Page Content

1.Genre

2.Similar games

3.Technical Profile

4.History of the game

5.External Links

Genre

Last Resort is a sci-fi horizontally scrolling Shoot 'em up game, which means that the character moves forward automatically (in a horizontal direction in this case) - usually in a spaceship or any kind of flying vehicle - while shooting large numbers of enemies and dodging their attacks. This type of genre requires reflexes, fast answers and memorize levels and enemy behavior.

The genre's origins come from the video game developed in 1962, Spacewar! Then the games such Space Invaders and Asteroids popularized the genre.

Similar games

• R-Type was produced by Irem in 1987. The player drives a space fighter named R-9 to fight against an alien life-form known as "Bydo". The user controls a spacecraft and has to move over the terrain and fight enemies with the spaceship's guns. The gameplay of Last Resort was inspired by the gameplay of R-Type, especially, the orange ball named Force (in R-Type) and High Orbital Unit (in Last Resort) that can be moved around and use it as a robot drone.

• Katakis was developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts. The game is about a human colony located in space, which is in a planet named Katakis. There, the scientists created machines with advanced Artificial Intelligence, and such thing drives to the intent to control the humans and conquer the planet. The humans tried to hit back, but the machines survived, and so, the last chance for the colonists is to send an space glider to take control of the planet again. Katakis, similar to R-Type, has, multiple levels, power-ups and final bosses at the end of each level. The innovation of katakis was that they brought a new feature where two players were able to play at the same time, one controlling the ship and the other one the Force module. Also, we will see that the stories are similar.

• Akira, although is not a game, it has been also an inspiration for Last Resort. Is an animated movie based on the manga until the point that the first two levels of the game are very similar to some Akira's shots.

Akira's and Last Resort's skylines

Akira's and Last Resort's craters

We can see that, in level 1, the skyline of the city in the background and the crater from which the boss comes out have a resemblance with an Akira's skyline of a city and a crater.

Also we can see in the next images the last similarity between both works in the second level of the game and another skyline of a destroyed city in the animated movie.

Technical Profile

We have used the technical profile for the Neo Geo system as is the supposed console that we are developing for and the first one for which the game was released. There's also a later release for Neo Geo CD and also ports to different modern consoles. We'll see it later.

CPU: Central Processor Motorola 68000 running at 12MHz and Coprocessor Zilog Z80 at 4MHz.

Neo-Geo Motherboard

Memory: It had 214KB of RAM. 64KB were from the main Motorola 68000 Processor, 84KB from VRAM, 64KB from battery-backup save NVRAM (a memory that saves information when power is turned off so data could be saved in case that the electric flow is interrupted), and 2KB from the Z80.

Storage: Removable Memory Card of 8Kb for saving the match. The game weights 45Mb.

Neo-Geo AES Memory Card

Sound: Sound chip Yamaha YM2610 working also with Yamaha YM3016 sound chip.

Display: SNK video chip allowed to draw sprites in vertical strips of 16 pixels wide and from 16 to 512 pixels tall. It could draw, as maximum, 96 sprites per scanline. It didn't used scrolling tilemap for the backgrounds and, instead, used a single non-scrolling tilemap (the fix layer, of 512x256 pixels). This represented a step between conventional sprites vs tilemaps.

Original resolution (Neo-Geo CD): 320x224 in mode NTSC and 320x256 in mode PAL (two systems of analog TV).

Aspect Ratio: 4:3. Horizontal monitor.

Frames per second: 59.599 fps in NTSC AES system, 50.429 fps in PAL AES system and 59.1856 fps in MVS system. You can see the calculations here and more details here.

Colors: 65,536 in the palette and 3840 colors simultaneously on screen.

Power: DC 5V in the older systems with a 8W consumption and DC 9V adapter in the newer systems with a 5W consumption.

Maximum sprites simultaneously in screen: 381

Sprites Size: 16x16 (minimum) 16x512 (maximum).

Dimensions: Console dimensions are 325x237x60 mm and controller dimensions are 280x190x95 mm.

Hardware: The arcade version of the hardware is named MVS (Multi Video System), capable of loading up to 6 slots in the same machine. On the other hand, the console version of the hardware is called AES (Advanced Entertainment System). Both can execute identical machine code, the difference was the price, and a pinout preventing the arcade machines operators from buying a cheaper home version.

NOTE: We have found a conflict about the number of colors that Neo-Geo hold simultaneously on the screen. In one hand, we have seen that many pages like Wikipedia or The Arcade Museum System 16 uses the Neo Geo Hardware Specification (2nd page) as a source to state that Neo-Geo actually holds 4096 colors. But, as we can see in the own Hardware Specification, it literally puts "4096 colors simultaneously color display (15 colors * 256 palettes)", and the result of 15x256 is 3840. Also, in the Neo-Geo Development Wiki, concretelly in the palettes section, says that this number is 3840 (and they do the operation 15*256), but, quoting "without the timing interrupt". RedPill has decided to make a mention on this so we don't know which information is correct as we do not have the adequate knowledge to understand all the concepts that come into play. END OF NOTE

History of the game

Last Resort was released by SNK in 1992 with a month of difference between the releases of Neo Geo MVS (March) and Neo Geo AES (April). The company was a Japanese video game hardware and software producer and was founded on July 22, 1978, by Eikichi Kawasaki.

SNK (Shin Nihon Kikaku which literally is New Japan Project) well-known for being the creators of the Neo Geo family of arcade, home, and handheld consoles. Unluckily were forced to close due to financial problems, but Kawasaki anticipated the crysis and founded Playmore Corporation which acquired all the intellectual properties of SNK Corporation, keeping the company's continuity and brand legacy.

Last resort was released at first for the arcade machines and Neo Geo systems, as we said, in 1992 in Japan and also in USA. Two years later was also released for the Neo Geo CD console in Japan. The USA didn't play it until 1995.

There are also two ports for PS2, PSP and Wii (in Australia was only available in PS2) published worldwide in 2008, the SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 and for PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch released, also worldwide, in 2017.

All the game versions and ports were released in the different countries mentioned in the same moment more or less but, as maximum, with some months of difference (except the Neo Geo CD version).

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