Gekirindan

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:42 pm

I'm buying this from a guy for $25, thought I might ask what's the general consensus on it.

IIRC, jp gave it something like a C in his goin for the gold site. Hopefully some of you guys will think higher of it.

gunbird18 · Post by **gunbird18** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 6:01 pm

C would be a pretty accurate grade. Subpar gameplay. The sound effects are terrible, but the OST on the other hand is pretty good IMO. I think you are getting a pretty good deal at $25, since you can't just go out and get this at the local Gamestop. At least it will go toward completing your Saturn collection and not costing you a buttload of money.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 7:06 pm

I played it in MAME sometime back...not long after I deleted the ROM to free up space for other stuff. It wasn't awful, but it was awfully lackluster, barely anything therein to really catch your attention. I find it kinda funny that the Xenocide files lists it as a shooter "with time travel, like Radiant Silvergun." Now that is truly a masterpiece of misleading text.

I've never played the Saturn version, but others have said that it's not a particularly good port either, technical-wise...

Sundance · Post by **Sundance** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 7:15 pm

Good old school shmup. Nothing spectacular but its a nice addition to your collection for $25. Come to think of it ...i think thats about what i payed a couple of years ago.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:19 pm

Easy game. Excellent music. Generic gameplay. Supposedly, the Saturn version looks worse and has more slowdown. $25 is a decent price since it generally goes for $20-35.

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:51 pm

Aye, thanks for the comments. I didn't mind shelling out $18 for Skull Fang, and I won't mind doing the same with this one.

gunbird18 · Post by **gunbird18** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:27 am

Funny that you mentioned Skull Fang. Now that was one Saturn Shmup that I couldn't get rid of fast enough.

I know each person has their preferences, but nothing in that game appealed to me. Very, very blah!

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:30 am

Yeah, agreed. Gekirindan is at least mildly fun and not a bad game unlike Skull Fang. But $18 for Skull Fang was a better deal (based on price only) if it included a spinecard.

jp · Post by jp » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:23 am

Gekirindan >>>> Skull Fang, easily. Though Skull Fang did have some damn cool gameplay elements.

Interesting you mentioned teh site, I guess I should throw it back in the sig, I didn't realize anyone went there.

Also, the music in Geki was damn cool. Dunno if I mentioned that on the site or not.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:46 am

Although Gekirindan isn't great, I'm always amazed at how often 'not great' = 'suck' or even 'sub par'. What exactly is 'par'? I'd rate gekirindan a bit above a lot of recent shmups but it is important to say nothing about this game will wow you. It is taito's homage to toaplan, but doesn't quite make it--still, some of the later levels are pretty interesting and can be challenging. The worst thing about this game is the port--the graphics are shoddy (there are some glaring places where the port doesn't look nearly as good as mame) and for some reason the scrolling shudders at a couple unimportant moments. Also, there is loading times before bosses (why??)

The game itself is a lot of fun in a toaplanesque-light kind of way. Nothing spectacular, but definitely worth the purcase and time invested I think. You should enjoy it.

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:20 am

jp wrote:Interesting you mentioned teh site, I guess I should throw it back in the sig, I didn't realize anyone went there.

I checked out your site a few times. It was one of the influences that got me trying to get my own Saturn page started, albeit I'm doing it through LiveJournal.

Back on topic, Gekirindan is one of the few non-super-pricey shmups I want to get for my Saturn. It couldn't play well in MAME, but it didn't seem like total shit, and I'm game for a decent Toaplan-a-like. But lately I've been focusing on expanding my Saturn collection into other genres. Moujiya and Saturn Bomberman and Tenchi Wo Kurau II take precedent over Gekirindan.

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 9:42 am

CMoon wrote:. It is taito's homage to toaplan

Not exactly, it's Toaplan's (Lee Ohta and someone else) homage to Toaplan, published after bankruptcy by Taito.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 9:50 am

It's an alright game. If you haven't got batsugun yet, that should be your priority. That and DDP...

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:17 am

jp wrote: Interesting you mentioned teh site, I guess I should throw it back in the sig, I didn't realize anyone went there.
.

Yes please, do it! I didn''t know it had a site, now I want to check it out!

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:30 am

jp wrote:Interesting you mentioned teh site, I guess I should throw it back in the sig, I didn't realize anyone went there.

Heh, BTW, I remember you had Macross listed twice on that list, obviously copied from the erroneous Xenocide listing.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:44 am

CMoon wrote:I'm always amazed at how often 'not great' = 'suck' or even 'sub par'.

Yes, exactly, this is something that has annoyed me for quite some time now. Obviously, for some people everything that isn't the best thing since sliced bread is automatically unplayable crap. This doesn't only apply to certain games, but also to specific versions of the same game. As if everything that isn't absolutely arcade-perfect (or better) wasn't worth being played.

I've gotten too much enjoyment out of B- and C-titles to easily dismiss a game as subpar, just because it's not the next DDP.

Tar-Palantir · Post by **Tar-Palantir** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:02 pm

Randorama wrote:
CMoon wrote:. It is taito's homage to toaplan
Not exactly, it's Toaplan's (Lee Ohta and someone else) homage to Toaplan, published after bankruptcy by Taito.

Ah, thank you

It's something I awlays suspected.

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:25 pm

I'm a huge fan of Gekirindan for the Saturn -- though the Saturn port was sloppy. A bit of load times during levels (though very short it is still inexcusable), a bit of graphical glitching and no saving of high-scores to the internal memory makes this a sub-par effort. But I love the game to bits - very Toaplan-ish in style (I love those older 16-bit shooters!) and the soundtrack by Zuntata is great. Well worth the $25 and it's sort of a guilty pleasure if you let it grow on you.

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:04 am

Randorama wrote:
CMoon wrote:. It is taito's homage to toaplan
Not exactly, it's Toaplan's (Lee Ohta and someone else) homage to Toaplan, published after bankruptcy by Taito.

Hmm, so it wasn't developed by Taito?

I got the game today and I'm really surprised at how much I like it....the different eras aspect, while not really put to their fullest potential, is an interesting idea. The music's great too, if you ask me. I doubt I've ever played a Toaplan game, albeit I've seen many screenshots and reviews of a few of them...hell, I've never played a Toaplan title but it just totally feels like a Toaplan homage to me

It's hard for me to explain.

Anyways, I don't know why I like this game so much; for many years all I played were late 80s/early 90s shmups (and I still do most of the time), and this feels like a culmination of all those into one shmup.

I'll be bold enough to say that I'd give it an 8 out of 10 (though I'm still undecided). If only there was like one more level, mebbe set in prehistoric times or whatever...shooting down pterodactyls would've been nice.

jp · Post by jp » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:28 am

Teh site is teh back... though I haven't bought much new lately... apartment, women, and $1500 consoles will do that to ya.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:16 am

Yo, you still haven't corrected the 2 Macrosses mistake. Might mislead a few shmup collectors who don't know better (then again, admittedly the Xenocide Files should be changed even earlier).

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:10 pm

Played it way back in 2000-1 at a friend's house on MAME. It wasn't perfectly emulated back then (The Bomb would explode in the worng place) but I didn't like it very much.

I doubt it's any better on the Saturn.

umi · Post by **umi** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:34 am

The music OWNS. The game was... fun... but for some reason I had no sound effects on my Saturn version. I mean WTF? It's just too weird playing it without sound effects, as the collision detection was just a bit too anal/unrefined and having no sound effects spaced me out even further. I guess it was just my disc, but it was/is in very good condition. Playing on a Jap saturn too.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:37 am

Oh, and one thing about the great music: it's all based on 1 general theme (sorta like the Lunar RPGs) so if you didn't like stage 1's tunes (which are IMO the best in the game), you probably won't enjoy stage 5's music with its snippets of similarity.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 10:55 am

Yeah, the hitbox is big and unforgiving. I do find myself dying when I don't feel like I should. Just a slightly smaller hit box would radically improve this game.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 11:42 am

But that would make it even easier than it already is...

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:05 pm

I think Gekirindan is awesome. The guy who did that huge Saturn collage video called the 1 second pause times in the Saturn rev. "inexcusable". Please. Get a life! It's not THAT big of a deal, and the game is great. Congrats on getting it for such a low price!

shmups.system11.org

Gekirindan

Gekirindan

Re: Gekirindan