May 2021 Shmup Club - Gunbird

[MetalFRO]

By now, most of us know that Psikyo was famous for blistering hard shooting games. We've already tackled Strikers 1945 II in the Shmup Club, and that game's legendary difficulty certainly gave us a run for our money. What about the company's roots, however? Are the earlier games any easier? The easy answer is, of course, no. But that's not the whole story.

Psikyo's second shmup was the now-legendary Gunbird. Select one of a ragtag group of characters, to seek out pieces of a magic mirror. Once obtained, they can make a wish. However, their task won't be easy, because The Trump are a group of sky pirates, who are also after the magic mirror pieces! They will try and thwart your every move along your journey.

Gunbird was released in arcades in 1994, and came to the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in Japan in 1995. A European PlayStation release followed in 2002, and a rather clumsily localized version reached North America on the PlayStation, rebranded as the budget title Mobile Light Force. The game was added to the North American PlayStation Network in 2009, as well. Most recently, most of the Psikyo shooter catalog has been released on the Nintendo Switch, and also Steam, and is available in the West via NIS America, bundled in the Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo package. There were also physical Psikyo releases for Nintendo Switch in Japan, and an Asian region release was available through retailers like Play Asia. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in May 2021, as we tackle Psikyo's second shooter, and our second Psikyo game, Gunbird!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
douglie007
BdotReality
FauxMacho
Geriatric Danmaku
Iori Branford
zoydo
Cork
Christapp76

[douglie007]

I have the 2nd one on my Dreamcast, but I could add the first one to my Saturn's ODE and play it on my stream next month with you guys.  Works out, right now I only stream Saturn games on twitch.

[MetalFRO]

Sounds great, douglie! I'll be doing the same, since I got a Satiator recently, as well as playing the PS1 port, and the Switch version. Possibly the Steam release, as well.

[BlurSTG]

Picked up the Steam version, so count me in!

[MetalFRO]

Picked up the Steam version, so count me in!

Excellent!

[FauxMacho]

I'm in. I have it on Switch, and this week I ordered a Saturn and a Satiator so I may try it on there too once it arrives.

[MetalFRO]

I'm in. I have it on Switch, and this week I ordered a Saturn and a Satiator so I may try it on there too once it arrives.

Very good! Will be nice to have a couple of us comparing versions, so we can look at the differences between them. Anyone else going to tackle the butchered North American PlayStation version?

[BlurSTG]

I also have the Saturn version now to play as well!

[Geriatric.Danmaku]

This should be interesting to see which version gets the most attention.   Modern MAME plays Gunbird VERY well.   Hardly any lag.   But it's so easy to cheat.   

So picked up the ZeroDiv port on Steam.   Gotta say that the lag issues reported on Switch are NOT really present.   So I'm going to be playing the official Score Attack on this version, and submitting it.

Other ports are not as good for PC emulation.   Specially that PS1 "Light Force" version.

[Geriatric.Danmaku]

A quirk about the Steam ZeroDiv version:  If you continue a game, it keeps on counting the score.   So the local leaderboard permits scores to register with as many as three continues.  If we decided to compete at that level, it would be cool.   But for now, my first official score submission.   This is PC leaderboard.   Very little chance that Switch is included: 

[Geriatric.Danmaku]

First Score Submission:

[FauxMacho]

Apparently the PS2 Gunbird release has a hit box mode. That's really cool to see under the hood (see attached) but so far I could only find this one YouTube video showing it off. https://youtu.be/xjUFaAzvhSA?t=373

First high score on level 5: 353,100
I really wanted to get past 1-4 on a single credit tonight, went into the boss with a bomb and a life, and crumpled by assuming a bomb after my death would take it out. Oh well.

A quirk about the Steam ZeroDiv version:  If you continue a game, it keeps on counting the score.   So the local leaderboard permits scores to register with as many as three continues.  If we decided to compete at that level, it would be cool.   But for now, my first official score submission.   This is PC leaderboard.   Very little chance that Switch is included:  

On Switch release continues add a single point to the score, does the ZeroDiv Steam release do the same?

[MetalFRO]

A quirk about the Steam ZeroDiv version:  If you continue a game, it keeps on counting the score.   So the local leaderboard permits scores to register with as many as three continues.  If we decided to compete at that level, it would be cool.   But for now, my first official score submission.   This is PC leaderboard.   Very little chance that Switch is included: 

I noticed this last night, when I was streaming the Steam version. Will have to have a closer look, and see if the Steam version behaves the same way as the Switch version, where it adds a point to the end of the score, to denote the credit usage. If so, I would say we could have a category for scores using all continues, and one for just a single credit. Oh, and feel free to submit scores for any difficulty level. I probably won't stay on Normal the whole month, because I typically hit a wall with Psikyo games where I just don't progress, so I imagine I'll give Monkey and Child a good try later on, to see if I can potentially get a clear, like I did with Strikers 1945 II.

[Iori Branford]

I'm in with GroovyMame, maining Ash.

[MetalFRO]

Welcome, Iori! I'm having the most success with Tetsu so far, though I really like Yuan's charge attack, because it can clear bullets in your path. But Tetsu's attack is so powerful starting at power level 3, it mows down enemies quickly, which helps to clear the field, and minimize the number of threats on screen, assuming you attack stuff as soon as it arrives.