ether vapor | The Wired Fish Network

System: PC/Publisher: Nyu Media/Developer: Edelweiss/Players: 1/Release Date:6/29/2012

It’s kind of unfortunate to see space shooters fall by the wayside after the 16bit and 32-bit days. While there were some out there that really impressed, they’ve all fallen to the niche circle. Indie hit Touhou reached a level of popularity the likes of Gradius and R-Type. Then Ikaruga brought forth a space shooter with bullet hell elements. And now, the scene is mostly quiet, with ports and remakes of Shoot ‘Em Ups hitting the download scene. Alongside that, smaller teams have developed shooters of their own, bringing over ambitious ideas quenching the thirst of old-school shmup fans, if only temporarily. However most of them never made it outside of Japan. Here’s one of the few that managed to make it out, Ether Vapor Remaster. Will this quench that thirst for a while, or are you better off drinking water? After the jump, I Breakdown Ether Vapor Remaster.

Continue reading →

None of them actually hit you, but you get the idea.

Slowly but surely doujin localizing company Nyu Media has been rising up in fame, finding its niche nicely in the download scene. Releasing indie games from Japan that would otherwise fly over most U.S. publishers heads, Nyu Media has brought over shmup game The eXceed Collection and adventure game Cherry Tree High Comedy Club. And so a new release dawns, Ether Vapor Remaster, an enhanced port of a shmup game originally released back in 2007 in Japan. I tried the game out… and (after some futzing with my shitty-ass computer to get it to work. I’ll talk about this some other time.), I was issued a pure ass beating only an old-school game can dish out.

Continue reading →