STGT '09 Dragon Week 3, Thunder Dragon 2 - thoughts

[Aquas]

Didn't like the game myself, felt a lot like a memorizer knowing where to bomb and how to slick yourself by some nasty waves of enemies. And the memorizing wasn't fun to me. I mean, for me it was fun for a few seconds here and there, but not my thing. The flashing blue/white bullets were certainly a bit odd. And the announcer just helped me not take the game seriously, having me snickering at what I guessed that he had just said. "GAWDDANG IT, I can still fight j00!!" "Put in more quarters, MAN" STFU lol.

[Ruldra]

Sucky game, a real waste of dragon week. By wednesday I didn't feel like playing it anymore.

[SFKhoa]

My personal thoughts - "Woah, beautiful."

[RGC]

Humourous though it was, I only had the game sound running for the first 30 mins. The other 9 hours was either mp3s or silence.

TD2 gets 6/10 from me - bit of a let down after RFJ. Not terrible though.

[emphatic]

The announcer needs to be tortured. Make him listen to himself.

[moozooh]

I played without sound and dodged without trying to figure out if there are any bullets shot from under my shot cone. Not a bad game, but totally forgettable.

[BulletMagnet]

Not the best game ever, but I had more fun with it than I did with Varth, for whatever that's worth.

[third_strike]

Great game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cool!

[Herr Schatten]

It was a nice game, really. The combination of fixed enemy placement in the levels' environments and variable enemy waves depending on how much time you need to shoot them down made for some interesting situations and ensured that no two games of TD2 were the same. It's an interesting and unique concept.

I agree that the flashing bullets were a terrible idea, and the visibility was awful most of the time. I do see a pattern here, though, now that I know that artists who worked on TD2 also worked on Garegga and Batrider. Apart form the bullets, I thought that the graphics were quite beautiful, and somehow distinctly un-arcadey. They looked more like something you'd see on an Amiga or Atari ST screen. I also liked the music.

Cool game, shame about the bullets and the emulation issues.

[unsane]

My week's scores:


The last day i could tell i was very close to having an incredible run and shattering my record, but it just didn't come together, very frustrating. Especially since i got passed by 3 teammates on the last day, ending up 5th when i'd been 1st or 2nd the whole week for the first time - not making top 3 sux. That last day i ended up getting scores #2-5 and #9 in the shot above. #2-4 were especially frustrating obviously, to come so close and with more bombs and lives in stock than ever, only to come up a few thousand pts short. Nerves perhaps.

My cumulative high scores for each level cleared were:
L1: 311,140
L2: 837,760
L3: 1,234,600
L4: 1,701,940

I found out later i wasn't playing at full speed (had audio on which slows the game down a bit), so i'll revisit this at some point to try to beat my HS properly.

I have this PCB, and confirmed its Mame thats the problem, not the game design. Both enemy bullets and medals seems to have a lower sprite priority in Mame.

It's nice to hear that the only major complaint was actually a MAME bug and not the game.

I don't know why so many were hating on the announcer so much, maybe he took the brunt of the ire from those that didn't like the game itself, or had expected a great dragon game.

Overall i enjoyed TD2 as long as i wasn't playing it for hours. One frustration tho is that due to the relatively easy first 3 stages, often there isn't much danger so you become complacent. Result is that 95% of runs you randomly die on something stupid.

[shadowbringer]

- the announcer is funny imho (I could imagine Mushihimesama Futari's dialogues being replaced with these announcements, for massive lols)
- this Dragon Week was, for me, the "listen to Touhou music while playing TD2" (through a bgm player tool). Curiously, certain themes did fit well with the stages or bosses
- liked how the game gives you bomb items if you collect three blue point items, and also after destroying certain item-giving planes (which sometimes come before certain tough enemies, such as the stage 4 plane that comes from behind)
- stage 3 has some interesting details on it.. the 2 first big black helicopters can be shotgunned after they've fired their shots, the later 2 big black helis can be shotgunned as they enter the screen; the big planes that shot fire-patterned shots can be either quickshot (the second one, right after the 6x500 points) or can be taken down by focusing on taking out the helpers first. Lastly, the part with the planes that travel straight downwards while firing aimed shots is fun, it involves luring their shots and knowing when to change sides
- as for stage 4, it became easier for me when I became less afraid of the planes that come from both sides, diving from the upper part of the screen. I figured that I should shoot them before they start going upwards, and then they wouldn't shoot as much (also abused the dead angles of the tanks)
- I don't like how the medium planes (@ stage 5) that fire single aimed shots plus fire-patterned shots force me to micrododge the single aimed shots, then fire a second one if they survive long enough. I've died sometimes, due to this.
- stage 6 is fun, it involves luring shots from plane formations, taking away the side helpers when the two medium black helicopters (not the big fat ones) are on the screen and quickshotting the medium planes that fire aimed shots
- stage 7 has a problem with bullets being covered by clouds (luckily, I didn't die due to this), at least on MAME. Perhaps the most times I've lost my last life was on the two big planes that shot aimed fire patterns.
- finally, noticed that this game's played mostly on the bottom part of the screen, and that there are less cases of "misaimed" aimed shots than there was on Varth

[clp]

shite waste game that had no place in dragon week .

[Ed Oscuro]

It wouldn't be STGT without bitching.

Scoring-wise, for me it's the easiest game we've played so far. The bullet barf from the Stage 02 boss is nothing compared to Psikyo bosses.

Shame about the bullets, but I was able to see them most of the time.

Overall I still like the game, although I'm reluctant to call anybody out for hating on the game simply because that single aspect can indeed ruin a game.

Also, @ SFKhoa. That was all that needed to be said really

[MR_Soren]

I enjoyed it overall, but the blue bullets sucked if you were using the P2 ship. I had to keep moving to be sure a bullet wasn't hidden in my shots.

[bkk]

Now that everyone has played this, what does the announcer say when you bomb using P1?

[Warp_Rattler]

had expected a great dragon game

Pretty much sums up my feelings. It's good to hear that the original PCB isn't bothered by the one issue (other than audio, which I promptly muted and replaced with my own music collection or dead silence) that made this such a chore. Even if the bullets hadn't been screwy, I still couldn't get past my initial impression of a game whose parts I had all played before, in better and more interesting games.

Seriously, another giant bomber which you attack from behind, blowing off the wings and tail before finally totaling the aircraft itself?

[Shatterhand]

Now that everyone has played this, what does the announcer say when you bomb using P1?

I want to know it too.

When you die, I know he says "God Damn It", but I always heard "God Daniel!"

[EPS21]

The fact that player 2, a ship I would've preferred more, was made completely unusable because his blue laser made it hard to see the blue bullets, killed it for me.

Otherwise the game was a real lol-fest with the voices. Just might have nightmares about them someday...

[Dragoforce]

Average game. The visibility was crap, sound was crap, but the gameplay was quite good. By far the worst game of the tourney yet though.

Oh, and yes. The announcer should be shot.

[Ruldra]

Now that everyone has played this, what does the announcer say when you bomb using P1?

"Here's a present for you!"

[TodayIsForgotten]

I enjoyed the game. Didn't spend too much time with it, but the only downfall were the bullets, at times were hard to see and my own stupid playing interfered with enjoying the game more.

To the OP, when you say it was too much memorization, isnt that any shmup? RFJ is memorizing the formation on setting up multiplier's with miclus, fairies, ground units, air units etc. I'm not comparing the two but i'm just making an observation.

[Shatterhand]

Not the best game ever, but I had more fun with it than I did with Varth, for whatever that's worth.

This. And the last level was very cool IMO.

[Davey]

Now that everyone has played this, what does the announcer say when you bomb using P1?

I thought it was "say hello to my little friend," although the voices in this game are so garbled I can never tell what the hell they're saying. Like when you blow up a mid-boss, what is he saying? To me it sounds like "BEAMER!"

I liked the game, although I didn't play it at all until the last two days. I liked that it was simple, straightforward, and that not too many people were already familiar with all its nuances. Just blow shit up as fast as you can... I'm down with that. Perhaps if I played it all week I would have learned to hate it (a STGT tradition).

I liked the announcer. You guys take your video game audio way too seriously.

Bullet visibility was bad at times (mostly with the P2 laser), but I knew exactly what hit me at least 95% of the time.

The graphics were odd. The mix of cartoony sprites with godawful backgrounds was, uh, unique (those stage 1 clouds look like they belong in an X.X game...).

[Ruldra]

The stage 1 clouds looks like flying rocks.

[Sandlegs]

i got one of my highest scores of the week in the first 10 minutes of playing the game. i started hating the game when bullets would magically appear out of explosions. i guess that was mame's fault. the scoring was nice actually. very straight forward. there was only one death that i didn't see actually. i was just dead all of a sudden and all like "wtf". if the sprite layers were fixed in mame i think i would enjoy this game more.



P.S. HEEEEEE HUUUUUUUUR!!!!!!!!!!

[Necronopticous]

Get out of my sight!

[Leeram]

errr, where was the dragon?

[charlie chong]

i got a headache and nausea while playing the first night. i never played it again through fear it would make me feel like that again

[Dave_K.]

Being forced to play any game, especially one that has broken emulation, is going to suck. It wouldn't be STGT without the complaining. I'm just glad this (and other NMK games) will stay as hidden gems while I collect the PCBs!

[Domino]

Be glad that you guys didn't play the first Thunder Dragon.