives a little advantage, but it almost looks like they didn't cap the rate of fire at all which puts turbo controllers in another league.

BazookaBen's got the right idea - it's fun and well imagined, but stumbles in enough places that it's not really going to be hardcore favorite.

[Tyjet]

Can you describe me the autofire bug? Odds are it's probably still there but I didn't notice it.

If you have access to a turbo controller or set up your keyboard to autofire at a fast rate, you will see that you are shooting a stream of bullets (about 21-22? shots on screen) verses a steady stream (7-8? shots on screen). Noticable in boss battles as you can kill them in seconds

[Udderdude]

Wasn't there some plan to patch that shit? I recall reading something like that awhile ago.

(not that I ever intend to buy this game lol)

[Tyjet]

Apparently from facebook, yes. As for a release date, no clue when. I heard it was going to be release at the same time when they release the ps vita version, but that's just a rumor.