Ray'z Arcade Chronology [Taito x M2] - PS4/Switch [2023]

[jehu]

https://www.taito.co.jp/rayzarcadechronology

We're getting the M2 treatment on all three Ray games, including HD upgrades of Storm and Crisis. March 9, 2023.

Edit: A bit of translation gore, but here's the breakdown of the collector's editions.

[Steven]

My first thought when I saw this was

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK

Screw you, Shitty Connection. M2's here to show you how to do it properly.

[Jonpachi]

*clears throat*

AHEM

Suck it City Connection!

[Augemitbutter]

This only happened because i just bought Crisis, lol. Going to support every M2 release.

[EmperorIng]

This is a godsend for one of the best trilogies in shmups. Sad to say this makes City Connection look like a bunch of clowns with their S Tribute release that no one will buy now.

Man, the thought of people actually playing RayCrisis again, and seeing how it's secretly second best, or possibly best, of the Ray games makes me as giddy as a schoolgirl.

[jehu]

Man, the thought of people actually playing RayCrisis again, and seeing how it's secretly second best, or possibly best, of the Ray games makes me as giddy as a schoolgirl.

I still play the mobile port from time to time just to hear the OST. A real gem.

Personally, I'm looking forward to giving RayStorm another look. I never had my moment with that game, maybe this is the time to properly reevaluate it.

Edit: A meta-technical point, but is there a way to reduce the size of images in his forum? I like having the promo image in the Topic Post, but they're always a bit too big and unwieldy. Would I have to host the image separately to get it smaller, or is there an easier way to downsize it just a little?

[Steven]

This honestly makes me wonder if Toyama Yuuichi or whoever else is in charge over at Taito got pissed at City Connection for something to do with that Layer Section release and decided to give City Connection the middle finger and get it done the way they should have done it in the first place.

[pablumatic]

One of the few older series I have all the console releases for. Will pick it up since it'll be an upgrade.

[BrianC]

Sweetness! All three games with their original titles! G Darius HD is good stuff!

I like the PSX port of Raystorm quite a bit. The extra mode is a nice addition to that port.

[jehu]

This honestly makes me wonder if Toyama Yuuichi or whoever else is in charge over at Taito got pissed at City Connection for something to do with that Layer Section release and decided to give City Connection the middle finger and get it done the way they should have done it in the first place.

The S-Tribute series is really frustrating. On one hand, I know I'll want at least Elevator Action Returns and Metal Black on Switch to play portably, but on the other - it's all such a shameless cash grab.

If all their ports were on the Deathsmiles end of the scale, I'd really love having them around. But like 3/4s of their output, if not more, is disappointing shit.

[BrianC]

I wish the Saturn version of EAR wasn't so dang expensive, but it was certainly worth the cash. Even includes a nice port of the original Elevator Action.

Glad to see that M2 is doing another F3 port with Rayforce.

[Steven]

This honestly makes me wonder if Toyama Yuuichi or whoever else is in charge over at Taito got pissed at City Connection for something to do with that Layer Section release and decided to give City Connection the middle finger and get it done the way they should have done it in the first place.

The S-Tribute series is really frustrating. On one hand, I know I'll want at least Elevator Action Returns and Metal Black on Switch to play portably, but on the other - it's all such a shameless cash grab.

If all their ports were on the Deathsmiles end of the scale, I'd really love having them around. But like 3/4s of their output, if not more, is disappointing shit.

I feel bad for anyone who wasted their money on that Layer Section release now that we have what will be the best version of RayForce announced less than 3 months later. The timing is strange.

Anyway, literally just yesterday I was thinking about getting Layer Section II on Saturn. No point in doing that now. Since it's Taito, I suppose there is a not-zero chance this will release on PC in the next 14 years or something. I hope they get both this and Darius Cozmic Revelation on PC, but I might as well get them on PS4 or Switch since they seem to take so long to do the PC versions.

[Austin]

Hell yes, this is amazing news!

[Sumez]

Sad to say this makes City Connection look like a bunch of clowns with their S Tribute release that no one will buy now.

It's okay. They were already looking like clowns.

[gbaplayer]

Amazing, but i hope we will get an announcement for the next Toaplan Arcade Garage title also.

[BIL]

Not gonna lie, first impulse on seeing this thread title was "April Fool's, they even kept the super-cool Ray'z name from the OST box set!"

What a wonderful time it's been for eternally-overdue home releases of arcade essentials, lately. Warms the heart to know there's people out there with the same mindset: proper reference-standard home releases of this stuff will never, ever be too late. (and conversely, crummy attempts will never be enough!)

Glory to M2. I'm cryin' like shit over heeya.

Edit: A meta-technical point, but is there a way to reduce the size of images in his forum? I like having the promo image in the Topic Post, but they're always a bit too big and unwieldy. Would I have to host the image separately to get it smaller, or is there an easier way to downsize it just a little?

The former, pretty much - I usually bung 'em onto imgur, then use that site's sadly-obscure thumbnail feature. Basically, put an "s" "m" "l" or "h" at the end of the URL for small, med, large and huge thumbs, respectively. A rough science, but that's oldschool forums for ya innit.

Here's "huge" thumbnail with the OG image linked inline:

Spoiler

For really extreme cases, I'll resort to scaling down in paint.net or photoshop or what have you. It's hard out here on the ol' shumps farm trail

[Sumez]

Here's a nice little CSS snippet System11 could inject to the site in order elegantly fix gigantic images:

Code: Select all

.postbody img {
    max-width: 100%;
}

Or if you got a browser plugin like Stylebot or such, you can do it for yourself

[Astro City II]

At least City Connection port their games to Xbox and Steam. Taito could be more inclusive. Sucks tbh.

[jehu]

The former, pretty much - I usually bung 'em onto imgur, then use that site's sadly-obscure thumbnail feature. Basically, put an "s" "m" "l" or "h" at the end of the URL for small, med, large and huge thumbs, respectively. A rough science, but that's oldschool forums for ya innit.

Thanks for the tip! Should be a little less unwieldy now - I'll do this going forward. No more topic posts as unsightly as the Eschatos one I made last year.

[Steven]

No more topic posts as unsightly as the Eschatos one I made last year.

BRB finding

Found. Uh... that's something that exists.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I'm glad to be so wrong when I said that something like this could never happen once the S-Tribute was announced. Reeeally odd outcome. Hopefully they can invent something for EAR, though that's way more unlikely for many reasons. Bubble Symphony, on the other hand...

Where's the Steam version announcement, though.

[Sturmvogel Prime]

2023?
Another long wait...

[jehu]

No more topic posts as unsightly as the Eschatos one I made last year.

BRB finding

Found. Uh... that's something that exists.

I was going to go back and fix it, but now it's iconic - so it stands.

2023?
That deserved to be a Christmas/December 2022 release.

I know. I'm fiending for a STG heavyweight to be locked in for a late 2022 release. We had such an insane late-year streak in 2021, but this year feels a little dry. Where's Branch? Where's the new Toaplan collection? Even City Connection?? Is their Akai Katana a go for around then? Where's LiveWire? Ubusana???

[Sumez]

Why would EAR be unlikely? If they can emulate Layer Section, they can emulate Symphony and EAR.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Not technologically, of course. But on the one hand they don't have anything to build a pack with other than, well, the first EA. And on the other, this EAR cult is a far west thing. In Japan it's a well respected game but that's it. Nothing like a well-known STG. And finally, Saturn EAR was essentially a 1:1 port, unlike Rayforce.

[Steven]

I'd pay some serious cash if M2 got to do Elevator Action Returns. Hamster can't do ST-V on ACA, and from what I understand the F3 is close enough to the ST-V in whatever way to basically prevent F3 games from being on ACA, but if Hamster somehow got F3 emulation running, I'd give them some serious cash for the game as well.

City Connection's name makes me relatively uninterested by default, but if they don't mess it up (and I'm sure they will somehow), I'd consider buying it from them.

...but they'll mess it up somehow. I REALLY hope I'm wrong, though.

[Bassa-Bassa]

The problem with City Connection's S-Tribute releases is that they already messed them up unless it's an RPG, because the emulator they bought has no way to overcome its latency issues unless it's rewritten. They don't seem to care about fixing other fixable issues such as proper scanlines filters, etc., so the sooner their project dies the better.

And yeah, Taito's F3 and Sega's STV were the most powerful pieces of 2D hardware ever marketed, a nightmare to entirely emulate they say, so I don't see their games coming to Arcade Archives unless... Hamster hires M2 at some point. Big why not?

[Rastan78]

I don't know who Ray is, but I'd like to thank him for giving us this arcade chronology.

[Bassa-Bassa]

As a non-native english speaker, I'd like to know as well if the 'z is something else than a nod to the Cozmic Collection.

[Steven]

Uselessly tiny screenshots of everything here: https://www.taito.co.jp/mob/topics/25344