[DS] New Treasure Game For Nintendo DS Reve-it's Bangai-O Spirits

Sin & Punishment sequel :]

Well no, it'll probably be a new game entirely and that'll be all the more awesome. This is wonderful news and also luckily means the stupid rumors about them moving to XBLA are still just stupid rumors.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

What on earth are you doing playing Treasure games altogether if you can't appreciate the masterful craftmanship in Ikaruga?

If Treasure decides to make another scrolling shooter, I'm all for it. If we get more games of the quality of Radiant Silvergun or Gradius V, we should welcome it.

But yeah, I was suggesting something similar to Rock in chat today. Touchscreen for aiming and shooting, dpad for dodging and jumping. L for weapon switch if one is needed. It would probably work really well for a game like Sin & Punishment. Hell, it could work for a Bangai-O sequel as well <3

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Originally Posted by Sword Familiar

It's funny how you cramp all of Treasure's games together with Ikaruga like they all had something in common. "ZOMG! He can't appreciate the great Ikaruga! BURN HIM!". Please, give me the right to have an opinion. Also, pitting Radiant Silvergun with Ikaruga is a mistake. Sure, they're both vertical scrollers, but that's pretty much it. I like RS a whole lot more than Ikaruga for several reasons.

Hey now, Ikaruga is one of my least favorite Treasure shooters. It doesn't allow for as much freedom and improvization on the fly as the likes of RS (which in general just does so much more), but it is an amazing piece of design even if I personally don't enjoy it quite as much. Just because I acknowledge it as important doesn't mean I'm branding you some heretic like a tool. Don't make yourself look any more ridiculous.

I was saying, what are you playing Treasure games at all if you can't recognize the quality. It's much like when people liken themselves to FPS fans but lambast Halo for whatever reason.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Sword Familiar

Meaning: What on earth am I doing playing Treasure games if I can't recognize the quality of Ikaruga? Does that mean that I can't appreciate other games made by that company because I couldn't appreciate that one game? It's like saying that you shouldn't play Square-Enix games because you couldn't appreciate FFXII. There's too much diversity in that company to make such a statement. It just doesn't make sense.

If this is not pitting all Treasure games together, I don't know what is.

You really don't seem to grasp the concept of being able to recognize skill. I don't like newer GTA games, but I can't deny they're excellent videogames.

Pretty much every great Treasure game is built on the same foundations as Ikaruga. Invention, pace, control, and a solid central concept.

I wasn't questioning why you don't like playing Ikaruga, no one gives a crap about that. But if you can't recognize good design when you see it, how could you possibly get anything out of the rest of Treasure's titles. The very fact that you spitefully lob Ikaruga into bullet hell games speaks volumes.

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Holy shit yes! Though hopefully the levels won't only be tiny little single rooms or something minimized like that that tends to be the recent trend with handheld sequels/remakes.

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm.. what? What on earth was the problem with the controller this time? You didn't even need to use the analogue stick this time, so holding the pad was no different than holding any controller with handles. Only in this case the handles were decent lenght as opposed to the tiny stubs on a dual shock.

I could only imagine trouble with doing some of the double tap directions on the dpad for dashing, and even those had a shortcut on the c buttons. Though in Treasure style, dashing on the dpad was slightly different than the c buttons.

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So it seems this is already out in Japan (at least play-asia seems to have it in stock). Looks really good, but I'm not quite clear how the aiming works. Anyone's played it, is it ABYX or stylus aiming or possibly both?

They talk about editing with the stylus, is this some proper level editor or just a tiny feature at certain parts of a level?

I'm tempted to buy the jap version, but I'm still hopeful someone will release this in english ;_;

FELIPE NO

So it uses the awkward direction lock system instead? That'll take some getting used to, but luckily counters don't require directions.

Sounds really neat, hopefully they translate it <3

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Large bump because this is a game that should not be neglected.

I've been playing this since my US copy arrived in the mail on Friday and it's quite excellent. It took me a moment to even realize just how excellent it is.

The game initially feels like a Bangai-O Lite, with a level editor thrown in to compensate for the apparent compromise elsewhere. The DS is incredibly tiny for my hands and on one hand entirely unfit for games with this pace. The shooting controls feel a tad fiddly and it's ridiculously easy to die on a single enemy without chance for retaliation. Completing levels often feels like a case of luck rather than skill, mostly due to the random nature of some of the enemy movements.

Stick with it though as this will change. It dawns to you. For one, it is an incredibly addicting game. You can die really fast, but restarting a level is just as quick, further enhancing the "just one more go" feel. And you will be repeating that a lot. After the first 16 tutorial levels, you will start dying at an alarming rate on the 17th. At first you feel the game is just really fucking hard and the controls too fiddly. Later on, by the time you return to the level to improve your time and score, you'll notice the difference. You no longer rush, shoot blindly and hope for the best. You've developed new techniques, strategies and tactics, gaining new ways to survey the field and assess your options. You'll see that while the game really is very hard, there is surprising depth to the system, affording multiple different playstyles, thanks to the weapon loadouts. You steadily learn the rhythm of EX-counters and surviving tight roomfulls of enemies without a single scratch.

First you learn to dodge enemy projectiles, then get rid of them, then use them against the enemies. The EX-counters range (you can pick two for the level) from previous Bangai-O style missile clouds (now reliant on both the time you hold the trigger down and the amount of bullets heading your way) through freezing time, to sending everything flying away from you.

The shooting weapon loadouts follow this same system (two per level) with various missiles with different strengths and weaknesses, a directional shield, a laser sword for cutting through bullets and enemies, and my favorite, a giant bat for hitting projectiles back at enemies, as well as sending them flying.

At best, it's completely intoxicating, panicky shooting and dodging morphing into graceful dancing and playing with your enemies. One level you would be a typical anime mecha, releasing hundreds of missiles to wipe out an armada, one level you're dashing between enemy fire, freezing time ZA WARUDO style and sending everything crashing about, finishing them off with a sword.

But it IS really hard, and the DS IS really tiny, resulting in extremely sore hands if you have long fingers like me. It's a splendid kind of pain, as finishing that next level proves so satisfying.

There's shooting levels, puzzles levels, salutes to all manner of anime and videogames (a pac-man level, an R-Type mothership etc), even pokes at modern gamers. Plus the level editor is easy and fun to use, the sound load sharing system is admittedly novel but once you get it to work it's a lot of fun and clever.

So yeah, this is fast becoming my third favorite Treasure game, right after Radiant Silvergun and Gradius V <3

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Recently I'm constantly going with the combination of Bat and Bounce, with Freeze and Bounce for EX. Sometimes I switch the missile weapon around, but I'm almost always carrying the bat as it's really useful and very, very fun. If the level involves ANY Longai-Os, Reflect is a must or it's impossible for me.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The easiest trick is to get them to fire as large missiles as possible. Bat their crap at them till you get them to do one of those mid level counters, then immediately Reflect it back, which will in turn make them counter with much, much larger missiles. These reflected, they will surely kill anything on screen and it was the only way I survived the last few levels in Treasure's Best with multiple (and different size) Longai-Os.

I have a saved replay where my reflected counter reads 35991, although that could well actually be 359, with maybe the Longai-Os EX counter of 191 under it or something. But I wouldn't mind the idea that I reflected 35000 missiles back at the big Longai-O~

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I guess I got lucky as every time I play the Earth stage, the blue bots and longai-os beeline at me, with the hedgehogs calmly staying put at the top of the level without activating. I've also found both ninjas get obliterated if you manage to reflect both longai-o's large missiles rapes. They really wipe out everything. And one time one ninja survived, I could collect the left over fruits and finish him off with Freeze and batting him to death. I didn't think you could launch large ninjas but apparently you can.

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