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

[SavagePencil]

I don't have faith that Strictly Limited will ever actually ship this fucking thing so heads up that the game is on sale on the US Switch store for digital download, possibly others ($34.99).

[XtraSmiley]

I don't have faith that Strictly Limited will ever actually ship this fucking thing so heads up that the game is on sale on the US Switch store for digital download, possibly others ($34.99).

LOL, you could be right!

Does the digital version include that free level from the canceled game?

[Ms. Tea]

Nope. :/ Still exclusive to the Japanese Amazon Prime Day edition and the Strictly Limited physical edition. Maybe Taito will release it standalone someday like they did with Darius Extra Version.

I have the Amazon Prime Day version, and it's very cool to have, but I wouldn't say it's *essential*. Still sucks they made it this exclusive.

[zinger]

Steam version is on sale.

[XtraSmiley]

Nope. :/ Still exclusive to the Japanese Amazon Prime Day edition and the Strictly Limited physical edition. Maybe Taito will release it standalone someday like they did with Darius Extra Version.

I have the Amazon Prime Day version, and it's very cool to have, but I wouldn't say it's *essential*. Still sucks they made it this exclusive.

Thank you. I guess I will keep waiting for my SLG version then.

I did get a NS for xmas and I only have 2 games, so maybe if it goes on sale I'll double dip on NS and wait for my PS4 version.

[Augemitbutter]

getting the PSX versions was not such a bad idea after all. I get to boot them up a few more times before the SLG version arrives

[m.sniffles.esq]

Steam version is on sale.

As is Switch version, same price

(I bought it on Steam during their 'shmup sale' and sort of forgot about it until a few days ago. For whatever reason, the in-game sound is completely fucked on all three games. So I put in for a refund and just grabbed the Switch version since Steam is usually good about returns for games running like shit. of course Steam is refusing this refund due to the purchase being in October even though I've played an entirety of five minutes. So I bought it twice. At least I bought it on sale twice. This is both the definition of 'first world problems' and 'why I fucking hate pc gaming')

[maximo310]

Steam version is on sale.

As is Switch version, same price

(I bought it on Steam during their 'shmup sale' and sort of forgot about it until a few days ago. For whatever reason, the in-game sound is completely fucked on all three games. So I put in for a refund and just grabbed the Switch version since Steam is usually good about returns for games running like shit. of course Steam is refusing this refund due to the purchase being in October even though I've played an entirety of five minutes. So I bought it twice. At least I bought it on sale twice. This is both the definition of 'first world problems' and 'why I fucking hate pc gaming')

Weird, I had the opposite issue where the sound was completely fucked on that City Connection Layer Section Tribute Steam port, but Rayz sound has been consistently good.

[m.sniffles.esq]

The weird thing is, the menu sound is fine, but when the playing the games themselves, the sfx/music is faint, shrill, and keeps cutting in and out (both windowed and fullscreen. I know on some games running fullscreen fucks with the sound)

I would say the emulator isn't jibing with the GeForce for whatever reason, but I thought M2 games ran native. No idea...

Switch version is fine, however. I just wish it didn't cost me $70

[Enemy]

This doesn't save local high scores! Wtf ... such a simple thing missed out and what a way to spoil an amazing release ... shame on you m2

Do all m2 releases not save the local scores?

Thank god for the saturn core on mister fpga ... I will revert back to it

[Rastan78]

Typically they only save local high scores in game if the original PCB did. I think the ShotTriggers games usually have local high scores in a menu somewhere but not the Taito collections.

Keep in mind these are ports of the arcade versions. Saturn had RAM to save files and a backup battery to power it whereas AFAIK Taito F3 didn't have anything like that. (Maybe some carts did?) Personally I would take the global leaderboards with replays and PCB accuracy any day of the week.

[maximo310]

This doesn't save local high scores! Wtf ... such a simple thing missed out and what a way to spoil an amazing release ... shame on you m2

Do all m2 releases not save the local scores?

Thank god for the saturn core on mister fpga ... I will revert back to it

It's true that there's no local high scoreboard, but each game does have 12 slots that saves a local replay ( or a downloaded replay from the platform leaderboards) each time you game over/complete the game in the "Replay Gallery" item under "Local Replays".

[SeafoamGaming]

We are now approaching twelve months since SLG last manufactured a switch cart with their label on it. They've recently done a lot of seemingly desperate stuff in the past month too, from doing a lot of bundles, print-on-demand merch, and doing "game of the month" discounts for stuff like Rolling Gunner. None of these seem to be moving much of any product at all and most of their social media comments are just people wondering where games like Rayz or Darius Core are.

Yeah, I'm getting real familiar vibes here. The fact Rayz or Everybubble do not have standards shipped from SLG yet really give me pause and I'm more convinced they're running outta funds. The Irem collection launching in the state it did too also furthers my theory. If anyone here has an order on Rayz, please contact customer support and ask if they placed manufacturing orders yet. If they won't answer/say no, that's rather alarming.

[evil_ash_xero]

Well, geez. I went ahead and ordered the Japanese version of this. I was waiting on the SL, as I preferred it's cover.

I hope I get Steel Empire and the NES cart of Over Horizon someday. I have those pre-ordered.

[XtraSmiley]

We are now approaching twelve months since SLG last manufactured a switch cart with their label on it. They've recently done a lot of seemingly desperate stuff in the past month too, from doing a lot of bundles, print-on-demand merch, and doing "game of the month" discounts for stuff like Rolling Gunner. None of these seem to be moving much of any product at all and most of their social media comments are just people wondering where games like Rayz or Darius Core are.

Yeah, I'm getting real familiar vibes here. The fact Rayz or Everybubble do not have standards shipped from SLG yet really give me pause and I'm more convinced they're running outta funds. The Irem collection launching in the state it did too also furthers my theory. If anyone here has an order on Rayz, please contact customer support and ask if they placed manufacturing orders yet. If they won't answer/say no, that's rather alarming.

Rolling Gunner looks like it is now sold out, so I guess they moved them after all. These companies do seem to take a long time, as I always see people complaining about LRG, but man, I think this Ray'z collection has taken the cake for me, I'm not even sure when I ordered it anymore...

[SeafoamGaming]

Someone on reddit asked slg customer support about if they’ve started manufacturing any of their pending games, and per them, they have not: this includes rayz which the poster was most curious about since that was their longest pending order.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LimitedPrintGames/s/qgRXNRw9gm

Yeah this feels like a ship sinking

[TransatlanticFoe]

July 2022 they opened pre-orders. The game was released in Japan in March 2023. At least with the Turrican delays they gave some info (bugs and feature creep, the dev going a bit rogue basically) but here the game must have had its final round of patches for months now.

That they refuse to provide any detail on what's causing the delay, whilst also advertising the damn thing on social media, is tone deaf at best - a total pisstake at worst.

Still, it's not yet as bad as First Press' Crimzon Clover release - which has been pushed yet again to Q2 2024, even though the game's been stable digitally for years.

I suspect they just suck at getting to the front of the queue for manufacturing partners, they're basically the same company as ININ so doubt they're about to go under - but perhaps someone is holding the purse strings too tight, and the various sales are because they want to downsize warehouse space (they've recently sent stock to Amazon) and can't take more until they do. Still it sucks big floppy donkey dick that they can't be arsed to show even a tiny bit of transparency with customers, they're burning bridges at this point.

[SeafoamGaming]

July 2022 they opened pre-orders. The game was released in Japan in March 2023. At least with the Turrican delays they gave some info (bugs and feature creep, the dev going a bit rogue basically) but here the game must have had its final round of patches for months now.

That they refuse to provide any detail on what's causing the delay, whilst also advertising the damn thing on social media, is tone deaf at best - a total pisstake at worst.

Still, it's not yet as bad as First Press' Crimzon Clover release - which has been pushed yet again to Q2 2024, even though the game's been stable digitally for years.

I suspect they just suck at getting to the front of the queue for manufacturing partners, they're basically the same company as ININ so doubt they're about to go under - but perhaps someone is holding the purse strings too tight, and the various sales are because they want to downsize warehouse space (they've recently sent stock to Amazon) and can't take more until they do. Still it sucks big floppy donkey dick that they can't be arsed to show even a tiny bit of transparency with customers, they're burning bridges at this point.

For me the game that set off the biggest alarm bells was Everybubble. The damn game came out at retail in May and all SLG's version adds is the SFC Puzzle bobble as a bonus! that bonus is out and done on the eShop already! it's content complete!

At this point i'm pretty convinced they're picking the retail versions over the SLG versions to prioritize atm, and with Air Twister seeming to use EU retail carts from United Games for that release (none of them have the SLG logo like the numbered games usually do), I don't think they're doing that well. Their digital output lately has also slipped in quality control. That Irem collection has NO excuse being as bad as it currently is and I'm flabbergasted it hit the Japan retail scene today with all the bugs it has.

Needless to say while writing up an article cataloging how long it's been since preorders went up for some games... Rayz has hit almost the 500 day mark since preorders opened. Fucking absurd. There's zero excuse for the communication gap even if they magically showed up this month.

But hey at least canceling preorders with SLG is super duper easy which is better than FPG, who dodge refund requests despite the fact German law mandates that; they also shut off all their social media contact points and Project Blue, Mindseize, Powa and Psychotic Origins' devs have all gone on record as not being paid by FPG any money for the preorders at all (with PB getting paid after they made a reddit post FPG ordered them to delete, Powa having the same thing happen with a Twitter post, and the other two not having any luck AFAIK). FPG is definitely the shittier company hands down since they're openly breaking the law with the refund dodging.

[SeafoamGaming]

Bumping (sorry for the double post) because on a reddit thread pointing out their huge release gaps, SLG’s social media guy responded. https://www.reddit.com/r/LimitedPrintGames/s/d7ep80cErp

“ Hi, Nick, Brand Manager at Strictly Limited here. We understand the wait for Ray'z has been testing and frustrating. We feel you – we’re not happy about it ourselves either, it really didn’t go as planned. We're deeply sorry for the delay and any inconvenience caused by it.

The good news is that both Dariusburst and Ray’z are now in production, with the games starting to ship in June. We look forward to continuing shipments of pre-orders: We have a bunch of exciting new projects in the pipeline that we look forward to updating the community on. Here's to a great summer after a longer-than-expected 'winter break’!”

I don’t buy it took 11 months to print a PS4 disc.

[Jonpachi]

Meanwhile, this remains readily available and very accessible in its import form. Abandon these clowns and just get the import. Enjoy the game!

[TransatlanticFoe]

lol replying to a thread on Reddit when you could just be directly transparent to your customers. No explanation as to why it's so heavily delayed either. Fucking June?! Dariusburst they even pulled from its December release seemingly deliberately, and it's now taking another 6 months? Give over.

Alas the bugs in the JP version are why I've not cancelled and simply imported. It's a crapshoot as to whether later production cycles get an updated version on cart.

[SavagePencil]

At least getting refunded was quick and painless.

[doodledude]

How do you get refunds on SLG pre-orders?
There's no option in the account section that I can see?

[SavagePencil]

How do you get refunds on SLG pre-orders?
There's no option in the account section that I can see?

Go to Support: https://www.strictlylimitedgames.com/pages/support
Change the "Department" drop-down to "Refund order"
Specify your order numbers
Expect them to e-mail you asking why you want a refund

[doodledude]

Thanks! Got 5 pre-orders so might cancel a couple

[hamfighterx]

I had several preorders that I attempted to cancel two days ago. Have yet to hear a response from SLG.

[SeafoamGaming]

Some stealth updates, of sorts.

First, they replied to a few more people on reddit including me. Here’s what they said when i pointed out RayZ taking this long was absurd:

“ You're right. Meeting global dates is what we usually aim for while at the same time making sure all possible patches are included on the disc of our Strictly Limited Edition. Around July we were waiting for the retail release to come out and to make sure that there would be no further patches that we needed to include. This was also around the time when we started to notice the slowdown that impacted the whole industry. We wanted to play it safe by waiting for things to pick back up but unfortunately, the slowdown lasted much longer than any of us had anticipated.”

Who knows what “the slowdown” is as they won’t clarify why ININ got out stuff to retail just fine during that gap.

They also edited the pages for a bunch of games to show new dates and puzzle bobble (the game from last may) is now slated for *august*. I’m trying to find the rayz date but am having trouble on phone.

EDIT: for some dumb reason, the dates only show on the site if your IP is european. My PAL friend looked and got June date for Rayz, and a July date for Dariusburst. Parasol stars is November.

Nothing else redated.

[SavagePencil]

I got an e-mail despite all my orders being canceled/refunded:

You are receiving this email because you have ordered one or several of the TAITO titles below. We would like to give you an update on the current production status and release dates.

Please find below the updated release timings:

RAY’Z ARCADE CHRONOLOGY: June 2024

TAITO MILESTONES 2: June 2024

DARIUSBURST CS CORE + TAITO/SEGA PACK: July 2024

PUZZLE BOBBLE EVERYBUBBLE! & PUZZLE BOBBLE/BUST A MOVE – August 2024

PARASOL STARS: THE STORY OF BUBBLE BOBBLE III – October 2024

Please note: PlayStation versions might be shipped earlier than Nintendo Switch versions, due to shorter production times. Collector's Editions usually take a bit longer because of the additional effort needed for production and assembly of collectibles.

[BydoR9]

Thanks for all the updates on this guys.

I also got that email for them yesterday.

June 2024 takes us to just shy of 2 whole years wait for Ray'z Arcade Chronology, and when it's already been out in Japan for an entire year already too! Takes the absolute piss.

SLGs poor updates don't help and this whole 'slowdown of the industry' sounds like a bullshit excuse when Limited Run don't seem to be having any issues. I ordered RSG on switch from them in November 22 and got the game summer 23 (I think, can't completely remember).

Perhaps SLG were waiting until 2024 so Rayforce could celebrate it's 30th anniversary? Missed opportunity for more swag there SLG!

For the length of time I've had to wait for this game, I fully expect them to have developed and finished off R-Gear as a fully complete game!

Anyway, it's my birthday in June (50!) Let's hope i get my copy of Ray'z before I receive my Saga Holidays brochure (UK reference there for you).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

July 2022 they opened pre-orders. The game was released in Japan in March 2023. At least with the Turrican delays they gave some info (bugs and feature creep, the dev going a bit rogue basically) but here the game must have had its final round of patches for months now.

That they refuse to provide any detail on what's causing the delay, whilst also advertising the damn thing on social media, is tone deaf at best - a total pisstake at worst.

Still, it's not yet as bad as First Press' Crimzon Clover release - which has been pushed yet again to Q2 2024, even though the game's been stable digitally for years.

First Press opened up pre-orders for both the standard and LE versions of Crimson Clover way back in September of 2022 and still hasn't shown anything about it. Will it take a good 2 to 2 1/2 years for them to be finally delivered? I hope not but with First Press, that just might be the expected norm these days. What's up with the artificially induced delays with CC? Sure, I've had the Switch digital d/l of CC for ages and it's ace through and through.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~