Just as Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo is the companion game to the earlier release of Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha, what you're reading now should also be considered the companion to our earlier review of the latter title. We suggest, to help digest the full context of this review, that the reader also hop over and read this companion piece before proceeding any further, as both games share the same issues and flaws in terms of emulation quality.
To recap, The strengths of the new City Connection Psikyo ports are the fair price points, amounts of titles on offer, and quality of the games themselves. Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo mostly retains these same advantages as Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha, though it is debatable if the game library holds up as well overall. Since the weaknesses of these ports are shared – problems like high input lag, lack of extras, no stage select or training options, and just being carbon copy re-releases of the ZeroDiv ports – will not be the focus of this review. Rather, we'll focus on highlight the specific games included and point out the places where Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo differs from Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha.
The six games included in this collection are Gunbird, Gunbird 2, Gunbarich, Samurai Aces Episode 1, Samurai Aces Episode 2: Tengai, and Samurai Aces Episode 3: Sengoku Cannon. To begin with, the centrepiece of this collection is the two Gunbird games. As fun as some of the other included games are, these two titles will be the primary selling point for most players – and rightly so.
Gunbird was originally released in Japanese arcades in 1994. Since that time, it has been a staple title in the Psikyo team’s shmup lineup, but under the lens of a review, it is somewhat difficult to understand why. Generally speaking, it is hard to point out any remarkable or interesting features of Gunbird, other than the main character, Marion, is reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli creation (which is no bad thing at all).
The scoring system is basic to the point of practically not existing (just kill stuff and collect coins) and the hitboxes of the characters, especially Marion, are absurd. Rather than being centred in the body of the sprite, like most shmup hitboxes, the hitboxes in Gunbird tend to be placed in the heads or necks of the character, which makes sense theoretically but feels awful in practice. Nevertheless, Gunbird still remains a favourite of ours because the sum total of what the game offers – engaging visuals, catchy music, light-hearted charm, and good level design – outweigh the merit of the individual parts. If you are new to Psikyo, Gunbird is a great starting place. Just be aware that the hitboxes of the game are chunky, and trying to micro-dodge your way through a mess of bullets will typically lead to quick frustration.
Four years later, Psikyo released Gunbird 2 in 1998, which is a massive improvement over the original in almost every way. We can all kneel and thank the shmup heavens that Psikyo fixed the silly hitboxes of the first game, while the visuals and sound receive a considerable upgrade as well. Just as important, the scoring system and fundamental gameplay have improved over their predecessor. The charge shot mechanic is now much more useful with a faster startup and a meter system which allows multiple charges to be stored, which is really useful for boss fights and adds some risk-reward decision making to routing. There is also a close-range melee attack which is obviously very risky but powerful for some well-timed point-blanking. Point-blanking bosses during certain openings will also yield additional points.
The coins from the first Gunbird return, but now they have an added mechanic in which they can provide increased score when collected at their shiniest, which is a fun visual idea. There are other additions to the scoring system as well, but overall it is safe to say that the scoring in Gunbird 2 and level design are an improvement over the first. One quick note to make about Gunbird 2, just to warn new players, is that it is considered one of Psikyo’s most difficult shmups and the bullet speeds (especially in the second loop) can become obscenely fast. When it comes to this port, which has six frames of input lag at minimum, this bullet speed is going to feel even more oppressive.
So, while the game looks nice and sounds pretty in this collection, the lack of stage select coupled with the high input lag is going to make any attempts to learn and clear it ruthlessly frustrating. This holds true with the other games on the port, but especially with Gunbird 2.
Gunbarich is a spin-off title for the series, as well as Psikyo in general. Rather than being a pure shmup, the game is a hybrid between a shmup and Break-Out clone with a touch of a pinball element due to the flippers replacing the usual Break-Out slider. For the most part, this game can be described as primarily Break-Out gameplay with some fun STG-inspired additions like boss fights and bullet dodging. We are not experts in the field of Break-Out, and so can’t really comment on how well this game stacks up to its peers, but overall for the casual arcade game fan it is a fun change of pace and worthy of inclusion in the collection.
The last three games in Shooting Stars Bravo all belong to the Samurai Aces series of games, which have had an interesting evolution, to say the least. The first title in the series, Samurai Aces Episode I, is a vertical shooter very similar to Gunbird. The feudal Japan setting is pretty great and the game shares a quirky sense of humour with the Gunbird series. Episode I lacks polish when compared to the later Psikyo games, but it is also the company’s very first release, so it is interesting to play from that perspective.
As different as Gunbird 1 and 2 are from each other, the changes between the pair pale in comparison to the big shift between Samurai Aces and Samurai Aces 2: Tengoku. Tengoku marks the shift from vertical to horizontal in the series, and it also establishes a different feel overall. It’s hard to describe exactly, but Tengoku has a specific feel that the other Psikyo games don’t quite capture, and is generally the most popular entry in the Samurai Aces series. Along with the Gunbird games, we would identify Tengoku as another highlight of this collection.
Lastly, we have Samurai Aces 3: Sengoku Cannon, and all we can say about this particular title is... wow, this is rough. As we understand, Sengoku Cannon was not actually developed by Psikyo itself, but rather by X-Nauts in 2005. Also, this game was not originally released in the arcades, but on Sony’s cult classic handheld, the PSP – which we guess sort of explains the strange 3D backgrounds. The PSP, by the way, is home to an amazing array of classic shmup collections, but Sengoku Cannon is not part of this group. As we understand, even on its original platform, Sengoku Cannon had performance problems with excessive slowdown and choppy framerates. In this collection, however, the performance is so awful that we couldn’t help but laugh. Just like on the PSP, this game exhibits plenty of choppiness and slowdown, but what is even worse is the input lag. As mentioned repeatedly across these two reviews, these Shooting Stars Collections have really high input lag, even for a Switch port. Sengoku Cannon, however, has such a high amount of input lag that we didn’t even need to bother testing, as the massive delay between button press and on-screen action can be seen visually without any question. This title is not worth the player’s time or money, even at a budget price.
Conclusion
Both the Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha and Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo collections are pretty close in value to one another. While Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is perhaps the better of the two due to the consistent quality of the Strikers games, we also harbour a soft spot for the Gunbird series on Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo, especially Gunbird 2. Sengoku Cannon is so poor it might as well not exist in the collection, but Samurai Aces Episode 1 and Gunbarich are stronger than Alpha's Sol Divide and Zero Gunner 2, so which collection is better is mostly going to come down to preference between the Gunbird or Strikers series. Another constant between them, sadly, is the high level of input lag and lack of bonus material to make the collection really stand out.
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Comments 30
Bull
et hell?
Bang.
Why did nintendolife give a low score to this game because of inputlag but not to the many other emulated games on switch that have lag as well?
So this has more input lag than the eshop releases? Those got high scores here...
@jobvd This is why i always look at several reviews, not just from one website.
Since everything is subjective and flawed to some degree, we have to draw our own conclusion based on all reviews collectively.
Ouch. The input lag is an instant nope from me. I had these two collections on my wish list waiting for a big sale, but I'm removing them from the list now.
He gave the same score to Alpha, complaining of the same "issues". I have read several reviews of these and this guy is literally the only one I've seen talking about input lag. (Nintendo Life also gave them all higher scores previously, and these are the same versions in the Shooting Stars collections.) I have both and I haven't noticed anything like this at all. If this reviewer is going to be their go-to shmup guy now, then I'll just get my opinions for such games elsewhere. Thanks.
Why is it so hard to port these old games to a modern system without issues like input lag? That doesn't make any sense!
Mark is one of those guys with hardcore demands that I can't really relate to. Personally I never really noticed any input lag when playing these games, but then again I am not that good at them.
@MARl0 Unless you're a very serious player looking to compete with the best, you'll have no issue with lag. I bought all these games when they were released individually and have sunk tens of hours into them. Until these reviews, I would never have known there was any input lag. I've played a few of them since tok check and I still don't notice it. It's obviously there as Mark knows his stuff but like I said, unless you're a hardcore player, you are not going to notice any lag.
These are all fantastic shmup's, Tengai being my favourite. I would highly recommend putting them back on your wishlist.
To Mark's credit I think the previous individual reviews of these titles were misleading with regard to the quality of the emulation. Especially playing on the hardest difficulties and on the second loops, it's virtually impossible to route properly or even clear the games due to how fast the bullet speeds can get in these Psikyo games (trust me, I tried). This is of course ignoring any extras, the only important ones of which are training/save state modes imo, which these ports also lack. At a budget price there need to be concessions which the Alpha review touched on, but it'd be impossible to recommend these versions of these games over virtually any other port already in existence.
For me it's becoming a tough pill to swallow, but despite the Switch having so many of them, I think calling the console a great place for playing shumps is hard since only a select few of them have input lag that's tolerable. It doesn't help that the console itself introduces a frame or two of lag when docked which is the big killer for me.
@infernogott i was gonna say the same thing. I bought all of them back then because of high praise from everyone. I beat Gunbird, Gunbird 2 and Strikers 1945, and i just thought these were just physical collections of those same ports. I still want these copies for preservations sake but man, thats sad to hear about that input lag.
@MotionMan I think they are the same, just that the reviewer of the physical collections is more critical/perceptive about this issue.
@RonDale
I'm sorry, but "being able to route properly on the second loops of the hardest difficulty" really, really is not a useful litmus test for the broad mainstream audience that will read this review.
Also, you seem to have forgotten how barebones many previous Psikyo ports were.
For the type of people who play on normal difficulty and default settings these versions are a MUCH better choice then the Dreamcast version of Gunbird 2 or the PS1/PS2 versions of Strikers 1945 I&II, which also offer no extras, actually less options and look terrible on a HDTV.
I'm not saying CityConnection/ZeroDiv shouldn't be encouraged to improve with updates, or that a little blurb about the input lag shouldn't be mentioned for the few hardcore competitive shmup players that read this, but giving the game a 5/10 on a site like this just pushes people away that would enjoy these and would not even notice the lag.
I understand these versions are not ideal for people who dream about western shmup players getting competitive with the top 100 JP players, but for everyone else, yes, they are excellent choices.
@MotionMan @infernogott
Yes, these are exactly the same versions as the downloads. The reviewer is way too sensive about input lag because he is a competitive player. 90% of people will not notice the input lag at all.
I get that something like input lag will bother some more than others, but it seems pretty ridiculous to use 'we/our' in this review, rather than 'I/my', when another reviewer on this site gave most of the individual games in this set 8 or 9/10. Clearly this review isn't a site opinion but one individual's, which is fine, but phrasing it like that is confusing as the old reviews are still available to read on here.
@jobvd different reviewers.
Tengai is the best of these.
@EmirParkreiner Yeah one thing to keep in mind about the shoot-em-up community is that it is a lot like the fighting game community. You have a dedicated hardcore community that takes these games very seriously who plays them competitively and they basically have completely different priorities and hangups than everyone else.
There has been no shortage of instances where I really enjoyed a fighting game for what it had to offer as someone who just casually plays the game by myself, and when I encounter the fighting game community they will have a completely different take on it as they just played it for competition. I think that is why it is always important to pay attention to how someone likes to play their games when you are taking their words as advice.
@JayJ how someone likes to play their games makes a huge difference. Look at the pinball simulations, some just want to play the approximate experience and some who own pins themselves will never not have complaints about them. 1:1 with all these conversions would be awesome and all devs should be like M2 to get as close as possible, but that’s hard to expect.
I say if it’s down to you either playing these games on current consoles or not being able to play them at all, you’re probably a good match for these ports.
But I get the reviewers distaste here, the genesis collection was so bad for me I asked Nintendo for a refund, but then I play on original hardware regularly. Others didn’t have the complaints I did
Is a future patch to reduce or eliminate the lag not possible? Then again, if it is I don't see why the devs wouldn't have addressed such an important issue before releasing these compilations in the first place. It's a shame.
A much deserved patch may sort out the issue.
Like I wrote in the comments in the previous Psikyo collection review from Mark, I definitely disagree with the score, but I can say the same about the score from the other reviewers who fail to mention and even consider the flaws Mark brings up. I would say the score should be somewhere between those. For features and quality of the port, it's closer to the 5 than 10, but games themselves I would rate much higher (well the better ones in these collections).
Mark definitely a hardcore shmup (and fighter) player and reviews the games from that perspective much more than others. To me it's great, because it gives me much better idea about the quality of the release and what to expect if I really dig into it. That has much more value than a casual review. It's the same in sports games, where I would not find any value in a review which is based on too little experience in sport games in general and in the game being reviewed. I find it worse sin if the review or reviewer fail to notice these things, rates it higher and makes me buy the game as a result. It also encourages publishers/developers to continue release more stuff with minimum effort as it seems to be good enough for the audience.
Anyway, if you are a more casual shmup fan and are not too allergic a bit of extra input lag, I would recommend these nevertheless because of the games themselves. There are better much shmup releases on Switch though and I would start with those first
@NinChocolate that genesis/megadrive collection on Switch was horrible with the input lag, one of worst I have seen and that problem was also failed to mention in reviews, which is really bad. For me, that is unplayable, it ruins the experience so badly and I'm not even normally that allergic to input lag than some (way worse than these Psikyo games)
@bluesdance yes, but shouldn't the criteria for reducing a score be consistent? A score has little value otherwise
Interesting...
Is the input lag on the other Zero-Div Psikyo games? Or is it a problem with the compilation?
I was planning to get this compilation, but I'm kinda glad that I canceled my preorder now. BUt I canceled it at the time because I couldn't afford it at the time.
@jobvd some would say that the scores already have little value, because you can't completely remove subjectivity. For example, input lag(six frames is a lot in a shooter) may have different weight to different reviewers and there's really no way around that. If the site dictates that such a technical issue can only be worth one or two points, then that unfairly constrains reviewers and would make reviews less credible. I forget how long ago it was, but the site either considered removing scores or actually did so briefly because the scores already have questionable value, especially if you use the scores to compare older games and newer ones directly, which people do. I actually like reviews without scores because, in my opinion, if you're not going to read the whole review(which is fine), reading the conclusion section has a lot more value. A review score is meaningless without context, and I prefer critical reviews because they're the most helpful.
@SepticLemon As far as I'm aware, these are identical to the Eshop releases, lag included. I'm a big fan of shoot em ups and own around 40 on Switch,several of the Psikyo shooters are among my favourites on the system. I'm in no way a hardcore player of them and I'd say I'm just above average skilled but I do play them with a high score chasing mindset. I just don't notice any lag though. So unless you're super skilled and intend to chase the elite scorers, you'll likely enjoy these games as much as I do.
Hello everyone,
I can see that the scores for my reviews of these collections has been controversial, which I expected ha. One thing that I think is going to be helpful to understand where I'm coming from is for me to explain my perspective. As has been mentioned in the comments already, I am absolutely and hardcore enthusiast for the genre of shmups. Shmups are what I focus on and specialize in. I do no view the genre as a "pick-up and play" or a novelty. My standard for shmup releases is that they provide the player the with tools that he or she needs to learn the games, achieve high scores, and become fully immersed in what makes the genre so fun and exciting.
As much as I would love to see a proper proper fully-realized port of the Psikyo games happen, these City Connection releases are providing the bare minimum in terms of accessibility (there is no training mode, replay features, or even a stage select) and then also burdening the gameplay with additional input lag that is a significant problem, especially when you hit the second loops of these games.
I see comments wondering why other reviewers have not commented on the input lag and the answer is pretty simple, because they did not test for it. I do think it is really interesting to see what readers of my reviews are responding to and in what manner. My reviews are written from the person who is digging into what makes a shmup port quality (like the M2 releases) and what holds other ports back from achieving excellence for all demographics of players. I do take the reviews that I write very seriously and want to articulate more than just the surface view of this genre, which I feel I have been able to do in these reviews.
What is very funny, in an ironic sort of way, is that writing comprehensive reviews that sink their teeth into issues that may not be apparent right away (which I would argue is the role of a "video game critic") is actually not considered that valuable to many readers, as this feedback has demonstrated. I think the general expectation is that reviewers provide comfort and validate people's shopping preferences, which is obviously what "game journalism" has become.
I am sure there are many readers who want to buy these Psikyo re-releases because they are a nice assortment of games and that sort of thing (which I acknowledge in my review). If that is your desire, I am all for it, you all are free to spend your money however you like. However, I am not going to compromise the standards I expect out of releases of this genre simply because my standards are inconvenient or do not fall in line with the other mainstream shmup reviewers. If all shmup reviews just blandly hand out high scores to everything (which has been happening), then there really is no standard and that is how a barebones rom collection with high degrees of lag is earning high review scores.
To be honest, I think you can use these Psikyo collection reviews to detect the standard of other shmup reviewers, because on the surface these collections look solid enough, but when you start taking the games seriously this is when the issues become apparent.
So if you are coming to my reviews expecting score inflation, where even games that fall below the standard are given a 7/10 to avoid controversy, we are going to continue to have a lot of fun in these comment sections. But on the other hand, you will also know that when a shmup is released and I give it a high score, that it is legit.
@MarkMSX I think the main problem is, that the eshop releases of the games in this collection got high ratings on this site and because of that people are wondering if there is a difference between the retail release and the eshop releases, which there isn't. The ratings on this site aren't consistent between the eshop releases and the retail collections.
This is a great review. The standard for ports needs to be higher than just the games on a cart when groups like m2 exist. Its a drag to see great games get no love when ported, its kind of like why do it if its no better than mame? Sure, these are classic titles, mostly great games, but the way they are ported and presented isnt at all exciting. In fact they run poorly compared to 20+ year old hardware. I think thats whats important in a port review, not the fact that gunbird is good.
People need to realize the reviews by Mark MSX are aimed at shmup fans and not the casual player. The games themselves are still fun and serviceable and the price point is a great deal. However they are still lazy, barebones ports that haven't been optimized and lack the features of better shmup ports. Just put these ports next to any M2 port on the Switch, especially the ShotTriggers line, and the difference is night and day.
@MrGrim I'm not sure what's going on here, because I have experienced literally zero input lag.
I'm honestly wondering if there's something wrong with their setup. Do they have their TV on game mode when they're doing this calculation? I literally feel NO lag and have experienced great fun with this collection.
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