Sturmwind review - New Sega Dreamcast Game!!

[dvdx2]

I have put more time into this and its rather good. I have done about 7 levels now and its easy to see the love and effort that has gone into this. Still some irks, like not visibly being able to see which stage (2/3) your weapon has powered up and some poor presentation issues. Most of the music drives me nuts, although there are a few decent tracks. How some of these tracks managed to pass quality control is a mystery.

Bosses are excellent. I get whiffs of everything from gradius to einhander, with lots of rtype and pulstar.
There is a rather nice surprise around world 3 too...

[dvdx2]

no one playing this?

[briareos_kerensky]

I'd really love to have the f***ing game!

[kallbrand]

I was going to get it from VGI but then they raised the price several times, I think at first it was ?32 or 33 and now it's 52! screw that, I'll wait for a copy to show up on some forum or whatever..

[muddy]

Had a quick go when it arrived earlier in the week. Does seem a little generic, but it does look lush. Looking forward to a few hours on it this weekend.

[briareos_kerensky]

Finally got the game.
Not very impressed, in fact, I'm struggling with it, even compared to the not-so-stellar Caladrius.
It surely looks beautiful...unless you are playing it, then graphics become incredibly busy and almost hard on the eye, I'm having troubles to understand what is live and what not; some enemies appear right in the middle of the screen without any kind of warning, and the hitboxes seem dodgy at times.

The weapon system is excessively cumbersome, especially in powering up the correct weapon, and having to deal with bits' health in addition to the main ship, is excessive. Power-ups always scrolll right-to-left even when enemies appearing on the leftmost side of the screen are destroyed by rearward beams; as power-ups double as firepower increments and hit points, this is incredibly unfair, especially when enemies and graphical elements start zipping around the screen with little to no order.

And then there's the music.
Oh the music. I absolutely despise the music, I turned it off at my second go. The game sounds almost silent without music, but it's much better than listening to that chiptune-dance-techno-whatever mix that is more disturbing than anything.

Sturmwind wants to be several games: Gradius V (visuals), R-Type (part of the weaponry), Radiant Silvergun (different weapons), TwinBee (power-up mechanics), Last Hope (enemy cheapness) and right now is failing, sometimes hard, on several aspects.

[danholo]

Quite expected. For some reason this game reminds me of the Himmelsturmer game or whatever it was. Doesn't interest me in the least. I don't know why you bothered with the game at all... I don't think the fact it's on the Dreamcast should be a reason to get it. Why'd you buy it?

[briareos_kerensky]

It looked good in photos and videos, those who had the chance to preview it spoke good things about it and Gunlord was the step up from last Hope, though not perfect. Haven't player Soldner X (Himmelsturmer), Last Hope was bad, but many think well of Pink Bullets (haven't played it) and Fast Striker (got it, still have to play). Right now I'm the only one having such a bad overview of the game (at least in this thread), maybe I can't really appreciate how Europeans structure hori shooters. I already knew I would hate the music, European demo developers seem fixated with techno-whatever music for some reason.

[edit] and had it preordered since 2011. That's even before I knew about Gunlord and Fast Striker. If it wasn't for the thread in the news forum bumped, I would have totally forgot about it.

[Yakumo]

I like it. For a start the weapon system is basically Axelay which nobody complained about. The powering up system is 100% the same as Macross on the SFC, again nobody complained about that either. I like both Axelay and Macross on the SFC so the weapon system doesn't bother me at all. What does bother me are the background objects. As briareos_kerensky said, it's hard to tell what you can touch and what you can't. Many times you find yourself losing life and you'll have no idea why. Also, yes there was one or two times I noticed a dodgy hit-box problem. Saying that, this is far better than the beta version I also have. At least you can now see the enemy bullets and the difficulty level has been fixed.

People will always bitch but look at it this way, the game looks better than any shooter released by a professional game team on the Dreamcast. It really pushes the hardware in a none polygon sense which I know no other game does and I have hundreds of DC games to compare it to.

Level layout could be a lot better and more distinction between background and foreground items that can harm you is defiantly needed but over all it's an enjoyable game. Personally I'm sick of bullet mania shooters. They bore the **** out of me now so this is a breath of fresh air. It may not be mountain fresh but at least it's not the same stale air that all other shooters bring with them these days.

[dvdx2]

It looked good in photos and videos, those who had the chance to preview it spoke good things about it and Gunlord was the step up from last Hope, though not perfect. Haven't player Soldner X (Himmelsturmer), Last Hope was bad, but many think well of Pink Bullets (haven't played it) and Fast Striker (got it, still have to play). Right now I'm the only one having such a bad overview of the game (at least in this thread), maybe I can't really appreciate how Europeans structure hori shooters. I already knew I would hate the music, European demo developers seem fixated with techno-whatever music for some reason.

[edit] and had it preordered since 2011. That's even before I knew about Gunlord and Fast Striker. If it wasn't for the thread in the news forum bumped, I would have totally forgot about it.

Put abit more time into it. I thought the same, after completing 2/3 levels, but it grows on you