March 2022 Shmup Club - Salamander & Life Force

[MetalFRO]

[img width=600 height=439]https://i.ibb.co/Gn2wY9z/Salamander-Life-Force.jpg[/img]

Konami knew they had a hit on their hands with Gradius. But rather than rest on their laurels and pump out a sequel that was just more of the same, they decided to shake up the formula somewhat. They took the basis they built with the initial game, and made 3 key changes. First, they split the game up between both horizontal and vertically scrolling stages, to change up the game play. Second, they simplified the upgrade system from the power-up bar to specific upgrades dropped by enemy squads or orange colored enemies. And third, the game added the ability for a second player to join in for coop action. The game was different enough that rather than including it as an official game in the Gradius series, Konami instead opted to make it more of a parallel game, and title it Salamander. However, when the game was localized in Western regions, it was changed somewhat, and instead called Life Force.

Latis was a planet covered by water with a beautiful sparkle. There, a prophecy of fire has been passed down since a long time ago: Thousands of light years away, when a giant dragon born and living in a sea of flames wakes up, a crazy force will approach, swallowing heaven and earth in the darkness and eventually breaking the light. Here in planet Latis, the Bacterion cluster continues to spread, beginning its invasion with the Salamander Army. The Latis Army, however, didn't have any way of fighting against Salamander. The prince of Latis threw himself at battle with the Space-Time Fighter Lord British, named after himself, and requested help from the planet Gradius, which was said to have faced and defeated the cluster's forces before. The Gradius Army receives British's distress call. Extending their support, they fly to the Salamander Army's mother star. Super Space-Time Fighter Vic Viper, launch!! Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in March 2022 as we take on Konami's Salamander and Life Force!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
Corkman
dtungsten
MiniConsoleMan
zoydo
EZ Racer

[MetalFRO]

Okay, getting started with my first high score of the month! I managed to make it to stage 4 a few times, though I get wrecked pretty quickly there. Playing on the Saturn version initially. 387,100 points

[MiniConsoleMan]

I'll be joining in this month!  I'll be playing along on Switch with the Konami Arcade Classics collection which I believe does include both Life Force & Salamander.

[Corkman]

 
  I'm in this month as well. I'm starting with the Saturn version. Got to Stage 3 but need to learn the fire arcs. Wow, the Gradius syndrome is strong with this one. Is this one I just have to shoot for a no death run?

  Here's my first score on the Saturn version.

[MetalFRO]

Excellent!

@MiniConsoleMan - I think you're right about the Konami Arcade Classics Collection, but I need to double check. I have the physical Switch release that LRG did, I just need to pop it in and verify. Would be interesting to see if it has both the Western Life Force release, as well as Life Force JP that came out later, which retools some stuff. I do believe Life Force JP is what's on the Salamander Deluxe Pack for Saturn, which is what I've been playing so far.

@Corkman - I think you might be right, in that ideally you would want to no-death the game. As you've seen in my streams so far, it's very easy to lose a life, and because of the instant respawn, you can miss getting your options back, and just chain death quickly to a Game Over. Ain't no miss like a No Miss after all

[zoydo]

Hey guys,

i'm still not the biggest Gradius Fan and same goes for Salamander, but i'll try to post some scores this month anyway.
I played a few runs of Salamander on the PC-Engine version and on the Arcade Version on PS4 (Arcade Archives), so at least i don't have to struggle with the Gradius power up - bar.

This is my best score so far, played on PS4 (Arcade Version):

[img width=500 height=281]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51928295613_26222c5bf7.jpg[/img]

[EZ Racer]

Playing on the NES casually. Man I forgot how brutal this game is. I think the worst part might be the happy go lucky music that plays when you get a game over.

In seriousness, gotta say I love the first phase of level 2's boss. One of my favorite shoot em up boss fights.

[zoydo]

I made it to the Stage 4 Boss yesterday (PS4/ jp Arcade), but the fight ended in confusion because of too many blue bubbles...

[img width=640 height=360]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51932912325_26b5f6b6b7_z.jpg[/img][/url]

I also played the PCE version on Beginner difficulty a bit. The Enemy patterns are a bit different and it's very generous with extra lives, but the checkpoint system kills the flow a bit (for me), so i guess i stick with the jp Arcade version.
I didn't make it past the second boss yet, because powering up after a checkpoint can be a bit tricky sometimes.

[img width=700 height=437]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51932298716_c1041f5d00_k.jpg[/img]

[MetalFRO]

I made it to the Stage 4 Boss yesterday (PS4/ jp Arcade), but the fight ended in confusion because of too many blue bubbles...

Great to see you join in again, zoydo! As far as this boss, the strategy that was suggested to me on stream was to aggressively take out the right-hand side blue orb, then move your ship into the space just below where it sat, and time out the boss. Not great for score, but a much safer strat. I can confirm that works, at least when playing the Saturn version, and I assume it works on the ACA releases as well.

Playing on the NES casually. Man I forgot how brutal this game is. I think the worst part might be the happy go lucky music that plays when you get a game over.

In seriousness, gotta say I love the first phase of level 2's boss. One of my favorite shoot em up boss fights.

Welcome aboard, EZ Racer! It's been a while since I fired up the NES version, but I plan to do so through the month to compare it to other versions. I don't remember it being brutal, but then the early console ports often ended up being easier than their arcade counterparts, so it could just be that I'm forgetting how difficult it actually is 

[zoydo]

@MetalFRO: thanks for the hint, i will give it a try next time (if i ever make it there again..).

[Corkman]

  I've been playing more of the Saturn version. I figured out the flame circles in stage 3 and have a decent strategy in Stage 4 going but haven't mastered it yet. My high score is 397000  

  I'm with Zoydo. I tried the PC Engine version and it looks similar but plays differently. For example, the teeth in the first level are more dangerous and the stage 1 boss can shoot bullet or two from those arms. I don't care for the checkpoint either.

  I also tried the Sharp X68000 version on an emulator on the Pi. That was interesting. It feels and plays pretty close to arcade/Saturn version. However, there is much more slowdown. It seems like it's really struggling to run the game. The music is a little different and the sound effects are really strange sometimes. I know some of these issues might be due to the emulator, but I really couldn't tell you. Also, you get 5 lives with one credit in this version for some reason. At the very least, I'll take the top score crown for the X68000 version now with 413500 points. Thank you very much!  



  

  

[MetalFRO]

Cool stuff, Corkman! I might have to try and get the X68000 version running at some point this month. I honestly haven't messed with it much, but it's interesting that it has a lot of slowdown, given that it was such powerful hardware for the time. I'm guessing since Konami was so focused on the MSX line during that era, they probably didn't bother optimizing the game for the hardware, and as a result, it suffers. The X68K should be more than powerful enough to run it, given that we got Thunder Force II and other games later that perform really well.

[Corkman]

 
  Is there an X68000 core for the Mister? I'd be curious to compare that to the emu on the Pi to make sure performance isn't due to that hardware.

[MetalFRO]

 
  Is there an X68000 core for the Mister? I'd be curious to compare that to the emu on the Pi to make sure performance isn't due to that hardware.

I think we discussed this on Discord, but there is, though it's in beta. Still unstable.

Also...new PB! I managed to get a little more of a rhythm with stage 4, and have a solid strat for stage 5, and got all the way to stage 6 tonight! I'm stoked about this, and I think there's a chance I might actually get to clear the 1st loop.

[MetalFRO]

Playing Life Force on NES, I'm reminded that there are so many games that changed from their original Japanese iterations to when we got them in the West. According to someone who watched me stream it a couple nights ago, Life Force is actually based on the 2nd loop of Salamander, which is why the stage order is different (making Salamander stage 4 as Life Force stage 2, and vice versa), putting the Gradius-style power bar system back in, and adding in the extra enemies in the fire stage. This game is harder than I remember, though I don't have a lot of experience with it, and there are some definite hitbox issues with this version, even more so than I noticed when playing the arcade port on the Saturn.