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 »

Gamer707b wrote:
Ajora wrote:I've beaten Gaiares on normal mode. Not sure if I want to beat it on very hard mode or not.
Nice!! Beat it on normal last year myself. What did you think of it? I personally really enjoy 16 bit shooters.
Excellent game with no noteworthy flaws. The first four missions weren't so bad, but the difficulty ramps way up once you get to the mini-boss on the fifth mission. The second last boss is a bitch on wheels but the last boss is a pushover. I wouldn't want to imagine playing the game without the secret T-Blaster weapon.

And yes, there actually are additional boss attacks on very hard mode. I played a tiny bit of it and watched some snippets on Youtube.
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ShotOfSelf
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ShotOfSelf »

Been checking out a bunch of arcade games recently and I was very surprised with X-Multiply by Irem. Great music, especially the first stage along with mostly awesome graphics and gameplay. Thought the movable arms were a weird gimmick at first but they're really fun to maneuver. Didn't take too long to clear either so it's not that difficult if you have an okay memory. Highly recommended!

For fans of Battle Garegga check out Gun Frontier, the similarities blew me away and I also happen to love revolvers...

X-Multiply - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rfhY1wiwD8

Gun Frontier - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZY_-5GWZsk
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ACSeraph
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ACSeraph »

I pulled out the 360 for the first time in a long while and I've been playing quite a few shmups on there, but I keep being drawn back to Muchi Muchi Pork. I usually play shmups for survival clears (making exceptions for score systems I really enjoy) but being a Yagawa game that isn't going to work here.

I'd love to get a simple clear, but not sure if I have the required dedication. In any case I'm enjoying my runs for what they are. Been trying to break the "must clear, must score!" mindset a bit and just enjoy the individual runs and blissful deaths like I did when I was new to the genre.
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DMC
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by DMC »

I moved back after a few years abroad and got reunited with some of my old games. Picked up playing Soukyugurentai this weekend, 14 years ago was the last time I got a hiscore for it. Although I love Yagawa-Raizing games, the Toyama ones are so accessible and easy to get back to.
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Heh, same here! I've got a Japanese Saturn hooked up to a CRT again for the first time in several years, and Soukyugurentai is one of the ones I've been eagerly revisiting. It feels all the more special given that I've never seen decent Saturn or ST-V emulation (at least on my own computers), so it's one of the cases where the "original hardware" experience is meaningfully richer in lots of ways. I need to get this Retro Board installed so I can use a good stick with it again. :)
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DMC
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by DMC »

Nice to hear, what else are you playing to Saturn now? Unfortunately I sold most of the shmups and the prices aren't encouraging. Will probably some Panzer Dragoon Zwei next though.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Yeah, PD Zwei is usually still reasonably priced, at least! The others I'm revisiting at the moment are the ports of Darius Gaiden, Battle Garegga, Layer Section and Metal Black (and a bunch of Capcom fighting games). Stupidly, I sold a lot of my favourites thinking it'd be many more years before I got a Saturn up and running again, so I'm after the Parodius games and the Gradius and Salamander collections at the moment. :)
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ZeroNebula
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ZeroNebula »

Been playing some Cho Ren Sha and hot damn I think I'm developing carpal tunnel from spamming the Z key. I woke up this morning with a limp left wrist and am debating if I should set up a macro, or possibly switch to stick / controller. I like using what is generally considered to be the default control scheme of a game and am usually okay with rapid fire, but man my wrist is killing me.
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jedinat
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by jedinat »

ZeroNebula wrote:Been playing some Cho Ren Sha and hot damn I think I'm developing carpal tunnel from spamming the Z key. I woke up this morning with a limp left wrist and am debating if I should set up a macro, or possibly switch to stick / controller. I like using what is generally considered to be the default control scheme of a game and am usually okay with rapid fire, but man my wrist is killing me.
Don't play through the pain, or it will become chronic. Stretch the wrist. Lifting weights before bed might help.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Button mashing in shmups is so 1990. Thankfully there's an easy solution: Autohotkey! Download and install it, and use this script in the game folder:
Spoiler
RunWait latest.exe
ExitApp

#HotkeyInterval 3000
#MaxHotkeysPerInterval 300
p::q
c::z
$*z::
While GetKeyState("z","P")
{
Send {z down}
Sleep 20
Send {z up}
Sleep 20
}
return
Now enjoy ChoRenSha 68k with all the joy of shooting and dodging without fear of a repetitive stress injury from constant, relentless game-long button mashing.

It's generally considered bad design in shmups nowadays to require severe button mashing, which ChoRenSha 68k does when at the minimum shot power in particular, made especially worse by it being a lengthy game; the button mashing adds nothing to the game frankly. Go to a high quality Japanese arcade and you'll see many older shmups setup with rapid fire buttons so instead of being worn out or frustrated by the strain of button mashing, you can focus on the best elements of the game such as the dodging and scoring.
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Lethe
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Lethe »

What amuses me about this is that the developer has talked about how he made a compromise to limit the amount of tapping, yet because the game has so much constant action and no alternative to tapping it ends up wearing you down anyway. He also mentions how the max power shot is "only 1.375 times greater" than the starting one instead of 4 times greater, which is a comfort given how you lose all of it when you die. Funny how standards on these things have changed.
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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 »

ZeroNebula wrote:Been playing some Cho Ren Sha and hot damn I think I'm developing carpal tunnel from spamming the Z key. I woke up this morning with a limp left wrist and am debating if I should set up a macro, or possibly switch to stick / controller. I like using what is generally considered to be the default control scheme of a game and am usually okay with rapid fire, but man my wrist is killing me.
Carpal Tunnel is not something to be taken lightly. It sucks and it can stay with you for a long time. It got bad enough for me that I used to wear a brace to ease the discomfort, and this was in my pre-shmup days.

Cho Ren Sha has a pretty generous auto fire rate, but for long sessions it can grow tiring. My sessions were usually just a credit or two so I generally didn't bother with autofire at first, but eventually I relented and set it up and it makes a world of difference in comfort. I pretty much play everything with autofire these days. If I recall correctly, I think I even set it up for Giga Wing, which has two functions on the shot button. I just mapped the autofire shot to one button and held down another button to activate the barrier.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Giga Wing is basically the pinnacle example of a game without built in rapid fire that only needs a "gentle" tap speed, where you only need to tap relatively slowly to keep shot speed maxed out (Stuck needs an above average tap speed to reliably keep hit gunpods facing forward). Even with that in mind, I still definitely recommend setting up autofire for Giga Wing for maximum comfort (and they're airplanes that would have machineguns anyways, right??).
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Kiken »

For some godforsaken reason, I have chosen to start playing Strikers 1945 + again. And to my own shock and amazement, I am now getting much further into the game (finally got to 1-8 on single credit this evening). Out of all the planes, I find the Flying Pancake to be the most versatile. I really need to stop being so stingy with my bombs mid-level.
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ShotOfSelf
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ShotOfSelf »

Kiken wrote:Out of all the planes, I find the Flying Pancake to be the most versatile.
I always go with the Spitfire. The Flying Pancake could have the smallest hitbox and fastest speed but it's so ugly and ridiculous looking I could never bring myself to use it. Only other ship that bothers me as much is the one in Hellfire, a game I also enjoy.

Also, just did a google search and discovered that the Flying Pancake is an ACTUAL PLANE!!! Thought it was some stupid design created just for the game. :(
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by copy-paster »

Salamander 2

My loop 2 practice is almost complete but 2-2 boss is scary when doing full run. Any tips how to get consistenly at loop 2?
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

ShotOfSelf wrote:Also, just did a google search and discovered that the Flying Pancake is an ACTUAL PLANE!!! Thought it was some stupid design created just for the game. :(
It's actually a very interesting piece of aviation technology that had some impressive performance specs for the time it was made. I'd recommend reading up on it; it was a solid experimental low aspect ratio aircraft that mostly got sidelined because the military at the time was looking to shift away from propeller based aircraft to jet engines (that, and it had some vibration issues they were never given the proper time/budget to address). If it had been made before jet engines were becoming a thing, it had the potential to be one of the most interesting planes in the military.
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ShotOfSelf
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ShotOfSelf »

@BareKnuckleRoo Just read through the wikipedia article and I agree, interesting but still damn ugly. I'm more partial to WWI planes which are ugly in their own way. The early days of aviation fascinate me most ever since I read 'Fighting the Flying Circus' and played the hell out of Red Baron and Rise of Flight. Favorites are the Spad 13, Nieuport 17, Sopwith Camel and the Bristol F.2.

To stay on topic, my favorite Psikyo game so far is the original Strikers 1945. Wonderful experience until the second loop, damn does it get hard fast. Have you ever attempted the 2-ALL?
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davyK
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by davyK »

Back at Samurai Aces (aka Sengoku Ace).

Have the PS2 port which has a practice mode including a loop 2 option. A 1-ALL will be enough for me though.

There's a very good guide here so I am following that advice re character select and forgoing the max power up as it ups the ranks and kills you with bullet speed.

Can get to level 5 out of the 7....perservering.
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Lethe
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Lethe »

Played a couple of credits of the extremely silly Garegga hack 1945 Part-2 (which I found while trying to work out what the deal is with the later Garegga revisions). I won't spoil what the changes are but let's just say it's reminiscent of Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition. Good for a laugh, game overed to loop 2 Black Heart with almost maximum rank and all the midbosses filling the entire screen with bullets.

Also been messing around with StellaVanity for the past few days and by god this game is complicated. Well, it's not bad to just play but optimizing for score is arcane even for the notionally simple mode. Seems like a great game though, if you're at all inclined to the doujin trash subgenre you'll probably like it, and it has years' worth of scalability and content.
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BIL
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BIL »

Lethe wrote:1945 Part-2
WTB Strikers 1946 :lol:
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Despatche
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Despatche »

Sure hope Strikers 2020 actually appears this year. Hope everything's okay at Zerodiv. The Steam releases seem to suggest the going is good, though.
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ACSeraph
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ACSeraph »

The Radiant Silvergun rant thread got me to give the game another chance and I'm finally starting to get into it for the first time after impulse buying it many many years ago.

I'll definitely be sticking with story mode for the time being just because having to worry about scoring for weapon levels is simply too much for me as a new player. Even a story clear with saved weapon levels seems much more difficult that the average survival 1cc in a lot of other games.

I noticed my settings for arcade mode have extends set to off. Is that really the default? You have to clear this entire monstrosity with just 3 ships?
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by guigui »

Iirc, there are 2 extends by default in Silvergun.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Verticen »

I've picked Danmaku Unlimited 3 back up again. I got a 'Medium' clear earlier this year, but now gunning for a 'hard' spirit mode clear. No TLB b/c screw that. Also need to get my Esp.Ra.De Psi clear already...
Despatche wrote:Sure hope Strikers 2020 actually appears this year. Hope everything's okay at Zerodiv. The Steam releases seem to suggest the going is good, though.
Yeah, Strikers 2020 crossed my mind the other day... I don't have my hopes up :?
Licorice
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Licorice »

I am playing Dodonpachi.

Took me a while to warm up to it. I kept looking at it with a very Batsugun lens. "Why is everything endlessly streaming slow bullets? How is this good design? Why did they keep the 2 part enemies when player shot density makes it irrelevant?" When I stopped doing that, and tried to enjoy it on its own terms, it was much better. Ironically, it also let me eventually see the subtle Toaplan DNA shining through. There's the same sort of threat manipulation and planned maneuvering. Just here it feels different. I'd liken the Toaplan games I've played to making sharp surgical cuts with a scalpel, whereas Dodonpachi feels like painting calligraphy with an ink brush. Longer, curvier, slower strokes manipulating the pink bullets streamed your way as you weave through the blue ones.

Anyway, I guess it's mostly stage 4 and 5 that feel this way. 1 is just a chaining playground, which I'm not focusing on right now, 2 is like I described just a bit sparse, and 3 is just a crappy Batsugun 4, but parts of it are a bit different, especially the second third where you're just trying spawn as many bullets as possible to cancel. Stage 1 boss is a bit boring, 2 and 3 are good. 4 is a bully. I haven't spent enough time with 5 and I've only faced 6 once when credit feeding.

I'm going for the scrubby bomb clear and can no-miss the first 3 stages with some reliability so I guess once I can get through 4 and 5 reliably with <=3 misses and learn to bomb spam 6 efficiently I'll be there.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Bawa »

Having achieved my 1-all of sorcer strike recently, I picked up Danmaku Unlimited 3.
Some patterns seem really impossible to figure out on the fly, at least for my skill level.
I'm also feeling that I'm not a big fan of games with more than 1 loop (DDP DFK is an exception tho).
I suck at these games but I do enjoy them.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by copy-paster »

Sorcer Striker is definitely one of best shmup choice for beginners. I have yet to clear the Japanese version (Mahou Daisakusen) and I prefer this over SS.
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Bawa
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Bawa »

I really enjoyed it! Having read about the JP version, I might give it a try, even though I’m not really sure if my skills are up to it right now. And I might end on a 1-all too if possible.
I suck at these games but I do enjoy them.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by EmperorIng »

If you've been checking out the high score forum, you'll see my posts showing up a lot on the Giga Wing games, particularly Giga Wing 2 and Giga Wing Generations. I will admit that GWG is something of a side project (or relaxation aid) with my main goal being a 1cc + good score in GW2.

Replaying Giga Wing 2 (my first time in a long time) is turning out to be a very rewarding and gratifying experience, as I'm in the learning-the-game-for-reals phase of play (early stage: credit feed for fun, mid phase: try -and fail- for basic clear, advanced phase: push scoring techniques higher, final stage: western record chaser). There is a real kinesthetic pleasure in the game's scoring system and of triggering the 'volcanon' medal explosions that other games just don't quite match up. I mean, what is your visual reward for a full chain in DDP? a number on the side of the screen that's in the hundreds. What's the reward in GW2? The whole screen darkening, slowing down, and exploding in medals! No competition there!!!

Giga Wing Generations is not as exuberant with its rewards but it still scratches the reflect-n-medal-collect itch.
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