The BIG thread of Shmup grievances.

[DrTrouserPlank]

The purpose of this topic is to consolidate into one thread all the grievances you may have with a particular shmup, a particular boss or any section of any game.

It is hoped that this thread will help to keep game-specific threads on topic and not have them deviate into general discussion about issues which are not related to the game in question. I hope this will be able to stem the tide of recent thread lockings resulting from off-topic discussion.

[Drachenherz]

You know, this darn first Level of MushiFutari 1.5 novice mode, it really gives me hell... especially the first waves of enemies, they allways get me, allways, and I have no idea how I could ever evade their attack, it is just impossible!

What really bugs me, is, you know, you need like 3 lives for the first boss, and with this first attack, it makes it impossible to beat him. If I even can reach him, consistently. I actually even don't believe that it is possible to reach this mean old bullet-splurging t-rex consistently, this game is just programmed to be an unfair coin-grave.

[Zeron]

Oh boy here we go again!

[DrTrouserPlank]

Just had two (what I would call) relatively good runs back to back on futari, one ended on the fourth level, the second on the 4th boss. They aren't good in the sense that I'm happy with how far I got, or the score, but the gameplay was good with the exception of the majority of the deaths which were soft deaths where I nudged into a simple bullet. I am convinced that the game conspires to screw you over at every opportunity it gets though.

Most of the times I die my thought is,

"That was stupid, but hardly surprising given the amount of crap coming at me. It's a miracle that I've managed to avoid so much of it."

swiftly followed by,

"This is just ridiculous!"

followed by a death about 15 seconds later

You must need to have so much luck to get a clear within 5 lives. Even when you aren't getting boxed in you just lose lives to nothing bullets, or the game decides to kill you because you apparently hit an enemy that was in a cloud of gems (when it obviously wasn't). Seriously. I have spent ages on this game. so much time that it's not even funny. How much practice do you need to clear this? 200+ hours? or do you just need to have worked on the programming team?

[Drachenherz]

[Nifty]

I don't even know where I would start, but I also make a point of trying to avoid playing shmups that I don't like

[Zengeku3]

How much practice do you need to clear this? 200+ hours? or do you just need to have worked on the programming team?

Idk, i cleared BL Original on my first attempt and made it to Stage 5 on 1.5 on first attempt. I haven't even spent considerable time practicing and I'm a terrible shmupper on the 360. I don't honestly understand what you are having that much trouble with. Just practice until you understand things and if you have seriously practiced for longer than 50 hours and still not got that 1cc then move on to another game.

[DrTrouserPlank]

How much practice do you need to clear this? 200+ hours? or do you just need to have worked on the programming team?

Idk, i cleared BL Original on my first attempt and made it to Stage 5 on 1.5 on first attempt. I haven't even spent considerable time practicing and I'm a terrible shmupper on the 360. I don't honestly understand what you are having that much trouble with. Just practice until you understand things and if you have seriously practiced for longer than 50 hours and still not got that 1cc then move on to another game.

After many many many hours of practice I would struggle to get to stage 5 more than 30% of the time I think.

What I am having problems with is the sheer fact that you cannot possibly go through the whole game making so few mistakes. You are going to misjudge a path now and then, get boxed in with no bombs sometimes and get hit by something you didn't see occasionally. This is assuming that you can actually deal with the bosses and levels and the patterns themselves without the loss of many lives, because you are going to need to keep those for the mistakes you make.

What I am saying is, the improbability of making so few errors on a run pretty much excludes the chance of ever clearing it on one credit.

[Spyke]

Little things that niggle me:

Any Raiden game - you die, the power-up icons pop out of you and start circling the screen.... but they're all changing colour at different times so you have to follow them around for ages trying to match them all up and picking them up one by one by one... or you just so distracted by them that you die again!

Second boss on Steel Dragon. I KNOW the patterns and I KNOW the tactics.... but I still regularly lose a life there. Not always, but there's always the possibility hanging over me. I hate that when I know what to do a tiny moment of mistiming or carelessness or whatever loses me a life. And it's not even a particularly hard boss! Oh well...

Also any game where when you die your ship goes back to sloooooooow speed again, so even if you have the skill to survive for a bit with a pop-gun your ship doesn't have the speed to perform the manouvres you need to use to survive.

Apart from that I love everything!

Ant

[Gus]

What I am saying is, the improbability of making so few errors on a run pretty much excludes the chance of ever clearing it on one credit.

Yeah, it's not like Sapz no missed the game or anything.

[ebarrett]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwhG_y0HQg

[Skykid]

Shmups meet last year I watched Icarus and Sapz consistently clear Futari all day long in a score challenge. And their scores were right at the top end, consistently.

So how do you explain that?

[Hagane]

Random stages in Psikyo games, when there are three slots for four possible stages. And, of course, in those games there's one random stage that gives much less score than the others!

[mrsmiley381]

My only shmup grievance is that the original Compile is dead. I would like to see more of those Aleste games.

[Zengeku3]

What I am saying is, the improbability of making so few errors on a run pretty much excludes the chance of ever clearing it on one credit.

With that attitude you can be absolutely certain you'll never clear on one credit. The best way to absolve yourself from that sort of frustration is to simply give up on it and go play something else. You tell me, have you even 1cc'd any Cave game? Or any shmup for the matter? I need you to give me something instead of simply saying its impossible. You are saying that its impossible to avoid making mistakes? Fine, I'll admit, I also occasionally mess up my input causing deaths that are really quite stupid but that's not a fault of the game. So what do I do? Try again until I stop make the stupid mistakes and if I won't stop making stupid mistakes and I grow tired of it i stop playing and go do something else.

Shmups meet last year I watched Icarus and Sapz consistently clear Futari all day long in a score challenge. And their scores were right at the top end, consistently.
So how do you explain that?

"They were probably hiding four-clover leaves and rabbit feet in their clothes and have probably spent over 200 hours practicing".

[DrTrouserPlank]

Shmups meet last year I watched Icarus and Sapz consistently clear Futari all day long in a score challenge. And their scores were right at the top end, consistently.
So how do you explain that?

"They were probably hiding four-clover leaves and rabbit feet in their clothes and have probably spent over 200 hours practicing".

The part about the 200 hours of practice is probably right. There's no shame in it and nor does it detract from the achievement, but I certainly think it's a big factor and clearly at odds with all the people saying they cleared these games on their first try using their tongue and nose to operate the controls.

As for how I explain what you saw; I don't know. Maybe someone slipped some PCP in your pint causing you to hallucinate?. That Yates' down West street is pretty shady.

[Erppo]

Just for you I decided to go through my post history:

« on: 04-08-2010, 13:37:53 »
"Yay, I just got Futari!"

« on: 06-08-2010, 16:53:04 »
"Futari 1.5 Original 1cc."

You can't even fit 200+ hours in that interval. There must be something fishy going on!

[Skykid]

As for how I explain what you saw; I don't know. Maybe someone slipped some PCP in your pint causing you to hallucinate?. That Yates' down West street is pretty shady.

Possibly, I'll have to ask any of the other eight people in attendance if they were drugged too.

And, awesome, it sounds to me like you're in the UK. How about popping to Casino in central London. Futari isn't there but there are enough shmups to demonstrate some consistently good play for you.

[chum]

Stage 5 boss in Mystic Square. Ridiculous...

[Bananamatic]

The inability to buy and play psyvariar 2

[azinth]

Random stages in Psikyo games, when there are three slots for four possible stages. And, of course, in those games there's one random stage that gives much less score than the others!

Ugh this, this so hard. How the hell did Psikyo think that was a good idea.

[Zengeku3]

The part about the 200 hours of practice is probably right. There's no shame in it and nor does it detract from the achievement, but I certainly think it's a big factor and clearly at odds with all the people saying they cleared these games on their first try using their tongue and nose to operate the controls.

It isn't at odds with the people saying they cleared in first attempt. Its a matter of two very different kinds of runs. One of them being a simple survival oriented 1cc attempt and the other being a scoring attempt. There is a huge difference.

[Sapz]

The part about the 200 hours of practice is probably right. There's no shame in it and nor does it detract from the achievement, but I certainly think it's a big factor and clearly at odds with all the people saying they cleared these games on their first try using their tongue and nose to operate the controls.

Now see, a lot of people have already put hundreds if not thousands of hours total into a variety of shmups, and with that much practice, especially if it's very focused, it's inevitable that your skills are going to rise drastically. With these far more finely honed skills, it's not very far-fetched to think that these people could clear a tamer shmup such as DFK 1.5 1 loop or Futari BL Original in a few attempts using the precision, basic tactics, pathfinding and focused vision that carry over between games.

As a counter-example to the Larsa 'you need most of your lives' thing, I'll record and upload a NMNB Larsa fight starting at 70k rank within a couple of hours tops. Given how low the chances of dodging everything perfectly are, I shouldn't be able to confidently make a claim like that, right? I'll record how long it takes, starting now.

EDIT: I finished. I make that about 11-12 minutes. Youtube video coming shortly.

[Zengeku3]

Oooh, that's gonna hurt.

[Sapz]

Here you go. I admittedly made a mistake on the first attack of the final phase but it didn't cost me that time. I also have the complete recording from start to finish, including screwups, available on request. It's about 10 minutes including menus and such.

[moh]

You know, this darn first Level of MushiFutari 1.5 novice mode, it really gives me hell... especially the first waves of enemies,
What really "bugs" me .

im sorry, ive been laughing at this for about 15 minutes now...

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I just don't get why TrouserPlank still uses Reco. Palm Abnormal is best for a first 1cc, and even after 1ccing with Reco, I still preferred to use him over her.


Anyway, about a game I haven't played in a long time, why are the some boss/midboss attack orders in Pink Sweets randomized? I have been screwed over by luck cause some of that stuff is impossible to avoid from certain positions while other stuff from the boss/midboss requires you to be in said positions when they start. Also, there's way too much luck reliant stuff in stage 6. And on the subject of stupid luck reliant stuff, the stage 6 boss lightning attack can screw over your scoring run based on RNG and there's nothing you can do about it, and that's not even a survival based luck thing like most of the other stuff is.


On more recent note though, randomly getting walled in Area 13(I think that's the one) of Eschatos

[ebarrett]

Anyway, about a game I haven't played in a long time, why are the some boss/midboss attack orders in Pink Sweets randomized? I have been screwed over by luck cause some of that stuff is impossible to avoid from certain positions while other stuff from the boss/midboss requires you to be in said positions when they start.

That's the whole point of it, you have to account for all possible attacks when preparing for the next one, and act accordingly when you see what is coming up next - there are cues for every attack from all bosses. Don't pull a plankytrousers and blame it on "luck", there is no "luck".

[Zengeku3]

I just don't get why TrouserPlank still uses Reco. Palm Abnormal is best for a first 1cc, and even after 1ccing with Reco, I still preferred to use him over her.

Easier in what way?

[azinth]

Don't pull a plankytrousers and blame it on "luck", there is no "luck".

Unless we're talkin' about flamingoes amirite