Analysis
Last Resort is a Science Fiction Shot 'Em Up and Bullet Hell Horizontal Side-Scroller Arcade Game. The game is developed on a futuristic enviorement where humans have Flying War Machines. As a Shot 'Em Up game, you'll have to fight lots of enemys, most of them dying in one or two hits, and as a Bullet Hell, you'll have to have a lot of reflexes and be dodging all the time if you want to survive.
Last Resort was mainly inspired on one of the previous big exists of the industry, R-Type. R-Type was a Arcade Game released by Irem 5 years before Last Resort and had very similar mechanics and Genre.
However the journey it doesn't start with the R-type always known alone, so we have to go back to the Commodore 64 to positioning us in the market.
- The king Denaris is one of the first games of this kind and use the same formula. The pod system is borrowed too, and the game on general aspects is simply the best side scroller shooter of C64 and Rtype clone.
- After, arrives Blood Money on the Amiga platform at 1989, a shooter side scroller too, wich the development team of DMA Design(and published by Psygnosis) work too hard to put in scene all the technology advantatges of the time. The game also success in sales selling over 40.000 copies. After being released on Amiga architecture, the game also arrives at Atari ST, MsDos and later on 1990 at Commodore 64 too. The animations of the game would later inspire the development of game Lemmings! Other curiosity is one of the bosses are copy pasted of the RtypeII.
- Other similar game wich its have succesful recognition too, is Andro Dunos, relesed on 1992 for the NeoGeo platform, in this you assume the role of a Bio-Cyborg with his power and accessories.
- X-Multiply, other of the genre masters. Released on September 1989 for the arcade machines in japanese region, after arrives to sega saturn (1998) and playstation too. In this game literally inject alien parasites inside a living human host and a minitaturized spaceship must stop the infection. However, instead of the "unit, or wich its named in Rtype Option "ball" in this we have two flexible tentacles invulnerable to all enemy attacks.
- And here we attach some interesting screenshots of more similar games:
In this legendary side scroller shooter, we found direct influencies of the manga and anime Akira. The developers drinks directly of its influence.
- In its first level is clearly inspired in its city, the skylines, lights and the color palette we remember us its city of the very known anime.
- At the end of the same level, our spaceship travels over the same movie crater, they share the same crater shadow too.
- For last, on the second level of the game we can see a destroyec city, identical of Neo-Tokyo after Tetstuo explosion, like on the first level, the implemented color palette its the same.
- Main Processor: Motorola 68000 (12 MHz)
- Secondary Processor: Zilog Z80 (4 MHz)
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RAM: 214 KB SRAM
- Main 68000 RAM: 64 KB (32 KB SRAM ×2)
- Video RAM: 84 KB SRAM
- Main VRAM: 64 KB (32 KB SRAM ×2)
- Palette memory: 16 KB (8 KB SRAM ×2)
- Fast video sprite RAM: 4 KB (2 KB SRAM ×2)
- Z80 sound RAM: 2 KB SRAM
- Battery-backup save NVRAM: 64 KB SRAM
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On-board ROM: 512 KB
- Zoom look-up table: 128 KB
- Fix layer graphics: 128 KB
- Z80 sound: 128 KB
- 68000 BIOS: 128 KB
The custom chipset implemented by SNK allow to draw sprites in vertical strips of 16 pixels wide, can draw 96 sprites per scanline and 380 sprites at a time on screen. The neogeo system does not use tilemap backgrounds layers, instead it has a non scrolling tilemap called "the fix layer", by laying multiple sprites side by side, the sistem simulates a tilemap background. The sprite systems represents one more step between sprites and tilemaps. This subject we make us crazy on the extraction process of the sprites and "tilemaps".
- GPU chipset:[27]
* SNK LSPC2-A2 (line sprite generator & VRAM interface) @ 24 MHz
* SNK PRO-B0 (palette arbiter)
* SNK PRO-A0, NEO-B1, NEO-GRC
- GPU graphics data bus: 24-bit
- Display resolution: 320×224 px (many games only use the centermost 304 px), progressive scan
- Color palette: 65,536 (16-bit) (not RGB565, but RGB666, where the lowest bit of each channel is shared with one bit)[26]
- Maximum colors on screen: 4096 (12-bit)
- Maximum sprites on screen: 380
- Minimum sprite size: 16×16 px
- Maximum sprite size: 16×512 px
- Maximum sprites per scanline: 96
- Maximum sprite pixels per scanline: 1536 px
- Static tilemap plane: 1 (512×256 px fix layer)
- Scrolling tilemap planes: 1-3 (optional, using sprites), with line & column scroll effects[26][32]
- Aspect ratio: 4:3
- A/V output: RF, composite video/RCA audio, RGB (with separate 21 pin RGB cable FCG-9, or European standard RGB SCART cable).
Utilises a onboard Yamaha YM2610 sound chip and can achieve 15 channels of sound.
- 4 concurrent FM channels (voices), four operators per channel
- 3 SSG channels
- 1 programmable noise channel
- ADPCM-A: 6 ADPCM channels, 18.5 kHz sampling rate, 12-bit audio depth
- ADPCM-B: 1 ADPCM channel, 1.85–55.5 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit audio depth
- 2 interval timers
- 1 low frequency oscillator (LFO)
- Sound/Work RAM: 2KB
- Sound ROM: 128 KB on-board (only less than 32 KB used), up to 512 KB sound ROM on cartridges
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Power
Source: separate DC 5 V (older systems) and DC 9 V adapter (newer systems). Consumption: 8 W older Systems, 5 W newer Systems
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Dimensions
Console: 325 mm (width) × 237 mm (depth) × 60 mm (height). Controller: 280 mm (width) × 190 mm (depth) × 95 mm (height).
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Neo Geo Memory Card
Removable memory card: 2KB or 68-pin JEIDA ver. 3 spec memory. Any 68-pin memory that fits the JEIDA ver. 3 spec will work.
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Arcade storage
Removable memory card: 68-pin. Cartridge is composed of 2 PCBs.
The specifications for the size of the roms are 330megabits, for this reason at init the system is displayed a splash screen showing this message:
and is the first console to implement a removable memory card for saved games.
- Memory Card
- Game cartridge (and unbox)
Last Resort was released and published by SNK, created in 1978. 
Last Resort was created by a team formed by the designers Yoshio Shimizo, Mitsuo Kodama, Tatsuya Shinkai, Toshimi Tanaka, Khozoh Nagashima, Hajime Itoh, Senaroh Hotta, Sahori Etoh and Eri Kohjitani; Toshio Shimizm and tate Norio at Sound Team, Takefumi Yamamoto on the programming sector and Yasumi Tozo as producer. SNK also published the game.
Versions:
- Its first release was in March 23rd of 1992 in USA, and in April 24th of the same year in Japan on Neo Geo System.
- Afterwards, it was ported to PS2, PSP and Wii on 2008 and 2009.
- And the last year, in 2017, the studio named Hamster Corporation was in charge of the release Last Resort worldwide for PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
The game's plot address about a computer revolution attack in a far future. Humans have developed technology for space colonization but a virus infects all computers, including the Earth's defence, to make a war againts humans.