Shmups on the 360

[dmauro]

Because the quality of the port is still unknown and it might be shitty enough to not warrant bringing over.

[FortNinety]

Oy vey...

http://kotaku.com/5463101/this-buggy-xbox-360-shooter-just-cant-get-patched

[dmauro]

A small correction: the port was originally supposed to release in the summer of 2007 along with Ketsui.

[drozdal]

In Jan 2010 issue of EDGE, there is small half page article in hype section about Espagaluda II Black Label, with euro release date: "to be confirmed".

According to that short article "European release is doubtful", unless Cave will be able to put ESP II on XBLA, but apparently "there were reports last year that Cave's titles were rejected by Microsoft due to a glut of arcade conversions".

[dmauro]

I had never bothered with the ESPGaluda arrange mode on the PS2 port, but people were talking about it on the shmups forum and apparently it's basically a combination of ESP Ra.De. and ESPGaluda. Unfortunately the default button layout is a little wacky and can't be set independent from the main game, but if you take the time to work it out, this mode is really awesome.

It's exactly what you'd expect if you mashed the game up with it's predecessor. The "bubbles" are worth 4x each instead of 1x each when in Kakusei mode, meaning you can get multipliers up to 64x rather than the normal 16x. I'm not sure if the multipliers are for points only or if you get awarded extra green gems and gold ignots based on those (I think probably not).

Oh, and there are lots more bullets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMNcySLWE4

[drozdal]

Deathsmiles Platinum Edition will be out on April 8th in Japan.

This pretty much confirms DSMBL will be on the USA version disc

[drozdal]

Espgaluda II standard Edition will be region free. Comes out on Feb 25th.

[FortNinety]

Man, and just two days after my Play Asia coupon expired. But still, this is AWESOME news.

[dmauro]

Wow. Okay, I'm thoroughly surprised by that. Why did they wait until now to announce it?

[drozdal]

Wow. Okay, I'm thoroughly surprised by that. Why did they wait until now to announce it?

If i remember correctly there was some talk about it last December, but now it's confirmed.

For all who want to order regular edition (and haven't been burned by NCSX yet), here's the link. Total comes to around 90$ with tax and shipping, you can save few extra bucks by having it shipped by USPS instead of ode day Fedex.

[FortNinety]

I'm surprised you were able to find that link, considering how Godawful NCS's site is.

Anyhow, instead of doing business with them, I highly recommend Play Asia, where the game is not only cheaper, but with economy boxed shipping, it's only $77.80 bucks. I can stand to wait a few days.

[dmauro]

Guys, keep in mind Kotaku is still the only place to have broken this news. The source is Brian Ashcraft speaking directly to Asada. If I didn't have a j360 I might still wait a bit on the pre-order.

And keep this in mind, from a Siliconera-Asada interview:

Mushihime-sama Futari Ver.1.5 was released as a region free game, a first for Cave. Did overseas reception meet or surpass your expectations?

Makota Asada: Mushihime-sama Futari was our first region-free game and we were happy enough with the response to finalize our plans for the US release of Deathsmiles.  Ultimately, releasing the game region free doesn’t make as much sense to us as localizing our games and building a real fanbase overseas.  That doesn’t mean that we’re only going to release games in the US of course, it really depends on interest from fans.

Obviously this doesn't at all contradict them releasing ESPGaluda II region free, but it is sort of weird, and this was posted only three days before Kotaku's post, which suggests these interviews might have both occurred at the same event, in which case why would he not be mentioning it here.

It just all seems very fishy I guess.

[drozdal]

OK, I guess in few days I will know if I got no region version or not
NCSX is in the city so, getting money back for the falsely advertised game should not be that hard (who am I kidding).

Matt, I will look into getting stuff from PlayAsia in the future. My hesitation with dealing with them comes from your and Dave's experience with Play Asia's Mushihimesama Futari preorder fiasco.

[dmauro]

Confirmation?

Just e-mailed NCS to inquire if they'd had legit confirmation and this is what they said......

Hi Steven, the Kotaku article is accurate. We asked one of our main distributors to corroborate the information and they confirmed the region-free status of the regular edition of ESPGaluda II.
 
There was some confusion at first because Cave initially told them that it would be region-locked but they were referring to the Limited Edition. They later made the distinction between the two versions of the game. 
 
Regards,
NCS, Inc
Web: http://www.ncsx.com
Shop: http://www.ncsxshop.com

[drozdal]

Thanx! I also was looking at this Shmups thread