GRcade

Hello,

I've just picked up a high def CRT PVM for retro gaming and I'd like to know some fun shmups to add to snes/md retro collection (pal although I'm looking at modding the megadrive for region free) that won't break the bank.



Any recommendations?

I used to have Truxton but I lost it in Tescos 20 years ago and my sister sold Alissa Dragoon. They were great but bloody hard.

That looks awesome!
On Megadrive you should be able to pick up Toaplan's Hellfire and NCS' Gynoug without breaking the bank. The former is a cracking space shooter in which your ship has four different shot types that you can (and must) toggle on the fly. Brilliant music too; the latter is a real oddball- you fight a succession of disgusting enemies that are largely composed of rotting flesh and pulsating, indeterminate organic forms. Graphics and music are top-notch.
The Thunderforce games are obviously worth a look if you can find them for a reasonable sum, as is Probotector, though that is neither reasonably priced or (in my opinion, wrong as it probably is) anything like as good as Super Probotector/Contra III.
On Snes I'd recommend Super Probotector, Pop 'n' Twinbee, Axelay and Parodius as a mighty selection of classic Konami brilliance, but, provided you have a fully wired PAL RGB lead, Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts will look amazing on that monitor, as will UN Squadron which is a largely unsung classic. Dunno how much they'll cost... Cart only shouldn't require a mortgage!

grog monster 64 wrote:...On Megadrive you should be able to pick up...

It's great to see such a helpful and comprehensive post, gm64 - you post infrequently but it'd be terrific to hear more from you in GRcade .

U.N. Squadron on SNES is a decent shooter. I'd deem it affordable but it's not cheap, you're looking at about £20+ for the cartridge and £40+ CIB.

Also Sunset Riders is a great game too but not cheap at all, you're gonna have to pony up £60+ just for the cartridge.

Best shooters on SNES:

UN Squadron
Super Aleste
Super Parodius
Pop n Twinbee
Axelay

Best side scrolling actions games on SNES:

1. Super Probotector
2. Cybernator
3. Super Castlevania IV
4. Legend of the Mystical Ninja

All affordable if you buy them without the box.

BTW - what's the screen size of that monitor?

Cool, thanks for all the recommendations guys. great post gm64.

The photos aren't mine as it hasn't arrived yet but examples. The photo is the exact model I'm getting. The "HR" series of Trinitron panels have anywhere between 900 and thousands of lines of resolution. The idea is you get native 240p and zero latency from up scaling and filtering on my big LED LCD where games look really colorful and bright sure but the pixel art is basically filtered into blobs and looks crap imo.

I always loved CRT. I am only just now happy with the HDTV I received as a hand me down where they didn't realise it's actually much better than their larger, newer panel but can't tell.

Portable/broadcast grade monitors (pvm/bvm) are really expensive and require a lot of adjustments sometimes, but art students use them and I found on on eBay buy it now for £28, after degree show season, usually considerably more. It is just 9" but when you are sitting near a monitor it is better to have a similar experience to the old days but with an insanely good image (you should use split RGB cables to get the image) and response. Most consumer CRTs can't compare to these. Any of the Sony PVMs are worth picking up but you need the right cables/adapters and to know the compatibility.

Anything 14" or higher will potentially set you back well over 100 snoops They are meant to be small screens for analysis of image quality and colour grading and they have far higher tunability. Plus they are small so they can fit anywhere! Perfect for retro gaming.

I consider it equivalent to using something like a 3DS XL but at a reasonable distance. I wouldn't recommend playing an RPG with loads of text but for action games it's fine.

I was going to take a 22" one I found at the uni's refuse area at uni years ago but it was bloody massive and I could barely carry it. It had a flat front corrective lens and tint, but it wasn't a Sony panel.

Gradius III is my favourite SNES shooter although it didn't receive an EU release.

grog monster 64 wrote:That looks awesome!
On Megadrive you should be able to pick up Toaplan's Hellfire and NCS' Gynoug without breaking the bank. The former is a cracking space shooter in which your ship has four different shot types that you can (and must) toggle on the fly. Brilliant music too; the latter is a real oddball- you fight a succession of disgusting enemies that are largely composed of rotting flesh and pulsating, indeterminate organic forms. Graphics and music are top-notch.
The Thunderforce games are obviously worth a look if you can find them for a reasonable sum, as is Probotector, though that is neither reasonably priced or (in my opinion, wrong as it probably is) anything like as good as Super Probotector/Contra III.
On Snes I'd recommend Super Probotector, Pop 'n' Twinbee, Axelay and Parodius as a mighty selection of classic Konami brilliance, but, provided you have a fully wired PAL RGB lead, Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts will look amazing on that monitor, as will UN Squadron which is a largely unsung classic. Dunno how much they'll cost... Cart only shouldn't require a mortgage!

Just looking at these and Thunderforce looks bloody awesome, just the pace, art style and driving sound track I was looking for

Green Gecko wrote: Alissa Dragoon

Alisia Dragoon! That game is so under-rated! I reached the last boss once as a kid, but died. Amazing OST too


Aww I'm gonna be head-bopping to that all day now.

I certainly got to the later stages but only saw glimpses of the last few by lucking upon a level skip cheat and kept going until I reached the credits. It was a damn tough game.

You have a pet dragon that shoots fireballs and thunder, what could be more awesome than that.

It's expensive. My bloody sister sold it along with my entire collection.

Green Gecko wrote:...My bloody sister sold it along with my entire collection.

But I believe you've moved on from that incident and now you look back and laugh, GG? .

Green Gecko wrote:I certainly got to the later stages but only saw glimpses of the last few by lucking upon a level skip cheat and kept going until I reached the credits. It was a damn tough game.

You have a pet dragon that shoots fireballs and thunder, what could be more awesome than that.

It's expensive. My bloody sister sold it along with my entire collection.

Not according to eBay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R1.TR2.TRC1.A0.H1.Xalisia.TRS0&_nkw=alisia+dragoon&_sacat=0

I still consider that quite expensive in terms of getting a reasonable boxed collection back.

And no I will probably resent it forever. Including all the boxes I carefully stashed away for my gameboy/gba collection that I repeatedly told my family were what made the collection valuable and my brother trashed just to be a banana split.

I'm going to throw Super SWIV into the mix here. An under-rated and less well known vertical shmup with two distinct vehicles that play quite differently.

Fairly cheap on eBay as well.

I bought it long before the meme happened and its fairly decent.

Anyway, Megadrive action side scrollers eh? how about the following:

Gunstar Heroes
Alien Soldier
Second Samurai
Comix Zone
Rocket Knight Adventures
Robocop Vs Terminator
Earthworm Jim
Shinobi 3
Contra: Hard Corps
Mega Turrican

Both cool suggestions, thanks!

That intro never gets old.

Video of Zero Wing however is great example of how arse these games look upscalled with filters and then compressed as well, whether digitally or via a component/s-video connection.

My monitor is being shipped in the next day or so, I'll be sure to post pictures. Also trying to win a copy of Thunder Force IV for under £10 hopefully. Still need to find a controller however. I can't afford the RGB cable just yet (you need two parts which are £20 each), so it will be composite to begin with. Just knew it was a good deal for one.

I'm selling off a spare GameBoy Player disk I have for no reason to help fund it.

grog monster 64 wrote:That looks awesome!
On Megadrive you should be able to pick up Toaplan's Hellfire and NCS' Gynoug without breaking the bank. The former is a cracking space shooter in which your ship has four different shot types that you can (and must) toggle on the fly. Brilliant music too; the latter is a real oddball- you fight a succession of disgusting enemies that are largely composed of rotting flesh and pulsating, indeterminate organic forms. Graphics and music are top-notch.
The Thunderforce games are obviously worth a look if you can find them for a reasonable sum, as is Probotector, though that is neither reasonably priced or (in my opinion, wrong as it probably is) anything like as good as Super Probotector/Contra III.
On Snes I'd recommend Super Probotector, Pop 'n' Twinbee, Axelay and Parodius as a mighty selection of classic Konami brilliance, but, provided you have a fully wired PAL RGB lead, Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts will look amazing on that monitor, as will UN Squadron which is a largely unsung classic. Dunno how much they'll cost... Cart only shouldn't require a mortgage!

Thunder Force IV arrived! I found an exact match in junk for the MD power supply and resoldered switched polarity. I've only looked at the watch screen so far (my controller just arrived) but I can confirm my original MD works!

However, the picture looks like total ass, like the worst thing I have ever seen on my HDTV, so I hope the CRT arrives soon. It's Yodel. it also flickers random colours, so I think the encoder might be borked, hopefully I have better luck with split RGB. Still playable though and the true stereo sound is awesome though my AV set up!

Sol Deace on the Megadrive.

That looks decent too! I like the erratic movement of some enemies. £43 though!!

Thunder Force is bloody hard but the pixel art is bloody fantastic and so much diversity in the enemies and levels. At first I thought it was just 4 areas but looking at the high score screen there are several I can't access yet. Which means I need to pass 4 long stages in a row with 4 lives to even see them, strawberry floating hell!

Might have bad capacitors in my MD causing the colour flicker stuff, easy to fix though, I can solder OK.

Rinsed through Sonic 2 about 2/3rds through in one sitting as well. So good.

I picked up this controller. Needed cleaning but perfectly fine other than a slightly tough B button (which happens to be fire in Thunder Force) that needs a little more pressure, should be fixable.



Now just waiting for the CRT.

Preezy wrote:Sol Deace on the Megadrive...

Y'know, I read this and I gotta admit that my immediate reaction was "Preezy, man, it's actually Sol-Feace!". But... you're right. The game *was* originally called Sol-Feace when it launched for Mega-CD, but subsequently it gained a cart release (losing the CD soundtrack) in the USA and it was re-badged as Sol-Deace. I never knew that!

Green Gecko wrote:...Now just waiting for the CRT.

It has been cool reading about how you're enjoying building your retro set-up, Gecko. I agree that some of the old kit does have a real attractive look about it; back in the 90s I had my Amiga and SNES connected up to a Commmodore 1084ST RGB monitor and the quality was just terrific.