Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

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

Post by Ajora »

M.Knight wrote:
Ajora wrote:I also just finished playing through Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo on Veteran mode in one sitting. The first 95% of the game was pretty easy. And then the final boss showed up and proceeded to wipe the floor with me for a good 25 minutes. After that, I played a bit of endless mode, and I can say that it's more enjoyable than the main game. Overall, it's a decent game, and certainly, worth the (maybe) two dollars I spent on it.
That's pretty much the same experience I had with the game. The regular mode disappointed me with its uneven difficulty and rather boring level design, but the endless mode is where it's at. It can take a few minutes before the game shows its fangs, but even before that, the rush to destroy as many enemies and get as many hypers as possible is enjoyable. And once the game spawns lots and lots of enemies, that's where you can more easily get overdrives and have a blast cancelling the big clusters of bullets with your hypers. One thing I really like in this game is the sexy blue items that are a joy to pick up and that feeling is really elevated in this mode IMO.

I play with the Cyan ship because its forward sword slash makes it kinda play like a bootleg Radirgy ship, though its hyper isn't very good for survival. I suspect that some more powerful ships may make the Endless mode a little more literal lol. My current record is Wave 29 / 203k with the replay here, but I get the feeling you can play for much longer with a better ship.
Black seems to be the most powerful ship, but I find Teal the most enjoyable to use. Anyways, I beat the game on Hell mode just now, so according to the game, I'm a masochist/bullet hell expert. As with Veteran mode, I breezed through the first 95% of the game and then had to endure a fair bit of pain before beating the final boss. This has got to be one of the most obnoxious difficulty spikes I've ever experienced in a game.

I'm still craving a bit more Robo Aleste, so I'm going to replay it on Hard mode.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Square_Air »

mycophobia wrote:Mahou Daisakusen. my best runs end at that ninja fucker in stage 6, have no idea what to do with him.
Tsumuji alternates between a spinning pattern and a random pattern. You can tap through the spinning pattern or line up roughly with his foot (left side) at the bottom of the screen for a safespot. Shoot the adds, macro dodge the shurikens, if he pulls out his sword (gotta notice this one quick) fly up to his side (either one) to be out of range of the flame blasts. The mine pattern is hell, half of the time it's a mandatory bomb spot. it's possibly the nastiest RNG in the game, and that says a lot when you consider junk wizard and bubble boy also exist.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by stryc9 »

Ajora wrote:I've finished Robo Aleste. It wasn't as hard as I initially thought it was once my eyes adjusted to the faint and tiny bullets and I realized that you can actually shoot the bullets. I really enjoyed this game the more I played it, but I'm baffled as to how anyone could place it above Musha Aleste (Robo Aleste has a higher rating than Musha Aleste on Gamefaqs). I know I'm sounding a little redundant at this point, but it kind of amazes me how bad the story, voice acting, translation and dialogue all are. How do you mess up a story about ninjas and giant robots that takes place in the Sengoku era of feudal Japan?
Musha Aleste definitely has the better graphics, and certainly a superior soundtrack to my ears. As far as the quality of the voice acting is concerned I'm playing the JP version so that's not an issue. But it's hard to argue that Dennin/Robo Aleste doesn't have better level design throughout, with a more even difficulty curve (as opposed to Musha's challenge vacuum > into difficulty spike via the turret section/couple of boss enemies that can kill you and make it tricky to recover from the power down). Again Robo is more reasonable with the power downs on death. It's a significantly harder, but fairer game. Not sure if they messed with the difficulty while localising it for the west.

The pacing of the airship level, and the way you surgically pick the craft to pieces as it scrolls this way and that reminds me a lot of the Raiden Fighters games. There is nothing that engaging in Musha IMO.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Stevens »

Wow. A week back at Ketsui and I've come to the realization that I'm not complete shit at it anymore.

My scores are all over the place. I've started stage four with as low as hi 30's and as high as high 40's. I'm getting the 1 up from the ship about 75% off the time, but about half of those are a push since I can't no miss it consistently just yet.

Making boss four now, hopefully I can break through to stage five soon.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by xxx128 »

stryc9 wrote:
Ajora wrote: Musha Aleste definitely has the better graphics, and certainly a superior soundtrack to my ears.
Absolutely.Robo Aleste felt a bit like a disappointment when it came out.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by mycophobia »

Square_Air wrote:
mycophobia wrote:Mahou Daisakusen. my best runs end at that ninja fucker in stage 6, have no idea what to do with him.
Tsumuji alternates between a spinning pattern and a random pattern. You can tap through the spinning pattern or line up roughly with his foot (left side) at the bottom of the screen for a safespot. Shoot the adds, macro dodge the shurikens, if he pulls out his sword (gotta notice this one quick) fly up to his side (either one) to be out of range of the flame blasts. The mine pattern is hell, half of the time it's a mandatory bomb spot. it's possibly the nastiest RNG in the game, and that says a lot when you consider junk wizard and bubble boy also exist.
Gracias. I ended up figuring out that safe spot but can't always pull it off; I guess I'm just not quite in the right position sometimes.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Ajora »

I've gotten all of the achievements for Super Galaxy Squadron, except for the 1CC one and the one that's bugged (defeat one of the bosses under a certain time). I've made a few attempts to 1CC the game on casual hardcore mode, and I've managed to make it to the final boss without getting hit once, only to then get flattened like a pancake. I've chatted a bit with one of the developers on Steam and they've said that after all the complaints, they'd finally do something about nerfing the final boss and the bugged achievement. I really do want the game's 1CC achievement. It's very snazzy looking.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Kollision »

xxx128 wrote:
stryc9 wrote:
Ajora wrote: Musha Aleste definitely has the better graphics, and certainly a superior soundtrack to my ears.
Absolutely.Robo Aleste felt a bit like a disappointment when it came out.
I'm one of those who strongly prefers Robo Aleste over Musha. :mrgreen:
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Stevens wrote:I'm getting the 1 up from the ship about 75% off the time, but about half of those are a push since I can't no miss it consistently just yet
I think the Ketsui stage 3 1UP is honestly one of the hardest to get reliably in any CAVE game. It requires precision destruction of all parts of the boss before they go offscreen and it's quite easy to miss one such as one of the turrets at the tip of the ship. Also gets really aggressive when all its segments are destroyed. It's up there with Mushihimesama and Espgaluda II in terms of 1UP difficulty.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by wgogh »

Back with Shikigami no Shiro after a long break doing college stuff and other things. How long has it been, I don't even know.
It's hard to treasure the lives, but most of all, the spiderwoman at 5-2 is kicking my ass.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BobbyNewmarkiii »

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

Post by Stevens »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:I think the Ketsui stage 3 1UP is honestly one of the hardest to get reliably in any CAVE game. It requires precision destruction of all parts of the boss before they go offscreen and it's quite easy to miss one such as one of the turrets at the tip of the ship. Also gets really aggressive when all its segments are destroyed. It's up there with Mushihimesama and Espgaluda II in terms of 1UP difficulty.
Haha. This makes me feel better:D I've got a pretty solid route for the mid boss, but (like you said) sometimes I have a tendency to miss one of the smaller targets. If I don't trigger the 1 UP I can never tell what I missed.

The timing is tight because after I destroy the tail I always wait and destroy the last ship from the left before I head back to the right side. Doesn't leave me room for error, but the odds of me getting the 1 UP and not dying increases massively without the smaller ships on the left.

I haven't played in a few days (short holiday) but plan on jumping back in later on today.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

Honestly getting the Mushi 1up in stage 3 isn't that hard, if you don't mind using a bomb :wink: on the first barrage when both sides of the beetle's... pincers? tusks? fire.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by M.Knight »

wgogh wrote:Back with Shikigami no Shiro after a long break doing college stuff and other things. How long has it been, I don't even know.
It's hard to treasure the lives, but most of all, the spiderwoman at 5-2 is kicking my ass.
Yeah, that's a really tough and intense fight! One thing that can make it a bit easier is to use the red shot (available when grazing bullets) as it can cause more slowdown. There are a few spots where Kuga's shikigami is the better option (most notably when spiders are spawned from the bottom of the boss) but otherwise the shot is more convenient. Also, it can be good to plan some bombs here to take out some of the mouths that fire green homing lasers. You should try to take several of them out with a single one if possible.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by third_strike »

wgogh wrote:Back with Shikigami no Shiro after a long break doing college stuff and other things. How long has it been, I don't even know.
It's hard to treasure the lives, but most of all, the spiderwoman at 5-2 is kicking my ass.
Nice see some love to Shikigami no Shiro comming from Brazil!
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by blackoak »

Been playing a lot of Zero Ranger. Great game, though it's a bit on the long side for what my concentration/hands can handle. I also find some of the "know or die" gimmicks to be a little frustrating. There's been a couple parts where I had to look up stuff online and I really am not sure how I was supposed to know (the 2-3 boss for instance, absorbing the 6 orbs...). I also get uneven scanlines with all the options--a common problem with games that implement scanlines but something I've never understood, since my old version of shmupmame seem to do scanlines perfectly fine without any advanced scaling or whatever. Maybe I should try 720p resolution or something?

All in all though, I think this, Blue Revolver, and Monolith are major points of pride for the western community.

Oh, and I love the music when you transform into your mecha for the first time, haha.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Stevens »

Ketsui. Really close to punching through to stage five.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Zaarock »

blackoak wrote:absorbing the 6 orbs...
Only gimmick here is clearing out the enemies in a short time from eachother. You're not expected to absorb them, that's just a really cheesy route to make it easy. If you're slow the same behaviour happens on previous forms.
Definitely one of the scariest parts of the game if you do it normally since you need to watch what you're shooting and it's easy to panic & lose control
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by CStarFlare »

Got my copy of Momoiro Underground and have put a few rounds in - the number of routes is a bit much and I don't think I understand the scoring system much at all. (I understand that time spent lowers score and hoarding money boosts your score, but I don't know if different enemies give different items based on the weapon you've used, or their charge level, etc.)

It's a unique game and it getting some more attention would be really nice, but without a digital release I think it's going to stay well under the radar, and its opaque systems mean I can't find much fun in trying to play for score. I'll tinker with it and see if I can start to understand while playing through a few more of the routes but I think this one will only stick around as long as it takes to see all the stages and bosses.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by wgogh »

M.Knight wrote:
wgogh wrote:Back with Shikigami no Shiro after a long break doing college stuff and other things. How long has it been, I don't even know.
It's hard to treasure the lives, but most of all, the spiderwoman at 5-2 is kicking my ass.
Yeah, that's a really tough and intense fight! One thing that can make it a bit easier is to use the red shot (available when grazing bullets) as it can cause more slowdown. There are a few spots where Kuga's shikigami is the better option (most notably when spiders are spawned from the bottom of the boss) but otherwise the shot is more convenient. Also, it can be good to plan some bombs here to take out some of the mouths that fire green homing lasers. You should try to take several of them out with a single one if possible.
The red shot might be a good idea, but trying to keep close to the bullets seems to be confusing. Maybe it would be useful while the bottom of the spider is shotting stuff, but using my personal strategy, I've already get rid of the mouth that would make this dodge worse (Maybe I need to record to properly expose my point.) I am using bombs for the mouths, and have a overall strategy of using 2/3 bombs on this fight. Need to get a lot more consistent. Even when I am able to beat her, I end up losing at least one life.

edit: just saw that the trick works well if you have slowdown turned on, which makes the boss almost easy.
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wgogh wrote:Back with Shikigami no Shiro after a long break doing college stuff and other things. How long has it been, I don't even know.
It's hard to treasure the lives, but most of all, the spiderwoman at 5-2 is kicking my ass.
Nice see some love to Shikigami no Shiro comming from Brazil!
And from RJ! If you happen to know any hidden place with arcade other than Rio Pinball Clube, let me know!
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BAD »

Dodonpachi Unlimited, Bug Princess Gold, Gothic, and Dangun Feveron. Gothic is amazing, and glad to see the first two are still functioning even after support for them stopped. Love how Gothic is like a vertical Deathsmiles! What a great game. Absolutely love it. Playing Dangun Feveron makes me very hyped for ESPRade! Waited 20 years for this! Praying that the collector's edition comes with a physical disc of the game, as such a masterpiece shouldn't be bound to digital.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by xxx128 »

Playing DoDonPachi for Sega Saturn again.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

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Sagaia/Darius II for the MD/Genesis
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

Seeing if I can get a higher score on ESPGaluda. My survival run is by and large not too altered, but now I have the extra task of managing bullet cancels. I'm reaching Jakou with appx 20-22 million. I don't know how much that would translate to if I cleared with say, 2-3 lives, but before I was getting to him with 18 and ending with about 26 million. I practically gave up playing 5-1 for score, since outside of a few spots I am too focused trying to stay alive.

Much like usual, the hurdles for staying alive are stupid mistakes on the st3 boss, st4 midboss, and not having any bomb meter left for the st4 boss.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

There's a fairly significant bonus for having lives remaining in stock. I can't find a guide that says what the exact amount it but I know it's significant with a full no-miss being worth about 8 - 10 million? There's also a smaller bonus for any empty life boxes at the end of the game I think, if you gained 1ups without dying then lost a few lives before clearing the game. Not sure if the bomb meter contributes a worthwhile amount to the end tally.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:
EmperorIng wrote:Seeing if I can get a higher score on ESPGaluda. My survival run is by and large not too altered, but now I have the extra task of managing bullet cancels. I'm reaching Jakou with appx 20-22 million. I don't know how much that would translate to if I cleared with say, 2-3 lives, but before I was getting to him with 18 and ending with about 26 million. I practically gave up playing 5-1 for score, since outside of a few spots I am too focused trying to stay alive.
There's a fairly significant bonus for having lives remaining in stock. I can't find a guide that says what the exact amount it but I know it's significant with a full no-miss being worth about 8 - 10 million? There's also a smaller bonus for any empty life boxes at the end of the game I think, if you gained 1ups without dying then lost a few lives before clearing the game. Not sure if the bomb meter contributes a worthwhile amount to the end tally.
Ha, there's a bonus for extra lives lost? Then I'm in seventh heaven! 8)

Last night, I managed to get a clear with two lives (it should have been three), and thanks to your advice/explanation, managed a new personal best of 33.6 million! Makes me think that 40+ million is very doable, if I didn't make a couple of mistakes (missing gold dumps, like the st2 midboss) + dying a few times throughout the course of the game (that damn stage 4 midboss...). Also took to heart your advice on aspect ratio as well. :mrgreen: I found stretching the screen width to 528pixels in Sony Vegas matched how it looked in mame, minus a slight loss in crispness.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Congrats on the new PB! =D

I didn't get a chance to watch the full run but I did catch a few snippets. One thing to note too is that unlike Espgaluda 2, where Ageha has a much stronger laser, Tateha is both the spread shot character AND the power character in Espgaluda 1. The two piercing blasts she fires are where her laser's damage comes from, and in normal mode her laser is stronger than Ageha's and benefits a bit from getting closer to enemies. Her lack of movement speed can be an issue though. In kakusei I can't remember how her boosted piercing shot damage stacks up vs Ageha's boosted laser damage, but if you get close to enemies you get a notable damage increase vs staying at the bottom of the screen. Get used to trying to use the shot almost exclusively when Tateha's in kakusei, especially on big enemies that need to die ASAP.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Stevens »

Still Ketsui. Lots of runs to various points in stage four. Sometimes I make the boss, sometimes not. Scores gotten a bit better too.

Jumping off of Bare Knuckle Roo's GigaWing run sans reflect I started to wonder if I could clear Under Defeat sans option. I put that idea to bed but recently it has crept up again. Might start messing with it this weekend.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by davyK »

Samurai Aces on ps2. Finding it tough but may be because I played the mobile version too much. Adapting to slow ship movement and power up token movement is the big challenge I feel.

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

Post by Ajora »

At long last, I've finally gotten around to playing the highly revered Tyrian 2000. And, uh, it's... okay. I feel like all of the people proclaiming this to be one of the greatest games within its genre have either not played many shooters, or have been blinded by nostalgia. The controls are very floaty, and my ship feels like a puck sliding around on an air hockey table. I must say, it's quite impressive, and even a bit staggering how much content and effort were poured into the game. But if you're going to tell an elaborate story in a shooter, please make it compelling.

One of the biggest problems with this game is that you can't replay levels, so you're virtually guaranteed to miss secret levels and essential story entries. I get that the developers didn't want you to become overpowered by farming currency, but just limit what you're capable of buying at any point, and there would be no problems. Raptor allowed for currency farming, and that worked out fine. In fact, pretty much everything about Raptor is better than Tyrian 2000.

edit: I didn't realize at the time that the game was designed to be played with a mouse. Knowing that now, the game has become a lot more fun, as well as quite a bit easier. I'm enjoying this a lot more now.
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