Never got to play Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga is one of my all time fave games, this is all wonderful news…
*reads it is Switch only
…the fuck? I guess I still can’t play it.
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Went a little HAM on PS4 Darius ports: Hamster’s Japan-only Arcade Archives Darius, and M2’s recent Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade. Crude testing and comparison led me to believe that while both have fantastic input response (1 frame - 1111: Input Lag (PS4) - Darius Cozmic Collection vs Arcade Archives Darius: both 1 frame delay - YouTube ), Zuntata’s music in Hamster’s version, on a halfway-decent pair of headphones, is amazing, while in M2’s version, it’s just, you know, fine ( 1112: On PS4, Arcade Archives Darius's music is AWESOME--better than Darius Cozmic Collection's - YouTube ).
After previously pitting M2’s (PS3) vs Hamster’s versions of KOF '96, and crudely measuring two frames more delay in Hamster’s version of that fighting game, I didn’t expect Hamster to be able to hold their own vs M2, much less beat them. Gosh. = o
M2’s version has their usual optional GUI “gadgets,” a cool pixel art map of the bosses and zones, and a Pixel Perfect display mode–which is really nice for this triple-wide game. It doesn’t let you set the background to black, though–other than blurry, zoomed-up game art, the only background option is a weird gray gradient.
I like Archives’ low-key presentation, and the during-play display of scores you’re chasing in Hi Score Mode.
The install size of M2’s version–even with the three other games included in Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade–is 218 MB, less than half the size of Arcade Archives Darius!
I wonder if Hamster is using that space for high quality sounds. Of the arcade version, Wikipedia notes Darius (video game) - Wikipedia that “The game’s upbeat soundtrack was composed by Hisayoshi Ogura, the founder of Taito’s ‘house band’ Zuntata. Ogura wanted the music to convey a sense of a deep, expanded universe, and to make it stand out among other shoot’em up games at the time. Much of the music was composed via a combination of FM synthesis and sampling, while some was made by the Yokosuka Symphony orchestra group.”
Hm I wonder if maybe Hamster used re-engineered samples of the Yokosuka Symphony stuff and some sort of copyright issue there kept them from bringing that version to the States; it IS here on Switch, wonder what the music is like in that version. Probably the same–this speculation is getting a bit far out. ; )
Arcade Archives Darius has way more sound options than most games in the Arcade Archives series: you can set up reverb with various schemes, change “subwoofer” settings of some kind (this is Google translate via my phone : P), and even toggle on, I think, some sort of sound display in attract mode or something, which I didn’t try.
(Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is on sale on the PS Store for $17.99 'til the 21st.)
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Thanks, figured the M2 port was definitive in all ways and am interested to hear the difference vs. like, the original arcade board. I’ve kept away from Darius 1/2 finding them unplayably hard but beautiful. (I think they call that channel switching “stereo panning” or something)
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Gotta figure out how to turn Ikaruga mode on, but otherwise, it’s the 360 port, which is just what it needed to be.
Current rumours are that the version released wasn’t the final one because it’s buggy and ikaruga mode isn’t even there (you had to have an achievement in ikaruga to unlock it in the 360 version).
It also just got taken off the eshop store.
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Only in the US, maybe?
The only problem I noticed is the music not looping correctly (and Ikaruga mode) but I also didn’t get super far.
Get all of Kenta Cho’s freeware stuff, especially Gunroar and Torus Trooper.
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You unlock ikaruga mode by clearing the game on arcade (credit feeding fine) but the bugs were def why it was taken down (also gone from the jp store)
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It was a rating issue?
I heard other stories so who could say?
I wish my XBLA copy would become playable on PC personally.
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Good news about Xenia.
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randomly happened upon this via 6 second steam trailers
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played a little Dariusburst CS … gotta say i don’t really understand it at all, the healthbars and the shooting are so alien, but the graphics and music are beautiful
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So far I’ve been sticking to Arcade Archives Darius. No health bars, quite straightforward shooting, sublime chiptune music, and the minutely detailed bitmap graphics in their 4:1 aspect ratio are really something to see. : )
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Arcade Archives Darius, the JP-only release on PS4, just got update 1.02, adding English language support.
(The update note only says “new functions.” Possibly there are new options in the menus that I didn’t notice, because I wasn’t very good at reading them before when they were only in Japanese. For instance, I didn’t realize they had a whole menu mode for giving each of the three simulated screens slight scale/brightness/position misalignments to simulate how they never quite lined up perfectly in the real cabinets in the wild.) (The more recent version of Darius in M2’s “Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade” has a toggle to simulate a slight visible difference on the center screen.)
It appears as though this will be the only new Arcade Archives activity for PS4 this week–it’s Thursday, their usual new release day, and no new game release has appeared for the platform.
Arcade Archives Darius releases on Switch today in English and Japanese. Since they had to do an English translation for Switch, it looks like they’ve added it to the JP PS4 version as well.
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Gun Frontier Arcade Gears / Print ad / Xing / 1997
x
Gun Frontier [a] is a 1990 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game developed and originally published by Taito in Japan. Set on the fictional planet of Gloria in the 22nd century, where an alien race of space pirates known as the Wild Lizards have invaded the location and enslaved its inhabitants for gold extraction, players assume the role of settlers who were part of the planet’s colonization team taking control of revolver-shaped fighter aircraft in an attempt to overthrow the invaders and free their surviving civilization from slavery.
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It’s the most obvious “oh hey this was a battle Garegga influence” game I’ve played.
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that art is my jam
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just released early access on steam, saw on twitter, looks like a chinese made STG with interesting aesthetic
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Arcade Archives Sea Fighter Poseidon (PS4)
Original by Taito, 1984
Fire mini-torpedoes at other divers! Rescue the green divers! Bail off your “scooter” mini-sub before it explodes and kills you! Shoot opposing divers with your spear gun! Steal THEIR mini-subs when yours runs out of gas! Smash your sub into their sub accidentally! Cry! Shoot the diver, THEN their sub for double the points! Watch out for sharks from behind! Mines from below! And undersea volcanoes! Bail from crazy big sub boss fights! Penetrate to deeper, darker waters and mysterious subaquatic colors! Wotta game!
Points are tough to come by; shooting rocks and mines gives you nothing. You CAN shoot your sub (with another sub; your spear gun just bounces off it) after bailing off it; think I forgot to see if that gives you points.
Unusually for Arcade Archives, there are NO sound options for this one–but the sound is noticeably beefy, much more so than the dithered but still fun version in the “Japanese Taito Memories II: Last Volume” (“Gekan”) collection on PS2.
Don’t really like the deep blue color I got to at the end, wonder if there are more palettes after that one!
There’s a curious tidal effect where when you move forward, everything–like falling rocks–kind of speeds up its drift speed; pull back and it slows again.
Rocks and mines can hit enemy divers; loose subs can collide; mines can hit each other!
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