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'Cho Ren Sha 68k'
From a Sharp X68000 to an Atari Falcon!
You may have read some of my wee and gravy-stained ramblings about a 'Falcon renaissance' elsewhere in this Maggie, but to my mind, this classic vertical scrolling massive with many sprites shooter, ported from Japanese arcade quality hardware, places the cherry firmly on top of this moist and yummy cake.
This masterpiece started life originally on the Sharp X68000 back in 1995. The name translates to 'Ultra Fire 68K', It was made after the Sharp X68000 had been discontinued and is considered as one of the most intense games for that platform, in terms of hardware usage.
We have Anima, aka Percy of Light, to thank for porting this powerhouse of a game to the Atari Falcon 030, and he's not even needing any Falcon with an accelerator, just a bog standard 16 MHz one at that. You may recall I wrote something a couple of years ago, about his preliminary exploration of the Sharp X68000. That gave us partial ports of 'Pac Mania' and a nearly complete 'Galaga 88' to the Falcon.
I won't go into detail on the process, but the Sharp X68000 was starting with a MC68000 clocked at 10 MHz, but has some seriously impressive custom hardware. This is versus the Falcon's MC68030 at 16 MHz, but the Falcon is having to "emulate" the graphics and sound hardware. The inverted comma's are Anima's, from his blog. On the other hand, the Falcon also has something called a Motorola 56001 DSP, which was called in to help with the sprites. This last piece of the hardware puzzle is quite probably a crucial part of why Cho Ren Sha turns in such an impressive performance on a standard Falcy.
The version under consideration is the Beta version, released in July 2015. Most of the game is there. We're still missing a scrolling, as opposed to a static background, as well as the in-game music, but the full game itself IS there. The other recommendation is that people are careful when accessing the config screen, as pressing the wrong option can cause the game to freeze (oops!)
This is what passes for a quiet moment here!
In spite of Anima's caution, it does run on accelerated hardware, as long as this hasn't been too outlandishly tweaked. It certainly fired up on my Centurbo 2 boosted machine, and apparently runs on CT60 as well. A generous dollop of memory is suggested, at least 14 MB or so.
However, it is best enjoyed with the Falcon switched down to default mode. If anything, running with an accelerator decreases your chances of making it to an end of level, as everything is too smooth and responsive then! There is little or no visible slowdown. Anima's overtime coding with the DSP paying off handsomely there. It would need someone not completely absorbed in the playing with and survival of the game to spot any slowdown. I certainly did not notice any slowing down, at least on the first level. The sheer amount of things happening on the screen remained dialled up to eleven throughout.
There have been proper commercial releases in the past for the ST, that have dropped frame rates horribly at busy moments and were still sold as fit for purpose. Cho Ren Sha happily does not indulge in such cheap and disappointing antics.
Then there's the look of the thing. Massive sprites, and several of them. Lots and lots of little sprites, bullets and explosions too. This simply does not look like what anyone would consider a 'typical Falcon game'. Other shoot-em- ups look distinctly homely and cosy alongside this raw steak-fed raptor of a game! The gameplay is the time honoured method of mashing your finger on the fire button as many times a second as possible. Streams of fire shoot out from your craft, cunningly patterned enemies die, some of them taking a bit of effort to do so, almost like mini-bosses. Then there are proper end of level bosses to take out.
Although Cho Ren Sha is a big fierce bear of a game, there are some things missed. From the design of the original game that is, not the port. There's no notion of progressive ship building with power-ups and extra weapons, a la Xenon 2. You can pick up power-ups with more firepower and bombs, but nothing over that. This game austerely rejects the notion of auto fire. So quite a bit of finger exertion is involved in order to succeed. As it is, Cho Ren Sha is a game that can raise your heart rate quite considerably.
The other features of this port are covered from Anima's blog. There's Jagpad support, as well as regular joysticks and keyboard support. There's a gameplay recording and replay option, you have the option of RGB or VGA screens. The highscore table can be saved.
Hints and tips:- Yes, it's a very frantic game, they're needed, I've found a few.
When power-ups appear, there are normally three in a ring together, these are firepower, bombs and shields. You can normally only pick up one of the three. If you manage to get in the middle of the ring and stay there for a time, you will get all three. This is not easy to do.
Now is this big thing an end of level boss or not?
The bosses at the end of the first level can apparently be tricked into destroying each other.
From further reading, there is mention of a hidden menu, accessible from the config screen, 'by holding down the up button'. This allows the player to start from a different stage, make the player invincible (called Muteki mode), and change the speed of the enemy bullets. There is also mention of a hidden stage, (labelled with the word 'showtime' instead of a number.
A weird bit of trivia. Cho Ren Sha even has its own TV Tropes page.
Anyway, there's no back story or plot, which is refreshing, just pile on the bullets for the biggest possible score. Now it's almost the end.
Ratings..
Graphics:- 90% - Big, bold and ornate sprites, arcade quality and arcade sized, dominate this game. A very attractive game.
Sound:- No Rating as port incomplete, sounds effects present, but not the music.
Playability:- 95% - A fluid and energetic shooter, from arcade quality hardware is overwhelmingly successful on the Falcon.
Overall:- 90% - One of the top attractions for 2015 on the Falcon, and probably the best shoot-em-up available for that machine.
Conclusion.
If you're after a showcase of what the Falcon wasn't supposed to be able to do, then load this bad boy up!
CiH - For Maggie 25th Anniversary - Sept 2015.