gosokkyu

エンド

  • 戦う人間発電所

owatte shimatta


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

City Connection's latest emulated Saturn reissue has been announced: Assault Suits Leynos 2, Masaya's Japan-only sequel to their influential side-scrolling mecha action games Assault Suits Leynos (Target Earth) and Assault Suits Valken (Cybernator) One of the comments I saw in reaction to this announcement is that "it's the best hardcore 2D mecha action game ever made, right until the fighting starts" and while I think that's overstating just how unfun it actually is, it definitely tries to split the difference between the previous two games and instead embodies the worst elements of both, and it strikes me as practically unfinished.

(It was also a product of a completely different team than the prior games; the people behind those games split to form their own studio, and their first game was Front Mission: Gun Hazard aka Valken-but-Square-owns-it.)

It'll be out on PC/PS/XB/Switch next year, and aside from the basic emulator functionality—save states, rewind, etc—it'll include some simple tweaks like an extra durability toggle and hint displays for the missions, but they're not going all-out like they did with Batsugun.

That said, they are going to the effort of translating it for the first time, which they decided not to mention in their announce but instead left to a random dev to tease on twxtter; City Connection has a very flaky history with teasing but not delivering localisations of their vintage reissues, so it's nice to have this hard-confirmed right away:



gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

City Connection's locked down a release date for Assault Suit Leynos 2 Saturn Tribute: it'll be out on April 25 in Japan, and it's getting a couple of different physical packages for PS5 and Switch—a standard physical version that comes with a sticker (¥3850), and a special-edition box that comes with an official fan book, an OST with the music from both Leynos games and another reversible jacket with illustrations from 4 as-yet-unidentified guest designers (¥7150). There's also a bunch of retailer tchotchkes that I don't care to list, including the customary Famitsu DX mega-set with a big tacky crystal whatever. (The standard digital release is priced at ¥2980.)

Leynos 2's a very sloppy game and I don't know that it's going to be able to withstand the added performance hit inherent to City Connection's emulator, but I'm still glad the series has some sort of momentum... the Leynos remake's nearly a decade old, after all.


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

(clockwise from top left)

Watari U (Hades Project Zeorymer Ω, Final Exerion, etc; prolific fan artist)

Koh Inaba (Gundam: Witch from Mercury, Xenoblade X & 2, lotsa late-'00s From games including Armoured Core 4/Answer, etc)

Naohiro Washio (loads of Gundam including Iron-Blooded Orphans, Infinite Space, etc)

Hiroyuki Kani (former From designer with long ties to Armoured Core, from Project Phantasma to 4 Answer)


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

heads up: City Connection's announced that the Japanese PS/Switch versions of Leynos 2 Saturn Tribute will not support English—as with other recent releases, it seems that the EN versions are being held hostage by whichever boutique publisher they're currently working with, and will be available globally on those platforms whenever those publishers feel they ought to come out. (The Xbox/PC versions will launch with English support.)


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

the Japanese store listings are all up (Switch + PS + XB + PC) and with them, they've finally revealed the specific enhancements they've made for this reissue:

  • the ability to continue unlocking mechs/weapons during the second loop
  • an in-game recreation of the weapon/equipment data card includes with first-print copies of the Saturn version
  • optional support functions to halve booster energy consumption, increase shield durability and/or increase mech HP, plus simple in-game strategy/tips for each mission
  • button config includes rapid-fire options for single-shot weapons


Edia's teasing their next "Telenet Revive" project with images from Tenshi no Uta, Telenet's launch-title PCESCD RPG—this was a fairly straight-ahead turn-based RPG with a vaguely Celtic theme and a lot of romantic imagery, and one of the few later-era Telenet projects that didn't feel like it was thrown together in a few weeks. Telenet ended up putting out three of these (two for PCECD, one for SFC) and the first two are particularly well-liked; many of the key leads on those two games left and formed the core of Media Vision, makers of the Wild Arms series, and I can only presume that the lesser fan enthusiasm for the SFC game is a direct result of Telenet dumping the series onto whatever b-team was still standing.

Edia polled the backers of the Telenet Shooting Collection on which series or genre they'd like to see reissued, and while their poll barely broke triple-digit votes, Tenshi no Uta ended up taking it in the end. An Earnest Evans trilogy was a very close second, and my presumption was that they'd get to that first as it'd be an easier sell overseas, but I'm glad they didn't, mostly because El Viento and Earnest Evans deserve better than Edia's going to give 'em.

(I imagine they'll endeavour to translate these games, but I can't imagine it'll be a timely process: it took over a year to translate the two Cosmic Fantasy games, and I have to wonder if the global release even broke four-digit sales... of course, loudmouth youtubers throwing around spurious accusations of AI translation can't have helped.)



When Hydlide 3 dropped, I described it as "Hydlide II, but they actually tried this time", and I wasn't just being glib: series creator Tokihiro Naito was quite frank about Hydlide II being a game they were pressured to make and one they ultimately didn't like very much, and they vowed that there'd never be a Hydlide III (which they walked back by titling the sequel "Hydlide 3", naturally). That's not to say they didn't add anything meaningful over the original game—they added an equipment/shop system akin to a traditional RPG; there's a magic system in addition to bump combat; there's a good/evil alignment system; the map's way bigger and has towns with NPCs and so on—and it's sufficiently prettier and more technically adept than the prior game, but all of those improvements were completely undercut by a severe lack of balance and an abundance of inscrutable "puzzles" that nobody without a guide could realistically be expected to solve.

There were a few different micom conversions alongside the PC88 original (most notably the X1 version, which has in-game BGM, but they're basically all quite similar) but there was no Windows version, no console port nor any remixed version way down the line... it's a game that could be made a lot better via some very simple changes, but I suppose nobody cared enough either way to even try.

Someone asked me why EGG skipped over II and I speculated that the extremely Indiana Jones-ish intro tune might've posed a problem, but really, I think people just don't like it all that much. OG Hydlide's simplicity and compactness offsets the occasional bullshit, and Hydlide III comes so close to being good that it's easy to cut it some slack, at least for a little while, but Hydlide II is nothin' but work.



gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

Mikado's announced another Shooters Fes event for 2024—ICYMI, these are STG-centric live gathering that bring together active commercial STG devs to reveal or talk about their new/upcoming projects, sell merch, etc. I wanna say last year's event got turned into a series of panels at TGMS or some other con, so this is their first dedicated event in a minute.

The schedule on the website lists a lot of familiar participants: Taito, Granzella, City Connection, M2, Success, etc. I guess the biggest surprise is that some of the Bitwave folk from Sweden are going to be there, talking about their Toaplan Steam ports.

There are still a few as-yet-unrevealed slots on the schedule, but City Connection's kicking off with the announcement of a new game, and Happymeal (makers of Final Exerion) are hosting a "Final Series" panel, so I expect they'll reveal their next Jaleco IP revival game. I also expect Granzella to informally announce something, because Kujo informally announces things any time he appears in public.

It'll be streamed on Mikado's channel, and I fully expect the Mikado manager's dad-rock VGM band to play a tune or two.



gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

schedule:

12:00: City Connection (new title...!)
13:00: bad arcade company (one of their games already leaked, Air Gallet)
14:00: Bushiroad (Macross Shooting Insight)
15:00: Neotro (NeverAwake, and they're teasing something... might be connected to a loop lever/spinner controller)
16:00: Pyramid (Alice Gear Aegis... probably just demoing their customary April Fools caravan minigame)
17:00: Granzella (R-Type Final 2/3/Tactics 1+2, plus whatever else Kujo feels like mentioning)
18:00: Taito (Ray'z Arcade Chronology Strahl aka the DVD concert release, and maybe something else...?)
19:00: M2 (DOJ Rinne Tensei, and maybe more...?)
20:00: Hamster (probably just demoing already-released/announced stuff, but who knows)
21:00: Bitwave (Toaplan PC ports, and probably a date/drop for the final batch)
22:00~23:00: ending (might just be chat, might also be dad rock)


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

@Streetmagik 1 hr ago

Maybe M2 will talk more about Ubusuna or their original Aleste game? 🤞🤞

The little hints I've been given suggest it might be another Taito collab... and as I'm typing this, I just remembered that they already announced a Night Striker reissue way back when, so I guess they'll formally reveal that project

that or more Toaplan stuff, they're long overdue on some of those (but like, what aren't they overdue on)


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

City Connection's big announcement: their TAKExOFF studio (Akai Katana, Deathsmiles I+II) is collaborating with G.rev to port Under Defeat—specifically, they're porting and expanding Under Defeat HD for modern platforms (PS5/Switch/Xbox/PC)

new features include

  • Shinji Hosoe's returning to provide a new soundtrack
  • visible display for ranks and other data
  • subtitled radio channel (taken from the old guidebook)

due out this winter!


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

...and they're porting a second G.rev game: Mamoru-kun wa Norowarete Shimatta! / Mamorukun Curse!, their late-'00s overhead run-and-gun that's most famous for being the source for YOKAI DISCO

new features:

  • all DLC content included as standard
  • Yousuke Yasui's returning, but they're playing coy about precisely how he'll be contributing
  • story mode is being revamped for full 16:9

due out next year


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

Neotro's twin-stick STG NeverAwake is getting "Flashback" DLC this summer—it'll add a roguelite mode with a more arcade-ish structure than the very segmented main game, and it'll contain new stages, bosses, accessories, etc plus the Gabe-chan boss now hangs around the player and functions as an option.


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

Granzella's segment has mostly been non-specific rambling by Kazuma Kujo about R-Type Cosmos 1+2, R-Type Final 2/3 and whatever other side-roads they decided to go down, but they did also bring along a new trailer for Formation Z (and I gotta say, it's the first time the game looked to me like it might be turning out okay), which they followed up with the reveal that they're adding an R-Type ship as one of the player-characters—and naturally, it'll have a mech form.


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

DOJ Rinne Tensei's getting a fairly substantial patch with a lot of bug fixes—I don't have time to list them all but the big changes/fixes are:

  • adding the ability to quick-save/load from replays
  • updating the gadgets to indicate when your bombs are inaccessible due to the bomb sealing bug (in white label, if you die right after bombing & activating hyper, your bomb button won't work)
  • adding a setting to properly emulate the level of slowdown experience in BL when a boss explodes (long story, but there were basically two different unmarked revisions of BL and the earlier unfinished one has different slowdown in this particular instance—M2 had no idea but certain people insisted they'd gotten the slowdown wrong and sure enough, they were emulating the later build, but now you can choose to recreate the poorer performance of the early build)
  • the Arcade Challenge settings menu has been revised with a "player resource" section that'll let you set your bomb capacity, bomb stocks and powerups on death, among other options

(patch is coming "soon")


gosokkyu
@gosokkyu

this patch is rolling out now: here are the full patch notes, which I don't have time to go over atm