izigame.me

Radiant Silvergun has been one of my top 10, possibly top 5, favourite games ever made since I binged a collection of Saturn exclusives many years ago. Treasure's best game behind only Gunstar Heroes in my book. Needless to say I was very excited for this to come to PC and for the most part, it delivers!
First, some background on this game since it's not exactly a title with any outright mainstream recognition. It is a shmup with a fairly big deal of RPG elements. The player can level up their weapons by continuously killing enemies. There is more of an emphasis on branching paths (arcade mode) and narrative (in the story mode) than usual for the genre as well, and there are hidden NPCs to save in the form of Merry Dogs. The arsenal feels almost unapproachable to learn, but the game really makes one feel so powerful once it's mastered. The theme of the game is all about time loops and such, with leitmotifs being used left and right for the gameplay. It's also one of the most soulful looking games I've played, really showcasing how the Saturn was the powerhouse for 2D arcadey games when this game came out. Just look at how many parts every boss has. I can't rec RADiant Silvergun enough to any shmup fans.
Now, let's talk about the HD port. It runs pretty well; I didn't have a single hitch to speak of. No crashing, alt-tabbing works fine, keyboard controls were thankfully added, multiple controllers detect well, and there are plenty of customizable settings to go around. For a first playthrough, I strongly rec using the original chaining system using the following settings in options to see how the game was originally meant to look:
Rendering ratio mode- classic
Filter- low-res 1
Translucent- mesh 1
HUD type- old
Of note, there are also 8 different wallpapers to choose from. The Ikaruga mode is present without needing to own Ikaruga like on Xbox 360. The Ikaruga mode and subtitles in the story cutscenes for non-Japanese speakers are probably the two biggest reasons to grab this port, honestly. I also rec experimenting heavily with the controls until a solid style is found for each player; I love to put the combination weapons on shoulder buttons.
Now let's talk about my gripes with the port. The story mode in RS was always the main reason I fell in love with it. The emphasis is not on 1CCing it, but partaking in what's almost a dark parody of the genre which pokes fun at the idea of continuing and restarting in a shmup a million times before one can master it. I'm sad to report, the pacing for the story mode is a bit of a mess relative to the Saturn original. In the Saturn version, a player could continue when they died and could stack up to 9 lives per credit, with another credit earned each hour of playtime. In this port, the player only earns 1 life for each 10 minute interval played. The story mode is a a great compromise between 1CCing a shmup and mindlessly credit feeding, so it's a shame that it potentially takes a new player slightly longer to finish the hour+ long story mode given the balance change.
It's also disappointing there is no online co-op without Steam's remote player feature, with the latter having insane input lag. I could tolerate remote playing Radiant Silvergun casually if there was an option to, say, unlock infinite continues after 6 hours of play or something like that (this was how Castle Shikigami 2 handled things) but with the extra lives being so stingy in this version, it's a bit soured. I would need to put quite a lot of hours for that to be viable compared to the Saturn original.
There is extra input lag in every other HD port of this game relative to the Saturn original as well. With this being arguably the hardest game of its entire console generation, every little bit of input lag counts. Thankfully, it's not unplayable, but it could definitely be worth a patch if possible.
There is also no slowdown in the game. On paper this sounds like a straightup bonus, but the retro classics were very often made with slowdown in mind since they were all running on single systems with consistent performance. For a popular example of this, let's look at how weird Mega Man X1 feels without the slowdown in Launch Octopus' stage in the PS2 port for example; the earthquake effects when mini-bosses are killed are non-existent and it's harder to grab the Hadouken as well. Once again, the game is still 1CCable (is that a word? It is now I guess) and I think having a way to play Radiant Silvergun without slowdown is really cool. It's especially neat since the developers at Treasure actually spent more time faithfully recreating the game's HD port than creating the original due to lost source code. However, looking at things like death animations, one cannot deny that there is a difference in feel between this port and the original that overall makes it a bit harder.
Basically, if it's possible to make a patch to restore the Saturn version's slowdown for authenticity's sake while also having the option to play without slowdown, that would be really epic.
tldr? The port runs well, it has cool extra content, the customization is cool, I'm glad the keyboard options were added, and it's epic to finally have this game on PC since no matter what it's a masterpiece.
If there was a patch to restore the story mode's balance from the Saturn version, add online co-op with rollback netcode, reduce input lag, and add an option for Saturn-authentic slowdown, it would be THE perfect port.
As is, however, it's still a solid purchase especially for a game that's not nearly full price. I'll leave some tips in the comments if anybody is interested in them. Also, Guardian Heroes HD on Steam next please!