Showing posts with label Shikigami No Shiro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shikigami No Shiro. Show all posts

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Shikigami No Shiro/Castle of Shikigami on Steam

The external developers that made the IOS version two years ago ported the game to Steam this year but compared to IOS version which is decent in conversion as I saw the gameplay videos, the Steam version is a DIFFERENT DISASTER!
Presentation-wise, there isn't so much support for external controllers and the control customization isn't quite good. Not to mention that the conversion is bound to bring damage to people's ears during the boss destruction sequence from the way it sounds when compared to the arcade version. The sound effects are messed up, the glow and ring effects are messed up and it should be simple enough to base the previous PC release which obviously uses 640X480 resolution with new HUD. Another thing that's messed up is the Stage Clear text which obviously doesn't have the glow effect at all when compared to the previous releases. The last problem is the port's presentation in which the game uses HD resolutions for some reason instead of basing the previous PC release like Raiden III on Steam did. This causes the in-game graphics to be much more blurry than ever and there's no reason to enhance them like making them sharper or some kind since the game originally came out for the G-NET system in the arcades. XIIStag on Steam and Xbox 360 is more or less decent when it comes to conversion but it misses some of the graphical effects as a result. Maybe they are too hard to emulate or some kind.
Speaking of XIIStag, there's also XIIStag Limited on PC which uses 3D objects instead of 2D sprites but the game still looks exactly identical.
The plus side, you do get the decent translation and original voice acting as well as proper in-game presentation that matches the arcade original. The western Playstation 2 release known as Mobile Light Force 2 surely butches the translation, voice acting, scripts, presentation and various parts of game publishing like the title screen has nothing to do with the actual game for instance. So, both the Steam and western Playstation 2 releases are kind of mediocre at best and finding other versions released in Japan will be extremely tough. The IOS version is decent at best from what I saw but it's not the same for the Steam version. The sequel already improves things a little in the west with proper game title and title screen.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Shikigami No Shiro for IOS

From what we saw, the game for the IOS can be suited for Iphone 4 and above as the wallpaper doesn't even full up the entire widescreen for Iphone 5 and 6 but on the Ipad, it is completely fine and the game looks similar to other shmup games ported from the arcades to the IOS. The gameplay resolution is on the top center of course with the button layout looking quite similar. However, as the game is released like this year, I may probably assume that the game works for Iphone 5 onwards like we may be out of luck. Not to mention that the momentum for this series is completely dried out after Shikigami No Shiro III and Alfa System is already developing something else ever since the past. It may be the same for Skonec which is still around and we had discovered a Dance Central-like game developed by them. Also, the in-game buttons are kind of confusing for some reason as they completely full of text instead of picture icons and they're in Japanese.