Game of the Week Club

[sunteam_paul]

Book clubs are always a popular thing - where people choose a book to read then discuss it afterwards. So how about doing this for PC Engine games? We could pick a different game every week, then try and get some play-time in on it and post our comments. You couldn't have long RPGs or obscure Mah-Jong games, but there are plenty of others out there. It's not a rush to try to complete the games, just play and discuss, so we are all playing the same games at the same time.

Of course everyone might lose interest after the first week, but it would be fun to try. Is anyone interested in this?

[Tatsujin]

sure. what game will we choose for round 1?

[SignOfZeta]

I like this.

I nominate you "game club president" so that you can decide the games ahead of time and give us a list so we can find a copy. If I can't find the game I for one will pirate with impunity.

Suggestion: Make it bi-weekly.

[sunteam_paul]

Two weeks would have both plus and minus points.
Plus: More time to get locate the game. More opportunity to play and discuss it.
Minus: Harder to remember to set a new game than if it was weekly. Discussion might fade out within a week.

I'm happy to go with whatever the majority opinion is on this.

Although I like the idea of having the next game a surprise, but I suppose we could have Current Game / Next Game to make things easier.

[Sinistron]

This is a great idea- even if I don't get any play time in (busy as hell lately) because it will be nice reading thoughts on weekly games.  Again- great idea.

I don't see anyone losing interest after the first week- it would go by a week-by-week basis.  We all have our favorites, we all have games we tend to avoid, and we all have games that we like but never get much time with.

[sunteam_paul]

OK, I think I stick to the one per week to begin with, as that keeps things rolling on nicely, but I'll keep in mind the suggestion of bi-weekly for later. We shouldn't just have good games either, it will be just as interesting to talk about those of lower quality. For the moment I'll start picking the games every Friday, but if I forget or don't have chance to log in and it gets to Saturday, anyone else is welcome to choose the game for the following week.

Might as well start the ball rolling...

This week's game is
DAISENPU

(or Daisenpu custom if you don't have it)

(next week: Schbibin Man)

[Otaking]

ok cool sounds good I'm in,
was currently playing Legend of Hero Tonma but will switch to playing this. 

[ceti alpha]

 :idea:

[sunteam_paul]

Graphically, I've always liked the Toaplan style. Very much looking like Raiden and Kyukyoku Tiger, there's something about the way they shade the backgrounds that works really well. They're especially good at broken or cracked stuff - like the broken bridge and canyon walls. Even the plain areas of ground don't look too bad.

The music is kind of cool to begin with, it kicks off into a great beat, but seems to get stuck in a rut after that. It's kind of like the original Afterburner tune that lacked any melody. It's not too bad while you're playing but reduces long term listenability.

One thing always makes me nervous in shoot 'em ups - tanks. There's something about them. You always know the buggers are going to shoot just when you are closing in on them, and there are a hell of a lot of them in this game. It's kind of strange really. Kyukyoku Tiger has a varied spread of ground and air enemies, but Daisenpu seems to focus on the ground based enemies, an interesting choice.

One thing I like is the restart points. I died on the boss tank that splits in two, and the game had the good grace to restart me after it. A bit cheap perhaps, but I wasn't complaining, because I found accurate bullet dodging was sort of tricky because of the shape of your plane. It might be all in my mind, but I find it a lot easier when it's a lumpy spaceship without wings that stick out and attract bullets like magnets. Saying that, generally not too hard so far (although I did put it on easy) and quite fun. It's not the fastest paced of shooters, but the action is fairly continuous and it doesn't seem to have any low spots, unlike Gunhed. I'd call it 'solid' rather than 'spectacular' so far.

[Vecanti]

Good game so far, though I'm getting confused on the level layout. 

[termis]

Awesome idea.  I'll also take this chance to pirate away if I don't have the game.  I also find myself being a bit harsher than most PCE fans on most game reviews, but I figure that'd just make things a bit more interesting.

Anyway, so I tried out the Daisenpu Custom for a few hours, and overall, was very underwhelmed.  It's a CD-ROM2 game, so I don't know if the card version is better (I get the feeling it may be -- I was really seeing how more RAM could've helped this title), but carrying on...

First of all, I found the choice of colors to be pretty drab/off.  For example, quite a bit of lanscape was in this turquoise color, and I don't recall seeing many turquoise landscape in real life.  Not to mention, there aren't a lot of detail in the landscape -- some are completely flat, so there are times when you're flying over a single-solid color landscape like in the pic below.  It almost looks like you're flying over calm water at best (with tanks on top!), or at worst, just lazy development -- I vote for the latter.  Sorry for the crap cell phone pic, but my point should be evident in the pic. 

 

The animation wasn't much better, as explosions are a quick firecracker-like pop, and that's it -- no crater left in the hole like the MD (and presumably, the arcade) version.  When you release a bomb, you just see like a solid explosion for a few seconds, not much else (no bomb dropping down or anything like that).

The music was decent -- a nice tune that keeps an atmosphere of suspense -- the bright point of this title in my opinion.

As for the gameplay, I found this one to be a bit tricky.  There's definitely something challenging about shooting away at ground based foes who don't have far movement range, but because of that, you tend to close in on them to get rid of them, but then they might shoot off a pea round just at you're about an inch away from them.  And even some of the minor peons take a good 5-6 shots, so that makes things even more difficult.  The power-ups definitely help, but not enough to overcome the handicap you have against the multi-hit taking foes, and it really takes some skill and/or rote memorization to get your way through far in the game.  I didn't notice the squadron of help you got in youtube clips in the HuCard and MD versions -- that definitely would've helped in certain areas.

Overall, this title doesn't get mentioned often when it comes to good shooters for the PCE, and for a good reason.  I'd say it's definitely in the lower-leagues compared to the many alternatives for the system. 

[shubibiman]

Compared to other Toaplan games, I think Daisenpu lacks variety in its enemy range. The music starts off very nicely but then it gets very repetitive. As termis mentionned, the landscapes are not very detailled and it's often hard to say whether you're in the first, second or third level.
The special power up is very interesting though, as you can try to keep as many planes as possible. It can be very tricky at times but overall, I'm OK with it. As usual in Toaplan shooters, the boss are very hard and shoot very fast which is not cool when you know how slow your plane is. It's far from games like Tatsujin and Kyukyoku Tiger.

[sunteam_paul]

I had a quick go of Custom and the graphics in the card version seem better and more varied. I could swear that a big chunk of level one was removed from the CD version.

The more I play it the more humdrum it seems to be. There's nothing exactly wrong with it, but it fails to generate any excitement, probably because nothing actually stands out either. Other shooters have the hook of a catchy soundtrack or varied/interesting graphics but Daisenpu seems to sit bang in the middle of good and bad.

[Tatsujin]

same as some peeps already stated before, the game is lacking in pep. and I mean a lot of pep! very untypical for a pce conversion of a toaplan shooter.
the explosions are mignon and short, the BGs repetitive and dull und the smart bomb ain't that smart. seems to be more a sorry bomb. at least in a technical point of view.

it's the pure contrary of a kyuukyoku tiger. the cd one also has some terrible flickers here and there, especially when bigger enemies approaching.

there is also no boss excitement. he enters the screen very unspectaculary like every other enemy, you beat him and it just goes on like nothing speciel happened.


and that the card version is superior to the cd one, we could already see in the comparison thread. but it doesn't save too much of the game.

it could have been a very good shootie on the pce, if just AV would have spent bit more effort in it, like they did for some other games before. ok, not like thunder blade probably.

let's call it DAISENPOO from now on!

[Arkhan]

I fired it up for about an hour.....

its as "meh" as I remembered.   It seems like they wanted to quickly get a airplaney shooting game out the door and forgot to finish it.   It is kind of mind numbing to play and the scenery is barely Turbo worthy......older Huey games offer more depth/eye candy/reflex sensations.

if it helps drive the point home any more, I already started playing schbibin man for next week...