Star Soldier enhancement patch

Shoot'em up were one of the most popular game styles in our childhood. A year ago, the Japanese user kaizou kaikai made a couple of patches improving Star Force, a well-known shoot'em up developed by Tehkan and Hudson Soft in 1985. Those patches implemented smooth scroll and some custom color modifications.

And now, it's the turn of Star Soldier, another well-known shoot'em up launched by Hudson Soft in 1986. The main changes are the smooth scroll and the addition of stars in the background to improve the game experience. But, the most remarkable one, was the implementation of FM support. A single request from an MSX fan was more than enough for kaizou kaikai to consider the addition of the excellent full soundtrack composed by the YM2413 guru Mstz80ax almost 4 years ago. Because of this, an MSX turbo R is recommended to get the best gaming experience. It's amazing how a modest MSX1 game can be boosted in that way. Ready to relive those old memories?

Relevant link: Star Soldier patch v0.1 (smooth scroll + stars + FM support)
Relevant link: Star Soldier patch v0.0 (smooth scroll + stars)

Comments (19)

By st1mpy

Paladin (931)

25-03-2023, 11:54

Wow, I love all these smooth scroll enhancements.

By gdx

Enlighted (6209)

25-03-2023, 14:35

Nice FM music! (but MSX turbo R only)

Direct links:
StarSoldier-ss-v0.0.zip

StarSoldier-ss-v0.1.zip

By Imanok

Paragon (1200)

25-03-2023, 16:09

Great work! although maybe it's too fast now (at least testing in a TR).

BTW... I think it's interesting to point out you can switch on/off some of the features by pressing F1 at the title. You'll also find out a very cool option there: playing NES maps!

By Giangiacomo Zaffini 2

Champion (286)

25-03-2023, 19:50

I love to see this kind of enhancements!
I'll defenitely patch and test at least on openMSX.

By Manuel

Ascended (19462)

26-03-2023, 15:54

These 2 games seems quite similar. What's the relationship?

By The_Engineer

Master (192)

31-03-2023, 14:30

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Soldier
Star Soldier is a spiritual successor to Star Force.

By Rataplan

Champion (338)

01-04-2023, 19:13

What a great patch! Game seems to run a bit too fast on my stock 8250 though opposed to the original game. But it's creamy smooth!
What's the reason of the FM version being so slow? I can imagine the scrolling to take quite some cpu, but I never understood fm music is so taxing?

By st1mpy

Paladin (931)

04-04-2023, 13:04

It was mentioned that the fm sound code is just a music player, not specifically optimised for in game usage so that's probably the cause of slow down.

I heard that there are supposed to be some secret power ups when the ship goes underneath the ground like in the NES version, but the MSX version doesn't seem to have them, but as it is supposed to be a famicom port, there might be some dead code that aren't used.

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3444)

12-04-2023, 21:04

Thanks!

By igor.d.monteiro

Rookie (26)

16-04-2023, 21:48

Well, I'm glad this patch is out and thanks to the colleagues in Japan for coming together to make this happen. Star Soldier is special in Japan because of the legendary Takahashi Meijin, and I always found it unacceptable that MSX had such a bad version of such a good game, so I talked to colleagues and I asked them if it was possible to do that, and finally it went out.

Later, another colleague from Japan asked if it was possible to do the same with Super Laydock, but Mstz80ax warned us that the game's sidebar would prevent fine scrolling, and that this game should be rethought, along the lines of Aleste2 or Laydock 2 so that it could be feasible to do the same for Star Soldier. However I said that maybe it would be possible to do this with Gall Force, Mstz80ax agreed, but then it depends on the colleagues if they want to join again to see if this happens, or some other user with enough knowledge to join and make it happen.

By st1mpy

Paladin (931)

26-04-2023, 18:15

Is partial scrolling with fixed score board on one side not something that could be resolved? Super Laydock and msx1 Zanac is such a game, but I love to see them smooth scroll.

And Gall Force would be great!
For side scrolling, I'm waiting for R-type and Parodius.
How about Casio Gameland thing? And Raid on Bungeling Bay?
Actually, there are loads of others, like Twinbee.

By CASDuino

Champion (339)

08-05-2023, 21:08

0.2 Star Soldier patch has been uploaded

0.2 Star Soldier patch.

By f1r3b0y

Supporter (7)

09-05-2023, 20:03

Awesome work. We always dreamed with this type of update for such a great game!

P.D. Damn trap tiles! XD

By st1mpy

Paladin (931)

09-05-2023, 21:51

Very cool update with the big bosses.
Almost perfect, it's a shame about the Bonus text and scores black background stretching across the screen. I wonder if that's fixable.

By igor.d.monteiro

Rookie (26)

12-05-2023, 20:13

And Gall Force would be great!

-I think this would be very good, but it depends on the shoulders of the friends that are also programmers. I think we will have to wait...

I think R-TYPE would be a very very difficult one. THe game is not good overhall... and Parodius... not so much people are interested, but the secret stages are the most challenging...

I think the japanese users want to see the most popular games from their era, Gall Force had an anime, etc...

By igor.d.monteiro

Rookie (26)

12-05-2023, 20:17

st1mpy wrote:

Is partial scrolling with fixed score board on one side not something that could be resolved? Super Laydock and msx1 Zanac is such a game, but I love to see them smooth scroll.

We'd talked about SUper Laydock, but they said that the game should be quick and easy to adjust, and that scroll bar makes it impossible to do something at least possible. It should be completely rebuild to something like Laydock 2. It's just not optimal.

By igor.d.monteiro

Rookie (26)

12-05-2023, 20:20

CASDuino wrote:

0.2 Star Soldier patch has been uploaded

0.2 Star Soldier patch.

The best thing in my opinion is the secret bonuses that the Famicom had, and the Laser upgrade! Now it's almost like the "Caravan Stage" competition version! It's very very good, it's almost there. These secret things are the most interesting ones for me. To be possible to Rank and score like the Hudson championships of the past! Only the best of the best will win.

By igor.d.monteiro

Rookie (26)

12-05-2023, 20:29

igor.d.monteiro wrote:

And Gall Force would be great!

-I think this would be very good, but it depends on the shoulders of the friends that are also programmers. I think we will have to wait...

In my opinion, i've always wanted to see these games on MSX...