Best way to play Gekirindan?

[Costra]

Whats the best way to play gekirindan besides the pcb?
Mame? Saturn maybe?

[BulletMagnet]

I seem to recall reading that the Saturn port is somewhat subpar, though I haven't experienced it firsthand.

It was also on one of the "Taito Memories/Legends" collections on the PS2, though if memory serves it's one of the earlier volumes without tate mode (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).

[SavagePencil]

I seem to recall reading that the Saturn port is somewhat subpar, though I haven't experienced it firsthand.

It was also on one of the "Taito Memories/Legends" collections on the PS2, though if memory serves it's one of the earlier volumes without tate mode (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).

You’re right on both counts. The Saturn version has some severe warts. And Taito Memories for Xbox/PS2 (at least the WESTERN versions published by Empire Interactive…) do not have tate mode. Maybe the JP one does, however?

Maybe the best version is the Egret II Mini?

[Ms. Tea]

According to this old post, only the Memories II collections have tate, and Gekirindan was in the first set: viewtopic.php?p=1031392#p1031392

[hamfighterx]

Yeah, I'd rank the non-PCB ways to play Gekrindan as follows:

1. MAME (of course)
2. Egret II Mini actually is quite good, as long as you're not one of the people who thinks an extra 2 frames of lag suddenly makes a game unplayable.
3. Taito Memories/Legends - not a bad port on a technical level, but the graphics filters and inability to play in TATE mode hurt this one.
4. Saturn - pretty bad port, has wobble scrolling instead of seeing the full screen, and just a mediocre port all around. Poor sound, stuttering, short loading pauses before the bosses, etc. It's a shame, since the Saturn ports of so many other F3 games were great: Darius Gaiden, Layer Section/Rayforce, Elevator Action Returns, Bubble Symphony... This one wasn't VING or Taito's in house team though, it was done by Japan Media Programming and was... not great.

It feels inevitable that Hamster will eventually get to doing Taito F3 games for Arcade Archives though, and at that point that version of Gekrindan will become the reference standard console port.

[Sengoku Strider]

Funnily enough, Battle of the Ports just did an episode on Gekirindan 3 days ago:

https://youtu.be/WaHDJ49U9MA

He mostly echoes what hamfighterx wrote.

[EmperorIng]

MAME, without a shadow of a doubt. I think it's been essentially perfect since even shmupmame, ancient as it is.

[SavagePencil]

Are the JP and Western versions of Taito Memories coded by different teams, or did Empire Interactive just slap a different veneer on it? Would love an in-depth view of differences.

[Ms. Tea]

Taito Legends was a mix of new emulators and ports taken from Taito Memories. That's one of the reasons the game list was different between PC/Xbox and PS2 for Legends 2 - the PC/Xbox versions had emulated versions of some games the PS2 wasn't up to running, while the PS2 had ports from Memories 2 they weren't in a position to put on Xbox. Nicola Salmoria worked on it, and I'd heard some rumours that the emulation stuff that's new to Legends is based on some MAME code.

[mycophobia]

is this the game that has the tatsujin ou napalm weapon. thanks in advance

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The A type ship has a few Tatsujin referencing weapons, yeah. The lightning weapon, the napalm, and the bombs are all meant to reference Tatsujin.

[Restart_Point]

The Saturn version is pants, never touch that one. For a while it was the only one I had played and I thought the game was just bad, but I played it on MAME recently and its 1000% better, to the point of realising it's a pretty good game!

[mycophobia]

this game is cool af

[copy-paster]

Lee Ohta, the man in charge of both Tatsujin games is credited as main director for Gekirindan. That explains the references of Tatsujin and other Toaplan titles (st2 as nod to Flying/Fire Shark. st3 as nod to KTiger somewhat) even the "dead air" moments like st1 and 2 boss entrance/departure were probably references to Tatsujin Oh's slow moments too.

[mycophobia]

lee ohta was not in charge of tatsujin. him directing tatsujin ou was a theory i had for a while but i'm not so sure about it these days, unless new info has come to light

[Steven]

I know who made Tatsujin Ou. Partially, anyway. I'll get murdered if I say who it is, so you'll have to wait for the documentary, most likely the segment on Tatsujin Ou, for that one. Consider it incentive to check it out!

It seems that the new Tatsujin game might be a new Tatsujin game. I'm not sure. Uemura-san and Iwabuchi-san were sort of teasing something on Youtube a few days ago, but I don't know what it is.