Is this the BEST looking 16-bit shooter or is this the best looking 16-bit shooter!! WOW!

You are crazy good at this game. I normally blow thru all my 99 lives! Love the video!

I know I'm several years late but this was a great vid - and love that your commentary breaks down the new things at maniac difficulty along with bits of story too. One of my favorite games growing up and you can't beat the soundtrack.

Shmup I commend you, you are wonderful. I really loved this game when was a kid, but never had the courage to challenge the Maniac level, I absolutely love the music, it's been 20 years and it's never got out of my head. well done Shmup, keep up your great work.

Man !!! Such an incredible play through !!!🤘😝👍 Thank you for the video, comments and helpful tips during the gameplay))) Magnificent run ! 👍👍👍

It's unbelievably helpful listening to your commentary as I try to learn this game. I'm surprised more people don't talk about their 1CC runs! Thankyou!

I played this game a lot when I was a kid and man I still remember all the little tricks and pointers you go over on this run. One of the things I find helps is adjusting your speed throughout the run. You stayed at 100%, but sometimes dropping to 75% or 50% can really help when going through tight sections so you don't delete your shield on accident or run into a projectile or enemy when trying to dodge other things.

I appreciated having the commentary. Usually when you see these runs your not sure if their tool assisted, or if the player is even human by that point, if you know what I mean. Gave the run a bit of humor having that. This game is a frustratingly technical masterpiece.

Good job with the commentary and awesome skills! Definitively one of my favorite 16bit games ...I'm still trying to 1cc it on regular difficulty. The recent Sega Ages release is good for practice.

Every time I watch footage of TFIV, I'm always impressed by the amazing graphics not to mention the legendary music by Toshiharu Yamanishi (mostly) and Omen. Ohtani only did like 1 song, but definitely is legendary in his own right for the TFIII music. Seems like it has some really cool and fun stage design too, though I haven't really played it myself.

Awesome skills. This just came out for Nintendo Switch and I picked it up after seeing your review and this video.

Loved to watch you play! Kudos! Wow!

I enjoyed a lot your comments. This brings me a lot memories... Back in the day, my best run was losing "only" 8 lives in the maniac run, and was very proud of that! Your run makes it seem easy, but WOW it wasn´t... To me the reward to finishing the game was listening to the "OMAKES" that were made available in the music menu only once you beat the game. They were kind of unused pieces of music that were actually very interesting! Pretty awesome game.

best bgm ever, I listen to the ost of the game when I drive my Rynex,....well, my R8......

Took me 4 days to beat this, Then had to sneak it back into the wrapping paper under the tree for christmas day. Great vibes watching this all these years latter!

Great video, im a long time gamer, but just getting into shmups, your content has helped heaps man 👍

Bro awesome game play and mate I can say this you are really the 'Shump Master' bro thanks I really enjoyed watching some great 👍 reflexes

I only just barely made it through hard recently, can't imagine doing maniac lmao good job!

Im back, thank you Shump Master, best megadrive shooter of all time. I finished this hiding in my bed with on easiest level witrh Cheat with my Sega Nomad whenI was 16. during the game, press up right A down right A C left up B, then up and right for full ammo. Thank you Shump master, this is my chilhood.

Watching this makes me want to dig out my Megadrive from the closet and play this awesome game again. Thanks for a great upload.

The fact that this was all hand-coded in assembly language is just mind-boggling.

Amazing run and comments. I think I learned a lot. Maybe I'll try again to beat that game on maniac.

Amazing run, going to watch it again ;)

You did awesome on this game!

thanks a lot for your comments, they're really being very useful to me to get through such a tough game

I pronounce the desert stage "Dazer". I can kill the jumping ice monster with the freeway by flying in front of his face at medium speed. That was an amazing moment for me. Well played to finish on Maniac without dying! I completed this once on normal and dying loads but without getting 99 lives. I like the ending with the photos and scientists researching and then the Top Gun homage ending. FYI you control the direction of the stars when you score on the leaderboard.

The big sentry robot is actually named Versus, but is also called Faust (named that in Thunder Force 6).

Brilliant video mate. Really enjoyed the commentary throughout the game. I loved Thunder Force III, which I only ever played and finished on normal, but as far as Thunder Force IV was concerned I always found it intimidating to play, and the few times I did have a go, I died on my a*se so badly. You on the other hand made it look so easy! The level of detail on each stage though is incredible, with awesome in game music to boot. So much love was put into making this game, would be really interested in learning of the origins of the making of this game from some of the developers, music and graphic artists. Be great if you could get Booby Master on board :)

Dude I fucken love this game brings back so many good memories

Not just the best 16BIT shooter, one of the best ever PERIOD. ThunderForce IV is metal as fuck. ThunderForce IV is fucking kick ass. Mix metal as fuck and kick ass together, and we got ThunderForce IV. This game is legendry. I love it. Great commentary and play through by the way! :)

Wow. The Razor and Zenon guys could only manage 5,968,850, I was wondering whether 6 million was possible and you CRUSHED IT.

Man , what a game!! So far the only one I've played is part 3, but this looks like the pinnacle. Great thing is , its not expensive by today's shooter game pricing.

awesome run bro.. great effort..

You know, I really found it strange how much TF4's Snake sucks compared to TF3's Fire. As counterparts it goes from your favourite to least favourite weapon between the two games and I second that. I'm actually curious as to whether playing as Styx in the Saturn version warrants use of Fire in more situations or if TF4's level design just makes the weapon less useful. Awesome run, man, all that practice definitely paid off! I only just managed to beat the game on Normal yesterday, be that as triumphant for me as it was. Hats off to you both for this run, and the fantastic retrospective video you made alongside it. Great to see such enthusiasm and effort for the Thunder Force games!

Pretty damn awesome, I think it's all the more impressive that you never changed the ship speed once throughout

Cool stuff. I played the heck out of TF3 and loved it, but never played this one. I might have to give it a try, a few decades too late...

@ 31:45 I always get goose bumps while playing this stage of the game when the music kicks in.

You're an absolute legend man! Fantastic skills and great commen- Wait-a-minute; you did the whole run at 100% engine!? O_O Absolute mad lad. Congratulations! =)

A little fun fact about the Stage 1 (Strite) mini-boss, unlike all the other mini-bosses, that mini-boss is actually mandatory to kill, as the stage won't progress otherwise. I know this because as a kid, I kept killing those flying black things wondering why they kept appearing for minutes upon minutes on end.

Wow man, good job doing all of that without dying.

I can't beat stage 3 , you are a true maniac

This is quite a bit late, but the reason for the weird names in the staff roll is actually a Japanese thing. Back in the day, depending on the company, they wouldn't actually let the staff use their actual names in the staff roll out of fear of their workers getting headhunted by other companies, so they were forced to submit these weird nicknames that only they, their co-workers, and the company would know while still getting acknowledged in the credits. Another Japanese company known for this was Sonic Team, namely the first Sonic game, though this was really only the case in the early years of the Sega Megadrive and Genesis. After a while, most companies stopped this practice.

Dude you rocked it! Awesome work!!!

You got a higher score then me and I killed a lot more then you? Granted you blew through the bosses much faster then I did. My Score was 6230420 on 1cc,1lc Maniac Im even surprised to see Razors score was 5968850 in which he might have use tool assistance. I love your channel and thanks for showing your run I learned so much from it!

Fantastic run of a great game! You make it look so easy, but as you said yourself, its not haha. Actually started playing this game after Christmas, though on normal mode. I usually screw up in Stage 7 or 8, and need to use a continue :( Starting Chapter 8 without Hunter/Shield/Claw is no joke. Figuring out that at the start the bottom route gives you (hidden) Claw/Blade, while top route gives you 1-up/Hunter, helped a lot. Its interesting to see that you get power-ups at different places then I do. For example in Stage 6 (the water level), you get a shield after you defeat the mini boss. I never get a shield there and instead go to the top of the level to grab a shield a bit before the 1-up. Maybe difficulty also changes some of the power-up locations? I also notice that you seem to kill bosses a lot faster then I do. Take the boss of Stage 3 (Air Raid), where you use the Railgun to take out the missile launcher in a few seconds. That takes me multiple boss cycles to destroy using the Railgun. Similarly I need 2x/3x more Thunder Sword hits on bosses, especially on the Chapter 8 (mini) bosses. I guess timing is way more important than it would initially seen. Anyway, thanks again for this video and commentary. It helps a lot seeing where/how I can improve.

I am not worthy! I am not worthy! Very impressive. Only ever managed to complete on normal.

Just gotta pound him, from behind... Poor crab boss

Fun fact: you can control the starfield if you make the high score table. Also, in Ruin, the blocks that form walls are powered by your weapon and build faster when shot and always build towards you. Just take them out easily with the snake. I would recommend playing this game at 25% speed whenever you can. To kill the diving ice monster you only need to hit him around 3 times with the rail gun or if you are a daredevil, put the speed to 75% and fly in front of his face with freeway selected and unleash a barrage of missiles in your wake and into his face. There is also a freeway weapon in the lower part of the screen, obscured, in a capsule when you first enter the water. The cloning enemies you fight in the very next scene will not multiply until shot. If you have the twin shot you can fly right up to them and kill them when they are still one enemy. My favourite weapon is the snake because it offers additional protection from some projectiles and is quite safe. I can't get past the level 7 boss on normal right now but am starting to learn to watch for where the moths sit on the ground so I can avoid being blasted into the ceiling by them when they explode.

Hope you would do videos like this again. I keep coming back to this.

mega skills bro

You definitely need to play Thunder Force V, it continues where TF4 left off, the post-credits scene in TF4? Well, it exists for a reason and it does have a pay off in TF5, you'll see.

I did finished this game on maniac when i was a kid, but i didnt remember it was so brutal... Also every time i hear stage 8 music.... is pure Judas Priest You never played thunderforce 5? its an AWESOME game, and the final boss has one of the best Theme's ever. (wich is actually part of a bigger ost )

Your love and passion for this game is incredible. What is your interpretation of the ending?

Awesome

Coming back to this, also, just randomly watchin, I think RUIN is with the mirrored city ruins (probably design for ease just mirroring the floor ) I like to think of it as a Cylindrical cybernetic city or planet, like the world is in a giant tube and is why there are skyscrapers are above and below

Actually, I'm pretty positive that the guy who destroys the space battleship (the Cerberus) it's from another mysterious faction, the "Faust" (cited in the ending too). Vios is defeated with the battleship, the last 5 stages are against Faust. Oh, you're a monster, anyway! Thanks for showing me how is done.

respect

This is the best game I haved play in my life

I can't even beat a single level on the NSTC version ;-; I suck at this game sheesh

46:40 HEY JEEERRYYYY! 😆

Thunder Force AC was another game with crazy ass graphics. Think that was Japan release too.

The last boss reminds me of the stage 2 boss from Crimzon Clover in its appearance. Perhaps CC was referencing this.

Great run, what are your thoughts on Gradius V and Lords of Thunder? I would love to see you play those games.

Man ! You deserve your chanel name ! i was wondering do you use a normal genesis gamepad or you use a joystick like the sega joystick pro ? thanks greats videos !

Is it okay to use your gameplay videos in some remixes I have planned for this game?

Amazing gameplay SHMUP Master! You truly are an ace in this game. It´s worth noting that the girl's voice that was digitized for TFIV (known as ATUKO in the game credits and in the Tecno Soft Gal's Club) was the same person who sang the arranged version of "Love Dream - Samayoi Hito". vgmsite.com/soundtracks/technosoft-game-music-collection-vol.-5-thunder-force-iv/Booklet%20p.%2005-06.jpg (Link for the song's lyrics). KAORU, apart from being the girl who voiced the item pickup lines in TFIII (also a member of the Tecno Soft Gal's Club), she sang an arranged version of the game's credits theme called "Present - Orgel" that can be found on the Technosoft Game Music Collection Vol. 3 - Thunder Force III downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/technosoft-game-music-collection-vol.-3-thunder-force-iii/28%2520present%2520%2528arrange%2520version%2529.mp3 (Link for the song) P.D: Your content is awesome!

On stage 1, right after you get underwater you forgot a hidden Free Way item in the bottom of the screen, so you could get another 10k points... Excellent video nonetheless :)

2:35 How do you get that Blade Power Up to appear there? I'm playing the US version on the Genesis, and no matter what difficulty level I try, it never appears there. Also: 21:24 I've fought this Boss many times with no shield on me, and that shield never appears, how do you get it to appear? 22:56 This shield only seems to appear half the time for me, otherwise I often have to go through this section with no shield. Is there a trick to getting this to appear consistently? I wanna finish a 1cc on Hard mode for this game and I can't for the life of me find any resources that give concrete information on hitboxes, item locations, hidden items, or version differences between regions anywhere. Having this knowledge would be a huge boon to getting a little farther into the game. Lastly, does this game dynamically scale difficulty? I feel like whenever I am doing well, the game starts ramping up the difficulty drastically, but if I am doing poorly before reaching similar sections, there is much less to deal with. There is so much that goes unexplained mechanically with this game and it is allegedly one of the most revered Shooters on the Genesis. Where the heck is all the knowledge?

Has anyone ever found out why the demiboss in Ruin doesn't slow down the game in Maniac mode? It's like they optimised it just for that difficulty level. In a way that makes some sense as I take advantage of the slowdown to dodge the bullets, but on the other hand, that's probably the worst slowdown moment in the game and removing that could have spared it some criticism. Awesome technique, you make Maniac look like Easy. Nice trick to beat the drones at the beginning of Level 5! To destroy the laser balls and most of the weapons on the surface of that ship, I use Free Way, and a bit of Snake too which is pretty efficient against the small laser cannons.

I grew up with this game, I feel like knowing about the 99 lives cheat kinda ruined it because I never had incentive to try and get better.. still loved it of course, and listen to the soundtrack all the time today. This play through was insane though! Crazy skill. Have you ever played the Saturn version where you can choose to play through TFIV with the ships from TF2 and 3?

Nice video! I watched all of it. I've listened to this ost several times, I don't have very many 16bit osts on my playlist, but this is number 1. do you know any 16bit games with great music? or just ones that you enjoyed, I'm building a playlist over here.

Just what I needed. I finally got a PAL copy of the game, and it just immediately handed my ass to me. This will help me understand what's going on! By the way, you're running at 100% speed all the time, wouldn't it help to switch from time to time, or do you just prefer to be quick at all times?

was wondering how to use the thunder sword? i worked it out before , cant do it though..mabey cos its keyboard im playing on

How many of us here choose levels in rhythm with the tune?

If you keep the claw AND kill the mini boss in time, you get the shield in Stage 6.

Rewatching again. Want to ask which you prefer thunder force 3 or 4?

Do you practice these by just starting from the beginning and starting over if you fuck up? I’ve been trying to get this one down, it’s just pretty long for one of these games

And this is why I'm going to make a bestiarium of crabs, because if I learned something about video games is that they love giant mechanical crabs

There is a Saturn version with no Slowdown haven't seen anyone try a maniac run for that version. (Thunder Force Gold Pack 2)

I’m a married heterosexual but evert time I watch one of shmup master vids I question my sexuality.

awesome dude, that was insane! how do you practice? just playing over and over? or do you use emulation load states?

Weird - my pal MD with 60Hz Mod runs that game totaly different. Slowdowns when using blade and claw are guaranteed nearly everywhere. When the big robot at the ruins appears - forced slowdown until he's gone. What kind of console do you use? And probably a tipp: my videograbber (haupauge) records 60hz as 60 frames when the signal is set on 720p on framemeister. Sadly half of the frames where lost in your maniac playthrough imo -__- you should see the difference compared to the tv screen ... (edit: maybe it's not constantly 30 but - I don't know - fluidity is missing for sure.)

I didn't notice any slow downs in this run. Everytime i play my pal copy on my model 1 mega drive i get huge slow downs in the ruin stage. Mostly on the mid boss who shoots thoes glowing pellets, filling the whole screen. I wonder what is cousing this.

My memory must be whack. Isn't there an area where you go into super speed and have to dodge the scenery? I didn't notice it on your play-through.

idk if this was a faster run coz of fidelity, maybe its just viewed faster than how i played it But yea play on my old Megadrive 1 and I used to before the days of youtube record myself playing onto VHS , i have to find the tapes Few notable playthroughs, Rocket knight adventures, mortal kombat 2, zero wing amongst others

Human beams

So did you ever get to TF5? :)

once you get the claw and Hunter you have one the game

Try GAIARES..... i'll grab my popcorn... LOL

О!хуенно!

at kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m7ucp6yhrNjJeac.html 6:09 the mega drive slows down with the bullets

I have died 4 times in a roll in just 30 secs lol

You poor yanks, getting the damn game released as "Lightening Force".

I feel like Air-Raid is the easiest in Maniac.

one thing that irritates me is the speed changing mechanic, there isnt a single part in the game where you wouldnt want to have the max speed, so the only thing it causes is you end up dying because you forgot to put it back to max speed.

#SUBS4RETRO Make sure you support your fellow retro gamers on KZfaq. Already a niche audience, if we don't sub to them they'll go away. I don't want that to happen. So I support my fellow retro gamers! #retrogamersunite

So, have you played V yet?

why is the last boss the easiest

Please Random Zone

the final boss is lame