Tonight I bought a new shmup called Crystal Breaker. It really hearkens back to the TG-16/PC-Engine days! You take no damage from collisions and it rewards you for getting up close to enemies by releasing gems when you destroy enemies at close range.
Choose between two characters: Layla with short, auburn hair who has a standard shot, and Jenny with long, dark hair who has a shorter attack reach, but has stronger firepower.
Your powerups max out at the 3rd level, in which you shoot five ways. There are no bombs, but only a dash that can allow you to dodge bullets (however it’s not as easy as you’d think).
Crystal Breaker is made by Terarin Games, who also released the Gunhead/Blazing Lasers-inspired Raging Blasters and Layer Section/Rayforce-inspired Moon Dancer. Terarin’s definite Compile-influences are seen here, following the retro caravan-style shmup style. They do well at capturing that ’90s shmup aesthetic. As with prior games, Crystal Breaker also has a selectable chiptune music option. This game is hard, and I still haven’t cleared the second boss yet. Nice neo-retro style game!
Here is my newest desktop wallpaper, and it’s Nadia with a beautiful sunset. I was running Mint Mate 20 Ulyssa, and my 1TB SSD hard disk was maxing out. In august I bought a 2TB HD, and in September I installed Mint Mate 22 Wilma. It wasn’t a smooth experience like version 20 was. The first problem I had was when I plugged the old 1TB drive in and tried copying my files directly from there. Upon reboot, it wouldn’t even boot up and was scrolling text. I re-installed Wilma. Then updating the Nvidia driver caused the computer to freeze up. I had to get help on the Linux Mint Forums and learned how to modify the boot kernel. After that, it was fine. However what remains is apparently the USB device manager might not function properly.
I’ve done three fresh installs of Retropie on Linux Mint Mate 22 and each time the controller input is screwed up. I am using a Logitech F310 USB gamepad, which is pretty standard. Retropie on Mint 22 is flawed. Controller problems.
When accessing the in-game menu by pressing the hot key (to take a screenshot, save state, etc), the joypad locks up. I have to press select for it to work again. When returning to the game, the joypad is again locked up and I cannot play the game. I must press select again to regain control.
When accessing Retropie-Setup from within the RetroPie GUI, joypad input ceases to work. Not even the arrow keys can be used. The workaround for this is to run the setup.sh via terminal and the controller works. Just not when accessed through RetroPie itself.
For this third time, I did not copy over any config files and I did the controller setup for my joypad from scratch. I thought perhaps that there might have been a problem by just copying the entirety of the ./opt/retropie folder and all of its subfolders, but this is not the case. I did a full uninstall, then a reinstall. The problem remains.
I am wondering if it is a problem with Mint 22 itself. I had zero problems installing and using RetroPie on Mint 19 and 20. However, with Mint 22 I’ve noticed that at least with Space Invaders Extreme on Steam, the game does not recognize my controller at all, regardless of which version of the Linux Proton compatibility tool I am using.
I’ve been advocating people switching to Linux for years now, but this latest version is making me hesitant. My experiences with installing Mint 19 Tricia and Mint 20 Ulyssa were smooth, but Mint 22 Wilma has given me some headaches. Posting my problems online, I was told by others who are disappointed with 22 Wilma’s USB capabilities. One guy said he has some external hard drives that 22 won’t recognize. Another said that his Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse combo is wonky, and replacing this with a generic wireless set did not solve the problem. I do hope that these issues will be addressed soon. I would not have known what to do with my Nvidia driver without the help of the Mint forum. I was told that my GPU is old, but it’s from 2017 so it can’t be that old.
For now, Steam is fine, more or less. Retropie is fine until I have to bring up the menu. Having to press the select button though, it makes me hesitant to plug in my Saturn controllers, since they do not have a select button.
EDIT 10/27: I ran an update over the weekend and the first issue with RetroPie freezing after calling up the menu is now fixed.
In level 1-3, a secret area shows Snake Plissken from Escape from NY land atop the building on his glider and he hands you his special automatic pistol.
Level 4 is the section that most resembles Blade Runner. The secret area in level 4-4 shows Deckard holding onto the ledge of the building while Batty releases a dove. Cool.
I recently discovered a game publisher called Flynn’s Arcade (awesome name!). Basically, the game is a cross between Dig Dug and Bomberman. You play as a bunny rabbit that poops bombs. And no, I’m not being silly. the game actually says that you poop bombs by pressing the button!
The object of the game is to kill all of the enemies on screen before the timer runs out, and you get bonus points for eating the four carrots on each screen. Press the button to drop a bomb behind you. It’s not like Bomberman where you drop a bomb right where you are, but rather behind your bunny. The delay is very swift, so you must move quickly. You can also dislodge rocks to have them fall on the enemies. Points multiply when you kill more than one enemy.
The emulated CRT scanlines are great in this game. Sometimes these faux retro games go overboard with the scanlines, but they look nice in this game. The game is available for Steam OS, so it runs natively on Linux and Steam Deck. Last year, I discovered Annalynn. Murtop is another such fantastic neo-retro arcade game. Play it or else you suck!
Masaya’s “Assault Suit” series of side-scrolling mecha combat action games is fantastic. My first exposure to the series was Assault Suit Valken, aka “Cybernator” for North America, on the Super Nintendo. I played the crap out of that game, and then I later got Target: Earth for my Genesis. But Valken/Cybernator’s control was fantastic due to the extra buttons of the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo. Playing Target: Earth/Leynos with only 3 buttons, plus the inferior graphics, did not help me to enjoy the game much. I’ve played it again more recently on my Megadrive Mini, and it still just doesn’t play as well as it could, if only there were more buttons. I did, however, play Assault Suits Leynos 2 on the Saturn quite a lot and completed it.
So this is a remake of Leynos on Steam, and it is fantastic. It features Japanese voice acting for when the anime-style characters speak. For some dumb reason, the anime characters were removed for the North American Cybernator port, and I did a review of that game on my old Super Famicom page here. With extra shoulder buttons, this game plays very well. Of course it retains the 2D gameplay, but with updated graphics and beautiful lighting effects.
The game has mixed reviews on Steam, but I suspect that many are from people who are unfamiliar with the original game. I rather enjoyed it, and I waited for it to go on sale before nabbing it. Definitely give it a try if you are a fan of the series.
I’ve probably spent too much money on Steam games this past two years or more. I never liked the idea of buying games I did not have physical copies for, and I haven’t cared about gaming on the PC since the ’90s. But Steam offers a way to enjoy the console gaming experience on my computer without having to buy a new game console, so I’m happy. This past summer I wrote about how much I love Infinos Gaiden on Steam, and the same development team, Picorinne Soft, has done it again.
As far as Neo Geo shmups go, my two favorites are Blazing Star and Pulstar. I’d never actually heard of the original Andro Dunos before. So upon hearing about how great Andro Dunos II is, I played the original on RetroPie to try it out. While it isn’t a rather impressive-looking game graphically, it’s pretty solid and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it before. It was made by a company called Visco, and that entire catalog has been purchased. Picorinne created this sequel, with improved graphics, yet keeping faithful to that 24-bit Neo Geo graphics style. I do not see any mention of Picorinne’s name in Andro Dunos II, but they are listed as being the developer in Steam, and both shmups feature great ’90s quality pixel art. (FYI, they also did a vertical shmup called Battle Crust, which feels more like a 16-bit arcade shmup.)
Just like Infinos Gaiden, this game also supports a 4:3 aspect ratio! I am so grateful for this. It irritates me when I play a vertical shmup that is formatted for 16:9 only, which makes the playing screen even smaller on my 4:3 monitor. This is of course a horizontal shmup, but nevertheless it’s good that I don’t have to bother with wasted borders to either side of the screen.
The first level starts you out inside of what seems to be an underground city, then you break out into a desert wasteland. Nothing but sand and desolation. Apparently this is what happens when we let the cows fart one too many times. If only we had listened to Bill Gates back in the 21st century and ate bugs and drank soymilk instead… we wouldn’t be pelted with sand storms and living underground, eating bugs and drinking soymilk! So anyhow, this is the first level boss, a giant mecha with a big shoulder cannon, a chest cannon, and the blue sensor weak spot to shoot at. Pretty cool.
Next you fly into outer space to look for jerks to shoot at. Oh look, a space colony.
Gameplay is improved over the original. There is now an autofire, a button to cycle the weapons, and a button for the power attack. The original only had two buttons, which required button mashing for the regular shot and to charge up for the power attack.
Like Hellfire on the PC Engine and Megadrive, each of the weapons has its purpose, and you can switch between them using the trigger buttons. You can power up the shots individually by collecting powerups, and your weapons will lose power when you take damage.
Here’s the second level boss. Shoot the core!
Now you’re on the moon.
Now you’re underwater. Games like this and Infinos Gaiden are cool because each level is distinct. People praise Eschatos, but that game is just the same thing over and over again, it seems. Very little variety.
There’s always a strong Darius vibe whenever giant, mechanical fish are involved.
Then you fly over a space city. The boss of this level was taken from the original Andro Dunos game.
So you can’t go wrong with Andro Dunos II. Very fun, retro shmup action with beautiful sprite work, and it’s an improvement on the original. For my Linux desktop, I just had to set the launch option: gamemoderun %command% and the Proton compatibility tool runs the game just fine in Linux.
This game came out last year, but I just now learned of it. Annalynn is a new game with an early ’80s arcade game appeal. It is a sort of a cross between Mario Bros. and Pac-Man.
The intro to this game introduces a miner named Annalynn, who finds herself in an underground construction zone. These four cute snakes, Randy, Candy, Handy, and Mike are down there and they don’t like this intruder and will chase you. Anna’s pick axe is broken, so now she is defenseless.
It took me a bit to figure out how to play. As you can see, it’s a side-view platformer arena, sort of like Mario Bros. The goal is to collect all of the gems, just like Pac-Man. But you can’t jump up to hit the beams to stun the snakes like Mario would. Your only button allows you to jump. The snakes cannot jump, but they can slither into the snake holes in the background to move up or down to different platforms. Also, there are some half platform sections where you can jump through.
The snakes respawn by falling from holes in the ceiling. They fall way faster than I would expect for an early ’80s game. I’m not griping, but I think I just need to get used to how this game works.
When you grab a power jem, the snakes all turn blue for a brief while and you can kick the crap out of them, so it’s just like Pac-Man in that regard.
You’ll be alerted when a bonus appears in the arena, like a cupcake in level 1. Once you’ve collected all the gems, you proceed to round 2. Each round appears unique.
After the 4th round, ropes are introduced, harkening to Donkey Kong Jr.
As expected, there is a simulated CRT mode with scanlines, but this takes it a bit further and simulates the curvature of an old monitor. Wow, that’s a neat effect, but I think I’ll leave it standard. There is also an option to give the snakes hats and sunglasses too.
The Proton utility allows this game to run perfectly in Linux. A 4:3 aspect ratio can be selected, which is always a welcome feature for me because I prefer 4:3 for my desktop. Actually, the 16:9 was enabled by default and I didn’t really notice it. All it really affects is the side art, which is very fabulously retro as well. The snakes are so cute! I think I will make iron bead versions of them.
I picked up Infinos Gaiden via Steam’s summer sale. This is a fantastic game, reminiscent of Thunder Force and other 16-32 bit shmups. Via the Proton utility, this works perfectly on my Linux desktop. Not only does fullscreen mode work fine, but this game supports a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is perfect for my monitor and the overall retro feel. I breezed through the first level, then the difficulty picked up quite a bit.
These are scenes from the animated intro.
Here’s the first level. I cleared it without taking a hit on my first try. Pretty easy. The S powerup is for speed, the B is a barrier/shield similar to Gradius and Darius. The colored orbs provide you bits similar to the Craws from Thunder Force. They can also be used as shields.
I’ve seen a lot of newer shmups that just get repetitive, like Eschatos. It’s a fun game, but it’s just the same enemies charging at you over and over again. In the first level of Infinos Gaiden, you will see the city you are defending getting blasted by the invaders’ lasers in the background. As you can see here, there is quite a variety of enemies that come after you, and they aren’t even the final boss.
The second level takes you to a jungle, and you have to have to deal with this giant, walking mecha on your way into the enemy base!
Inside the base, the boss is this big tank. Neat!
Now you’re in a desert, and oh rats! It’s a sand storm.
This badass sandcrawler mecha is the boss of level 3.
Level 4 is so cool. You fly around this giant airship, and then fly into it.
Oh crap! I ran out of credits. So yeah, this game seems to work just fine on my Linux desktop. I just need to press Ctrl+Enter to get it to full-screen mode. What a neat game! With the 32-bit style pixel graphics and music, you’d swear you were playing a Saturn game. Actually, I saw a comment on Steam that the man responsible for this game’s music also did the music to Hyper Duel and Thunder Force V.
I’ve had this game on my Steam wishlist for a while, and as soon as it went on sale this month, I bought it. It has a “silver” rating on the Proton Database, but after installing it, I had no problems running the game at all on my Linux desktop, without having to make changes.
Super Hydorah is obviously inspired by Konami side-scrolling shmups like Gradius and Salamander, but doesn’t try too hard to duplicate these games. The game features simulated CRT scanlines that look nice. Usually I opt to not enable such a feature because it just doesn’t look right for some reason.
Right off, you can see that this is not exactly a Gradius clone. You can start the game in which shields protect you three times but you only get half a score, or a shield that protects you only once but you get full points.
