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[Tsubaki]

So... I finally opened my copy this Labor Day weekend.

It's a totally awesome shooter, and definitely one of the best in the Dreamcast library! Reminds me a lot of the Thunderforce series, but its got its own charm with the break laser/gun strength tug-of-war, multi-branching paths and auto-adjusting difficulty.

Why all the mediocre buzz? I like it more than Ikaruga actually.

 

[BenT]

BAD ART

Seriously, the ship designs aren't very good. But the game plays pretty well, and the music rocks. It's definitely a solid effort from G.Rev.

 

[swoon]

yea it has some really awful ship design, but oh god. it's such a good shooter.

 

[Tsubaki]

It's just interesting how different the ratings are from critics and fans. There's a huge disparity:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/dreamcast/borderdown/

Obviously, most reader reviews are incredibly biased and amateurish, but really, Border Down is cool. I couldn't stop thinking about it as I slept this past week. The tension of starting from a lower border. The new enemy and bullet patterns such a change would bring. The figuring out of where to use your break laser for maximum chain points. The tension of trying to kill the boss at closs to 0 time as possible. All of it adds up to one fantastic package.

I've always been more of a horizontal shooter fan, and this one's a keeper.

 

[heavy liquid]

Yeah, I like Border Down a lot. Sure, people complain about the ship designs, but it never actually really bothered me. I suppose everything else in the game is good enough for me to not notice or care about the ship designs. The damage gauge and boss timer is also pretty nifty. I still like Ikaruga better, but Border Down is up there.

 

[drohne]

border down rocks. it's one of my few favorite horizontal shooters, and certainly the best shooter on dreamcast. actually, it might be my single favorite horizontal shooter -- the deep scoring system, rare in horizontals, might put it over thunderforce iv, r type delta, and gradius v. can't wait to see what g-rev does next...besides border down, they collaborated in the development of ikaruga and gradius v, so they're obviously very talented. i think they're supposed to announce a new game soon.

 

[sprsk]

border down rocks. it's one of my few favorite horizontal shooters, and certainly the best shooter on dreamcast. actually, it might be my single favorite horizontal shooter -- the deep scoring system, rare in horizontals, might put it over thunderforce iv, r type delta, and gradius v. can't wait to see what g-rev does next...besides border down, they collaborated in the development of ikaruga and gradius v, so they're obviously very talented. i think they're supposed to announce a new game soon.

Not to mention one of the best soundtracks on the dreamcast.

 

[WarPig]

Yeah, I thought it was a good 'un when I played it in the Japanese arcades. The concept of switching stages when you die is pretty nifty -- that gives it a ton of replay value, and it does that by actually giving you more content to explore, instead of just making you do the same shit over and over to unlock whatever rewards. The visual designs are kind of blah, yeah, but that never bugged me too much.

DFS.

 

[aku:jiki]

This game is so sorely underrated, even by shooter fans.
It seems like most people don't give it a fair shot, and don't even realize it has "Cave-style" depth to the scoring and playing systems and they just label the game "ok" at best. Such a pity.

I'm still wondering about the Treasure/G.Rev connection. When playing BD, I did notice minor things that were similar to Ikaruga, and now that I'm playing G5 I do notice things that are similar to BD, but what's the real deal? drohne might've said before, but...I blame the weed.