R-Type Final 3 Evolved announced for PS5.

[ryu]

Apparently the series is stupid popular among people that don't seem to play shmups otherwise. There's a no miss playthrough of the original up on Youtube that got close to two million views. Even Final 3 Evolved, that doesn't appear to have sold much, has a playthrough video with almost 300k impressions. And I could swear I had come across one of Final 2 with 700k+ on the counter. Also check the trophy list on PS4. Barely anyone even beat the final stage on that platform.

[Samildanach]

I don't think it is a stretch to say the R-Type is the most famous shmup name of all. Just thinking of people I know who don't play shmups, and even the names Gradius and Raiden are more likely to result in blank stares in comparison to R-Type.

[Lander]

I always assumed they got a bag of Sony money for the PS5 exclusivity; shmups may be niche, but R-Type is recognizable enough for a platform holder to take a flutter on, particularly after a successful Kickstarter.

That, or Granzella doesn't realize / care that such a move is a dick in the eye for their existing customers, and elected to chase artificial scarcity anyway for some reason.

If memory serves the official platitude was something like "technical feasibility is still under investigation for other platforms" - essentially another variation on the standard but the NVME drive though excuse. If only they were building it in an industrial-class game engine designed with scalability in mind, eh? Oh wait

On second thought, maybe that was their long term plan for the game. And it makes sense in a way if you think about it. If they went on to develop R-Type IV or Delta 2 with one or a small selection of ships people are going to be disappointed that they can no longer play their favorite fighter from Final. On the other hand they can't reasonably ask players to unlock their ships from 0 in every subsequent game. Just releasing new campaigns and ships for Final 2 sounds like a reasonable solution.

R-Type as an anthology platform could certainly work; drop the Final 2 suffix and make it a one-stop shop sort of like Serious Sam Fusion, with new paid courses added over time to keep it rolling.

Though I don't think favourite ships are necessarily a hill worth dying on; promising that every existing one be playable in every future release isn't a scalable approach (c.f. GaaS like Destiny vaulting content because the maintenance load is too much), and a lot of the Final / 2 roster is incremental filler anyway.

Making that promise selective - like Dariusburst's cameo content - would open up the ability to, say, make a prospective Delta 2 in such a platform and have it actually be balanced. Though I guess it would still be nice to be able to unlock the full suite for busted novelty runs.

Only Evolved proves that generational jumps make this rather difficult. They would have to run servers and require players to sign up for accounts to store the save data globally so it can be available across platforms for the model to work in the long run.

Myself, I'd draw the line at servers and accounts. Xbox, PSN and Steam are all perfectly capable of threading user data across multiple hardware and software revisions, but it's generally more profitable to lock users into another sub-ecosystem or make them double-dip, so that tends to happen instead.

[ryu]

I have no idea what triggered this scene but the operator confessed to my pilot before takeoff in a demo.

Of course I proceeded to crash into the first stray bullet a minute into stage 1.

If memory serves the official platitude was something like "technical feasibility is still under investigation for other platforms" - essentially another variation on the standard but the NVME drive though excuse. If only they were building it in an industrial-class game engine designed with scalability in mind, eh?

I imagine most smaller devs teach themselves with internet videos and blog posts how to use these engines and end up lacking a lot of knowledge on how to properly develop games with them. You also got to ask how good documentation and schooling for UE in japanese are anyways.

[Lander]

I know you're about to deploy, and we're all going to die in horror if the mission fails because somebody was distracted, buuut...
I think those special intros are random, like the cameo in the warp tunnel. Didn't even know there was an alternate launch sequence for a while, spent ages trying to farm for it in the regular 1-1 one...

And as I understand it, UE's adoption by Japanese devs is in part due to proper localized documentation. Epic also provides a support service to help troubleshoot day-to-day usage, and has regional branches to provide it in local time and language.
I can see the internet learning angle if you're a solo dev working from your bedroom - been there, done that - but even lean indie outfits can fit the first-party support line into their development budget, even if it's just a month here and there when trouble arises.

I'd be more willing to buy the tech excuse if it addressed why Evolved isn't on PC, where there's more than enough performance headroom to brute force past a naive implementation. Raytracing and faster I/O are already abstracted over by the engine, so there's no probable cause for the our ultra custom in-house code could only stream this fast enough on PS5 defense rolled out by more partisan studios (before Ratchet & Clank got a Steam release and took the legs out from under it, at least.)

[Steven]

R-Type as an anthology platform could certainly work; drop the Final 2 suffix and make it a one-stop shop sort of like Serious Sam Fusion, with new paid courses added over time to keep it rolling.

I think somewhere it was mentioned that this was basically the plan. They were planning on releasing Final 2 and then to keep adding more and more stuff to it instead of making new R-Type games. Not sure if that plan has changed, or where it was mentioned, but I remember seeing it somewhere.

Digital distribution on consoles is highly questionable. So far and without exception, eventually it goes away permanently on a per system basis, and even on some of the surviving older ones it's only possible to download stuff you already own but not buy anything. Assuming that this trend remains the same and Granzella wants to continue building on this game in this manner, Granzella will have no choice but to develop new versions for subsequent consoles once the current ones' digital stores go away. Even if the stores remain, backwards compatibility is also not guaranteed, but at this point it seems at least Microsoft and Sony seem at least somewhat committed to maintaining it, although it might just be a result of console hardware architecture having mostly stabilized and become relatively uniform in the past decade.

There is, of course, a certain system that is probably completely immune to this, so...

[ryu]

I think those special intros are random, like the cameo in the warp tunnel. Didn't even know there was an alternate launch sequence for a while, spent ages trying to farm for it in the regular 1-1 one...

It's a bit suspicious I got two of those almost in direct succession and haven't had another pop up again since. So it feels like I triggered those with something. But it might also just have been dumb luck for me to get 2 special dialogues in 3 successive demos.

I can see the internet learning angle if you're a solo dev working from your bedroom - been there, done that - but even lean indie outfits can fit the first-party support line into their development budget, even if it's just a month here and there when trouble arises.

Aaaah don't remind me. When there's official support for anything software related it usually means the documentation fucking sucks. Often on purpose to get companies to pay for their support.

There is, of course, a certain system that is probably completely immune to this, so...

I hope you're not thinking of personal computers...

[Steven]

I hope you're not thinking of personal computers...

Yep. Even if Steam and GOG and all other digital PC game stores completely vanished, Granzella could host all of it on their own website. PC usually doesn't have to worry about backwards compatibility in most cases, and even if your PC dies you can just go make a new one, making it the best and most viable system for actually playing older games, legally or otherwise. Consoles can't make that claim at all.

[ryu]

Last time I was serious about PC gaming the games I wanted to play didn't even work properly when they were recent. Trying to play outdated games on PC can require extra effort too. So calling it immune to obsoleteness is a bit of a stretch. And companies definitely aren't going to be starting to self publish age old games on their own unless they can expect great profit margins. But those aren't to be expected at the end times of games when there are no publishers left.

There's also the problem that users are becoming increasingly less tech savvy. Are people even making backups of DLC for PC games for future use when stores shut down?

[Lander]

I have to spend an hour fiddling about 50% of the time I install a new game, though you can probably push that down to ~20% for people running a normal operating system, and then back up to ~30-40% if they're as big of a pedant about everything being set up just so with various tweaks and enhancements.

So it's not flawless, but the tools are at least there.

Backup-wise, I don't think there's much to worry about; the enthusiast / seafarer scene has a tendency to hoard anything that can be downloaded, even if it's locked down tight with as-yet-unbreakable DRM.

Aaaah don't remind me. When there's official support for anything software related it usually means the documentation fucking sucks. Often on purpose to get companies to pay for their support.

Yeah, oftentimes it's a case of bulletproof-but-impenetrable technical reference (i.e. a machine-generated website of class defs and such) backed by a user guide that's nowhere near comprehensive (and often wilfully ignorant of issues and workaround), which ends up filled in by enthusiast content creators.

In UE's case, it's kind of bipolar; if you stay within the comfy and safe confines of Blueprint scripting then everything is mostly well-enumerated, and support is decent. But if you stray into the C++ undergrowth, or cutting-edge stuff like VR circa the Rift and Vive, then god help you.

Makes me curious which approach Gz took; STGs are pretty simple as logic goes, so I wouldn't think they'd need the more complex stuff for Final 2, unless they were staunchly traditional about migrating Final 1's gameplay code for authenticity.

[ryu]

I just got the no miss on normal. And ended up scoring way less than I did on my past two attempts. Does this game have an actual scoring system that I missed? It's not like I ignored shooting enemies on this run, so I really can't explain the low final score.

[Steven]

I got my first gaming PC when I was 6 (actually a Mac, but whatever). Ever since then I have had exactly zero difficulties getting things to run on a normal PC. I've had difficulty on the Steam Deck, but that's a weird PC, not a normal one. Do people that have problems use AMD? I have never used AMD in a desktop PC, so that might be why.

Does this game have an actual scoring system that I missed?

Score increases with rank. Rank increases by playing on higher difficulties, being powered up, and having max DOSE. Ideally you would get max DOSE as quickly as possible, never use the DOSE attack, and remain powered up forever (no miss). Not sure if milking is worth it since there are no extends in this game and you'd theoretically lose score from not being powered up, but you could probably do it on stage 6.2 if you really wanted to.

Score attack also causes you to get more points, but I use it as a training mode, not a score attack mode, so I don't really pay attention to it.

[ryu]

Score attack also causes you to get more points

Does that also apply to custom campaigns? Because that would explain the discrepancy in my scores (since I did some runs in custom mode to push the stages I had troubles with to the front).

I got my first gaming PC when I was 6 (actually a Mac, but whatever). Ever since then I have had exactly zero difficulties getting things to run on a normal PC.

I bought my first gaming PC when Crisis was the craze. Got the game with it because it was supposed to be capable of running it and all I got was a blank screen after installing and starting the game.

[Steven]

Score attack also causes you to get more points

Does that also apply to custom campaigns? Because that would explain the discrepancy in my scores (since I did some runs in custom mode to push the stages I had troubles with to the front).

I honestly have no idea about custom course scoring; I'm still trying to build ones that I like and doing a very poor job of it. Part of it is because there are so few Bits in this damn game, but at least Evolved stage 4, Delta stage 1, Final 2 stage 4, and some of the other good stages have Bits.

I got my first gaming PC when I was 6 (actually a Mac, but whatever). Ever since then I have had exactly zero difficulties getting things to run on a normal PC.

I bought my first gaming PC when Crisis was the craze. Got the game with it because it was supposed to be capable of running it and all I got was blank screen after installing and starting the game.

I didn't play it until after Crysis 2 was out, but it and Warhead have always worked for me.

[ryu]

I honestly have no idea about custom campaign scoring; I'm still trying to build ones that I like and doing a very poor job of it.

My issue with the custom campaign is that so many stages don't provide any bit power ups. I think if I went and assembled a custom course with my favorite stages I would end up with no bits at the final boss. :/ They should have made it that any stage provides one when it's set to be stage 1, 4 or 7. But I want to try clearing the two main campaigns on R-Typer or better before I play around any more with that feature, so that will be a problem for later.

[Steven]

Lol my edit comes just as you mention the same problem that I'm having!

Yeah, Bits are a problem in this game in general, which is affecting my ability to build good custom courses. Delta has a ton of Bits and Kujo worked on that too, so I'm not sure what is up with this game having so few of them. I've been meaning to go make a list of stages that have them but I keep forgetting.

In addition to the ones I listed above, I am pretty sure there is a Bit on 7.0 right before the boss and that stage is pretty good. On Normal it's too easy to be a final stage, though.

[Lander]

Well, Crysis never was well-optimized

AMD gets a bit of a rap for not being as easy-auto as Nvidia, but I've had both and needed to tweak all the same. That's probably a me problem though

[ryu]

I finally beat E3.0 on R-Typer 3. E2.0 took me only a handful of attempts, but this was hell. Even with a good R100 and Giga Wavecannon abuse this stage took me 3 days of putting a few attempts in every now and then. That's without having fought the boss much.
At least I can get to the boss with the RX12 now. So a legit clear is still in the cards for me.

Still not sure whether I'll go for the no miss on R-Typer 3. Most stages are surprisingly manageable given a bit of practice. But I may not have the time to practice enough to no miss seven stages in succession.

Most likely won't attempt it on the RTF2 campaign. The boss on 2.0 is hell for the RX12 and stage 5.0 went from easy on normal to very hard on R-Typer. The Evolved camaign seems to be easier for me to play consistently well in so far.

[Steven]

I'm pretty sure I'd consider the Evolved course to be harder than the regular Final 2 course. That E6.0 boss is really weird and took me a while before I decided to cheese it with the Giga Wave Cannon, which is unfortunately still my strategy, but other than that it's pretty straightforward.

Haven't played the Evolved course in a while, but I'd like to no miss it with something like the R-9A on at least normal. Yeah, I no missed it with the R-101 without much practice, but it doesn't feel legit when I Giga Wave Cannoned the stage 3, 4, 6, and 7 bosses and the Final 2 course R-9A no miss felt really good after putting it off for so long.

Not sure if I'd want to use the R-9A on R-Typer difficulties, but I'm considering R-9A4. Really too bad the Wave Master is stuck using the regular homing missile instead of the enhanced one, but it might be a bit too good with the better missile.

[ryu]

I'm pretty sure I'd consider the Evolved course to be harder than the regular Final 2 course.

It definitely takes more practice. But you're probably right anyways. I thought I was more consistent with stage E3.0 than with 3.0 just yesterday, but the few attempts I put in today didn't even get me to the halfway point anymore. E4.0 doesn't seem to be any easier.

Not sure if I'd want to use the R-9A on R-Typer difficulties, but I'm considering R-9A4. Really too bad the Wave Master is stuck using the regular homing missile instead of the enhanced one, but it might be a bit too good with the better missile.

The improved homing missiles seem pretty powerful to me. I use them on my R-100 exclusively.

[Steven]

I'm pretty sure I'd consider the Evolved course to be harder than the regular Final 2 course.

It definitely takes more practice. But you're probably right anyways. I thought I was more consistent with stage E3.0 than with 3.0 just yesterday, but the few attempts I put in today didn't even get me to the halfway point anymore. E4.0 doesn't seem to be any easier.

E4.0 is probably one of the harder stages in the course, but I also think it's one of the best. It also has a Bit, which makes it good for custom courses, so it's basically perfect. E6.0 is also a favourite, but the Leo 2 Force's green homing laser breaks the stage completely.

Still not sure what to think of E7.0. On normal it's yet another final stage that is too easy to be a final stage, which is a weakness of the non-DLC courses in this game in general, but the boss is interesting and I can see it being a more difficult stage on higher difficulties. If I had to rank the non-DLC final stages from best to worst, it would probably be like this:

7.0
7.2. Really like the music, but I also really like how the stage just throws a ridiculous amount of zako and Bydo System Alphas at you.
E7.0... I guess.
7.1. This stage sucks. There is very little to do after the first third of the stage and it's really boring. Probably the worst stage in the game.

Not sure if I'd want to use the R-9A on R-Typer difficulties, but I'm considering R-9A4. Really too bad the Wave Master is stuck using the regular homing missile instead of the enhanced one, but it might be a bit too good with the better missile.

The improved homing missiles seem pretty powerful to me. I use them on my R-100 exclusively.

They are really good. I've been using them on occasion, but I mostly use the 6-way missile. Not sure which one is better for general use, but the 6-way is pretty good for when there are a lot of enemies and it lets you shoot behind you without having to reposition the Force or use the Leo/Leo 2 Bits. 4-way missile seems kind of pointless when you can use the 6-way. The game says the homing ability of the 6-way is weaker than the 4-way, but I don't think it's actually enough of a difference to be a hindrance at all.

Need to try the Balmung, as I've seen some replays by some high level players that use it, but I think the 6-way and improved homing missiles are probably going to be more useful against zako in most cases because Balmung doesn't have homing. I guess if your memo and positioning are good Balmung is probably the best missile, but I'll have to mess around with it to see how it is. It might be pretty good against the Bydo System Alpha wall on 7.2.

[ryu]

I agree that 7.1 is the worst and have pretty much given up on the gallery entry where you have to clear the stage 5 times with the Bydo System Gamma. Much like with stage 3.0 in Final I keep losing focus because of all the dead air and have the most redundant crashes there.

7.2 is my favorite. The music is great and the stage and boss are consistent. The 7.0 boss feels somewhat random to me since the debris coming from behind can apparently spawn all over the place.

[Steven]

7.2 is a great stage. 7.2 boss is really funny because even on R-Typer 3 you can kill it very quickly by going inside it once it opens and remain stationary in the top section holding the autofire button until it dies, which doesn't take long because the boss has relatively low HP.

Still better than the 7.1 boss, which is nothing! You go through all of the game up to that point, then all of that empty nothingness on 7.1, and then the game just ends without a boss or even many zako, just a few (and I do mean few) Wave Masters, even fewer Concertmasters, and some Heimdall battleships, which are little more than fancy terrain hazards in a game that doesn't have death from colliding with terrain. Do they count as enemies and kill you if you touch them or do they count as terrain and not kill you?

I agree that 7.1 is the worst and have pretty much given up on the gallery entry where you have to clear the stage 5 times with the Bydo System Gamma.

I think I already know the answer to this, but I'm not completely sure, so I will ask: it won't let you play as the Gamma in score attack on this stage, will it? Pretty sure it doesn't, but I have a strong feeling I may be wrong.

[ryu]

Do they count as enemies and kill you if you touch them or do they count as terrain and not kill you?

No idea actually. I keep forgetting that enemies also spawn sometimes and crash into those.

I think I already know the answer to this, but I'm not completely sure, so I will ask: it won't let you play as the Gamma in score attack on this stage, will it? Pretty sure it doesn't, but I have a strong feeling I may be wrong.

Of course it let's you play as the Gamma on score attack. That's the only way to play the stage with anything besides Bydo System Alpha I believe.

[Steven]

Do they count as enemies and kill you if you touch them or do they count as terrain and not kill you?

No idea actually. I keep forgetting that enemies also spawn sometimes and crash against those.

lol

I've been meaning to test it for a while and I keep forgetting... I don't think I have anything to do tomorrow, so I'll try to remember.

Edit: touching them does indeed kill you! Interestingly, if you press against them with the Force it will stop you from moving, just like as if you were running into a wall, so it's not possible to collide with them and die if the Force is between you and the Heimdall. Is there anything else in the game that behaves this way? I don't think so.

I think I already know the answer to this, but I'm not completely sure, so I will ask: it won't let you play as the Gamma in score attack on this stage, will it? Pretty sure it doesn't, but I have a strong feeling I may be wrong.

Of course it let's you play as the Gamma on score attack. That's the only way to play the stage with anything besides Bydo System Alpha I believe.

I may have been thinking of the wrong ship; the one that it won't let you use might have been the B-99.

[ryu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcpNPSlsUI

I'll let the video clip speak for itself.

[Lander]

Ew, nasty likely down to the game using simplified auto-generated collision geometry for performance, but not tweaking it to avoid lethal invisible protrusions.

A far cry from the gross nook-nestling that was possible in Delta!

[Darkseed_5150]

I'm still blown away by the graphics. Evolved might be the best looking shmup ever imo.

[ryu]

I'm still blown away by the graphics. Evolved might be the best looking shmup ever imo.

I partially feel you. But the illumination effects can be overbearing (I hardly saw what was going on in the X6.0 boss fight). Stage 4.0 is oddly dark on PS5, I'm not sure it was intended to look that way. The DLC stages and E3.0 - E5.0 look great, the other stages for the most part unfortunately not so much. Large parts of the original Final 2 campaign look somewhat like they were modelled and textured by amateurs. So the overall visuals are a mixed bag actually. The water in E1.0 probably looks worse than anything the series has seen before (and the stage looks awful altogether when you compare it to Thunder Force IV's first stage.

A far cry from the gross nook-nestling that was possible in Delta!

Wow. Is that even safer than just playing the boss? Looks really tight.

[Lander]

Wow. Is that even safer than just playing the boss? Looks really tight.

For Phase 1, almost definitely; the creatures it spits have a randomized pattern + light homing, and the shotgun sperm they launch on death ignore your bits and force, so they're a nightmare to manage consistently. They disappear if they hit the tail, but often tend to sneak past for the kill just as it's penned you into the corner.

Phase 2 has a hide in corner > wave cannon face > repeat loop that's much more manageable, so I guess that part is more of a flex