New Sega Dreamcast game: FAST STRIKER !

[GohanX]

That depends. Is the guy who did the soundtrack for Last Hope working on this game? Last Hope's music was badass.

[The Coop]

Gee, could they make the backgrounds just a little more repetitive?

Last Hope was fun, though the repeated re-releasing of that game with tweaks was frustrating (made it seem like people were paying to be game testers by the time "Pink Bullets" showed up). Dux is a game I still haven't tried, and for now, I'll withhold judgment on this game until I see more of it. It's got the bullet visibility thing fixed, but those backgrounds are screaming of lazy design IMO. They look fine visually in terms of color and creating a sense of depth, but it basically looks like a looping animated gif for much of that video... and a rather short one at that.

[kokujin]

I wonder how big this game is for the MVS.

[retrospiel]

I think I read it's 1024 Mbit...

[kgenthe]

The Neo Geo cart is INSANELY priced. But I wonder if the BGs run at 60fps. It's pre-rendered video and I doubt the NG has the bandwidth to update the screen with an entirely new image 60 times a second while still having smooth gameplay. Take this with a grain of salt, because I am by no means a technical expert on the Neo Geo. All I know is that it is basically a Genesis with a few more colors.

It's not pre-rendered video. The background is made of sprites. And it does run at 60 fps.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29984

[retrospiel]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic...550519#p550519

MAN!AC: Amongst other things, you can see a three-dimensional looking city as a background graphic. How does that work?

Timm Hellwig: That’s a rendered 3-d animation. There are 120 frames, that repeat themselve after one circle. As far as memory concerns, this takes up 64 to 128 magebit per background.

[konio38]

Made me remeber dodonpachi i mean its almost the same game, and that probably is what makes it great. XD

[retrospiel]

A review by one of the beta testers: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic...591239#p591239

Alright, here's my review:

1. Sound) The soundtrack's quality ranges between awesome and okay. There are some strong moments though and I would definitely prefer it to the Last Hope OST. Some of the bosses are underlined by pretty pushing tracks but also rather silent ambiences are used in the one or another drifty situation. It's no adrenaline-pumping Cave-OST, but I like it. The SFX are okay, nothing too special, but I think that's no major drawback.


2. Graphics) Visually striking are the impressive 3D render backgrounds, but as some of you had already feared, they turn out to be very monotone after a short time. Opposite to the render backgrounds are the stages and bosses which luckily turned out really imaginative. Stationary machines along with some huge robots, that also divide into several stages during their process of destruction, provide the needed diversity that lacks in the backgrounds. There really is a wide range of different enemies and most of them appear in only one stage - recycling is almost never apparent, apart from popcorn enemies of course.
Something that has been discussed here (I think?) were the many bullet colors and if the game could reproduce the clearness that the Japanese archetype provides. There was a version that had ONLY pink bullets and I assure you that this would have been boring as hell - and it didn't increase visibility a bit. The multicolored bullets are good as they are and I have no more problems to find my way than in any Cave game. If you can play Dodonpachi, you can also play Fast Striker.
The bullets have been redone and look different from those in the trailer. More 2D'ish, just as they should.


3. Game Design) The quality of the game design shows best in Maniac Mode as Novice and Original are aimed at survival (oldschool) gamers rather than at someone who likes to improve highscores. Maniac focusses on the latter: Score & secrets, combined with an as lossless playthrough as possible. There are several secrets hidden in every stage, some of which are easy to find (like shooting two big enemies that both take several seconds to kill), others are not.
The player's rank is displayed in the HUD in all three modes, though only in Maniac Mode it is recommended to push your rank up Devil Rank in which the combo value is twice as high and extra enemies are added to the game (that can be used for intense scoring, of course). Like in other shooters, the rank can be lowered by dying, shield loss or shield use.
As mentioned above, the actual game is way more diversive than the backgrounds. Most stages feature fixed elements that sometimes can be destroyed and also give score (and suicide bullets), this adds a tactical element which can be quite fun to exploit. The enemy placement is sometimes very intelligent and tactical, sometimes not. But from an overall perspective, pretty much any situation regardless of the more or less random enemy placement can be mastered to get the perfect combo. Of course there's still room for improvements, but considering this is the first shot for a score shooting game from NG DEV the game design is really great.

The bullet patterns look very modern and are cleverly arranged for the most part. Some of them reminded me of Cave, but then again they don't: Experienced shmup players will recognize most of the basic patterns as they have been inspired by Japanese shooters, but I believe that the majority has never been used in the same form as in Fast Striker. There is, for instance, a boss that circles you whilst shooting swarms of different bullet patterns. Or a it just vanishes and the player has to dodge a triplet of circling bulletlaunchers that all aim at the centre..
All in all I'm impressed how well the Japanese influence has been adapted and I'm optimistic that the shooting scene will agree. The shot patterns do not just recall a Japanese game by the looks, also the dynamics seem just like (the neo geo version of) an original danmaku shmup in many places.


4. Score-System) Although it seems obvious after a couple of hours playtime that the stage design has not exactly been designed FOR the score system, the motivation that comes along with the scoring enhances the playability a lot and still keeps me playing after quite some weeks. After finishing the game with one credit, I still keep playing for score - the essential for arcade games and modern 2d shooters.
Firstly, there is Novice Mode - a beginner's version of the game that features auto shield and ends after 2/3 of the game. Original Mode features a collecting-based system (collect nuggets but don't miss any, otherwise the combo will go down 25 per missed nugget) with medium difficulty.
The majority of experienced players will choose Maniac Mode over all the others, just for it being the most challenging mode in the game. Maniac exclusively features the Grind Mode-ability of the ship: If you keep shooting an enemy or a fixed object (i.e. a wall) for a certain amount of time, you charge the grind laser&shot. When it is charged, the ship turns green and a Ketsui-like score system is activated: The proximity bonus. By killing enemies in close-range combat whilst being in grind mode, you obtain bonus crystals that add up to 6 hits per killed enemy to your counter (-> http://faststriker.com/mode.html)

The proximity bonus system eliminates a "dodonpachi clone!" impression that one might got after playing the game only very briefly. The more experienced you get, the less important holding up the combo becomes (it's pretty easy in most situations): Instead, taking down all the enemies in close range combat to get as many +6 crystals as possible is the real challenge in maniac mode. And of course you must not die or use shields because it would lower the rank.

CONCLUSION

Fast Striker is connecting the Neo Geo shmup from 1996 with the modern Cave shooter. Technically well done and with lots of content for each kind of player (oldschool & score) the game evolved into a really addictive experience for me. As the scoreplayer who I am, I think the experiment to combine dodonpachi & Ketsui in a modern Neo Geo outfit has been a full success.
Sure, there is room for improvement (enemy placement, backgrounds), but what it wanted to be, it is: a great connection between modern and oldschool gameplay with an impressive technical side. And, most important: it's really fun to play!

[Jasper061992]

What is impressive of this game is how they managed to get the Neo Geo to run a pre-rendered 3D background during gameplay. They said in their homepage the cart is a 1560Mbit cart, not 1024. Divide that by 8 and that equals 195Megabytes! Not surprising they added the pre-rendered graphics given the cart size, because the humbly powered Neo Geo (for today's standards) would never be able to pull it off otherwise. I feel a good portion of that space is occupied with those pre-rendered imagery as well as 25odd mins of soundtrack. Ohwell, seen as it's just another shooter to add to the DC/NG library, of course they'd add all the !bling! to the graphics to spice up the old formula.

All said and done, the MVS version is stupid expensive, further compounded by likely limited print run. The Dreamcast version is great as a more economical choice.

[GameUser-16-32-128]

Stupendous! I can't wait! I still need to get Rush Rush Rally Racing!

[Guntz]

When is the rom going to be released?





EDIT: I didn't see that there's an MVS version available. This joke isn't nearly as funny now.

[InfraMan]

When is the rom going to be released?

EDIT: I didn't see that there's an MVS version available. This joke isn't nearly as funny now.

I still lol'd, if it's any consolation.

[GohanX]

When is the rom going to be released?

It'll probably end up on a new 160-in-1 bootleg cartridge in a few months, complete with 155 KOF hacks!

[The Jackal]

The title sounds like a soccer game and yet...it's another shumup.



Seriously, can't they do something other than a shumup?

[The Jackal]

You know I had "if you're not interested in another shmup STFU, we don't care" written in my post but then cut it out. Figured setting a positive example instead of bitching and whining myself would be a better route to take. Should have known better!

So what are the previous DC shmups? Dux that was released a year and a half ago and Last Hope which was released four years ago? Both which were horizontal shmups unlike this game? For fucks sake it's not like the market is getting totally flooded or anything.

Who's bitching or moaning? All I said is why did it have to be another shumup game?.

Let's have a look at how many shumups there are on DC:

- Ikaruga
- Mars Matrix
- Border Down
- Castle of Shikigami II
- Psyvariar II
- Bangai O
- Trizeal
- Chaos Field
- Gunbird 2
- Zero Gunner 2
- GigaWing
- GigaWing 2
- Twinkle Star Sprites
- Radilgy
- Under Defeat
- Drill
- Last Hope
- Dux
- Sturmwind

With a majority of these being released after the Dreamcast's demise, I think as a fellow Dreamcast collector, I have the right to "bitch" when it comes down to a new game being a shumup.

I have nothing agaisnt the genre, I just find it very unimaginative for them to release mostly only shumups. If you like them, fine, but I just wanted a change is all...