How does Vertical Force stack up against other shmups in the

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:07 am

Star Soldier Series? I'm mainly concerned with gameplay here. Too bad that no Virtual Boy emulators will run it, otherwise I could just check it out for myself.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:46 am

You get one life and a lifebar with 8 hitpoints. I can't remember if there are extends, but for some reason I find it to be harder than some of the other games such as Final Soldier.
You also have option thingies with their own lifebars, you can have one active while other types are in reserve, and they recover life while in reserve so sometimes you can just focus on dodging while constantly rotating your options.

I found that the ship moves exceptionally fast, too fast for my tastes and it makes fine dodging difficult especially since the "screen" is quite small.

Despite all this, it's still a unique shooting experience on an interesting piece of hardware that everyone ought to try. Virtual Boys are cheap, and I got my sealed Japanese Vertical Force for $5.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:25 pm

iatneH wrote:You get one life and a lifebar with 8 hitpoints. I can't remember if there are extends, but for some reason I find it to be harder than some of the other games such as Final Soldier.
You also have option thingies with their own lifebars, you can have one active while other types are in reserve, and they recover life while in reserve so sometimes you can just focus on dodging while constantly rotating your options.

I found that the ship moves exceptionally fast, too fast for my tastes and it makes fine dodging difficult especially since the "screen" is quite small.

Despite all this, it's still a unique shooting experience on an interesting piece of hardware that everyone ought to try. Virtual Boys are cheap, and I got my sealed Japanese Vertical Force for $5.

Thanks for the input! The Virtual Boy doesn't seem to be cheap down here; I usually see 'em go for about $80 on Ebay.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:31 pm

Really? I got mine as a $50 Buy It Now, and it came with Wario Land, and that's already on the expensive side for an unboxed system missing the stand (you'll probably want the stand unless you can play it on a stack of books or something, or lying down)
But Vertical Force is definitely cheap.

See if you can find any Virtual Boy systems at your local flea markets or thrift stores, and bring lots of money because who knows what other goodies you might find while you're at it!

edit: There is a $50 Buy It Now on eBay right now and it comes with the stand and Mario Tennis. If you don't go for this, then try bidding on one of the auctions that comes with fewer games and buy V-Force separately (Red Alarm is another great one you might like - it's cheap too!)
The cheapest guaranteed V-Force I saw is a $12 BIN, you can get it cheaper than that (the Japanese version seems to be cheaper than the US version)

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 7:28 pm

Thanks for the advice!

What kind of power-ups does Vertical Force have, compared to the Star Soldier series-like, does it have the "star-shaped" five-way shot, etc.?

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 7:42 pm

The 5-way vulcan you love is here. There is also a forward-firing laser shot and a shield item that you can pick up.

The different options have either vulcan or laser firing types and it doesn't matter which main weapon your ship is using (i.e. you could have vulcan as main weapon and have a laser-firing option). They also have a sort of smart-ish automatic bullet-dodging but if you don't watch out they will get cornered and destroyed.

Getting hit reduces your weapon power as is standard for Soldier games.

Actually, if you're interested in trying it out, I could probably send you my system and the game, you just pay to cover my shipping cost and also to send it back to me once you're done. You'll have to provide your own batteries though since I don't have the AC adaptor tap.
I don't know if it will be worth it if shipping both ways might be the cost of the system itself, but let me know what you think.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:00 pm

A co-worker brought his VB to work way back in January and I liked what I played quite a bit, it indeed has a nice Star Soldier feel to it. Bear in mind, I have only played the first few levels.

Think PC Engine shooter with ultra slick 3D parallax scrolling.

StealthNinjaScyther · Post by **StealthNinjaScyther** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 7:53 am

You sure about no VB emulators being able to play Vertical Force? Looks to me like the final release of Red Dragon can as well as Reality Boy. Not sure how well they play it, but it says they do. Heres a link with all you would probably want to know: http://www.vr32.de/frames.e.htm

Post by **Dave_K.** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:18 pm

I just dusted off my VB and plugged in Vertical Force (wow I forgot I even had this game!...haven't played for years, and now that I'm in to shmupping, this was a treat!

You're right Dylann, its basically Star Soldier with 3D parallax aspects. Cool!

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:37 pm

Wow, well I just tried this out on Red Dragon, and it is fantastic!

I'm definately gonna have to pick me up a Virtual Boy at some point; considering that Hudson is my second favorite shmup developer to Compile!

I'll definately have to give Red Alarm a try! Is the game more of a rail shooter, or more of a Star Fox-clone? It's hard to tell from the promo video I've seen of it.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:20 pm

The flight controls of Red Alarm are a bit more like Descent, except your ship is always right-side up.
That is, you can strafe both from side to side and up and down, turn left/right, and move forwards and backwards.

A lot of people like to rag on the wireframe graphics, but this game I think is a great example of the true 3D experience the VB offers, the effect is truly breathtaking (for me at least).