Vatlva - Saturn beta sample shots

Here you go, a few screen shots from the beta sample disc.













yakumo

 

x

 

I wrote "beta sample disc". I never wrote "beta disc" The data on the sample disc is early code therefore it is a beta. I'm not claiming these shots are from some disc from the dev studio if that's what you are suggesting. If not, then all is fine.

 

x

 

Well, whatever you say. I know what you say is right but remember that people generally call anything not final a beta, be it a sample disc or not.

If it will make you happy I'll rename it to taikenban disc but then again do you know what taikenban disc means in English? It means Trial / Sample. Pretty much what I wrote above in the first post.

Yakumo

 

I know this might be a dumb question but was this game ever released? It looks quite fun.

 

It was released in Japan. The full game features an animated intro which runs in MPEG Sofdec without a VCD card. If you do have a VCD card it will run in full screen. It is a nice game that's well worth checking out. Strangly, this sample disc cost more than the full game. For some reason a lot of people seem to think sample discs cost 5 USD. You couldn't buy shit in Japan with 5 USD. That's only 392 yen. Factory sealed sample discs cost from 1000 to 3000 yen or even way more for rare games.

 

From what I can tell, this demo has a few minor differences compared with the final version, so I'd be inclined to label it as a beta (similar to the playable sampler of Sega Rally on the Bootleg Sampler disc). Either way, regardless of that particular argument let's thank Yakumo for highlighting another obscure Japanese curio we'd not have known about otherwise...

 

Totally agree, thanks Yakumo - this does look like an interesting game, time dust off the Saturn

 

I don't I'm afraid unless you want the full game. I have 2 of those at 1000 yen each.

 

Wait, does this support multi-tap?

 

You are the worst offender for doing this, Yakumo.

Why didn't you title it like Vatlva - Saturn taikenban shots or something, instead of Vatlva - Saturn beta sample shots and confuse things/people.

 

Because I use the net late at night / early hours of the morning. I can't be arsed to think what I write. I'm tired. Anyway, who cares? I wasn't saying look at this exclusive beta, people can tell from the shots it's a sample disc. I won't bother in the future.

@7Force. Yep, it does support the multitap.

 

NOOOOOOO!!

Don't let one comment discourage you - I should know all about this. Rather than take such criticism on the chin, I prefer to use it in a constructive manner as reference for my future efforts. By all means, please continue highlighting the differences seen between final versions of games and their promotional discs, samplers or demos.

Besides, most of the titles you've shown in the past are obscure Japanese examples that few of us would have noticed otherwise (then again, it wasn't until recently that anyone spotted prototype content on the Bootleg Sampler trial of Sega Rally). I guess we need people like you who care and are prepared to share findings on these kinds of things...

To make one last point for now, I definitely agree with you on this: who bloody cares if you've labelled a demo as a beta? Surely anyone complaining can at least appreciate that there are some alternate features compared with the retail code?

 

Nice screenshots, thank you Yakumo. The fourth one reminds me of Super Boom Tread Troopers for Dreamcast. Any connections?

 

I'm not sure about any links with that particular game, but isn't Vatlva often considered a sort of spriritual precursor to Car Battler Joe?

 

They do both seem quite similar but I don't think they are connected at all.

 

x

 

Even if the software on sample discs somtimes represents an early stage in development, one shouldn't call them beta because people associate code with it that had not been publicly available up to this point. But a sample/hibaihin/mihonhin/taikenban disc has been made available for practically anyone, unlike beta's on hand-labelled CD-ROMs and such.