Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/27/japan ... -presence/

From the article: "Deathsmiles and DoDonPachi series creator Cave Interactive is shutting down its Western-facing public presence, ending its long-running English-language blog and closing up shop on Twitter."

Aww man. I know they didn't release a lot of shooters in the west, but at least it was something. I hope they still make region free games.

Oh no ! Sad news ! Even if I'm not a true shoot them up fan (and especially the danmaku.. bof..) it's a so sad news !

I really like shooters and bullet hell shooters, so this hit me pretty hard. I tried to purchase every Cave game that they released in the US to try to support them, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

It's not surprising: Cave primarily develops in a niche of a niche for a domestic gaming audience that's generally shrinking, targeted the least popular console in Japan, and their actual desire to expand their horizons has been a bit limited. The arcade division itself is on fundamentally rocky ground- DoDonPachi SaiDaioujo only barely managed to get published at all.

I just find it sad that shmups in general are totally dying out. I know they'll always continue to be made on an indie and fan-game basis, but man, it's kind of depressing that we'll never see the days of stuff like Gradius and Ikaruga on the big scene again.

Bragatyr wrote:I just find it sad that shmups in general are totally dying out. I know they'll always continue to be made on an indie and fan-game basis, but man, it's kind of depressing that we'll never see the days of stuff like Gradius and Ikaruga on the big scene again.

Gradius is made by Konami and Ikaruga was made by Treasure, so seeing additional games like these are still a possibility. Cave made much more obscure, Japanese shooters, like Muchi Muchi Pork! & Pink Sweets and Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5.

As you can see in this video, Mushihime Futari is quite a mind blowing game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPLhATu9pU

VISTABLADE : Bullet hell shooters is a nice expression ! It's that sort of shmups that I don't really like ! Too difficult for me...and too frenetic ! But classical Shmups, I can play them and like them, even if it's not my favourite type of games

VistaBlade wrote:Gradius is made by Konami and Ikaruga was made by Treasure, so seeing additional games like these are still a possibility. Cave made much more obscure, Japanese shooters, like Muchi Muchi Pork! & Pink Sweets and Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5.

Possible, but not probable. The much-hyped Gradius V only sold 90,000 copies worldwide, and the Otomedius games didn't fare that much better. Taito completely axed its own shmup division, despite once being one of the most prolific publishers of the genre, and considering that DoDonPachi SaiDaioujo was officially cancelled during some parts of its development due to lack of faith from the management, Cave is probably going to kill its arcade division sometime in the near future.

As you can see in this video, Mushihime Futari is quite a mind blowing game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPLhATu9pU

It's interesting that you should bring up Queen Larsa Ultra, because when I first came across videos of that, I was like "Cave, go home, you're drunk." It was pretty much the big red flag that told me that shmups were going the way of the text adventure and the flight combat sim.

VistaBlade wrote:

Bragatyr wrote:I just find it sad that shmups in general are totally dying out. I know they'll always continue to be made on an indie and fan-game basis, but man, it's kind of depressing that we'll never see the days of stuff like Gradius and Ikaruga on the big scene again.

Gradius is made by Konami and Ikaruga was made by Treasure, so seeing additional games like these are still a possibility. Cave made much more obscure, Japanese shooters, like Muchi Muchi Pork! & Pink Sweets and Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5.

As you can see in this video, Mushihime Futari is quite a mind blowing game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPLhATu9pU

I know, that's why I said "shmups in general". They're just not selling anymore as a genre, and from what I understand most companies are afraid to produce them on any kind of decently large scale, since they're not making a return on the investment these days. The situation may be different in Japan, as with Cave, but I know here in the States the genre is pretty much gone.

Edited addendum here, after reading R-90-2's response, I really miss text adventures!

I hear you Bragatyr. Shmups do seem to be a rare thing in general these days. PSN and XBLA have some decent games, but they are few and far between. Oh well, I will always have the classics to tide me over.

On another note, that Resogun game that came out with the PS4 seems to be well received. Maybe it will help gain some ground for the genre again. Doubtful though.