I ended up just buying this to satisfy my curiosity and turns out that weird Japanese arcade game I saw at the bowling alley back when I was a kid is indeed this game. I distinctly remember the attract mode alternating between cutscenes of pilot dudes giving a thumbs up and jetting off into space, and a some shots of a blue haired anime popstar, both while some very chirpy energetic music plays. I think they must have had the Japanese cabinet because I sort of remember not being able to read the title.
The game itself seems like a pretty decent shmup, if not particularly remarkable. It mostly feels like an Aleste game. Pretty disappointed that the movie’s titular song doesn’t play during the final stage. It does play during the end credits (if you finish the game twice in a row) but it feels like a big wasted opportunity. Besides some other chiptune Minmei songs that play during the high score entry screens and other places, the only Macross music is a few quick soundbites here and there (another big missed opportunity is no voice sample going ‘Protoculture!!’ when you kill the final boss). The actual in-level music is basically 90s Shmup music, but it’s pretty good on it’s own merits.
Over the years I have accumulated a bunch of Coles Myer gift cards from my mother that I had no idea what to use for, and also my dad gave me some money for Xmas so I decided to use it all up and finally get a PS5. I’m pretty sure I ordered the Slim, but unless they gave me the wrong version it’s the bulkiest looking slim console I have ever seen.
The first thing I decided to do so I could experience the power of the PlayStation 5 was… to pop in Sword and Fairy 6, AKA the most poorly optimised PS4 game ever made. Good news is, it now has a buttery smooth framerate which is a major improvement over the single digit FPS it had previously. Not so sure about the draw distance and other weird graphical glitches as I assume those are baked in, although the draw distance didn’t seem as bad as I remember.
I seem to get a lot of weird purple colours showing up when I try to use HDR. It tends to go away if I switch the setting off and then on again, but it happens fairly frequently. I’ve seen it happen on the PS4 as well, but only maybe a couple of times. Not sure if it’s related to the console or the TV, but I figure I might leave it off since apparently my TV only supports 1080p HDR anyway.