
Grind Stormer, aka V・V, is a vertically scrolling manic shooter with gorgeous pixel art graphics and an upbeat FM soundtrack. Developed by an all-star team at the legendary Japanese studio Toaplan, known for their stellar shoot ‘em ups.
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The United States storefront in every case, so this compares stores and not countries.
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All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Sums Steam only; GOG publishes no volume signal, so the true total is higher by an unknown amount.
| Store | Price | Audience | Score | Chart | Est. revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SteamYou are here | $7.99 | 19reviews | 63% | — | $4.1K |
| $7.99 | 1ratings | 40% | — | not modelled |
Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.
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Grind Stormer (known as V-V in Japan with some mechanical differences) is important, interesting, and difficult to recommend. It's difficult, frustratingly difficult, and even with various assists from this port of the game (like smaller hitboxes). I struggle to proceed past the first two stages. The checkpoint respawn system rather than just continuing on from where you died is ultimately the dealbreaker for me. That core design decision makes death more punishing than many other shmups. Your progress damaging the boss gets wiped away, increasing the difficulty to a point that was no longer fun for me. The context of the game is important. Grind Stormer was released 6 months before Batsugun, and this game is important in the lineage of shmups. This was the first game one of the programmers, Tsuneki Ikeda, would go on to work on Batsugun and co-found CAVE. This game is, in many ways, his origin story. V-V also has a unique upgrade system where you get to choose when to use your upgrade, whether it's on attack strength or a different weapon or a shield. This dynamic, without bombs, makes trying different upgrade paths strategic and quite rewarding. Grind Stormer does away with this and has bombs and various drops for the different weapons and power ups. I greatly prefer the V-V system and recommend playing that version over Grind Stormer, although both are worth trying out if the difficulty isn't offputting for you. Bitwave's port here is servicable. There are a couple of rough edges, like in tate mode the menu text is cut off. The music sometimes is off. Some settings like number of lives doesn't always persist throughout play sessions. The extra easy difficult setting actually makes the game harder. Just some weird stuff that seems like the game was rushed (which makes sense since they're mass releasing the Toaplan games in batches). There's a lot to like about V-V. The enemy design is great. The levels look quite good. The ship feels good to control. But the checkpoint respawn decision makes me not recommend playing this game unless you're ultra dedicated to the genre and Toaplan's releases. Sure, you can credit feed your way through it or use the rewind mechanics and still have a good time, but the depth and satisfaction (for me) is in going for the 1CC and achieving it. I'd recommend checking out Batsugun or Cho Ren Sha 68K over this release.
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Languages: English
Hours played at review time, across 20 reviews with recorded playtime.
Peeps complaining about difficulty. So? Go solo Battle Squadron published by Electronic Arts in 1990 and then talk to me. Grind Stormer looks great, plays great and more importantly the port looks good. There's an achievement for 100 play-throughs. Those complaining should be able to get past Stage Two by that time. I obtained the game in an $8 4 game bundle with Truxton 2. Absolute steal and awesome value.
残機設定が保存できず5機設定になるんだが。 4月アップデート後でも改善されず・・・。サポートにメールを投げたんだが放置。 ちなみに日本語対応できるスタッフがいないとsteam運営に言われたので、英語で送ったんだが・・・ デフォルトに戻せばよいだけといえばそれだけだが、実機でそうであるならばそれはハードの故障じゃね? と思うと納得がいかない。 やっぱりサウンド関係がなぁ・・・。再現性がいまいち。 開発費足りてないならクラファンで援助しましょうか? あと2面の子グモ?が分裂するところの処理落ちがないなど 相変わらずディレイ関連の再現には無頓着である。 一か月もすればアプデで改善されるとはいえ、細かい不具合や移植ミスは結構あるし。 こういったレトロゲーム系の移植は当時のプレイヤーがデバッグしてもらって 修正してもらうしかないんだろうけど。 本音をいえばM2に移植してもらいのだが M2も達人と達人王の移植も暗礁に乗り上げているようだし・・・
fun classic shmup; aged very well, quite approachable. good port too.
I'mma say it: Tengen never did any wrong. Bitwave, however, did. The emulation is bad at reproducing the instrumentation, and is as choppy as always. The replayers in any ports of this volume never start up right, and in this game's case produce graphical garbage for a solid few moments. The healthbars don't healthbar properly, disappearing with a fraction left on them all the time and appearing when they are not required. Try using the "Easier" assist on the easiest DIP switch settings and it will roll the rank over to its highest value. Generally speaking, the emulation and the extra features are three times as worthless as useful due to being rushed out in TWO MONTHS. AND A WEEK. If this is what Masahiro Yuge wanted, I'll eat my hat. Bitwave Games, Tatsujin Co. Ltd., Embracer Group, you should all be ashamed. I want the M2 ports instead. At least they can darn well back up their claims of attention to detail with robust, quality products developed on a remotely reasonable schedule.
Amazing game and the probably first prototype for what would became the genre bullet hell. The game is somwhere betwwen a bullet hell and a classic shmup. It has unique gameplay. The bullet patterns are amazing, quite unique and crazy hard but fair. The difficulty is high (even for a shmup) and may turn off many people. In fact i think many people will find it hard even with the rewind feature.Shmups experts will be delightfull with this game. Also when you die you go back to a checkpoint. and lose your powerups One of toaplan best. There are 2 versions. The japanese (vvvvvv) where you have a powerup system like gradius and the american (grind stormer) wich you pick up the powerups. the american version has bombs (something lacking in the japanese) but worst control in the weapons i get because sometimes i pick up by accident something i dislike. As always bitwave port is amazing. they are perfect in all things except sound emulation (that fortunaly is still goood but far from perfect)
当時全2周ノーミス達成済み 途中ロードすると同時にパワーゲージが使用されてしまう不具合を直して欲しい
ここの移植はいくつか買っていてまあいろいろ思うところはありますが、このゲームに関してはそこまで不満はないので置いておきます。 さておき『V-Five』は大好きなSTGです。とてもストイックに高純度に完成されたそのゲームシステムとバランスは今プレイしても隙がないほどだと思います。しかしながらきれいにまとまりすぎているというか、同時代の『達人王』『ドギューン』と比べてもいささか地味ではあります。 ゲージパワーアップ制の戦略性が肝の『V-Five』ショットとボムの基本型を突き詰めた『グラインドストーマー』ステージ構成は同じながらプレイ感はかなり異なります。ふたつのゲームが入っているようなもので、とてもおトクです。 BGMもとてもクールでかっこいいです。『達人』『タイガー』『鮫』と同じ弓削雅稔さんの作曲です。特にボス戦は東亜プラン屈指の名曲と思います。ハードの都合でPCM音源非搭載で、ほぼFM音源のみで重厚なサウンドを構築しているのも通好みなポイントでしょう。
昔、ゲームセンターで好んでプレイしてましたが今回購入し、最終面までクリアすることができました。 難易度もそれほど高くないし、オススメです。
It's a challenging shooter with a solid amount of QOL features that makes practicing a breeze.
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