Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

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

Post by Stanshall »

Since getting Ketsui Extra on 360 a couple of weeks ago, I've been ploughing time into X Mode and it's finally made Ketsui accessible to me. I can't tell what the differences are besides being able to cancel bullets into medals but that's made it a bit easier for me, anyway. I find the stage 3 battleships pretty rough but I'm enjoying getting there NMNB and trying to learn how to make progress. I did credit feed to see what else is coming up and the later stages seem to be all about the tactical cancels so I'll look forward to that!

Also been playing a lot of Futari BL and still heading towards the 1CC. Three times I've reached Larsa with enough resources to clear. Once, a massive wasp flew in through the window at my face and I died. Once, my cat came in followed by my wife and they have little to no respect for what's at stake here so I died. Most recently, I played it very conservatively, had a couple of bombs left, Larsa on a sliver of health, should have just gone bomb shoot bomb shoot 1CC. Instead, I got carried away by the memory of Gus's Stunfest performance, tried to go through a wall...yes! Can I do it again?!

I died.
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Sir Ilpalazzo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Sir Ilpalazzo »

Been playing Undeadline sporadically and I absolutely cannot make any real headway on the cave stage. I can get all of the other five stages down consistently but the Dracula midboss and the stalacite + ghost and bat sniper bits of Cave just destroy me. At least I'm fairly close to getting down the whole game.
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davyK
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by davyK »

Trying not to get annoyed with Samurai Aces (PS2)
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CyberAngel
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by CyberAngel »

Been grinding ESP Ra.De. for a week now. Still thinking which route and character to stick to. And the more I play the more nuances influence that decision. But it's amazing how nicely all versions of first three stages are balanced, actually. Well, except all stage 3 bosses are quite annoying, even more so than the later ones probably.
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BurlyHeart
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BurlyHeart »

Sat down today with Zeroranger today with the intent of learning the levels (rather than the casual runs I had been doing), and managed to no-miss up to the mini boss of stage 2. Not great, but I'm happy enough. Definitely feels like I can go further with more practice and proper focus. Also need to try play this more consistently rather than the once or twice a week I'm currently doing.
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Marc
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Marc »

Picked up Jamestown on sale last night, not bad at all. Looks and sounds nice, mechanics are simple enough to grasp, and for once, so are its patterns. Quite surprised by how much I like this, for some reason when I've checked it out in the past I didn't expect it to be my bag.
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davyK
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by davyK »

davyK wrote:Trying not to get annoyed with Samurai Aces (PS2)
Got annoyed with Samurai Aces...


Playing DDP DFK on 360 now. Just trying to 1-sissy 1.5 with C Strong to start with. Getting to level 5.
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gameoverDude
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by gameoverDude »

Super Aleste (Japan SFC) - Got a normal mode 1CC. 5,481,610.

Giga Wing Generations (Type X) - Got a 1CC with 600 Kei. Rusty, but it's a start. I'll keep at it... maybe I can get something better than 1095 sooner or later. The TLB is actually much easier than the 5th boss.
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EmperorIng
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

Spent the last few days satisfying a resurgent curiosity with Triangle Service games. Been playing ExZeal, XIIZeal, and a little bit of Trizeal... but mainly XII and ExZeal.

ExZeal is a fun game, though it has that Fujino-thing where the levels can be too basic/abstract for my tastes (repeating the same wave of giant carriers in stage 2, or giant hordes of purple blobs in stage 4). Some people kind of like the puzzle aspect of these levels though (trap is a fan iirc). The four ships have four different ways to score, meaning that you can feasibly play the stages in a number of different ways depending on the ship you have. This is kinda neat, though that doesn't entirely alleviate the "one enemy 50 times" thing that a few stages have. This is not a big deal though.

My biggest gripe, to be honest, is Fujino's insistence on wearing out your hand doing these circle motions, non-stop, to get your charge shot. You will be charge shot-ting everything in ExZeal for the multiplier bonus, and for the fact your normal shot is weak. My wrist/hand gets tired after several rounds of practice, and makes me wish he had made the charge in a more sensible way.

XIIZeal is such a weird game. The word I was saying to myself while playing these three games: "goofy." The first two stages you can practically stay still and auto-wiggle your way to victory, whereas stage 3 has a huge jump in difficulty. Your shot is once again weak, so you have to rely on the weird gimmick attack the game is built around. I like it... kinda. I apparently had gotten to stage 6 back in the day when I first bought the steam port. Now I can't get past st3. More practice is in order.

I also put a bit of time into Risk System, which just came out. I managed to get the 'bad ending' by not getting an A rank on all the stages (the game then ends before the final stage). It's got some charm, and some of its control issues are over-blown. I never had TOO much of a problem moving. Dodging is another story, because I think some attacks are simply too erratic and fast for your relatively slower ship. The game is at its best when there are lots of things on screen to dodge and shoot. The later stages have a somewhat elegant feel to them as you crisscross up and down, using your grazing to destroy enemies and gain back health which using your bomb to get multiplier bonuses (that being said, there is never enough onscreen to bomb at once that would make it feel reeally good).

I think if there is anything I'd criticize it'd be boss health. All the bosses have way too much health and you will see all of their patterns likely 5 or more times - at least the later ones (4, 5). It gets a little frustrating to continuously grind these encounters especially when you have to survive the same difficult pattern so many times. A number of them are pure memorization so I imagine in a little bit of time you could no-miss these bosses with little difficulty, though they would still take forever to kill. One exception though: the stage 4 boss, whose sprite edges are dark and hard to see, but will nonetheless kill you in a single hit. Its main mode of attack is ramming you from off screen. Piece things together.

I'm still waiting for that patch that lets you skip cutscenes - and apparently they are adding more enemies and things into the game. I hope they take boss balance into account as well.
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Shepardus
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Shepardus »

Picked up IKUSAAAAAAAN! a couple days ago off DLsite. This was released back in December 2016 at Comiket 91 but I think the digital release was more recent. Either way, I didn't think to check the game's website until now. I should have gotten this game earlier, though, it's a lot of fun.

For those who don't know (probably from watching one of Jaimers' videos on the game), the game revolves around use of a shield (Fever) that makes you completely invulnerable, limited by a recharging timer (you can freely activate and deactivate it - think Samidare or RefleX rather than Giga Wing). Everything is very tightly synced to the (awesome) soundtrack, so this leads to an often rhythmic use of Fever to absorb the bullets or pass through lasers, and it feels great. This is bolstered by a presentation that just exudes "rule of cool" (especially the boss intros). The scoring is one of those systems that quickly blows up to an insane number of digits, but it's easy to understand that it largely revolves around absorbing bullets, shooting stuff, and not dying. Not a whole lot of bullets to absorb on Easy difficulty, though... During the stages there are these gauges on the side of the screen that give you bonuses when they fill up, and it's kind of satisfying to have all these bonus messages flash across the screen even they're mostly just from playing the game and doing the things I mentioned. Difficulty varies quite dramatically across the three difficulty levels, with Lunatic being really intense (definitely tougher than I expected, I guess Jaimers makes everything look easy), and Easy being much tamer. The game spits out a ton of extends so you can kind of customize the difficulty by adjusting the life cap too, which plays into scoring since there's a bonus that accumulates when you're at max lives. My one complaint is that sometimes I try to activate Fever when the timer is just under one second (it has to be over one second for you to activate it) and I don't notice that it hasn't activated until it's too late. Probably would feel better if it let you buffer the activation and just activate Fever when it's ready, or even if it simply had a sound warning you when you drop below one second.

Anyway, the game's a lot of fun - high-octane but also approachable. I recommend checking it out (there's a demo!).

Also considering playing Stellavanity again but just thinking about all the mechanics I've either forgotten or never knew puts me off from scoring, and thinking about the TLBs (which I'm pretty sure aren't adjusted by difficulty level) puts me off from survival play...

Also ring^-27, but going for score is frustrating and not going for score when I know what I'm missing is also frustrating. And I'm just going to pretend that Ex medals don't exist because I can't tell at all what triggers them... Reminder that ring^-27 is a good game.
Last edited by Shepardus on Wed Jul 10, 2019 4:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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xxx128
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by xxx128 »

Chelnov: MD
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EmperorIng
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

An update on my thoughts about ExZeal: I think this box moving stage (st3) might be one of the worst shmup stages ever. Many lives are lost dealing with the ever-loving jank of these things sliding around, weightlessly, while enemies spawn over them and immediately careen them into me unless I use a precious bomb to wipe them out.

It's making me look quite fondly on Ikaruga's box factory. I guess I kinda like to play the game for score though, lol.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Square_Air »

Gunbird 2. Looking at learning the second loop, but still working on loop 1 consistency before moving on. Holy moly this game is so fun, I used to not really click with the coin chaining mechanic in the past, but now I find it to be much more satisfying than I remember it being. NM + 2 bomb is the current big goal for loop 1. I'd love to attempt NB ASAP, but the stage 5 & 6 bosses don't care about my feelings.
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Master O
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Master O »

EmperorIng wrote:An update on my thoughts about ExZeal: I think this box moving stage (st3) might be one of the worst shmup stages ever....
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Jonst
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Jonst »

Currently addicted to rolling gunner. Thank god, as I was burning out on garegga.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Rolling Gunner is a great game to get addicted to.
Master O wrote:
EmperorIng wrote:An update on my thoughts about ExZeal: I think this box moving stage (st3) might be one of the worst shmup stages ever....
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The dark stage in Dragon Spirit where you barely see in front of you and bullets are hidden by the darkness says hi.
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Shepardus
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Shepardus »

Not a lot of activity in this thread lately...

Put aside IKUSAAAAAAAN! for now since Lunatic is quite a big step up in difficulty compared to Normal. Also HellSinker was released on Steam so I was focusing on that for a while. Managed to beat my old scores with Minogame, but going for clears with the other characters seems daunting (how do I even survive if I'm not invulnerable half the time? How do I hit things if my attacks don't home?). I'm enjoying the extra stages more than I remembered, I never played them much before but their short length might make them fun for scoring. Speaking of scoring, the existence of multiple scoring systems in HellSinker is a nice touch that I never really appreciated before. Spirit is the one that people mostly care about, but going for Token scores plays very differently and it seems like it could be fun in its own right.

In the past few days I've mostly been playing Great Mahou Daisakusen. I thought it'd be cool to get a 1CC, but it turns out the game's quite difficult. Who would've thought? And that's not even considering the insane scoring system. Bosses (and maybe other enemies) seem to have less health in Dimahoo.

Also playing Armed Police Batrider and Darius Gaiden, which are both great at offering many varied options for play, Batrider with its character selections and Darius with its branching paths. I feel like I could get a Batrider 1CC with Maria if I set my sights on it; I've been able to get up to Grubby so far. I got a 1CC of one of the Darius Gaiden routes I hadn't played before, though that was with 30Hz autofire.

Been dabbling with Cambria Sword after clearing all the routes in The Flying Pancake Octopus in the Black Hole (by the same developer). I'm considering trying to record individual stage 1CCs via practice mode, after coming to the realization that each stage is about the length of a normal shmup of short to medium length so Cambria Sword is effectively ten games in one. I imagine the later stages will be tough clears with the default 5-lives start, though...
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mycophobia
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by mycophobia »

Truxton 2. I put it back on easy and was able to reach the final boss after a while, so now the training wheels are off and I'm back on normal again, though I haven't put in a credit since. hopefully most of my strats will still work
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mycophobia
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by mycophobia »

just kidding im going to play Ketsui instead
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Ddshot »

Still smashing batsugun and ketsui!close to 1cc on batsugun,but getting nailed on ketsui,ketsui feels so hard if I play it after a blast on batsugun,so now I start with ketsui then play batsugun after and that makes it feel easy!


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

Post by EmperorIng »

Got a 1CC True ALL on my first attempt of Novice on Rolling Gunner. Didn't realize it was the easiest setting (I thought "Casual" was)... Kinda get bummed out about game balances where the normal is too hard for me and the easy is too easy. Oh well, first 1cc in months.
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VxD
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by VxD »

Still practicing Ketsui after my first 1-ALL the other day.
Interestingly enough, I can usually no-miss stage 4, but still regularly lose 1 ship late stage 2 or in the first half of stage 3.
Stage 5 I can no-miss until the mid-boss, after which it still feels like a bomb fest. PS4 arcade challenge really helps a lot.
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CyberAngel
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by CyberAngel »

After a week of derusting managed to reach stage 5 in Mushihimesama Original again. Could clear with a life or two to spare if I hadn't died with bombs in stock all over the place. I blame the Drill Maniac Neighbour.

I did switch to S-shot though. I thought it would be interesting to try dealing with the patterns that are usually skipped with it but they're not really worth it. High speed helps a lot with dodging as well. But I'd still say that M-shot is a good overall choice for those who haven't at least somewhat memorized the stages yet.

EDIT: Also managed to reach stage 4 in Futari without any special practice. I do think about switching from Reco-Normal to Palm-Normal though.
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ACSeraph
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ACSeraph »

My local arcade got Darius Gaiden Extra! So you can guess what I've been playing. Not even close to clearing it yet though.

I feel like I've been playing Darius a bit too exclusively lately though, I need to break out some other stuff soon.
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Tannk
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Tannk »

playing games from my prime, mainly samesamesame and raiden, i think samesame is the better game especially in pacing and presentation.
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mamboFoxtrot
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

Started attempting Armed Seven on Insane... which was a bit much so I just started attempting it on Hard, which is surprisingly still enough of a jump up given that Normal was literally a first-try 1cc. So far the best attempt is up to the Wall Core boss fight.

Spread Shot + Missiles + Napalm seems to be the best Survival Focused setup I can think of. Ain't exactly getting too many x5's here but it manages the popcorn well enough and also helps in blowing off the guns of the slightly stronger guys, then the frequent Napalms can finish everything else off quick enough. Pilebunker is tempting for the bullet-erasing abilities, but idk if that's better than Napalm being able to just blow up swaths of dudes before they get to shoot at all, and not having to get close to bosses to keep up the DPS on them.

Main problem I'm having with the game is just keeping track of shit. Feels like the explosions and shrapnel and such can end up taking over the visuals. The hitbox indicator on the player is kinda subtle so I lose track of it in the chaos sometimes. The weirdest part tho is that when you're out of shield and take a hit, its like the player sprite just completely disappears for a second - almost like when watching a 30 FPS video of a 60 FPS game where the character is supposed blink during mercy frames, but in the video just kinda vanishes.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Gamer707b »

Just got me a PS4 copy of Battle Garegga. Played it a bit at a retro convention a few years back and again at Ghost Arcade when I visited Chicago last year , but now I can put some serious time into it. Love the game, even though Im not very good at it.
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BurlyHeart
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BurlyHeart »

Still chipping away at Zeroranger. Got to the skull boss on 1 credit, which is my best so far. I actually thought I had played a lot, but steam reckons I've only put in 14 hours, which is pretty low over the course of a few months. Still, loving the game. Can see my self playing it for a long time.
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Austin
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Austin »

Leviathan wrote:Still chipping away at Zeroranger. Got to the skull boss on 1 credit, which is my best so far. I actually thought I had played a lot, but steam reckons I've only put in 14 hours, which is pretty low over the course of a few months. Still, loving the game. Can see my self playing it for a long time.
I've been hooked on this a bit as well, playing quite a lot this past weekend in particular. Made it to the boss of Stage 2-2 on one credit, but I haven't made it farther yet. Stage 2 on Loop 2 gives me a lot of trouble. Great game overall though--the variety is through the roof.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ACSeraph »

Darius Darius Darius, my life is Darius...

I've had very little game time this week, but I spent the precious few hours I had getting 1ccs in Darius Twin (SFC and SNES), Darius II MD, and Sagaia SMS. The only thing on the collection I haven't 1cced at least one course in is Force, just because I haven't put any time in yet. Force can be pretty tough, so I expect that one to take up most of next week.

Sagaia SMS was last night's project and I was just so blown away at the miracles they were able to pull off with that hardware. It's a legitimately great game.
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