As alluded to by its North American eShop listing, Layer Section & Galactic Attack S-Tribute released today in the West on the Switch, PlayStation Network, Xbox Store and Steam.
Its publisher, City Connection, never announced it would come to the West on the same day as its Japanese launch. It’s available nonetheless on North American digital shops for $29.99.
That price is knocked down by 10% to $26.99 on Switch, Xbox and Steam as part of a launch discount.
The game is on the eShop here. And the PlayStation Network here. And the Microsoft Store here.
And Steam here.
Alongside the launch, City Connection announced a patch for the game that should come in June.
The patch would add several new features, according to the official website:
- The Button Config will be modified to allow the user to freely assign the Normal Rapid (15 per second), the new Super Rapid (30 per second), Rapid of Lock-On Laser, and shortcut commands such as Rewind and Quick Save.
- In the online ranking mode, Super Rapid (30 per second) will be available.
*Now, you can use Normal Rapid (15 per second), in the online ranking mode, but you cannot use Super Rapid (30 per second). However, some devices (e.g., modded rapid fire pad) can use rapid, which is faster than Normal Rapid, allowing players to participate in online rankings with an advantage. In order to eliminate the advantage of these devices as much as possible, we will change the specifications so that Super Rapid can be used in the online ranking mode. The leaderboard will not be reset at the time of the update. We apologize for any inconvenience until the update. - Adds 270 degree rotation to the Screen Orientation options.
- Adds the ability to swap playing sides. It will be possible to start on the 2P side when only 1 player.
- The appearance of some wallpapers will be adjusted. This will make the boundary between the main game screen and the wallpaper (background outside the game) more distinct.
Galactic Attack is a vertically scrolling shmup known by many names. It was developed in 1994 by Taito for arcades where in Japan and North America it was called Rayforce, and in Europe it was called Gunlock. It was ported to the Saturn by Ving in 1995 as Layer Section in Japan and as Galactic Attack in North America and Europe.
City Connection’s release includes modern features like rewind, slow mode, save states, rapid fire settings, tate mode, scanlines and online leaderboards.
During an April 2 livestream announcing Layer Section & Galactic Attack, City Connection announced their intention to bring several other Saturn games from Taito to modern consoles: Puzzle Bobble 2X & 3, Elevator Action Returns, Metal Black and Cleopatra Fortune.
City Connection released Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force on the Switch and PlayStation 4 last year under the “Saturn Tribute” banner.
Saturn Tribute — or now “S-Tribute” — games are the Saturn originals running on what City Connection calls the Zebra Engine, which dataminers have found appears to be a modified version of the SSF emulator.
The Cotton titles and Guardian Force have not yet released on Xbox, although they’re slated to do so in the first half of this year. Layer Force & Galactic Attack S-Tribute is the first of the company’s Saturn games to come to Microsoft’s platform.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
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