Y'all ready for this?

[Great Rumbler]

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[A Black Falcon]

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(Also played at many hockey games, perhaps also other arena sports too)

(The original Japanese version of the game had a completely different, traditional shmup soundtrack, but Activision removed that in favor of 2 Unlimited for the US release. It makes it sound quite different from other SNES shmups for sure... it's kind of bizarre, playing a shmup to that music, but it's real! :))

[Dark Jaguar]

I wasn't at all ready for this!

Really though, that's crazy localization there, and pretty insulting. That really does give a weird flavor to that game, which I gotta give credit to, uses enemy attacks OTHER than the standard "bullets everywhere" every now and then.

I always found it funny that those types of games always cram in a glass canon. It is odd how you've got this state of the art super-ship, except in reality it's just a fly that can be swatted out of the air in one hit that has to collect other weapons just to get powerful enough to kill things decently.

It's kinda like how the manuals and story of Starcraft go into detail on how amazingly advanced your marines are, except they are really just pathetic cannon fodder you'll never really care about.

[etoven]

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(Also played at many hockey games, perhaps also other arena sports too)

(The original Japanese version of the game had a completely different, traditional shmup soundtrack, but Activision removed that in favor of 2 Unlimited for the US release. It makes it sound quite different from other SNES shmups for sure... it's kind of bizarre, playing a shmup to that music, but it's real! :))

That looks like a pritty awesome game, I love the creative level design. I only have two complaints:


1) Is looked really short (or maybe the guy was just awesome..)
2) The story was horrible.. "We need resources, so where going to destroy your race and planet." Yea for the good guys!! Lame..

[Dark Jaguar]

The story was cliche, but I gathered that that one planet was INVADING other worlds and they took the fight to them in defense.

[A Black Falcon]

It's a shmup, and you're expecting a plot? 3rd to 5th gen shmups mostly have the same plot, which involves you, the lone pilot of an experimental spacecraft, who have to save your world from the invading whoevers, as the last hope for your people. Once in a while you get something else, but not usually. I don't mind, that's all the plot you need for a shmup. :)

Length... while some early 3rd gen (NES era) shmups were quite long, like 1942 and such, within a few years developers realized that the games are much better short, and short shmups have remained ever since. Most shmups are short games which try to make up for the short length with great replay value (particularly for score) and high challenge. It often works. BioMetal's not that short for shmup standards. Also, yes, that guy's really good. Notice how he manages to not die pretty much ever, dodging through lots of bullets without getting hit? Yeah, most people wouldn't be nearly that good, and it'd take them a lot longer, if you finished it at all.

I wasn't at all ready for this!

Really though, that's crazy localization there, and pretty insulting. That really does give a weird flavor to that game, which I gotta give credit to, uses enemy attacks OTHER than the standard "bullets everywhere" every now and then.

Insulting? How so? To the original composer perhaps, but other than that, how so?

I agree that it makes the game very odd, though. It's so strange playing a shmup to that music. It does make it unique, however. :)

I always found it funny that those types of games always cram in a glass canon. It is odd how you've got this state of the art super-ship, except in reality it's just a fly that can be swatted out of the air in one hit that has to collect other weapons just to get powerful enough to kill things decently.

Well they're usually prototype ships, perhaps they haven't perfected the armor yet?

Also, by the late '90s, the bullet-hell shmup became the most popular kind, and those often have a very small hitbox, sometimes as small as one pixel (the hitbox is where you have to get hit to die). The one dot in your cockpit (or your character's eye or heart or something, for flying-people shmups, which have become increasingly common over the past decade) is the only vulnerable spot in those games, but they're incredibly hard anyway because of the insane number of bullets coming at you.

And a few shmups, including many (though not all for sure) of the Western ones, have health bars...

Still though you're right, like in Gradius, how come if they can make those invincible option helper ships, why can't they just make your ship out of that stuff too? Just game logic, it'd be no fun if you couldn't die. :)

It's kinda like how the manuals and story of Starcraft go into detail on how amazingly advanced your marines are, except they are really just pathetic cannon fodder you'll never really care about.

That's true, yeah. At least there was that thing about how the presence of medics increases average battle survival time by some small number of seconds or something...

[Dark Jaguar]

Etoven's the one that asked about the story, not I. I know the stories are just excuses to blow things up in these games. I still think the acronym "shmup" is downright bizarre, even by video game standards. I also forgot what it stands for...

Anyway, by insulting I mean it's insulting to think some marketing team (and we all know it WAS a marketing decision) thought that we Americans would only bother to buy the game if it had some random popular song licensed into it. It's that standard sort of thing that resulted in Final Fantasy 13's main theme song getting replaced by that cliche "My Hands" pop song (yet another strike against a game that the Japanese developers had already done enough to, at least the next game in this... game... looks fun).

[A Black Falcon]

Etoven's the one that asked about the story, not I.

I know, I was replying to both of you.

I know the stories are just excuses to blow things up in these games.

Yeah, I think that's all you need in this kind of thing. :)

I still think the acronym "shmup" is downright bizarre, even by video game standards. I also forgot what it stands for...

shoot 'em up, shortened.

Anyway, by insulting I mean it's insulting to think some marketing team (and we all know it WAS a marketing decision) thought that we Americans would only bother to buy the game if it had some random popular song licensed into it. It's that standard sort of thing that resulted in Final Fantasy 13's main theme song getting replaced by that cliche "My Hands" pop song (yet another strike against a game that the Japanese developers had already done enough to, at least the next game in this... game... looks fun).

It wasn't just a single song though, it was a whole soundtrack, remixes of most or all of the songs from that CD. You are right though, about their reasoning (that they did it for higher sales because of the group's popularity at the time). I don't think this music is worse really though, just different... might even be better, I'm not sure.

JP version:
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[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah that music's pretty generic. I think I like it better though just because that other music is just SO out of place it feels awkward.

[alien space marine]

Whenever I hear that song, I can't help but immediately recall the times I spent in sporting arenas especially "Junior and professional Hockey", "get ready for this" is practical the unofficial anthem for the NHL.

[Fittisize]

Did you know that the line "Y'All Ready For This?" is actually a sample? It is! The D.O.C. said it way back in '89.

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This is classic, classic stuff. I love it. And he's wearing L.A. Kings gear on top (like the folks in the music video at the beginning this thread), completing the hockey theme.

But I hear 2Unlimited just as much at basketball games as I do hockey games. I've always thought that Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part II" is the sports anthem most associated with hockey, which is unfortunate given his sordid past. But hey, it is what it is.