"Now here we are, the year 2020, living humanity's final days on earth" - Man, 11 months after this video, this statement has aged cataclysmically well.
This kinda game is why I don't think there's some serious moral issue with emulation. Paying hundreds for this game where none of that money goes to the devs is ridiculous. So yeah get the re-release cart, or just plop the rom on your NES classic or whatever. It's not a big deal. The game is too good to simply sit on the shelves of collectors to never be played as its too valuable. It's a game that should be way more popular than it is.
Well now there is a rereleased cart, and the licence was aquired for it by paying the ip holders or getting to any other agreement. Doesn't that contradict your argument? Now there is a way to get it which directly relates to the developers. Not that I care if you pirate it or not, and in general I think that if the developer is not selling it, then you should be able to pirate it. But here it is a little different
To be clear, I'm not claiming any Nazca devs worked on Metal Storm (I can't find any connections), just that Nazca and Tamtex worked under the same publisher...
I bought my copy for Christmas, and I'm happy with what I received. It is worth noting that this the first "official" release of the game in Europe, which didn't get the game in the 1990s. I really love these re-issues of lesser-known games by Retro-bit. I also own their compilations of Data East (especially the Joe&Mac trilogy) and Jaleco (brawlers) games on SNES
I own the original with box and instructions that I bought when the game came out I had no idea its so rare its one of my all fave games more often than not at #1
Thanks for the reviews! I used to listen to you back when you where doing the retronauts podcast for 1up. I was obsessed with all their podcasts. Im glad your still doing it, just finding this channel is giveing me nostolgia.
VVVVVV is basically JUST this game's gravity flipping and one-touch deaths. But it's still awesome as it has its own obstacles made with those in mind. Maybe it's a sequel where the M-308's pilot retired from the military?
I got stuck on stage 6 for a long time my first time through, and eventually gave up cause I was getting dizzy. When I turned it off and looked around the room I was hallucinating like crazy. It was pretty much the same effect you get if you watch the entire end credits of a movie, but because the image in Stage 6 is simultaneously scrolling up *and* down, things were moving and deforming in really crazy ways.
Definitely one of the NES games I most regret never getting the chance to play when I was a kid. How cool is the idea of someone rereleasing actual hard copies of classic old games for obsolete consoles that the collectors who still own and maintain these consoles can acquire and play?
2:38 - Metal Storm is a 2 loop game in both the US and JP versions with the credits not appearing until after you clear the 2nd loop (expert mode) in either. The only differences that affect gameplay (other than aforementioned cheat code passwords that were missing from the US version) are in the enemy layout and stage mechanics of stage 6 (on both loops) and the loop 2 final boss, the former being majorly different and the latter minorly. Ultimately the difference in difficulty is marginal at best, and while I feel the JP version is slightly harder it's certainly subjective/debatable.
Never heard of this game (shame on me) and, wow, looks amazing. Started 2020 the best way possible: increasing the backlog. Hahaha Happy New Year, thanks for the great content you give to us always. Cheers from Brasil! o/
All this time I thought the mech not being white like on the cover was an extreme example of the graphics being a loose abstraction of the cover art. That was very common in those days. I had no idea the American publisher had intentionally changed it.
Honestly, hearing that they relocalized the Japanese release of this just made me wonder if it would be possible for them to work with Konami to re-release a newly translated version of the Japanese Castlevania 3. I find the difficulty to be much more even there, and obviously the revamped soundtrack would be great.
Japanese CVIII seems a bit unfinished to me with the font and Grant's free dagger throwing. Plus, its music sounds like it wasn't properly instrumentated, making it seem noisy. I'd rather have the American version with the Japanese version's damage system and extra sound channels. The best of both worlds. But today's Konami's a pisser.
I suppose this was the inspiration for VVVVVV.. maybe. What a cool seeming game though! I really actually want to play this, and I don't usually think that about any NES-era games I have no nostalgia for.
Despite the stage 3 starship from R-Type being in the background they never tried to slot this into the R-Type timeline, with all those references to other games in R-Type Final... Probably because the year 3521 is too far past the R-Type timeline.
I ordered this from limited run back in September (right before it sold out). I’ve been dying to play it, but my copy still has not shipped. What is taking so long???
Great explanation of the game. I had not played it prior to yesterday and I immediately liked it. So far, I am only up to level 2, but the game is incredible. By the time it was released, I had already purchased a Genesis, but I am almost certain that I looked at this game and put it back on the shelf. What an awful decision. If only I had known then, what I know now. Great video!
@@lukethedrifter3363 Some people won't play certain games unless it's spoonfed to them by a corporation. They've also been trained to look down on emulation because it's 'unofficial'.
If it wasn't for one-shot-death mechanic, I bet this game would have sold to more people. At least one-shot-death was too old in 1991. Grandpa old. 7:23 Two consecutive references to Green Inferno. It sure is an IREM game, no matter who developed it.
I appreciated this game on a technical level, but I was always bothered by the graphics. In truth, then and now, I feel like it's just plain ugly. The colors are garish, and those -- admittedly impressive -- faux-parallax backgrounds seemed more like a distraction than something that adds to the experience. (Especially as compared to something like Battletoads, which used the same trick to much better effect.)
I agree, I also think the graphics make it a harder game because it's harder to see bullets coming at you with the distracting backgrounds... If one game should be hacked and improved it should be this one, but I don't think anyone has... Which is a shame because it is a really good game with fun mechanics.
This is the type of Japanese videogame that Sega of America's staff would have rejected and blocked from being translated and localized for North America on the Sega MegaDrive erm Genesis. The fact that Nintendo Power magazine gave this game a cover story shows that Nintendo of America staff actually played this game and were indeed fans so the fact that Metal Storm got the cover story was not a coincidence or some shill move like how EGM gave Bubsy cover stories and also Rise of the Robots.
Had a blast with this game when a friend and I decided to pick a random japanese game out of a "list" if you will (wink wink, nudge nudge) during middle school computer lab. We didn't even know there was a US release but after flipping once and dying to the first enemy we both immediately agreed that the game was super rad. In my mind, it exemplifies the kind of ingenuity and experimentation you just don't always get with modern releases.
I think alot of it was that the rental market didnt exist in japan and the localisation teams wanted to make sure you couldn't beat games in one rental. That explains difficulty increases at least. The cuts idk.
In this case, the international version came out a year before it hit Japan. Things weren't removed, they just added more elements as they refined the game.
@@JeremyParish What you said in the video itself made it sound like it was the other way around ("The version of Metal Storm that shipped here in the US in the 90s wasn't a complete, 100% conversion of the Japanese release...the American version saw a few small visual tweaks. For example, the developers tweaked some of the color palettes to allow the on-screen action to read a little more easily." -- this is vague but makes it sound like the US release was later, especially since that was the norm for releases back then). Since you're saying that it came out internationally before it came out in Japan both here and on the Retronauts page for the video I believe you, it's just weird that I got the exact opposite impression when I watched the video.
So the Japanese version was released a year after the Western version and is apparently EVEN MORE dickish. I weep. Damn you, Irem. Gotta love how the Western version's plot is basically "Beat our hard-ass game and you'll become immortal! LULZ!", though.
Yeah it's one of those NES games that really stands up well today. It's not "Nintendo hard" but actually pretty fair, like you say. The were just so many NES games though, plenty of the best ones got absolutely tiny production runs so buying a cartridge of them today is ridiculously expensive, like say Little Samson which is one of the very best NES games but similarly just never sold much. It was hard to stand out in the NES days, with over 700 games released
By 1991, 16-bit consoles were making major inroads into the market. I mean, this came out the same year as Sonic The Hedgehog. The NES player base was shrinking, and that's why so many of these awesome NES games fell through the cracks - as impressive as they were technically, they still couldn't come close to what the Genesis or even the TG16 could do. So fewer people bought them.
Collectors are assholes, I remember getting this game for $15 back in the day. Thank goodness they put it back out there in some capacity, even if it's an easy cash grab.
Same, i rented it from a shop & save grocery store, played it on an NES that was hooked up in a family room when my grandmother was in the hospital. Had to return it the next day and never played it again till emulation, and it was one of the first games i sought out when nesticle came out.
![This Game Started It All | Metal Storm Collector's Edition [SSFF]](/img/1.gif)
"Now here we are, the year 2020, living humanity's final days on earth" - Man, 11 months after this video, this statement has aged cataclysmically well.
We were so innocent back then
I had to check the date on the thing. It's amazing. Shit hadn't even started yet, unless you were _really_ paying attention to global news.
Taito is owned by Square Enix now, who are a bit finnicky about outsiders touching their old properties.
This game kicks ass!!
This kinda game is why I don't think there's some serious moral issue with emulation. Paying hundreds for this game where none of that money goes to the devs is ridiculous. So yeah get the re-release cart, or just plop the rom on your NES classic or whatever. It's not a big deal. The game is too good to simply sit on the shelves of collectors to never be played as its too valuable. It's a game that should be way more popular than it is.
Agreed
Moral issue? Even if you buy the original game today that money doesn't end up with the devs/publishers, so yeah, there's no moral issue.
JoypadDivision kids today have been trained to not believe in private property
Well now there is a rereleased cart, and the licence was aquired for it by paying the ip holders or getting to any other agreement. Doesn't that contradict your argument? Now there is a way to get it which directly relates to the developers.
Not that I care if you pirate it or not, and in general I think that if the developer is not selling it, then you should be able to pirate it. But here it is a little different
@@diegog1853and now it’s gone due to being a limited release.
This game was my childhood. It's tough as nails and certainly deserves a sequel.
I watched this video upside down and half the time I didn’t even notice. Great stuff as always.
Man, now that you point out how this was made by the NAZCA folks, I really want to see how this game would've looked like on the Neo-Geo...
To be clear, I'm not claiming any Nazca devs worked on Metal Storm (I can't find any connections), just that Nazca and Tamtex worked under the same publisher...
So that explains why the Neo-Geo had that Super R-Type knockoff.
The hard mode in this game is one of the most insane things I've ever done. My thumbs actually hurt by the end.
I've always loved the design of the robot in this, so this collector's edition is severely tempting.
Thanks for keeping the videos coming during the holidays!
If you didn't know, there's a game genie code that re enables the intro cutscene on US copies.
I bought my copy for Christmas, and I'm happy with what I received. It is worth noting that this the first "official" release of the game in Europe, which didn't get the game in the 1990s. I really love these re-issues of lesser-known games by Retro-bit. I also own their compilations of Data East (especially the Joe&Mac trilogy) and Jaleco (brawlers) games on SNES
I own the original with box and instructions that I bought when the game came out I had no idea its so rare its one of my all fave games more often than not at #1
I had no clue this repro was coming out and bought the collectors edition because of this video. Thanks Jeremy!
Thanks for the reviews! I used to listen to you back when you where doing the retronauts podcast for 1up. I was obsessed with all their podcasts. Im glad your still doing it, just finding this channel is giveing me nostolgia.
Retronauts is still around btw: www.retronauts.com
Being able to change gravity while playing was a neat concept. It made for some unique and fun challenges
VVVVVV is basically JUST this game's gravity flipping and one-touch deaths. But it's still awesome as it has its own obstacles made with those in mind. Maybe it's a sequel where the M-308's pilot retired from the military?
I only paid for the standard version, but I've been wanting a copy of this game since borrowing it from a neighbor kid 24 years ago.
You're doing Punch Out like you promised. Very cool. That kind of fan service is rare and I applaud you for it. The Nintendo gods smile upon thee.
I got stuck on stage 6 for a long time my first time through, and eventually gave up cause I was getting dizzy. When I turned it off and looked around the room I was hallucinating like crazy. It was pretty much the same effect you get if you watch the entire end credits of a movie, but because the image in Stage 6 is simultaneously scrolling up *and* down, things were moving and deforming in really crazy ways.
Good to see this bad boy coming back. Let's hope Retro-bit can do more in future!
Definitely one of the NES games I most regret never getting the chance to play when I was a kid. How cool is the idea of someone rereleasing actual hard copies of classic old games for obsolete consoles that the collectors who still own and maintain these consoles can acquire and play?
I remember renting this as a kid. I never realized it came out so late.
2:38 - Metal Storm is a 2 loop game in both the US and JP versions with the credits not appearing until after you clear the 2nd loop (expert mode) in either. The only differences that affect gameplay (other than aforementioned cheat code passwords that were missing from the US version) are in the enemy layout and stage mechanics of stage 6 (on both loops) and the loop 2 final boss, the former being majorly different and the latter minorly. Ultimately the difference in difficulty is marginal at best, and while I feel the JP version is slightly harder it's certainly subjective/debatable.
Never heard of this game (shame on me) and, wow, looks amazing.
Started 2020 the best way possible: increasing the backlog. Hahaha
Happy New Year, thanks for the great content you give to us always.
Cheers from Brasil! o/
All this time I thought the mech not being white like on the cover was an extreme example of the graphics being a loose abstraction of the cover art. That was very common in those days. I had no idea the American publisher had intentionally changed it.
Honestly, hearing that they relocalized the Japanese release of this just made me wonder if it would be possible for them to work with Konami to re-release a newly translated version of the Japanese Castlevania 3. I find the difficulty to be much more even there, and obviously the revamped soundtrack would be great.
Japanese CVIII seems a bit unfinished to me with the font and Grant's free dagger throwing. Plus, its music sounds like it wasn't properly instrumentated, making it seem noisy. I'd rather have the American version with the Japanese version's damage system and extra sound channels. The best of both worlds. But today's Konami's a pisser.
I suppose this was the inspiration for VVVVVV.. maybe.
What a cool seeming game though! I really actually want to play this, and I don't usually think that about any NES-era games I have no nostalgia for.
This game and Kirby Adventure are the NES at its finest.
Despite the stage 3 starship from R-Type being in the background they never tried to slot this into the R-Type timeline, with all those references to other games in R-Type Final... Probably because the year 3521 is too far past the R-Type timeline.
Cool, mine arrived yesterday
I ordered this from limited run back in September (right before it sold out). I’ve been dying to play it, but my copy still has not shipped. What is taking so long???
The copy I ordered just shipped today.
Jeremy Parish I got an email this morning,. they just shipped mine today, too!
And all that on a machine originally realeased in 1983! This is not videogame. This is art.
Thank you for the Matt Smith era Doctor Who feature
Great explanation of the game. I had not played it prior to yesterday and I immediately liked it. So far, I am only up to level 2, but the game is incredible. By the time it was released, I had already purchased a Genesis, but I am almost certain that I looked at this game and put it back on the shelf. What an awful decision. If only I had known then, what I know now.
Great video!
Nice. I saw someone stream this once. Never knew what it was. Really cool!
Wow. I bought the game with box a couple years ago for less than 50 bucks.
How many gravity puns can you make in one video?
...... Yes.
hope we get this on the switch one day
Yeah seems perfect for the NES online collection
Both the U.S and Japanese roms can be found pretty easily with a quick online search.
@@lukethedrifter3363 Some people won't play certain games unless it's spoonfed to them by a corporation. They've also been trained to look down on emulation because it's 'unofficial'.
@@lukethedrifter3363 smh. Not about ROMs or hacking the switch to play said ROMs. I did all that ROM stuff back in the 90's.
Don’t hold your breath
If it wasn't for one-shot-death mechanic, I bet this game would have sold to more people.
At least one-shot-death was too old in 1991. Grandpa old.
7:23 Two consecutive references to Green Inferno. It sure is an IREM game, no matter who developed it.
I appreciated this game on a technical level, but I was always bothered by the graphics. In truth, then and now, I feel like it's just plain ugly. The colors are garish, and those -- admittedly impressive -- faux-parallax backgrounds seemed more like a distraction than something that adds to the experience. (Especially as compared to something like Battletoads, which used the same trick to much better effect.)
I agree, I also think the graphics make it a harder game because it's harder to see bullets coming at you with the distracting backgrounds... If one game should be hacked and improved it should be this one, but I don't think anyone has... Which is a shame because it is a really good game with fun mechanics.
It seems like the distraction may have been part of the point.
@@JoypadDivison It's already hard enough on the original American release. The Japanese version looks like it'd be even ruder.
Thanks for the video, such a great way to begin 2020. Happy new year and my best wishes to you and your loved ones!
Verily, 'After Burst' walked so that this Mecha could stomp.
It is a beauty, I've ordered myself one.
Will retrobit do anymore reissues from the Famicom library? We want Moon Crystal and Mr Gimmick!
Another fantastic episode
Starkiller Base Amirite?!
I'm going with Naju.
you make great videos!!!!
Had the original release a couple of years ago, but when I got it in a multigame cartridge, I sold it 😬
The Japanese color palette is much more pleasing to the eye than the U.S release.
I find the JP version tends to obscure hazards by causing them to blend into the background.
This is the type of Japanese videogame that Sega of America's staff would have rejected and blocked from being translated and localized for North America on the Sega MegaDrive erm Genesis.
The fact that Nintendo Power magazine gave this game a cover story shows that Nintendo of America staff actually played this game and were indeed fans so the fact that Metal Storm got the cover story was not a coincidence or some shill move like how EGM gave Bubsy cover stories and also Rise of the Robots.
Had a blast with this game when a friend and I decided to pick a random japanese game out of a "list" if you will (wink wink, nudge nudge) during middle school computer lab. We didn't even know there was a US release but after flipping once and dying to the first enemy we both immediately agreed that the game was super rad. In my mind, it exemplifies the kind of ingenuity and experimentation you just don't always get with modern releases.
Give me the original. Game is amazing!
The reversed gravity controls on this release are very annoying. Good thing there’s a code to change them back to the original release controls.
Why did the Japanese cut seemingly random features from their international releases?
I think alot of it was that the rental market didnt exist in japan and the localisation teams wanted to make sure you couldn't beat games in one rental. That explains difficulty increases at least. The cuts idk.
In this case, the international version came out a year before it hit Japan. Things weren't removed, they just added more elements as they refined the game.
@@JeremyParish What you said in the video itself made it sound like it was the other way around ("The version of Metal Storm that shipped here in the US in the 90s wasn't a complete, 100% conversion of the Japanese release...the American version saw a few small visual tweaks. For example, the developers tweaked some of the color palettes to allow the on-screen action to read a little more easily." -- this is vague but makes it sound like the US release was later, especially since that was the norm for releases back then). Since you're saying that it came out internationally before it came out in Japan both here and on the Retronauts page for the video I believe you, it's just weird that I got the exact opposite impression when I watched the video.
A "Happy Birthday 2020" video, eh? How naïve we all were...
It seemed like a good idea at the time
i accidentally watched this in 1.25 speed...was not disappointed.
So the Japanese version was released a year after the Western version and is apparently EVEN MORE dickish. I weep. Damn you, Irem.
Gotta love how the Western version's plot is basically "Beat our hard-ass game and you'll become immortal! LULZ!", though.
Derek, where you at?
These mapper chips must've felt like a Super Sayian transformation for late 80s-early 90s game developers, huh?
Cringe
Could never understand why this was never much of a hit. It's a truly fantastic game, tough but fair.
Yeah it's one of those NES games that really stands up well today. It's not "Nintendo hard" but actually pretty fair, like you say. The were just so many NES games though, plenty of the best ones got absolutely tiny production runs so buying a cartridge of them today is ridiculously expensive, like say Little Samson which is one of the very best NES games but similarly just never sold much. It was hard to stand out in the NES days, with over 700 games released
By 1991, 16-bit consoles were making major inroads into the market. I mean, this came out the same year as Sonic The Hedgehog. The NES player base was shrinking, and that's why so many of these awesome NES games fell through the cracks - as impressive as they were technically, they still couldn't come close to what the Genesis or even the TG16 could do. So fewer people bought them.
Collectors are assholes, I remember getting this game for $15 back in the day. Thank goodness they put it back out there in some capacity, even if it's an easy cash grab.
Rented this once, and was blown away. Never got to play it again until later on in life
Same, i rented it from a shop & save grocery store, played it on an NES that was hooked up in a family room when my grandmother was in the hospital. Had to return it the next day and never played it again till emulation, and it was one of the first games i sought out when nesticle came out.
OHHHH what a feeeeling! When Ted Danson’s on the cielinnnnng
Was waiting for an _Ender's Game_ reference; left disappointed…
So this was the inspiration behind Gravity Man (Megaman 5)
I see what you did there Capcom!
I'm having a hard time following the game action in this one. It think it's the color scheme.
Shh I've been waiting to buy this for a while. I hope you haven't made them sell out lmao
God I hope that "last year on earth" comment was a joke, I really hope it was.
Never could get past how ugly this game looks, color and art direction. But love the gameplay, be great if Inticreates remade it.
I refuse to believe the mecha, which can take only one hit, is made out of metal.
It's not Metal Storm, it's Styrofoam Storm.