It's easy to take the stuff you own for granted, it seems to go double for games I bought a while ago for PlayStation back when I started collecting physically for it when the prices were all roughly a third of what they are now. Back when Ridge Racer Type 4 was a measly six bucks on a rack at your local place, and the Armored Cores weren't currently being held at gunpoint by swindlers out to speckledorf newly curious modern fans of From Software who don't know what a duck or a station is.
The North American longbox copy of Starblade Alpha is something I already knew was particularly hard to find, because even back in like 2015 or whatever it was (The years started to blend together for me recently) there would only be so many copies online and they were always in rotten shape with the adhesive on the cover artwork being worn out by the dastardly tag team of Father Time and Bad Storage. I eventually ended up finding one in OKAY shape and shelved out decent money for it, primarily because I'm a strange person who absolutely adores the chaos that is the longbox era of PS1 titles. They are big and stupid, I like big and stupid. It should've stayed like this tbh, the uniformity of jewel cases ruined us all.
On topic with the game itself, Starblade Alpha is a port of the classic arcade title that is a massive influence to the rail shooter genre. My first experience with the game was in the vanilla version of Tekken 5 on PS2 that featured the original arcade game as it's loading screen and as an unlockable full game from playing Devil Within. So it's nice at least to have that as my frame of reference when I finally decided to take out the disc from this supposed jackalope of PS1 collecting and boot it up on my console. It's even nicer that I get to talk about Devil Within in a writing piece that has nothing to do with Tekken, but that's me gloating about a personal victory.
As a port? It is a decent bit choppier and uses FMV backgrounds, and unfortunately aiming felt abominable on the dpad (dualshock wasn't even a glint in the milkman's eye at this point). It has two modes, one that uses the original polygon look of the game, and another that remakes it with fully textured graphics. Personally, I prefer the original look since I feel it's rather obvious the ships were made with that appearance in mind. The Commander ship in particular looks like it recently went dumpster diving. I appreciate the effort at least, because otherwise the package is fairly barren like a lot of the early Namco ports during the longbox era of crazy eyes. Surely not a great alternative to the cabinet which is probably an awesome experience.
Well, is it worth the upwards of 300-400 dollars that a CIB copy is going for currently? Oh lord no. Is it neat that I own this? I guess so, it's nice I could sell this thing for a car payment if I end up in a desperate state of near-homelessness, but otherwise it's just another game on the shelf to me, despite how legitimately rare it seems to be, as opposed to some popular title that is obviously being grifted online because companies can't be shittened to give some goddamn respect to the consumer in making their products more accessible in the age of digital. If someone knocked at my door and offered me 500 bucks for it, I would take the offer gladly. If the same person offered me 500 bucks for my childhood copy of Spyro the Dragon, I would immediately respond by coldcocking them.
Maybe I secretly regret owning all this stuff in an age where emulation is a fuckton better than it was a decade ago, but one thing's for sure is that I don't regret at least having something to display my love for the system.
No joke, I care about the sampler disc that came with my PS1 more, which is probably going for McDonalds Happy Meal prices. Attachment can be so bleak at times...
The North American longbox copy of Starblade Alpha is something I already knew was particularly hard to find, because even back in like 2015 or whatever it was (The years started to blend together for me recently) there would only be so many copies online and they were always in rotten shape with the adhesive on the cover artwork being worn out by the dastardly tag team of Father Time and Bad Storage. I eventually ended up finding one in OKAY shape and shelved out decent money for it, primarily because I'm a strange person who absolutely adores the chaos that is the longbox era of PS1 titles. They are big and stupid, I like big and stupid. It should've stayed like this tbh, the uniformity of jewel cases ruined us all.
On topic with the game itself, Starblade Alpha is a port of the classic arcade title that is a massive influence to the rail shooter genre. My first experience with the game was in the vanilla version of Tekken 5 on PS2 that featured the original arcade game as it's loading screen and as an unlockable full game from playing Devil Within. So it's nice at least to have that as my frame of reference when I finally decided to take out the disc from this supposed jackalope of PS1 collecting and boot it up on my console. It's even nicer that I get to talk about Devil Within in a writing piece that has nothing to do with Tekken, but that's me gloating about a personal victory.
As a port? It is a decent bit choppier and uses FMV backgrounds, and unfortunately aiming felt abominable on the dpad (dualshock wasn't even a glint in the milkman's eye at this point). It has two modes, one that uses the original polygon look of the game, and another that remakes it with fully textured graphics. Personally, I prefer the original look since I feel it's rather obvious the ships were made with that appearance in mind. The Commander ship in particular looks like it recently went dumpster diving. I appreciate the effort at least, because otherwise the package is fairly barren like a lot of the early Namco ports during the longbox era of crazy eyes. Surely not a great alternative to the cabinet which is probably an awesome experience.
Well, is it worth the upwards of 300-400 dollars that a CIB copy is going for currently? Oh lord no. Is it neat that I own this? I guess so, it's nice I could sell this thing for a car payment if I end up in a desperate state of near-homelessness, but otherwise it's just another game on the shelf to me, despite how legitimately rare it seems to be, as opposed to some popular title that is obviously being grifted online because companies can't be shittened to give some goddamn respect to the consumer in making their products more accessible in the age of digital. If someone knocked at my door and offered me 500 bucks for it, I would take the offer gladly. If the same person offered me 500 bucks for my childhood copy of Spyro the Dragon, I would immediately respond by coldcocking them.
Maybe I secretly regret owning all this stuff in an age where emulation is a fuckton better than it was a decade ago, but one thing's for sure is that I don't regret at least having something to display my love for the system.
No joke, I care about the sampler disc that came with my PS1 more, which is probably going for McDonalds Happy Meal prices. Attachment can be so bleak at times...
9 Comments
that is, assuming you're at all interested in buying more physical games
made me so nostalgic to see this in my activity vee... i, too, had my first exposure to starblade through tekken 5's batshit backwards compatibility menus. the sound effects and general sequence of events in the game is burned into my memory through it, i still think it's a really cool looking release with some impressive minimalist modelling.
those fully textured graphics though, my god.
those fully textured graphics though, my god.
buying individual old games digitally is great and all but it was really cool when new games featured them as unlockables. Some of those versions are kinda bleh but others are really good and worthy of their own release.
If I had a nickel for every arcade game with "Alpha" in the title that had a PS1 port in 1995 and used a longbox I'd have two nickles, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice
@01156 texture-less polygons flying through space is probably a top one aesthetic for me, I could probably curse at Star Fox for stamping that into my brain.
@HylianBran That early 00s energy where everyone including Nintendo was trying to shove older games in as unlockables, mwah. You'll never get Animal Crossing with a bunch of NES games again. It's such a shame.
@Reddish I never got the Street Fighter Alpha longbox somehow, lol......maybe if it was Alpha 2 instead with the cool artwork....
@HylianBran That early 00s energy where everyone including Nintendo was trying to shove older games in as unlockables, mwah. You'll never get Animal Crossing with a bunch of NES games again. It's such a shame.
@Reddish I never got the Street Fighter Alpha longbox somehow, lol......maybe if it was Alpha 2 instead with the cool artwork....
@Reddish aren't the ps1 ports kinda bleh though? I played the X-Men vs Street Fighter (or maybe it was Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter I don't remember) port on playstation and it was shitty shitty poo ass crap shit poopy shitty crap poo. Like I swear the load times were like fifteen seconds or more when they're like half that on saturn and you can't even call in your partner character for assists. I imagine the other ones are a little better but this left such a bad taste in my mouth that I doubt they are very good.
@HylianBran it really depends, some of them like the X-Men CotA port are terrible, but then the Marvel Super Heroes port is actually fairly good for what it is. I remember having a ton of fun with the Alpha 3 port back in the day.
HylianBran
8 months ago