Toaplan games coming to PC (Steam, GOG)

[SeafoamGaming]

I'm curious if the super easy options here will finally make Tatsujin Oh remotely playable and fair. If not, there's always M2's set...

Curious how the other games are handled. Twin Hawk's my fav of the 4.

[Steven]

I tried playing Batsugun on my Windows PC on keyboard and it seems very laggy when played with keyboard. Then I tried playing the native Linux version on my Steam Deck with the same keyboard and the official Steam Deck dock and it feels much better! Not sure what is up with that, but I'm using a Japanese Microsoft Sidewinder X4. Never had any problems with lag before on this keyboard, but I'll go mess around with various things to see if I can reduce the input lag. I'm also going to try running the Windows version on the Steam Deck to see if it changes anything.

I highly doubt that anyone else has had a similar experience, but if someone has, please let me know how the lag is.

I'm curious if the super easy options here will finally make Tatsujin Oh remotely playable and fair.

lol yeah no, that's probably not going to happen.

Twin Hawk's my fav of the 4.

Why Twin Hawk instead of Daisenpuu? I don't think I've ever seen anyone that specifically prefers Twin Hawk over Daisenpuu before. There are actually 6 "different" games in this batch if you want to be technical, and you could make a case for there being 8 if you really wanted to but...

I wonder what they will do with V-V Bomber Version and its leaderboard. I wonder how many people even know that V-V Bomber Version even exists...

[FunktionJCB]

The final wave of Toaplan shmups by Bitware are releasing next Monday on Steam and GOG.
A complete pack with all 16 titles will also be available, at a discount ($69.99).

Some minor details and a trailer are available at the following X/twitter post:
https://twitter.com/bitwavegames/status ... 4218910787

[ryu]

I'll pay them if they can sell me the games physically on consoles.

Tatsujin Extreme looks awful with those huge graphics in a yokotate field. What they showed during the Shootaisai stream reminded me of Shinorubi

[FunktionJCB]

The new batch is out.

The great thing is that, besides the usual 4 title bundle, there's now a 16 title bundle on Steam that, for those who own the previous games, it allows you to get the final 4 games for the price of about 2. It's a 46% discount!

The 4 game volume 4 bundle:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/3 ... tem_Ups_4/

The complete 16 game bundle:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/4 ... ollection/

[Steven]

But modern consoles suck, though... and Tatsujin Extreme is also way better than the trailer makes it look.

Anyway, the music is broken again. This time it's super broken, and probably the most broken it's ever been, although I don't remember much from last year. Tatsujin Ou also lacks the stereo soundtrack, which even that terrible Astro City Mini V has, and speaking of the Astro City Mini V, it fixed the Dogyuun!! crash bug, which might still be present here, as the practice mode won't let you play past loop 4. At least Tatsujin Ou can be played on keyboard without the risk of SOCD teleporting. That's something... right?

I'm not even disappointed anymore, just... tired. I'm going to sleep or otherwise do something that doesn't involve thinking about this.

[spmbx]

But modern consoles suck, though... and Tatsujin Extreme is also way better than the trailer makes it look.

Anyway, the music is broken again. This time it's super broken, and probably the most broken it's ever been, although I don't remember much from last year. Tatsujin Ou also lacks the stereo soundtrack, which even that terrible Astro City Mini V has, and speaking of the Astro City Mini V, it fixed the Dogyuun!! crash bug, which might still be present here, as the practice mode won't let you play past loop 4. At least Tatsujin Ou can be played on keyboard without the risk of SOCD teleporting. That's something... right?

I'm not even disappointed anymore, just... tired. I'm going to sleep or otherwise do something that doesn't involve thinking about this.

I do find it very intriguing that you keep subjecting yourself to this, and (i assume) even spend money doing so. Wouldn't it be better to just forget this exists?

[Steven]

I have my reasons.

Dogyuun!!: why does my ship look like this sometimes when I'm messing around in practice mode?



Also, the game doesn't crash on loop 5. It doesn't spawn the enemies and it starts running very slowly and with graphical glitching, but it does not seem to actually crash.

[Jeneki]

Dogyuun!!: why does my ship look like this

I ask question every time I'm not in the final stage.

[The Coop]

Dogyuun!!: why does my ship look like this sometimes when I'm messing around in practice mode?

I know that ship, or a variation of it. Toaplan is responsible for The Earth Defend!

Maybe it was a Dogyuuni prototype that they scrapped, but gave the ship a redesign on their next attempt.

[SMC]

Also, the game doesn't crash on loop 5. It doesn't spawn the enemies and it starts running very slowly and with graphical glitching, but it does not seem to actually crash.

I've been curious about how the loop 5 bug looks on the PCB for a while but I've been unable to find any arcade footage of it to verify. I take it the board just resets itself when you get to that point?

Interestingly, in the emulated versions, if you wait a really long time you'll eventually encounter the boss, at which point you can die to it and respawn without the garbled graphics.

[SeafoamGaming]

People on the truxton ii review/steam forums pointed out the shit audio too and this was the dev response

“ We're sorry that the sound of Truxton II doesn't live up to your expectations, and it's something we will address in an upcoming patch.”

I think they must be deaf. Haven’t gotten a single word from pr about the set of four btw; not even a “out now!” Email or a usual review request pitch.

Curious to buy one of these for myself, cover it in the 2 hr refund window and see if it makes me break or if somehow it’s good already? (Doubt it)

This volume seems heavily, heavily, heavily rushed.

[The Coop]

Yeah, the dev's reply has some snark in it, that's for sure. You'd think that they'd have learned a lesson or two after the first three batches that needed work done on the audio, but... here we are.

I do hope they make updates to get the audio more accurate.

[Jeneki]

I love how they used to insta-lock every post in the discussion area bringing up issues, telling people to email them instead. Such a good look and seems like they're not trying to hide the problems at all.

At least Truxton II seems like they're letting it stay open this time.

[SeafoamGaming]

I have a one sentence review of this port, and when i heard the boss theme kick in.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MY EARS!”

Sounds like a fucking genesis port. A bad one.

[Steven]

What Tatsujin Ou would actually sound like on the Mega Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOhU943wj8

This is what it sounds like here: https://youtu.be/RHIyoS0FXuw

I also recorded practice mode, where the music is actually even worse somehow. I just put this up, so it might take a while to finish processing.

Dogyuun!!: why does my ship look like this

I ask question every time I'm not in the final stage.

That reminds of that Mikado stream where they played it and both the people in the arcade and the people in the game center were all like WTF IS THAT!!!!!!!!!!.

Dogyuun!!: why does my ship look like this sometimes when I'm messing around in practice mode?

I know that ship, or a variation of it. Toaplan is responsible for The Earth Defend!

Maybe it was a Dogyuuni prototype that they scrapped, but gave the ship a redesign on their next attempt.

I wonder why it showed up here. I'm not even sure what I did to make it happen. I'll mess around some more and see if I can get it to happen again. I don't even know who made the player sprite for any post-Out Zone games, which includes this game.

Also, the game doesn't crash on loop 5. It doesn't spawn the enemies and it starts running very slowly and with graphical glitching, but it does not seem to actually crash.

I've been curious about how the loop 5 bug looks on the PCB for a while but I've been unable to find any arcade footage of it to verify. I take it the board just resets itself when you get to that point?

Interestingly, in the emulated versions, if you wait a really long time you'll eventually encounter the boss, at which point you can die to it and respawn without the garbled graphics.

I've never seen it on PCB either. I am terrible at this game and don't really have the patience to credit feed my way to loop 5 to find out.

[BrianC]

What Tatsujin Ou would actually sound like on the Mega Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOhU943wj8

This is what it sounds like here: https://youtu.be/RHIyoS0FXuw

The first video is awesome, but it's using an incredible sound driver and YM2612. The latter sounds like one of the early games with a lesser sound engine on one of the early YM3438 models of the MD/Genesis.

[Steven]

It's too bad that the YM3438 has such a bad reputation, as the Mega Drive variants with the best sound use the YM3438. If more people knew about how stupidly amazing the Mega Jet sounds, people would say the YM2612 sucks in comparison (it does, BTW). The Mega Jet may look pretty goofy, but it's a seriously hardcore little system that seriously outperforms every other MD I have used in every way.

[SeafoamGaming]

New status update today from the discord:

“@everyone

Shmupers, we've heard your issues with Truxton II and that the game doesn't sound right.

We're committed to delivering the best Toaplan experience possible and will therefore investigate the matter further and solve it in a patch coming soon.

We're also aware that there might be other bugs, and if you happen to stumble upon one, do not hesitate to contact us at support[at]bitwavegames[dot]com.

We're sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you all for your support!”

No reason why it launched this badly, of course

I wrote a snap judgment review due to my curiosity and I will note it was the first 2/10 I gave on my website’s scale in a long, long time. Mostly because the audio is just that bad, and the rest because the featureset is very basic/Tatsujin Oh kinda sucks and I wait for M2 to give a crack at it as I see a fun outline here.

Still no excuse for the audio. I’m done being nice. They’ve known for 12 games and Truxton II is the worst sounding port since the PSG games they did

[Sumez]

We're committed to delivering the best Toaplan experience possible

Aha!

[ryu]

I won’t link it here

Might as well post the link when you mention it. It's not like it's hard to find your website, since you're so subtle about it.

[SeafoamGaming]

I won’t link it here

Might as well post the link when you mention it. It's not like it's hard to find your website, since you're so subtle about it.

Not trying to hide anything, just uncertain on this site’s self promo rules and dont wanna post like I’m shilling my site. I edited my last post with a link then.

We're committed to delivering the best Toaplan experience possible

Aha!

I like how they’re “investigating” the matter even though their ears would pretty much identify that it sounds bad immediately.

Seems like this vol was rushed out way earlier than intended to make it in that shmup fest or whatever

[Steven]

Considering the last batch was mostly solid aside from the audio and speed of Tiger-Heli, I was expecting this one to be around that level, but this is the worst batch since the first one.

At least it isn't super glitchy for the most part, but it is possible to always have max speed in Tatsujin Ou by launching practice mode with full speed and then playing the normal game.

[glide]

I was looking forward to Truxton 2 with an easier difficulty setting since the game is so brutally difficult. Even at the lowest difficulty the game is stupidly hard, not any easier than the arcade version. The sound is also atrocious, how could they possibly fuck that up? You're better off playing it on MAME.

[BrianC]

It's too bad that the YM3438 has such a bad reputation, as the Mega Drive variants with the best sound use the YM3438. If more people knew about how stupidly amazing the Mega Jet sounds, people would say the YM2612 sucks in comparison (it does, BTW). The Mega Jet may look pretty goofy, but it's a seriously hardcore little system that seriously outperforms every other MD I have used in every way.

I like the YM3438 and love how it sounds with the VA3 Genesis 2, but it mainly gets it rep from being used in some of the worst variations of the Mega Drive, though I heard some of the model 2 Genesises with the YM2612 aren't great either.

[Steven]

I was looking forward to Truxton 2 with an easier difficulty setting since the game is so brutally difficult. Even at the lowest difficulty the game is stupidly hard, not any easier than the arcade version.

Wait until you play Tatsujin Ou. It's more difficult than Truxton II is. I saw someone somewhere (I can't remember who and where) saying something to the effect that there are spots in the first loop of Tatsujin Ou that are harder than the same places in the second loop of Truxton II. Don't know if it's true or not and I don't play Truxton II, but there is supposedly a somewhat significant difference in difficulty between them.

It's too bad that the YM3438 has such a bad reputation, as the Mega Drive variants with the best sound use the YM3438. If more people knew about how stupidly amazing the Mega Jet sounds, people would say the YM2612 sucks in comparison (it does, BTW). The Mega Jet may look pretty goofy, but it's a seriously hardcore little system that seriously outperforms every other MD I have used in every way.

I like the YM3438 and love how it sounds with the VA3 Genesis 2, but it mainly gets it rep from being used in some of the worst variations of the Mega Drive, though I heard some of the model 2 Genesises with the YM2612 aren't great either.

My VA6 Mega Drive doesn't sound that great either compared to my VA4, which is the second best after the Mega Jet, although my Nomad is pretty great as well. My VA0 Mega Drive 2 sounds terrible, though.

[FunktionJCB]

All 16 games received further patches yesterday, and today, a few other games received further audio fixes.

Among the changes on today's patches, Truxton 2 and Twin Hawk are supposed to now have a Stereo option (I'm currently at work, so I can't try it ).

[Steven]

STEREO AUDIO TIME AND IT SOUNDS AMAZING

I didn't know Daisenpuu even had stereo audio, so that's new. It looks like they might have fixed some of the other games' audio as well, so I will check it out.

The PCM drums in Tatsujin Ou's stereo soundtrack are very slightly too loud, but it's not really that bad at all and I give it my approval. Music is still ultra-broken in practice mode, but in the normal game and in the sound test it works fine aside from the drums being slightly too loud. There also seems to be some oddness with sound effects still, and LIVE IN FUTURE has some weird stuff going on near the end of the track if you are shooting, so I wonder if the later BGM tracks have something similar.

Not sure what is up with the Daisenpuu stereo audio. It... doesn't seem to actually do anything...? I don't get it.

[Jeneki]

Fixed an audio issue where operator 4 input modulation and voice feedback shift values were off by one

Makes me wonder if messing around with the in-game audio filters could have fixed this before the patch.

The pre-patch version sounded like whoever mixed it really loved percussion lol.

[The Coop]

Makes me wonder if messing around with the in-game audio filters could have fixed this before the patch.

I really doubt it. Various instruments were simply too loud when compared to the arcade original, and some instruments were noticeably more harsh sounding. That was an issue with the sound driver/emulation, and playing with filters wasn't going to fix that. Plus, those filters apply to everything at the same time, not just one instrument. So that would have affected anything that already sounded close to accurate, and made it sound more off. A case of "Well, that made that part sound better, but now everything else sounds worse."

I just tested the music in Truxton II, and man does it sound better than it did. Arcade perfect? Not quite, but much closer than it was, that's for damn sure.

Edit: Do Truxton II, Batsugun, Twin Hawk, Grind Stormer, Fixeight and Dogyuun use the same arcade board? All of those games got the exact same update to their audio.