Thunder Force IV HD Full Run (Long Play) No Miss (Progressive)

[@Gaelek13]

13:00 - Even well over 25-years later _this guy_ is the one Boss that always stuck in my memory. He fascinated me as a kid. Such a badass looking design and a nice soundtrack to go with him!

[@wowalamoiz9489]

It's also evidently the boss that had the most work put in. No other boss has idle movements like this guy. I think it's because they wanted to impress the player with the first boss as much as possible.

[@Georgi-Slavov-Ukraini]

No wonder he was on the cartridge box cover!

[@michaelromeo9567]

Thunder Force series needs remake and sequel.. 🙏

[@Ostnizdasht206]

Speed metal was definitely the type of music the Genesis/Mega Drive did better than the SNES.

[@LyricalMasterMind1]

CyberRonin And techno/house music

[@Wolfdragon92584]

@@LyricalMasterMind1 Yup. Subterrania and Batman & Robin can attest to that. Genesis had great beats and ambience.

[@HellRider_]

Nah, SNES still had the edge in the metal department. Techno/House, however, was where Genesis reigned.

[@michaeloffgrid]

Genesis definitely had the edge in the metal and rock department.

[@quatjohn4375]

@@HellRider_ What are some examples of speed metal on SNES?

[@drewpatton4145]

this just made my day! can't believe i forgot about it. one of the best games i ever played as a kid

[@jiminipainkiller438]

More than 25 years later, I still remember the thrill at 23:12.

[@steved8193]

It's a great level as well.

[@zztxxx]

HYPE

[@Daggerfall40]

Wow, just watched the whole thing and all I can say is that was an amazing playthrough. Listening to the music brings back so many memories of when me my buddies used to play this (as Lightning Force) on the Genesis constantly. I remember when we accidentally discovered the 99 lives cheat, we are finally able to beat the game lol.

[@jesseffm]

Great playthrough! I like it when someone knows how to clean up the screen. :-) And fantastic video quality, thanks for the effort. I love TF4, probably the best schmup of the 16bit era. Excellent art design, for it's time incredible graphics and effects, fantastic sound and non-stop action which always keeps immense fun and fair! Tecno Soft at it's best and in it's prime.

[@howellsy619]

12:18 will forever give me goosebumps

[@Georgi-Slavov-Ukraini]

My favourite level was the Strite!

[@syntexerror6868]

The Track at 12:19 ..... so good ... never will forget this game.... Thank you for reliving old memories!!!! Respect for posting !

[@kirgeez-gaming]

My pleasure!

[@RaptureMusicOfficial]

I love the synthpop soundtrack of Thunderforce IV

[@afoose]

6:25 im loving these jazzy chords man

[@alaggan]

Make no mistake about this - having owned this game on Japanese import back in the day I'd argue it was almost a Neo Geo class shooter, both visually and technically. Great game.

[@wolfen337]

12:17 The Best!

[@AllieRX]

The REAL Thunder Force! Not that garbage movie on Netflix.

[@gjtrue]

Agreed. Give us a movie of this awesomeness any day.

[@AutoNomadic]

Sega's sound was definitely superior and more mature back then (Sonic, Jewel Master, Ecco, etc...). I still dont think audio gets enough credit, even today, when it comes to gameplay.

[@Shendue]

I wouldn't say "superior". SNES and Mega Drive/Genesis were pretty different in both graphics and sound, so much that it's hard to compare. Both had their strenghts and weaknesses in either aspects. SNES had a better graphic palette with more colors, Mode 7 and super FX games. MD, on the other hand, had a higher CPU clock resulting pretty often in more fluid animations and a much higher number of animation frames. Also worked better in handling a lot of sprites on screen (like in Thunderforce IV). The sound of SNES used samples, resulting in a larger variety of sound effects. MD used frequency modulation, resulting in stronger beats, punchier basses and a more "edgy", gritty sound. Some of the multiplatform titles were better one SNES, some on MD. But where both consoles really shined, was exclusive games created purposedly to take advantage of the consoles respective strenghts.

[@AutoNomadic]

Very true on all points. Just have a fond memory of being blasted (stronger beats, punchier basses, etc...) by Sega, more so than SNES. There are, of course, favorite sounds from the other side of the fence, like first time we heard DK Country or SF2 Turbo. Sounds like I was surfing Sega vidz that day and went a bit too far, although I do/ did prefer the Sega sound. Nicely done on your sound descriptions.

[@Maru96]

Shendue Completely agree, just want to add that while the SNES handled some polygons with Super FX, genesis still had some polygonal games that were playable enough without the need of FX chips, like Race Drivin' and Kawasaki Superbike Challenge. And also of course Virtua Racing with SVP chip which ran pretty well.

[@bangerbangerbro]

Superior to what? The Amiga? The ST? The SNES? The PCE? The GX4000? The Archimedes? SoundBlaster? Apple iiGS?

[@txray3409]

Jewel Master lmao

[@stephendavies8751]

Best space shooter ever on MD.

[@Nanaquistillalive]

Best space shooter ever.

[@jonboy150279]

And to think, this epic game was 4mb in size... amazing

[@MetagrossOverlordX]

No, Thunder Force IV isn't 4MB ...It's actually 1MB LMAO god damn

[@AmstradExin]

@@MetagrossOverlordX Hol cow, how did they do that :O

[@PrimitiveBaroque]

@@AmstradExin I think its the resolution they were working in, but also... I mean all that content! Ikaruga is about 17MB.

[@AltimaNEO]

Thunderforce 2 and 3 were 4 mbit. This one was 8 mbit.

[@tonykeo83]

I just love the level design and the weapons in this game.

[@danielchadwick8513]

Come on own up Who tapped 'Start' on the screen just because of nostalgia ? Because I know that I did from FORCE OF HABBIT 😁

[@Supreme-Emperor-Mittens]

*AWESOME ENDING MUSIC - **38:30*

[@monkeytrident]

indeed a 16 bit sound chip doing these sounds incredible !

[@5dedevil]

i did this on hard one life back in the day. thanks for the reminder of the great game its been 2 decades

[@FracturedReflektion]

Unbelievable :O I could never do this... Great Job man

[@witheredmedia]

this is a good balance of face-ripping and relaxing

[@1983parrothead]

There needs to be a ThunderForce IV soundfont in place of the Sonic style Ultimate Genesis soundfont.

[@Nikchemni]

одна из красивейших игр на sega mega drive (one of the most beautiful games for sega genesis)

[@kirgeez-gaming]

Check out the Saturn port kzbin.info/www/bejne/bmXKnYuIiKqXpas

[@Cylisfloofer]

Still Better than infinte warfare

[@camrenbranch1684]

OMEGALUL

[@gamerisimo]

The best Mega Drive / Genesis game and perfect gameplay.

[@janis25210]

38:30 - BEST MUSIC SUPER GAME!!! GENESIS FOREVER!!!

[@bjoneshill31]

That music on the under water stage 16:35 always reminded me of a Konami arcade game. Similar to the 5th stage in X-Men The Arcade Game.

[@neilsayers]

Nice vid. You may already know this, but in the underwater level you can fly into the middle of the iceberg (at around 17:20) to find a hidden chamber with a load of weapons. You have to sacrifice a shield to get in there, but you get a new one once in there anyway.

[@Callahan757575]

The best Music in Sega period.

[@kirgeez-gaming]

I hope you enjoy my video enough to ╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗ ║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ ╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ . & Thanks for watching

[@gruberjens4354]

The first video game I ever played and the first electronic music I heard. Sooooo awsome moment to remember

[@TRGN909]

素晴らしかった！。 私の中ではサンダーフォースシリーズで最高佳作です。

[@amodelchucrut]

before Einhander, there was Thunder Force

[@1983parrothead]

Claudio Gonzalez Since 1983.

[@HLBUNS]

Yes

[@antichristsonofsatan9394]

This is the best game released on the megadrive i feel sorry for the us kids that got confused and didnt realize that Thunderforce 4 was called lightningforce in the us and missed this masterpeice that even overclocked the console!

[@Omegan01]

20:13 when dat metal squad kicks in DAS IT MANE

[@lehiboo]

because it's the only good soundtrack :)

[@sheheryarshahbaz911]

@@lehiboo Prime among all good tracks.

[@patrickbo2045]

Amazing grafix! Simply outstanding.

[@StrawberryDoubleDip]

The TF games were some of the best SS Shooters around back in the day... some of the easiest too... but still awesome. Hellfire... now that was a tough shooter!

[@astracrits4633]

Do you remember the Raiden games? They kinda highlighted my childhood.

[@1983parrothead]

Fighting Thunder The SNES Star Fox was the Golden Age of My Childhood. Then Wave Race 64 permanently got me hooked on VGMs.

[@willthomas2310]

Easiest? maybe for you but TF 4 was hard, not sure about the others after that.

[@michelletackett9489]

I loved Axelay too. I liked both games.

[@2djapa]

Fantastic gameplay, and screen quality. this is my favorite megadrive game

[@valkof78]

sublime game ^_^ thunderforce forever

[@Tony-1971]

Anyone who played this game never ever forgot that banging soundtrack.

[@Steevy84]

Bro, I know that stage 1 is the most badass so you keep It for the end, but not starting the game with this epic music is a crime to me lol

[@darrenclements6028]

Thunder force 4 is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING and AWESOMELY AMAZING

[@lordraptor5042]

The parallaxing in this game is fucking insane. Especially when above the water.

[@Darkmage1293]

Man, the grunge that was the Genesis music did this soundtrack a whole fuckload of good.

[@Notarejini_Jotodeath]

0:10　A legend begins from here

[@iamsnique]

Even for Sega, this is epic! 16:18

[@CardboardSliver]

I never noticed Rynex's tail fin retracts, and the wings drop down when it gets the Thunder Sword upgrade

[@apdarkness905]

Oh boy this brings back some very, very fond memories.

[@Albertojedi]

One of the best shooters ever. Can't understand why a sequel with newer graphics hasn't been done for the new consoles.

[@cd4playa1245]

What’s your favorite shmup?

[@kirgeez-gaming]

Hmm that's tuff if I were to pick a favorite I would say The Thunder Force Series (Not one game). I don't have a favorite more like I have a series that I favor over the others that I like.

[@draskang]

This game is so fuckin metal...

[@Seahawk0027]

Sweet run =). And yes it is a shame KZbin can do ultra HD videos but not 60fps =(. Although it treated this video a lot better than it does mine XD.

[@RomuloTheBrazilian]

Excellent job bro, I play this a lot on my Android, I'm planning on recording myself beating this on the Hard difficulty (with no miss bonus), but man... that's too crazy not to die a lot of times haha (Fomalhaut takes the cake for the hardest of the first 4 bosses LOL)

[@kirgeez-gaming]

thanks

[@RomuloTheBrazilian]

+kirgeez Update: I uploaded a full run on Normal mode as well, you might like it haha :)

[@trailwaver404]

Rusty Rom Games i play on ios

[@monkeytrident]

Who plays this in lockdown ?

[@sindobrandnew]

This guy's good, i mean real good.

[@daminmancejin]

I got this game its fucking AMAZING!!!

[@1983parrothead]

daminmancejin Me too, but original official prints are たかえね。

[@2djapa]

best thunderforce EVER

[@TheMrLTCucho]

The ost of this game are simply great

[@LittleBigKid707b]

I SO want to get this game!! I was debating this and TF 5 for the Saturn. I think this edges it out from what I see.

[@Anfernee_G]

I haven't played 5, but this was one of the first games I ever bought for the Genesis (other than Sonic that came with it) and it left a huge impact on me! Music is incredible and tight controls. My favorite shooter of all time!

[@amberdean1263]

Both are fun, but 4 is by far the better game. TF4 is a complete masterpiece IMO. TF5 has great music but its art style is all over the place and it doesn't feel as immersive or epic as 4. The 3D also hasn't aged as well as 4's pixel art.

[@guidoriquelme3401]

maestroooo...

[@tachibani]

Actually they did "Technosoft music vol. 5" is the complete soundtrack for this game.

[@НиколайТрошкин-х2с]

Nice video and music! Nostalgia...

[@jacobspowell4416]

Hey This is the best thunder force game. I'm glad I download it on my Nintendo Switch Lite.

[@eddboy1323]

Love that metal squad theme

[@YooSuSuSu]

이 게임 엄청나게 찾았는데 감사합니다ㅜ,ㅜb thank you~

[@AlexIsModded]

I just realized that the original DOOM theme song, At Doom's Gate, is far too similar to this TF4 opening which was released an entire years beforehand. Hm...

awesome gameplay and wouah what a HD ...beautiful :)

[@skins4thewin]

Anyone ever wonder if the SNES could even handle a game like this? Willing to bet it would be absolutely riddled with slowdown without an SA-1 Chip to help it out.

[@abc2390986]

By theory SNES is totally capable of pulling off graphics like this. Tecnosoft is very smart when it comes to avoid Sega Genesis’ weaknesses. The number of colour of background is actually heavily limited and they used the fast scrolling to hide the it. They also used sprite flashing to create some transparency alike effects while in Gradius 3 SNES the transparencies are all real and calculated through SNES’ limited rams and hence causing the massive slowdowns during the bubble level. I feel like if Tecnosoft try hard enough they are totally capable of creating graphics like this on SNES or even better while there is just little to no possibility that Genesis could run the bubble level of Gradius 3. The part where tons of bubbles and option hunters overlapping each other totally exceeds the Genesis’ computing and colour palette limits. Speaking of it it is really a shame that Thunder Spirit on SNES is a downright disappointing game.

[@skins4thewin]

@@abc2390986 I think you're severely underestimating the CPU of the Genesis. It is significantly faster and more powerful than the CPU in the SNES bud. It sounds like you think it's the other way around and it's most definitely not. It's the GPU of the SNES that's more powerful than the one in the Genesis. There should most definitely be more slowdown on the SNES in just about every case vs the Genesis when comparing CPU to CPU. That's why I mentioned the SA-1 chip being needed to handle many games.

[@abc2390986]

@@skins4thewin Too bad there just isn’t any fair shmup to compare when it comes to SNES vs Genesis since most of time it is the developers’ fault (like Truxton on Genesis and Gradius 3 on SNES). Compile is the true monster of making 16 bits shumps with Super Aleste and MUSHA. Both games almost look like 32 bits games and run without many slowdown on their respective console.

[@ironkong26]

i still cant play thi sgame for shit..but i still love it. nice run

[@ReplayButtonMolester]

1992, the year i was born. I'm way too late for these classics, fml. My bro has this game though.

[@amritanand3554]

Genesis had an amazing sound...clearly better than the SNES

[@JeriDro]

damn, and I thought Gradius was the shit

[@jacobspowell4416]

And it still is the shit and so is Rtype

[@TheBulmaca1]

I love this game so much...oh yesss

[@MNanme1z4xs]

those ships delivered your overweapon are styx from TF3

[@Grillenheimer]

Huh at 30:00 mark the hand wave trick nor the eye blink trick aren't happening... on the ye ol Genesis you just had to tap or hold the C button.

[@christopherdoyle8081]

Will you try to post a No-Miss on the MiSTer version when you get the chance?

[@kirgeez-gaming]

I could but no time soon. I have so many no miss playthroughs posted at this point. I have 4 in the description

[@olifloof]

this game sure has blast-processing lmao

[@EndlessDream]

That final boss has a fuckton of forms

[@jinwonlee8556]

good game, good game ost,

[@FireBomberBassist]

This game has crazy detail in the backgrounds in spots. Imagine being one of the graphic guys having to create all this stuff. Dang good. Also the final boss was cake compared to some of the other stuff. Little anti climatic.

[@butcherjsy8]

The intro music reminds me of Doom's first level.

[@kirgeez-gaming]

Its the other way around. But I get what you mean.

[@butcherjsy8]

@@kirgeez-gaming Yeah of course, I appreciate TFIV came out first, but I never played it (I did play TFII though and loved it), but I did play Doom (first on the 32X), hence why I put it the way I did ;)

[@petkofuchalski9809]

aah amazing game... too bad that are no shmups like this today. well... there is one. its called "Haydorah"' its freeware game that has wamazind 8-bit graphics plaus its classic bid difikulty level. you can try it it is worth it ;)

[@darrenclements6028]

Sega's Guardians of the galaxy

[@Gligar13Vids]

I'm shocked a video uploaded in 2010 has 60fps

[@AsparagusVideo]

Question... so was Arrow Flash just a ripoff of Thunder Force? Or vice versa?

[@kirgeez-gaming]

Thunder Force came before Arrow Flash. I would say Arrow Flash is more of a Macross Rip off.

[@AsparagusVideo]

@@kirgeez-gaming Freaking A, that's interesting. Thx

[@skins4thewin]

I'd say graphically, the color palette is the only thing holding this game back. It's apparent in some areas that colors have to be reused all over the place due to the limited color palette. Stage 9 boss is a good example of this, with it being just too much of a shade of Red & not quite enough color variety. I bet this game would have looked drop dead gorgeous on the SNES, if it could actually handle it. & I know that's heresey & all, but am just thinking about what could be. I'm just a dreamer like that I guess.

[@KallinNagelberg]

Awesome run! I just did a Thunderforce3 let's play, and now I need to brush up on 4. What do you mean when you say 'no miss' btw?

[@kirgeez-gaming]

+Kallin Nagelberg It means I don't lose a ship. I don't die once.

[@Azdrubael]

You are the player of the recorded video ? I played this game when I was young, awesome game.

[@kirgeez-gaming]

Azdrubael Yes...

[@Azdrubael]

***** Wow nice run!

[@tonykittykilla28]

seriously it was games like this, Ranger X, Contra: Hard Corps and tons of others that made me never think twice about being a Genesis kid...

[@kirgeez-gaming]

Thanks.. I agree

[@ricosimon1057]

This is why SNES can’t handle it with a best Shumps. Sega wins!.

[@JosephByrneCharaChorderOne]

38:31 music haunts me.

[@kankohonda]

テクノソフト 孤高の名作！

[@thamernaji6460]

ذكريات جميلة

[@nan8752]

23:13

[@joshroa85]

You miss immediately... 1 out of the first 8 ships gets passed you at 1:16. Sorry... I wouldn't have commented if it wasn't right away. Otherwise... it's a spectacular video that literally gave me thrills and sensations that I haven't had for 2 decades...

[@kirgeez-gaming]

+Josh Roa No miss means no death or lost ships is all..

[@TheSenseiwong15]

Nostalgia absolutely massive game. Personally thought thunder force 3 was better. But nevertheless brilliant stuff

[@alexk8792]

I'd like to think that the reason why Thunder Force IV didn't do all that well in North America is because of Sega of America wanting to keep gamers fixated on Sonic the Hedgehog, so they had Tecno Soft rename it Lightening Force for the North American release.

[@kirgeez-gaming]

I read somewhere it was a licensing issue where they could not use the name because another company purchased the rights to that name in North America and Sega would not allow that company to release it so they changed the name as an FU to that company but screwed the series because of the stupid name change. I think Sega was in a lose lose situation.

[@tsooooooo]

artttistic