There's no end to esreveR sprite threads...

[esreveR]

I really like that big HD art

maybe it's the foreshortening and the shirt's folds

Admittedly, I like it too, but isn't Rumi supposed to look more...clumsy...like she usually does?

Also, Eri's art is horrible. Shameful.

Anyway here's moar sprites



A friend of mine made some sprites of alien-catgirl-thingies from some porn (To be specific it was Commander Evil making the Phantom Battalion). I originally wanted to blow them up but then I decided it would be better to do...other things with them. This is part of the animation I made, but the end result is probably not going to include this anyway (What a waste, I know). It's also probably going to be something really effed up and only Eris would love it. Bah. I'm far from completion anyway.



Apparently the Ptoles don't seem any smarter than their Rebel counterparts.



Shadow testing. Tell me which looks better, if you don't I'm choosing the second one, because it's easier to do.



After ages and ages of fiddling around with new versions of Daemon Tools Lite, I finally got SSF to work again, and with that I've downloaded a shitton of games to play. This is from Strikers 1945 II's FMV descriptions of Strikers' aircraft. From left to right, B-35 Flying Wing, A9/A10, and the Fugaku. They kind of look bad due to compression or whatever, especially A9/A10. Sorry about that, not sure what to do.



After that I tried Hyper Duel, but for some reason the music never played and the levels wouldn't start, so I ditched that in favor of Battle Garegga (I also have In The Hunt and maybe a couple of others now but I didn't bother ripping them). With that I got more of an interest in Garegga ripping, and although these aren't from the Saturn, they're pretty much the same (The Saturn version uses the same sprites, although now it has OOH! Arranged music! All of these were ripped using the arcade sprite viewer). This is the flying wing bomber with six machineguns firing through the propeller hubs and four retractable cannon in the wings' leading edges. A rather wonky defensive armament if you ask me, but this isn't real after all. Most of the images I'm posting are touched up, in this one's case I revised the propeller turning characteristics so they didn't all spin in the same direction (As it would be no fun flying a plane like that...it would constantly roll one way...).



Neither is this very realistic, essentially a dual 1930's double verticopter-like thing (With petrol engines of course) with giant cannons attached to the hubs (It also has four machineguns but that's not really too notable). I doubt this thing would fly IRL. But it would be a nasty foe if it did.



Blackheart's escorts, mark I. These have two double-machinegun turrets embedded in the sides and five small cannons embedded in the middle. Although these are the Mk-I variant, they also accompany Blackheart Mk-II on higher rankings.



This is Mk-II, which retains the five cannons but has two enormous cannons instead of double-machinegun turrets. Much nastier in my opinion, as the shots tend to vary in direction. And they're bigger. The blue paintjob bugs me, why didn't they paint Blackheart itself blue this time around?



So what's Blackheart's escorts without Blackheart itself? I was going to be lazy about it originally, but then I decided it was easy enough to do (Or kind of half-heartedly do...I'm not 100% complete...) Blackheart itself. This boss is terrible. He has this spread vulcan attack that he likes to change direction with, and he likes to fry you with his afterburners (as shown here), and he likes to just generally fill the screen with loads of bullets...and this isn't even a maniac shmup! He gets even worse on higher rankings, and the ranking system ramps up like once every 5 seconds, which causes a 30-second battle to last five minutes, and that's one of the reasons why this game is so goddamn hard to get used to. Note that I revised some of the part locations, they were pretty wonky in-game.



But of course Blackheart pales in comparison to its Mk-II variant, which is probably an even harder motherfucker than Glow Squid, the final boss. If you hated Blackheart's spread vulcan attack, wait until you see this blasted asshole repeat it without any warning in direction change! A painful experience. Not to mention the piece-of-cake afterburner attack is now shitloads of mines and bullet spreads attack. With his (Her? No, really, check Pixiv) ass also sqeezing you against the bottom of the screen. This image uses afterburner animations for the large ones that I never got to appear in-game...they usually are smaller than that.



The universal question: Napalm (Shatter Star) or missiles (Black Zepplin)? I'm not going to bother with vulcans or fire because Diving Fox and Golden Bat are too slow. Yes, you heard me, I don't even bother playing Golden Bat. In your face, tier freaks!



Next up was Keio Flying Squadron 2, which is a really strange game in my opinion (Not as strange as, say, R-Type, Parodius, or dare I mention it, Cho Aniki, but still...) but involves this cute girl named Rami. The animation makes her look hilarious in-game, you really have to see it. Also, voice acting scares the shit out of me.




She also has this pet dragon thing that I think is named Pochi, which I find simply adorable (As weird as it is coming out of me...I like Rami too, but everyone seems to, which is why I guess that's less weird). Perhaps it involves the fact that his (Her?) animations differ depending on what kind of level you're on. Pictured are them on land, but they also float on the rollercoaster and even sit in an inner tube on the water-based levels. I believe they're some sort of checkpoint in case you die.



Two screenshots from the same game, the first being in actual play (Yeah, it's pretty strange...) and the second being between chapters (With Rami and...that one princess girl which seems to have no actual plot relation. How cute). I might rip more later, from the art gallery (Which is also cute too, although I'm thinking of doing a totally new playthrough despite not finishing the last one and having like over 600 points just sitting around going to waste).



Finally, a friend of mine suggested I take all my aircraft made using WLM's handwrite feature, stuff them in a folder, then put other miscellaneous items he might like and send it to him. Unfortunately, I never manage to keep all my handdrawn planes, and Handwrite is a complete pain in the arse to use (You lose all your work when someone goes offline, unless you post it, which may be awkward too), so I tried pixel art in Photoshop instead (This isn't shaded but you kind of get the idea, right?). It's supposed to represent the pinnacle of 5th-generation fighter technology: A twin-engined lifting body with the 'crescent' wings for optimal subsonic performance (It's only intended to go supersonic in supercruise, and they aren't wide enough to get in the way of the shockwave anyway), thrust vectoring control for all maneuvering (This means it lacks control surfaces, which are complicated, un-stealthy, and induce drag, a design to be explored in the X-44 MANTA before the project was cancelled due to budget cuts), and four 'option'-like UCAVs using similar technology (But single-engined). The rest of the design is a blatant ripoff of Popular Mechanics' Air Strike 2025 cover, the F-22, and a random dream I had while somehow asleep in the UK (How I slept there is beyond me, it's so goddamn loud all the time).

In other news, I'm curious...what's Beach De Reach and why is there a DS version AND a Saturn version? I mean, cute girls...hmm...is this any good?

And maybe I'll ask how to get RosenKreuzStilette too while I'm at it...

EDIT: I nearly forgot this Metal Slug edit based on A plane someone made in X-Plane. It doesn't have recoloring done to it, so it's not really 'complete', but meh. I also put the propeller behind the wings this time around because it was too annoying to edit the cockpit.



EDIT: Updated Space Bomber Dialogue with ending text. Also intro + credits.