Progear

[Discoalucard]

hg101.kontek.net/progear/progear.htm

Szycag finished up (or, rather, completely rewrote) an article I had begun way back when about the time when Deathsmiles hit the US. This is Cave's first horizontal shooter, and since I have a long standing preference for them, I've always rather admired this title. I still have issues with it - I really wish the radius of the bullet-cancelling explosion were larger, or at least a bit easier to determine, and I hate the vertically scrolling stages in the back half. The soundtrack's also pretty weak. But I love the graphical style, and it has the best take-off sequence of pretty much any Cave game (or any shooter - it's why I used it in my music video!)

[nickz]

I played Progear for the first time about a month ago. I was kind of surprised when I read that it was one of Cave's easier games. I thought it was super hard, even harder than Ketsui.

[Discoalucard]

Really? Ketsui starts kicking me in the nads somewhere in the middle of stage 2. I think Deathsmiles and Muchi Muchi Pork are a bit easier than Progear in general. I think I just find horizontals easier to deal with,

[KeeperBvK]

Jun 13, 2011 16:06:08 GMT -5 nickz said:

I played Progear for the first time about a month ago. I was kind of surprised when I read that it was one of Cave's easier games. I thought it was super hard, even harder than Ketsui.

I'm with you on that. I only played Progear a few times on a friend's cab some years ago as I didn't really like it at all and I felt it was among the hardest Cave games.

[Gendo Ikari]

The article doesn't mention of hte only other version of Progear, the one for cellphones released in 2004. I wonder how much they had to scale it back, especially with the controls you have to expect from such devices in the pre-iPhone era...

[derboo]

Wait, it got actually better for pixel-precise shooters in the post-iPhone era?

[KeeperBvK]

Shooters ON the iPhone can be a lot better and especially a lot more precise to control than on those old mobile phones.

[BulletMagnet]

I only gave the page a quick look, but I didn't see any mention of the "affinity" ratings between the pilots and co-pilots, which affects how quickly they "level up" when you perform certain actions (you see their "ratings" tallied up at the end of each level). A weird design aspect, to be sure...

[izenger]

Is lovely (romantic level) determine the ending?
I find it very hard to rise it. By the end of the game, i only manage to lvl 1
I certain that to rise safe stats is to clever bombing and grazing.
How about way to rise active stats?