M2 Toaplan collection

[Steven]

Amazon Japan is being weird with some stuff now. It wanted to ship both my PS4 and Switch copies of Hishou Same! Same! Same! separately instead of together and I didn't see any option to change it, so they will ship separately.

[Steven]

They revealed the contents of the book for Hishou Same! Same! Same! today. From what I can tell it looks like interviews with Uemura, Yuge, and some guy named Wada whose given name I can't read, a Teki-Paki Humanity Brainwashing Guidebook, walkthroughs for Hishouzame and Wardner, and some other stuff. They are specifically going to discuss the extreme difficulty of Same! Same! Same!, which will be interesting to read about.

[Sengoku Strider]

and some guy named Wada whose given name I can't read

That would be Wada Etsuhiro, programmer on Wardner. While etsu is the standard pronunciation of 悦, it's usually read as nobu or yoshi in names, so that is a little uncommon. 拓 is usually taku in names, but hira and hiro are valid too.

[Steven]

and some guy named Wada whose given name I can't read

That would be Wada Etsuhiro, programmer on Wardner. While etsu is the standard pronunciation of 悦, it's usually read as nobu or yoshi in names, so that is a little uncommon. 拓 is usually taku in names, but hira and hiro are valid too.

Yeah, name kanji is something that I struggle with a lot... although Japanese people also do sometimes.

[Sengoku Strider]

Yeah, name kanji is something that I struggle with a lot... although Japanese people also do sometimes.

Given that name kanji often pretty much just have their readings set to shuffle, Japanese people struggle with plenty of them as well. You'll often see furigana on names in magazine images, blu ray covers etc. Like even with family names, some of them get really obscure. I'm not sure how many people know to read 月見里 as 'Yamanashi' or 九十九 as 'Tsukumo.'

[Steven]

Yeah, name kanji is something that I struggle with a lot... although Japanese people also do sometimes.

Given that name kanji often pretty much just have their readings set to shuffle, Japanese people struggle with plenty of them as well. You'll often see furigana on names in magazine images, blu ray covers etc. Like even with family names, some of them get really obscure. I'm not sure how many people know to read 月見里 as 'Yamanashi' or 九十九 as 'Tsukumo.'

Yeah, name kanji is a mess, even without the really weird readings that parents have been using recently. Even with very common traditional names, you get stuff like... you see some girl on the news or whatever and her given name is 麻美, but you have absolutely no idea if it's Asami or Mami.

Anyway, to get back on topic, I'm still really hoping that the 1P Same! custom mode and especially the eventual Tatsujin Ou custom mode will allow a decent amount of freedom. I really want to strengthen the Tatsujin Ou blue laser and green shot to make them more useful, increase Tatsujin Ou's bomb drop rates, fix the Tatsujin Ou item table so it actually resets when you die or when another player plays the game (seriously, were they thinking at all when they designed the item table in Tatsujin Ou?), and to be able to make 1P Same! somewhat more playable without setting the enemy bullet speed to a fixed speed for the entire game or making it way too easy. Garegga's custom mode is very comprehensive, so hopefully we'll get some decent customization options like Garegga's.

[Steven]

They showed off the Wardner cover art and the Same! Same! Same! custom mode options at the Shooters Fes a few hours ago. I couldn't hear much over the noise of the arcade since I was there in person, but I did get to see the Wardner cover and it's pretty awesome.

Same! custom mode looks like it might not be possible to make it like the MD version from what I saw, unfortunately, but in case you hate yourself, you can make the game ridiculously hard if you want. They made the bullet speed insanely fast and I damn near died laughing at how fast the bullets move.

Here's the stream: https://youtu.be/3N1ECVExbJE?t=29449

Okay, so if looks like most of the custom mode options are basically identical to the ones in Kyuukyoku Tiger, but now you can increase the number of bombs that are dropped. I kind of regret not asking Horii about making a Mega Drive-style arcade Same! with custom mode when I was talking to him just before I left. Sorry everyone, I messed up. Well, I imagine it's probably too late to change it at this point anyway, but...

Forest of Wardner cover at 8:33:37, for anyone who wants to see it. It's pretty great.

[mycophobia]

Yeah, name kanji is something that I struggle with a lot... although Japanese people also do sometimes.

Given that name kanji often pretty much just have their readings set to shuffle, Japanese people struggle with plenty of them as well. You'll often see furigana on names in magazine images, blu ray covers etc. Like even with family names, some of them get really obscure. I'm not sure how many people know to read 月見里 as 'Yamanashi' or 九十九 as 'Tsukumo.'

Yeah, name kanji is a mess, even without the really weird readings that parents have been using recently. Even with very common traditional names, you get stuff like... you see some girl on the news or whatever and her given name is 麻美, but you have absolutely no idea if it's Asami or Mami.

Anyway, to get back on topic, I'm still really hoping that the 1P Same! custom mode and especially the eventual Tatsujin Ou custom mode will allow a decent amount of freedom. I really want to strengthen the Tatsujin Ou blue laser and green shot to make them more useful, increase Tatsujin Ou's bomb drop rates, fix the Tatsujin Ou item table so it actually resets when you die or when another player plays the game (seriously, were they thinking at all when they designed the item table in Tatsujin Ou?), and to be able to make 1P Same! somewhat more playable without setting the enemy bullet speed to a fixed speed for the entire game or making it way too easy. Garegga's custom mode is very comprehensive, so hopefully we'll get some decent customization options like Garegga's.

Have you checked out the award winning romhack Tatsujin Ou New Version?

[Steven]

Have you checked out the award winning romhack Tatsujin Ou New Version?

I actually downloaded that several weeks ago, but I haven't tried it yet. It was kind of what I was thinking of for fixing Tatsujin Ou. That game's kind of broken... thanks for unbreaking this badass game and making it more playable for those of us who suck lol.

[pablumatic]

The Wardner cover looks nice. Definitely formatted with preference for the Switch.

[XtraSmiley]

Oh shit, now I might have to get it. It's better than the last one...

[Steven]

lol wait until you see it in person. It's beautiful.

...and it looks like they changed the video somehow so my timestamps from last night aren't accurate anymore. I don't know how live streams work and stuff, so I don't know how they did that, but they seem to have done so.

[XtraSmiley]

lol wait until you see it in person. It's beautiful.

...and it looks like they changed the video somehow so my timestamps from last night aren't accurate anymore. I don't know how live streams work and stuff, so I don't know how they did that, but they seem to have done so.

The PS4 is way too close, but the NS also has issues. Maybe I'll skip the Amazon cover and just buy a poster.

[pablumatic]

The PS4 is way too close, but the NS also has issues. Maybe I'll skip the Amazon cover and just buy a poster.

Are there posters planned for any of this new Toaplan artwork that's been made for the ShotTriggers line? I haven't seen any.

[Steven]

lol wait until you see it in person. It's beautiful.

...and it looks like they changed the video somehow so my timestamps from last night aren't accurate anymore. I don't know how live streams work and stuff, so I don't know how they did that, but they seem to have done so.

The PS4 is way too close, but the NS also has issues. Maybe I'll skip the Amazon cover and just buy a poster.

It is unfortunate that modern game box dimensions kind of fuck with the artwork. Still can't beat Japanese Mega Drive box art. Trust me, this cover looks damn fine in person either way. I am, of course, getting both of them.

The book that comes with the first edition run has the artwork in it, so I suppose you can scan it at a ridiculously high resolution, fix anything that needs to be fixed with Photoshop, and make a poster of it that way.

[hamfighterx]

lol wait until you see it in person. It's beautiful.

...and it looks like they changed the video somehow so my timestamps from last night aren't accurate anymore. I don't know how live streams work and stuff, so I don't know how they did that, but they seem to have done so.

It starts at about 9:10:50 now. Found it thanks to your initial suggestion though, so thanks for that! IDK if I like it better than the Get Star cover, but both are pretty great.

[jehu]

Anyone know of any sources describing or showing K. Tiger checkpoint recovery strategies? There's still a few that are basically instant game-overs for me, and I haven't been able to figure out good routes - even in Training.

Most recently, made one mistake at Stage 5 boss and it shot my whole run. Best strategy I have here is dying a second time immediately to get sent back one more checkpoint, so I can get low-level blue shot for the boss. Not my favorite way to go, but better than sheer desperation.

[Some-Mist]

whoa whoa whoa
what is the wardner cover art? just the reverse for hishou same same same?

[Steven]

Anyone know of any sources describing or showing K. Tiger checkpoint recovery strategies? There's still a few that are basically instant game-overs for me, and I haven't been able to figure out good routes - even in Training.

Most recently, made one mistake at Stage 5 boss and it shot my whole run. Best strategy I have here is dying a second time immediately to get sent back one more checkpoint, so I can get low-level blue shot for the boss. Not my favorite way to go, but better than sheer desperation.

Checkpoint recovery seems to require specific routing in some places. The default shot is so tiny and the enemy helicopters fly around so awkwardly... I generally use bombs to help recover until I can get a wider shot.

One of the things that I don't like about the game is that the blue spread shot is so good that it makes the other weapons almost completely pointless, especially since it can insta-kill a few bosses with 30Hz autofire if you point-blank them, but at least the red shot is pretty decent when powered up. Once you die and lose that blue shot, the game suddenly becomes a lot more difficult.

[BrianC]

The Wardner cover looks nice. Definitely formatted with preference for the Switch.

Neat that it translates the title into English.

[jehu]

Checkpoint recovery seems to require specific routing in some places. The default shot is so tiny and the enemy helicopters fly around so awkwardly... I generally use bombs to help recover until I can get a wider shot.

I've got pretty stable routing through the first loop with the fully powered blueberries already squared away, but yeah - there are a handful of checkpoints where I really need more reliable recovery routing. I'm actually real good through the first half of the links, except the last checkpoint in 5. Thought I was real smart using M2's Arcade Training, but recovery becomes a huge blindspot when all of your stage practice assumes you're fully beefed up on the blue. From here on out, I think it's back to classic save state practice for me.

There's some madman on YouTube posting recovery strats for loop 16 bullet speeds, but his content doesn't provide the kind of practical utility I'm looking for.

[Steven]

Checkpoint recovery seems to require specific routing in some places. The default shot is so tiny and the enemy helicopters fly around so awkwardly... I generally use bombs to help recover until I can get a wider shot.

I've got pretty stable routing through the first loop with the fully powered blueberries already squared away, but yeah - there are a handful of checkpoints where I really need more reliable recovery routing. I'm actually real good through the first half of the links, except the last checkpoint in 5. Thought I was real smart using M2's Arcade Training, but recovery becomes a huge blindspot when all of your stage practice assumes you're fully beefed up on the blue. From here on out, I think it's back to classic save state practice for me.

There's some madman on YouTube posting recovery strats for loop 16 bullet speeds, but his content doesn't provide the kind of practical utility I'm looking for.

You can set Arcade Challenge to give you the tiny default shot, or anything else, and practice recovery that way. It's not perfect since you can't set the number of bombs you start with, so this might mess you up slightly if you want to practice playing from a certain point as if you hadn't died instead of recovering from that same point after a death, and the item rotation thing will be weird, which might mess up your routing if you're planning on seeing a specific color dropped at a specific time from a specific item carrier, but it more or less works.

[jehu]

Well, I found a potential answer to the stage 5 problem. Guy took the idea of dying to get sent back a checkpoint, and just spent one more life going backwards. Risky business, but better than a dead fish. If I had to guess, this checkpoint must be why there's a pretty large swath of people on the leaderboard stonewalled at 5.

For posterity if anyone runs into the same issue:
https://twitter.com/dirtride2005men/sta ... 19872?s=21

[Sumez]

whoa whoa whoa
what is the wardner cover art? just the reverse for hishou same same same?

A bonus you can get from Amazon.co.jp by paying a bit extra.

There'll be a reverse cover as well I'm sure, that was the case for K. Tiger-Heli, and it was really badass.

[Steven]

Yeah, you can do a tactical suicide if you want there if you have enough extends. At first I thought the stage 5 boss wasn't too bad if you have the blue shot since there's a pretty obvious safe spot, but then those tanks showed up.

One of the ones I have trouble with is the checkpoint near the end of stage 3 where you fly over those ships. After getting shot by some tank at the very edge of the screen and sent to the checkpoint, I kept trying to maneuver around all of the helicopters, but they kept crashing into me, so I gave up and just started bombing my way through it. I hate those enemy helicopters so much on recovery because of their weird flight. I do need to practice checkpoint recovery a lot in this game, as there are a few checkpoints where I usually chain death my credit away if I die the first time.

[jehu]

Yeah, you can do a tactical suicide if you want there if you have enough extends. At first I thought the stage 5 boss wasn't too bad if you have the blue shot since there's a pretty obvious safe spot, but then those tanks showed up.

One of the ones I have trouble with is the checkpoint near the end of stage 3 where you fly over those ships. After getting shot by some tank at the very edge of the screen and sent to the checkpoint, I kept trying to maneuver around all of the helicopters, but they kept crashing into me, so I gave up and just started bombing my way through it. I hate those enemy helicopters so much on recovery because of their weird flight. I do need to practice checkpoint recovery a lot in this game, as there are a few checkpoints where I usually chain death my credit away if I die the first time.

Yeah, the suicide strategy works as the best way I can see to claw back decent blue for the boss fight. If you come into it prepared, it's really not so bad - like you said. But I have no consistency with red. And Training Mode, even if you start the on the last checkpoint of 5 with red, makes you think you can just switch to blue right before the boss. But you can't, the drops are just different in Arcade. Not sure why.

If you are where I think you might be in 3, make sure you have an alt fire button that's much less than 30hz. If you keep a steady stream, and you toy with your movement a bit - you can get those bastard helis before they hover into you. I have a dedicated 10hz button, and - if you're not doing that already - I'd recommend it.

whoa whoa whoa
what is the wardner cover art? just the reverse for hishou same same same?

A bonus you can get from Amazon.co.jp by paying a bit extra.

There'll be a reverse cover as well I'm sure, that was the case for K. Tiger-Heli, and it was really badass.

If M2 knows anything about us and loves us at all, the reversible cover will be Mega Drive's smirking Same Same Same man.

[Sumez]

If I were to guess it'll be a rendition of the Hishouzame arcade flyer.
That's a really badass flyer though, so that's cool.

[Steven]

Yeah, the suicide strategy works as the best way I can see to claw back decent blue for the boss fight. If you come into it prepared, it's really not so bad - like you said. But I have no consistency with red. And Training Mode, even if you start the on the last checkpoint of 5 with red, makes you think you can just switch to blue right before the boss. But you can't, the drops are just different in Arcade. Not sure why.

If you are where I think you might be in 3, make sure you have an alt fire button that's much less than 30hz. If you keep a steady stream, and you toy with your movement a bit - you can get those bastard helis before they hover into you. I have a dedicated 10hz button, and - if you're not doing that already - I'd recommend it.

Yeah, the item drops are unfortunately weird in Arcade Challenge, so it's not as useful as it could have been, but it's better than nothing. For autofire, I normally use 12Hz for pretty much everything until I feel comfortable point-blanking bosses or those big planes with my 30Hz button, but I've been thinking of trying 10 to see how I like it.

For the reverse cover, I imagine it's probably going to be this: http://gamelabo.jp/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 3597_o.jpg

[jehu]

If I were to guess it'll be a rendition of the Hishouzame arcade flyer.
That's a really badass flyer though, so that's cool.

For the reverse cover, I imagine it's probably going to be this: http://gamelabo.jp/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 3597_o.jpg

Well boys, your bets are down. Anyone who guesses wrong has to 1CC Same! with Green.

[Steven]

If I were to guess it'll be a rendition of the Hishouzame arcade flyer.
That's a really badass flyer though, so that's cool.

For the reverse cover, I imagine it's probably going to be this: http://gamelabo.jp/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 3597_o.jpg

Well boys, your bets are down. Anyone who guesses wrong has to 1CC Same! with Green.

If I am wrong, I will do just that... on the Mega Drive version lol. That actually sounds like a fun challenge anyway. I don't have a way to record my Mega Drive footage, but I suppose I can always just use BlastEm or something.