Some vertical mode ZeroRanger. One handed gameplay while holding the phone for some crappy video.
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Nice tate monitor setup! I haven’t picked up ZeroRanger yet, but I’ve been busy with Ketsui, Rolling Gunner, and now Lightening Force/TFIV. I like how the bullet spray from the ZG ship has a bit of a Cho Ren Sha 68K look and feel to it.
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My first good session in 2019 with a shooting game ended up being with Grind Stormer, a (seemingly?) little talked about Toaplan Genesis shooter. It’s technically impressive and also plays buttery smooth. It’s brutally difficult though, which is par for the course for shooting games of course! 
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Grind Stormer is an expensive one, both for the Genesis version, and also for the Japanese Mega Drive version, which is actually called V-V. Grind Stormer actually changes up the formula from the original release of V-V, which gives you a Gradius-style power bar and you collected icons to advance it, whereas Grind Stormer just throws out standard power-ups at you. Good game either way, though the recent episode of STG Weekly had the consensus that V-V was better, and that the Genesis port wasn’t all that great. I haven’t played enough of the arcade version to know, but I still want to get the Genesis version at some point.
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What’s great is that you get both the Grind Stormer and V-V variants on the cartridge; you can select which game/style you want to play from the options. I’ve never played the arcade version so I can’t objectively compare, but I think the Genesis port stands on its own merits. 
Didn’t know the game is pricey, I got it in a lot a long time ago. I should start selling my games! hahahahaha
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I’m loving the Toaplan representation in the thread, sure hope M2 or someone can get some of those games published again someday.
I love that game but it’s super expensive.
I remember when it was like $10 at EB. I had played it and thought it was pretty good but at the time it was JAS. Just Another Shooter. Now it’s gold. I never bought a copy. Sigh.
You guys made me curious so I went to check how much it goes for on eBay… and found so many fakes/repros/« replacement labels »…
Hahahaha, now I remember why I stopped checking out eBay years ago!
The nice thing these days is that most of the reproductions are labeled as such. You can usually figure out what’s real and what’s not.
Agreed. Either on Ebay or Etsy, it is labeled as a Repro. It is also priced as such and their doesn’t seem to be any confusion. It’s good in the sense that it would be to expensive to purchase/justify otherwise.
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That’s good to know, glad to see the hobby maturing as a while back, there were lots of stories where repros/bootlegs were being passed as legitimate… No doubt this is what led to the practice of opening carts to check the circuit boards.
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I think eBay cracked down on some of it. Obviously yes, the other thing is people now open up the carts and check, which also means eBay gets informed if there are scammers.
I think that’s also why prices have been driven up. It means the real thing is a little more valuable to people.
I forgot to take pictures but I just got Ordyne and Super Star Soldier for PC Engine, so will probably try to put some time in with them this weekend.
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I’ve been playing Thunder Force IV/Lightening Force this month and I just beat it for the first time on Easy. I’m working on Normal.
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One of my all time favorite OSTs. I really need to put some time into that game !
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Come over to RF Generation for our Shmup Club, Lightening Force/TF4 is our game of the month for January!
Or if an eBay listing for a game shows that it ships from China, you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s probably a repro.
I will check it out for sure !
I ordered Battle Mania CIB on eBay and the seller messaged me " Genesis or mega drive shell?" And I thought huh…that game never came out on Genesis. I checked the seller and sure enough it was from China. When it arrived it was so obviously a fake that I disputed it and they instantly refunded without asking for a return
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How many Toaplan shmups were ported to Genesis/MD? Truxton/Tatsujin, Twin Cobra/Kyu Tiger, Slap Fight (and you think Grindstormer is expensive…) and Grindstormer, is that it? Were any non shmup titles by Toaplan ported to Genny? Seems kinda crazy now that there was a time in the 16-bit era when Toaplan games being ported on home consoles wasn’t uncommon.