Caltrops - Article Submissions





	[quote name="Mischief Maker"][quote]I am John Travolta, Caltrops is Uma Thurman foaming at the mouth, and this indie shmup review is a huge syringe of epinephrine poised and ready to stab. This is a highly anticipated game and almost nobody in english has an article about it. Bring on the new blood! Boxshot <A HREF="http://www.melonbooks.com/contents/image/IT0000132818p.jpg" TARGET="new">Here</A>.[/quote] To people who say that Shmups are a moribund genre that ran out of ideas a decade ago, I present you with <A HREF="http://daidai.moo.jp/sora/soramain.html" TARGET="new">Sora</A>. It’s a new game that mixes the fast-paced action of a 3D dash brawler like Zone of the Enders 2 with the tighter controls, greater situational awareness, and much greater danger level of a 2D shmup. <I>Plus</I> playing Sora gives you a video game hipster hat trick since it’s a niche genre game AND an indie AND an import! Sora is the 3rd game in the Suguri line by Japanese indie developer Orange Juice. Suguri takes place on an uninhabitable Earth devastated by war and environmental catastrophe. The greatest scientific minds decide the best way to clean up the planet is by turning the girl Suguri into a high-speed heavily armed flying combat cyborg dressed for a trip to the mall. If that plan doesn’t make sense to you, that’s why you’re not one of the greatest scientific minds of the future. Years later, after Suguri managed to clean up most of the planet, an alien colony ship with an army of robots and its own combat cyborg teenagers arrive to claim the Earth for themselves. So Suguri grabs her aquifer-purifying laser rifle and lead-abating bazooka and brings the war to them. Gameplay-wise, Suguri is a horizontal shmup with a character who can fire in all directions and automatically locks on to enemies. Instead of weaving through patterns of bullets, Suguri can fly through energy shots harmlessly using her dash move. While dashing, Suguri leaves jetson-esque rings in her wake and any enemy attacks that go through these rings charge up her hyper attack meter. AND dashing enhances her normal shots by either changing the shots into a stronger form or canceling attack animations allowing her to alternate firing and dashing to increase her firing rate. The downside to the dashing that that it increases Suguri’s heat meter, which acts as a damage multiplier and Suguri can’t dash through solid projectiles like missiles. Blundering into a missile while your heat is at 300% can take out a third of your lifebar in one hit, and you only get one life. These mechanics, along with Suguri’s speed-rewarding scoring system, makes for a fast and furious game of risk verses reward as you dash attack your way through armies of robots before taking on an equally powerful enemy cyborg, all the while your speed putting you in greater and greater danger. [youtube id=IX3wBWnjW9E] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX3wBWnjW9E (Suguri in action) Unfortunately, while Suguri has its <A HREF="http://insomnia.ac/reviews/pc/suguri/">fans</A> and I respect it for its innovation, it was too rough in execution for me to get into the game. Fast moving formations of popcorn enemies can turn the lock-on into a liability unless you’re firing from the right position at the right time, many of the levels experiment with ideas that just don’t work with this game’s mechanics, (like fighting through cramped and twisting tunnels against an enemy that can fire through walls), weapon balance is all over the map, and the blurry ugly graphics make the game a very bitter pill to swallow. Orange Juice followed up with Acceleration of Suguri, and its X-edition expansion pack, a 2-player VS. fighter featuring Suguri, the cyborg bosses from first game, and a mysterious unlockable character named Sora battling in a circular arena using a slightly altered version of the original game’s mechanics. It’s a surprisingly good game with netplay, but like Street Fighter, a wash as a singleplayer experience. Cut to August of 2010, Orange Juice releases Sora, a direct sequel to Suguri. It's a prequel, taking place at the end of the war that left the Earth in ruins. It is a refinement and improvement over the original Suguri in every way. The most noticeable improvement Sora brings to the table is the graphics. Gone are the fuzzy flame-spitting tinker-toy enemies replaced by dark and crisply-drawn combat robots with glowmaps that look like they’re made to fight. Energy attacks are now drawn in sexy bloomy bolts that look even more striking against ubiquitous dark clouds in the background. While Sora and the enemy cyborgs are still look like teenagers, they’re no longer throwing exploding maracas or showing up to a warzone in a baby-T and jeans. In fact, one of the bosses is downright creepy as her arms were amputated and replaced with interfaces for her giant robot suit. <A HREF="http://www.dwahan.net/Marsbound/cloudphobia/index_e.html" TARGET="new">Cloudphobia</A> is still safe in its place as the prettiest indie shmup on the PC, but Sora is definitely a treat for the eyes. <IMG SRC="http://daidai.moo.jp/sora/sora16.jpg"> (Sexy!) Gameplay-wise, Orange Juice has learned from its experience in the multiplayer arena. Overpowered weapons have been toned down (eg. Spread shot) while useless weapons have been pumped up (the Bazooka is now devastating). Like in AoS, the sword is now a mainstay weapon, with the awkward 2-button approach replaced by a single button. Dash attacks now build up way more heat than Suguri, increasing the price of abusing them. Level design has improved greatly. Popcorn enemies no longer fire a single volley and disappear if you can’t get them fast enough; they’re perfectly happy to hang around and pepper you with fire until you take them down. Bad stage ideas like the twisty corridor have been scrapped while good stage ideas like the battleships have been expanded. AND! the damage chain gauge pauses between enemy waves, making it completely possible to boost your score by chaining the entire stage. It's even the first game in the series where you can change the awkward keyboard arrangement (however clumsily) by plugging <A HREF="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms927178.aspx" TARGET="new">Virtual Key Codes</A> into the external_option file. My only real complaint about this game is that it unlocks additional weapons based on total gameplay time. [youtube id=kZWCDdDsH8Q] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZWCDdDsH8Q Sora in action WHERE TO GET IT? Suguri, Acceleration of Suguri and AoSX have been translated, localized, and distributed for PC by <strike>Danglin</strike> <A HREF="http://www.rockinandroid.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:suguri-perfect-edition&catid=25:doujin-games&Itemid=174" TARGET="new">Rockin Android</A>. At the moment, Sora is only available in the original Japanese so it’s a bit of an adventure acquiring yourself a copy and getting it to run. You can get the Sora demo <A HREF="http://www.shindenken.org/ordd/SoraTrial.zip">here</A> (direct link). Unless you’re willing to change the language for non-unicode programs on windows to Japanese, you’ll need <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=8c4e8e0d-45d1-4d9b-b7c0-8430c1ac89ab&displaylang=en" TARGET="new">Microsoft Applocale</A> to run it If you want to buy, you have 2 options: Go through an <A HREF="http://www.himeyashop.com/product_info.php/products_id/14852" TARGET="new">importer</A>, or save a few bucks and direct download through <A HREF="http://www.melonbooks.com/item/goods/id_goods/IT0000132818" TARGET="NEW">Melonbooks</A>. Melonbooks is not in English, but fortunately the developer of the indie shmup <A HREF="http://i-saint.skr.jp/exception/" TARGET="new">Exception</A> (also worth checking out) was good enough to publish a graphical <A HREF="http://i-saint.skr.jp/exception/buy.html" TARGET="new">guide</A> for non-japanese speakers to purchase his game off that site. As of this publishing, the site has not done any radical and the instructions will guide you to a successful DL of Sora. Have a blank disc handy for backup. If you’re looking for something fresh and fun that tests your skills while pumping the blood, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Sora. It’s my personal shmup of the year for 2010 (yes, I am including <A HREF="http://www.siterskain.com/as/index.html" TARGET="new">Alltynex 2nd</A> in that assessment). [/quote]