VERY glad to see there's others who understand that the ships speed is a very important mechanic. Wish the devs would stick to their decision to keep it that way here for the iOS port... Unfortunately, looks like this will yet one more game that gets screwed up because people won't give the controls time and see how important the games mechanics are to the gameplay
I am so pissed right now... I totally forgot to get this game in the morning before going on vecation!!! As I can see some people have problems with controls but like syntheticvoid said.. Sometimes you need to get used to controls.. Like in Jeff Minters games.. Once you get used to them.. They works great!
Upcoming update Everybody, Thank you for your very instructive feedback on the game. After careful reading of user comments and internal discussion, we have planned to push an update which will add more control options : - 1:1 ("instant") touch mode. Plus separate leaderboards. - autofire (on/off switch) Might take a few weeks however, due to QA and Apple submission process. We will post here once the update is submitted to Apple for review.
You guys are awesome. I know this is an iOS-forum, but planning to buy this on Android as well. Will the update come there as well?
Very nice move by DotEmu. How about reducing the analog deadzone for the virtual pad? This will help with those who use the pad be more precise. Thanks!
Though i'm getting used to the controls, i'm really, really glad to see an update on this one ! And seeing the Devs here makes me even more to say: "What ever game you guys release in the future is an instabuy to me"
Great to see a response - but I have to admit that I'm not sold on the idea of 'instant movement' on the touch controls at all. My problems are entirely based around the iPad 'joystick' - it's WAY too big and has WAY too big a deadzone - it's impossible to guide your ship between bullets with any finesse at all. Making it smaller/control tighter would be enormously helpful (I genuinely don't think anyone actually playtested the iPad version - at least not someone who's played a decent on-screen stick shooter!!) To those who doubt there's an issue tho - get an iPad, turn up the difficulty and try the bosses in Stages 3 onwards and THEN tell me there's not a problem there
Mmm didnt have trouble with the controls, they surely felt different to other iOS shmups but its part of the charm imo, its never a bad thing to have more options though so thanks to the dev for the quick response.
Hearing about the update pushed me off the fence. As I've started playing, however, and see that each ship has its own speed attribute, it's apparent that the updated 1:1 mode definitely needs its own leaderboard, so good looking out at that fact by DotEmu. I think the best thing for this game would simply be some size tweaking options for the dpad, as was already mentioned. I find the biggest issue with using dpads in shooters to be the deadzone size. Usually it's too big to move as quickly as you'd like...but on the other hand, if it's too small, you have to remove your thumb from the screen entirely, and placing it at the right spot again can sometimes take a little too much attention. I used the fastest ship with relative touch and, honestly, didn't have any problems at all. I don't know if the slower ships will present a problem, however, it may well be that they will be frustrating to control with direct touch. Whatever the case, the emulation is very well done (no discernible lag so far, such as in RayForce), and the game itself is gorgeous. I absolutely love the graphical style that the NeoGeo was able to deliver. Very cool, hyper-16 bit graphics and manga style.
Big thumbs up to dotemu for the separate leaderboard. I own almost all your games and you just demonstrated why!
for me it would also be great to be able to make the buttons bigger, my fingers always slip from the very narrow registering zone while button mashing also, could somebody explain to me what the B button is used for? and what those 'event items' do exactly?
I don't think this is a good thing in the slightest. Ship speed I suppose isn't that great a deal. The reason you'd want to keep this in would be for ship balancing, but for scoring this is null anyway - You either play Aryustailm or you don't score (my current Medium #1 score by Stage 3, case in point. ). Autofire though... The entire reason you don't have autofire, is because you need to button mash to perform your powerful shot. It's a technique. As long as you keep this in, where autofire uses your normal shot but the rapid-tap power shot is still kept in, I suppose this is okay. I'm not hopeful though. The movement was already 1:1, it just took ship speed into consideration, which is quite arcade faithful if you ask me. Sorry if that's a little too negative, I'm just completely in love with the port as it is. It's absolutely brilliant and plays like a complete dream.
I think I'd do better with either a bigger D-pad or some sort of control where the ship just moves relative to where my finger is from the left center of the screen rather than from the ship. Having it just move towards my finger isn't working to well for me.
Oh man, Blazing Star, of all games? What I've REALLY been wanting on iOS is Twinkle Star Sprites. It wasn't famous, but it was really original and a lot of fun.
Phew!! Glad you get it, Vally. =oP And for those of you wondering what the items are for... Here's some little tips on scoring; First... the LUCKY letters... these were originally BONUS, if I'm remembering correctly... but if you can collect all 5 letters, you get a pretty nice bonus (100,000 I think) at the end of the stage. Multipliers; Alrighty... just keep shooting enemies. That's it. Shoot enough enemies in a row, without dying, and without missing any (letting any fly off the screen), you'll double the points for each ship downed. Every ship you miss takes away from the multiplier. The orbs with wings; These REALLY help out. These are multipliers. When you collect them, and they're next to your ship, every ship you shoot until it leaves your ship will be effected by the multiplier. But the longer it stays on the screen, the bigger the multiplier will be. Your main goal? Avoid it until the orb is orange for some nice scores. Shot Type; - Here, I'm not too sure. I know that using your powered up shots increase the points you get per ship, but I'm not sure how changing from your powered up shot to your special shot (B button) effects this... if someone can help out with that... I'd be mighty grateful. =oD Of course... all of the blue bonus gems are good to collect too... so try not to miss those. And that's it... HAVE FUN! If I've missed anything, I'm sorry... but I hope this helps to add some layers to the gameplay, and effects how much you enjoy the game, as well as adds to the difficulty, and enjoyment of Blazing Star. It's easily one of my favorite shmups... which is why I've been so upset about the ship speed being changed... because figuring out which ship fits your style relative to how quick and how strong it is is a big part of learning to love the game... with that gone, I feel like you guys won't get the full effect of the gameplay, and will just enjoy it on the surface instead of loving the depth... if that makes sense. Anyway... it's already done now... so... no point in carrying on with it. Hope you guys enjoy.
Thanks Syntheticvoid for your post I'll have to read it over a few times in the hopes it will help me I do pretty good until the third wave and than no more continues!! I find the colors confusing and hard to figure out what's going on on level three and no I'm not color blind...I am an artist Anyways I guess familiarity might start to help Me not to die so soon I'd like to go beyond my 200,000 and something score Love this game Thanks again: By the way I've tried tapping the B button many times and it never seems to shoot anything Am I doing something wrong?
thanks a lot syntheticvoid!!! that helps a lot! i think these scoring mechanics should be mentioned in some kind of help menu… concerning the B button: I found the following explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazing_Star if you hold A and power up your shot and let go, it fires a modified, larger projectile. But if you hit B after you let go, the projectile changes to a wider spread, different charge shot. This also needs to be mentioned in a help menue or tutorial built into the game IMO… Otherwise it seems pretty playable, except with slow ships, where i have to swipe across the whole screen then move the finger back down again and swipe again (always ends in me getting killed) Only bug I catched was, that your ship sometimes disappears while charging… Also for me on iphone 4, the 4:3 aspect ratio runs much smoother!
