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Post by toei on Jul 23, 2022 20:46:06 GMT -5
Xeogred That end credit music is pretty great. Reminds me of parts of the Sword of Vermillion soundtrack. Just that weirdly dark, lo-fi late '80s/early '90s style that seemed mostly present on the PCE and Genesis before Sonic. IMO none of the levels of Legendary Axe 2 were as fun as the first game's, but it is a pretty good game and I'm glad you enjoyed it. BTW, one of the only games released for the Supergrafx (the PCE's extremely failed true 16 bit update) is an action side-scroller by the same team with a very similar gameplay feel called Madou King Granzort. It features robots instead, and it's a lot harder because you die in one hit.
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Post by Ex on Jul 23, 2022 21:23:01 GMT -5
You guys have sold me on the Legendary Axe games, will be playing sometime this year. Xeogred I also enjoy Gradius, I've beaten a few of them. Even the one on the original Game Boy was good.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 23, 2022 21:28:36 GMT -5
BTW, one of the only games released for the Supergrafx (the PCE's extremely failed true 16 bit update) is an action side-scroller by the same team with a very similar gameplay feel called Madou King Granzort. It features robots instead, and it's a lot harder because you die in one hit. Even the weapons seem the same, heh. Looks neat, but one hit death with this kind of thing sounds like it'd be annoying.
You guys have sold me on the Legendary Axe games, will be playing sometime this year. Xeogred I also enjoy Gradius, I've beaten a few of them. Even the one on the original Game Boy was good. That reminds me I still need to play Gradius Galaxies on the GBA sometime.
Gradius V is amazing and one of the toughest shmups I've cleared legit.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 23, 2022 22:51:21 GMT -5
One more for the night, Super Star Soldier (~57m). I've played Soldier Blade, so I've been needing to check out the first two Soldier games and then Blazing Lasers.
It's pretty insane what Compile could do with the hardware here. If someone played this blind they might even be tricked into believing they're playing something on an arcade with a bit more tech underneath. These games can get surprisingly bullet hell for their time too. The difficulty skyrockets a bit out of control perhaps, boss rushes in shmups are nuts and if you have the wrong weapon against the final boss, you're screwed. Then it's THIRD form is kind of impossible with the normal P shooter.
This guy had the toughest tracking missiles to dodge!
But yeah, stellar game and crazy what they pulled off with these.
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Post by Ex on Jul 24, 2022 1:04:06 GMT -5
Title: Psychic StormPlatform: PC Engine CD Region release played: Japan Year of release: 1992 Developer: AlfaSystem Co., Ltd. Publisher: Shin-Nihon Laser Soft Co., Ltd. Graphics: 4/5 Audio: 3/5 Challenge: 3/5 Fun factor: 3/5 Quick thoughts: Psychic Storm is a Japan-only PC Engine CD exclusive vertically scrolling shmup. It supports two player simultaneous with the players having four pilots (different ships and weapons) to choose from. Psychic Storm's unique feature is its transformation mode, each player ship can change into a more powerful biomechanical insectoid (though this is limited and acts as the players' lives). Player ships also have a life bar, easing the challenge of SHOOTED DOWN the game's many large bosses. Psychic Storm isn't singularly amazing, but it is definitely worth storming through for vintage shoot 'em up enthusiasts.
+Nice graphics. +Multiple pilots (ships and attacks) to choose from. +When a player "life" is used up your ship temporarily alters into super form. +Fun impressive boss fights. +Amusing Engrish.
-Difficulty is balanced around two players not one. -OST is a tad weak. -Stage designs aren't particularly interesting. -Some regular enemies take far too many hits to die. -God help you if you choose the pilot "Charr".
Ex's time to beat: 45 minutes Ex's rating: 7/10
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 24, 2022 10:24:42 GMT -5
My kind of graphics there. I'll have to check that and Macross out soon.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 24, 2022 11:30:46 GMT -5
Beat Final Soldier. The shortest and maybe weakest of the Hudson Soft Soldier trilogy, but I did appreciate the steady difficulty incline in this one and that there was no boss rush. But the final boss was a literal full level worth with several phases.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 24, 2022 20:56:18 GMT -5
Blazing Lazers is a big deal and I can see why. It predates the Compile Soldier trilogy and with some shared Compile staff on this one, I'll wager some people behind this game helmed those shmups. There's a lot of similarities, but I was glad that Blazing Lazers has a vibe and flow of its own. Tons of weapon power ups and combinations depending on what Option you grab while powering up the four main weapons. You get loads of Bombs to drop, though they aren't a full screen freebie. There isn't a boss rush back to back at the end but you do have to fight all of the bosses a second time, just paired up at different points in the last level (think Mega Man 1's Wily Castle). The difficulty ramps up quite a bit. I want to say it seems a little easier than the Soldier games but is still pretty dang tough if you die, power down, and don't have lives to spare at some points.
The music was super weird at times, some tracks were short loops but they'd have a horror like vibe that I was pretty into. So I wouldn't say any of it was bad but definitely grittier and not as refined as the Soldier OST's.
This track almost makes me think of Secret of Mana, or some kind of JRPG ship flying track. So whimsical:
Then... straight SPEED METAL.
Just about no slowdown at all throughout and the levels are extremely varied. Stage 8's bubble field was one of the most creative shmup levels I've played in awhile. Gotta love when that happens with something all the way back to 1989 and still feels fresh.
The final bosses second phase was... surprising. I better see if there's a blurb about the plot in the manual, I'm intrigued lol. Won't spoil it.
Think this was Ex's top favorite shmup or something? I could see why. Crazy impressive game for 1989.
Pretty beefy game too, took me about 1h8m. That's long for a shmup going for a 1CC or save stating your way through, but never did Blazing Lazers bore me or get repetitive. Excellent game.
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Post by Ex on Jul 24, 2022 21:54:40 GMT -5
Think this was Ex's top favorite shmup or something? It's my favorite console shmup. My favorite arcade shmup is 19XX. I'm glad you played through Blazing Lazers and enjoyed it.
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Post by Chema on Jul 26, 2022 2:39:36 GMT -5
YS IV is fun but kicking my ass. I'm on the third dungeon and there's no healing area, which is making me afraid of engaging enemies in close spaces.
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