[AC] [DC] [X360] Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram

[Tain]

Article: http://news.dengeki.com/elem/000/000/142/142776/
Official Site: http://vo-ot360.sega.jp/
Trailer: http://vo-ot360.sega.jp/dl_image/trailer.zip

Xbox Live Arcade is seeing a port of Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram version 5.66.

This is, aside from a hack-unlocked training mode on a rare Dreamcast promo disc, the first home port of version 5.66. It includes three new VRs not seen in the Dreamcast port (a stripped-down Temjin, a new model of Apharmd, and a laser-based Grys-Vok).

Apparently it has system link as well as online play. I'm always glad to hear that. The arcade game's VR color customization is in, too. I can't tell if the textures are improved or not; my initial reaction to the shots is that they are.






I had a weird obsession with this game when I was younger; I was totally in love with the mechanics as they were on paper, but was too young to really get anywhere skill-wise with friends of mine.

I really, really look forward to playing this with some competition and seeing if it lives up to my impossibly high expectations if/when I start getting decent at it. This is a pretty important release to me.

[icycalm]

So, yeah! Oratan has made the leap onto Xbox Live Arcade. Specifically MSBS 5.66, which was the final arcade iteration of the game (and arguably the best). This port will also feature full online versus but there is an elephant in the room in terms of the control input.

The original Dreamcast port afforded a twinstick peripheral, allowing you to play the game with the controls with the same response time as in the arcade. Bear in mind that these were digital microswitched sticks as well and the leverage of the stick itself negated almost any deadzone. This resulted in a game that had pinpoint precision in terms of its control input. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the more basic elements of the game were lost on a pad as consequence.

The Dreamcast version was MSBS 5.45, 5.66 never saw a real home conversion (the hacked customise disc doesn't count here, as the arcade version was still very different in lots of ways) and was only balanced against the sticks. Considering the increase in speed over the previous iterations, I'm really not sure how this will work on a pad. Bear in mind that Marz and the recent SEGA AGES port run at a slower pace compared to Oratan, which was always the more reflex based game in the series, and neither of those worked very well on a pad either.

The game will be out in April and cost 1200 Microsoft points. There's a nice trailer here in case you're curious.

http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002615.html

[Cacophanus]

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/03/col ... k_onta.php

[icycalm]

That article, like much of your stuff on GSW, is almost entirely wasted on that website. It will fall off the frontpage in a couple of days, flooded by the incessant pointless linking of Simon, and all the tedious articles he posts, and then disappear forever in the cavernous archives of his shitty b(oring)log.

I am very keen to post it on my frontpage, perhaps even as part of Randorama's Untold Tales of the Arcade series. If you'd like to see that happen, just let me know.

[Cacophanus]

I don't really agree with that, as the column is archived very thoroughly and is clearly linked from the frontpage. As for the incessant posting, that's very common amongst most gaming blogs (and I find a lot of GSW's content very interesting and informative).

I'd be happy to contribute here though, as I also like the articles here too (the recent one on expertise was refreshingly valid I thought).

I'd rather do specific articles for sites though, rather than have them spammed everywhere. As it makes them more interesting I think.

[icycalm]

I don't see how not getting previous articles "spammed" everywhere would make future articles more interesting. In fact, it seems the opposite would be true, because people sometimes feel the need to repeat things they have already said elsewhere, for the benefit of their new audience.

In fact, a lot of my work with this site involves rescuing worthwhile content from a great number of lesser known blogs/sites/forums, giving them more exposure and interlinking them for maximum effect. Take for example the awesome article on PC Game Piracy. Best, and most comprehensive, article you will find on the subject, and yet hardly anyone knew about it before I rescued it from the author's tiny blog and brought it to people's attention.

To give you an idea of how terrible GSW is, consider this. Every time I am linked off its frontpage I get around 60-80 clicks, whereas every time I am linked off of IC's frontpage -- a site with much lower traffic -- I get upwards of 300 clicks -- sometimes even as many as 400 or 500. This is a direct consequence of Simon's "quantity over quality" frontpage shoveling tactics, and ensures that the few good articles he has are read by very few people. Insomnia is at the opposite end of the quantity/quality scale, which means that everyone who reads this site ends up reading more or less EVERYTHING we post, because they know it will be worth their while. And people keep linking these articles and reviews months and years after they are originally posted, whereas stuff that gets posted on GSW and other shitty shovelware blogs become forgotten, or at best receive the occasional link once every blue moon if they really really deserve them.

Anyway, whatever. I am just explaining my editorial policy. Do whatever you feel comfortable doing.

[icycalm]

[Cacophanus]

In the latest column on over on the official site infers that twinsticks could be on the cards for this port, fingers crossed!

[Tain]

That would be a sight to see. There's still nothing on split screen play, is there? It would make it easier to convince some friends to pick this up for real-deal system link if so.

Also, some screens I'm seeing (from this GAF post) make me think this game is upscaled.



There's no way that's native 720p, right?

[Cacophanus]

I've caned this online. Lots of wins and I'm now a "Sergeant". The only few games I lost were against Japanese players who had modded Dreamcast/Saturn twinsticks (I messaged them to find out). It wasn't that they were more skilled but were able to consistently out manoeuvre me, as they could pull off successive jump cancels coupled with standing turbo moves quicker than I could on the pad. All the tactics they were using were things I could have done easily on the Dreamcast version with a pair of sticks. I was also completely unable to use a lot of close combat with this timing issue in effect, it was just too risky online and when you fluff it up it would leave me wide open.

The online issues are only really prevalent if you play Japanese players, if it's more local it's better. It's still a step back from the modem netcode that was on the Dreamcast version though.

It needs more work really, on a functional level (plus a twinstick peripheral).

[Naoshige]

7th of June:
IC reported about the possibility of a twinstick set for the 360.
"Hori are going to release a pair of sticks sometime in November for the eye watering price of 30,000 yen."

16th of June:
Some blog posted the results of the Virtual-On event on the 13th.
"[T]he Twin Sticks EX peripheral is being made available by Hori to Xbox 360 Virtual On players on a pre-order only basis. Due to the limited appeal of such a device, Hori announced that it would only take it into production if it received a certain number of pre-orders. While the company has not made a formal announcement, it looks like 1,500 is indeed the magic number."

Play-Asia already listed them with a image and release date despite them being announced as pre-orders only.
Maybe that means that they are one of the sites that would take pre-orders (right now it says the usual "Announced - Preorders opening soon") from overseas customers and then further them to Hori at some point in order to reach the magical number.

-

I am actually kind of suprised they really pulled this off as far. When they responded that maybe there would be one in the far future, I thought they did it out of pure politeness.

As the blog above stated, VOOT being a download-only title makes the whole thing just all the more awkward.

The alternative.

[Magnum Apex]

Play-Asia already listed them with a image and release date despite them being announced as pre-orders only.
Maybe that means that they are one of the sites that would take pre-orders (right now it says the usual "Announced - Preorders opening soon") from overseas customers and then further them to Hori at some point in order to reach the magical number.

Unfortunately, that link redirects me to the front page, and I didn't find the page anywhere on the site after looking for a bit in the Pre-Orders and Xbox 360 Controllers, Remotes & Headsets pages. :(

I've read it's cheaper to dedicate your time and money on the Dreamcast-to-X360 sticks alternative, but I wouldn't know.

[Naoshige]

Sorry, it seems they for some reason decided to remove the product page. Maybe they just found out that they are only going to get produced if a certain number of preorders is met?

I should have taken a screenshot, though...