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Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Collection
  PSPShooter_HorizJ  
  opened by paleface at 06:09:45 08/10/08  
  last modified by paleface at 12:25:50 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=PSP; cat=Shooter_Horiz; reg=JPN]
           
Download added: ouch.mpg (7266308 bytes)
  "Some bosses, lots of death."
 
The full title might be "PC Engine Best Collection: Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Collection." I have no idea what "Ginga Ojousama Densetsu" really means, but the subtitle for it in the first two games in the collection is "Galaxy Fraulein"; they are "Galaxy Fraulein Yuna" and "Galaxy Fraulein Yuna II," or something like that--Japanese-heavy adventure games of some sort, I gather. The production values look pretty good for PCE games.
 
Anyway, the reason I care about GODC is the third Hudson port included: "Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire," aka "Sapphire," a very rare PC Engine game that supposedly goes for ~$500; I don't think I've ever seen a real version, but I've seen a few bootleg copies. The $500 tag may go down now that it's available in a $30 PSP port, but who knows.
 
The port seems pretty good. It's a very active shooter, but I didn't notice any signs of slowdown, and no graphic or audio distortion. Load time isn't bad, and it even has save-state support: quit at any time from the pop-up menu, and it'll ask if you want to save the game state; if you do--which takes a little time and 2.x MB on your memory stick--when you start back up, you can tell it to load the last state back up, and there you are, back where you left off. Good feature.
 
One thing I'm not so fond of is only getting four continues. I dunno, maybe the PC Engine version was like that. It's a pretty unforgiving shooter, though; lots of irregular shot patterns, pretty big hit box, fast (and sometimes large) incoming shots, etc. And man, there's the stage one boss who just grabs you with these tentacle things automatically, and if you can't drop a bomb, you're dead. Eesh. Maybe there's some better escape method there that I don't know about.
 
Oh man! And the mid-boss before that seems fine until he shoots his body of red balls at you as a big line that spins across the screen really fast, crushing you. Yerg.
 
The game is very graphic-intensive for a PC Engine game, with lots of big sprites zipping around. They started getting into some psuedo 3D here, with pre-rendered (I think?) polygon things, morphing animations, and stuff. It's sort of a graphic demo, but rather lacking in overall aesthetics. The same can be said about the sound, which mixes jarring shooting sounds with a screaming techno-metal soundtrack.
 
You have four ships to choose from, each navigated by a different anime-style space-girl, but a couple of them seemed to have substandard shot patterns. In any case, you get powerup thingies that add little "option" wingmen and more shot power; if you don't fire for a while, the "options" charge up, and then go zap stuff automatically once you press Fire.
 
I don't seem to be in love with the game, but it's a good port, and I am glad they finally did one so we can check the thing out legitimately.
    

 
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