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| Spoon 2043th Post
  
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
    
    
|  "Re(1):Let's talk about Compile, Toaplan, and " , posted Wed 10 Nov 00:51  
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So at this very moment I was just playing Musha Aleste on Mega Drive and contend that it had the crown of most badass opening level of a shooter until about...a decade later with Ikaruga or so. Something about pursuing an armed, weaponized Edo-era castle just stands out. I got to wondering if anyone has good memories or stories to share about the legendary Compile and Toaplan style of space shooters that prospered in (I think) the early 90's or so before more or less vanishing for many years.
I think Treasure sort of took up the sword later on with Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, etc. and made similarly tight, intense shooters with flexible control schemes without (de-) evolving into the intolerable danmaku bullet hell doujin nonsense from later on, but I didn't discover these early games until a bit late in the cycle. Any fans in the Cafe? Well, Red Falcon I suspect for one...
Compile's Zanac is one of my very favourite shoot em ups, and it is terribly far-thinking. It has basic level layouts that are fixed, and enemy waves that are dynamically set based on your performance. The game scrolled at an amazing speed, and was a game that was highly reactionary in its gameplay, rather than being memorization-based. It filled the screen with bullets, but was most definitely not danmaku. Another 8-bit game which is similar in terms of moving with breakneck pace and filling the screen with crap and yet not being danmaku is the Summer Carnival '92 game Recca (not made by any of the mentioned companies, but whatever).
Zanac X Zanac had almost unreasonably good music, and was a great gift to fans of Zanac, but it felt too easy.
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| HAYATO 1013th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member
| "Re(3):Let's talk about Compile, Toaplan, and" , posted Wed 10 Nov 18:10
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I'll forgive you because A) it's Telenet, who I have an irrational affection for despite only playing a little bit of PCE Valis and B) Gaiares looks cool and has animation from the 'fantasy' style we often talk about.
New rule: pictures required!
Compile shooters rank fairly up on my personal ranking, specially the Aleste saga. From the unforgettable MUSHA (whose first stage keeps blowing my mind even to this day)to the beautiful (albeit a little messy) spin-off, Seirei Senshi Spriggan, I love every one of them. The only one who dissapointed me was the SNES version: I approached it with high expectations, coming from the Megadrive/Genesis world myself and getting the average shooter (a pretty and fine one, nevertheless) filled with generical spaceships insted of intense feudal japan mecha action was a huge letdown for me...
Just to illustrate my point :
- Musha Aleste (1990)
- Seirei Senshi Spriggan (1991)
- Dennin Aleste (1992)
- And then, Super Aleste (1992). Seriously, WTF??
For those who love their shooters with a distinct japanese flavor, I'd higly recommend Vic Tokai's Trouble Shooter/ Battle Mania saga for Genesis. True masterpieces, specially the second one, Battle Mania Daiginjou. For those interested, a dual japanese/english translation ROM patch for Daiginjou (amongst others) can be found HERE
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