Pac-Man World Re-Pac - Updated Credits

A few months after the game's release, Bandai Namco and Now Production had made a patch that improved many aspects of the game such as credits, soundtrack and other stuffs that were changed. The credits part is the most important part of the update with the original team who made the game credited with True Accurate Information. Under the Sounds and Music part, it is Todd Dennis and Joey Kuras who worked on the music and sound part for the original version of the game under Tallarico Studios at the time. With this updated credit list, it can be proven that Tommy wasn't the one who composed the music for the game at all. Also, it is the first step in undoing the damage Tommy had caused in the past. The other games Tallarico Studios was involved in still have inaccurate credit information for the composer as if many websites still state that Tommy is the only composer due to him passing off others' compositions as his.

Besides the patch, there are two DLCs for the game and the Jukebox feature allows you to listen to the high quality versions of the songs in the Sound Test. The soundtrack in Re-Pac is said to be updated with high quality and uncompressed versions for free but the Jukebox remains a paid DLC.

Indeed, compliment is what I have for Bandai Namco and Now Production for a truly accurate credit information for the original team under Special Thanks category. However, this update should come with a new responsibility to keep those credits for the original team accurate and protected. The sites that wrongly claimed that Tommy Tallarico was the composer for this game should have corrected the credits in the game page once the update was out. I don't know for sure if there's some jerk-face out there who tries to make a malicious request to those sites to revert said changes or not but I think that the Special Thanks portion of the updated credits list should remain in the accurate form.

Aside from the Intellivision Amico controversies, there were other backlashes Tommy had done in the past such as giving Super Smash Bros games a low score in the most ignorant and offensive ways, and passing off other stuffs like sound effects he didn't make as his creations for instance but you can look up those stories yourself as they're beyond the scope of this blog article. His actions were not cool back then and the on-going controversies surrounding the Amico had already tarnished the Intellivision brand and his reputation further.

Pac-Man World Re-Pac Credits Controversy?

The Rangok Skies controversy was a real definition of controversy over stolen assets that the credits list remains questionable to this day because of the stolen sound effects. That is something the developers have no intention to do something about despite having made some improvements and other changes prior to the game's release. At least, Mojang put in the a fully detailed credits list for sound effects taken from freesound.org that are used for Minecraft and that's appreciated.

In the case of Pac-Man World Re-Pac's credits list, the original developers of the original Pac-Man World aren't credited in the remake and that's a shame and disappointment. I don't know if this qualifies as a gaming controversy or not as there's a chance the developers of the remake will be requested to fix the credits list, just like how the developers of the 8th-gen console ports of S**** Colors added the credits related to Godot game engine in a patch. Believe it or not, for every game made with Godot game engine, the game engine has to be credited no matter what despite it being a free and open-source game engine. At times, there are games that show the Made With Unity logo upon starting up. This lets people know that that game is made with Unity game engine.

Some interesting story prior to the remake's release included the fact that Tommy already sold the rights of the soundtrack to Bandai Namco and the composer is actually Todd Dennis, not Tommy himself. The credits information for the composer circulated on the net has been mostly incorrect and to find a correct one is a challenge to this day.

There are multiple reasons why people were interested in taking a look at Pac-Man World Re-Pac:

1. It's a remake of the original that came out on Playstation 1 in the late 90s.
   
2. Tommy and others under Tallarico Studios were involved in the sound and music department for the game.

The controversies surrounding the Tommy and Intellivision Amico were severe enough that the Amico console will never see a release because of his poor leadership and disrespectful attitude but the latest concern regarding the fact that the original developers of Pac-Man World aren't credited in the remake has attracted the attention of the content creators, fans of the franchise and some original developers. I don't know for sure if even Tommy would be disappointed for this but if it looks like he doesn't care for this controversy-to-be because the remake was released recently on Switch, Sony and Microsoft consoles, maybe his disrespectful attitude is still intact even if the Amico console was pretty much dead at this point that even a family would buy a Switch and play together or something.

Raycrisis for mobile obtained!

One thing you should know before buying the game for your Android device, I recommend that you play it on a device that runs Android 4.2 and above but the thing is, some description says that the game can work on an Android 4.1 device but guess what, the game didn't work on my main tablet at all that I might have to switch to another one that actually runs Android 4.2.
It wasn't easy getting the game to work probably due to the limited specs and the worse thing was that the main app data is stored on the system storage which is quite limited compared to the data storage of the tablet device which has tons of capacity as advertised. Another unfortunate thing was that I made one part of the game unplayable after all such emergency maintenance about cleaning things up that I wasn't able to move the game app to the data storage that acts as the SD card. Another annoying experience was that some USB mouse caused that tablet to act up like a retard when hooked up to it that I switched to another USB mouse. It was troublesome and I don't know if this same technical problem may spread to other Android devices like the Set-Top-Box I have sitting in the living room.
Problems aside, I managed to get through the game in both modes. The Remix Mode is sort of like the Special Mode from Playstation/PC versions except that you can continue the game in case you run out of lives and that the game is closely based on the arcade version. The third ship, WR-03, is available at the start, unlike the arcade version where you have to unlock it. Note that the Remix Mode has multiple endings similar to the Arcade Mode but the conditions are obviously different of course and the information about this is scarce as of now. I managed to get through the Remix Mode with several continues, faced the True Last Boss and saw the True Ending but if you take too many continues, this is where you'll face a different ending. The Arcade Mode has slow ship movement when dragging it and this has been there on purpose throughout the series on mobile. Like Rayforce and Raystorm, only one of the stages is remixed when it comes to in-game music. To hear it, you will need to set the Area/Stage 1 Music to Arrange, that is for Rayforce and Raystorm. In Raycrisis, this is a different story as the stages are randomized in order. The track, Lavande Bleu, which is the theme for Intelligence and Consideration Parts, is the track that has both the original and arrangement versions. The improvement may be a little in Raycrisis I should say as adding one arrange track for other games is not enough for me. In fact, such plans like that should have been suited for Groove Coaster, not the existing games.

Raycrisis in Remix Mode

When you proceed to the main menu of the game, you get to hear an awesome medley of the entire series. This is something exclusive to the mobile version and I don't think it is listed in the upcoming album CD of the entire series that will be out next month. Speaking of that album, it consists of the soundtrack CDs of the entire series including the tracks taken from the console versions of the games. Bonus tracks are probably from some Superplay discs or whatnot and especially the mobile versions. Will there be Groove Coaster arrangements in those bonus CDs? I don't know. But I don't think that the medley is being previewed whatsoever. Even Neo-Penetration is there which is said to be from the prototype version of Raystorm that was being location tested back then as R-Gear 1.5 or something. There is a trailer video like that from Ray-Ray CD-ROM which contains Raystorm and Ray-Tracers.

Ray'z Music Chronology Preview (From Zuntata's Official YouTube Channel)

Raycrisis Mobile Version - Main Menu BGM

Flaws so far:

• The Arcade Mode's ship movement is wack on touchscreen but you can use the Bluetooth controller which is the only workaround/savior against control crappiness. (Flaw partially solved as it supports Bluetooth but not the other.)
• For increased replay value, only a few stages are playable between the first and last stage out of all available ones but the bad way is the amount of stage sets of randomized stages. About 40+ stage sets available to choose from. This repetitiveness is made even worse for Darius Burst Another Chronicle and Chronicle Saviours.
• Only one stage BGM is arranged for the entire series and Raycrisis makes things a little bit better or worse as if the arrangement shifts back to the original track after a while should you take too long to defeat the bosses. Before the patch, the music fades out after a while and the arrangement music is played on first two stages, Beginning-Intelligence/Beginning-Consideration.

Other improvements include the translucent laser effects from your ship, the improved suction effect from the final boss and translucent explosions. That may supersede the arcade version a little bit.

Strikers 1945 for Switch

Strikers 1945 II and III were ported to IOS and Android and I already showed the gameplay videos of myself playing Strikers 1945 III in Master difficulty. It was incredibly difficult and I even consumed some of the in-game currency for extra bombs to survive. Normally, you get three bomb-attacks to begin with but if you run out, you will have to pay in-game currency for extra ones unless you get additional bomb items from the enemies. Obviously, the gameplay videos of Strikers 1945 III from my YouTube channel were incredible to look at although my Android tablet is already on life-support with some hardware defects or whatnot.
The original Strikers 1945 for Nintendo Switch is another decent conversion from what I saw although it misses the transparent boxes in the Scramble screen and the sound effects are different than the arcade version.
Another game besides this released on Switch is Gunbarich, from Psikyo. It appears that the external company, Zerodiv, has the assets to various Psikyo arcade games and it seems that Gunbarich has nicer decoration of the HUD and wallpaper than Strikers 1945 on Switch that you can't tell where the center portion of the game is in terms of layers. Obviously, the center layer is the arcade game layer, outside of it is where decoration takes place with new HUD and other information.

Raycrisis on IOS and Android

It had been years since Raystorm was released on IOS and Android and Raycrisis is the final addition to the series for mobile. Before the IOS and Android releases of Raycrisis, the mobile versions of Rayforce and Raystorm were updated again with widescreen support, bluetooth controller support and the arranged music for Stage 1 which may seem to be a strange and incomplete move for me. The same can go for Raycrisis in which one of the stages will have its track arranged although the original version is still there if you ask me.
Most of the gameplay videos of Raycrisis aim for the true ending so to find the ones with bad ending and good endings may be rare whether it's the arcade version or the Playstation/PC version. The mobile version is based on the arcade version minus the 2-player support similar to other shmup games ported from arcades.
The future plan will be to buy the game for my Android tablet from Google Play Store as my Ipod Touch had its screen damaged even worse. Maybe I used it while it was being charged and no wonder it took up so much power than ever. However, I don't know if Raycrisis is going to work well on my Android tablet as this is released this year but my guess is that it uses the same porting engine as Rayforce and Raystorm as indicated from the similar interface and walllpaper.
One thing to keep in mind is that the ending is different between the arcade and the Playstation/PC versions and the true ending leads to the beginning of Rayforce as Raycrisis is the prequel.

Playstation for Android is dead

OK, not all Android devices may support the Playstation games but this may seem to be a complicated phase for Sony and especially for the Playstation Certified Android devices of theirs which may be the first to get Playstation games. Another problem is how complicated it is to play on the mobile devices due to the amount of virtual buttons and virtual analog sticks seen on screen and it's completely weird compared to using the actual controller. Why can't they stick to the PSP + Modern touchscreen combination which is pretty much the PS Vita which is already doing good with Playstation games? Speaking of Playstation Mobile for the future, it can be better on the PS Vita, not the Android devices.
Seems that there will be no more plans to extend the Playstation Mobile for Android service even further so that the company can do things right again.

Galaxian 3 Obtained

Now that was some satisfactory from me when I played this compared to Starblade 32-Bit version. What's better is that you get the amount of Photon Laser/Blaster settings to explore with such as the 4 balances like Normal, Power, Rapid and Wide, and the speed of the crosshair. Of course, with those 4 balances you want to choose from, there's no way you can rapidly tap the fire button like that if you're going for Normal, Power or Wide. Perhaps, it may be pointless compared to the arcade version. You can try Rapid, but the downside is that you don't cause so much damage to the enemies quickly. The AI may be there as to require teamwork but rivalry in this game is unnecessary as this is not the way to fight the enemies out to save the day like that when inside the ship that shares the same shield. Sure, you and the other gunners are sharing the same shield that great teamwork is required for survival.
And since this was recently released on PSN, expect shitty movements due to the use of the D-Pad as there's no way you can use other types of controllers for that. For Starblade 32-Bit version, the firing is like crap and there's no way you can rapidly tap the fire button for faster firing rate, and the collision between your laser and the enemy is terrible too. Galaxian 3 for Playstation surely fixes them as if you can tackle the enemies properly and the firing rate is not bad thanks to the amount of Blaster settings available you can choose from before starting the game.
In comparison to the arcade version, you get up to 4 players compared to 6 and the left and right parts of the entire arcade screen are cut off for the console version as seen in the FMV view mode where you can simulate the arcade hardware test in the console version.
Downsides of the game are the unnecessity of rivalry, the lack of autosave and the minor flaws in the FMV for both games.

Starblade PS1 version obtained

Man, what happened to the 32-bit versions? Why is the arcade version better to play? Well, let's see the flaws.

1. Additional bullshit coming out of nowhere: While additional voice clips are added which make it a nice move, what the hell is up with those sound effects coming out of nowhere? How could they take the clip from some superplay video from the Starblade laserdisc and then put it in the game? Can't they put in those voice clips without putting anything else?
2. Boss Self-Destruction: You can't believe that Namco has turned this arcade game into an FMV game for the 32-bit version probably due to the fact that the entire graphics are put into the video. It's fine to make things choppy but you know what's really wrong with this move? During boss battles, there's no way to take short time or longer time to destroy the bosses such as the power source of the Octopus weapon and Iceberg Control Center as well as the enemy flagship commander. Instead, they're parts of the FMV and the time for boss destruction comes in after how exactly long the time for boss battles takes.
3. Firing input is awful: You're better off playing this in the arcades, PS2 as part of Tekken 5 or the Wii. Even if you turn on the rapid fire cheat, it doesn't help out in destroying as many enemies as you want for survival. There may be a workaround in using the mouse or Playstation flight stick for better movements but it cannot be same for immediate input response in firing at the enemies.
4. Awful collision between your lasers and enemies: This flaw and the previous one when combined will take up beyond a few credits you're given. It's kind of difficult to destroy the enemies that take up several hits, the enemies you want to reach, the enemies that are parts of the environments and the amount of projectiles that are thrown at you.

There's the Mega CD version of the game which is better than the 32-bit versions and the past version you could buy instead although it still uses FMV sequences but in a better way. Other than those, you're better off playing this on the PS2, Wii, the arcades and mobile via a discontinued compilation app. From what I saw from the Wii version, you can use the Wii remote as moving the flight stick.

Xevious 3D/G+ Obtained!

What's exclusive in this compilation is that Xevious Arrangement and 3D/G have the arrange soundtrack in addition to the original. However, the FMV videos are likely to be different than the arcade version of Xevious 3D/G although I don't know what's with the ending, like shooting at the giant ancient symbol on the sandy ground to summon the beam that wipes out the enemy fortress in space. Maybe this ending is what STH4E2 ending should have been in the first place like getting out of the Death Egg II and returning back to the planetary surface and if you have all the emeralds collected, you can use them to wipe that out.
Unfortunately, the PS1 version of Xevious 3D/G has even more flaws than ever. It has lack of graphical and environmental details as well as the blocky looking polygons compared to the arcade version. Also, the effects are mostly polygonal like there's no signs of sprites being used in the game. Also, when I played Xevious 3D/G on my Playstation Vita, there was a huge amount of lag in Area 3 when going through those rotating ring shaped wooden stuffs where there are still ground enemies to take out.
I may be glad to see this having come out in the PSN Store for Playstation Vita. Also, thankfully, there's auto-firing for easier playing. Video captures of the gameplay with arrangement soundtrack will be on my YouTube account soon after this blog post.