Vulgus rocks!

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Sun May 22, 2005 12:04 am

recently I got the old Pal Capcom Collection, originally to play the 19.. games, and it wasn´t before a friend pushed me to do so that I tried the 3rd disc with Vulgus and Exed Exes as well. To my surprise, Vulgus turned out a lot more hectic than the more modern games. Attack formations remind of 1942 and Fire Shark, but there are no stage intermissions, the game is nonstop action. There are also no power-ups, only a limited power shot which can be used to score or to destroy stronger enemies. Certain enemy formations will give 100-1000 points per enemy when destroyed with the power shot, but destroying the last enemy of a formation with the regular shot gives 500-5000 points, increasing as long as you don´t die. Picking up letter icons increases enemy speed and variety, so this game from 1984 already has a rank system.
Having no power-ups means you can easily continue after dying, but it also means you have a rather hard time killing enemies in all their wild formations. In general, enemies seem rather guided by some primitive AI than by set paths, so if you can spare the concentration, you can predict enemy movement by thinking their way while maneuvering your own ship. They will not hesitate to crash into you kamikaze style from your back where you can´t shoot them, so dealing with them is quite different from modern games´ bullet patterns or even 1942´s set paths.
Today I managed to loop the game once, unlocking the "secret" info, part of which I wrote in here. Such an adrenaline rush I haven´t had for years, not even when playing Raiden Fighters Jet for the first time.

If you want to give Vulgus a try, but don´t have a Playstation or the Capcom collection, Capcom gives the game away for free on this site:
http://www.capcom.com/vulgus.xpml

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sun May 22, 2005 1:43 am

F*ck yeah!

I LOVE Vulgus. Not that I am good at it, but it is definitely a great game! The AI is definitely weird the way the ships chase you around--sometimes it is almost like football where you have to juke some of your enemies. Funny enough, depending on what is coming on the screen, you can get your enemis to keep looping you without them being able to attack you.

How long is the whole game?

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Sun May 22, 2005 1:58 am

That link is broken.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Sun May 22, 2005 4:19 am

How long is the whole game?

shorter than I expected. If you count the star background intermissions as stage changes, it´s only 4 stages long. Scrolling doesn´t even stop then, so you might have looped it already without recognizing - to make sure, you can watch out for a Capcom logo on the left side embedded into the landscape.

That link is broken.

it works right now, just try again I´d suggest.

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Sun May 22, 2005 4:24 am

No, the link you have works, but the link on that page to download the game is broken.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Sun May 22, 2005 4:31 am

No, the link you have works, but the link on that page to download the game is broken.

oops, sorry. I didn´t try it this time, but remembered Capcom gave the game away for free some time ago for an anniversary I don´t recall. Maybe I still have it somewhere on a CD, if I find it I´ll PM you to send it by mail.

Post by **Ghegs** » Sun May 22, 2005 7:28 am

Sounds very sweet, luckily it's included in the new Capcom Collection.

serge · Post by **serge** » Sun May 22, 2005 9:45 am

For those interested in trying it out, a working Vulgus download is linked in this thread.
It installs both PC and PocketPC versions.

raiden wrote:so this game from 1984 already has a rank system

Apparently Xevious also has a rank (1982?), I'm not sure but something like lowering the rank by destroying the ground bases.

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Sun May 22, 2005 9:48 am

That link is dead too.

serge · Post by **serge** » Sun May 22, 2005 10:27 am

Works for me right now!
Anyway, the archive is less than megabyte, so I can e-mail it to you if you want to (or put it somewhere for download).

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sun May 22, 2005 10:40 am

What about Exed Exes, raiden? I enjoyed that a lot more than Vulgus. It has charm.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Sun May 22, 2005 11:15 am

What about Exed Exes, raiden? I enjoyed that a lot more than Vulgus. It has charm.

undoubtedly (my first thought was: "this must be the earliest predecessor of Dodonpachi"), but charm is not what makes me play games. The weapon is severely underpowered, game speed is really slow, especially the ship speed, and because of that, the relentless level design often throws you into situations you can´t deal with intuitively. In that way, it reminds me of Image Fight, which I don´t like either, but Exed Exes is even worse in several ways. I only played until stage 2, but I don´t see myself giving that game much more time. Maybe if there is some hidden aspect I didn´t recognize it, like a way to get more power-ups. Bombs are almost useless as they deal no damage to the enemies (crashing into which is the major reason for dying, not being hit by bullets), but aren´t even replenished after dying. In Exed Exes, I feel like I´m not supposed to have a chance of survival, instead of just just lacking talent with a hope to improve my skills.

@mannerbot: I managed to download the file as well, here´s a mirror:
http://www.bloodrain.mynetcologne.de/capcom_vulgus.zip

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Sun May 22, 2005 12:33 pm

Thanks for the mirror raiden, but serge was kind enough to e-mail it to me. Only had two runs so far, but there are certain parts of it I find pretty interesting (such as the black blocks on stage two). Have to see how the scoring works later...

Post by **Ghegs** » Sun May 22, 2005 6:09 pm

Played the game a few times, pretty fun, got a score of 163,500. The music will play in my head for days.

The rank system sounds kinda odd though, from what I gathered the power-ups you pick give advantage to the enemies? I did seem to notice a slight speed-up in the enemy movements after picking up an "S" icon. So it's a rank totally in the player's control. Logic says you should get something for making the game harder for yourself, but I was too busy dodging to see if enemies were worth any more points after picking up several icons as opposed to the very beginning of the game.

But yeah, I'm looking forward to playing this on my TV after the Collection comes out.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sun May 22, 2005 6:26 pm

Perhaps this is an emulation bug, but I'm not enjoying the game much due to the sound. Those drums are fucking irritating and in general the sound is really weaksauce.

Can anyone confirm if mame is on a level with the pc download offered/generations?

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Sun May 22, 2005 7:42 pm

Ooo, fun stuff. I look forward to getting Capcom Generation 3 now. Now I gotta go try out Exed Eyes.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sun May 22, 2005 9:02 pm

Yeah, I love Vulgus as well! Can't wait for Capcom Classics to come out for the PS2!!

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sun May 22, 2005 9:03 pm

alpha5099 wrote:Ooo, fun stuff. I look forward to getting Capcom Generation 3 now. Now I gotta go try out Exed Eyes.

Exed Eyes is even more fun, IMO! There are bosses-generic, as in Star Soldier, but the game is really fun to play! I used to play it when I was much younger at our local Safeway, and this game, along with Flying Shark, really got me into the genre!

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Wed May 25, 2005 4:09 am

The music is cool in sort of a 1942 way- it doesn't seem like much at first, but it hooks you eventually. I just got 204,000 playing it now.

Your ship's speed is just fine in Vulgus. When the enemy pursues you, it makes things rather interesting- you think on the fly to outwit them. The absence of typical patterns makes Vulgus stand out from the others.

Vulgus was distributed by (guess who?) SNK for the US.

In Xevious, the rank is raised if you don't destroy those ground bases. KLOV's entry for it states "If the player is successful against a type of attacker, an even deadlier type of attacker shows up to challenge the player".

Post by **Ghegs** » Wed May 25, 2005 5:26 pm

Like I mentioned in another thread, I found and bought PAL Capcom Generations. Naturally a test-drive of Vulgus was in order.

It's an even better game now that I'm playing it on my TATEd monitor instead of my lil' laptop. But sadly I discovered the scores aren't comparable to the PC version we've seen here. The speed feels the same, but I'm quite sure I got extends far more often with the console. I got a score of 269k. I also thought the music and sound effects were a bit worse on the console version.

Oh well, at least I can still compete with Raiden.

And possibly those with the JPN version of Capcom Generations 3 and the upcoming Collection. Kinda odd though, the manual says "If you collect this item, the XXX of enemies will remain the same and no longer increase". So collecting the icons keeps the rank in check and brings forth the star for 10k points. But in the game, it's implied that picking up the items increases the enemy numbers/speed/bullets". Weird.

As a side note, Exed Exes would be quite kick-ass if the ship moved a bit faster.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Wed May 25, 2005 5:34 pm

I love Vulgus too. Very addictive shmup. I like how you can do score combos with the pow weapon.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:52 pm

Are there any bosses in Vulgus?

I know there was at least one that I encountered in 1942; it was a big 4-engine bomber and it was on Stage 16, IIRC.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:22 pm

dave4shmups wrote:Are there any bosses in Vulgus?

I know there was at least one that I encountered in 1942; it was a big 4-engine bomber and it was on Stage 16, IIRC.

Vulgus has no bosses as far as I know. The closest thing to that I've seen is the large enemies that take around 8-10 hits.

The boss bomber in 1942 shows up at the end of stage 7, then it comes back every 8 stages thereafter- with the last one being in stage 31.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:56 pm

Are there any bosses in Vulgus?

There is one enemy that could qualify as a boss right before looping the game. It´s a big ball with several smaller balls oscillating around it, sometimes sweeping down to crash into the player ship. The reason it could qualify is not just that it´s the last thing to occur before looping, but also the fact that it´s the only enemy in the game that takes more than one power shot to destroy. Not that many, however, 2 or 3 plus regular weapon fire should suffice. If you happen to arrive at this enemy without any power shot, however, you are pretty much screwed, as the sweeping balls can hardly be avoided, resist regular fire pretty well, and the boss attacks get harder if he lives longer.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed May 25, 2005 11:21 pm

raiden wrote:
Are there any bosses in Vulgus?
There is one enemy that could qualify as a boss right before looping the game. It´s a big ball with several smaller balls oscillating around it, sometimes sweeping down to crash into the player ship. The reason it could qualify is not just that it´s the last thing to occur before looping, but also the fact that it´s the only enemy in the game that takes more than one power shot to destroy. Not that many, however, 2 or 3 plus regular weapon fire should suffice. If you happen to arrive at this enemy without any power shot, however, you are pretty much screwed, as the sweeping balls can hardly be avoided, resist regular fire pretty well, and the boss attacks get harder if he lives longer.

Cool; thanks for that info Raiden! BTW, how many levels does Vulgus have?

And BTW, what happened to that free Vulgus on Capcom's website?? I just get an error message when I click on the download link.

And I cannot locate the game on that mirror site you gave, either.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Thu May 26, 2005 4:48 am

And BTW, what happened to that free Vulgus on Capcom's website?? I just get an error message when I click on the download link. And I cannot locate the game on that mirror site you gave, either.

Try this one:
http://www.bloodrain.mynetcologne.de/Capcom_Vulgus.EXE
the zipfile contained nothing but the installer, so I just uploaded the .exe instead.

To the subject of number of levels, read the previous posts, please.

Oh well, at least I can still compete with Raiden. And possibly those with the JPN version of Capcom Generations 3 and the upcoming Collection. Kinda odd though, the manual says "If you collect this item, the XXX of enemies will remain the same and no longer increase". So collecting the icons keeps the rank in check and brings forth the star for 10k points. But in the game, it's implied that picking up the items increases the enemy numbers/speed/bullets". Weird.

I´m currently at 203k, so I´ve still got a lot to practice (but it seems doable

) - this item info is pretty interesting, I didn´t find that in the instructions, but I was wondering how to trigger the stars - if picking up items triggers stars, I will definitely change my method even if it implies raising rank.

Zach Keene · Post by **Zach Keene** » Thu May 26, 2005 7:31 am

Man, the more I play this the more familiar it seems. Like I must have played this back in the arcades when I was a kid and then forgot about it for 20 years. Woah.

Capt. Takehiko · Post by **Capt. Takehiko** » Thu May 26, 2005 9:03 am

This prompted me to insert my CD-ROM version right away... I'd forgotten how good this was. Best of its time.

sjewkestheloon · Post by **sjewkestheloon** » Thu May 26, 2005 11:28 am

my god a really suck at this game. it's pretty compulsive though so i'm going to have a good crack on with it today and see how far i can get. it reminds me of a moving galaga

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Thu May 26, 2005 1:22 pm

I've been in love with this game for a long time. I'm honestly surprised so many people are digging it now, I always figured this was one people would dump on for some reason.