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Grind Stormer

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Grind Stormer
Developer(s)Toaplan[a]
Publisher(s)Toaplan
Tengen (Genesis)
Director(s)Kenichi Takano
Programmer(s)Seiji Iwakura
Tsuneki Ikeda
Artist(s)Mikio Yamaguchi
Yusuke Naora
Composer(s)Masahiro Yuge
Platform(s)Arcade, Genesis
ReleaseArcade
Genesis
Genre(s)Vertically scrolling shooter
Mode(s)

Grind Stormer[b] is a 1993 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game originally developed and published by Toaplan in Japan and North America. It is considered to be the spiritual successor to Slap Fight.[2] Based around a video game within a video game concept, players assume the role of a young secret agent assigned by the government taking control of the NA-00 space fighter craft in an attempt to defeat the titular virtual reality simulator, rescue the abducted players who lost against it and unveil its true purpose.[2][3]

Headed by DonPachi producer Kenichi Takano, Grind Stormer was created by a small development team of new employees at Toaplan who would later go on to work at one of its offshoots after the company declared bankruptcy in 1994 and was originally titled Bakuretsu Wing before being ultimately renamed to V・V in Japan. It is notable for marking the debut of Cave co-founder Tsuneki Ikeda in the video game industry, serving as one of its programmers and features a much smaller hitbox for the ship compared with previous shoot 'em up games released at the time. It is also notable for being one of the last games by Toaplan to feature an FM soundtrack, as the company began to clear out their FM chip inventory. Initially launched for the arcades, the game was later ported to the Sega Genesis by Tengen and first published in Japan on 25 March 1994 and a month later in North America, featuring both the original Japanese and North American versions as selectable gameplay modes.

Grind Stormer proved to be popular in arcades but the game has been met with mixed reception from critics and reviewers alike since its release on the Genesis, who felt divided in regards to several aspects such as the presentation, visuals, sound design and gameplay. It has been regarded by some to be an early example of a manic shooter.[2][4] As of 2019, its rights are owned by Tatsujin, a company founded in 2017 by former Toaplan member Masahiro Yuge and now-affiliate of Japanese arcade manufacturer exA-Arcadia alongside many other Toaplan IPs.

Gameplay

Arcade screenshot

Grind Stormer is a science fiction-themed vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game where players assume the role of a young secret agent assigned by the government taking control of the NA-00 space fighter craft through six stages in an effort to defeat the titular VR game, rescue the abducted players who lost against it and unveil its true purpose as the main objective. As far as vertical scrolling shooters go, the game initially appears to be very standard but the power-up and scoring systems change depending on the version being played;[2][3][4][5] In Grind Stormer, players have the normal weapon layout with instant power-ups and bomb icons. This version also has speed-up icons as well as speed-down icons, and higher value point items. In V・V, however, the players collect gems that allow them to choose between multiple weapons through a power meter system reminiscent of Gradius and Slap Fight instead, removing the bombs and weapon icons completely. This version also has a shield power-up not featured in the former version as well.

Each version of the game features three types of weapons to choose from:[2][3][5] Shot, Search and Missile. Shot is the standard vulcan weapon players start with at the beginning and can fire in different directions depending on their arrangement, however the ship's firepower increases into one large beam when the options are focused and held on at close range. Search is a satellite-only weapon that turns the options into homing devices that seek out any enemies on the screen (even if they were invulnerable), and changes the ship's color into light violet once equipped. Missile, as the name implies, fires non-homing rockets with a high firing rate and power, while the options follow the ship in the "snake" or "shadow" style, though the item will turn the ship's color into blue once equipped.

In some occasions, players can pick up point icons that constantly changes its value as well as a 1UP icon. Similar to Dogyuun and Gun Frontier, the game hosts a number of hidden bonus secrets to be found, which is also crucial for reaching high-scores to obtain extra lives. The title uses a checkpoint system in which a downed single player will start off at the beginning of the checkpoint they managed to reach before dying. Getting hit by enemy fire or colliding against solid stage obstacles will result in losing a live, as well as a penalty of decreasing the ship's firepower to its original state and once all lives are lost, the game is over unless the player insert more credits into the arcade machine to continue playing. As with previous shoot 'em ups from Toaplan, the game loops back to the first stage after completing the last stage, with the second loop increasing in difficulty and enemies fire denser bullet patterns as well as spawning extra bullets when destroyed (sometimes called 'suicide bullets' or 'ricochet effect'). Defeating the second loop results in achieving the true ending.

Plot

The plot summary of Grind Stormer varies between each version. In the original arcade versions, the game is based around a video game within a video game concept and takes place in the year 2210, where 'the ultimate arcade machine' called Grind Stormer/V・V has finally been released to the public. A VR shooting game, it became so addictive that the government assigned a young secret agent to investigate the arcade phenomenon in order to question its true purpose and to perform the impossible: to beat the game by taking control of the NA-00 space fighter craft, as those who played and lost against it were abducted as a result.[2][3] In the Sega Genesis version, players assume the role of the last surviving Terran Defense Force fighter pilot taking control of the titular fighter craft in order repel an alien race known as the Zeta Reticulli from invading Earth.[5][6][7]

Development

Grind Stormer Arcade PCB

Grind Stormer was created by a small team of new employees at Toaplan, who would later go on to work at one of its offshoots after the company declared bankruptcy in 1994, and was originally titled Bakuretsu Wing before being ultimately renamed to V・V in Japan.[8][9][10][11][12] Its development was helmed by director Kenichi Takano, with artists Mikio Yamaguchi and Yusuke Naora acting as graphic designers, while composer Masahiro Yuge wrote the soundtrack.[8][13] Guardian and Twin Cobra artist Kōetsu Iwabuchi also served as the project's planning manager.[14]

Cave co-founder Tsuneki Ikeda served as one of the game's programmers in his first video game role prior to Batsugun and DonPachi alongside Seiji Iwakura and he has recounted about Grind Stormer's development process in various interviews across publications such as Monthly Arcadia.[8][15][16] Ikeda stated that the project was conceived as a "training exercise" for the small team, as they received a sample game program containing basic elements from the shoot 'em up genre to work with, which served as a basis to add other elements and Ikeda clamied that the project was pitched as a spiritual successor to Slap Fight.[15][16] However, he stated that the sample program contained a smaller hitbox for the ship and went unnoticed as the team proceeded on making the game.[15] During initial testings at Toaplan, one of the company's senior programmers gave positive feedback in regards to the bullet dodging due to the small hitbox and considered it to be better than Truxton II, encouraging Ikeda and the team to work with the format.[15] When developing the game, Ikeda was influenced by Salamander.[15]

Yuge taught to the new development crew technical guidance so he could let them develop much of the project on their own and he has since stated on interviews that the reason for composing the soundtrack in FM rather than both it and PCM as with Truxton II was due to the company beginning to clear out their FM chip inventory for business reasons in order to keep PCB manufacturing costs low, despite internal conflicts and served as one of the last releases by Toaplan to feature an FM soundtrack.[17][18] Yuge also worked under a 128 kilobytes memory limit for the sound driver, prompting him to come up with programming tricks to overcome such limit.[17]

Release

Grind Stormer was first released on arcades across Japan and North America in 1993.[1] On 21 May 1993, an album was co-published exclusively in Japan by Scitron and Pony Canyon.[19] It was featured on a Japanese TV show.[17]

Sega Genesis

Sega Genesis screenshot

Grind Stormer later received a conversion to the Sega Genesis by Tengen and was first published in Japan on 25 March 1994 and later in North America on April of the same year.[20][21] The Genesis port included both the Japanese (V・V) and North American (Grind Stormer) versions as a 2-in-1 package but has a number of key differences such as having a smaller color palette that lead to sprites being recolored in different ways, along with other presentation and gameplay changes from the original arcade releases.[2][4][5]

The North American release has since become one of the more expensive titles on the platform, due to manufacturing errors that resulted in a defective cartridge print run as a result, with copies of the port fetching over US$160 on the secondary video game collecting market.[2][4][22]

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Grind Stormer on their April 15, 1993 issue as being the eighth most-successful table arcade unit of the year, outperforming titles such as Mystic Warriors and Dark Edge.[37] GamesMaster noted its "fast and furious" action.[38] According to Masahiro Yuge, Grind Stormer proved to be popular in arcades and exceeded the company's expectations.[6][18] Den of Geek noted it to be one of the titles from Toaplan which intensively pushed the formula established by their previous endeavors.[39]

Reviewing the Genesis version,[4] GamePro remarked that "While not as technologically innovative as Star Fox or other top space marauders, Grindstormer is still a colorful, fun, thumb-bustin' good time."[6]

Legacy

Grind Stormer has been regarded by some retrospective reviewers to be an early example of a manic shooter.[2][4] The rights to the game and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxton's Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by Yuge, who are now affiliated with arcade manufacturer exA-Arcadia.[40][41][42][43][44]

Notes

  1. ^ Ported to Sega Genesis by Tengen
  2. ^ Also known as V・V (Japanese: ヴィ・ファイヴ, Hepburn: Vu~i Faivu, lit. "Vee Five") in Japan.

References

  1. ^ a b Akagi, Masumi (13 October 2006). タイトー (Taito); 東亜プラン (Toa Plan) (in Japanese) (1st ed.). Amusement News Agency. pp. 44, 50. ISBN 978-4990251215. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zverloff, Nick (29 June 2011). "V-Five / Grind Stormer". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d "V・Ⅴ" (in Japanese). Shooting Star. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Cohen, Uri (22 October 2007). "Genesis Reviews - Grind Stormer". sega-16.com. Archived from the original on 19 January 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d Grind Stormer manual (Sega Genesis, US)
  6. ^ a b c d Squideo, Captain (May 1994). "Shooters - Genesis - Grindstormer". GamePro. No. 58. IDG. p. 37. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  7. ^ a b Slate, Chris (May 1994). "Genesis - Review - Grindstormer". Game Players. No. 40. Signal Research. p. 54. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  8. ^ a b c Toaplan (1993). Grind Stormer (Arcade). Toaplan. Level/area: Staff.
  9. ^ "クリエイターズファイル - 「鬼弾幕は避ける快感の究極形」ケイブの池田恒基氏". Gpara.com (in Japanese). 株式会社ジーパラドットコム. 21 September 2004. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 13 December 2019. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2019-12-13 at the Wayback Machine).
  10. ^ Iona; VHS; K-HEX (June 2009). "東亜プラン FOREVER (4/5)". Floor 25 (in Japanese). Vol. 9. (Translation by Gamengai. Archived 2013-04-23 at archive.today).
  11. ^ "Dossier Shoot 'em up". IG Magazine (in French). No. 8. Ankama Presse. May–June 2010. (Translation by Gaming.moe. Archived 2019-02-13 at the Wayback Machine).
  12. ^ "東亜プラン シューティングクロニクル". SweepRecord (in Japanese). SuperSweep. 14 November 2011. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2018-07-11 at the Wayback Machine).
  13. ^ "井上淳哉". Game Staff List Association (in Japanese). BrandGamer-R･TYPERS. 2002. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 13 May 2020. (Translation by Gamengai).
  14. ^ blackoak. "1993 V-V Toaplan Interview". shmuplations.com. Archived from the original on 7 November 2019. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  15. ^ a b c d e "CAVE 15th Anniversary ~Shoot'em All!!~". Monthly Arcadia (in Japanese). No. 118. Enterbrain. March 2010. pp. 46–55. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2019-09-14 at the Wayback Machine).
  16. ^ a b Joscelyne, Svend (8 December 2011). "Interviews// All Your Base: Cave CCO Tsuneki Ikeda". SPOnG. SPOnG.com Limited. Archived from the original on 3 October 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  17. ^ a b c "東亜プラン シューティングクロニクル 特設ページ". SweepRecord (in Japanese). SuperSweep. 27 October 2011. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 2 October 2019. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2019-10-02 at the Wayback Machine).
  18. ^ a b Kiyoshi, Tane; hally (VORC); Yūsaku, Yamamoto (3 February 2012). "東亜プラン特集 - 元・東亜プラン　開発者インタビュー: 弓削雅稔". Shooting Gameside (in Japanese). Vol. 4. Micro Magazine. pp. 41–48. ISBN 978-4896373844. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2019-09-06 at the Wayback Machine).
  19. ^ "PCCB-00120 | V V (V Five)". vgmdb.net. VGMdb. Archived from the original on 21 March 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  20. ^ "Be Mega Hot Menu - V・V (ヴィ・ファイヴ)". Beep! MegaDrive (in Japanese). No. 55. SoftBank Creative. April 1994. pp. 94–95.
  21. ^ "Fact Files - Genesis - Grind Stormer". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 56. Sendai Publishing. March 1994. p. 138.
  22. ^ Reichert, Nick; Gracin III, G (30 November 2017). "The Rarest and Most Valuable Sega Genesis / Megadrive Games". Racketboy. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  23. ^ "Grind Stormer for Genesis". GameRankings. CBS Interactive. 2019. Archived from the original on 8 March 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  24. ^ Semrad, Ed; Carpenter, Danyon; Manuel, Al; Williams, Ken (May 1994). "Review Crew - Genesis - Grind Stormer". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 58. Sendai Publications. p. 34.
  25. ^ "Be Mega Dog Race - V・V (ヴィ・ファイヴ)". Beep! MegaDrive (in Japanese). No. 55. SoftBank Creative. April 1994. p. 18.
  26. ^ Prézeau, Olivier (September 1994). "Import - Megadrive - V Five". Joypad (in French). No. 34. Yellow Media. p. 31.
  27. ^ Gaksch, Martin (July 1994). "Spiele-Tests - MD - Grindstormer". MAN!AC (in German). No. 9. Cybermedia. p. 67.
  28. ^ Steve; Lucy (June 1994). "Megadrive Review - Grind Stormer". Mean Machines Sega. No. 20. EMAP. pp. 46–48.
  29. ^ Mellerick, Paul (June 1994). "Round-Up - Grind Stormer". Mega. No. 21. Future Publishing. pp. 44–45.
  30. ^ Löwenstein, Richard (April 1994). "Sega - Mega Drive - Grind Stormer". Megablast (in German). No. 6. Joker-Verlag. p. 32.
  31. ^ Weidner, Martin (June 1994). "Test Mega Drive/MCD II - Grindstormer - Mega Drive". Mega Fun (in German). No. 21. CT Computec Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. p. 103.
  32. ^ "Review - Grind Stormer". MegaTech. No. 29. EMAP. May 1994. pp. 60–61.
  33. ^ "Review - Grind Stormer - Mega Drive". Power Unlimited (in Dutch). No. 10. VNU Media. June 1994.
  34. ^ "Power Review - Grind Stormer". Sega Power. No. 55. Future plc. June 1994. pp. 36–37.
  35. ^ "Mega Drive - ProReview: Grind Stormer". Sega Pro. No. 33. Paragon Publishing. June 1994. p. 60.
  36. ^ Karels, Ralph (July 1994). "Rom Check - Mega Drive - Grind Stormer". Video Games (in German). No. 32. Future-Verlag. p. 90.
  37. ^ "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - テーブル型TVゲーム機 (Table Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 447. Amusement Press, Inc. 15 April 1993. p. 29.
  38. ^ "Arcadia - Dogyuun & Grind Stormer (Toaplan)". GamesMaster. No. 4. Future Publishing. April 1993. p. 24.
  39. ^ Lambie, Ryan (21 June 2018). "Toaplan: the rise and fall of Japan's greatest shooting game company". Den of Geek. Dennis Publishing. Archived from the original on 21 June 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  40. ^ "ライセンス事業" (in Japanese). TATSUJIN Co., Ltd. 2019. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  41. ^ Bravo, Roberto (12 September 2018). "Nueva compañía "Tatsujin" asegura tener gran parte de las IPs de la extinta Toaplan" (in Spanish). Gamercafe. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  42. ^ "Tatsujin". exA-Arcadia. 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  43. ^ Bravo, Roberto (25 January 2019). "Tatsujin, los dueños de Toaplan, anuncian que están trabajando para exA-Arcadia" (in Spanish). Gamercafe. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  44. ^ "［JAEPO2019］TATSUJINやナツメアタリの参入が発表されたexA-Arcadia。出展コーナーの模様を紹介". 4Gamer.net (in Japanese). Aetas Inc. 26 January 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
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