We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you the June 2019 edition of the
RF Generation's Site News! In this issue, we will announce our July 2019 community playthrough title, unveil the next game for our site shoot 'em up club, and of course, thank those members who sent in submissions to our site and registered approvals last month. Thanks for keeping it on Channel 3!
REMEMBER: If you have any news about upcoming events or topics that you think the site needs to hear about, please PM singlebanana and put "RFG Site News" in the subject line. Who knows, maybe your news will make our front page!---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JULY 2019 COMMUNITY PLAYTHROUGH
Cool off during the dog days of summer this July, by staying indoors and enjoying some classic Mario titles for the original Gameboy. Next month, join the Playcast as we once again make our way through two titles,
Super Mario Land and
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Get ready for some hot platforming and shmup action as we tackle these relatively short titles. Though the Super Mario Land series is probably best known for being out of the hands of legendary Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. In a time when Tetris was the "pack-in king," these games endeared themselves to a generation of kids and adults, and even outsold
Super Mario Bros. 3! While new gameplay elements, that seemed odd at the time, were incorporated, they helped to further the Mario series and bring it into the 90's. So with all the iterations of Mario that we now have, how do these games hold up today? Join us in July and find out.
Please join us in playing
Super Mario Land &
Super Mario Land 2 next month and be sure to chat about it with us on the forums!
We hope that you are as excited about these picks as we are, so be sure to grab a copy of these games before the month begins! Also, please join in our discussion of these games by signing up on our
Super Mario Land &
Super Mario Land 2 thread located
HERE.
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RF GENERATION SHMUP CLUB - JULY 2019
During the 90's, when the shoot-em-up genre was transitioning from the old guard, of fast-paced, twitch dodging styled shooters, to give way to the danmaku, or bullet hell style, there was at least one Japanese developer that found a way to incorporate elements of both. Psikyo found a way to combine the speedy, targeted bullets of earlier shooting games, with the larger, more complex bullet patterns that would come to define the genre just a few years later. While their games tend to lean more toward the old school, they include unique elements that made each game a different experience every time you play. And the fast bullet patterns might not have the density of the bullet curtains seen in later games, but their fast speed and occasional frequency often substituted for that, leaving the player with a lot to contend with. Their propensity for random stage order also provided a lot of replay value.
Among the canon of Psikyo shmups, one of the more stand-out titles is
Strikers 1945 II. Often considered as the best in the series, and lauded as one of the company's best shooters,
Strikers 1945 II has all the hallmarks of classic Psikyo. The 1st 4 stages in the game are in a random order, and depending upon when you see each stage's end boss in that order, they get progressively harder. Improving upon the gameplay aspects of the original game,
Strikers 1945 II sees you piloting 1 of 6 advanced fighter planes, including the mighty F-5U "Flying Pancake" craft, to take on the enemy forces of the F.G.R. faction, and stop their plot of world domination through mecha technology. Originally released in arcades in 1997, and available only in Japan for the Sega Saturn, a PlayStation version came to North America later, simply titled as
Strikers 1945, via budget publisher Agetec, and even later in Europe, from Midas Games. The game saw a re-release on the PS2, in the Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol. 1 collection, along with its predecessor, and that saw a European release via publisher Play It. Since that time, the game has seen release on PSN, been ported to mobile platforms, and most recently, received a re-release on the Nintendo Switch, both in the eShop, as well as via the physical Psikyo Collection Vol. 2 pack, released in Japan and Asian regions, but region free, and with English language support. Come join the RF Generation Shmup Club in July 2019, to take on this Psikyo classic!
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MAY 2019 THANK YOU
In May, site members contributed a total of
1,280 submissions to our database. Of these additions,
1,243 were game submissions and
37 were related to hardware items. Of this total,
557 contributions were new images and
552 of these images were game submissions. A big thanks to all who submitted items to our database and to those who reviewed them all for the month of May! We appreciate your efforts in making our database and community a great tool for our users.
Our top submitters (those with a minimum of 50) for May 2019 were:
toze3 365
Schlibby 305
Raidou 92
kaysow 77
Fleabitten 72
Bear78 59
sharp 52erikeskapade 48
Thanks for another great month!
Top approvers for the month included:
Raidou 290
Schlibby 81 Great work everyone!