Heading Downtown - Color

Original: [link]

Artist:

Trouble Shooter/Battle Mania © Vic Tokai

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Recommended Tracks From the 2nd Game (Japan Only)
Pick Me Up, Boy! [link]
Curry and Rice (seems to only play @ 480p) [link]
Mighty Gals II [link]
Creeping Thing [link]

Trouble Shooter (or Battle Mania as it's known in Japan) is a 2D horizontal "shoot 'em up" that has familiar in-universe elements to Haruka Takachiho's Dirty Pair series in that the main characters are barely out of high school and are already top agents, then there's the "Brash Girl and Girly Girl" team dynamic between the two. I suppose you can also compare the game to Capcom's "Forgotten Worlds" if you want to go all Shmup nerd on me. The first game's so-so (maybe a tad cruel for some) but oh my god, the sequel is pure nirvana (more for an example of REALLY GOOD MEGADRIVE GAMES than the textbook example of its genre, still a fine learning curve) even if you're not a seasoned shooter game person.

Technically the game has you on jetpacks 99% of the time (cept for that one part with the train), so I thought "What if there was an underwater level?" and had this made. For some reason, "Bioshock" comes to mind for this underwater city. Guess part of that comes from me going technicolor on the buildings when I wasn't feeling the plain bluish gray.

Oh and the characters. The blonde girl is Mania "Madison" Ohtori and the blue haired one is Maria "Crystal" Haneda (Yeah, I canonized the names from both regions. What of it?)

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-The diving mask designs are derived from the gas masks used in the original Dirty Pair anime. [link]

-Maria's swimsuit appears in-game [link] Mania's in fanart [link]

-Attempted faux translucency on the flippers because of the real life base called for it [link] granted the ones in the artwork are less glossy and have a suggested texture similar to frosted glass or Yokan but I think it works better.

-Don't ask me how a rifle or bazooka are supposed to work underwater. Shoot 'em up game logic is weird what with its half spaceship girls, cat battleships, giant schoolgirls, lolis that stop time and planets made of organs. Anything goes.