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VC Alternative, Week Six: Titan Warriors
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Skrybe
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:05 pm    Post subject: VC Alternative, Week Six: Titan Warriors Reply with quote

Today's Lost Levels Virtual Console Alternative is the unreleased game Titan Warriors, from Capcom.



Titan Warriors is the spiritual successor to Capcom's very first game, Vulgus, an endlessly looping shooter released in arcades in 1984. Titan Warriors borrows Vulgus' title villain, placing it in a more traditional shooter, with distinct stages broken up by boss fights.



Capcom managed to hit a lot of the typical shooter clichés, not the least of these being the obligatory organic stage. However, there's still a good amount of originality in the game. One of my favorite touches is the incubating alien embryo that's found in a couple of the stages. While it's easy to destroy just enough of the incubator to get around it, if it isn't destroyed entirely, the mature alien will appear in the following stage, replacing the regular stage boss.



Longtime Capcom fans may notice something very familiar about Titan Warriors' soundtrack. The music was composed by "Mrs. Tarumi", who also wrote the soundtrack for NES games such as Bionic Commando and Strider. The similarity in musical styles between Titan Warriors and several of Capcom's early NES titles is immediately obvious.



And, hardcore (read: masochistic) shooter fans will be pleased to know that Capcom had them in mind when designing the game. After beating the game the first time, a second loop starts, this time with the difficulty turned way up.

Download Titan Warriors here. The NSF, ripped by Chris Covell, is available here.


Last edited by Skrybe on Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:27 am; edited 1 time in total
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Skrybe
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a side note, Vulgus was released as freeware by Capcom a few years back. The download link on the official page is dead, but you can get the game here.
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kap
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If there's any game that should somehow, someday have it's story told, it's this one.
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TheRedEye
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What makes you say that? The story is probably "We converted the game, added some new material, and decided that the market wouldn't support it, so it was never published."
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kap
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's what I was thinking too, but it would sound really good when embellished :P
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handofg0d



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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pretty fun. It held my attention for a good bit. It's kind of sluggish though, and no rapid fire by default seems like a silly idea. As far as the origins of the cart, did it appear to be a 'final' copy for review that got shelved, or more like a beta? It's pretty complete but again could have used some more polishing. Pretty good artwork for a shmup.
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Smeg
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Bionic Commando music was composed by "Gondamin", not Misses Tarumi - unless Gondamin is Misses Tarumi.
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TheRedEye
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All I know is that it's gotta be whoever composed Mega Man 3.
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Skrybe
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chris said earlier:

Tongueman wrote:
The music in Titan Warriors has strong shades of Strider, Bionic Commando, Mega Man 3, Gun.Smoke, etc etc. I guess that's Mrs. Tarumi right there...

I read that as all of those games were by Mrs. Tarumi, and even before he said that, I thought the first stage music sounded like it was right out of Bionic Commando. That's where the mention of Bionic Commando came from.

handofg0d wrote:
As far as the origins of the cart, did it appear to be a 'final' copy for review that got shelved, or more like a beta?

The game itself is playable from start to finish, so I figured it's a review copy that just hasn't had all the bugs worked out. The cart just has a hand-written label reading "Titan Warriors - Capcom", so that's no help.
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iamstillhiro1112



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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was wondering why these were being released here instead of the main site. They need an interesting story behind their development. Regardless, it's good to see more unreleased games coming to light.
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Smeg
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TheRedEye wrote:
All I know is that it's gotta be whoever composed Mega Man 3.


That was "Bun Bun". I haven't heard Titan Warriors yet, but Mega Man 3 doesn't sound much like Bionic Commando or Strider to me.
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TheRedEye
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

iamstillhiro1112 wrote:
I was wondering why these were being released here instead of the main site. They need an interesting story behind their development. Regardless, it's good to see more unreleased games coming to light.


My answer to this: How do you propose we go about obtaining this interesting story?
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iamstillhiro1112



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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wasn't saying there was an interesting story. But I was wondering why these weren't released on the main site instead. It's because the main site is only for games with an interesting backstory.
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ProgrammingAce



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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TheRedEye wrote:
iamstillhiro1112 wrote:
I was wondering why these were being released here instead of the main site. They need an interesting story behind their development. Regardless, it's good to see more unreleased games coming to light.


My answer to this: How do you propose we go about obtaining this interesting story?


Personally? I just make up the cool stories... Generally involving pirates and/or ninjas.
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kap
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

iamstillhiro1112 wrote:
I wasn't saying there was an interesting story. But I was wondering why these weren't released on the main site instead. It's because the main site is only for games with an interesting backstory.


No time, or dead ends everywhere, and then, sometimes, no inclination. Combine that with us wanting to share what we've found with y'all and being frustrated that we can't always spin a good yarn about it, and that's pretty much that.

It'd be great to tell a story every time out, but we just can't always get it done.


Last edited by kap on Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:22 am; edited 1 time in total
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TheRedEye
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, the idea behind the VC Alternatives is to just quickly give out all the stuff we have that we don't have the time or energy to create real content for. We all have day jobs, some of them involving video games, so it's hard to come home and research something compelling for Lost Levels instead of cracking open a beer and watching a movie or something.
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AlabasterGothe



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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm gonna have to try this out. I can't resist playing through that alien embryo level, thanks for the download. Cool
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Akumu



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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Skrybe's site seems to be down, the game link nor the screenshots works
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Skrybe
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're the second person that's said that in the past day. Everything looks fine here, is it still not showing up for you?
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handofg0d



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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Works fine for me. Cleared out my cache just to be sure.
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