A patch to fix bugs in Radiant Silvergun’s Nintendo Switch port went live earlier this month, the publisher announced.
Live Wire said Dec. 2 that it had delivered version 1.0.4, pointing toward their blog for more details.
That blog describes fixes to bring the port’s graphics more in line with the Saturn original and correct problems with playing back recorded gameplay.
The blog is entirely in Japanese, but here’s what it says courtesy of Google’s machine translation:
Bug fixes --- ・Some graphics look distorted. For the phenomenon that some square polygons appear to be distorted, the drawing process has been changed to improve the reproducibility of the graphics relative to the porting source. ・During gameplay, some background images appear to be out of place. Regarding the phenomenon that some background images appear to be misaligned, we performed image drawing processing to improve reproducibility with respect to the port source and corrected the phenomenon so that it does not occur. ・ There is a sense of discomfort in the SE played during gameplay Improved reproducibility of SE multiple replay processing that occurs when attacking from enemies. Also, at the time of extend, we processed to play the same SE as the Sega Saturn version. We are continuing to investigate and adjust the SE volume. ・ For some enemies, the target lock such as homing plasma will be removed. Fixed a phenomenon in MIKA-L, the boss of Stage 3-B, and XIGA, the boss of Stage 6-A, where the target lock such as homing plasma was unintentionally removed. ・ Replay data on the 2P side does not play properly. Fixed a phenomenon where the screen stops when replaying 2P ranking data without two controllers connected, so that it can be played even when the controller is not connected. ・ Downloaded replay data does not play back properly. There was a phenomenon of uploading ranking data that caused a problem, and this was fixed. Replay data that remains with this bug will not be available for download. If you have already downloaded the defective replay data, the message "Replay data is corrupted" will be displayed and you will not be able to play it. ・ There is a difference between the actual play and the playback of the replay data. For several reasons, we have taken measures to address the phenomenon that replay data behaves differently from the actual play. Factors that caused differences in replay data included "the face graphics window is turned on in story mode" and "the target lock is removed", so we have addressed this. On the other hand, by correcting the "phenomenon that the target lock is removed", there will be a difference in the calculation of score addition. As a response to this, in addition to the date and time of creation, "v1" is displayed for replay data before this correspondence is introduced, and "v2" is displayed for replay data after this support is entered. Other fixes --- ・ Changed the logo display when launching the game to be skippable. In response to requests, when the logo of Treasure Co., Ltd. or Live Wire Inc. is displayed, you can skip this display screen by pressing one of the buttons.
Meanwhile, in a Japanese tweet, original developer Treasure linked to a new website where replays of top scorers are being uploaded for both the Switch and Xbox 360 versions of Radiant Silvergun.
It’s a pretty nifty interface that allows you to watch runs from each category, sorted by arcade or story mode, by difficulty, by horizontal or vertical screen, by Ikaruga or original mode, and by Switch or Xbox.
The videos are being uploaded periodically to Treasure’s official YouTube page.
They’ve previously linked to a ranking website with a similar look that went up two months ago.
As Shiro reported, the last patch came on Oct. 12. It fixed audio bugs in which music would fade out instead of looping at one point, and some of the sound effects’ volume was unbalanced.
That’s also when a physical printing of Radiant Silvergun went up for preorder at Limited Run Games. Those preorders ended Nov. 12 and are set to ship out next summer. They’ll likely include as many patches on the cartridge as possible before manufacturing them.
It’s the first time Radiant Silvergun’s ever been released physically in the West for any console. Its decade-old Xbox 360 port never made the jump from Microsoft’s digital storefront, and the 1997 Saturn release was a Japan exclusive.
The Switch port appears to be derived from the Xbox 360 one, although there hasn’t been official confirmation of that yet. Both versions feature English subtitles that didn’t appear in the original arcade and Saturn game, which had Japanese dialogue. They also both feature a mode to use scoring rules from Ikaruga, Treasure’s most famous shmup that was originally developed for arcades in 2001 and ported to the Sega Dreamcast a year later.
There’s no word yet on whether Treasure and Live Wire will release Radiant Silvergun on more platforms besides the Switch, although they did acknowledge in September the demand for a PC version.
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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