Gun Lord - Another new game by NG:DEV Team

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Jaelus

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theMot said:
Thanks for the pics and write up Jaelus.

Can't wait to get mine! It seems there is a couple of small niggling issue that need to be ironed out. In the past have they released patches for their games? I know there is a USB upgrade that can be done. Do they usually follow through with it?

Im not overly concerned if there is a few issues that need fixing. By releasing it at least the community can contribute to the patch, provided there ends up being one.
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Well they ended up making two patches for Fast Striker, the second of which tweaked the difficulty and added a new mode, so I would expect something similar for Gun Lord. The update was fairly easy to apply.

Edit: There were no updates for LH:PB, but that's to be expected since the whole game was already fixes and updates of the original Last Hope.
 
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mahesak

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My order is Japan AES, still don't know when I will receive?

But ... Jaelus, your pictures are very nice :) Beautiful and pretty than TOC :cool:
 
city41

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Jaelus said:
Well they ended up making two patches for Fast Striker, the second of which tweaked the difficulty and added a new mode, so I would expect something similar for Gun Lord. The update was fairly easy to apply..
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How do you apply the update? Do the carts have some kind of writable memory chip? Could people who went AES apply the update? I'm guessing the Dreamcast versions aren't patchable.
 
NeoSneth

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city41 said:
How do you apply the update? Do the carts have some kind of writable memory chip? Could people who went AES apply the update? I'm guessing the Dreamcast versions aren't patchable.
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The carts have a little port to apply a patch. You can see this on their website. It's a mini USB. I doubt this will be available to DC users.
 
city41

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NeoSneth said:
The carts have a little port to apply a patch. You can see this on their website. It's a mini USB. I doubt this will be available to DC users.
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Looks like it's MVS only From their FAQ (about Gun Lord): "Does the AES version support software updates?
No it does not. The AES version will be published after the MVS version is out several month. It requires no updates."

That's probably the main reason for the difference in release dates. Once again, MVS is better than AES :)
 
NeoSneth

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That's a good catch. I didn't realize it was MVS only. I'm glad I've partially made the switch to MVS.
 
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city41 said:
That's probably the main reason for the difference in release dates. Once again, MVS is better than AES :)
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I'm sure there will be no updates after the AES carts start shipping though. That wouldn't be fair to those purchasers.
 
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poster2.jpg
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Let's hope that this will be the cover art for the japanese home cart.
 
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Jaelus said:
Well they ended up making two patches for Fast Striker, the second of which tweaked the difficulty and added a new mode, so I would expect something similar for Gun Lord. The update was fairly easy to apply.

Edit: There were no updates for LH:PB, but that's to be expected since the whole game was already fixes and updates of the original Last Hope.
Click to expand...

There is a glaring bug in stage 2 of LHPB. If you lose your ship in the section where some giant creature is chasing you, the respawn will be trapped behind the creature so you'll keep dying over and over. This bug wasn't in the AES original because it used a checkpoint system.

Jaelus said:
Unfortunately the stages themselves are a lot more challenging than the bosses. While the bosses looked and moved well they were also way too easy. I'm not sure if it's different on the other play modes or if they get a lot harder later on, but the early bosses at least should be tweaked to make them a lot more difficult. The soundtrack is amazingly good and definitely adds to the atmosphere of the game. Like the other NG:DEV titles, the sound is a bit quiet compared to other MVS titles and you have to turn it up (you'll want to do this since the audio work is great). I had a lot of fun exploring and am looking forward to being able to play through the rest of it. On the whole, it's very enjoyable and I'm definitely glad I made the purchase. My only real concern is that the bosses are too easy (which is fixable).
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Is there a selectable difficulty option in the softdips menu? It was adjustable in LHPB but not in Fast Striker.
 
Jaelus

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SNKorSWM said:
There is a glaring bug in stage 2 of LHPB. If you lose your ship in the section where some giant creature is chasing you, the respawn will be trapped behind the creature so you'll keep dying over and over. This bug wasn't in the AES original because it used a checkpoint system.

Is there a selectable difficulty option in the softdips menu? It was adjustable in LHPB but not in Fast Striker.
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I don't remember ever seeing that bug in LHPB. I'll have to check the settings for Gun Lord when I get home, but the problem isn't the overall difficulty per se. The stages are ok as is and get progressively harder, but the first three bosses were trivial to beat. As in first time you encounter a boss you can kill it in 30 seconds without taking any damage kind of trivial.
As I said before I only played through the first three levels so far on original mode so it's possible the stage four boss could be spot on, or that arcade mode could be a lot harder. I don't know. All I can say is the first three original mode bosses on default difficulty are way too easy.

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Jaelus said:
As I said before I only played through the first three levels so far on original mode so it's possible the stage four boss could be spot on, or that arcade mode could be a lot harder. I don't know. All I can say is the first three original mode bosses on default difficulty are way too easy.
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Does it mention anything in the instruction manual about the difference between original and arcade mode? It should.
 
Ukyo

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pipes said:
Does it mention anything in the instruction manual about the difference between original and arcade mode? It should.
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no, i'm going to do a write up about the two modes and the various power-ups soon. the difference between the two modes is pretty minor.

in arcade mode each life starts with like a 3 minute time limit; instead of exploring for extra 1UPS, you are looking for time-extends that add to the clock. arcade is much more challenging as you are playing with your stock of 2 guys; in original mode; you end up with about 7 guys by the time you are at stage 2.

stage 3 has a mid boss and final boss which is cool.

i've made it to stage 4 on 1credit "techno dungeon" where things start to heat up.

biggest sin so far on gun lord? NO "HOW TO PLAY"!!!!!
 
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Ukyo said:
biggest sin so far on gun lord? NO "HOW TO PLAY"!!!!!
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Ouch! That's a Neo no-no. Gotta have the "how to play".

Anyways, I'm glad to hear the challenge level goes up a bit on stage 4.
 
Jaelus

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pipes said:
Does it mention anything in the instruction manual about the difference between original and arcade mode? It should.
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The main points in the manual are the names of the stages and an explanation of the controls. No mention of the mode differences.

SNKorSWM said:
Is there a selectable difficulty option in the softdips menu? It was adjustable in LHPB but not in Fast Striker.
Click to expand...

The only options in the softdips are changing it from Home (original) to MVS (arcade) mode, turning the demo sound on/off, and changing control between a joystick and joypad. No difficulty setting.
 
Jaelus

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Ukyo said:
in arcade mode each life starts with like a 3 minute time limit; instead of exploring for extra 1UPS, you are looking for time-extends that add to the clock. arcade is much more challenging as you are playing with your stock of 2 guys; in original mode; you end up with about 7 guys by the time you are at stage 2.

stage 3 has a mid boss and final boss which is cool.

i've made it to stage 4 on 1credit "techno dungeon" where things start to heat up.
Click to expand...

Arcade mode sounds really good. I'm going to give that a go tonight. I also liked the mid boss on stage 3. Wasn't too hard to beat, but I did die initially just from not knowing there was no ground beneath the lower platforms :/. I played for about a minute in the beginning of stage 4 before my niece came over and I had to quit and I definitely noticed that it was starting to heat up. You definitely have to pay attention and take your time with all those electric barriers popping up. Looked like it would be a good challenge for sure.
 
SuperPang

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I didn't like this at first but it's a grower. Early days but I can already think of a few things that need to be addressed in v1.5:

1. The C button weapon is way too generous. I find myself using it 90% of the time which renders the collectable weapons a bit useless and makes the game much easier than it should be. Reducing its range or power would help, or put it on a recharging meter or something. I'd say nuke it altogether if I didn't think it would break the game.
2. I don't want to have to play an MVS game for a couple of hours at a time. Give me some way to pick up where I left off. The levels are insanely big, although this is what gives the game some of its charm.
3. Change a few colours so enemies stand out more on certain stages.
4. Lose the auto-centring.
5. Make the bosses harder.
6. Improve or remove the subtitles.
7. Reduce input sensitivity on the menus.

I've also noticed some minor things like text not being inverted correctly on some Exit arrows and a ledge on the first stage near the blue "ladders" that you drop through.
 
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Interesting stuff Pang. Hopefully NG: DEV can address some/all of those issues in the near future.

I can't believe the text in some of the arrows is not inverted correctly. Improvements is one thing but there shouldn't be mistakes like that to fix. That will drive me nuts to see that.
 
Jaelus

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SuperPang said:
I didn't like this at first but it's a grower. Early days but I can already think of a few things that need to be addressed in v1.5:

1. The C button weapon is way too generous. I find myself using it 90% of the time which renders the collectable weapons a bit useless and makes the game much easier than it should be. Reducing its range or power would help, or put it on a recharging meter or something. I'd say nuke it altogether if I didn't think it would break the game.
2. I don't want to have to play an MVS game for a couple of hours at a time. Give me some way to pick up where I left off. The levels are insanely big, although this is what gives the game some of its charm.
3. Change a few colours so enemies stand out more on certain stages.
4. Lose the auto-centring.
5. Make the bosses harder.
6. Improve or remove the subtitles.
7. Reduce input sensitivity on the menus.

I've also noticed some minor things like text not being inverted correctly on some Exit arrows and a ledge on the first stage near the blue "ladders" that you drop through.
Click to expand...

I disagree with you on the C button weapon. I feel it is balanced for two reasons. First, while it does have a good range on it, you can only use it while standing motionless. This leaves you exposed to enemies and projectiles while also preventing it from being an effective choice in areas where you need to keep moving due to the terrain (like falling platforms, moving barriers or obstacles, etc..). Also, while it is powerful, the beam is also very narrow and it takes time to direct it properly, especially if the enemy is in motion. Also, if you're playing in arcade (timed) mode, standing still to use the beam also uses up time. If you can clear enemies just as easily with the regular weapon while in motion, it is always a better choice than using the C beam. I found I was only using the C beam in a few specific situations where it was a strategic advantage, and was using the regular weapon the rest of the time. You can fire the regular weapons diagonally while running, and they cover a large area, especially when you have bounce on. Don't forget you can also fire bombs when in ball mode, which can be useful in some situations.

I didn't find the auto-centering to be much of an issue either, but I completely agree with you on all other points, and I also noticed that left pointing Exit arrows had inverted text.
 
Xian Xi

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You gotta remember that NGDEV doesn't do beta testing outside of themselves really. They need to hire a tester before final production unless they want to do it this way so the fans can point out what needs to be fixed but on the other hand that sucks for us who paid for a polished game out of the box.
 
aria

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Interesting information from everyone, I admit I'm wavering a little bit on committing to a home cart if that means I'm paying hundreds of dollars to be a beta tester.
 
theMot

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...Waiting for NG : DEVS response to these issues.
 
Xian Xi

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aria said:
Interesting information from everyone, I admit I'm wavering a little bit on committing to a home cart if that means I'm paying hundreds of dollars to be a beta tester.
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Exactly. I think the fact that the game can be updated via USB might be making them a little lazy in some areas.
 
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I just don't think that stuff like inverted writing should make it onto a final product. I don't care if they don't have a proper tester. Guys are playing this for the first time and noticing these issues, why didn't they? Surely they played through the game a few times before they started shipping it out.
 
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Jaelus

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pipes said:
I just don't think that stuff like inverted writing should make it onto a final product. I don't care if they don't have a proper tester. Guys are playing this for the first time and finding these issues. Surely they played through the game a few times before they started shipping it out.
Click to expand...

Well to be fair the exit signs are really tiny by design. It seems to me like they use them to indicate a possibly unobvious route (like the exit to a secret area for example) but didn't want them to be big so they didn't take the focus away from the scenery. It's one of those things where if you have to pause to see where you ought to go, you might notice it, but if you're running through an area you generally won't see them. I only remember seeing maybe half a dozen. Ones that pointed right or down were fine, but left pointing ones were inverted (like the right arrow had just been flipped over).

Don't get too caught up in these minor issues we're pointing out. I could list a thousand things I like about the game. None of this stuff is game breaking, but I want to make sure they are aware of it for when they put out the inevitable patch.
 
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