The Coop

Thunder Force and it's 'Construction Set' are a bit tough to play. Emulation's the only way to do it really, and it's not easy to set the controls properly since the EMUs are mostly in Japanese (it was released only in Japan). It's all top view stages as well. Thunder Force II is a fun game, that has top veiw and side view stages. There's a Genesis, and a Sharp X68000, version. The X68000 is better overall graphically (a few extra effects not in the Genesis one), and it has a couple stages that Genesis version doesn't. Thunder Force III dropped the top view stages, and went fully side view. It's a great shmup on the Genesis, with catchy tunes and good design. Thunder Force IV just plain rocks on all fronts, and is considered by some to be the best 16bit shmup made. There's also Thunder Force AC, which was the arcade version of Thunder Force III (one of the few time a home game was ported to the arcade). It has one new level, borrows a level from the second entry, and while not a bad game at all, it's not quite as a good as TFIII. None of the games are bad, but the series really gained a following with Thunder Force III. As such, I'd start with that one, go to IV, and then give the X68000 version of II a whirl on an EMU. Neo Samus- Heh, appreciate the thought. And you can bet that if I'm able to scrape together the funds, I will have this.

No, this isn't a repeat of my failed April Fools joke. This is real. Here's a Famitsu scan... http://sazanami.net/nikki/200807/080709_002.jpg Sega, partnered with Twenty-One Tecnosoft div., is bringing the sixth game in this long running shmup series to the PS2. It's currently slated for an October 30th release. From what little's been released, it's supposed to be six stages, 3D graphics with 2D gameplay, and containing some familiar looking bosses. It's up for preorder on Play Asia at the moment, and there's obviously no word on whether it's coming to the US or not. For this, I have three words... About fucking time

... This is going to haunt some CT players for the rest of their lives.

I wasn't suggesting that you specifically called it that, but over the years, I've read many comments on-line calling it a port in threads, on sites, etc. Things like "The SNES port of Rondo...", calling it a fucked up port, a port this, a port that. I'm just curious to know who started all that. Did Konami say they were porting Rondo, and this was the finished product? Did fans/magazines start calling it a port upon seeing its sprites and other familiar aspects? It's a question I've had for a good while. But as I said a couple pages back, it never struck me as port-like. A reusing/rehashing of ideas, sure. Undoubtedly. But there were just too many changes for me to see it as a port. That's partly why I've said a number of times around here that it was more like a pseudo-sequel to me. I guess it's just all in how people choose to see the borrowed ideas.

I'm still curious to know who labeled C:DX a port... Konami, or the fans/magazines. But you're right, the series was doing fine before Iga came along. Each release (including C:DX IMO) was an enjoyable game with a new trait or two (usually), despite retreading Simon's original adventure a few times.

Yeah, I was dumbfounded enough as it was when he wrote off a handful of games, but ditching Bloodlines? That would have been almost unforgivable. As for Iga, I too would love to see someone else step in and try their hand at the series. I give Iga credit for what he did, as it resulted in some great games. But I feel his touch has grown a bit stale after so many entires under his watch. I'd personally like to see something with stages again. Branching stage progression paths, stages with more than one way to the end, perhaps different helpers at different times like in CV III... you know, the type of game that hasn't really been seen much since Rondo. I'm sure Iga could probably do it if he took his time, but even so, I'd rather see someone who doesn't have the baggage he does (comments, actions, past games, etc.) give it a whirl. I'd also like to see challenge return, as the Castleroids have rarely been very difficult. Iga gave the series a shot in the arm a decade-plus ago, and it worked. But I feel the series has reached a point where it needs an injection again, and I'm not sure Iga has another syringe with him.

It's not so much chauvinism, as it is short sighted. Since when did reality play a predominant role in Castlevania? It's about vampires, werewolves, upside-down castles, some guy with a whip, and candles that somehow turn into hearts. His reasonings were as moronic then as they are now. Rights and social status have nothing to do with having a women be a lead character... to have some huge undertaking that she knows only she has the ability/power to handle. I don't design or create games, and I can see that. So what can't he? As for his ditching various games because he had nothing to do with them, that to is imbecilic. People give Marvel, DC and them shit for pretending this or that didn't happen, and rightfully so. It makes little sense, and is an easy way out. Castlevania may have a somewhat convoluted history in terms of a time line, but it's not that hard to make reasonable sense out of. His move to strike games from existence is only making things even more messed up, and I look forward to the day when he steps down, and someone else comes along who won't shit on the works of those before him, and actually at least tries to line all the games up... officially. Edit: This isn't me lambasting you, Sindra. I'm just addressing Iga's "views".

Yeah, sorry, Forgotten Worlds. In all fairness, it has been well over a decade since I played it. Ah, senility! It's fun, isn't it? You save thousands on games, because the ones you already have are new to you within just a few hours

There's been a couple actually, thought not really linked to the JiBM stuff. One I was a part of, was called "UnMod R Bad Men". It was to consist of boss music remixes done (mostly) by the folks who posted in UnMod with at least some regularity. It was moved to .org right after all the sidebar drama, where, a month and a half later, it was dead (seems interest utterly vanished when it left OCR). And then of course, there's "Cruscendo to Chaos", which is still in development.

Forgotten Realms? Do you mean Forgotten Worlds? If you do, just for the sake of commenting, I didn't have issues with the music. It's not a soundtrack I listen to via ChipAmp regularly or anything, but it never struck me as bad.

I sincerely hope not. I believe these things are fun(ish) because there aren't many of them, and like so many other things, overexposure leads to disinterest. People would grow tried of theme months very quickly if they were always there. As such, having June for boss sigs, October for Halloween sigs, and December for Christmas sigs is enough if you ask me. Not to mention, people would stop volunteering for sig making duties in a heartbeat with all that work hanging over them

I think part of it comes from the rules and regulations that are handed to the employees. I have friends who work at both EB and Gamestop, and some of the shit they have to shovel into customer's faces is ridiculous. Quotas, games that are to be pushed, tag lines they have to say when answering the phone, and of course, all that shit about their discount card (among other things). Sure, some people who work there are just a hemorrhoid on the ass end of life, but all those "requirements" are enough to make even the cool people seem like a turd at times. I personally don't shop there much anymore. Not letting me preorder a game that's $19.99 or less really bugged me at first, then it reached "pissing me off" levels when SNK started putting out their compilations. And each time they've gotten rid of a system's games, I've had fewer reasons to go there. When they ditched used PC and Genesis games, that was a big reason for my fewer trips. Getting rid of magazines that compete with Game Informer was another big reason. I figure the GB/GBC and XBox games are the next to go, and then I'll have basically no cause for going to those chains anymore. Anyway, we now return you to our regularly scheduled Castlevania thread.

I wish I could jump in. I started over a few days ago, and decided to try using the Paladin (I've played through as the Sorceress and Assassin). He's up to level 20 right now, and I'm close to halfway through Act II. Sadly, I have a 1kb/s upload speed, which makes even games like Diablo II and RTSes stutter pretty badly (I found out last time I tried a few years back with a few folks from OCR).

"Downgrade" really only applies if you consider it a port, though. The fewer stages and such is indeed a step down in that light. But even so, the SNES graphics are very good (some would argue better than the PCE game in some respects), and the soundtrack contains much of the music from 'Rondo' (rather faithful sounding thanks to the work done with the SNES sound chip, as I'm sure you know). On its own however, it's a fun entry in the old NES Castlevania style gameplay-wise. It's a step back in terms of options from Super Castlevania IV (controllable whip, etc.), but it's a good game nonetheless (IMO of course). You know, I don't recall reading that Castlevania: Dracula X was going to be a full-on port of the PCE game. I may very well be wrong (and it wouldn't surprise me if I was, since I didn't read all of the game magazines out there at the time), but wasn't it fans/magazines that labeled C:DX as a Rondo port after they saw some screenshots and played it, and not Konami themselves? Edit: Added a thing or two. Edit2: Cleaned up my thoughts. They were a bit scattered.

I'll probably catch shit for this, but... I honestly don't know why people hate Castlevania: Dracula X so much. The only downside to the game for me is the lack of recovery time when you get hit. Normally, there are about two or three seconds where you're invincible after an enemy hits you. This trait is gone, and it can result in being bounced back and forth between enemies... to death. That really shouldn't have been there. Outside of that, it's a good game. Nice graphics, well reproduced tunes, and an overall fun play through. It's not as good as other 2D games in the series, but it's a good game nonetheless. And truth be told, I don't consider it to be a port. We all know that it borrows quite heavily from parts of 'Rondo'. The music, the rescue/story ideas, sprites... C:DX took a good chunk. However, the stages are either completely new, or they only take a basic trait from a stage in 'Rondo' (i.e. level 1 being a town on fire in both). And the bosses? Many of them are new. As such, I've always seen it as more of an alternate version of the story in 'Rondo'... like someone in Konami said "DO OVER!" and went to work. However, I can also see it as Konami being lazy in some ways, and simply building a new game around the same ideas used in a past entry (which they've done more than once).

Buy some canned air, get a pair of tweezers, and open up your tower. Use the canned air to blow dust out of your graphics card (which you'll need to take out before cleaning it), off of your mother board, out of your PSU... all the stuff in there that dust can settle on/in. Use the tweezers to gently take hold of any hair or dust clumps on things like your CPUs heat sink, behind the blades of your cooling fans, and other places you see them. Just keep a few things in mind... 1- Follow the directions on the canned air. If you don't, you could spray cold liquid into your PC. So follow how it says to hold the can and so forth. 2- Once you get the tower open, before you do anything with the tweezers, tap the them on the metal floor inside your tower. This will discharge any minor static build up. You don't want a static charge to accidentally fry something, so do this before you start plucking out any dust/cat hair clumps. 3- Turn off your PC before you do any internal cleaning.

I think it's more of a competition. Who can come up with the worst game music to make people sit through?

Don't forget that Castlevania Chronicles also has the original X68000 game as it was, right down to the choices of how the music sounds. So basically, it's a bit like the 'Rondo' PSP game, in that it had both the original game, and an upgraded remake. Also, Super Castlevania IV is a remake of Castlevania. So there's another redo.

The card being hot isn't much of a surprise, Atma. ATI cards have had a reputation for running quite hot for a long time now. They don't burst into flame (usually) or anything, but they get hot enough to hurt upon touching them. So don't panic, as it's normal.

Then why didn't you ask that instead of wording it like you did? HUH?! HUH?!?! My thoughts? Things might have moved forward a lot since I was last on the site, but from what I remember, there was still a sizable way to go a few months back. Perhaps you should hold off until the end of the project is in site (a couple months or so from being published), and then discuss releasing a track as a preview. The idea is fine, but dude... don't pull a Blizzard and tease folks long before it's done

I already played through the first game, and I'm up to Act II in the second. Sadly, my upload speed sucks major amounts of monkey balls, so on-line play isn't doable

From what I've seen in past projects, stuff that's accepted is kept private until the project is done and released. Considering there's a forum for all this that's meant solely for mixers which no one else can access, I can't imagine Fishy and them wanting the project's mixes being passed around for other things. If it's a song for the "extras" section, that might be different. But if it's the one you made for the main project song line up, then I'd wager the project leaders want it to be kept under wraps.

Wow... So I listened to the Title Theme and thought, "Well okay, so that was bad." But then I moved onto Sub-Basement, "OMG, what is this shit?" High Rise Building was at least minimalist enough to keep it from getting bad enough to harm my soul. Space station was seriously like 8 seconds worth of random beat-box type rhythm repeated over, and over , and over... Elevator was a rip-off of a crappy mainstream song with a few notes changed. Oh yeah and only the annoying part of that song that gets stuck in people's heads repeated over, and over, and over. By this point I was nearing a breakdown. Perhaps there was a reward at the end. Maybe the credits allowed for some solace to.... "Ah!!! No! Turn it off! Please, I give up! There are five lights, do whatever you will to her, but leave me alone!" In the end, there was only 1 tune short enough to be bearable, and it was (so appropriately) the Game Over music. And to top it off, there are only seven songs... meaning you'll hear them many, many times in Zero Tolerance's rather long FPS quest. Of those seven tunes, three are badly off tempo, two are borderline off tempo, and all of them only use two (sometimes three) notes at a time (so there's virtually no harmonies either). And now you know why I turn the music off on the Options screen