US Shmup Ports - Ikaruga Vs. MLF2?

US conversions of Japanese games can either be beautifully done or amateurishly botched. And the 2D shoot-'em-up (aka shmup) genre has seen both over the past few weeks. First, there's been Atari's conversion of Treasure's vertical 2D shmup for Gamecube, Ikaruga, which has been generally hailed as 'a great thing', with the preservation of turn-to-vertical mode (play with your TV on its side to exactly replicate the arcade version!) and even an online score ranking system. On the other hand, the budget US release of vertical shooter Mobile Light Force 2 (actually Shikigami) from XS Games has prompted howls of derision from the hardcore fans, with a bizarre Charlie's Angels-aping cover that has nothing to do with the game, and vertical mode and cut-scenes removed. But then, the game is still fundamentally intact - so how much should these import changes matter if you can snag the game cheap? Opinions, as always, welcome.

Comments

Don't forget MLF1

[Inoshiro]

While Shikigami no Shiro is sadly butchered, those of us who own Gunbird 2 on the Dreamcast and enjoyed its wonderful import cry when we play MLF, aka Gunbird. Gunbird was never translated over here properly.

The worst part about XS Games' shitty port is that you can look at the PSX disc and see that it has all the movies and text intact, they just delete all the lines of code in the program which display text or play a movie. Whenever you get up to those crazy pirates, the game pauses for it. Then moves on. Pathetic.