Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

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Leandro
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Leandro »

XoPachi wrote:
Leandro wrote:I'm revisiting that Satazius game. Better than I remembered it
I really liked that portal level. That was really interesting. There was a lot of good level design. The first boss scene was great and the fire level was really good pressure. Oddly enough it's a very easy game. I do wish it had better music though.
(It's the only game I've ever gotten a full run uploaded for)
yeah the portal idea was creative, the first one though got me salty a couple of times, it has trouble recognizing the ship even when it is at the center of the blackhole...
Overall good game, serviceable graphics, mediocre music, but great gameplay with decent level design. It was worth going for at least the normal 1cc clear, very fun.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by To Far Away Times »

I bought Rigid Force Redux after watching the Bullet Heaven video on it. The game has some euroshmup vibes, but seems to avoid the more egregious mistakes. A mixture of R-Type and a Thunderforce style weapon cycling powerup system was just a bit to enticing to pass up. We'll see how it goes.
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

Note that the basics of the gem system are also explained on the instruction strip that came with the game (a fan recreated version's here) and a copy of the instruction strip with the info is on page 7 of the manual that came with the game.

The explanation in your vid pretty much covered it.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I've been trying to get back into Ketsui. Along with Espgaluda 2, it's arguably the CAVE shmup I'm the worst at. I still can't settle on a shot type I like.

Tiger Schwert:

• wideshot's very useful, and has nearly the same DPS on tankier targets as Panzer's rapid shot
• slightly faster lock on speed
• move speed is noticeably slower which is an issue at times

Panzer Jager:

• I prefer the green/purple shots as a contrast to enemy shots
• the rapid shot's kinda thin and the damage is nowhere near that of stuff like Type-A or Type-B in DDP.
• the slightly faster movespeed during lockon is handy

I usually prefer thin, fast shot types, but in Ketsui because you have to hit with the main beam to get lockons (as opposed to Progear or Akai Katana's auto-lock on shot types), it doesn't complement the thin shot as well. The damage also isn't noticeably higher than the Tiger Schwert's, so basically the Panzer Jager's focus is almost entirely on its extra movement speed?
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Lethe
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Lethe »

After the mention of Progear difficulty settings in the CAS thread I found out that ESP Ra.De.'s difficulty switch works and is the best solution yet to my issues with the game.

It increases the aggressiveness of most stage enemies and raises bullet speeds across the board. Rank doesn't affect the firing rate of boss patterns so some of them aren't harder than default (due to loss of density the 5-1 boss is arguably a lot easier). Combining this with playing as Yusuke to limit the slowdown produces a more intense pace that IMO benefits the game substantially. It's not a huge gamechanger in survival terms but it's enough to make me respect the enemies a bit more, ward off unnecessary micro and stop me from falling asleep on the early stages. Comparison gifs below (only on Garra because I had an old savestate there).
Spoiler
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EmperorIng
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

I don't see too many people willfully setting dips higher, it's neat to try and parse out the differences.

Per some of the discussion above, I've added Progear and Guwange as side-games/distractions to give me a breather while I push for some bigger/juicier goals, like recording a new WR in Sisters Royale's Hard Mode with Ece, and eventually getting back to Shikigami 1 and Giga Wing 2.

Both cave games are pretty good, I would like to be able to scrub out some shitty clears for both of them. I "3cc'd" Guwange last night, getting to stage 6 and using one whole credit on the final boss' final phase.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by To Far Away Times »

I really need to put more time into Guwange. I like "gimmicky" shmups as long as their systems are easy to understand (Ikaruga, R-Type, Giga Wing, etc) but I can't really figure out Guwange. Are you supposed to have really tight control over your shikigami or is it just kind of a lucky thing if it helps you block bullets? Really cool aesthetics in that game. Definitely worthy of a deeper dive.
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

like recording a new WR in Sisters Royale's Hard Mode with Ece

Awesome! Ece's my favorite (even though everyone else seems to hate her)
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Arrow Flash on the Mega Drive. This one always gets hand-waved away as piffle, and I can't figure out why. It's a Sega developed original, looks great, plays perfectly well, gives you a transforming robot, and has an 80s/90s anime waifu right there on the cover. It's up into $100+ territory on the retro market now too.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by To Far Away Times »

Arrow Flash is decent. I just remember 1CC'ing it within a couple hours of first playing it and that's not really enough time to let the game really sink in. I think it's a perfectly fine game, but maybe a bit too easy and I didn't really have a reason to go back to it.
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Lethe
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Lethe »

To Far Away Times wrote:Are you supposed to have really tight control over your shikigami or is it just kind of a lucky thing if it helps you block bullets?
Easiest way is to be aggressive with it. Learn the stage layouts and kill enemies as they're shooting. Note that it's the lobbed bombs that do damage, not the shikigami itself - with a feel for an enemy's health, you can move the shiki away to mark bullets while you're waiting for the bombs to finish it off.
A more advanced technique is to leverage that if the shikigami is active but not touching an enemy, you'll still get a weakened normal shot. This allows you to use the shiki as a shield, stacking up bullets and canceling them when an enemy gets near, while still having a shot that goes the full length of the screen (which will also stream coins and keep the chain active if you care about score). Try it out in the stage 3 graveyard; ignore the enemies at the top, sweep the shiki around near to you and periodically cancel off the respawning ghosts.

The bullet catching/canceling is a much larger part of the Blue version thanks to a greatly relaxed marking window and everything being more aggressive. There is a great amount of subtlety to routing this game in general.
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XoPachi
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by XoPachi »

I forgot I bought I Radiant SilverGun so many years ago and now I remember why. Tried playing it again. I still can't stand this fucking game.
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EmperorIng
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

Perhaps I am getting close to the end of my survival journey? I don't really know what to do here other than take hits until this bitch goes down.

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To Far Away Times wrote:Are you supposed to have really tight control over your shikigami or is it just kind of a lucky thing if it helps you block bullets?
Ha, this is a cave game, you are supposed to be anal-retentive about your routing to an insane degree!
m.sniffles.esq wrote:like recording a new WR in Sisters Royale's Hard Mode with Ece

Awesome! Ece's my favorite (even though everyone else seems to hate her)
She's really unwieldly and can be a ginormous pain in the ass, but I have found my niche as it were. I hope I can get it before the end of this month, since between all the sick shmup achievements that other players have made in November '21, I'd love to add one more (admittedly small!?) one to the pile.
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Using the shikigami to slow down bullets is (potentially) only the beginning, too; ideally, you want to be using the shikigami to keep your skull counter/multiplier up throughout the entire game. It's a tall order, but you should definitely try chaining the first level or so - it's good fun once you get the hang of it!
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

She's really unwieldly and can be a ginormous pain in the ass

It seems that most people have trouble with the direction of her attack (in that you have to select it). Personally, the only direction I ever use is straight ahead then move my body as needed. Seems to work pretty well for me...
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XoPachi
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by XoPachi »

I have been playing a lot of verts on my Switch and I've come to a conclusion...

I do not like playing these games on a 72 inch television. :c
I prefer my PC monitor and 32 inch TV at the largest.

I'm playing Crimzon Clover WEX and its weirdly...too much for my eyes to travel around?
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EmperorIng
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

m.sniffles.esq wrote:She's really unwieldly and can be a ginormous pain in the ass

It seems that most people have trouble with the direction of her attack (in that you have to select it). Personally, the only direction I ever use is straight ahead then move my body as needed. Seems to work pretty well for me...
For survival play, Ece is pretty well-suited as her laser's strength and homing shot (when in tension) can rip through the enemies and bosses with ease. It's when you start to score that you have to start really considering where you are pointing your laser, and when. And that little bit of extra movement/delay for the laser can spell inadvertent death if you are not careful... and even if you are careful.

For example, look at the maneuvers I developed for the start of stage 3 to get the most x8's out of the opening rush of birds in my Normal Mode 4 billion score.

I welcome you to add some Ece scores to the Sisters Royale thread, no matter what they are! The more the merrier. :mrgreen:

And like I intimated, I finally did record that new Hard Mode world record with Ece. Getting this was quite the doozy.
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MOSQUITO FIGHTER
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by MOSQUITO FIGHTER »

Pretty much only playing Pulstar at the moment.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I got into Gun Frontier and I find it amusing as well as exceptionally annoying. The lengthy bomb delay and the slow-as-molasses ship speed are seriously tempting me to drop the game despite being able to get halfway through the final stage on a single credit. The final boss is actually fairly easy, followed by the impossible to lose TLB stage (I'd be happy with a bad ending clear, haha). But getting there is a pain.

A lot of these specific blue and white enemies move to the right after coming onscreen (the ones that swarm stage 3) so hiding on the right of the screen seems pretty useful. Stage 3 is actually one of the toughest levels along with the last half of Stage 5. Stage 5 also has an early section Garegga seems to be inspired by, where bombing a tree spawns unkillable squirrels you can then bomb for points. But if you bomb for survival, they block your shots, forcing a second bomb to deal with enemies. There's also LOTS of enemies that swoop in low to attack you, and while bullet density isn't unmanageable at max rank, the sheer lack of speed your ship has means you really gotta memorize sections.

I'd be sad to ditch this before getting the 1cc because I'm really into Metal Black (aka project Gun Frontier 2), but Gun Frontier feels just a bit too rough around the edges for me. There's some really neat elements and visuals, as well as a number of secrets, but the difficulty's really all over the place, and deaths rarely feel like "OK, I deserved that".

It's kind of like Guwange for me in that regard, Guwange stage 3 and 4 are where the difficulty's high enough that it feels like I'm fighting the controls more than the game itself, and trying to dodge bullets while handling the shikigami which slows you to a crawl and disables vertical movement is very awkward. Bosses are unusual too; if you place your shikigami over a boss to attack, you can slow a cloud of bullets that may not get cancelled if no small enemies are spawned... and will suddenly speed up as an undodgeable wall once they're out of the slowdown range. It's a neat game, but the movement mechanics feel super unnatural.
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Lethe
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Lethe »

Gun Frontier and Metal Black both are such high-concept games with great music and imagery amid flashes of brilliance but ultimately too incomplete to be compelling to play. I love Gun Frontier's bomb too, might be my favorite bomb in any shmup.

It's easy to imagine that if Taito had given these games more budget and attention then the direction the genre took could have turned out pretty differently.
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

For example, look at the maneuvers I developed for the start of stage 3 to get the most x8's out of the opening rush of birds

The part where you fired in the opposite direction, then backed into the first couple enemies that came up behind you actually made me laugh out loud
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Lethe wrote:Gun Frontier and Metal Black both are such high-concept games with great music and imagery amid flashes of brilliance but ultimately too incomplete to be compelling to play.
Disagree with respect to Metal Black; it's far, far more playable. The tap speed isn't too bad when you get into the rhythm (or use 15 hz autofire which fires it pretty much at the same rate without any gaps), the width of your shot offers a lot of interesting options for defense and offense, the instant activation laser with its risk vs reward element of when to use it is interesting, the movement speed feels perfectly suited to handling everything even if it's a touch on the low side (a bit like Rayforce).

Out of coincidence, I've also been getting into another Taito arcade shmup, Halley's Comet. It's really super fun and playable once you're fully powered up. Recovery is tricky, though!
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by To Far Away Times »

Metal Black is cool. Really great themeing and presentation in that game. It is a little rough around the edges but I appreciate the attempt to make a more atmospheric experience. The minefield area is a real bitch but the rest of the game isn't too hard.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Gamer707b »

Playing Mushi and Esp 2 on Switch. Man are they good!
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m.sniffles.esq
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

This thread inspired me to go back to Sister Royale for some breaks in Progear.

I decided to watch some of this:
And like I intimated, I finally did record that new Hard Mode world record with Ece. Getting this was quite the doozy.

And realized I have A LOT to learn. Like there's some parts I literally don't understand (like not killing the mid-boss, etc)
It's kind of why I tend to avoid videos. But whatever, I'm still having fun with it.

Oh, and speaking of things I tend not to do

I welcome you to add some Ece scores to the Sisters Royale thread, no matter what they are!

Score posting is another. Although, I thank you for and appreciate the offer, it's just never been my thing.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I've had Thunder Force III for JP Mega Drive sitting on my shelf for a while, I hadn't given it a go because I figured it was essentially a slightly dialled back version of AC. Man was I surprised when I loaded up Planet Hydra expecting to cruise, only to get slapped around for a couple of credits until I had the layout down. No sever on the first stage? No 1up? The boss isn't a pushover who goes down in 3 seconds even with your basic weapon? I have to dodge? This is the only instance I can think of off the top of my head of a console version being tougher than the arcade, and somehow the console version was first.

Anyway, I'm glad. Like everyone else on Earth I 1CCed AC, and I really loved it. I'm glad there's another challenge here. I do miss the improved audio in AC though; the soundtrack's not bad here, but in AC it rips.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by To Far Away Times »

The Genesis/MD version of Thunderforce III is so good. One of my all time favorite games. The OST slaps so hard, the visuals are delightful, and the overall game speed, powerful weapons, and aggressive pacing is just perfection. The game is just badass. Hard enough to put up a satsifying level of challenge but also easy enough to be appropriate as a 1st 1CC. It is the peak "easy, but awesome" shmup.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Managed to set a new high score in Halley's Comet... but it's not quite the counterstop. I died in loop 1 a few times then recovered, but Jupiter ended up reaching 50% damage in loop 1. This came back to bite me in the ass in loop 2 when I died at Jupiter again, and struggled to recover while Jupiter racked up damage like crazy. It meant I had to play risky with no powerups and try to score kills, but even though I reached the boss, and potentially could have made it to Mars (with 0 lives and 99% damage!) Jupiter hit 100% damage.

Game over at 9.3 mil, second last stage of loop 2 (counterstop is apparently 10 mil).

I'm really annoyed about this, to be honest. But I'm comfortable enough with the game I should write a guide for the strategy board...
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Finally nabbed the counterstop in Halley's Comet (arcade). I then tried out a few other games:

• There's a version labelled as Halley's Comet '87. I didn't play too far into it, but I honestly could not find any differences. If they're there, they're later in the game. Weird.

• Halley Wars for Game Gear is cute, and would be quite decent if not for the godawful controls ruining the experience. It has a bug with diagonal movement. If you go from diagonal -> horizontal, you'll maintain your vertical movement. For instance, move diagonal up-right then move right, and you'll keep going up. Try moving diagonal down-right then right, or doing this to the left, same thing. It results in you sliding around like crazy into enemies. You're forced to make tap dodges or simply not move diagonally. Note that it doesn't happen if you move diagonal to straight up or down! You won't maintain the horizontal movement.

The game also introduces enemies popping from behind which the arcade version does not have. Pass. I was hoping it'd be a lot of fun, but this movement issue ruined my experience with it. If there's ever a hack that fixes this I'd totally play it.
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BrianC
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BrianC »

Yeah, movement in the GG Halley Wars is weird. Have you tried the FDS Halley Wars?
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