
New footage of Taito's cancelled 1993 racing game Vertexer has appeared online, thanks to higenekodo.
Intended to appear in arcades in the early '90s, this F-Zero-style racer used sprite scaling to give the impression of 3D movement, very much like Outrun, Power Drift and Taito's own Night Striker.
The game was designed to run on the IDYA motion cabinet system, which would have fully enclosed the player to provide an immersive experience.
Reports suggest that, despite being cancelled, around 20 Vertexer boards were released into the wild, with just a small handful of those accounted for in the hands of collectors.
The same account that shared this footage also published some video of the cancelled shmup Spriggan Powerd (yes, the missing 'e' is intentional).
Part of the same series which includes Seirei Senshi Spriggan and Spriggan Mark 2 (both on PC Engine and both developed by Compile), this arcade entry shares a similar title to the Super Famicom release Spriggan Powered, which was developed by Naxat Soft, owners of the franchise IP
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Still hoping that the arcade version of Taito's Parasol Stars sees the light of day someday.
The visual spectacle there is something else- not even F-Zero GX's track designs were quite that wild!
I wonder if this actually plays well, though. That footage looks a little chaotic and hard to parse at times, even in 1080p60. So much stuff flying around, and at a low framerate to boot.
Looks gorgeous. I love the look of this super scaler like games. Reminds me of Rad Mobile.
I can feel a migraine coming on… would be great under some kind of influence I’m sure!
Now that is absolutely spectacular. If only real polygons hadn't come along to make masterful fake 3D like this seem obsolete for a decade or so!
Just kidding of course, I'm all about the polygons. But that was amazing to witness.
Looks amazing, absolutely love all this sprite scaling tech from the 80s & 90s. This tech had so much more to give. Unfortunately polygon tech came along to soon.
@Vectrex my thoughts exactly!
It's also worth noting that footage of this game has existed online for decades, this is simply a higher quality recording.
The attract mode is well worth a watch. https://youtu.be/4XLQ9ds5PeM
It is interesting and impressive in some ways. I think the track design, in the sense of it having gaps between the sprites so that you can see the background through the track is disorienting and might have been a problem for some people. Another issue is the idea of the cabinet being fully enclosed. I don't know how that would have worked for that particular cabinet, and maybe they had a way around this, but one of the points of arcade games was for those not playing to be able to see it played, letting the games sell themselves. Still, this is very cool to see and reminds me of Wipeout in some ways, and like the later F-Zero games in 3D.
Absolutely gorgeous. Those scene transitions are pretty much unparalleled for a scaler game!
I've never heard of this one, so I hope it gets dumped soon, I'd absolutely love to give it a spin.
Trippy. Looks like the space-mushroom version of Outrun!
Please M2, please... include this in the upcoming Night Striker collection...
The part where you descend to the planet, invade the atmosphere and enter the oceans is hair-raising. SPECTACULAR!
@gingerbeardman Hence the word "new" in front of "footage" at the start of the piece
The lead image is taken from that attract mode video. Such a cool intro! Hope we get to play this one day soon.
@Guru_Larry
Was there one? I can't remember the reason for it being console/computer only, but I'm sure it was a weird one.
@mjparker77 Yeah all the home/console versions are based on the cancelled arcade game.
I strongly believe the game is complete. But no idea why it was never released. Maybe because of an influx of arena platformers from around that time?
Yeah, that certainly looks like a Taito game, alright.
If anyone at Hamster reads this, PLEASE work with Taito to resurrect this lost classic!
@Damo touché! There's the attract mode footage, but also another very low quality recording of the same level shown in this "new" footage. https://twitter.com/gingerbeardman/status/1517996355268059136
Anyway, yes, fingers crossed we can play it one day.
Hope someone will be able to preserve this. Looks awesome!
@gingerbeardman You'd hope the ROM will be dumped soon!
Looks like it could have been a smash hit. Leaves me scratching my head as to why it was cancelled.
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