Waiting on shipment of Last Hope and Under Defeat

[vysethebold]

I just ordered the special edition of Last Hope and a regular copy of Under Defeat (with an import enabling disc) for the Dreamcast. I'm waiting on them to ship now and am really excited to play them as I haven't played a good new shmup in a while. What are your opinions on these games?

[GoTaS]

This site is pretty hardcore.

Under Defeat is a nice heli vert shmup...

It plays like an older shmup, barely manic (although there are those certain spots...); it's more laid back than usual. I like the ideas put into this game. You can't keep shooting in this game. Well, you can, but in order to bring out your secondary weapon (you almost NEED this to defeat bosses), you're going to have to let go of the shot button and wait for your secondary weapon bar to charge. Now, let 'er rip. Then there's also the screen clearing bomb... which does hardly any damage, so don't rely on this to do anything to the bosses. It's WEAK! It's all about the secondary weapon (which you can switch by collecting powerups floating around).

People compare it to Zero Gunner 2 based on the rotation aspect alone. Don't listen to them, they don't know what they're talking about. In Zero Gunner 2, you can rotate 360 degress, while in Under Defeat you can only rotate to the left and the right about 45 degrees. You can hold the rotation while holding down the shot button. There's two different styles of rotation: normal and reverse. One way rotates in, the other out... vice versa. You might have to watch videos to know what I'm talking about.

The only problem that I have with Under Defeat is that, at sometimes, I feel that it's a little TOO laid back. Eventually, you'll have the first levels memorized and down pat, and they give no more room to grow. There's nothing else to gain from memorizing a level as there is no strange/unique/weird scoring system at all. Once you've memorized a level... that's it, congrats.

Over all... I like this game. Fuck ranking systems, it's good.

Last Hope just shipped for Dreamcast a few back. So, as I'm not a rich person, I wasn't able to pick up the Neo Geo version, so I have no opinion until my copy arrives (and I don't trust the opinions of people that can just throw money around like that, you know? Nothing is of value...). Looks like it's taken some good ideas from R-TYPE, however, and I'm really into that. It seems like it's going to be one of those shmups where it's incredibly hard until you have that divine moment where the whole game just... clicks.

Here's a review of the Neo Geo version if you want to bother to read it:

www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/Main/LastHope-Daddelkingz-Review

Where did you order the LE of Last Hope from?
(The LEs haven't shipped yet...)

-GoTaS

[xorthen]

I'll keep it short. I think Under Defeat is one of my favorite shooters.

[dai jou bu]

gotas said:

The only problem that I have with Under Defeat is that, at sometimes, I feel that it's a little TOO laid back. Eventually, you'll have the first levels memorized and down pat, and they give no more room to grow. There's nothing else to gain from memorizing a level as there is no strange/unique/weird scoring system at all. Once you've memorized a level... that's it, congrats.

Under Defeat is the Aria/Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou of shmups, and I love G.Rev for that. This game is a snapshot of an era long gone where shmups were what sold systems.

[vysethebold]

I just got my copy of Under Defeat and I love it. It's a great game. I like that they give you the Reverse option for rotation. Otherwise, the way the options system works is creative and I like that the bombs are mainly used to clear bullets on the screen rather than do a huge amount of damage to enemies. As always, I love the 2 player mode, something that should never be mission from a vertical shooter these days. Plus, the cinematic style of the fifth level blew me away. I'm still waiting on my LE copy of Last Hope. I got it from Play-Asia when they had preorders for a short time. I'll tell you what I think about it when I get it.