Is Psychic Storm a sequel to Cyber Core?

[roflmao]

I haven't played Psychic Storm in ages so loaded it up on my Pi and it totally feels like a sequel to Cyber Core! The ships look and evolve kinda similarly, the sound effects are similar. I think it looks, plays and sounds better than Cyber Core, but that's probably because it's a CD game.

Is this a "duh" moment for me? Is there really a connection between the two games or am I just seeing things?

[gilbert]

Those shooters using evolution as a concept could be attributed to Data East's 'Darwin' meta-series of games (which included the arcade games Darwin 4078, SRD, Act-fancer and the MD game Darwin 4081) though, so one may argue they're following the concept of these Darwin games.

That said, it was rumoured that Hudson ported Darwin 4078 to the PCE but the game was unreleased (Hudson had already ported the game to the MSX), which was even mentioned on Wikipedia. A more believable version is that Hudson did make a test game for the prototype of the PCE as a demonstration of the chip's ability in displaying large and numerous sprites. How complete this version is unknown, but it was probably never intended to be released and since Hudson switched partner during development of the chipsets the game probably won't run without major rewrites on a real PCE.

IMO Kaidan 00 is more like a spirtual successor to Phychic Storm, as they're both developed by Alfa System and published by Telenet Japan (though via their two different brands, Lasersoft and Riot, and that PS was vertical whereas K00 was horizontal, but that's like how the two Spriggan games differed).

[roflmao]

Very cool info. I'll have to check out Kaidan 00.

[Psycho Punch]

That said, it was rumoured that Hudson ported Darwin 4078 to the PCE but the game was unreleased (Hudson had already ported the game to the MSX), which was even mentioned on Wikipedia. A more believable version is that Hudson did make a test game for the prototype of the PCE as a demonstration of the chip's ability in displaying large and numerous sprites. How complete this version is unknown, but it was probably never intended to be released and since Hudson switched partner during development of the chipsets the game probably won't run without major rewrites on a real PCE.

This is amazing, I wonder if there's any surviving pictures of it running on proto hardware. I mean, the rumors have to be created from some source 

That being said, I always wondered what the names and ship shapes were supposed to represent in that game. Pister, Beas, Sharru?? I also wondered what's the setting/story for that game, but I'm afraid to search for it because I'm 100% sure it will be something stupid that will never live up to what I imagined it to be.

[gilbert]

For a "screenshot" Iwasaki actually had a follow-up article on it, which included a tiny and blurry b/w photo.

Also that was taken in a computer show in May of 1987, which a number of people bitd had memory of seeing it but couldn't remember any detail. To be precise, that was used to show the powess of CD-ROM gaming, 1.5 years before the release of the CDROM system, and a few months even before the PCE itself was released. As Iwasaki pointed out, the development of the CDROM system had just started, so that game was probably just the original prototype with CDDA music stuffed in as a concept demo. When the PCE and later the real CD system came out the demo game was completely forgotten and no one talked about it anymore.

Edit:
About where that rumour came from, according to the citation of the Wikipedia page, it was actually mentioned in a tweet by Sakurada Meijin, who was one of the numerous "Famicom game experts" hired by Hudson, not unlike Takahashi Mejin/Master Higgins, who said that the game was completed but canned for unknown reasons. As Iwasaki was a programming director in Hudson and he tried to ask his old colleagues for info as much as possible Iwasaki's version of the story (that it was just a demo game on a prototype system, rather than a fully completed one on a released system) should be more believable.

[esteban]

For a "screenshot" Iwasaki actually had a follow-up article on it, which included a tiny and blurry b/w photo.

Also that was taken in a computer show in May of 1987, which a number of people bitd had memory of seeing it but couldn't remember any detail. To be precise, that was used to show the powess of CD-ROM gaming, 1.5 years before the release of the CDROM system, and a few months even before the PCE itself was released. As Iwasaki pointed out, the development of the CDROM system had just started, so that game was probably just the original prototype with CDDA music stuffed in as a concept demo. When the PCE and later the real CD system came out the demo game was completely forgotten and no one talked about it anymore.

Edit:
About where that rumour came from, according to the citation of the Wikipedia page, it was actually mentioned in a tweet by Sakurada Meijin, who was one of the numerous "Famicom game experts" hired by Hudson, not unlike Takahashi Mejin/Master Higgins, who said that the game was completed but canned for unknown reasons. As Iwasaki was a programming director in Hudson and he tried to ask his old colleagues for info as much as possible Iwasaki's version of the story (that it was just a demo game on a prototype system, rather than a fully completed one on a released system) should be more believable.

I love all this background info!!!

I've been away from pcefx for too long!



Can you elaborate on the development of the *original CyberCore*.... like, the PCE vs PC computer version... any ideas on how that unfolded? Did companies wait for sales on one platform to be "decent" before bringing a game to another platform, or was this decision probabsly made much earlier (to justify a project getting a green light in the first place)?


Also... in the ENDING CREDITS of CyberCore PCE there is a brief message ~ "see you in the Summer" ... which I always took as a reference to Hudson Caravan ... possibly a way for IGS to piggyback off the popularity of shootemup genre and Hudson's events...

Sorry for the blathering! (I have been starved for PCE conversation).

[exodus]

Hmm, I wouldn't say Kaidan 00 is a spiritual sequel to psychic storm, they play so differently! And Kaidan is like a kids sentai robot sort of thing. The vibe is so different!

[gilbert]

By spiritual successor as I mentioned before I meant like the two Spriggan games (and the two "Thunder" games, but here they're more similar), as they're both shooters developed by the same people (though it doesn't say much as Alfa System was involved in probably >50% of the PCE CD library) and published by the same company.

In Spriggan's and  "Thunder's" cases the latter games were obviously intended as successors to the previous installments from their names, even though in Spriggan's case the two games were so different (same thing in the two Alfa system shooters). If you must argue the games have to be similar, there are many Compile "Aleste/Zanic" shooters on the PCE that are more similar to the first Spriggan game than Spriggan Mk.2. (And in Gate of Thunder's case it can even said to be a spinoff from the Thunder Force series as it was developed by some ex-Technosoft members who previously worked on the Thunder Force games.)

[exodus]

I mean, you said it yourself, alfa system made or were involved with tons of games on the PCE, and a lot of the games on the PCE were shooters - the spriggan games were both called spriggan. Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder both had the name to tie them loosely together. psychic storm and kaidan 00 have no relationship whatsoever, not in theme, not in style, not in mechanics, not in name... it's just another shooter alpha system made, not a spiritual successor! Would you say Down Load is a spiritual successor to Cyber Core? Alfa System made both of those.

Alfa System made Cyber Core and Psychic Storm too, so if you believe successive shooters made by the same company are spiritual sequels, why did you not just say yes to the initial premise?

[gilbert]

As I mentioned, both games were made by the same people and published by the same company. They're actually more similar in style than Cyber Core too, as they're more anime-inspired and had anime cutscenes (though this could attribute to the media used, and the direction of most games published by Telenet Japan). The similarities stop here. It's not something serious, and whether the developers intended them to be related is unknown (unlike the cases of Spriggan and the Thunder games), as in the case with Cyber Core and Psychic Storm, where I see no definite sign of the intention of the developers on whether they are related.