Aa Mujou Setsuna / Metal Torrent (DSiWare)

[kryss]

Cleared Pattern Mode on Easy on my first try in 11m30s dying twice. My score was 91'220'274 which placed me 75th at the time. The top score was 130'000'000 and something.

This is probably as close to Ikaruga as we're going to get on DSiWare. For 500 points it's a worthy purchase. 3D backgrounds with 2D ships works nicely although when the screen was completely full with ships and shots there was some TERRIBLE slowdown which was very disappointing. Being able to watch replays of your high scores is handy though I wonder how many will actually do it. I probably won't. Being able to watch replays of the top scorers...Now that is good.

The sound effects are quite generic and kind of remind me of Star Soldier R in places. The music is there...You won't have time to think about it much while playing though.

On easy mode you have a "bomb" which changes enemy fire into cubes that you can collect to increase your score. Each shot changed also counts towards your combo score. After realising this my max combo jumped to 1494.

So the modes are:
Pattern - The enemies come at you in waves in a set order.
Random - The enemies come at you in waves at random.

And the shooting options are:
Easy - Wide shots and bombs.
Maniac - Slightly narrower shots and laser+jamming.

So 4 different combinations and 4 different high scores.

[fuse]

Had a very quick go at this last night and was quite impressed.

Don't know what people were expecting, but it's met my expectations and my only real gripe from what I've played so far is to do with the scoring (as with Ketsui DS, bombing is an integral part of scoring - and I *suck* at tactical bombing). It has the hallmark danmaku teeny tiny hitbox and bullets a go-go, and with it getting plenty manic plenty quick, this is pretty ideal for drop-in drop-out sessions. Presentation-wise I'm very impressed too.

Will spend some more time with it soon I'm sure, but it's currently in a tough 3-way battle royale with Professor Layton 2 and Dissidia for the coveted commute gaming slot.

[fuse]

Had a shot at this on the way home last night and starting to really like it. If you're playing for survival, easy mode is exactly what it says on the tin - easy. I one-lifed my first playthrough and it wasn't until I went and watched a replay of the top guys till I realised how it's actually *meant* to be played.

In short, instead of having a numerical value of bombs, you have a meter which is partially drained when you bomb. You also auto-bomb on being hit, and as kyrss mentioned this cancels nearby bullets into collectables. Standard play seems to replenish this meter pretty quickly, but I believe chaining increases the rate even further - so if there's sufficient popcorn enemies around (generally the case everywhere except bosses), between this and the auto-bomb it means that to actually die you need to basically be hit numerous times in short succession.

From a very brief viewing of the top replay, it seems general practice would be to take out a wave of enemies at the right kind of speed to keep a chain going (chaining is like in DDP and based on timing rather than say, polarity-matching in Ikaruga), whilst setting up a fair amount of bullet presence on screen, then bombing to cancel these. Whilst a wave will typically replenish your meter, excessive bombing will still cause problems and put you at the riskier end of the meter.

I've only dabbled very briefly with hard mode, but it seems to grant you a narrowed shot spread, whilst your bomb/special button shoots a straight laser-esque shot which has bullet-cancelling properties. Meter replenishment seems a fair bit slower here, and usage of the special requires quite short, focused bursts to avoid treading too far into risky territory.

Only spent an hour or so with it so far total but I do like it - really impressed with the leaderboards / replay download functionality too, especially considering this is the kind of thing that some STGs don't get right on home consoles.

[kryss]

Have you had any slowdown at all?

[fuse]

Funny you should say that, as I knew there was slowdown but it's something I don't even notice now - it's the exact same kind of slowdown that comes with a lot of shmups when things get hectic on screen.

If my old points & shoot is behaving later I might try and Youtube a video of one of the top replays if it'd help. Would certainly do a better job of explaining the scoring system than my ramblings, anyway

[The Mole]

Metal Torrent (DSiware)

Metal Torrent is the first shooter on the Dsi and i have to say it aint half bad. The game is quite similar to the first Nanostray, with some very nice 3d backdrops and cube collection upon your travels.

The game has 2 pattern types standard where the enemies attack in the same way each time and random. As well as this they have 2 difficulty settings red and blue.

The game is quite short with 8 waves and a few boss battles. Each mode and difficulty has an online scoreboard for the top 10 players.

I have sunk some time into it and the last time i checked i was number 1 on the online scoreboard for the set enemy attack blue game.

For 500 points i think it is a very good buy if you like this sort of thing.

[Julio III]

I downloaded this today so thought I should give my impressions. First of all, this is made by Arika - who ported Ketsui to the DS in its Death Label form. And you can tell the comparisons. Shooting enemies causes cubes to appear and the higher your chain, the larger the cubes. Its all about collecting the cubes it seems.

There are two ships. Easy and Maniac. Easy really is easy. You have an auto-bomb - I managed to beat this without losing a life and I'm not very good at shoot-em-ups. The Maniac ship is where the fun is to be had. With that the secondary shot is a laser which also slows down bullets (almost to a full stop) in a certain area around your ship. But you can only using this depletes your gauge. I've only played a little bit so not sure if your gauge is refilled just by time or by collecting cubes. Anyway, its a short little shooter with a nice hook. My main complaint is that it is a vertical shooter with a horizontal playfield, which I always despise.