A few weeks ago I bought a 360 Elite system ahead of the XBox marketplace store closing so I could grab some games and DLC before the shutdown. Managed to get Futari’s Black Label DLC and have a physical copy of the game arriving soon as I’ve given up on Futari getting ported to current systems. I had a 360 way back in 2010 but it was one of the older white models and it red ringed on me within about only 4-5 months of getting it (fortunately it was a gift).
Anyways, one title I bought before my 360 died back then which I haven’t played in the 14 years since was this beauty which was my other motivation for finally getting another 360 (speaking of other games I’ve given up on getting ported to current systems):
I played the hell out of Raiden Fighters Aces. Microsoft was lucky to get a number of quality shooters during that time that ended up exclusive to their machine. Jet is still my favorite Raiden game by far.
Unfortunately the 1.01 DLC code doesn’t work since I wasn’t able to get it before the 360 store shut down so guess my only option to get it will be modding my system in the future. But the good news is that I was able to purchase the Black Label DLC fortunately when the store was active. Have only played a few rounds so far but I am loving it, and as usual, the amount of options and polish that M2 put into this are second to none.
Edit: I got the 1.01 DLC code to work!!! Earlier I had been trying to redeem it before I played the game. So I tried one more time and it went through, apparently it required save data from the game in order to activate. So happy, whooooo!!
I bought a copy a few years ago but hadn’t realised it was region locked. Never ended up getting an NTSC-U Xbox 360 so it went unplayed. Good to hear it’s awesome though!
Yep, Cannon Spike/Gunspike is on my list, thankfully I’ve got a lot of Dreamcast shmups to chew on at the moment so I can delay looking for a good deal on that one since as you point out, it’s expensive!
I have only scratched the surface of Mars Matrix and Gigawing 2, so those will probably be my next focus as I continue to be terrible at Gunbird 2, haha. Shame about Mars Matrix’s poor image quality though, the game would have looked so good with proper 240p support.
Cannon Spike is so brilliant. it just reminds me of going to the arcade as a kid in the early 00’s. gorgeous graphics and I get to play as Cammy, Charlie, Mega Man or Arthur
Man, SaiDaiOuJou is tough, just getting through stage 1 without dying can be really challenging. Definitely enjoying it though, one thing I like is how much more flexible the chain hit counter is with how long you can keep it going compared to other games in the series. Also have to say, after months of playing DOJ, SDOJ is definitely a departure art wise from that game in terms of SDOJ’s much brighter, anime intensive presentation vs DOJ’s gritty, darker, semi-apocalyptic visual design (I ended up having to turn off the voice effects, way too much in game chatter). Who ported this to 360? Was it Cave themselves?
What do people make of Border Down? That’s another high profile shooter that I want, which was never ported, unlike Under Defeat or Triggerheart Exelica. Did pick up the latter though, but probably wasn’t necessary given how it doesn’t feel like it was designed for 480i, and the Switch port is presumably solid.
Interesting to see Border Down is divisive, I’ll have try it before buying then, given prices.
Oh, I mean even at 480i it seemed too low res and hard to parse the graphics, so it’s probably the rare case of a game that will look better in HD. I had the 360 version but don’t remember much of it, should probably try the Switch version I own but have yet to play…
Mars Matrix is one of the games I’d love to go from 480i to 240p. Even after changing the image scaling settings I still get shimmering on one axis.
If you have a Mister, the CPS2 core plays Mars Matrix beautifully at 240p
agreed with @tomwhite2004 , the CPS2 alone was worth the price of admission. there are some cheap alternatives coming out very soon if not already out too
I’ve got the CPS2 core on my Analogue Pocket, luckily, need to spend some more time with Mars Matrix on there. It’s frustrating that the Analogue Dock introduces significant input lag when using a wired controller, put me off spending more time with it. Presumably they want you to use an 8bitdo controller which magically features lower latency.
Mars Matrix is just a touch too small on the Analogue Pocket screen for serious play, can be hard to keep track of bullets and such. Or my eyes are wearing out - but Ketsui on DS is still fine!
Even with better controllers you are unlikely to get the same response from the Dock as a MiSTer pumping out the original refresh rate with a virtually lagless scaler.