Voltron: Defender of the Universe

[Blade]

This game came as a pleasant surprise to me on PSN.

Yeah I'm just as surprised as anyone else that this actually turned into a shmup of sorts. Sure there's action sequences but...wow.

I've only just been playing around with the Demo so far...but there's a lot to get used to and do. It's two parts Super Stardust and one part something like Contra or Smash TV.

The cutscenes and music they put in this alone are worth the Demo, hehe.

[NeoStrayCat]

Don't forget that it also came on XBLA, I'll try it out soon.

[cskcsk]

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-vol ... /17-5337/#

There is a quicklook up on giantbomb.Love Voltron, but the game does not look very good.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Upon watching the original Japanese anime series, "Beast King GoLion" (produced by Toei Animation) which was the basis for the Voltron series in the USA, it ain't your father's beloved Voltron indeed. The GoLion series was known for it's depicted scenes of blood, war, witchcraft, cannibalism & murder. Surely, that type of "adult" subject matter wasn't shown in the heavily sanitized version of Voltron.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Daigohji]

I tried the demo and was underwhelmed.

[BrianC]

Upon watching the original Japanese anime series, "Beast King GoLion" (produced by Toei Animation) which was the basis for the Voltron series in the USA, it ain't your father's beloved Voltron indeed. The GoLion series was known for it's depicted scenes of blood, war, witchcraft, cannibalism & murder. Surely, that type of "adult" subject matter wasn't shown in the heavily sanitized version of Voltron.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

yeah. I watched a few episodes. Though I like some aspects much better than Voltron, I got to the point where I stopped watching becuase it was "monster of the week" and the characters weren't very likable. It's definitely more violent and gritty in comparison to Voltron, but I liked similar shows like Gatchaman much better.

[Blade]

Obviously they weren't going for something challenging, guys...they were going for something that celebrates the TV series accurately.

I'm sure games like Dragon's Lair aren't many people's cup of tea around here, but I still love it, just as much as I'm interested in this...but I think I'll wait for the price to drop on this one before I get the full version.

[Avatar Ignis]

Definitely looks better than that garbage game that involved "ugly americans".

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Obviously they weren't going for something challenging, guys...they were going for something that celebrates the TV series accurately.

I'm sure games like Dragon's Lair aren't many people's cup of tea around here, but I still love it, just as much as I'm interested in this...but I think I'll wait for the price to drop on this one before I get the full version.

You should've seen/felt the electric vibe when Dragon's Lair made it's debut back in the Summer of 1983 at the arcades. Quite something new & innovative for it's time...not to mention it would set me back at 50 cents per credit back in the day. So yes, those old-school arcade laserdisc games are cool in my book. Of course, the arcade operators were complaining about the DL's internal Pioneer LD players breaking down quite frequently (and definitely affecting their bottom line profits if they weren't fixed in time). Just watching Don Bluth's beautiful hand drawn animation is timeless with DL, Space Ace & Dragon's Lair 2: Time Warp.

Dragon's Lair 2 Factoid: With the popular success & sales of the 1983 release of DL cabs, Starcom was able to get both the DL sequel and Space Ace done in record time to be released to the arcades. However with DL2, it wasn't released until July of 1991 by Leland Corporation for the arcades stateside. Starcom was working on a fourth arcade LD game but it was cancelled.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Drum]

Can you play five-player co-op and join together to form Voltron? This would be the only reason to play a Voltron game.

[ShmupSamurai]

Can you play five-player co-op and join together to form Voltron? This would be the only reason to play a Voltron game.

Doesn't look like it so far, though that would've been really tight....Most of what I saw looked like every Geometry Wars clone that came out on XBLA following it's unexpected success...and on of that-Xbox only support four players locally so the chances of 5 players is next to none.

Given Voltron's popularity back in the day though, makes me wonder why shmup developing companies didn't take that 'five ships-fuse to powerfull mech' idea for some of their games...

Closest things I can think of are Capcom's Sidearms and Toaplan's Dogyuun two player modes.

[Ghegs]

Given Voltron's popularity back in the day though, makes me wonder why shmup developing companies didn't take that 'five ships-fuse to powerfull mech' idea for some of their games...

XBox Live's Aegis Wing allows four players to fuse together, so that one player controls the ship while the others fire. You can see some of that here.

'course it's not a very good game otherwise.

[ShmupSamurai]

I've tried Aegis Wing before-did not care for it at all...got bored five minutes in.