Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Sengoku Strider]

Playing Aleste Collection in handheld mode is like Jedi training. The tougher difficulties have you threading through clouds of bullets on a compact 4:3 160x144 screen with tons of slowdown. After a week of going hard at that, I picked up Dodonpachi on Saturn for the first time in like 8 months or something and immediately got my 3rd then 2nd best ever scores my first two games. I could feel that I was engaging the exact same circuits from the Aleste games, where macro dodging isn't even an option 3/4s of the time. I was choosing to point blank everything and thread through bullet patterns without breaking enemy contact without even thinking about it; it was like I was playing a 32-bit tate game but only giving myself a Gear Gear or Master System screen resolution's worth of space to move in.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I got to play the GG Micro version of GG Aleste 3 last weekend. The d-pad is shockingly serviceable on such a tiny handheld and the screen barely qualifies as visible, but I was worried I was going to hurt my eyes from the strain of looking at such a tiny screen so I noped outta that on Stage 2 (I had to drive like an hour and a half to get home that night, didn't want to hurt my eyes before then).

[Lander]

I feel like the availability of savestates in emulation have spoiled gamers in general. While it's helpful for figuring out individual tricky spots, it's important to remember to do full runs so you get used to both the adrenaline from playing a lengthy run that then teeters on a knife edge between victory and defeat, and also so you learn to recognize that even if a run looks "bad" that you can still pull off a win and potentially use the credit to learn or refine your technique on certain attacks.

It sounds like you'll nab the 1CC soon enough though!

Definitely in a general sense - looking back at my earliest emulation dabblings, unscrupulous save stating effectively boiled a lot of harder games down to a glorified TAS where the player is an undefeatable time-traveler, thus becoming a shadow of the real experience in that playground "nuh uh i have bulletproof / bomb-proof / whatever-you-say-next-proof armor" kind of way.

I've found that a comfy compromise for practice is doing a no-miss run, and banking progress into a savestate whenever a port would give you a checkpoint (i.e. stage starts and bosses). That way you build up a set of restart points that put you in optimal conditions, but still have to earn them by overcoming a challenge.

And well, I'm just coming down from the adrenaline after my newest personal best - still not there yet, but a palpable improvement with clear spots later on where I've got resources going unspent. There's a lot to be said for learning to manage your composure instead of kicking yourself for a silly mistake (aren't they all) and letting it drag the run into the ground.

Playing Aleste Collection in handheld mode is like Jedi training. The tougher difficulties have you threading through clouds of bullets on a compact 4:3 160x144 screen with tons of slowdown. After a week of going hard at that, I picked up Dodonpachi on Saturn for the first time in like 8 months or something and immediately got my 3rd then 2nd best ever scores my first two games. I could feel that I was engaging the exact same circuits from the Aleste games, where macro dodging isn't even an option 3/4s of the time. I was choosing to point blank everything and thread through bullet patterns without breaking enemy contact without even thinking about it; it was like I was playing a 32-bit tate game but only giving myself a Gear Gear or Master System screen resolution's worth of space to move in.

Ah, a nice bit of DDP to calm the nerves

I had a similar experience checkpoint-saving my way through Ketsui recently; a clear is a distant hope at this point, but workshopping through its hyper-aggression up to stage 4 then going back to Mushi made a noticeable change in the way I deal with aimed bullets from strafing zako swarms in small hitbox games - i.e. since they're almost always going to be diagonal, a horizontal or vertical tap or macro dodge makes it safe to shift your gaze and search for the next incoming hazard.

I think the transferable knowledge aspect is one of the best parts of playing shmups seriously, since the core geometry of the problem is so consistent across different games. Very satisfying.

[Sengoku Strider]

I had a similar experience checkpoint-saving my way through Ketsui recently; a clear is a distant hope at this point, but workshopping through its hyper-aggression up to stage 4 then going back to Mushi made a noticeable change in the way I deal with aimed bullets from strafing zako swarms in small hitbox games - i.e. since they're almost always going to be diagonal, a horizontal or vertical tap or macro dodge makes it safe to shift your gaze and search for the next incoming hazard.

I think the transferable knowledge aspect is one of the best parts of playing shmups seriously, since the core geometry of the problem is so consistent across different games. Very satisfying.

They did such a great job with Ketsui's challenge & Kizuna modes, I wish they'd done the same here. Aleste's stages feel like they're 20 minutes long, and it's a constant storm of random BS coming at you from every angle so memorization takes a lot. It would have benefitted so much from individual stages broken down into sections, rather than just having the whole level up to the boss be a challenge. I've gotten cheesed 3 waves from the boss so many times.

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

Gunvein just got released, and WOW, is my initial impression. While I was at it, I looked around for other shmups that looked interesting, and found Sophstar and Mecha Ritz Steel Rondo, and both seem like really up my alley.

[Mero]

Truxton on my MD Mini 2. I can get to the last stage with my lives maxed out and I lose them all on the same checkpoint (the 3 ships midboss from stage 1), or if I have a few chain deaths I get sent back to the beginning of the stage!

I could bomb my way past them but I need to stop dying with tons of bombs in stock.

[mycophobia]

md truxton's stage 5 checkpoints are all effed up compared to ac, it's actually potentially harder depending on what difficulty you're playing on

[Mero]

Normal difficulty. Twice I've destroyed those ships and then died immediately afterwards. Hopefully I can reach the boss at least.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Just 1cc'd Over Horizon (NES) with the default setup. Really neat game, though it's a lot easier if you use the option config settings to adjust the options so the front ones are a bit closer to you, and Weapon Edit becomes game breaking, heh.

I recorded the run but missed the secret ending teasing at a sequel, oops.

[Nahar]

1cc'd yesterday Andro Dunos 2 at Arcade Difficulty. I'm trying to get it consistently so I can record a gameplay + commentary on spanish YouTube. Besides that, I'm occasionally playing Samurai Ace by Psikyo. My first game by them, having a blast!

[Lander]

I credit-fed through Metal Black on a whim after reading through the ST. It was a fun time - nice fundamentals-first gameplay design, a good dose of R-Type gribbliness and Darius abstraction, and the ending is up there with G-Darius' Nu route for weird factor.

Taito were really on fire with their tech in the early 90s. Both this and Layer Section have blown me away with the quality of their linescrolling effects and ultra-showy perspective shifts.

[BurlyHeart]

Still enjoying playing through Sophstar and getting a little better each time. It's going slowly tho, and I think it's time for some dedicated practice on Stage 3 & 4. Particularly on the bosses.

Bought a dual monitor setup and my God, Dariusburst is glorious. Much bigger, much better and much fun had. Almost beat my high score on my first playthrough using the set up, only for Violent Ruler to do his thing (the jerk.)

Finally(!) started to play Gradius I kept dying but it was glorious! Lots of fun figuring out options and strats. Tons of guides out there but I want to play it blind for a while and try figure things out myself. I played Nemesis on my Amstrad back in the day, and of course got my ass handed to me. This will be one part of Burly's Revenge Tour(™), which will also include Gemini Wing, Green Beret, UN Squadron, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Final Fight among others. Particularly terrified of that last one

[Steven]

If you ever get the chance to play Dariusburst on the arcade cabinet, DO IT. It's super awesome. Just watch out because you might smash your skull into the top of the cabinet when extracting yourself and there really isn't much fun in breaking your skull just because you wanted to play some Dariusburst.

[BurlyHeart]

If you ever get the chance to play Dariusburst on the arcade cabinet, DO IT. It's super awesome. Just watch out because you might smash your skull into the top of the cabinet when extracting yourself and there really isn't much fun in breaking your skull just because you wanted to play some Dariusburst.

I've seen the warning on the console version

I used to live across the road from Akatronics - a STG arcade here in Korea - and they had the OG Darius with the wide screens. I didn't get a chance to play sadly due to the corona situation. Someday I 'll get back.

[Steven]

If you ever get the chance to play Dariusburst on the arcade cabinet, DO IT. It's super awesome. Just watch out because you might smash your skull into the top of the cabinet when extracting yourself and there really isn't much fun in breaking your skull just because you wanted to play some Dariusburst.

I've seen the warning on the console version

I used to live across the road from Akatronics - a STG arcade here in Korea - and they had the OG Darius with the wide screens. I didn't get a chance to play sadly due to the corona situation. Someday I 'll get back.

lol that warning is there for a reason; I almost killed myself getting out of the cabinet! The original triple screen Darius cabinet is a lot of fun too, but the massive screen on Dariusburst AC is completely insane! The sound is deafening and stuff just like the original Darius cabinet and it's super awesome. If you stop by Tokyo, go to Mikado in Takadanobaba, as they have both of them!

[BurlyHeart]

If you ever get the chance to play Dariusburst on the arcade cabinet, DO IT. It's super awesome. Just watch out because you might smash your skull into the top of the cabinet when extracting yourself and there really isn't much fun in breaking your skull just because you wanted to play some Dariusburst.

I've seen the warning on the console version

I used to live across the road from Akatronics - a STG arcade here in Korea - and they had the OG Darius with the wide screens. I didn't get a chance to play sadly due to the corona situation. Someday I 'll get back.

lol that warning is there for a reason; I almost killed myself getting out of the cabinet! The original triple screen Darius cabinet is a lot of fun too, but the massive screen on Dariusburst AC is completely insane! The sound is deafening and stuff just like the original Darius cabinet and it's super awesome. If you stop by Tokyo, go to Mikado in Takadanobaba, as they have both of them!

Dang, missed my chance when I was there for some Guilty Gear. Will be back again someday I hope.

[null1024]

If you ever get the chance to play Dariusburst on the arcade cabinet, DO IT. It's super awesome. Just watch out because you might smash your skull into the top of the cabinet when extracting yourself and there really isn't much fun in breaking your skull just because you wanted to play some Dariusburst.

Arcade Odyssey in the US down in Miami had it when I went like 3 months ago and it was a super stunning experience. No idea if it's still out on the floor, they change some of their cabs out [still wish they had Mad Planets on the floor again, I'd have put in like $20 on that alone].
The screen was so wide that seeing across it was kind of tricky.
Probably should have spent a bit more time on it than I did, but they had a bunch of stuff I hadn't seen, so I kept browsing after my credits.

[Haddock]

Trying to 1cc (arcade mode) Radiant Silvergun these past few days, but my god is it frustrating. As impressed as I was when I first started playing this game by it's graphics, music and general aesthetic I have to admit it's just...not a lot of fun and it feels like work. What makes it frustrating is mostly the fact that unlike ikaruga, missing your chain route in the early stages basically means I have to start over, there is absolutely no way to regain enough points which wouldn't be a problem except my weapon strength is tied to it. This game would be 10x better if they didn't tie those together imo or made it like ikaruga.

I'm still trying to find my way in the genre, so I don't know what I like and don't like. But the genre isn't very easy to get into from a newbie perspective imo. I look at top 25 lists but I get the feeling most of the games on there are rather complicated and some of them have really obtuse scoring systems. A beginner might pick up RS or god forbid Battle Garegga and walk away thinking "well if these top picks don't entice me I suppose the genre isn't my cup of tea".

I'm going to stick with it though, I hate coming so far and not finishing it.

[Kiken]

Still working on Einhänder and I managed to make a major breakthrough this evening. I finally triggered the stage 6 TLB (as it were). I now have a much better idea of how to fight Schwartzgeist and I tried out some different tactics against Dürer which seem to be far more consistent. Now its just a matter of putting everything together in one run.

[sunnshiner]

Trying to 1cc (arcade mode) Radiant Silvergun these past few days, but my god is it frustrating. As impressed as I was when I first started playing this game by it's graphics, music and general aesthetic I have to admit it's just...not a lot of fun and it feels like work. What makes it frustrating is mostly the fact that unlike ikaruga, missing your chain route in the early stages basically means I have to start over, there is absolutely no way to regain enough points which wouldn't be a problem except my weapon strength is tied to it. This game would be 10x better if they didn't tie those together imo or made it like ikaruga.

I'm still trying to find my way in the genre, so I don't know what I like and don't like. But the genre isn't very easy to get into from a newbie perspective imo. I look at top 25 lists but I get the feeling most of the games on there are rather complicated and some of them have really obtuse scoring systems. A beginner might pick up RS or god forbid Battle Garegga and walk away thinking "well if these top picks don't entice me I suppose the genre isn't my cup of tea".

I'm going to stick with it though, I hate coming so far and not finishing it.

To be fair, neither RSG or Battle Garegga are particularly fun games (IMO), I totally get where you're coming from there. They look great but I'd rather eat broken glass than play either of them. Same goes for Ikaruga too, that spiteful POS can get right in the sea.

Anyway, I'm enjoying Akai Katana (vanilla and Shin modes) on PC at the minute.

[Martinov]

I think one of my greatest mistakes with shmups is my bad habit of getting distracted away by other games before I can get any consistency. I've been playing In the Hunt on MAME casually for years whilst wondering if I should make a concerted effort to get better at it. Last year I bought the Hamster port on PS4 and made more of an effort to get good before getting distracted away again. Amusingly though, I stumbled across a PS1 copy by sheer accident at a not too unreasonable price last week, and I haven't stopped playing since. Will it be enough for me to knuckle down and get the 1CC this winter? Who knows! Currently ironing out silly errors during the middle stages that are costing me lives.

[EmperorIng]

I think I've been playing Giga Wing 2 now nonstop for months (as in no other real shmup changes). I have a pretty set goal and I keep on trying to push myself to higher and higher scores. A lot of it now is just practice (stages, and bosses) and then going into full runs hoping that the stars align and I get "the run."

Going for super high giga scores in the game can be pretty harrowing: first, much of your score depends on how you do on stage 1 (the multiplier is cumulative, meaning your early work snowballs significantly later on), so I tend to restart stage 1 if I hit below an acceptable benchmark. 2, dying prior to getting a counterstop on the multiplier (it maxes out at 999,999,999 - multiplied for every enemy and score item!) means your medal values - which are cumulative but mercifully only for that stage - resets to 0 which more or less kills your score. So you need to survive until you get a max multiplier (usually around stage 3 or 4) while playing very aggressively and with risky maneuvers... THEN you need to pray you don't die before you can use all 5 or so of those bombs saved up to reap huge bonuses by speed killing bosses and getting huge bonuses for all their parts destroyed (all boss part values multiplied again, by 999x).

I am having fun but it can definitely be stressful. I am hopeful I can achieve my goals before the year is over however.

[Stevens]

Been throwing credits into Crisis Wing. Have dug pie's work since its release and it has only gotten better with updates. Haven't managed to claw my way back to 1-7 just yet, but my scoring is getting better - had a medal chain to stage 5.

Love the ost and the Toaplan vibes. Games a winner.

[xxx1993]

I've been playing Mars Matrix and Border Down most of the time. And now that I finally got Sol Cresta, I can't stop playing that one either, mainly the Dramatic Mode.

[XoPachi]

I don't know why I didn't get a PSP emulator and Gradius Collection ISO sooner. Gradius Gaiden plays -way- better in this than it does in ePSXe. Not that it's bad in the latter, but the PSP emulator just makes it so much more crisp and smooth to play. I had stutters and odd display flubs in ePSXe.
It's nice to also be able to play the only version of Darius Burst that doesn't piss me off on my PC.
PPSSPP is like Dolphin tier in performance. This is fantastic.

[Lander]

There's no real reason to use ePSXe these days - Libretro Beetle PSX has been eating its lunch for years in terms of features and emulation quality.
The non-HW version does a nice clean emulation of PS1 Gradius Gaiden, and is runahead-compatible for lag reduction too.

Though I've heard you get extra goodies like widescreen with Gradius Collection, which does sound pretty nice.

[Nahar]

I've begun playing ZeroRanger and man, what a game, but I feel I'm gonna need to chew it a lot to get the 1CC Clear. Today I spent all the continues and died at the final boss.

[Gamer707b]

Trying to 1cc (arcade mode) Radiant Silvergun these past few days, but my god is it frustrating. As impressed as I was when I first started playing this game by it's graphics, music and general aesthetic I have to admit it's just...not a lot of fun and it feels like work. What makes it frustrating is mostly the fact that unlike ikaruga, missing your chain route in the early stages basically means I have to start over, there is absolutely no way to regain enough points which wouldn't be a problem except my weapon strength is tied to it. This game would be 10x better if they didn't tie those together imo or made it like ikaruga.

I'm still trying to find my way in the genre, so I don't know what I like and don't like. But the genre isn't very easy to get into from a newbie perspective imo. I look at top 25 lists but I get the feeling most of the games on there are rather complicated and some of them have really obtuse scoring systems. A beginner might pick up RS or god forbid Battle Garegga and walk away thinking "well if these top picks don't entice me I suppose the genre isn't my cup of tea".

I'm going to stick with it though, I hate coming so far and not finishing it.

Try playing some of the older and more straight forward shmups. Look into some 16-bit games maybe. Maybe Einhander or R-Type Delta. Not much scoring or chaining to worry about. Those are pretty much "survival" games. That's how I started when I got into the genre about 10 years ago. I would not tell any newbie, "Yea, you should start with Battle Garegga or some other bullet hell game".

[Lander]

Sat down for a few hours of Slap Fight this afternoon, and doubled my previous high-score with a survival run up to the third boss!
...I then learned about the pacifism trick, and tripled it more or less for free. Curse you, Toaplan

Ah well. The first area doubling up as a sneaky hidden bullet sealing minigame for knowledgeable players is a great touch - a nice bit of codified practice for a common system that I've known about a while but not oft abused.

[Starfighter]

I haven't had a lot of time to play shmups over the holidays but I've put a few credits into Samurai Aces on Switch. I like it even if I feel the bullets are faster than the ships to a point that it's almost a bit annoying. Anyway, I made it to stage 5 or 6 after a few tries, I wonder if a 1CC is possible without too much practice? Time will tell!