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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Apr 20, 2012 11:22:02 GMT -5
Three obscure shmups by DataWest (no relation to DataEast). For the FM Towns and PC-Engine CD. In all honesty the first two were awful, but the third was excellent - good enough to justify the series. Lovely spitework too. www.hardcoregaming101.net/rayxanber/rayxanber.htm |
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Post by apachacha on Apr 20, 2012 11:33:06 GMT -5
Three obscure shmups by DataWest (no relation to DataEast). For the FM Towns and PC-Engine CD. In all honesty the first two were awful, but the third was excellent - good enough to justify the series. Lovely spitework too. www.hardcoregaming101.net/rayxanber/rayxanber.htmWhat is the story behind DataWest and DataEast ? I mean, someone had to have gotten the idea to rip off someone elses' name here  |
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Post by Allie on Apr 20, 2012 13:18:31 GMT -5
Horrible or not, the Stage 1 music of the first game is <3.
Also, I swear to god, Bounty Arms is becoming some sort of obsessive legend.
Another Also : Was Sprite's game Xadlak meant to be a blatant ripoff of this?
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Apr 20, 2012 15:26:09 GMT -5
Yeah, I was thinking of ripping some of the music and putting it up - some of the tracks are indeed lovely.
Never heard of Xadlak before - perhaps some investigation is warranted. The credits for the Rayxanber games are all easily available.
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Post by Kid Fenris on Apr 20, 2012 21:59:21 GMT -5
That was a good read. I didn't know that Team 50 also made the first Rayxanber in addition to the second and third. The third one actually has a notable name on the staff: Yuke Taniguchi, the co-founder of Yuke's. They're still around, making mostly wrestling games. I don't know if Team 50 also made Bounty Arms. Taniguchi had already started up Yuke's before Bounty Arms was announced, so I doubt he worked on the game (he did work on some of Data West's Psychic Detective titles, though). I'm also not sure if Team 50 made Data West's last "real" game: Brave Prove, a PlayStation action-RPG released in 1998. From what I've played, it's reminiscent of Zelda and Alundra, with an interesting combo system. I can't find the credits anywhere online, though, and I still haven't finished it. It's been speculated that Data West only dabbled in video games, as most of their business seems to have come from corporate software and that sort of thing. I wonder if they just jumped into games when the industry took off in the late '80s and jumped out when Brave Prove didn't sell. |
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Apr 21, 2012 2:00:27 GMT -5
Man, Brave Prove looks pretty damn awesome. I'll add it to my list of PS1 games to hunt down.
As for the Rayxanber credits, on the CD there's a file with plain ASCII text, which features all the names.
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Post by Narushima on Apr 21, 2012 3:58:04 GMT -5
The third Rayxanber does seem to be quite brilliant. Interesting article.
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Post by PooshhMao on Apr 21, 2012 13:40:35 GMT -5
Just played the third game just now for a couple of levels. The write-up is spot-on; you always have the feeling you could've made it if you tried just a little bit harder whenever you die.
The charge missiles mechanic is great too. Actually I think the green ship from Blazing Star ripped this off since it's almost identical and quite distinct.
Also, since the PC Engine is technically 8-bit, this has to qualify for one of the best looking 8-bit games.
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Post by apachacha on Apr 22, 2012 4:17:14 GMT -5
I just played through the first game (played the other two ages ago) and I have to say it played well and the music was quite good. Not realy bad at all.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Apr 22, 2012 12:53:26 GMT -5
You liked the first Rayxanber?! Well, fair enough I suppose.
EDIT:
Did you play through with any trainers/cheats? I used some quick-saving, but generally try to play shmups el natural, without help. Unless it's Rayxanber II, where there's no way I'd have seen later levels without infinite lives, save-states, and rewind.
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Post by apachacha on Apr 22, 2012 13:11:50 GMT -5
You liked the first Rayxanber?! Well, fair enough I suppose. You have not played D-Return have you ? Or Knight Arms ? Rayxanber has maybe two areas that might give you trouble. Knight Arms' third boss is almost impossible, as Nickz may very well confirm. Hell if you remember the stage long box boss, then imagine the same thing, only faster, with more blocks going in several different directions and with no indication which might move next, and you have a mid boss before the final boss in Scarlet. Anyway it had pretty good music, a variety in level direction, nice backgrounds, a good boss design or two, plus with the green weapon targeted forwards, enemies and bosses go down alot easier. You just need to keep it. And realise that in the level where you're chasing the comet you can actualy go to the top of the screen, above the things flying by while shooting at you, to be completely out of their range, and can also destroy their pods with forward targeted weapons if you position yourself just right. And of course I cheated like hell, but I know people who are actualy good at shooters and I've suffered through much worse (Cuarto, Scorpius). |
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Post by bluelander on Apr 30, 2012 14:01:43 GMT -5
I've got Rayxanber 1 and it works fine on my FM Towns Marty. Can't get very far in it, though, because the controls suck.
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Post by bakudd on Mar 8, 2013 9:16:30 GMT -5
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Post by Kid Fenris on Apr 15, 2013 23:47:52 GMT -5
Thanks for posting these. They're actually very helpful in figuring out who was behind Data West's games in the mid-1990s. A man named Kazuhide Nakamura directed Rayxanber II, Rayxanber III, the first Vajra, and probably the second as "Kenji Nakamura." Yuke Taniguchi shows up in the credits for Vajra, but not Vajra 2. A Noboru Nishizawa appears in Vajra 2's credits, and he directed and lead-programmed Brave Prove. Nakamura's name is nowhere to be found in the Brave Prove credits, though, and that makes me wonder if Bounty Arms was canceled after he left the company. |
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