Talking of Progear, Cave's spiritual successor to that gem - Akai Katana Shin - just dropped on Steam for £25. It should drop on Playstation, Xbox, and Switch tomorrow. 

Looks like this port is based on the 360 version so expect the same 4 to 5 frames of input lag, not quite as smooth as Mame then, but I'll probably grab it again on both PC and PS for the benefits of a retail release, plus that Slash/Shin mode. 

Good game. Spent a fair amount of time on it on 360.

I like Bullet Heaven because they gave Rive top marks across the board iirc.

Lol. Bullet Heaven were great, and they've left a very big in-depth-shmup-review shaped hole with their passing. As good as Electric Underground is, Mark's an acquired taste. As is Shmup Junkie. Everyone else I've seen just seems like fluff.

PS2 to USB adaptor arrived today so I can use my PS1/2 sticks with Steam and MAME now. My Hori Ex-2 360 sticks are OK but just aren't as good. The buttons are starting to play up and upgrading them isn't that easy because the connections are soldered.

Thought I could have used the PS paddle controller with my Atari game compilation paddle games but sadly it doesn't work. I thought the paddle would have mapped onto the L analogue stick. It seems not.   Would have been a nice bonus.  I should see if the NegCon twister works with it...

So.....got the old 360 out,  connected it up to my rotated CRT and booted up Futari.

I think it's high time I went back to that bit of unfinished business. This is my new 1CC challenge. Normal Original.

Gorgeous game. Laverly looking.  And it isn't as hard as I remember. Now that's probably because I'm a better/more confident player now with a Mushi 1CC under my belt, but I'm also sitting up close which I think makes a big difference. I used to just play this on the big TV from the sofa.

Second half of level 3 is still tricky but it's nothing like as scary to me as it used to be. Got to the lvl3 boss first go. It's still a challenge though but some routing will see me tame it pretty quickly I reckon.

Level 5 of Futari is pretty intimidating though - I only ever got to level 4 on a 1CC. Of course I've played it casually and spammed through but it's a bonkers long level. And that final boss may be beyond me but I'm going to have a crack.

My 360 sticks are playing up though - some buttons are randomly not responding - not good. I tried remapping the buttons but it seems to be endemic in the sticks I have.  They were cheap and 2nd hand so no complaints but it's annoying and you can't upgrade without getting into soldering - so I may have to look around for something.

My PS2 to USB adaptor doesn't work on the 360 so might look around for a PS2/360 adaptor as I have a couple of nice PS1/2 sticks.

stormyskiesahead wrote:

The game looks like it channels old PC Engine caravan shooters pretty hard and reviews have been universally excellent.

PC Engine you say? Colour me intrigued.

I still regularly fire up my PC Engine mini for some Gradius II.

I'm still shit at it.

Gradius III and IV (arcade - you can play them on PS2) are cruel, coin eating dirges that wrecked the series.

I played the original in the arcade and it was great but mostly played the NES port but that was a very long time ago. I can vouch for the NES port - as primitive as it was it feels like playing the arcade game.

(Incidentally , that is what made the 2600 arcade ports so good way back in the day - they were miniature works of ingenuity as they felt like the arcade game even though they had little more than a passing resemblance graphically).


I remember going back to 1 and 2 when I got them for Saturn a few years ago and was reminded just how good the series was at the start. Sure it still has the power down problem when you lose a life but they feel fairer.  Gradius V was a return to form and it solves that problem by leaving options around to pick up after a life loss - though it's still probably far too bloody hard. Even on its easiest level it's still a cruel mistress.

Never tried III on SNES. I believe there is a hack of the ROM that reduces the slowdown quite a bit - not sure if that is a good thing or not!!

Gradius V is worth a look if you have the means to play it. It's Treasure doing their thing and it's spectacular looking.

V can still be picked up quite reasonably - it got quite a big run. V and RType Final were reasons to get a PS2 (at least for me) but if you can emulate that obvs an easier way of checking it out.

Final 2 is generally considered ropey. It's officially branded but it isn't an Irem developed product. More an indie effort.  I think it was crowd funded.

Original Final is the last one for me.

Must check my RType Final save - think I got to the last level but never completed it.      I gave up unlocking stuff once I unlocked Mr Heli 

heh. Slowdown isn't always bad - depends if it's there by design.   That's usually the case with Cave bullet hell games but it was never always clear with 16bit games.

As long as it is consistent it's OK. Nothing worse than slowdown kicking in and then ceasing at random.

Probably a victim of the hype.  From what I heard it was at best an OK but some weren't as refrained in their criticism.

It's a miracle the original game worked - I find it hard to believe every combo of ship , remote and orb was tested on every level!! 

OST is gdlk