April 2022 Shmup Club - Viewpoint

[MetalFRO]

[img width=550 height=488]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/J-066/bf/J-066-S-00810-A.jpg[/img]

In the world of shoot-em-up games, few developers have strayed from the tried and true formula of either horizontal or vertical scrolling. SEGA blazed a trail in 1982 with Zaxxon, with its axonometric projection view, and clever use of both X and Z axis movement. Despite the success of the original game, sequel Super Zaxxon follow-up Future Spy saw diminishing returns, so SEGA abandoned the format for other things. Japanese developer Aicom partially revisited the style a decade later, when they created the isometric shooter Viewpoint for SNK's Neo Geo arcade hardware. It took the basic formula of SEGA's original arcade classic, and tweaked it by going back to X and Y axis movement on an isometric plane, and retaining the usual stage structure that had become a staple of arcade shooters.

Viewpoint offered a fresh take on the genre, and brought other elements to the table to spice things up, such as the pre-rendered 3D polygon graphics, and also a high energy dance music soundtrack. There was nothing else like it at the time, and it remains one of the few isometric shooters to truly get a chance on the market. It also achieved decent success, with ports available on the Sega Genesis, Sharp X68000, FM Towns, and Sony PlayStation, in addition to the Neo Geo CD release of the game. Sadly, the game hasn't been made available in recent years, and remains a bit obscure as a result. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in April 2022 as we play the isometric shooting classic, Viewpoint!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
dtungsten

[MetalFRO]

I finally managed to break through the stage 2 wall of a boss, and made stage 3 on a single credit, with a pretty decent score, to boot! The perspective definitely tends to throw me off, but I think I'm slowly starting to adjust to it.

[Corkman]

  I've been playing the Genesis version on the default normal difficulty. There quite a bit of slowdown when there is a lot of enemies and bullets. It's pretty advantageous for dodging it all. So this probably makes this version a fair bit easier compared to the Neo Geo CD version MetalFro has been playing.

  It also seems to give out extra lives pretty often. I'm not sure how often yet but I think it's every 50k.  In my best run, died a few times on the stage 3 boss but was checkpointed to a spot where I could get increase my score well enough to get an extra life every other life. It's the part with those centipedes before the stage 3 boss. Also, at that part, you can get a "P" icon that gives you two extra bombs and a shield. You have to destroy all the 4 or 5 centipedes that spawn and the power up shows up after defeating the last one. Having those extra bombs really helped defeat the stage 3 boss.

  Here's my score for that run above. 409k on a continue at a checkpoint in the middle of stage 4. I'm going to try the Neo Geo version to see the differences but the Genesis version is most certainly easier.

[MetalFRO]

Another update to my score tonight, by a pretty wide margin! Once I find a groove and lock in, I can do pretty well and get far. I managed to make it to the stage 3 boss tonight in this run, and even got to the 2nd form, but couldn't quite seal the deal with beating it to move on to stage 4. Hopefully soon...