M2 Toaplan collection

[hamfighterx]

None of it would mean anything if they didn't turn in good work, of course. But personally it's less about their technical prowess, more their not regarding these games and their players with open contempt.

A-freaking-men. At the very least, you can tell M2 and Hamster have a true appreciation for these games and their players, and it does seem to be a labor of love that shines through. Hell, even feels that way for City Connection despite not always achieving the results that we would like - IMO they are a bit unfairly maligned due to the dogshit performance of Cotton 2/Guardian Force (that one earned its criticism), but they've shown marked improvement with stuff like Batsugun, Deathsmiles, Akai Katana, etc.

And to try to be as gracious as I can to Digital Eclipse and say something nice: lately they seem to have realized the one area they do have a bit of a competitive advantage in, and leaned into that with their pivot toward more documentary-style releases that are more focused on the story and context around these games, as opposed to the quality of the emulation. Atari 50, Karateka, the new Jeff Minter one, etc. I appreciate them focusing on what they are legitimately good at, instead of having to hear Frank Cifaldi give some BS defense of the lackluster technical job and come across with real dismissive know-it-all vibes. Seems the leadership there has realized that DE is never going to compete on a technical level, so might as well carve our their own niche. Even in some of their past releases with serious technical problems like the Street Fighter 30th Collection (awful sound emulation, input lag) or TMNT Cowabunga Collection (some really atrocious lag), those releases did have fantastic gallery content with old concept art, box and manual art, other related TMNT content like comic books, etc. Even the Atari 50 release has some jank-ass emulation and poor control configuration options, which floored me since those aren't exactly demanding games on a technical level, but the collection is presented in such a way that it's much more about the story of Atari than a focus on reference standard versions of the games (which these surely are not).

[Johnpv]

And to try to be as gracious as I can to Digital Eclipse and say something nice: lately they seem to have realized the one area they do have a bit of a competitive advantage in, and leaned into that with their pivot toward more documentary-style releases that are more focused on the story and context around these games, as opposed to the quality of the emulation. Atari 50, Karateka, the new Jeff Minter one, etc. I appreciate them focusing on what they are legitimately good at, instead of having to hear Frank Cifaldi give some BS defense of the lackluster technical job and come across with real dismissive know-it-all vibes. Seems the leadership there has realized that DE is never going to compete on a technical level, so might as well carve our their own niche. Even in some of their past releases with serious technical problems like the Street Fighter 30th Collection (awful sound emulation, input lag) or TMNT Cowabunga Collection (some really atrocious lag), those releases did have fantastic gallery content with old concept art, box and manual art, other related TMNT content like comic books, etc. Even the Atari 50 release has some jank-ass emulation and poor control configuration options, which floored me since those aren't exactly demanding games on a technical level, but the collection is presented in such a way that it's much more about the story of Atari than a focus on reference standard versions of the games (which these surely are not).

To be blunt, I can't fucking stand Frank Cifaldi. As a game developer most the shit he says annoys the absolute shit out of me. When he spots Mega Man should be exactly like Casablanca and just available on the latest thing its all the time, its so damn asinine. One a non-interactive visual medium that is easy to bring from one medium to another, one is an interactive piece of software that is heavily connected to the hardware it was programmed for. These things are not the damn same. There are a million other dumb ass shit that he has spouted over the years, dude should just shut the fuck up already.

[Steven]

^ post above is probably sarcasm, especially since the poster is quite knowledgeable

But I pretend to be boring person who doesn't understand internet sarcasm, so I play it straight just for this post;
my impression was that M2 goes into detail and depths not seen in any other release, when making their emulations rather than just slapping their things together like other people do (and I believe this was the point of the sarcasm in Sumez's post).

I'm being facetious moreso than sarcastic.
M2's emulator releases are generally high quality and they do put some work behind it. If nothing else, the gadgets obviously don't just magically pop up when they load their rom into their emulator. Also, unless you're just licensing mame (which M2 clearly aren't) you can't just reuse the emulator made for one piece of hardware with games made for another piece of hardware.

BBBUUUUTTTT I also think the stupidly low baseline for emulator releases in general these days probably creates a false impression of how much work is really needed to just release a game that doesn't run like garbage. M2 have been doing high quality emulator releases for years, and if we're assuming they know what they are doing, they have a decent pipeline set up to standardize these releases. You can tell a lot of assets and general structure is reused between every ShotTrigger release.

The only reason they shouldn't be able to put out a new Toaplan Arcade Garage release out every second month is, as you say, it must be entirely a "spare time hobby project" for them, that they somehow can't afford to shuffle into regular company hours.

I have a lot of thoughts about all these "put existing games on an emulator" re-releases we're seeing nowadays, across M2, Hamster, Ratalaika, Digital Eclipse, City Connection, LRG, and everyone else, and the stupid ways those are generally handled. But that's quite a lengthy tangent for a different thread.

Uhm. I always thought M2 releases were actually not emulated at all. I always thought they rebuilt the games with all the assets extracted, or something like that. Something I heard. So that's not the case?

They are definitely emulated. A dude from the M2 ShotTriggers team told me so at Tokyo Game Show.

[Arino]

I'm being facetious moreso than sarcastic.
M2's emulator releases are generally high quality and they do put some work behind it. If nothing else, the gadgets obviously don't just magically pop up when they load their rom into their emulator. Also, unless you're just licensing mame (which M2 clearly aren't) you can't just reuse the emulator made for one piece of hardware with games made for another piece of hardware.

BBBUUUUTTTT I also think the stupidly low baseline for emulator releases in general these days probably creates a false impression of how much work is really needed to just release a game that doesn't run like garbage. M2 have been doing high quality emulator releases for years, and if we're assuming they know what they are doing, they have a decent pipeline set up to standardize these releases. You can tell a lot of assets and general structure is reused between every ShotTrigger release.

The only reason they shouldn't be able to put out a new Toaplan Arcade Garage release out every second month is, as you say, it must be entirely a "spare time hobby project" for them, that they somehow can't afford to shuffle into regular company hours.

I have a lot of thoughts about all these "put existing games on an emulator" re-releases we're seeing nowadays, across M2, Hamster, Ratalaika, Digital Eclipse, City Connection, LRG, and everyone else, and the stupid ways those are generally handled. But that's quite a lengthy tangent for a different thread.

Uhm. I always thought M2 releases were actually not emulated at all. I always thought they rebuilt the games with all the assets extracted, or something like that. Something I heard. So that's not the case?

They are definitely emulated. A dude from the M2 ShotTriggers team told me so at Tokyo Game Show.

thanks. do u think they will finish brining all toaplan games to consoles? that was their original plan iirc

[dojo_b]

I'm using the first half of this year to knock off my FromSoft backlog, because I'll soon be too blind to read at >2cm and the text is my favourite thing about them

BIL, do keep an eye on the commercial space occupied by Speechify, Voice Dream, and similar companies. The underlying AI tech is all there, and hopefully in a few years there will be a consumer-facing solution for you to get FromSoft's killer descriptions narrated to you as you play without any fuss. Speechify already turns static images to speech, it's a small step to handling video, particularly if your phone is trained on the TV screen and gets to see a sustained, clear text display like in these games.

These games take serious time and effort for me but always repay it, and (after DS1 and Sekiro) I'm excited to be returning to the fold this past week, now with Bloodborne! Superb flavor so far, as expected from your excellent field notes...

[BIL]

BIL, do keep an eye on the commercial space occupied by Speechify, Voice Dream, and similar companies. The underlying AI tech is all there, and hopefully in a few years there will be a consumer-facing solution for you to get FromSoft's killer descriptions narrated to you as you play without any fuss. Speechify already turns static images to speech, it's a small step to handling video, particularly if your phone is trained on the TV screen and gets to see a sustained, clear text display like in these games.

Cheers bud, that does sound promising! Being just a little facetious as is my wont, I can hobble along a while yet.

[samspot]

Mark Normandin has been writing a cool series called Remembering Toaplan. I figured it makes more sense to put here than to make a whole thread. The entire series has been great.

https://open.substack.com/pub/retroxp/p ... medium=web

To stay somewhat on topic, I recently got the Same! Collection and was pleasantly surprised to see the NES game seems legit. Looking forward to playing that more after the main games.

[gbaplayer]

Maybe we hear some news at shooter Fes 2024?

[XtraSmiley]

Mark Normandin has been writing a cool series called Remembering Toaplan. I figured it makes more sense to put here than to make a whole thread. The entire series has been great.

https://open.substack.com/pub/retroxp/p ... medium=web

To stay somewhat on topic, I recently got the Same! Collection and was pleasantly surprised to see the NES game seems legit. Looking forward to playing that more after the main games.

Thanks for this!

Man, I'm dying to get an update on their next game, but still working trophies for a few that I already own!

[Arino]

Steven! Give us news, rumors and gossip!

[gbaplayer]

Please.

[Arino]

I just noticed there is only 30 Hz auto fire in Hishozame. That kinda sucks in the long run. 30 Hz is ok for a bosses and a few situations but most of the time it is way too fast so I find myself just mashing that fire button. I don't hate it yet but depending on how long I will play this game, I don't know for how long I can deal with this.

Steven can you request a patch next time you run into them? Please!

[ryu]

I ran into the same problem. Fortunately I don't really have much time to play anyways, so it's been manageable so far.

[Arino]

Fortunately I don't really have much time to play anyways, so it's been manageable so far.

Unfortunately I have a lot of time on my hands Anyway I like this game so much, I don't even mind playing it with (almost) no autofire. Makes me feel even more badass
But srsly this game is so fucking awesome, makes me feel like THIS is what really matters.

I did it


Here's the full replay

The replay file cap still applies to locally saved replays by the way.

The in-game timer is also still slightly wrong but this time it was only 40 seconds off instead of the nearly 20 minutes my Tiger Heli countersotp's timer was off by.

Wait, what? D: Is this real?

[sherbaby]

I just noticed there is only 30 Hz auto fire in Hishozame.

You can change the rate of autofire by pressing Y while highlighting the option in the menu; the lowest rate is 10 Hz (that's what I like )

[Steven]

5Hz is the best for stages, although 6Hz is also good. I don't use autofire on Hishouzame anymore, though. I think it's perfectly playable without it. Same with Kyuukyoku Tiger, which I think is actually more fun without it. I would probably use auto if I went for 10 million, though.

[Arino]

I just noticed there is only 30 Hz auto fire in Hishozame.

You can change the rate of autofire by pressing Y while highlighting the option in the menu; the lowest rate is 10 Hz (that's what I like )

I'm on PS4 but are you sure you're not thinking of a different port by M2? I think I've tried all buttons and I don't think it's possible to change it. It's either 30 or none at all I think.

Do you mean I should press or hold a certain button when for instance "Triangle = Shot (30)" is highlighted? Cause that's what I tried.

Does anybody know?

5Hz is the best for stages, although 6Hz is also good. I don't use autofire on Hishouzame anymore, though. I think it's perfectly playable without it. Same with Kyuukyoku Tiger, which I think is actually more fun without it. I would probably use auto if I went for 10 million, though.

Yeah I'm beginning to think so, too!

Btw is input lag lower with the PS4 controller connected via Bluetooth or cable?

[Stitch]

I'm on PS4 but are you sure you're not thinking of a different port by M2? I think I've tried all buttons and I don't think it's possible to change it. It's either 30 or none at all I think.

Do you mean I should press or hold a certain button when for instance "Triangle = Shot (30)" is highlighted? Cause that's what I tried.

Does anybody know?

I think all M2 ports has that as an option. At least the ones I own on Nintendo Switch

Go to controller settings and highlight the regular "Shot" button and then press the "Square" button to switch between different rapid fire rates.

[AGermanArtist]

Quality first post. Welcome. Lots of people miss that setting option.

[EngineerSTG]

I'm on PS4 but are you sure you're not thinking of a different port by M2? I think I've tried all buttons and I don't think it's possible to change it. It's either 30 or none at all I think.

Do you mean I should press or hold a certain button when for instance "Triangle = Shot (30)" is highlighted? Cause that's what I tried.

Does anybody know?

I think all M2 ports has that as an option. At least the ones I own on Nintendo Switch

Go to controller settings and highlight the regular "Shot" button and then press the "Square" button to switch between different rapid fire rates.

When I set the auto fire and proceed to the ship select in say doj, it will also auto select Type A. Is there a way around this? Remap the shot button?

[ryu]

I'm on PS4 but are you sure you're not thinking of a different port by M2? I think I've tried all buttons and I don't think it's possible to change it. It's either 30 or none at all I think.

Do you mean I should press or hold a certain button when for instance "Triangle = Shot (30)" is highlighted? Cause that's what I tried.

Does anybody know?

I think all M2 ports has that as an option. At least the ones I own on Nintendo Switch

Go to controller settings and highlight the regular "Shot" button and then press the "Square" button to switch between different rapid fire rates.

When I set the auto fire and proceed to the ship select in say doj, it will also auto select Type A. Is there a way around this? Remap the shot button?

You can map shot with autofire and without autofire to separate buttons. Just use the one w/o autofire in the menus.

[Arino]

I'm on PS4 but are you sure you're not thinking of a different port by M2? I think I've tried all buttons and I don't think it's possible to change it. It's either 30 or none at all I think.

Do you mean I should press or hold a certain button when for instance "Triangle = Shot (30)" is highlighted? Cause that's what I tried.

Does anybody know?

I think all M2 ports has that as an option. At least the ones I own on Nintendo Switch

Go to controller settings and highlight the regular "Shot" button and then press the "Square" button to switch between different rapid fire rates.

I know this feature from other M2 releases but apparently it's not part of this release.

[BIL]

I know this feature from other M2 releases but apparently it's not part of this release.

No, it is: Video proof

As shown, assign "Shot" to a button, then hit [square] to cycle between 10, 12, 15 20, or 30hz.

[ryu]

I know this feature from other M2 releases but apparently it's not part of this release.

No, it is: Video proof

As shown, assign "Shot" to a button, then hit [square] to cycle between 10, 12, 15 20, or 30hz.

The hell? Because there's a separate option for shot with 30hz autofire I never even bothered to check if autofire rates can be toggled like in the Darius games.

[BIL]

The hell? Because there's a separate option for shot with 30hz autofire I never even bothered to check if autofire rates can be toggled like in the Darius games.

Yeah, that always struck me as odd too! IIRC, it's been that way ever since Garegga 2016. Christ, maybe even the Saturn port? Lord it's been a while. EDIT: nope, although that masterpiece most definitely allows you a range of frequencies across multiple buttons. No surprise M2 took so many cues.

I like to think of it as big red button surrounded by yellow/black hazard stripes, marked "BHMK2 GRENADE MILK" You'll never get to the end of a WR attempt, only to howl "Some cunt's set it to 5hz! FAAAAAAACK" as you die in a hail of grenades.

[Steven]

The fixed 30Hz one isn't just 30Hz, it's 30Hz synchronized. Not sure if the others are synchronized, but we'll find out once Out Zone is released.

[BIL]

The fixed 30Hz one isn't just 30Hz, it's 30Hz synchronized. Not sure if the others are synchronized, but we'll find out once Out Zone is released.

Invaluable as always, that explains it!

[Arino]

I know this feature from other M2 releases but apparently it's not part of this release.

No, it is: Video proof

As shown, assign "Shot" to a button, then hit [square] to cycle between 10, 12, 15 20, or 30hz.

Hey, thank you for the video!!!

Oops That was dumb. I never pressed square when highlighting the button assigned to "shot". I kept trying to change the rapid fire one "shot 30".

I know this feature from other M2 releases but apparently it's not part of this release.

No, it is: Video proof

As shown, assign "Shot" to a button, then hit [square] to cycle between 10, 12, 15 20, or 30hz.

The hell? Because there's a separate option for shot with 30hz autofire I never even bothered to check if autofire rates can be toggled like in the Darius games.

HAHAHAHAHA

[hamfighterx]

Yeah, it's certainly not very intuitive. Even knowing that's how they handle auto-fire in the ShotTriggers/TAG games, and knowing I'm playing a game that has variable autofire options, I still sometimes fumble with the settings when coming back to one of these games.

[Steven]

The fixed 30Hz one isn't just 30Hz, it's 30Hz synchronized. Not sure if the others are synchronized, but we'll find out once Out Zone is released.

Invaluable as always, that explains it!

Yeah. Unsure if the other ones are synchronized or asynchronous, but Out Zone's stage 3 laser hallway kills synchronized autofire. Only asynchronous autofire works there. Now that I have a PCB recording thingy (borrowed), I might be able to show it, but I'm also not sure if it is safe to use the recording thingy with autofire as well. It probably is, but until I find out for sure I'm not risking killing my Out Zone.