Salamander 2 arcade vs Saturn | Life Force | Utterly Pointless Comparisons

[@MillaGamer]

Saturn for 2d games is a beast, nice video.

[@InglebardGaming]

It is and thanks!

[@Fattydeposit]

Regarding the added 'low pass filter' on the Saturn versions audio - I imagine this was done to better simulate how the PCB sounded in a real cabinet, as the smaller speakers would act as kind of low pass filter in and of themselves.

[@InglebardGaming]

I wonder if they recorded everything at a lower sample rate since it'd result in smaller audio files so the whole game would fit in RAM after a single load.

[@Mamiya645]

Had this on a PCB, what an enjoyable shmup! It was the first shmup I 1 credit cleared, something I nearly managed with Giga Wing 1 that tripped me up at the final stage Both are treats for the eyes and ears, Sala2 is of course the more oldschool one with no score-chasing elements. Highly recommended. (25" sitdown cabinet at the time I had Sala2)

[@MarginalSC]

The tunnel in the final escape sequence is a completely different color scheme in the Saturn version. Funny thing to change.

[@InglebardGaming]

Same with the star colors at the end... why change stuff like that?

[@MarginalSC]

@@InglebardGaming Might just be different pallets interacting in odd ways

[@abcmaya]

7:43 I'm glad you pointed that out. That's what made Life Force so great. The backgrounds was like a maze. You get to choose you're own path. That's why Life Force will always be the number one shooter ever in my book. It got the background, simultanious two player, graphics, sound, weaponry and the awesome option!!! my only complaint is it didn't have a bomb like Raiden Trad. other than that I felt Life Force was the perfect shooter when it was released back in the 80s.

[@InglebardGaming]

Life Force is in all time classic, love the various arcade versions and ports along with the NES game! I have videos up on the NES and PC Engine versions, too. Edit: spelling corrections

[@abcmaya]

@@InglebardGaming awesome. I'll check it out. Thanks!

[@bombjack1984]

I always used to think of Axelay as a sort of Salamander 2, until the proper sequel came out of course.

[@hdemetri]

Back when I had a Saturn, I, along with everyone else wanted to see polygons and 3D. Today, all I want to play are the 2D games. I had the best system at that time and didn't appreciate it. This is why it ended up failing.

[@Sledgex3]

Salamander is not bad, yet I can see why it wasn't really known when compared to how larger games Gradius III or Gokujou Parodius were, which came out before. The opacity and sprite priority seemed like a most common issues in MAME. Also, I like how during the attract mode you can take control of the ships and play the game for a short amount of time. : P

[@InglebardGaming]

Really, the main reason Salamander 2 wasn't more popular was that we didn't get an official release outside of Japan (at least not in the US that I ever saw) and the genre was falling by the wayside at in 1996 and 1997 because of the shift to fighting games in the early 90s and polygonal games in the mid to late 90s. It came out at about the worst possible time for a classic style shooter/shmup.

[@Sledgex3]

@@InglebardGaming Come to think of it, considering how Gradius III was planned to be a finale, it could be that Salamander 2 was an experimental game to how prerendered graphics will turn out with spin-off being picked in case of receiving poor receptions to not harm the main Gradius franchise, it's kinda like a prototype of Gradius Gaiden and Gradius IV. Frogger had a pretty late revival as well, probably for the same reason to see how the iconic ID would do in later generation.

[@apollosungod2819]

If Sega of America 90s management staff had they way, they would have fully supported Salamander 2 for the 32X and still acted like the Sega Saturn and Sega Saturn versions of games did not exist or were not worthy of being localized under some "stickler" rules made up under either Tom Kalinske and later Bernie Stolar who were both busy trying to make sure that the Sega Saturn was a failure.

[@InglebardGaming]

I dunno about that. The genre was kind of dead at the point they would have localized this back then. The PlayStation version wasn't even brought to the US. Internal politics at Sega were a mess, there was lots of blame to go around and there are so many conflicting reports in different sources these days I don't know who to believe.

[@kalvinravn8431]

Any modern sprite based games released recently? I am a huge Sega Saturn Fan but I will admit their polygon games don’t look as well as it does on the PlayStation BUT It’s Sprite based games are where the System Shines. Great Video!

[@InglebardGaming]

Thanks, sorry for the late reply, lots if comments recently! I haven't played too many recent sprite-based style games, but there's lots out there, especially among the indie scene.

[@darktetsuya]

funny enough I was just watching someone play Salamander 2 arcade over on twitch! so it's kinda made me want to find out if I can find Salamander Deluxe Pack at some point. Saturn seems to handle it just fine! obviously not 100% arcade perfect but I feel like the differences were extremely minor too.

[@InglebardGaming]

Yeah, I had seen that too, but I'd been planning this video for three weeks. It seems like any time I pick an obscure game to cover someone gets to it one or two weeks before I do. I don't even mind personally, I just don't want anyone to think I'm being inspired by other people, I've cancelled and moved videos at times when a channel like Game Sack has covered stuff the same week I was intending to.

[@darktetsuya]

@@InglebardGaming oh no I'm definitely not accusing of anything, just thought the timing was funny that this wasn't the first time I'd seen the game recently. I was more amused than anything. but definitely a fun watch and one way or the other I'll have to fire it up again even if it's just in MAME!

[@InglebardGaming]

@darktetsuya Yeah, I know you weren't, I was just putting that out there. If I was the paranoid type I'd swear my computer was bugged and people were looking at what I'm working on in advance, lol. But I'm not accusing anyone else of anything either, if most of them are like me they plan these things in advance.

[@darktetsuya]

@@InglebardGaming ah okay that's fair. :P

[@menhirmike]

What's confusing about Life Force is that the Japanese Life Force Arcade is a port of the American Life Force Arcade with some improvements. So it's JP Salamander -> NA Life Force -> JP Life Force, and JP Life Force is probably the most polished version of the original game in the Arcades. The final boss of Salamander 2 almost feels like a bullet hell.

[@InglebardGaming]

Yeah, the whole Salamander/Life Force Japan to US to Japan story is a weird one. Not too many games of that era followed that kind of trajectory.

[@apollosungod2819]

Also Salamander was more of the Japanese original name of the game while Life Force iirc was the American localization especially when it came to the NES where the game really became very popular as a space shooter game so if you mentioned Life Force and Konami in the mid 90s, chances were that if you played Life Force on the NES in the late 80s, you would be fully paying attention especially since Konami's games made to Sega hardware at a much later time and never really got the shooters but when we go into the Sega Saturn there were Sega of America 90s staff created shenanigans where Parodius was originally coming and it was well known that $400 dollar price point or even $300 dollar price was the older age demographic and not some little toddler or twelve year olds begging their parents age demographic that were buying the Sega Saturn in 1995 but even so there were additional shenanigans that even the two major fanboy books who favor Sega of America 90s staff agendas that were basically going to prevent these types of games from being sold here even if a few managed to make it because it just became a thing where whatever games were made for the Sega Saturn in Japan were just facing some gate keeping from being sold here... which was a thing that was actually going on with the Japanese MegaDrive games, especially space shooters that never got here because of the staff who worked at 90s Sega of America.

[@roberto1519]

What about the PS1 port?

[@InglebardGaming]

All my full game comparison videos like this are only 1 version against another. I might look at that PS1 version in another video.

[@roberto1519]

@@InglebardGaming Sure, that would be cool, but I was wondering if you already know how that version stacks up against the arcade/SAT releases, I imagine the PSP collection is the PS1 emulated version, is that correct?

[@InglebardGaming]

@roberto1519 I haven't played it on PS1, but it's supposed to be really close to the arcade game, too. The PSP version is NOT the PS1 version, it's a new release and it has a lot of cool extras, that one I do have and it's really nice.

[@roberto1519]

Is the PSP release a proper port, rather than the arcade ROM emulated, is that correct?

[@Vegeta-79]

I'll buy Fenrir just to revive my old Saturn ❤️

[@InglebardGaming]

If I had the money I'd do the same, the motor in my drive is dead and I'd love to throw and ODE in there.

[@LMNsama]

@@InglebardGaming Or just slap a Saroo cartridge with sdcard in it ;) Aliex... is your friend.

[@fazares]

theyre almost identical.. i see..i own this one...cool but not as good as the 1st one, as u pointed out

[@InglebardGaming]

Yeah, there's really only a few standout differences throughout the whole thing. The biggest is the audio.

[@mortenera2294]

Not gonna lie, I don't really like this game because of its reliance on pre-rendered graphics, and I prefer the original Salamander anyway. But it's still a decent addition to Konami's shooter line up