shmups.system11.org

Which ones appeal to you more than all the others, and why?

I've been playing all kinds of shooters for a few years now, and enjoy the various styles to varying degrees. What made me think of making this post however, was recently discovering Esprade. It all just clicks for me really, its a shame I never discovered it earlier. The scoring system is fun for me, not as punishing as DDP or Guwange(lenient but all it takes is one mistake to lose a huge score), not as confusing as ketsui(for me at least), but more than just collecting medals. The secondary shot with a cooldown that makes bubbles(lol) I also find has a very satisfying motion to it.

Also the music I like, years ago a friendly member from this forum sent me a bunch of dvds(I can't remember the name but he made a website called plasma blossom I think? If you're still here, or anyone knows gimme a shout!) including an Esprade superplay. After playing the game recently and hearing the boss music I was just like WOW... I actually remembered the music from the boss fights more than the gameplay or graphics, very catchy indeed.

The theme also appeals to me, Akira is the one anime film that I really loved, and the characters in this remind me of tetsuo hehe


I also enjoy the gold collecting in Guwange, and the art/music style. DDP is very satisfying when you link it all together.

Zanac Neo. Although it's one of the PSX games broken on the PS2 (extra laggy controls), I could play it literally all day long, with said input lag. Mesmerising.
Dangun Feveron - no other game by Cave clicked with me this way. I liked it before I knew what the score system is about, and even more once I knew.
Raiden III - again, a shmup that just worked for me.

Going to look into Dangun Feveron

This thread might be a good source of inspiration for people to try new shooters I thinks.

Progear - It's pretty, the scoring system is easy to understand to me, there's multiple strategies to score, and I love all the gem sounds when you collect points.
Pink Sweets Arrange - I don't know WHY this clicks with me to be honest. Other Yagawa games like Battle Backraid drive me crazy when I try to play for score, yet with Pink Sweets Arrange it's just really addictive trying to keep the multiplier going. Maybe it has to do with actually being able to see the time counter for your multiplier in it.
M.U.S.H.A. - I played it when I was really young and I still think it's awesome. It's simple, yet it has enough complexity with being able to have different weapons and option formations that it feels like I'm in control of more than moving around and holding the shoot button.

There are other games that kinda clicked with me years ago, such as Super R-Type, but after playing it again I realized how much it angers me.

it's easier to tell which ones do not click

Although I cleared Espgaluda, it never clicked even for a moment. It's a "good" game though.
Raiden Fighters. I don't like all the excessive secrets and shit.
Ikaruga's memorizer chaining crap.
Recca is terribly overrated.

Akai Katana hooked me in a big way. Played that nearly non-stop for a solid week day-in/day-out. I think the music was a big factor and how the levels and bosses had a bit more meat to them compared to most other bullet hells.



Hells yes! I just got my ESPRaDe PCB this week, to prepare for the event I watched the first Ghost in the Shell movie and Akira

I think the theme and setting of RaDe is really quite a mixure of the two. That midboss who enters the screen with optical camouflage is definitely GitS inspired. The psychic kids flying around blowing everything up, well, that's obviously Akira.



ITA, it's a very addictive and well done mode, dare I say an improvement on 1.00/1.01. The main draw is that it's not damn near impossible like the original mode is (from stage 5 onward).

Dangun Feveron, ESP Ra.De, Brave Blade, Raiden Fighters Jet, XII Stag, Dragon Blaze, Kingdom Grandprix, Dimahoo, Ketsui... i guess i'm simply into fairly fast-moving shooters with really gratifying scoring systems. things that make you juggle items around the screen or manage what you're doing in some way, fidgeting around like an idiot

i'm not particularly good at any of these games, they're just the most fun for me

i'm also very partial to classic stuff like ALCON, simply because they're so charming, straightforward, and quick to play!

D-F-K

Galuda 2

When played as a shooter Psyvariar 2.

Im a huge fan of mecha and steampunk.

If it's a shooter with a dark and slightly creepy or oppressive atmosphere I'll probably like it. The music is really important, too. Battle Garegga, Guwange, and the Darius and R-Type series are favorites.

Definitely prefer 2D over 3D graphics.

In terms of game system I don't like very strict scoring mechanics, such as DDPDOJ/DFK, Mars Matrix, and Dimahoo, but apart from these I'm open to many different styles.

Futari 1.5

Couldn't tell you exactly why, but more than any other this game this just got under my skin. After years of holding off this was the game that insipired me to get a Japanese 360 and start importing the titles I'd been hoping would see a local release.

Thuderforce IV on the megadrive

No idea how many times I played this through.

R-Type on the master system

Probably where my love of the genre can be traced back to.

I can't think of anything quite as insidious or addictive as Daifukkatsu 1.5 scoring. There really is nothing like a full 2000 oku chain of DFK's 1-5.

Beyond that, Futari 1.5's Original/Ultra modes for their elegant systems, DOJBL for the fun chains and Strikers 1999/Gunbird 2 for the beautifully simple scoring/survival.

DDP, DOJ, and DFK 1.5 scoring I find to just be frustrating. I've said it before, but I'd rather play Ikaruga for score than any DoDonPachi game(outside of DFK BL which is brilliant). Note: I will never play Ikaruga for score.

Overly strict scoring is one of the reasons I don't play Dimahoo either as the survival challenge looks great, but the scoring is more strict than a DoDonPachi game, and most of the high scores for this forum seem to be more based on luck than actual timing. Admittedly, if I was able to get the extends, maybe I'd bother with Dimahoo.

I do like DOJ still as a survival gameplay experience. DFK BL makes DFK fun for me though.


Huge bullet cancel fan here. Just something extremely satisfying of cancelling a ridiculous bullet pattern for lots of points. Futari's God Mode is amazing, and I really should try to get back to it. And even Original mode is pretty fun too. ESPGaluda II, I'm not good at yet either, but cancelling bullets, causing more bullets, then cancelling those. Eden's Aegis is pretty decent too, even if I don't play it enough. I do have a lot of stuff left to get back into. I do want to get the God mode 1cc, 300+ million 1.5 Original 1cc(very possible since my best is a LX0 270 million, though I'll need to relearn stuff), Galuda II 1cc, some Eden's Aegis scores up on the scoreboards. But I'm mainly focusing on DFK BL now.


Also a huge fan of Judgment SilverSword for some reason. I'd like to 1cc both Normal and Hard this year. Normal seems likely if I don't neglect the game as I did get to area 31 at the end of last year(though haven't really played since), but Hard probably won't.

Muchi Muchi Pork is still pretty fun. I do ignore boss milking since it'd just make me hate the game if I tried, but it's pretty fun if you just play it normally.

Also really like Gradius/Parodius even if I'm complete garbage at all of them.


There's not really anything in particular. If I find a game fun, I'll play it. Otherwise I won't.


I used to like Raiden Fighters Jet, but I pretty much hate the game now. Several other games did that to me too.

What elegant system? Ultra is entirely strict route memorization and thus making for a translucent scoring mechanic.

As for myself, I like DOJ WL, the Mushi series, Pink Sweets and PlatineDispositif's game design.

Chaining systems are very much entirely strict route memorization also. But DOJ is definitely more open in terms of survival routes than Ultra is.


As for Platine Dispositif, I don't really care for Gundemonium Recollection, GundeadliGne is great, and I'm not really sure about Hitogata Happa yet.

Hitogata Happa is surprisingly nice because outside of Stage 0, you don't have to suicide in order to 1cc since several of the dolls are powerful enough to beat the bosses with their shots, and on Destiny 13 mode you don't have to suicide at all since you can select Sikkim or Lovers for Stage 0 which is more than powerful enough for the boss. I do have no idea how to distribute the 112 dolls you can get in a run during the maingame though. Of course, I'm playing on Euridice at the moment, so I'm not sure if suiciding becomes necessary on higher ones. I've never had a problem with suiciding in an STG as a scoring mechanic, though it's not something I prefer. My complaints about it have always been more about the rank control thing, which isn't an issue with this game.

On the subject of Destiny 13, I have no idea how you would clear Nobilmente, Allemande, or Doomsday cause I just don't understand how you could beat the TLB with only 1 of each doll(and that's in the unlikely case you no missed to it). I can't even beat the TLB with more dolls than that.

The system is entirely 'shoot enemies with the shot or laser depending on the counter and try to cancel lots of bullets'. That's all there is to it in both modes; none of Maniac's chaining and cashing in or semi-hidden systems such as DFK 1.5's hit count multipliers. Simplicity is elegance - the extreme form of this in Cave games is DDP's system. It's similarly immediately simple and obvious what the objective is, but actually achieving it is incredibly hard.

Ultra's stages are of course entirely rote-memorized; this is nothing to do with the system, it's simply a side effect of how difficult and relentless Ultra is. A wrong move will spell your death rather than some kind of scoring system inefficiency which may happen in say, Ketsui, if you lock-shot an enemy which has a low base point value. The system is one of the simplest Cave has come up with outside of 'Pachi games.

Outside of this, I would argue that almost every shmup turns into rote memorization for the majority of the game if you intend to get a high enough score. Of course there may be points with random elements in the patterns, but a good knowledge of the game is going to be extremely beneficial for achieving a high score.

Gunbird 2
Mars Matrix
DFK 1.5

A combination of aesthetic, music, and scoring.

Lately I've been really digging Ketsui, Zero Wing and Vimana. Really, any old Toaplan game clicks with me. I'm not good at any of them, but I just love the gameplay and the beautiful graphics in al of them.

I don't really care for the other two games, but you should check out the other games Murasame's made, not just the ones released on Steam. Like Space Dynagon, which plays a lot like Kikikaikai does. He recently made a Space Harrier style game. They all have the same feel, usually in tribute towards something, such as how Happa heavily tributes towards various other shooters (one doll says "shinugayoi" when bombing, one has a toothpaste laser from Raiden, one boss is Black Heart from Garegga, Rooty is obviously derived from Psyvariar, etc).

The TLB doesn't appear unless you meet the 112 doll requirement, so I'm pretty sure Destiny13 doesn't have it (13 dolls maximum). I use Lovers for Kreuzter, mostly. As for Destiny13 Doomsday though, I have no idea.



What I'm trying to say is, bullet cancelling in Ultra is not done for score, but survival. Scoring is just part of it, many of the top replays don't stall the first midboss for score, it's just too risky for example. I guess I would play it more but it's rather disheartening dying 20 times to the first midboss before having a proper run. It even happens to a lot of the Ultra players I watch streaming. Actually the firs midboss isn't that bad with Normal Reco, though Abnormal Palm is ultimately a better character, the leaderboards speak for themselves.

The strategy guide here on this forum says that she always appears on Solo Voyage and Destiny 13, but only on Nobilmente or higher.

I'm obviously not skilled enough at the game to actually try those seriously yet. I did get to Area 3 on Nobilmente Destiny 13 once or twice, but some of the boss patterns can easily take dolls away from you. I did get to the final boss final form on Destiny 13 Euridice once but blew it. But she doesn't appear on Euridice in that mode anyway.

This is nonsense. There's loads of little tricks to score a lot extra from the bullet cancels. The game is similar to Original in that you get a generous base score just for no missing most of the game (in the 2 billion neighborhood) but just doing that won't get you near the slightly over 4 billion points that can be had from the mode. Also it's actually harder if you kill the first mid-boss ASAP as you'll wind up with an extra one of those floating island thingies so I have no idea what you're talking about there either.

Ketsui in a survival sense. I can actually weave through the barrages in this game while in DOJ I can't even manage the chaos on screen. Though to be fair I've spent many more hours on Ketsui.

Edit: I have to throw Battle Garegga in here too. It's music, it's spritework, everything about it is fantastic.

You can't even ALL the game without practically no missing until the last boss, which further strengthens my point. You might want to take a little look at some of the runs, they precisely destroy the midboss before the final attack's smaller bullets have to be dodged. Dealing with the rocks is way easier with Reco, the red dragon and tortoise thing don't have to be speed-killed just so you can cram top left like Palm has to.

I actually know an extensive amount to Ultra despite being crap at it, due to watching one of my Japanese friends play it almost non-stop from release to about June of the next year. His final score was about 1.6 billion (gamertag starts with bba), and the amount of times he died to the first midboss even started to get on my nerves, just from watching.

Of course there's scoring tricks such as the notorious boss milking of the second boss' orbs, but there's nothing "elegant" about that. Or the evidently imbalanced difficulty between the first and second stages. (I keep hearing "the game's fun once you're out of the first stage", but ignoring the problem does not make it go away).

Surely you know Gus has done a 3 billion score in Ultra. It's pretty hilarious you're trying to tell him you know more about the mode even though by your own admission you suck and you watch some Japanese guy with half of Gus's score for hours on end because you have no life. Jesus Christ man. Get a life already.

Actually the people who need to "get a life" are the ones that create dupe accounts because they can't voice their opinions through their own.

At least read what I write before stabbing and missing. I am fully aware of his scores, and I never claimed I knew more about the mode than anyone else. I don't think "elegance" is the correct term to describe Futari Ultra; it evidently has a simplistic scoring system because the taxing difficulty is prioritized. If you don't think Futari Ultra revolves entirely around difficulty then, heh, I really don't know what else to say.

FYI 1.6 billion is barely even half my best score in the mode. Also it's only scrubs pretending the second stage is a big step down from the first. Once you have it memorized the first stage is piss easy while the second has those random icicles and a difficult boss. If you're actually interested in this mode then check out a few of this guy's vids. They will show what the mode is all about and how wrong you are in the downplaying the elegance of its scoring system, though I kind of doubt it's for you if you're bitching about the first midboss of all things.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/user/15895221/video

Strania - this didn't really click at 1st but the music's great and I like the style. Got into it eventually and it's some of the most fun I've had with an STG this year, Vower mode in particular.

Deathsmiles IIX - another 'lesser' game that's actually some of the most fun you can have. Not too hard other than the last stage and it's one big scorefest from the start. Dying doesn't completely destroy your score and there's tons of extra boss milking potential if you want to go down that route.

Pink Sweets Score Attack - PS is one of those games I can appreciate and enjoy watching superplays of but don't really care about playing too much. tbh I only put score attack mode on to get the achievement for finishing the mode thinking that you just played through the stage as quickly as possible and that would be that lol. Of course you actually need to score well in order to earn time extends just to get through the stage. Long story short I got the 1st Western clear up on the leaderboards and was top 5 in the world (until the bastard game ate my score ) Need to go back to this one as it sort of unclicked when the leaderboards started going tits up and I lost my internet connection for a couple of months at the same time.

I'm definitely at the bottom of the totem pole on this genre. I don't play for score. I enjoy things on a more basic level of surviving through a run. My all-time favourites are:

- Galaga, Exerion, Time Pilot, 1942, Gyruss, and Pulstar on the arcade
- Gradius on Nintendo
- Super R-Type, Gradius III, Super E.D.F., Super Darius, Super Parodius, and Area 88 for the Super Nintendo
- R-Type, Star Soldier, Sinistron, and Gate Of Thunder for the Turbo Duo
- Raiden 3, Castle Of Shikigami, and R-Type Final for the PS2
- Several of the shoot-'em-up collections for the PSP-3000 (Konami and PC-Engine)
- Raiden IV, Eschatos, and Shooting Love 20XX for the 360

I'm more into the old style, although bullet-hell games are alright with me as well. The main attraction for all these games are the graphics, the sound, and the music. It all has to work in synergy to create a fun and addictive experience for me. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Eschatos and Shooting Love's Exzeal and Trizeal - the seemingly simple graphics combined with the catchy music keeps me coming back for more. The difficulty is more forgiving, so I can actually get a little further on these. The cool part about these games is that, while the difficulty isn't hard, the continues are limited. I think this adds to the charm of the game, where the player can't just credit-feed their way to the end

I fell in love with Hyper Duel the moment I started playing it, that's exactly the kind of setting I like. Too bad the game is short and easy.

I love the NES version of Zanac too.

Started playing a lot of Futari 1.5 again, as well. I gotta agree with Elixir, even though I am crap at Ultra, from most of the videos I watch, the difficulty definitely takes precedence over the scoring system. It's a lot of fun but hell is it hard.

I have really been enjoying a lot of arrange modes lately just to have fun with, mainly Futari Arrange and DDP Arrange still ;].

Ketsui. The aesthetic, the addicting 5 chip system that pushes you up closer to enemies, the creative bullet spreads, and a challenge level that is ideal, keeping you awake even during the easy bits and really pushing you towards the end. While there are obviously optimal scoring routes, the system feels flexible enough where minor mistakes aren't that punishing. Empty lock lends so much creativity/depth by being able to squeeze extra points out of sections just by altering your button presses. Pretty much the only STG I've played seriously for the past two years. Other games, once I get the 1-ALL I tend to walk away. Not so here.

Radiant Silvergun. If I played this for the first time today, I'm not sure I'd have the patience to stick with it. But when I was younger I got all the memorization out of the way, and it's so ingrained that I'll never "unlearn" the game's patterns. I love the pacing, pretty much. The bite sized stage, midboss, bite sized stage, midboss approach. I also love dismantling the bosses piece by piece, and having so many weapons available to do so.

Strikers 1945 II. My favorite of the Psikyo games. Game doesn't mess around with padding out level design, it gets straight to the point. A couple tough patterns and then a kick ass boss fight with a transforming mech.

R-Type 3. My favorite horizontal shooter. I love the R-Type series as a whole, but this one puts the chocolate on my peanut butter.