Radirgy 2 (PS5/PS4/SW)

[m.sniffles.esq]

More thoughts/observations:

- As in Swag, the weather report on the home screen effects enemy patterns (but unlike Swag, the reports don't just cycle in time)

- As mentioned by mojilove, while riding the top edge of the screen with the non-twin-stick ship and bombing like crazy will certainly blow up a lot of shit, don't expect to have an amazing score afterward. The key is figuring out a convergence point of the wave, and getting them all with a single bomb (if possible. Some weather conditions generate a lot of w i d e waves). That said, if there's a way to double the multiplier with that ship, I still haven't figured it out).

- In addressing the "I loved Radirgy, but fucking hated Swag. Will I like this?" that keeps coming up. Well, if you love Radirgy, shouldn't you want to be able to play it on Switch/Playstation? So I think that question sort of answers itself.

If the question is 'does Radirgy 2 have more similarities to the original or Swag?' I would say -- in general -- the gameplay is closer to Swag. Will you hate it too? I don't know.

As I said earlier, it's like Radirgy original, Swag, and Illvelo got squished together with a dash of Karous. And it rolls back the all-out sprint nature of Swag into something a bit more 'traditional' in structure. I can't really say if it's 'traditional' enough for you.

If you remember, the original Radirgy wasn't exactly beloved upon release. People didn't understand it, thought it was a mess, thought the cell shading was an attempt to cover up the fact it was eight half-baked ideas thrown together without any cohesion, etc. I remember the import store I would patronize got four copies new, and within a week, three of them were back in the shop used. Gradually it generally became accepted and even beloved (I say "generally" because there are those who never wavered from that initial impression). But Ikaruga, it wasn't. So I tend to assume that if one is interested in this company's games at all, then they are also accepting of the spirit of moving things forward. Or at the very least, are willing to meet a game halfway.

[Ms. Tea]

Spotted a NATO phonetic alphabet message in the sidebar while playing, so I went back to the messages to look them up. Looks like it's one long secret message spanning 10 different in-game messages. The whole thing together is:

Spoiler

arxial rendezvous point is 4096 TYO JP. the chess game of the gods is still working against us.

Now what does that mean? I wonder if it's a hint for the in-game story or just a reference to RS34's IRL concert series Arxial Rendezvous.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Yeah, I noticed the NATO code once when I game overed ("tango yankee oscar" was all I can recall). The part I noticed was nonsense, so whenever I peripherally saw more I just assumed it was nonsense too (which it kind of is). That said, when I scanned my magical google translate device over the message section, EVERYTHING seemed like nonsense (I was excited to see "info" messages as I thought they'd be gameplay tips. They were mostly traffic reports...)

[Ms. Tea]

If you specifically want gameplay tips, check the messages screen in the main menu and check the 「ラジルギ２ヒント」 (Radirgy 2 hint) section. All of those are gameplay tutorial stuff.

[m.sniffles.esq]

If you specifically want gameplay tips, check the messages screen in the main menu and check the 「ラジルギ２ヒント」 (Radirgy 2 hint) section. All of those are gameplay tutorial stuff.

Oh... Good look!

(and there's A LOT)
(And I still don't know how to double the multiplier with the fire bomb ship.... Although, I may not have unlocked it that hint yet. It would be very odd if it was possible with one ship and not the other)

Edit: Also in the 'helpful hint' dept:

While this is covered in mojilove's video, in case you don't feel like searching, this right here:



Is the difficultly setting. It defaults to "0". However, I would say "1" is probably "Normal" while "2" is "Hard". I recommend playing on at least "1" once you get your bearings. Also, if you're going to try for any "Destroy 1000 'x' enemies" orders, definitely raise that from zero, as they're very difficult to achieve before timing out, otherwise

[hamfighterx]

re the soundtrack CD, IMO it's always worth checking the contents before you buy. It wasn't advertised as a soundtrack CD to begin with; it was always marketed as a remix CD. Their other remix CDs have always been short collections of exclusive remixes that haven't shown up elsewhere. Radirgy 2's is actually pretty long by those standards - Illvelo Swamp had only two tracks, so I was pleasantly surprised when this one was EP length. Some good remixes too.

While this is all true, I didn't see it very clearly explained anywhere before buying, so I feel it's worth calling out so potential buyers understand what they're getting. 5 remix tracks that are pretty good.

That might be similar to other RS34/Milestone (or whatever the hell we call them today) games, but it's not exactly the norm as compared to what almost every other current gen STG publisher (Japan retail) who offers arrange/remix CDs in their "limited" or "collectors" versions. For instance:
- City Connection has been including full length arrange CDs: Deathsmiles 1&2, Akai Katana, Batsugun S-Tribute
- Super Deluxe: same, full length chiptune arrange CDs for Espgaluda II and Daifukkatsu, and their upcoming Radiant Silvergun CE
- Taito: the Darius LE collections and Ray'Z have full length arrange CDs
- M2 ShotTriggers: full length CDs in their LEs like Esp.ra.de, DOJ, etc.

RS34 is the outlier here. I was personally fine taking the chance even without being able to find out exactly what was on the CD first, but it's useful info for others who might expect something more in line with what other publishers are doing.

[m.sniffles.esq]

RS34 is the outlier here. I was personally fine taking the chance even without being able to find out exactly what was on the CD first, but it's useful info for others who might expect something more in line with what other publishers are doing.

Like I said, I had it in my possession, and didn't realize it was only a five track remix CD. So I believe a worthy heads up.

(ps I ripped it and threw a link in the music sharing thread if one wants to see exactly what it's all about)

[m.sniffles.esq]

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the top player in the Radirgy 1 rankings, holding a score of 106.5 million is

Spoiler

a bubble shot user

I"m not one to say "I told you so", but sometimes there are things that separate 'elite' players from those who are merely 'good'

Just saying

[mojilove]

The laser doesn't seem to lock on to boss parts in this version, sadly - bubble looks like a good choice with a wide range and penetrating shot, and I've been practicing with it as well

re the NATO phonetic alphabet messages, I think the black and white squares in the background of stage two look awfully like a chess board... Also, I thought "arxial rendezvous" was hinting at a new live show when I only saw the first part of the message (ending at the "po" of "point") at events, but with the year and location specified in the full message, I'd guess it's some sort of in-game phenomenon where the different parallel worlds (arxials) come together somehow. No idea what that would mean though

[m.sniffles.esq]

The laser doesn't seem to lock on to boss parts in this version, sadly

That's... really odd. I always thought that feature was the biggest reason laser people used it in the first place.

I've always been down with bubble, and have always faced mockery and derision for it. Including someone telling a previous account of mine that bubble wasn't a "serious" option, any super-plays using it were "obviously a gimmick or joke", and that I was trolling their "serious discussion of game mechanics" by creating posts about it's use. So forgive me for gloating a little.

[m.sniffles.esq]

PS5 version of Radirgy 1 keeps crashing to a black screen. I thought it was connectivity related, as I had my console offline, but I rebooted and it keeps happening. Happens upon ending a game (game over countdown finishes) and sometimes even when backing out to the main menu.

My Switch version updated to 1.0.2 when I got home today, so you may want to give this another look.

[mojilove]

The new update has some wallpapers for the Radirgy 1 port. It's not just the drawing of cherry blossoms on the right any more - there is a large pool of images, and you get one of them at random at each side of the screen now. There was also an error with the image for the fast bubble shot ship in the ship selection menu, but that has been fixed. Not sure what else has been addressed in the update - the official account only mentioned the wallpapers.

I managed to get the tlb with both Murasame and Kojirou (using continues though) - I'll stream the second part of my tutorial later this week hopefully.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I'll stream the second part of my tutorial later this week hopefully

Also:

The laser doesn't seem to lock on to boss parts in this version, sadly

You may want to look at it again post update. I was screwing around with laser on my way to work (I usually never play it) and it was definitely locking on to the teddy bear balloons in front of the stage one boss. Maybe it got fixed?