Retro Gamer #88 - Cave feature/Interview

[Dandy_Sephy]

Long time reader, first time poster  

The new issue of Retro Gamer just dropped through the door and imagine my surprise to find halfway through there is a 6page feature/interview on Cave  

The first 3 pages are your standard history lesson, but the gems come from the interview with Ikeda and Asada. I don't know how much of this is common knowledge and some has been mentioned elsewhere (like from EOJ) but these were the standout points made:

- Until progear all slowdown was due to a lack of processing power and from DOJ they begun adding programmed slowdown
- PGM had inferior graphics power but superior cpu which led to changes in design and bullet sizes and spreads
- With SH-3 they began throwing bullets all over the place because of the increased power.
- Ikeda's influences are Salamander (number of bullets), Battle garegga (bullet patterns) and Kukyoku Tiger and Raiden for enemy timings
- Guwange was a trial for international releases, with a sales target of 50,000 downloads.
- Asada says there are "no costs" associated with making a game region free, it's purely a business decision based on the market and licensing opportunities. The reply was a response to a direct question of Microsoft's approval process
- There were offers to license the ps2 titles to the west but Cave preferred to concentrate on Japan at the time
- There are offers "on the table" for more publishing deals, Asada believes there will be more games coming to the west
- Dangun Feveron's release is still undecided, but will depend on how they look at Guwange. They don't correct the assumption it will be on XBL.
- Asada's previous mention of Death Smiles 3 returns, but Asada mentions he and Inoue are actually working on the design concept. If the game is made it will be the last in the series ( )
- 360 was chosen because of other shooter companies using it, no plans for ps3

[EOJ]

Hey, thanks for the info. Nice to see them state they program in slowdown, which I've been saying for years.

[ssfsx17]

So basically, this means that they plan to license DDP DFK to international X-Box, Akai Katana Shin to international X-box, etc. in the future. Well, good to know that there is a purpose behind some of those titles being non-region-free.

[EOJ]

Yeah, we've known that to be their plan from the start. Whether or not any publisher wants to license any of the games is another story.

[moozooh]

Nice, thanks for translating!

- Until progear all slowdown was due to a lack of processing power and from DOJ they begun adding programmed slowdown

Hard to believe it only started with DOJ. I could swear the slowdown during Hibachi's first pattern in DDP looked very artificial in how abruptly it appeared and disappeared and how precise the framerate reduction was (compared to like every other attack plagued with slowdown in some way or another). Though maybe that's an exception.

- PGM had inferior graphics power but superior cpu which led to changes in design and bullet sizes and spreads

Did they mention what the PGM was inferior to? It's got the highest resolution of all Cave platforms (except probably DS2's), and the games had really nice sprites ? not as good as SH3 maybe, but far above both the first-gen hardware and CPS2.

- Asada says there are "no costs" associated with making a game region free, it's purely a business decision based on the market and licensing opportunities. The reply was a response to a direct question of Microsoft's approval process

Haha? Bastards.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Did they mention what the PGM was inferior to? It's got the highest resolution of all Cave platforms (except probably DS2's), and the games had really nice sprites ? not as good as SH3 maybe, but far above both the first-gen hardware and CPS2.

It has the highest vertical res (448) but the horizontal res is terrible (224). I can't even think of another arcade system with something lower than 224. Pac-Man had 224 width in 1980.

[Chempop]

Interesting, I  at the thought of their PS2 games being considered for the west, probably would have been $10-$30 budget releases too.  Oh well, at least some of their 360 titles will make it over for the folks who can't invest in importing.

Nice to see them credit Salamander and Garegga 

[EOJ]

Nice, thanks for translating!

Retro Gamer magazine is in English.

[Dandy_Sephy]

I'll see if I can do a scan or type it all up, maybe my phrasing isn't very good. Regarding PGM, The line in question is "the rendering power was lower than the cpu power, which confronted us with our first situation in which the game would not slow down, even if we had a ton of bullets on the screen""

*note: the hardware isn't mentioned by name , but rather the game that first used it

Hey, thanks for the info. Nice to see them state they program in slowdown, which I've been saying for years.

It may be worth noting that they don't say if Sh-3 is struggling to keep up

[brentsg]

It may be worth noting that they don't say if Sh-3 is struggling to keep up

They don't need to.  It's pretty evident.

[Dandy_Sephy]

It may be worth noting that they don't say if Sh-3 is struggling to keep up

They don't need to.  It's pretty evident.

But how much of it is programmed in and how much is just the natural limits of the hardware

[ptoing]

I can't even think of another arcade system with something lower than 224. Pac-Man had 224 width in 1980.

Street Fighter: The Movie or what it's called has a resolution of 200x200.
On a sidenote I think the PGM games are the ugliest looking Cave games by a long stretch. Espgaluda is OK, but DOJ and Ketsui have some really ugly graphics in places.

[brentsg]

It may be worth noting that they don't say if Sh-3 is struggling to keep up

They don't need to.  It's pretty evident.

But how much of it is programmed in and how much is just the natural limits of the hardware

On AK, and some parts of DFK BL the SH3 is getting crushed.  It's a lot more pronounced for the top scorers.

[rtw]

I'll see if I can do a scan or type it all up

A scan would be very nice 

[hipgnosis]

Gonna snag a copy of this magazine for sure. Glad to see some CAVE lovin in the western media.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I can't even think of another arcade system with something lower than 224. Pac-Man had 224 width in 1980.

Street Fighter: The Movie or what it's called has a resolution of 200x200.

That's not correct. SFTM is 384 x 255. You're probably thinking of Pit Fighter because the section of the screen that can handle action and zooming is small, something like 200 pixels wide, might even be 180, but the full screen width is still 240 and the action section isn't stretched (in Pit Fighter you have columns on the left and right and Hydra has the big column on the right) so it doesn't look particularly pixelated.

[MX7]

I haven't got an issue of Retro Gamer since the lamentable day that John Szczepaniak. But I'll have to buy this one. Thanks for the summary! For those requesting scans, the magazine is based in the UK, and can be distributed internationally

[ptoing]

SFTM is 384 x 255.

You are correct. I just checked and the problem was that Mame++ 0.119 has it filed under resolution 200x200 wrongly. I remembered seeing that quite a while ago, but I never played it much.

On the other hand, the usable resolution on the NeoGeo is pretty much 304x224. I think it actually is 320x256 or 240 but because of how you have to do scrolling and such you lose something. Not entirely sure about that. Anyway, there are lots of arcade games with weird resolution aspects and 224 is not that low all things considered.

[Strider]

Glad to hear people are interested in our Cave interview. It's taken years for us to secure something of real genuine worth, so I'd really appreciate it if you didn't put scans up of the article. Retro Gamer is a very niche magazine, so we really rely on exclusive features such as these to actually pull in new readers who might not otherwise buy the magazine.

Thank You.

[SuperPang]

You're on the App Store right? I'll download a copy when my iPad 2 arrives

[Strider]

You're on the App Store right? I'll download a copy when my iPad 2 arrives

That's right

[rtw]

You're on the App Store right? I'll download a copy when my iPad 2 arrives

What's the price on the iPad and is issue 88 available yet ?

[Strider]

The app is ?1.19 and you get the first issue free. Issues thereafter are ?2.99. Issue 88 should be out on the AppStore the same day as it's in the shops, which is the 31st.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Paper copy can be ordered online now:
https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/magazines/retrogamer/retro-gamer-issue-88.html