The History of COMPILE Shoot 'Em Ups

why when striking it compile is my all-time number one favorite developer of shooters that's right you heard me my number one of all the amazing developers during the 80s and 90s from toaplan technosop and even konami which made some of my all-time favorite games if i had to choose my own personal number one the company that not only made more shooters but influenced so many others that i know and love and still play today it would be compiled aside from releasing some of the best that era had to offer they also influenced other companies like hudsonsoft and naxxat to make killer games like soldier blade and nexer games that likely never would have existed like this if it weren't for compile and when the company finally split many of them went on to form rising and worked on incredible games like sophie gorrentai armed police bat rider and battle gorega and if i would have to list one quality about compile shooters one aspect that makes them stand out from other developers that made their games unique speed [Music] my [Applause] for me shooters have always been about that adrenaline rush playing at full speed no slow down sweaty palms balls to the wall action and speed is the number one staple of compile shooters fast furious gameplay with only minor breaks to take in a moment of scenery a calm before the storm hits again in fact in an old interview from 1993 with compiled president masamitsu nitanu he pretty much said exactly that in his own words i think what makes our stg special is first of all the fast scrolling it gives you that sensation of high speed even in the msx days our games were about that speed as you see in elastic and when the games aren't scrolling quickly it's offset with the frantic non-stop pace of the game itself just look at these various compiled shooters side by side from molesta to gun knack to xanax it's what sets them apart from many other developers even on the super famicom known for much slower paced shooters they prioritized gameplay and found a way to make super alasta one of the fastest playing games on the system in fact the number one goal of their game was exactly that to provide the super famicom with a fast paced shooting game another aspect unique to compile games are the tons of weapons guns lots of guns yep compile loves loves their weapon loadouts their games normally feature several different weapon options and the more creative the better from the field thunder and blazing lasers to the massive amount of weapon combinations in spriggan compile saw providing the player with tons of ways to destroy enemies as a form of fan service no not that kind of fan service this kind [Music] not that all the weapon options were excellent but more about your personal style if you look at the older olesta games it's clear that some weapons are a bit of a stinker while others are overpowered it's like they just took every weapon idea and figured hey someone may like it so as long as we came up with it why not throw it in there in an old interview with their president he discussed exactly that another thing would be the fun weapons and the thrill of destroying enemies those weapon systems in gunhead and other games show a kind of unconscious spirit of service to players on behalf of our programmers during the design of a game if you think of 10 different power up systems normally a company will only select one of them but our programmer will put in all ten that's one of the things that we spend a lot of time on in our development but no matter how great your design ideas are it doesn't matter if you can't turn them into a final product that absolutely nails the gameplay of a classic shooter and that requires mastered mastery of your specific craft through many years of practice and experimentation by focusing on one thing and making it your baby and while compile was pretty diverse and made other types of games they kept a core set of programmers and designers that focused almost solely on shooters the more they developed the more they honed their craft elesta took everything from xanax to the next level and the less the two was a huge improvement both in graphics design and gameplay over the original blazing lasers was a bold step into the next generation of gaming with a level of graphics and music never seen before compile made shooters their business and spending time to release the best game they possibly could with every project was a source of pride in the same interview president nitano stated for other companies when it comes time to make a sequel to one of their games it seems like it's very common for the staff to be changed but if you keep making games in the same genre sooner or later you will become a master at it right but other developers don't have that faith they think oh i still could do something different i have all this other potential and they go try their hand at something new in this world it's easy to become a master at something provided you stick to just that one thing it seems like no one understands this since they don't understand it the developers are allowed to do whatever they want and in the end they produce half-baked games he was then asked about the lack of quality shooters on the super famicom and he went off i think the responsibility for stg being an unpopular genre on the super famicom lies entirely with the developers especially in the early days of the super famicom with those ports of famous arcade stgs if things had been different then i don't think the situation would be so pathetic today i mean that those developers had no sense of responsibility with the games they were pushing out onto the market things weren't much better with other companies they should at least respect the genre and at the very least make stg's that are more fun in short what i want to say to other developers is why are you flooding the market with such inferior releases i wish developers like that would just quit altogether when a new system has just come out be it the super famicom mega drive or pc engine it's imperative that you make games that are going to help cultivate that system's growth and vitality ouch pulling no punches there for their part they came into the super famicom and made what's considered one of the best shooters on the system super olesta aka space megaforce and not just on the super famicom what's one of the best shooters on the mega drive musha of course how about the pc engine blazing lasers started it all and was one of its very first releases without its incredible influence would there even be a superstar soldier final soldier or soldier blade not likely in their final form what about the 8-bit consoles the nes i'd put gun neck up there with some of the best and the sega master system without a doubt power strike 2 when it came to vertical shooters compile was at the top of their game during those days another staple of compile shooters that makes them stand out has always been the music composed early on by masatomo miyamoto he's responsible for classic tunes from xanax molester guardian legend and blazing lasers just to name a few i've always said a shooter is only half a game without an awesome soundtrack to back it up and every one of my memories to these great games can be tied to standout music like this addicting opening track to xanax that'll have you humming the tune for hours afterwards [Music] or is it even possible to think about blazing lasers without hearing those incredible drum beats that pump you up for the final stretch and who could forget the opening tomusha one of the most rocking metal tracks ever in a console [Music] game [Music] you'll have a hard time finding a compile game without a sweet soundtrack to back it up going back to their earliest days [Music] and compile goes back way back while their very first games were for sega's sg hardware their first shooting games were on the msx with the very first being devil's heaven it certainly wasn't much to look at but it was a stepping stone to greater things namely xanax followed by the olesta series a leicester one and two along with a spin-off a leicester guide all released for the msx platform some of the best on the system elesta is by far compile's largest property with either direct sequels or spin-offs what started on the msx and sms later expanded to every console the series that first put compile on the map was xanax in 1985 first released on the msx it became the template for the elesta series to follow and while the graphics were initially sparse the game had it where it counts in fast gameplay and tons of weapons the version you see here is xanax ex it's an enhanced version for the msx2 that's similar to releases xanax received on the famicom and disk systems the nes release is the way to play in my opinion as you can see how much faster the game plays with much less slow down than its msx counterpart and likely how compile intended xanax was titled xanax ai for artificial intelligence so named because the game varied the enemies it threw at you based on your selected weapon type and your power level in other words how well you were doing in the game it's one of the earliest implementations of a rank system pretty cool for a game released in 1985. with xanax popularity compile wanted to continue the series but was unable to keep the name for various legal and logistical reasons and thus in 1988 the olesta series was born a spiritual successor to xanax that would eventually span several years across multiple generations of consoles from the sega master system and famicom to the mega drive and super famicom and even the game gear originally released on the msx and then ported to the sega master system elesta significantly upped the production value from its humble beginnings with xanax with not only much improved graphics and design but also story sequences in the introduction and ending the art design in olesta is more organic with much of the world and technology overtaken by biological alien forms during these early years is when compile made some of their most difficult games according to compiled programmer gemini hirono sega was constantly demanding for the difficulty to be increased as a result power up items flew off the screen quicker and your special weapon level would power down after dying their goal was to create well-made challenging games with many secrets to uncover and give players a lot of content to keep returning to it would normally take a full hour to play through from start to finish without continues which is a long time in stg terms in 1989 compile released a last 2 for the msx2 and despite being a step up in nearly every aspect it never saw a wider release so like many i never got a chance to play it until recently when my mister finally arrived from mr addons and i loaded up the msx compile shooter library i'm a big fan of the allesta powerstrike games on the sms which m2 just released on the switch and i just covered in my detailed review so i was chomping at the bit to finally play the elusive elesta ii and i wasn't disappointed this game is hard damn hard if olesta was a step up in difficulty from xanax this was a step into the realm of brutally hard games after spending about 45 minutes with the game i worked my way up to stage four the graphics and design are a massive step up from the original where you can tell the team really upped their game to make something special i loved this early stage boss of the overtaken bomber when you first fight it as a mid-boss it's just a regular plane but when it returns as the stage boss it's been overtaken and spawned alien growth the stages become more organic and alien as you progress it's a shame molesta ii wasn't included in the m2 collection as it's an incredibly cool game that should be enjoyed by any fan of the series another msx exclusive game that i got to play for the first time was a leicester gaiden a ground-based shooter very similar to undead line and i have to say i had a great time it adds a jump mechanic which i initially thought would be annoying platforming but it turned out to be fun to use and never difficult to traverse gaps and obstacles much shorter than the typical olesta game but still sporting the same type fast controls and cool music it was a solid challenge it only ran five stages so i was actually able to complete it on my first try in an hour or so with a few continues but it was a hell of a fun time and one i'll be revisiting again in the future gaiden was actually not a retail release but part of compile's disk station series where they released games as part of a disc based magazine a total of 32 issues across its lifetime along with special and deluxe editions the final shooting game that compiled released for the disc station rude breaker is one very few have heard of including myself until my research this week not only was it released late in 1996 but for the pc 98 hardware a japanese pc that we never knew in the west and it turns out it's one heck of a cool game that really belongs on a future collection as the only other way to play it now is via a pretty obtuse emulator not everyone can figure out rude breaker is very much an olesta game in many ways aside from the name it loses quality from graphics to the music and the all-important gameplay much like a leicester gaiden it's not overly long or difficult on its normal setting but crank it up to hard and it'll challenge some of the best players it doesn't have the huge weapon variety of alaska games but adds two modes of fire to each of your weapons either attached for direct fire or free creating more of a spread and each one of the weapon options which you only select at the start of the game requires their own strategy rude breaker is a game that's easy to learn with simple mechanics but difficult to master and has that quality that makes you keep coming back for more a quick shout out to my shmup homie and one of the nicest and most helpful folks in the community shmups br for lending me the footage and his thoughts on this game he's been playing it for a very long time and has a full playthrough on his most excellent channel which i highly recommend checking out along with this most excellent game compile also made a completely unique alaska game for the sega master system and one of the coolest in the series called power strike 2 it never made it stateside in fact it never even made it to japan but was an exclusive release in europe and brazil i covered both this game and its predecessor extensively in my m2 olesta video both of which are included in the m2 olesta collection now released but suffice to say that along with olesta ii on msx power strike 2 is the most impressive game of their pre releases and is a must play for any compile fan it eliminates most of the slowdown from the previous games plays like a dream and has the biggest and coolest bosses of them all it released late near the end of the master system's life in 93 so compile had mastered the sega hardware and the results were impressive compile had a long history of working with sega back to their most humble beginnings and it was on the mega drive where their work truly went mainstream with their most recognized game in the series musha allesta compile was always pushing the performance of whatever system they developed for and with the extra horsepower of the 16-bit console they made one of the most graphically impressive games on the system musha was originally planned as a leicester 2 for the mega drive as a prototype developed by their lead programmer yuichi toyama but was reinvented when compiled chose to take the series in a new direction and with the timeline looming they needed to quickly decide what to do instead kazuyuki nakashima lead designer at compile came up with the idea of a japanese aesthetic which is how musha was born and musha is quite radically different than the previous olesta games gone is your tiny ship replaced with the mechanical uniform super hybrid armor gone are the numerical power-ups replaced with color orbs and satellites and gone are the catchy chiptunes of old replaced with what the mega drive did best a raw metallic ost that's one of the very first examples of a metal soundtrack in the game it was a bold new direction meant for a new generation the difficulty was solid but toned down for a broader console market to enjoy the graphics work in design was off the charts with an opening stage that just flowed in from the intro and blew away every one of us lucky enough to play it when it released but the staples of a compiled game remained mainly the speed of the gameplay and scrolling along with cool weapons and excellent music musha was a masterpiece of its time and remains a stone cold classic now 30 years later to the point where copies of the us release sell for over 600 bucks in the box it's one of the most sought after games of the entire mega drive library [Music] while the mega drive was just catching its stride the 8-bit consoles were still incredibly popular in 1990 the same year they released musha they also released gun nap on the famicom and nes one of my all-time favorite compile games it was originally meant as a parody on the olesta series but it turned out to be every bit as good as any of their 8-bit counterparts and one i still play to this day another highly sought after game a us copy of gun neck is hard to find for under four to five hundred bucks [Music] another one of the coolest games compile ever developed was the guardian legend released two years prior in 1988 a hybrid action venture with shooting elements it opens with a shooting section with you flying in at breakneck speed into the enemy fortress before landing and beginning your journey throughout the game there are multiple shooting sections peppered in to spice up the gameplay it's like they were tasked with making an action adventure but just couldn't help throwing in some shooting anyway hey it's what they did best and it made an already cool game even better and yes there is a code you can enter to only play all of the shooting sections of the game leave it to compile to take zelda and combine it with a shoot em up include their usual cool music and end up with a game that just works and is still so highly regarded today but if i were to name the one compile game that personally changed my gaming life forever and sent me onto the path of becoming a shmup junkie it would be in 1989 my brand new turbo graphics 16 and a game that would turn me into a shooter fanatic blazing lasers [Music] maybe it was the leap forward in graphics music and sound effects coming from the older 8-bit nes games or maybe the ultra fast gameplay without a hint of slowdown that made it feel like the controller was wired directly to my brain or maybe because it was good for younger players starting out on the easy side before ramping up later in the game around stage five whatever it was blazing lasers have that magic touch that gives anyone who grew up playing it the fields all over again every time they fire it up it will always be one of my old time favorites but compile themselves were not done with the pc engine just yet releasing a follow-up to musha just one year later called spriggan and while it didn't bear they'll last the name or story and was set in a different timeline all one needs to do is see them side by side to know the influence is clearly there this time with the added storage capacity of the cd system and a larger color palette compared to the mega drive compile went all out producing one of the most graphically beautiful shooters on the pc engine the weapon system was advanced almost too much so with different color orbs creating all manner of weapon combinations that you could experiment with and while it never quite hit the wild heights of musha's metal soundtrack or graphical effects it's a well-made game in its own right and better in my opinion than the true musha sequel robo elastic that released on the sega cd a year later in 92. [Music] in that same year compile finally jumped on the nintendo train to prove what could be done with the hardware in the right hands and show the other devs who's boss releasing super alaska aka space megaforce an official sequel in fact it was very important for then president masamitsu to knock it out of the park with this game and produce a top-tier shooter for the super famicom and as far as i'm concerned super elesta is right up there with the absolute best on the console right next to axela and macross scrambled valkyrie for the level of graphics and effects compiled pulled off it still runs buttery smooth and is a joy to play going back to the classic olesta formula of fast gameplay weapon variety and a lengthy campaign to get your money's worth compile achieved what they set out to do as even on the wild difficulty setting with bullets flying everywhere super allesta plays with zero slowdown and showed what was possible on the super famicom another feature of super allesta is its obstacle based gameplay on many of the stages an unusual feature for a vertical shooter however compile was smart to eliminate running into objects as a means of death allowing you to focus on the obstacles without worry of crashing into walls the music was also very different from their usual fair with a more laid back electro lounge style creating more of a mood versus the driving tunes of the previous games and while opinion is divided on the music itself it does fit the more measured pace of the obstacle based stages a lot of the cool sound effects were also reused from blazing lasers as well as some other games like the explosions something compile did often giving many of their games a unified sound you won't find a complete us copy of this game for under 400 bucks as well making compile shooters some of the most highly sought after games regardless of console compile also released games for sega's portable game gear with two olesta games gg lester one and two in 1990 and 93 respectively both games were programmed by takayuki hirono which are the other two games on the newly released m2 collection alongside the sega power strike games in addition m2 went as far as channeling compile in their release of a brand new elastic game gear game gg allesta iii check out my full review of this game along with my review of the complete m2 olesta collection on switch as m2 brought back both legends kazuyuki nakashima and shinsuke yamakawa to create one of the best new shooters to come out in years a brand new compile game made by former staff in 2020 we're not worthy we're not worthy [Applause] in 93 compile went back to sega and released a true sequel to musha alesta titled denon alesta or robo-alesta in the us while it looked similar to musha it was fundamentally different in many ways not surprising as by 93 a lot of compile staff had left to other companies or to form their own and a lot of the original staff that made some of their best games were no longer with them while it's not a bad game at all it has a lot going for it like the unique setting and cool enemy embossed designs musha was a very hard act to follow den and alesto was still programmed by takayuki hirono one of compile's main programmers going back to the xanax series so it still controls excellent and plays fast and responsive the biggest problem with denon was that it was inconsistent some of the stages are well designed and showcase some cool set pieces and have interesting graphics including some major boss battles that throw in exposition before they begin while other portions of the game the backgrounds are very plain and drab to the point where it doesn't look like much of a 16-bit game at all and it wasn't a matter of storage capacity given this was a cd game there's definitely a contingent that truly enjoys denmark and it's still better than a good portion of the mega drive library but it was seen at the time as a step down from the impressive musha missing its over-the-top graphics chops breakneck pace and killer metal soundtrack to this day the most musha-like experience is the gorgeous spriggan on pc engine cd spriggan also had a fantastic time attack mode as it was used for the naxat summer carnival caravan competition in japan spriggan is included on the pc engine mini by the way in case you're wondering how you can play it speaking of spriggan compile also released another spriggan game titled mark ii it has absolutely nothing in common with the original and was intended to be part of the musha universe however it deviated heavily from most other games compile had made before mark ii was compiled first as far as i know only a horizontal scrolling shooter and also featured an extensive amount of story cutscenes and dialogue throughout the actual stages which if you don't speak japanese only serves to constantly break up the action and slow down the game it has tight controls as you'd expect along with some cool music and a really fun weapon system where you scroll through a limited supply of various attachments from heat seeking missiles to a saver for getting up close and personal it has good production values and while not a perfect game a solid first effort with the generous shield you're given it's much more about enjoying the story segments than having much trouble surviving the actual journey but spriggan 2 was yet another case of a sequel being vastly different from a beloved original and not living up to the lofty standards set by the first [Music] compile also released a final vertical shooter on the pc engine super cd with silvia it was their final console shooting game until many years later with xanax xanax on the playstation one silvia's coolest aspect is the unique greek mythology setting with some large bosses ranging from minotaurs medusa harpies and a chimera a who's who of mythological creatures and it's a solid and fun shooter all around but as i mentioned before it's clear a different staff worked on many of the final games so they don't share the same knack for speed nor the musical chops that made their original games so incredibly fun they were all good solid games but coming from blazing lasers moosha spriggan and super alasta these last generation of releases were certainly worth playing but not in the league that made compiled the shooting legend that they became [Music] and that's because the original core staff were already on their way to creating a legend of their own with the new company they formed rising with the help of established arcade developer tora plan they provided this small team of x compile staff the dev tools and arcade boards they needed to work out of their small apartment and begin a new legacy that would ultimately result in battle gerega the early rising games are just as much compile shooters as anything especially given the developers behind it designer kazuyuki nakashima was an integral part of rising's very first game mahou daisakusen or striker an incredibly beautiful and fun fantasy steampunk shooter that's a compile game in every sense of the word programmed by yurichi toyama of the pc engine spriggan it's as buttery smooth to play as anything that came before both nakashima and toyama went on to create the next in the series kingdom grand prix a fast paced racing style shooter where you play against others and the computer in a race to complete the level before they do again it captures that scrolling speed and gameplay compile was famous for rising went on to create some of the coolest arcade shooters of the time eventually bringing on shinobu yagawa of raqqa fame to program armed police bat rider and with the help of nakashima and toyama eventually battle garega and you can still see some of the influence from the earlier games like the miyamoto and chitta from sorcerer striker by this time the games had evolved and with yagawa's input they became more sadistic affairs taking the original idea of xanax ai that ramps difficulty and expanding it to levels that had players pulling their hair out for decades figuring it out i'm not going down that rabbit hole for this video but i think i made my point much of what we take for granted and love and shmups today was pioneered by the incredible talent of the original compile staff it wasn't until many years later in 2001 that compiled released a final swang song to the game that started it all zanac titled xanax on the ps1 it contained faithful ports of the original games not emulated but completely recoded in assembler on top of that the main event was an all-new game xanax neo as a complete homage to the original it updates the graphics while maintaining its classic roots if you loved xanax and the 8-bit allesta games then xanax neo is right up your alley it adds new features like multiple ships and a way to easily save your game to continue later as well as score tracking it even added a two player mode and sports a cool remix techno track from the original series the compile of old was very similar to modern day m2 in that they were often hired out by other developers to create expert ports of other games they famously did the incredible r-type port i mentioned for the sega master system a technical marvel for its time and in typical m2 fashion compile added an extra exclusive level not seen anywhere else they also ported some other excellent games to the sms like ghostbusters and choplifter along with porting xevious and fexter to the msx all of these ports are still seen as the best of their respective time another famous series you may not know compile made are the alien and devil's crush pinball games with the latter likely being the best pinball game of all time and likely the best selling no wonder the music in the game was so good now you know after losing most of their staff in 93 compile continued on with other genres from which their staff remained mainly the puyo kuyo and moto managatari series they were also famous for while compile was known for stgs they were certainly not a one-trick pony [Music] when i call a game a compiled shooter i don't simply mean any game that was developed by compile during that time but of a style and influence that persevered all the way into the late 90s from the incredible soldier series on the pc engine that are still some of my favorites of the time to the later arcade games produced by former compile staff when they created rising a compile shooter is a combination of certain components that you immediately recognize how lucky are we that in 2020 we have incredible developers like m2 bringing in that kind of talent and releasing brand new yet old-school shooters for us to enjoy and both m2 and x compile are not done just yet they've been hard at work on another brand new game a leicester branch and again they've begun to bring in talent the music composer is none other than keiji takeuchi a former compile the game's graphics and design looked to be more in the style of the newer rising games like battlegrega and in fact m2 brought in a legendary name for the game design and programming world record holder and top battle garega super player masato yamanaka so they're quite serious about the gameplay being absolutely top-notch the most exciting takeaway from this video is that the incredible talent that created those legendary games over 30 years ago is still around and ready to work based on interviews included in the recent olesta collection another msx collection is already in the plans to include games like a leicester 2 gaiden and others who better to come back and create a brand new msx based olesta game than some of the original staff that first created them over 30 years ago will a 16-bit elastic collection along with a new game perhaps using the power of the 60-bit hardware i think i wet myself again thinking about it what can we do to keep this shmup renaissance going how can we ensure this incredible talent knows we love and appreciate their work that they're an important part of our childhood memories by supporting them every step of the way whether it's buying their products or spreading the word about their work and releases only we can ensure more incredible games like gg allesta 3 continued to be made i said it at the end of my last nostalgia video on the amazing shoot em ups of the 80s and 90s and i'll say it again who's with me you

Channel: Shmup Junkie

Views: 82,109

Keywords: The History of COMPILE Shoot 'Em Ups, shmup junkie, shmupsareshooters, shmups, shmup, shoot em up, STG, shooter, sega, nec, pc engine, m2 aleste collection, gg aleste 3, m2, aleste, musha, pc engine mini, sega genesis, mega drive, super nintendo, playstation, ps1, raizing, compile, retro gaming, gg aleste 3 longplay, game gear, turbografx, turbografx 16, blazing lazers, gunhed, power strike 2 master system, guardian legend, gun nac, msx, switch, nintendo switch, zanac, bullet hell, toaplan

Id: kA4ZiQmQclQ

Length: 42min 59sec (2579 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021