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Factor 5 reacquires Turrican license (Interview with Factor 5 founder)

Fularu

Banned
Honest question

Do we really want a Turrican without any Manfred Trentz involvement?

Because after Turrican 2 the games went south prety badly
 

Lutherian

Member
From the excellent Turrican SETA website :

The german Factor 5 bought all trademarks from the bankcrupt THQ, including Turrican and they would like to make a new Turrican. Even Manfred Trenz would be on board and Chris Huelsbeck asks him when they´ll start every two weeks. But it wouln´t be as simple as making a kickstarter and collecting the money, the´ll just have find the time.

http://www.nemmelheim.de/turrican/
 

TheMoon

Member
Wow, not trying to be snarky but I had no idea that Factor 5 was alive. That's great news!

Well yea ...because that's the news here. They re-registered Factor 5 as a company just a week ago. There was really no way you could have known lol.
 

Shiggy

Member
Well yea ...because that's the news here. They re-registered Factor 5 as a company just a week ago. There was really no way you could have known lol.

That is not correct. They renamed an existing company, and that happened last month. In reality, nothing has changed though. They've held the Turrican license for a long time* and haven't done anything with it.

*checking right now for how long
 

TheMoon

Member
That is not correct. They renamed an existing company, and that happened last month. In reality, nothing has changed though. They've held the Turrican license for almost a decade and haven't done anything with it.

He said in the podcast that the registration went through just a couple of days ago.
 

Z..

Member
Honest question

Do we really want a Turrican without any Manfred Trentz involvement?

Because after Turrican 2 the games went south prety badly
They really, really, REALLY didn't. Mega, both Supers (NES/SNES) and Super 2 were all awesome (and for different reasons). Not as mindblowing, but fantastic none the less.

What I really want is a T2 remaster. Collision invulnerability and other such QOL enhancements have always been sorely needed to perfect this gem.
 

retroman

Member
Awesome news! I'd love to see a new Turrican.

Make it look like this please:

turrican_by_jnkboy-d735lqp.png
 

Shiggy

Member
He said in the podcast that the registration went through just a couple of days ago.

The name change of Factor V Media Production GmbH into Factor 5 GmbH was brought up to the registry office on Feb 14 and published on Feb 21. Factually that was simply renaming an existing company.


Factor 5 - Eggebrecht, Engel, Schmidt GbR got the Turrican trademark on May 12, 2011 already. They bought it from Sabreclash Incorporated for 1000 USD (same happened with 'Factor 5', 'Katakis' and 'MusyX' trademarks).

Who is Sabreclash Incorporated? They purchased the trademarks from WhiteHarvest, LLC on September 8, 2010. WhiteHarvest, LLC was BluHarvest, LLC until February 5, 2009. BluHarvest, LLC purchased the aforementioned assets on December 8, 2008 - from Factor 5 Inc. That company was granted the trademark in 2004, after applying for it in 2002.

So what happened here? The Factor 5 owners apparently quickly sold Factor 5 assets (incl. the Turrican trademarks) to WhiteHarvest, LLC. That company continued working on some Wii games, e.g. that Wii Flight game and the Wii port of Brutal Legend, after the closure of Factor 5, Inc. Sabreclash, just like BluHarvest/WhiteHarvest the name is a reference to Star Wars, is also just the same thing under a different umbrella. It all looks a bit dodgy - they seemingly tried to "rescue" those Factor 5, Inc. assets from creditors.

In the end, they never really lost the Turrican trademark in all those years. What happened with assets to Rogue Squadron assets/source code after the sale to WhiteHarvest, LLC? Those were also sold to Sabreclash Incorporated, the sales agreement heavily points towards that even if the respective part in the sale agreement is partly blacked out.


______

So, basically nothing has changed.
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
The Turrican Collection, all 3 Amiga games remastered in that swanky 2.5D style...

I'd sell a kidney to buy that if I ran out of money.
 

Santar

Member
Hopefully they can make something great out of Turrican. The games never clicked with me even though I've played most of them.
The shooting and platforming just didn't feel great, it felt like the enemies were made of air, just not fun to shoot stuff to me. Which is a bit of a problem in a shoot'em up sidescroller.
The games did have a lot of great music though :)
 

Fularu

Banned
They really, really, REALLY didn't. Mega, both Supers (NES/SNES) and Super 2 were all awesome (and for different reasons). Not as mindblowing, but fantastic none the less.

What I really want is a T2 remaster. Collision invulnerability and other such QOL enhancements have always been sorely needed to perfect this gem.
There's a reason why people remember Turrican and Turrican 2 fondly and none of the following 3 games.

Turrican 3 (mega) was average at best, Super Turrican had incredibly tiny levels with little to no exploration elements (a huge driving factor of the success of previous Turrican games) and Super 2 was just only slightly better in that regard.

They had the Turrican name but none of the DNA.
 

Fularu

Banned
Fuck rereleasing the older Turricans if the best one (MEGA TURRICAN) isn't included.
That game is available on Wii VC (and thus the Wii U VC through backward emulation).

Unless it has been delisted of course.

And you need to play the previous 2 if you believe that's the best game in the franchise :p (preferably on Amiga and not the garbage Genesis/MD versions).
 

Gattsu25

Banned
That game is available on Wii VC (and thus the Wii U VC through backward emulation).

Unless it has been delisted of course.

And you need to play the previous 2 if you believe that's the best game in the franchise :p (preferably on Amiga and not the garbage Genesis/MD versions).
I'm not talking about expensive individual releases like VC, was more referring to the collection of old games that you typically see from developers that are more cost-conscious to the consumer like Capcom (as bad as they are, they're no Nintendo who easily takes the top spot for developer most willing to empty the pockets of their fans when releasing older content).
 

Turrican3

Member
They really, really, REALLY didn't. Mega, both Supers (NES/SNES) and Super 2 were all awesome (and for different reasons). Not as mindblowing, but fantastic none the less.
Eh, to each his own I guess. *shrugs*

To me Super Turrican 2 is an extremely bad Turrican game.
Easily one of the worst ones I've ever played, and arguably among the most forgettable, uninspired Chris Huelsbeck's jobs so far (bar two or three songs)

Super Turrican (SNES) and Mega Turrican/Turrican3 are fine, but hardly as "free" in exploration as Turrican 1-2 on the Amiga (still the best ones IMHO)
 

Z..

Member
There's a reason why people remember Turrican and Turrican 2 fondly and none of the following 3 games.

Turrican 3 (mega) was average at best, Super Turrican had incredibly tiny levels with little to no exploration elements (a huge driving factor of the success of previous Turrican games) and Super 2 was just only slightly better in that regard.

They had the Turrican name but none of the DNA.

I mostly agree with you. None of the DNA is an overstatement as quite a lot of it was there, but I understand exactly what you mean and agree. How that makes them bad or inferior by any stretch of the word's definition I do wonder, though... Radical departure has brought us games like Resi 4 and SotC, different clearly does not equate to bad.

The reason people don't remember the sequels fondly is mostly down to the fact that the Amiga/C64 crowd that the game had a cult following with did not, for the most part, transition onto consoles and as such their core audience wasn't there which got reflected in the sales. The games aren't Contra 3/HC or Gunstar Heroes level of quality, but they're the very best second tier run'n'gun gems from the 16bit gen and that is saying QUITE a lot.

Any negative will towards such harmlessly decent products is pure confirmation bias at work, either because too much was changed like here or because not enough was like with Golden Axe 1 constantly getting the crown over 3 (not including RoDA, obviously) merely because it came out first when these days it's as clear as day that GA3 is a markedly superior product.

Turrican 2 is a fantastic game that is unrivaled within the series, but I'd pick Mega or Super (SNES) over Turrican 1 every single time. For everything T1 and 2 get right there's a "euro platformer niggle" to go along with it and while 2 may be excellent on an aggressive enough level to supplant such issues, the first Turrican is not something I actively enjoyed revisiting.

Do bear in mind I was forbidden from gaming until 16 (at which point I bought a Dreamcast with my savings and never looked back) and as such all my impressions stem from first playing all 6 games in this order T1->T2->ST(NES)->ST(SNES)->MT->ST2 for the very first time just last year. Have since gone back to fully replay the series but lost interest early on with T1,NES ST and ST2. Fully replayed T2 ( twice!),MT and SNES ST, though, and can see myself coming back for more.
 

Fredrik

Member
^
I think Turrican 1 is great, the level design is quite unique since you go so far both vertically and horizontally, love how the background go darker when you're fa far down and brighter higher up, honestly can't really pinpont what should be bad about it, mabe the later "alien" levels since you got lost far too easy but all in all it's up there right beside Turrican 2 imo.
 

Z..

Member
^
I think Turrican 1 is great, the level design is quite unique since you go so far both vertically and horizontally, love how the background go darker when you're fa far down and brighter higher up, honestly can't really pinpont what should be bad about it, mabe the later "alien" levels since you got lost far too easy but all in all it's up there right beside Turrican 2 imo.

There's nothing bad about it at all, did not mean to give that impression but everything it does gets improved upon exponentially in the sequel and they end up feeling like very similar games with one of them clearly being the more polished product of the 2. Well, lies, the eurojank is annoying and just straight up bad, but that comes with the territory when Amiga/C64/ZXS/Amstrad games are concerned and is something we all agree on anyway, so in the relative context of this discussion... there is nothing bad about it.
Regardless, 2 essentially rendered 1 completely pointless for me by supplanting it completely in every way (think Neutopia 2), where as MT and ST have their own thing going on and end up feeling like products that are more satisfactorily tied together and which provide a more unique experience despite their new (arguably inferior) direction, especially since the jank disappeared after 2.
 
I'm in just for the Hülsbeck soundtrack. The Turrican Soundtrack Anthology has been one of my most listened to albums since it was released (and I'm happy my name is listed in the booklet xP)
 

Fularu

Banned
The reason people don't remember the sequels fondly is mostly down to the fact that the Amiga/C64 crowd that the game had a cult following with did not, for the most part, transition onto consoles and as such their core audience wasn't there which got reflected in the sales. The games aren't Contra 3/HC or Gunstar Heroes level of quality, but they're the very best second tier run'n'gun gems from the 16bit gen and that is saying QUITE a lot.

Any negative will towards such harmlessly decent products is pure confirmation bias at work, either because too much was changed like here or because not enough was like with Golden Axe 1 constantly getting the crown over 3 (not including RoDA, obviously) merely because it came out first when these days it's as clear as day that GA3 is a markedly superior product.
I disagree for two obvious reasons :

The Amiga/C64 crowds mostly went to Sega in the 90s (the Megadrive was closest in terms on catalogue to what you could find on those computers) but the reason Mega Turrican Bombed was because the Amiga version c (T3) came out a good 6 months before it (despite beeing a port of it).

Super Turrican and Super turrican 2 were given plenty of changes but they're Turrican games only in name and not in how they play and how they're designed. I don't mind design changes but compared to the masterpiece that Turrican 2 was (is), they feel like poor products, and rightfully so.

I'm glad you enjoyed Turrican 2 so long after its release... bear in mind though that I played it when it released back in 1990 and have (and possess) played every single Turrican game bar the GB/Nes/PCE ones, even the dreadfull MD ports (incoming Black Falcon 300 lines post telling me how good Universal soldier really is).
 

Lutherian

Member
I was glad to see Kim Justice's retrospective on the Turrican saga, because like she said : I too, love Turrican 2 and even Mega / 3, but I also love Super Turrican 1 and 2. And even Super Turrican on NES (no timer and you can run but there's one BIG catch : there's no checkpoints !). They're different but they're not bad games (hell, Super Turrican 2 delivered in a lot of things).

I also like Rendering Ranger a lot.
 

Electret

Member
Never would I have expected to see that F5 is still around and has cleaned up Turrican licensing issues. Amazing stuff.

I can't be the only one who remembers Turrican 64/Thornado, right? I remember they released a demo track running on N64's audio that sounded a generation ahead any other music produced for the system. What a technically talented studio.

Hoping to see the fruits of new development from them soon. I wonder if they'll develop for PS4/XB1.
 

Lutherian

Member
Never would I have expected to see that F5 is still around and has cleaned up Turrican licensing issues. Amazing stuff.

I can't be the only one who remembers Turrican 64/Thornado, right? I remember they released a demo track running on N64's audio that sounded a generation ahead any other music produced for the system. What a technically talented studio.

Hoping to see the fruits of new development from them soon. I wonder if they'll develop for PS4/XB1.

I can't count how many times I checked F5's website to listen to a demo music Chris Huëlsbeck did for Thornado (hint : it was cool). I was starving, like it was the only game I hoped for on GameCube after the N64 one got cancelled. I searched for every bit of information from Factor 5, getting some answers by Chris himself that F5 got impressed by Metroid Prime and might do a Turrican with some Metroid Prime elements (and the artworks from the cancelled Turrican: Cyclone seems to be very inspired by the first Metroid Prime).
 

ReyVGM

Member
Poor guys have been trying to make a new Turrican since the N64 days (called Thornado). Hopefully they'll be able to make one now, and hopefully it's 2D goodness.
 

Guy.brush

Member
Poor guys have been trying to make a new Turrican since the N64 days (called Thornado). Hopefully they'll be able to make one now, and hopefully it's 2D goodness.

I think both Turrican 3D, then Thornado for N64 and Project Cyclone for PS3 were all 3rd person action games though.
Personally I would love nothing more than a clever 2D shooter, with some nice 2.5D elements. I would be fine with 3d assets feeding that 2D level design vs. actually doing it in retro pixel art.
And then utilizing the 2D nature so we can have boolean destruction to environments, or acid ripping through them, going nuts with vfx. Turrican 1&2 both featured destroyable tiles but it could be sooo much more with modern tech.
 
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