Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[LordHypnos]

Got it:D

It took me about an hour to iron out the details, but I have three short NMNB videos of the 2-4 boss on hard difficulty.

They are all similar in time and spawns, but there is a chance of RNG making things a little more hectic just before the kill shot that can fuck you if you aren't aware of it.

I'll probably have a chance to post them tomorrow night, along with notes on each video.

I'll post them here and in the strategy thread along with whatever notes are pertinent.

Well Done! That's probably a good idea, posting it to the strategy thread.

[Despatche]

Various Compile games.

First credit of Musha in 14 years. Straight to the final boss, lose everything because the final boss is dumb.

Compile games constantly fluctuate between braindead easy and complete bullshit, with no in-between, and you have to put up with this for almost an hour. Worse, some games have more of one than the other, still with no in-between in sight. This would be fine if half the fucking planet didn't adore this developer and didn't want more games like this.

Musha and Super are more frustrating than others because they have the setup of arcade quality titles, which is a lot of why people like them so much. Aleste 2's idiocy can be forgiven because it's a jank computer game, on a jank computer no less. Even then, Musha and Super still have all the problems of the other games. Musha, for example: never mind that you can just counterstop when the stage 1 boss shows up at the very beginning of the stage, the game also has shit like this.

I am so glad that those guys left for Raizing and made much better games. Just little old Mahou Daisakusen is so far beyond anything Compile ever did up to that point, in terms of being an actually good game. (Rude Breaker and anything like that are total mysteries, and Zanac Neo is... the greatest mystery.)

The most frustrating thing is that people think I'm making this up or even just being contrarian. Pointing out that people are so fundamentally wrong about such an important part of the genre is not "contrarian" at all, because that word has the same kind of negative connotation that words like "argument" and "criticism" do.

[LordHypnos]

I think I can officially say that a 14" laptop screen is not big enough to play verts on. I have been playing Blue Revolver on my 17" PC monitor and rotated, but I was too lazy to do that this morning, and I was having a hell of a time trying to dodge anything on the tiny letterboxed yoko mode. This is why vertizontals are better! Among other things, anyway.

[mycophobia]

I've put a little over 8 hours into Tatsujin and I think I have the first stage more or less figured out? lol

[Xyga]

I think I can officially say that a 14" laptop screen is not big enough to play verts on. I have been playing Blue Revolver on my 17" PC monitor and rotated, but I was too lazy to do that this morning, and I was having a hell of a time trying to dodge anything on the tiny letterboxed yoko mode. This is why vertizontals are better! Among other things, anyway.

Tate-up that laptop!

[Stevens]

If anyone is interested I just posted a NMNB strategy (Strat Forum) for UD's 4th stage boss:

You'll have to see the original post for the links to work.

Spoiler

Stage 4 Boss NMNB Strategy.

Stage 2-4/Difficulty Hard - This should obviously work on easier settings too, but I haven't tested it.

Special Notes - The main gun runs on a four one thousand count. It starts up for two and fires for two.

Takes three rockets to get it done.

-----
First video - No RNG fuckery at the end.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M2WqOh ... sp=sharing

0:00 - 0:12 - Start on the left. Destroy the cannons in order and leave the cannon at the 6 o'clock position alone. While you're destroying the last cannon hit the main gun a bit so it is pointing close to the six also. You'll want to stop shooting to charge your option and get in position to drop it. Drop it and drill the main gun for a second or two because by this point it is spinning. Head to the left side.

0:14 - 0:18 - That rocket triggered a burst which you'll need to dodge. Your next target is the turret at the nine o'clock position. If you notice I wait just a bit before destroying it - the main gun is firing and you don't want to sweep it into you.Head to the right.

There MIGHT be a tiny gun that spawned (It's destroyed at the 0:17 mark), you'll need to make sure you deal with it BEFORE destroying the turret at the 3 o'clock position. Destroy the turret at 3 o'clock and make sure you're aiming off screen so you don't rotate the main gun.

0:19 - 0:23 - Head to the left immediately after taking out the turret. Destroy the tiny gun on the left side and hang out just next to the main guns stream. Charge and drop option.

0:24 - 0:32 - The tower should be clear of threats so drill the shit out of it until it starts spinning again. When it starts spinning head to the right and deal with any turrets coming on to the screen (should be two). DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THE CANNON AT 6 O'CLOCK. (unless it's a rocket launcher - see next video)

As you destroy the second turret the main gun will have stopped. Charge and drop the last option.


-----
RNG Fuckery

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wJrgz7 ... sp=sharing

Everything is the same except the turret that spawns at the 6 before your kill shot. This time it is a rocket launcher and it can seriously fuck you, especially in the 2nd loop.

It spawns at 0:26.

What I do here is drop the option so it hits (be careful - this will destroy the launcher but it will usually launch one or two rockets first) and then shoot the shit out of the boss. Get all point blank on him.

Two things - Don't crash into the boss and mind the tiny turret that comes in from the right side. If you notice I'm in between its shots and the bosses hit box. It isn't a safe spot, but it should be safe enough for the time you need to finish the job.

[Stevens]

Under Defeat.

Spent some time on the 2nd loop (hard) and got as far as the last boss.

Few odd/rare deaths during the runs - got sniped by a zako completely hidden by smoke on stage four and a tank from behind on stage three towards the end.

Then I went back to the default settings. Wow, what a difference, it was like watching the game in slow motion. The jump from normal to hard is a greater jump in difficulty than between loops. Bullet speed on hard feels at least 50% faster.

I didn't clear it, but I got the the last boss before dying twice. Reached 2-3 in the end.

[Gamer707b]

I've actually been addicted to my Switch and pretty much Nintendo in general ( my poor PS4 is getting neglected) but I'll be going back to Darius Gaiden soon.

[mrmccormo]

Working my way through DDP:DOJ on the PS2. I can no-miss/no-bomb up to the third boss very easily at this point, but at the third boss I get speed wobbles can make it through but I die at least once. Fourth stage always messes me up because I can't effectively lure the huge masses of bullets correctly, so I just get trapped and killed along the edges.

Oh well. Still having a lot of fun.

[Stevens]

Called it in the I DID IT thread, 1-5's boss is going to be the deciding factor in my quest to ALL UD.

No missed all the way to him, died twice, made it to 2-4 in between the trains and the last wall of cannons.

Score wasn't anything new, but at this point I'll take the ALL and then worry about score.

[LordHypnos]

Called it in the I DID IT thread, 1-5's boss is going to be the deciding factor in my quest to ALL UD.

No missed all the way to him, died twice, made it to 2-4 in between the trains and the last wall of cannons.

Score wasn't anything new, but at this point I'll take the ALL and then worry about score.

Wow, sweet! Playing on harder difficulties is definitely very helpful for practice.

Started training on stage 4 of Blue Revolver. Shit's way harder than it was the time that I blindly made it through the entire stage. Probably rank. Also I am trying to use minimal bombs in the stage, which surely makes a difference. I do think I bombed quite a lot when I was doing the full run. Would be nice to know what all affects rank, so that I can get a sense of what rank it will be at in a full run. Also, I have no idea how people dodge bullet hell patterns

Also decided to go back to Triggerheart Exelica to practice some stuff so that I can eventually get a video of a run. Rather amusingly, I kept scoring high enough to get Faintear in stage 3 practice, and I never actually learned how to fight her for my ALL, so I just straight up game overed on her (I might have been able to survive if I had bombed more, but it would have taken a lot of resources). That means if I want to get a video of the ALL, I'll have to learn how to avoid triggering faintear, or learn how to actually fight stage 3 faintear The latter would improve my score, so might be worth it. Would probably actually earn me another extend given how close I was to the second extend with my final score on this.
Unsurprisingly, stage 4 is really bad right now. I mean I was never even that consistent on it to begin with, and it's been a while, so yeah, that's gonna take a lot. Didn't practice stage 5 much, but that's also going to take a lot of practice to get back up to snuff with.

[mycophobia]

I no-missed up to the second stage boss in Tatsujin and one-credited to the first miniboss encounter in stage 3, which I think I have figured out now (bomb, bomb, bomb). then I credit fed to the fast part where you get like twenty bombs and that part seems really fun. overall progress is slow and sometimes frustrating but it's also very rewarding.

[LordHypnos]

Well, I did practice stage 4 of Blue Revolver again, but it's so hard to actually come up with a route for some reason. I ended up getting side tracked trying to get a good 3,000,000+ capture of Mars Matrix, though.

I got seriously trolled by Lady Luck though on my few good runs. Well really more like Lady Execution, since it wasn't really RNG that screwed me over. In one of them I actually did get 4,000,000 experience, but it was after continuing. This was mostly on the back of an especially good stage 3, so at least I have a good stage 3 chain capture that I can do something with.

On another one I made it all the way through the field of death with no misses and around 3,000,000 experience, I think. Then I died a bunch in late stage 4 (including on the relatively easy gold cube fountain segment, though the other time was the pretty tough boss). Then I lost remaining lives on stage 5 finally game overing on the final train car of the stage 5 boss (That's also where I game overed on the other run).

The plus side is that that run included one of my best stage 4 main chains ever (That is to say through the midboss and field of death), so I at least have a couple things I could upload to YouTube. Still gotta get a solid 3M+ capture though. It really shouldn't be that hard considering my PB is like 3.8M (actually that really good run got up to 3.9M before game over, but it didn't get onto my high score board because it ended before stage 6 where the majority of the points are)

Still had a really good time though. Sometimes I wonder why I even play games that aren't Mars Matrix.

EDIT: Because a picture is worth 1,000 words; or rather 2 pictures, and 4,000,000 experience points, in this case

Spoiler

Game Over #1:

Game Over #2 (Yes that is the really easy form of the final boss):

T_T

[EmperorIng]

Beautiful. You're making me want to dig Mars Matrix out of storage.

I got another personal best in Gradius III: beating the Moai boss! Well, not beating, but timing out (lost many lives before I decided to cheese it). I don't know what has happened, but back when I started playing shmups even the bubble stage was nearly impossible. Not so any more.

I'm doing much better than my earlier years, fiddling with extra lives/lower difficulty etc because the game was just too impossible. I am sure the real pain is later - the dreaded Crystal stage and all.

I played a bit of Gradius IV on the same pack, also practicing. I can't decide on which loadout is the best. Vertical mines are powerful, but you sacrifice on the laser power if you choose that. The bubble stage there still gives me no end of grief. They move so much more erratically than the sprite bubbles of G3.

I wonder if I should shelve both until I actually clear a loop of Gradius II!

[Shepardus]

I got another personal best in Gradius III: beating the Moai boss! Well, not beating, but timing out (lost many lives before I decided to cheese it). I don't know what has happened, but back when I started playing shmups even the bubble stage was nearly impossible. Not so any more.

How do you cheese it? I've lost many a run there and rarely manage to recover from a death at that checkpoint. I know that if you leave one of the two powerup carriers alive then the first boss doesn't fire anything, but I need the powerup for the second boss, which I consider to be harder anyway.

When I first played Gradius III even stage 1 was hard. Setting up autofire and using type B (for the spread bombs) helps a lot with the first two stages.

[EmperorIng]

After dying several times trying to fight the Moai boss in Gradius III, I decided to let him (them?) time out. After killing the smaller head, I realized that the 6 heads only allow a set number of puffer moais out at a time. If you destroy one, another will spawn to replace them. Since that tends to overwhelm you, I just let them spawn the max (which might be affected by rank - for me it was about 7 or 8 iirc) and just circled around the arena, since the small moai only move towards your location and nothing else.

Back 'in the day', even the first stage was a real test of fortitude. If you don't know how to use the terrain to your advantage (and how the enemy does!) you are toast. Baptism by fire.

[Shepardus]

Ah, that's what I do too. I just have difficulty with it because there's always a deviant that refuses to stick with the pack and gets in my way like a protester blocking a road.

[Mark_MSX]

I've been playing shmups heavily for the past 3 years and this is my first post on the forum.

Right now I have been playing Dodonpachi Daioujou for the past 3 months on shmupmame. Currently, my goal is to 1cc the first loop. I think I'll get it within the next month or so. Also, whenever I'm out and about, I'll play Danmaku Unlimited 3 on the Switch. Cave needs to port their games onto the Switch ASAP. I'd buy them all.

[riccyjay]

Sine Mora Ex on Switch. Probably the best looking (from a technical standpoint) shmup I've ever played. Took me a while to get into it, but spent this morning finally really getting to grips with it. Currently at 250ish (out of over 5,000) on the rankings for Arcade mode. If I could break the top 100, I'd be pretty happy.

I feel like the game is at its best when being a straight up shmup with lots of enemies and bullets. I really don't like the sections where you just manoeuvre the craft through a tunnel or whatever, and the section where you're flying through

Spoiler

that rotating core in the penultimate stage

is just horrible. Still, good to see a developer trying something new - even if it doesn't quite all come off.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Giga Wing, reflectless. Stuck seems to be working the best for these attempts (Ruby's Stage 3 is the hardest of any character, and Stuck's grenades can pierce). The problem us getting to Stage 5 with a full or near full bomb stock for each attempt. Normally, with planned reflects Stage 5 is manageable, but the large tanks and the giant round ships that look like golden sperm flood the screen with a mix of aimed shots and fixed sprays, demanding bombs. I've gotten it down to 4 or 5 bombs needed in the stage, and even then, it's extremely demanding.

The Stage 5 boss is also erratic and is much harder when the medallion is exposed. I think a timeout might be the way to go.

The Stage 6 boss is manageable and I've no missed, no bombed it up until the point it turns into a tiny cube. It has so much health and it's such a small target there that it's quite a nuisance, with its spray of blue circles mixed with shootable bullets very difficult to manage (hardest attack in game imo, easy to get nailed by a stray bullet).

[LordHypnos]

^You should try to get a video if you pull of a no reflect GW run. Would be interesting to watch

Still plugging away at Blue Revolver. I swear, sometimes I can get through big chunks of stage 4 without any problems and other times I just die right away and need to restart. I can't seem to learn this shit.

Also decided to try a normal mode run and made it all the way to the very final boss final attack. I don't really like the way autobombs are implemented though. I don't know if anyone else experiences this, but I feel like getting hit in Normal mode is actually more punishing than getting hit in hyper mode. In hyper mode you lose 1 life and gain 1 or 2 bombs (I think), in normal mode you lose your entire bomb stock. That's actually more resources lost, usually. Also, speaking for myself, I find autobombs build bad habits. I tend to almost never use bombs when I have an autobomb even if it's a punishing autobomb. Then if it is an autobomb that drains all bombs I end up playing without any bombs for a while which kind of reinforces the no bomb mentality. When I'm playing hyper mode getting hit and having my bomb stock pushed up toward the limit makes me more cautious and likely to bomb next time.

EDIT: one more grievance (not that this is that thread): It seems as if the placement of big planes in groups of 3 in stage 4 is randomized such that sometimes they're further apart and it becomes way harder to efficiently waste with cluster missile. This is especially annoying since it's pointless and pretty much only gimps cluster missile.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've been recording runs, yeah. New setup, no more worrying about MAME desynching input replays now, can record live to video file without any framerate issues.

[Stevens]

Under Defeat.

With all the time I've been spending playing the game on hard I decided to try playing it on easy in practice mode. The three difficulties should actually be Easy, Hard, and Very Hard.

The jump from playing the game on easy to normal is huge compared to the jump from normal to hard. I would venture a guess and say larger enemies have at most 50% of the health they have on normal based on how fast they go down.

Got a good two hours in yesterday and split time between default settings and 2nd loop hard. My runs keep falling apart in 1-5. Yesterday I died at the flying tanks (forced me to go into practice mode and figure out a more efficient fast kill for the first two) and then right after them. Then I no miss the fucking boss. Naturally.

I also reworked my strategy for the 2nd phase of the boss. It's based around destroying the left most arm as fast as you can thus never allowing it to fire two star bursts. This only works if the boss fires the main gun or vulcan first. If RNG smiles upon me I can finish the 2nd phase sans bomb.

[pandaphantasm]

Working on a Blazing Star 3CC, hopefully a 1CC at some point in my puny panda lifetime.

Giga Wing, reflectless.

I've only recently gotten into Giga Wing and I like it very much, playing it reflectless sounds very exciting! Has it ever been done? Is there a replay of it anywhere?

A quick google search offered me goose egg, but it was rather quick indeed.

[Shepardus]

I remember seeing a run on Nicovideo that got all the way to the TLB, but haven't seen a full clear.

[FRO]

Just credit fed my way through Raiden V.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I broke down and resorted to savestates while practicing Giga Wing reflectless. It's trivial to get up to ST4, where the boss there poses the first real obstacle. Getting into ST5 with a full bomb stock is crucial, and that's where the run really kicks in. It was getting annoying having to slog through the first 3 stages just to practice the later ones. ^^;

Got some proof-of-concept videos I'll upload to Youtube. I can actually do this, holy cow. I just need to pull together all my strats and actually nail it in a real run. Posting infodump in detail in a Strategy thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=62282

I had run where I actually started the TLB with 2 lives, 2 bombs, died on the TLB once with a bomb in stock and still beat it, so I'm getting to the point where an actual clear is in realistic reach as long as I don't die before reaching Stage 7.

Video's up (video showing ST5 to TLB clear in practice runs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcdPyh44YtU

[mycophobia]

after 20 hours of play total I've finally cleared stage 3 of tatsujin on one credit. holy god is stage 4 insane, I think I'm absolutely going to need blue laser for all the popcorn

[LordHypnos]

Still trying to struggle my way through Blue Revolver Hyper mode. Started practice on stage 5, but I'm really not nearly consistent enough with stage 4 yet either, and I haven't practiced stages 1-3 for a while, so I probably already forgot my routes.

[Stevens]

Had the time and energy for two credits of UD today.

First I started on default settings. Credit was going well but my timing was just a few frames off for much of the run. I found a way to not bomb one part on 1-4 that I've always bombed though, so that's good. In the end I got the clear, but failed to access the 2nd loop.

Second credit was the 2nd loop on hard and I cleared it again without too much trouble. Again was a little off but the 2-4 boss went without a hitch or a bomb. However I was off on the flying tanks and had to bomb twice instead of once.

I was able to clean up my approach to the final boss as that is another spot I have a tendency to bomb. I think I have something solid that is safe and will save me a bomb. Would much rather have an extra bomb there for the boss.