Quick Look: Super Hydorah

Wow this posted right on time! I only play games with Super in them if Hot is also in the name.

That description.

Aww yeah

@Brad have you played sky force? It's one of the few android games I really enjoy every now and then. It has a cool slow down feature when you leave your finger off the screen.

Oh, Locomalito made this! They also made Maldita Castilla, which is basically Ghosts & Goblins. Well done.

Has anyone ever used crt and benefitted from It? I think it is as obnoxious as Jeff does but nothing is worse offender than film grain. I turn that off first thing in every games and just like crt mode I see no reason for it.

Contra is one of the least produced copy cat games out there sadly I want a great contra in 2018. It can't be that hard.

This reminds me of that game I used to play with the ships. You know, ForceLife.

Looks great. 100% of the time, I'll prefer a horizontal shooter to vertical, and apparently this is out on Vita and I recently rekindled my love of the Vita. Sign me up!

The Locomalito guy made a bunch of 16-bit style games, many of them free: https://locomalito.com/

@rain_1: Oh, nice. Maybe I'll check this out, I love Maldita Castilla (well I played the EX version, not sure how different that is). I rebought it on 3DS too just so I could have a portable version (plus, the 3D effect actually looks super good).

the last quick look of 2017?

I got you, fam.

Looks like they went for Game Boy Advanced

most crt effects are bad, but the one in this game is good, I prefer it

i want to play this, but damn, twenty bucks? :( does this game have $20 worth of "super" in it or should i check out the free version?

also, Brad, play more Dariusburst, I've got 100 hours in that game and all the DLC now, it's very rewarding if you want to figure out the gameplay depths of these games without needing to be motivated by score chasing

Oh damn, that looks more Hard Corps than Hard Corps: Uprising.

Christmas-time for my cat would be putting this QL on a loop, and putting a couple cat treats by her as she watched.

I nominate this for a Breaking Brad in 2018.

I really, really wish somebody's dream game would be a re-imagining of Guardian Legend. That game could be so good.

CRT filters are often bad, but good ones successfully replicate colour-blending tricks that older games used. Hint, Genesis games aren't supposed to be full of vertical lines and dithering all over the place. You can't see that on a CRT.

And on the second thing, you all say that, but then none of you played Contra 4 on the DS, so... yeah.

poor

I've never liked the CRT or screen warp effects but I do like film grain. It's especially good in Mass Effect 1 and 2, and added to the general atmosphere of those games.

Gradius V was on the PS2, yeah, and it's totally great! Pretty 3D graphics, not terribly advanced even for the time, but good clarity which was sometimes difficult when going polygonal. It does a neat thing with the "story" mode where you start with a higher number of continues the more time you spend playing the game. So like any good shooter, you'll probably not even come close to finishing it on your first dozen attempt, but on top of getting further because you get better at the earlier levels, it throws you some mercy for shown diligence until you either master it enough to beat it, or until you have like 20 continues and can just brute force it.

This looks neat. Obvious Gradius throwback, but looks well made.

I played a ton of Super R-type as a kid. Let me tall y'all, this game is a lot like Super R-type for the SNES. From the projectiles, the firing patterns, the enemy types, the weapon power-ups, the screen scroll rate. This game is astonishingly nostalgic for me. Super Super R-type.

{Nerd Tangent}

(Is the word "super" a superlative? Does saying "Super Super R-type" count as a double superlative? Could the "Super" in "Super R-type" count as just an adjective? )

Saw the picture, immediately recognized Joymasher's style. I dig the hell out of their games, and even though Oniken was way too hard for me, I enjoyed Odallus: The Dark Call immensely. They seem to ramp up the quality of their pixel aesthetic with each game, their music is top-notch, and the gameplay is simple but tight as hell. Cannot wait to play Blazing Chrome.

(Also, I grew up on an Amiga 500, so this reminds me more of Turrican than anything else. That is a good thing.)

Looks good but I doubt I'd ever play it for more than an hour, a bit pricey at that.

@renegademike: I came here to say the same thing. Gonna have to check this out.

@brad I’m guessing that you already knew and just forgot, but those games where known as Nemesis and Salamander here in Europe as well as in Japan. I remember the cabinet art for Salamander having this awesome cobra looking dude on it. Man, loved that game. Talking about side-scrolling vs top-down, it blew me away as a kid that Salamander switched between the side-scrolling you expected from the previous game to top-down between levels. The music that plays when you beat the first boss and it switches orientation will be etched on my brain forever, along with the dude saying “Ripple Laser!”.

This looks pretty good. Anyway, Abadox was my shooter as a kid

First release date: June 4, 2010

What?

@hassun: That's when they released the original freeware version. I don't know what the difference is between it and this version, though.

This reminded me I still need to go buy and download "Gates of Thunder" and "Lords of Thunder" on the Wii VC before it shuts down.

Re: two player, i think if you wait long enough on the bonus orbs, it'll show a plus symbol, which I think revives the second player. you can see it right after one of them dies in two player..

The last Gradius game was Gradius Rebirth on WiiWare in 2008 was the latest Gradius game. It used sprites and was really good. It was part of Konami's Rebirth series on Wii WiiWare which also included good Contra and Classic Castlevania games.

This had a very classic QL feel, entirely appropriate.

I've not been much of a SHMUP guy but the guys seem to be appreciating this thing more than some of the more recent attempts like a Sine Mora.

I always get confused by the powerup colors since they're the opposite of Darius (red = main gun, green = missiles) and by extension Katakis/Denaris (which mashes a lot of ideas together including Darius's orbs).

I believe Hydorah combines influences from all kinds of classic shmups, including the 8 bit computer ones.

This game looks really crisp and colorful. looks like it would make a great Vita or Switch game for on the go. I love Gradius and Life Force.

I hope Locomalito put out a physical release of this.

There was a health-looking pickup that only appeared when one of you guys were dead. I wonder if you pick that up if it brings the other dude back into the game.

@fiercetactics: Aha, thank you.

Non-Super Hydorah was in my top 6 in 2010. An all-around solid package. The Superified version seems to have added, in addition to the 2-player co-op, a handful of new, unique levels. Might pick this up at some point.

Anyone remember Soldner X2? Too bad they never followed-up on it. That was the last great horizontal shooter I played.

"Vertical." Interesting, I always considered it top-down. Never even thought to call them "vertical."

Same difference obviously, I'm not picking a fight or anything. That just struck me as an odd way of looking at those games.