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StorminNorman
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 Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 12:22 pm Post subject: Radiant Silvergun — September 14 |
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In what is clearly the greatest news in the history of the XBox 360, Radiant Silvergun has finally been dated for XBLA.
This new version features both new HD graphics and the traditional Saturn graphics, as well as a new "Ikaruga" mode, that alters the scoring system to be more like that of Ikaruga.
It'll be 1200MSP when it launches. Which is pretty good, considering my Saturn copy cost me $200 when I bought it about seven years ago.
This game is definitely one of the very best video games ever made, and I actually like it more than Ikaruga. It has an epic storyline, some amazing boss battles, and a stunning musical score from Hitoshi Sakimoto.
Absolutely do not miss this game. It is brilliant in every way.
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Pilot
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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Seems like forever since this game was announced for xbox live. Better get me some live points.
Didn't know Sakimoto did the music. Awesome 
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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Just when all 3 of my 360's have the 3 red lights out of warranty. FML.
Still havent seen any pics or vids of the original or its re-release. But if the word Ikaruga is being thrown around in comparison, I'm sure I don't need to worry.
See you guys on the leaderboards!
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Pai Mel
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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I s'pose I can add this to my Arcade collection, alongside Ikaruga, and play it on my MadKatz TE FightStick.
Any videos though?
You know these types of games would be perfect for handheld tablets which have tilt control.
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slapshakle
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Pai Mel
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:02 pm Post subject: |
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That vid reminds me of Commando on the Old C64.
So, just over 24 hours to go, time to get excited!
Will definitely be going for as many achievements as I can, hopefully the achievements themselves are as tough yet as obtainable as Ikaruga, to help me keep playing.
So I've never played this game before. Can anybody out there explain a couple of the 'rules' of the game? I always find myself having to muck around for at least a few hours to work them out myself. Was playing Ikaruga for a month before I knew about the chain combos. So any info about the scoring system would be awesome to know before it comes out.
If everybody on here is ok with it, I'll add the people who post in this thread to my friends list for some leaderboard action.
EDIT: I always thought XBL games were released on Tuesday nights our time? IS this one a Wednesday release?
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slapshakle
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| Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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Nah, they've always been released in Wednesday nights.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Tonight!
So I just read the IGN review, they have given it a paltry 9.0 and an Editor's Choice award.
Review here
Sounds very promising. The achievements include 1CC of both modes, plus secret achievements so it should be challenging. I like how there's a story mode with upgrading weapons as well as an 'old school' mode.
Bit disappointing it's 1200 points though, but I'll happily snap it up.
Will be getting it tonight so if anybody wants to try out co-op I'll be keen. Hopefully it's not as laggy as Ikaruga, that was basically unplayable online.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| mrcool37 wrote: | | So I've never played this game before. Can anybody out there explain a couple of the 'rules' of the game? |
Radiant Silvergun is pretty straightforward, not quite as easy as Ikaruga, but definitely easier to learn than, say, a Cave shooter.
The first thing to know is that there's no power-ups or point items to collect in this game. Scoring is done through a chaining system that works like Ikaruga's, except for the fact that there's 3 colours instead of two.
Your ship comes equipped with 7 (!) weapons. Three of them are the 'base' weapons (A, B and C) and the other four a combinations of these (AB, AC, BC and ABC).
The weapons are:
A - Vulcan cannon. Standard forward-firing weapon.
B - Homing plasma. Fires plasma that homes in on targets, allowing you to shoot around corners.
C - Napalm. Fires a laser that explodes into a large blue fireball when the fire button is released.
A+B - Lock-on lightning. Activates a sweeping cone in front of the ship that locks onto enemies and then fires lightning at them.
B+C - Homing missiles. Creates a small targetting area around the ship where enemies will be locked on and have missiles fired at them.
A+C - Rear cannon. Fires a single vulcan shot forward, and a spread shot behind the ship.
A+B+C - Radiant Sword. Short-range but extremely high-damaging weapon. The radiant sword is the most important weapon to master. Holding down the buttons causes it to stay drawn, allowing you to move it around the ship.
The Radiant Sword's primary function is not to destroy enemies (though it can do this quite well if you're brave enough), but to collect small pink bullets fired by many enemies. Collecting these bullets charges a meter under the score. When filled, the meter will flash. Pressing A+B+C while it's flashing activates the Hyper Sword, a powerful weapon that causes significant damage to all enemies on screen, including bosses, and renders the player invincible for a brief time.
There are no power-ups in Radiant Silvergun. Instead, weapons 'level up' with use. The game doesn't visibly show level progress, but it will show what level each weapon is at. As you progress through the game, it's important to level your weapons as best you can.
The key to levelling weapons is the game's chaining system. In Radiant Silvergun, every enemy is one of three colours: Red, Blue or Yellow. Shooting three enemies of any one colour will cause a chain. Shooting another set of enemies of the *same* colour will continue the chain. Shooting an enemy of a different colour will break the chain.
(Ikaruga players will note that this is different to Ikaruga, as there's an extra colour, and you cannot change the colour of the chain after each completed chain.)
Because of the nature of RSG's chaining system, and its importance in levelling weapons, you occasionally find it best to let enemies of the wrong colour go by without shooting them. RSG rewards precision, not willy-nilly shooting all up and down the screen.
(Note that even the bosses conform to the colour schemes, and many of them can be chained.)
Radiant Silvergun consists of 6 stages. In 'Saturn' mode, you will play through all six stages. In 'Arcade' mode, you can choose to skip either stage 2 or stage 4, as well as play through a shortened version of Stage 5. The stages are numbered out of order:
Stage 3 - RETURN. Takes place one year after the disaster that wiped out the population of the Earth.
Stage 2 - REMINISCENCE. A flashback/simulation to the night of the disaster.
Stage 4 - EVASION. The stone-like appears and you must escape from it.
Stage 5 - VICTIM. The stone-like summons two huge battleships that you must fight.
Stage 6 - STONE-LIKE. The final confrontation.
Stage 1 - LINK.
(Ikaruga players might notice the use of the term 'stone-like' here. It is indeed the same stone-like from that game.)
Each stage is broken into many smaller stages, each one with its own boss. In total there are about 24 bosses in the game, which is a huge number for any shooting game. One of the brilliant things about this game is that each boss is memorable for one reason or another.
Each boss usually has several segments that can be destroyed, though it isn't always necessary to destroy them all to defeat the boss (though scoring bonuses provide incentive to do this).
As you can probably guess, Radiant Silvergun is very long for a shooter. The entire game takes well over an hour to beat from start to finish. In Arcade mode, this is alleviated somewhat by cutting out an entire level, and removing all but the final boss battle of Stage 6.
If you're playing in Saturn mode, then the game will save your weapon levels and score between plays. It also limits the number of available credits, but releases an extra credit for every hour of gameplay in Saturn mode. This will allow you to start the game each time with more powerful weapons, until eventually you reach the level maximum of 33.
There are many other aspects of RSG that might be better to find on your own (such as the 'Secret' bonuses and dogs that can only be collected with a certain weapon), but that should hopefully give you an idea of what to expect. It's a much more cerebral game than the average shooting game, and also a bit different to the more modern bullet-hell shooters that dominate the market today.
(A note about Saturn mode: I refer to it as that because that's what it's labelled on the Sega Saturn version, however it may not be named that on the XBox 360 version.)
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for that info, interesting that you can't change colour on the chains.
There's Story Mode which seems to be the 'Saturn Mode' you're talking about.
But wow an hour to get through it, I think Ikaruga was just over 20 minutes, and my concentration became really drained at the end of that, so I can only imagine this would be much worse.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm, this is supposed to be out today, but I can't find it on XBL. Anyone know what's going on? Was kind of looking forward to having a play right now.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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This will be my first downloaded title in aaaaages, but in the past, I remember games being released between 7-8pm eastern Australian time on release day. Shouldn't be too far off.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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I always thought they hit around 5pm or so. Might have to plug the 360 into my PC monitor later and find out.
EDIT: It's up now.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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So, after a couple hours of play, it is indeed awesome.
The "HD upgrade" in visuals I didn't find to be all that spectacular, it certainly isn't as good as say, R-Type Dimensions, but it's hardly anything to complain about. Music is epic as expected.
It was initially confusing with all the different weapon types, but after a few credits and experimenting you know a few different situations where different bullets types are needed and it becomes easier. There's probably two that would never get used (so far at least).
There's two modes within the story and arcade mode. There's the Saturn rules, and Ikaruga rules. Ikaruga rules meaning you can change colour at the end of an enemy chain and still keep the chain counter increasing.
Going to stick to the Saturn mode though I think as thats how it is really meant to be played. Just racking up some hours in arcade mode to get some continues and story mode, with the odd score attack to get on the leaderboards.
Getting ever so close to a good run in stage 1, can see myself sinking many hours into this for that elusive 1cc.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:47 am Post subject: |
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If you're using the save feature, Ikaruga mode will help you build weapon levels faster, as you'll be able to build chains much easier.
Ikaruga mode basically lets you change the colour of the chain after each group of three enemies. This resolves one of the major complaints I see about RSG, in that you no longer have to leave huge groups of enemies to avoid breaking a chain, as chains are crucial to weapon levels.
Also, don't forget to leave the game on the title screen for a while so you can see the intro movie. RSG is unique among shooting games in that it has a heavily integrated story, and the intro provides the setup for that story. It was also the first animation ever made by Studio GONZO.
The high-res graphics are definitely noticeable to me, too. There's lots of glow effects and redrawn sprites and explosions that make the game look fantastic on a HDTV.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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Man, just when you think the stage is gonna end, it just keeps on going!
I don't know if it's colourblindness or anything, but I'm having a hard time telling the difference between the red and yellow colours sometimes. Have to play the section a few times to remember not to shoot.
| StorminNorman wrote: | | Ikaruga mode basically lets you change the colour of the chain after each group of three enemies. This resolves one of the major complaints I see about RSG... |
There doesn't seem to be many people playing the Ikaruga mode anyway, judging by the leaderboards at least. I decided to watch a couple of replays, and it seems most high ranking people are breaking chains every now and then and still getting a high score.
Yeah the clip was kind of cool, the animation at the start (before the characters were introduced) reminded me of the old Robotech cartoons.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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I've pretty much exclusively been playing Ikaruga mode, as it makes weapon levelling a lot easier. On the other hand, I already own the game on the Saturn, so I know exactly how the game is supposed to be paid.
Discovered that this game has the coolest avatar award I've ever unlocked. Instead of another crappy t-shirt, it unlocks a remote-controlled Silvergun.
PROTIP: There is a Merry at the very beginning of the game, in the bottom right corner.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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You wouldn't happen to know if achievements unlock as well in Ikaruga mode?
I watched a couple of replays and saw the merry at the beginning, didn't know it gave us a cool little avatar item. I just saw a shirt as an unlock and thought the rest would be the same.
I might just try and switch to Ikaruga mode and give it a solid go.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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Man, it's taken a fair few hours, but finally I feel like I'm making some progress with this game. All the weapon types were confusing to begin with but now they're easy to remember and you can clearly see which bullet types are needed when you reach uncharted territory and start to see new enemy patterns.
Might as well give a bit of a review score to those sitting on the fence, there doesn't seem to be two (hurr hurr) many people playing it. I'd personally give it a solid 9.0, there just doesn't seem to be much effort put in the graphical update, the game looks average compared to other HD upgrades on XBLA like R-type: Dimensions. Also some responsive issues with the sword weapon I've found, may just be my controller. With all the weapon types I haven't bothered to try with my SF4 stick. Plus there isn't as much variety in game modes compared to other shmups out there. Other than these minor issues, the game is pretty much perfect.
Easily my favourite shmup I've played next to Ikaruga for sure, it would probably beat Ikaruga if I had played Radiant Silvergun first, I just have a soft spot for Ikaruga as it re-introduced me to the genre.
Plenty of length in this one in terms of achievements, I'm throwing it out there and saying it will probably take 100-200 hours of playing before a 1cc playthrough seems achievable. Then there'd be many more hours spent on that perfect 1+ hour run.
For hardcore fans I'd easily recommend. But for casual fans, there's plenty of other alternatives on the Arcade that would be better suited. The game is harder than Ikaruga, and dare I say it, at times it feels a bit tougher than some of the true 'bullet hell' shmups like Espgaluda II or Mushihimesama Futari. Every stage in Radiant Silvergun is a struggle. With the bullet hell shmups, in nearly every case the first three levels are relatively easy to get through on a single life. With Radiant Silvergun, it seems quite tough from the offset. As a self proclaimed 'hardcore fan' of the genre that's never played this game before, It took a solid 10 hours of playing the first level before I made it through on 1 credit. Even though there's 75% less bullets on screen than your typical bullet hell shmup.
I'm a sucker for high scores, so all my time has been spent in score attack. At least it counts as time in the 'arcade mode' and adds a credit to each hour that you play. I've finally switched solely to 'Ikaruga mode' from now on, and it's more fun than the original. Alot of potential score you'll miss unless replays from top players are watched, in order to find out the secrets.
Damn, post was longer than I thought, I better stop it there.
TL;DR
9.0/10 a couple of graphics and control and variety issues hold it back personally. Highly recommended for fans of the genre. For casual shmup players, I wouldn't touch this with a 20ft pole and would look towards R-Type or the 1942 remake instead.
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Jahanzeb
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| Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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waiting for BloodRayne Betrayal to come out, I enjoyed the Radiant Silvergun demo but I'll prob give BloodRayne demo a spin first.
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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Just a couple of Questions StorminNormin regarding your epic post.
So after completing stage 1, there's the choice of choosing between stage 2 and stage 4. Your post makes me think that if I do one, it actually skips the other completely? I've been selecting stage 2, but I assumed it would take me straight to stage 4 afterwards. Sounds to me like you're saying that in a 1cc run you'll play one and skip the other? Just wondering if you can clarify on this. I'm finding stage 2 to be a bit tough, havent tried stage 4 yet.
And on another note, I'm only at 7 hrs play time for arcade, when I thought I was over 10. Anyway, it's unlocked my credits to 'free play' mode so I'm able to 'clear' arcade mode if I wish. Just thought you may want to know as you said it would add an additional credit up until 32 credits in your post.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:47 am Post subject: |
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In arcade mode, you can choose either stage 2 or 4, and you'll skip the one you don't choose.
In story mode, you play through both stages (2, then 4).
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mrcool37
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| Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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Bit more of an update, even though no one else is really playing.
Everyone online seems to be struggling with this, no one has cleared the second stage on one life yet  Pit the game isn't very popular it seems, only 2000 worldwide on the leaderboards which is a bit of a shame. Not even 1/4 that on Ikaruga leaderboards.
Just learnt that killing sets of enemies in a row with the one weapon drastically increases weapon level, starting to get awesome weapon levels heading into stage 2.
Second last boss seems on the first stage seems to be luck at this stage whether I die or not, I use the homing missile in the top left corner after he shoots his laser, sometimes he moves all the way over and takes me out, other times he sits just below me and I can finish him off.
Still unsure of whether to take stage 2 or 4. Stage 4 seems pretty easy for the first half then becomes pretty difficult, stage 2 also tough towards the end, but less chance for chaining.
Have gone back and forth between the two modes and it seems that the weapon levelling is pretty much the same, as max chain score is triple that of the Ikaruga mode. 1 single red enemy off the max xhain achievement, there's just 1 red enemy in the first stage I can never seem to get.
Ikaruga seems more fun though and probably a better chance of 1CC with less enemy bullets flying around.
Still love it overall but doesn't seem to have that steady increase in difficulty and epicness as Ikaruga, there's too much emphasis on mini-bosses and not enough chaining areas.
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