NIGHT STRIKER GEAR

Gameplay is fine outside of it feeling directionless and seemingly impossible to dodge enemy attacks. Biggest gripe I have with this game is how bland and boring the music is! The music in Night Striker Gear is comparable to 2011's The Greatest Video Game Music album to give you an idea on how bland boring it is. Maybe wait for a sale if it still looks somewhat interesting to you.

ニアレストネイバー拡大で 2D を疑似3D化した初代のスタイルを崩さず、自然に現代化した完全新作。 3Dが当たり前の今でも、当時のスタイルを崩さず綺麗に現代化されており、 長年のファンとしてはまさかの新作に心から感謝している。 以下に以前との違いで感じたことなど色々書きますが 基本一番好きだったゲームへの愛ゆえで 昨今のリバイバルのゲームたちの中で残念であったりイメージと違う作品がや 演出過多でプレイに支障が出たりいらない改変など多く感じる中 今作は他変形やステージがもう1ブランチ（ノード？）欲しかったというのがあるくらいで ゲームプレイという観点ではパワーダウンや改悪は一個も感じない 素晴らしい出来だと思っているのが私の前提です。 ■ 初代からの主な変更点 本作は移植ではなく完全新作。 ステージ・ボス構成も別物で、多くの点が現代的に調整されている。 自機性能は見直され、連射力は初代の約1/4〜1/2に低下（GEARゲージで変動）。 さらに重要だったホーミング弾の仕様が全面的に別物へ変更されている。 初代では、 「レバー＋ショットを押す」＝ノーウエイトかのような速度で連射可能な弾に ホーミングが操作中に勝手混ざり、 入力次第である程度自発的にも出せる という仕組みで、遠距離の敵にも自動的に追尾し 正面を取ること無く移動しながら攻撃し続けることが出来た。 今作のホーミングは 「ショットボタン押しっぱなしによる自動連射」 の最中にのみ混ざる方式で、 押しっぱなし後一定インターバルごとに発生する。 初代の感覚で高速手動連射すると逆に条件を満たせず「永遠にホーミングが出ない」罠になる。 プレイ動画では出ているのに出せないのでバージョン特有のバグなのかなと考えながら、 半分攻略を終えた辺りで敵のいないシーンで何気なく押しっぱなしにしたときに出て初めて気が付きました。 この変更は、連射速度の個人差による“実質火力差”を抑え 誰でも同じ条件で立ち回れるモダン調整とも解釈できる。 ただ、敵を倒さないボーナスは別モードとして独立し 撃たないことで得点やゲージ回復速度が上がるわけでもなく 基本押しっぱなしで良い設計なら、ショットは「ON/OFFトグル」でもよかったのでは、と感じる。 ■ 新システム「GEAR」について ゲージを使用して、いつでもロボット形態に変形可能。 初代の終盤だけ登場した形態の強化版で、以下の特徴がある。 ・全弾ホーミング化 ・発射速度と同時発射数アップ ただし無敵ではなく、被弾すると硬直＋ゲージだけ消費される このシステムを活かすためか、通常時の連射性能は抑えめ。 GEARを使用する位置とタイミングの見極めが今回のゲームのメイン設計に感じられる。 ■ 敵の挙動と難易度バランス 初代は「画面を大回りしているだけで避けられる」構造が強かったが、今回は違う。 ・大きな環や十字のショット ・乱射する敵 などが追加され、無意味に移動すると事故り、 正面で撃ち合いながら避ける必要がある作りになっている。 ホーミングミサイルは地面に当たって消えるようになった。 また、 敵の耐久が上がり、数発当てないと倒れない。 小隊の中にいる「赤い機体」を倒すと周囲の白い小隊を巻き込むという新ルール 自機弾の判定は見た目より大きく当てやすい 自機正面に重なった敵はショットが発射できなくなる仕様 GEARゲージをが高いほど押しっぱなしの連射速度が上がる など、システム全体が「正面戦闘＋狙い撃ち」を求める方向になっており、 変形時は短時間「正面にいかなくて良い時間を作り、瞬間高威力な代わりにゲージが無くなるほど変形解除後弱体化」 オプションでいきなりクレジット9などに設定可能ではなく 1時間の実プレイ時間ごとで自動でコンティニュークレジットが1ずつ増加。 ノーマルとハードは順当でちょうどいい感じ。 強化は弾の自機狙い具合とボスの体力かな？ ハードホーミングのコレコレ感。 ・イージー ボスは倒しやすくなるのだが 敵が自分をあまり狙わないで外すようにゆるく撃ち弾が少し遅い →撃たれたと思って慌ててしばらくいなかったはずの逆サイドに動くと ゆっくり見やすく飛んできたあえて外してくれた弾が まだ残っていて当りに行ってむしろよく事故るまである気がしました ■ グラフィックと解像度 デフォルトは 1280×720。 解像度を 2048px に上げても遠景がチラつく箇所は変わらず、 4Kディスプレイに映したとしても最低解像度より細かくなる箇所はない。 最低の 640×360 に下げても不自然さが無い → デフォルトが最も見栄えが良い おそらく内部解像度は常に 640×360 で動作し、ウインドウサイズだけ変更している可能性が高い。 ■ 操作（HORIスイッチパッドの場合） 環境依存かもしれないが： アナログスティックが極端に敏感 どんな設定でも端まで一気に動いてしまう ボタン配置はゲーム側ではおおざっぱで細かく設定できず、STEAM側で対応する必要がある。 ■ 音楽、音について どこか「海外ドラマ（Heroes や LOST）風」をダライアスや斑鳩風味で味付けしたような印象。 旧作のアレンジが定期的に挿入されるが音源がリアルになり全体的にぼんやりして、記憶に残りにくい。 画面外で撃たれても気づく戦闘機のホーミングミサイル発射音がなくなった事 打撃攻撃着弾時の「パッコン」という変にコミカルな効果音が世界観にあってない気がした。 「攻撃を出してこれから判定が行きます」　という類の音が目立たなくなり 「攻撃判定がでている瞬間の音」が増えた印象。 ■ 自機デザイン コックピットの濃紺部が板で隠れ見えなくなることで“アルミ弁当箱”のようなデザインへ変更 地上走行でのタイヤ表示時の坂による角度変化アニメは削除 おそらく、パース崩れ防止し上空視点を統一したい意図と共に ステージ数の色違いのやりくりや変形の一種類化などの具合からしてコスト取捨的なものを感じる。

This game rocks. Hiroshi Iuchi is back and has proved to the world that he still knows how to make a great arcade game. NSG is fast paced and forward thinking with lots of great ideas never seen in rail shooters before. The new Gear system functions like a hyper, allowing you to play very aggressively, but also keeping your gear meter full without using it powers your regular shot, so there's a balancing act at play with regards to how much Gear you want to use. This is the first rail shooter I'm aware of with bullet sealing, a common traditional shmup mechanic where if your ship overlaps an enemy, they can't shoot you. This can be used strategically to reduce incoming fire and really helps when the screen gets filled with explosions which can impede visibility to some degree. Scoring has lots of depth in this game. You get extra points for time spent driving on the ground, which can be tricky depending on how the road moves up and down in space (sometimes the road goes away completely depending on the stage). Wipeout bonuses are awarded for killing nearly every enemy in a stage, and boss time bonuses reward killing bosses fast, encouraging aggressive play. Shield bonuses at the end of each stage give you points for not taking hits. One of the more unique mechanics at play is the captain system, where each enemy grouping has a red captain enemy; kill the captain, and the whole group dies. If you can precisely kill the captain without first killing any other enemies of that group, you get a nice captain score bonus. All of these systems paired with the variety of game modes, difficulties, and branching stage routes really give this game a ton of replay value, which is reflected by the leaderboard being fairly active. There are 11 stages total, and every one is very distinct with unique set pieces and boss fights. The presentation is truly out of this world, it's probably the best looking sprite based game of all time. The speed and fluidity of motion is truly jaw dropping, at times it's hard to believe the game isn't using 3D models. Soundtrack is great, if a bit understated for the high action of the game. It has the wackiness of a classic Zuntata album though which is just wonderful. Overall, this game is amazing. It's easily M2's most ambitious and impressive original game yet, blowing games like Salamander 3 out of the water. It's good, fast, deep, and beautiful. An absolute must play for fans of shooters.

PROS: Fast, fun gameplay, great looking environments, great looking bosses and enemies. Very easy to get into. Online ranking boards, multiple gameplay modes and difficulties. Fun scoring system. CONS: visibility from smoke and camera panning can be an issue. Sometimes the camera in certain areas can lock your movement, making it hard to evade certain attacks. No practice mode, no stage select, no replay viewing or downloading. No local score rankings to keep track of your own scores offline. Not much customization. I recommend the game if you're interesting in 3D rail shooters, but I hope and wish the developers would add some features that I feel are missing.

Fantastic on rails shooter. Great sense of speed, good gameplay, varying stages. Doing the 1cc on Standard Difficulty was fun. Great Soundtrack too. Only critique point would be the visibility of enemy projectiles which is lacking so you sometimes take some unexpected hits. But you can play around that.

前作ナイトストライカーとはプレイ感覚は異なります 緻密なライン取りと若干のランダ厶敵配置へのアドリブが必要で、そのバランスが秀逸 まあ難しいですけど６時間もプレイすればフリープレイ開放されるので 強いて言えば頭空っぽにしてもプレイできるスーパーEASYみたいなのが欲しいですね ・タイヤ走行でギアゲージ溜まる ・光弾とミサイル以外はダメ無し ・ルートによってGステージで全砲門開いたり火力増加装置付いたり支援機来たりする …とか…（冗句です

Great game but, lacking in the polish you expect from modern arcade releases, especially M2. Everything this game is doing well is significantly held back by some of the most frustrating visibility issues I've ever seen in an arcade game. The only rail shooter I've played that's as difficult to visually parse is Taito's Galactic Storm. And it's a real shame M2 did not provide visibility/accessibility settings to try and curb this. The visual issues do not involve the density of hazards or even the speed of the game. It's the special effects. A scaling sprite rail shooter is already going to have some degree of ambiguity with sprites that increase in size and come towards you in a 3D space while overlapping each other. With how much glowing from enemy shots, glowing from background elements, massive vision obscuring clouds of smoke from defeated enemies, large pieces of debris and other good looking but excessive visual flair coming towards the camera, it is very hard to see dangers coming at you consistently. It's even harder when you transform and YOUR sprite doubles in size taking up more of the screen. You could call this a gameplay mechanic that incentivizes you to be sparing and precise about using your Gear change. But there's already a strict resource for this. What this causes is this very weird "side step" dodging where you you're killing enemies and then reflexively trying to get out of the way of the rapid debris to avoid the off chance a bullet jump scares you from the haze. There's a sorely lacking suite of options kind of like Salamander III back in August and I don't terribly understand considering how many settings and modes they provide in their compilations. It's a real shame and I hate to be that negative about an M2 product. This especially sucks for me as someone severely colorblind where similar hues tend to be difficult to discern. I spent a lot of time talking about visibility but I feel it really is the most glaring issue with something that otherwise plays expertly. The only other issue I have is that runs are only 4 stages. There's a good number of stages to branch to, but runs feel a bit *too* short to me. I think one more stage, even if it was just a 1 single choice in the halfway point, would have nailed a sweet spot. You get a lot of health in this game so a bit more of an endurance would make that stretch a bit more. It's a very smooth game with a ton of engrossing novelty despite being so simple. You move, you shoot, you transform for a bump in firepower. That's it. But the game gets a ton of longevity out of that because of how enemies are handled and of course Night Striker's road bonus to score encouraging you to land as often as is safe and lucrative to do so. The captain system is excellent and gives nice high priority targets that aren't necessarily the easiest to hit usually. It also alleviates the visibility issue at times because you kill everything at once in a formation when you destroy a captain. Unlike the original, bosses have far more elaborate patterns and set pieces despite still going down about as fast if you can manage to stay on them with sustained fire. The Desert 1 boss is a highlight. I think this game is low key a new standard for railshooter boss design. The only others I can point to where they exist and are this good is StarFox 64 and the Sin & Punishment games. Perfect pacing, good spectacle, and fun patterns. The game is pretty good. It just has large, unfortunate caveats and I really wish they'd release just one big settings update to address it. It's more than playable, but I always feel like I'm handicapped. Beyond that is just personal gripes. Not a fan of the music especially when there's Night Striker 1's insane OST to compare and I would prefer actual pixel art over prerendered sprites for a game like this. But those are nitpicks. It's sad it wasn't quite where I wanted it to be because I was wildly looking forward to this one all year. (Side note: I appreciate that the sky levels are reminiscent of Taito's canceled 1993 racer, Vertexer. A nice touch!)

Fly a mech through nonstop, auto-scrolling environments, dodging bullets, blasting enemies, and switching forms to boost firepower in fast, arcade-style shooter action. The premise is arcade-like and doesn’t give you much. Basically, an entertainment park run by robots is about to open, and everyone is invited to the grand opening. But that’s never a good idea! As soon as the event begins, the park’s AI goes rogue, locks everyone inside, and attacks anything that comes near. You play as a member of a special unit that pilots mechs, and you might be humanity’s only chance to save the day. The same simplicity applies to the controls and gameplay. Your vehicle flies forward automatically, so your task is to move around the screen and shoot at enemies. When you release the movement buttons, the vehicle snaps back to the center, allowing you to reach any part of the screen quickly. With each kill, you fill up a bar at the bottom that increases your firing speed. You can level it up to level five, and each level has five stages. The good news is that upon reaching a new level, you can transform your vehicle into its mech form. Everything stays the same except for your bullets, which turn into homing missiles, making it easier to destroy enemies. The more energy you have, the more missiles you’ll fire. However, this form is temporary because you revert to your basic vehicle once your energy runs out or when you press a button. Fortunately, the transformation is instant, so you can switch between forms depending on the situation. Gameplay revolves around holding down the fire button, shooting everything in your path, and dodging enemy bullets. Enemies explode quickly, and if you hit red enemies, you’ll also take out all others in the same wave. The only real mechanic beyond that is “bullet sealing,” which prevents an enemy from shooting if you move your vehicle directly over it, but this can be hard to pull off amid all the action. Aside from points and energy collectibles, the only other thing to watch for is a shield duck. There’s one in every stage, and destroying it grants you an extra shield. You also gain a free shield after completing a stage, and you can stockpile up to nine shields. When you run out, the game ends and you’ll need to use a continue, though doing so prevents your score from appearing on the leaderboards. You’ll play through four stages, each ending with a boss that you can either destroy or outlast until the timer runs out. Some bosses require learning their attack patterns so you can dodge at the right time, but otherwise, your only option is to keep shooting. After each stage, you choose between two possible next stages, with the main difference being the boss you’ll face. There are no loading screens, and the entire experience plays out as one continuous sequence. There are ten stages in total, though some reuse environments with different enemy patterns. Still, the distinctive art style makes the game feel cinematic, filled with explosions and visual chaos. At times it can be hard to see what’s happening, which only becomes an issue in stages that include environmental obstacles you must avoid. There are two modes: the standard mode, and a pacifist mode where you can’t shoot and must survive by dodging alone. Additional features include an endings menu, a B-side mode where you play all stages in order, and a special final stage that reveals the true ending.

M2 delivers a visually arresting, modern arcade experience that is true to the original source material - 9/10.

あのナイトストライカーが蘇った！ 懐かしくもあり新しくもあるそんな新作でクリアまで何度もプレイしました＾＾