Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Steven]

What the fuck? I'm reading about the original Raiden on a Japanese game wiki and it says the starting rank in the game changes depending on when you put the coin in the machine but doesn't give any details about the timing. It does say that the ACA release lets you control it, though I didn't look at the detailed options yet. I will do my own research, but does anyone know anything about how this works on the PCB?

Does Lei Shen Zhuan Thunder Deity Biography have any major differences from Garegga aside from the Mahou Daisakusen ships being the default ships?

- Start with 2.5 bombs, get 1.5 bombs/death
- Extended invincibility while using a full bomb
- Rank feels easier but I can't explain how
- Locked to 2-loop mode
Probably other things too.

Excellent, thank you. This hack (or is it a bootleg of some type? I'm not rally sure what this is) is really odd. Not really sure what to think about it, but I played it the other day and I thought it was pretty interesting.

[BIL]

Interesting! I did notice the ACA option, but had no idea about its relation to the PCB's behaviour.

saucykobold (all-round Seibu/IREM/Konami ace) once noted the PS1 port of Raiden DX had two seemingly random difficulties, independent of anything in the Options menu. I wonder if that was something similar.

[Rastan78]

I don't know if there's a way to manipulate the starting rank from the coin insert or if it ends up being random. Of course you can lower rank by starting on 2P side.

Apparently the reason the devs came up with the random starting rank idea was to encourage players by artificially making them feel as though they were improving every so often.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm not sure which sounds more aggravating, that or the whole "rank carries between runs" some of the Raizing games do.

[BIL]

Seibu's thing sounds like Russian roulette. Who's gonna chow down on the +4 starting Rank shit sandwich this time around? Who's gonna walk away thinking they're hot shit, only to get PWNED the next day when Gamest roll up to record the superplay?

Just refreshed my memory re: ACA version. The Rank setting option goes from "OFF" (I guess this is random, ie, authentic PCB behaviour), to 1 through 4. The manual, in Hamster's usual endearing way, suggests "putting in credits at different times to see what happens." Presumably a lot more enjoyable via home port or Free Play, as opposed to chucking real money into the RNG woodchipper.

I wonder what the Hi Score mode uses. I'm sure a Raiden pro would be able to figure out pretty easily. Also damn, 2P ship's way more popular than 1P in the rankings, as expected. Highest red ship is #6, at roughly a third of #1's blue ship score.

[Nahar]

Which is the best database for shmups on the web? I can't find a solid one with entries since the first arcade games until today. Maybe it doesn't exist, I dunno, but if you know a good one, can you post a link here?

Thanks!

There's the Shmups wiki, which is still a work in progress: https://shmups.wiki/library/Main_Page

When I was getting started with shmups seriously, I found the various Racketboy guides pretty helpful. I'd later find out that some of them were written by regular posters here. For instance, BulletMagnet's Saturn shmup guide is pretty comprehensive and authoritative imo: https://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega-sa ... d-shooters.

Other than that, there's a bunch of info scattered around wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_%27em_up
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ag ... ideo_games

Thank you!

[Steven]

Anyone ever seen 360 Saidaioujou crash/freeze? I did something stupid on stage 2 and pressed exit, and then when the screen turned black it froze and now I'm sitting here staring at it. How odd! The Xbox button does nothing and I opened and closed the disc tray and nothing happened. Not choice but to power cycle, it seems.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Never had that happen with SDOJ. Sounds like a fairly generic console lockup. Which model 360 do you have? I've got the redesigned E model which seems a bit better behaved hardware-wise than earlier models. My SDOJ is the budget label reprint, so not sure if there's differences between disc pressings.

[Steven]

I am using a Japanese S model, and it's from April 2012 and in very good shape aside from my own fingerprints on it (although I just picked it up and I can hear something loose rattling around inside it... fuck, now I want to open it and get whatever that is out of there!). I got it almost exactly a year ago and it's been good to me so far, although I have barely used it, and I've also already used it way more this year than I did all of last year. Maybe it was just a one-time thing. I hope so, anyway.

[RobHimself]

What does the "Latency Compensation" mode actually do in the M2 ShotTriggers games? Does it reduce input delay? Is it using some kind of runahead in the emulation to shave off startup frames after an input is pressed?

[Steven]

Pretty sure all it does is activate runahead.

[BEAMLORD]

Re-enjoying the pleasures of Cybattler here, with a view to playing more seriously. But I have a question.

In the latter half of stage 4, if you destroy some chunky metal environmental hazard, it drops the "Barrier" item. According to the ACA manual, this enables you to activate a shield whilst using your sword attack in the next stage.

Just wanna know, is there a condition on this appearing? Seems only to appear on my first credit of a fresh game, and only on credit #1. Subsequent credits, I can't seem to get it. Does it appear once and then re-set on Game Over? Am I just fucking things up? Many thanks.

[Rastan78]

I believe you have to destroy the block with your shot from the right hand side. (The second block produces the item). How many times you can use the barrier in stage 5 will be influenced by the number of special bonuses you got from earlier stages.

[BEAMLORD]

Thanks Rastan, I'll try again next time through. Seems simple enough after all.

[XoPachi]

Anyone got a clip of someone no miss/bombing Albiorix in Devil Engine?

[Steven]

Not really a shooting game, and probably borderline at best, but I just discovered something fascinating: Typing Space Harrier. Yep, Space Harrier, but with typing.

Has anyone played this before? Probably not, but it is pretty cool.

[BIL]

I was always terrible at those (Typing of the Dead etc). Just the title gives me the instant mental image of a man slamming into a tree at 9000mph.

[Steven]

lol I do that all the time in regular Space Harrier, so there's probably not going to be much of a difference in my case!

[BIL]

The maddest Harrier-related thing I've seen: Kazuhiro Furuhata's homebrewed Space Harrier for the Sharp MZ-700 (1988). Cutting-edge 1985 Super Scaler meets 1982 ASCII PC with unforgettable results. (BGM was added by the video uploader)

I'm always a bit uneasy watching it for too long... despite the brutally low res, my brain starts filling in the gaps with unnerving consistency.

[BrianC]

The maddest Harrier-related thing I've seen: Kazuhiro Furuhata's homebrewed Space Harrier for the Sharp MZ-700 (1988). Cutting-edge 1985 Super Scaler meets 1982 ASCII PC with unforgettable results. (BGM was added by the video uploader)

I'm always a bit uneasy watching it for too long... despite the brutally low res, my brain starts filling in the gaps with unnerving consistency.

The game does have BGM, though. PC Speaker style!

[BIL]

Ok, SFX is one thing, but attempting simultaneous BGM turns that into the single greatest achievement of all mankind.

[XoPachi]

Whatever happened to Xydonia? Last update was 3 years ago at least on it's KickStarter.

[Starfighter]

A few years ago (perhaps... 15? 20?) there was this site I used to visit that had a lot of superplays. It had like a dropdown menu for the game titles and then the runs were files for download. The site was white, or at least very bright. It might have been a french site in english... or perhaps it ended with co.uk? I'm afraid I've got my memories all mixed up... If anyone remembers that site: what was the url?

Edit: No one? It's driving me nuts!

[Ice Beam]

What's the difference between the "old Japanese version" and "new Japanese version" of Thunder Cross from Hamster's ACA release? The manual says "difficulty changes", but doesn't go into detail.

[Rastan78]

A few years ago (perhaps... 15? 20?) there was this site I used to visit that had a lot of superplays. It had like a dropdown menu for the game titles and then the runs were files for download. The site was white, or at least very bright. It might have been a french site in english... or perhaps it ended with co.uk? I'm afraid I've got my memories all mixed up... If anyone remembers that site: what was the url?

Edit: No one? It's driving me nuts!

If we're thinking of the same thing I want to say the URL was super-play.co.uk

If so then it doesn't seem to exist any more. Does that ring a bell?

[BIL]

^ Yeah, that sounds about right to me. I notice replays that were available there on Youtube now and then; IIRC, SYO's Dragon Blaze Quaid 2ALL NoMiss was one of them.

What's the difference between the "old Japanese version" and "new Japanese version" of Thunder Cross from Hamster's ACA release? The manual says "difficulty changes", but doesn't go into detail.

From what I understand, they upped the per-loop difficulty increase, since the old version was getting rinsed with ease. Google Translated from the very handy Game Catalog Wiki (covering everything "FROM MASTERPIECES TO FUCKING GAMES" ) :

Nowadays, it is re-evaluated as a carefully crafted STG for beginners, but in the heyday of STG when high difficulty was becoming a status, this work was regarded as an unsatisfactory null game for hard shooters. The evaluation and name recognition of this work were quite low and the removal was quick.

In addition, there is also a new version that readjusted the difficulty level after the second lap in response to the voices that did not get enough income, although the number is small.

Foonote:

Spoiler

The final work of the "Oretachi Gesen Zoku" series. A fucking port that defiles the late season of the series. Due to the poor performance and reputation, Hamster's president himself said "This is revenge!" when the PS4 version port was announced.

[Rastan78]

^ Yeah, that sounds about right to me. I notice replays that were available there on Youtube now and then; IIRC, SYO's Dragon Blaze Quaid 2ALL NoMiss was one of them.

Brings back memories of trying to figure out how YMN and TAC were getting all the items in Dimahoo when the vids were like 2x5 pixels.

Here's how the site looked circa 2008
http://web.archive.org/web/200802290026 ... lay.co.uk/

[Steven]

Is there a game that predates Slap Fight that has bullet sealing?

I seem to have found my answer; I finally played Gyrodine, which does appear to have bullet sealing, but only for tanks. Enemy ship turrets appear to still be able to point-blank you.

Anyone know of anything earlier?

This game also scrolls very far horizontally, the sound and animation of your helicopter change depending on your movement, it actually seems to have a fast and highly usable autofire (!!!) for at least the downward shot, and very nice graphics for the time, with trees that react to the proximity of your helicopter. This game surprised me quite a bit. The helicopter sound is super annoying when wearing headphones, though, so don't wear headphones when playing this.

[XoPachi]

So training modes are really robust in STG's. Has any game with online replays/leaderboards attempted a ghost system? Like in racing games?

[Steven]

Has anyone ever seen anything on the development of Mahou Daisakusen? I ran into Toyama Yuuichi today and we talked about Mahou Daisakusen. He said that originally it was developed for different hardware than what it was actually released on and that partway through development they switched hardware and they ended up basically having to port the game from the old hardware to the new hardware. He forgot exactly what the original hardware was, but he thinks it was the previous Toaplan hardware, the one that is generally referred to as the V1, although there are a few variations of that hardware and I don't think Toaplan actually ever gave it the V1 designation.

He was significantly more talkative today than he usually is. Not sure if he's getting more comfortable talking to me or if today was just a good day, but it was nice to finally have a conversation with him that wasn't super awkward. He's a nice dude, but he seems super shy and getting information out of him can be difficult. This time I remembered to tell him to put Ray'z on PC, so hopefully that will happen.