Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[cfx]

I did not know what Teki-Paki is, so I just watched a video. I still don't know what it is.

But that music!

Now I know what happens when someone designs a puzzle game while on drugs.

I should have had a clue what was coming when I saw the seizure-inducing flashing on the title screen.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I did not know what Teki-Paki is, so I just watched a video. I still don't know what it is.

But that music!

Now I know what happens when someone designs a puzzle game while on drugs. .

"Music" is a really charitable way to describe the noises the game makes.

The meet where I was introduced the game had everyone calling it "hypnotism game" because it was strangely difficult to pull yourself away from it. It was intended to be a shmupmeet but Teki Paki became the star of the night somehow!

[BIL]

"Sonic Eraser but good" is Teki Paki BGM's official genre Abrasive, piercing, metallic, yet insidiously agreeable in its discordance. The arcade flyer doesn't call it "Brain Washing Game" for nothing. Actually, just the way blocks get machinegunned out of existence is wickedly compulsive. Clearly the work of STG demolition specialists.

More like TEKI-CRACKPIPEY

Spoiler

Apparently it was wildly popular at the office, either Yuge or Uemura said someone was always playing a credit, without fail. Maybe that's why they went under, secretary was too busy playing Teki-Paki to pay the utilities 3;

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Oh snap, I'd misremembered, it was "Brainwashing Game" people were calling it, I didn't realize it was in reference to the arcade flyer! Hahahaha, that flyer's hilarious.

The way pieces connect remind me of another game, Emeraldia, but though I liked the cute art and music, I found it WAY more difficult because you have to "hit" every piece twice. The first one cracks them, and then the second one clears them. It always feels like pieces pile up nonstop.

[cfx]

"Brain Washing Game" is in the game's attract mode as well.

[Flycast]

Spoiler

CUT CONTENT

Thank you BIL !!!!

tekipaki

If you were unable to complete BIL's instructions because you're lacking in Teki-Paki - I have a couple unused PS4 codes:

Spoiler

G433-X4N8-4BJL
76AA-Q2N7-GE6L

(Brothers, I don't care who gets these, but if you know you're not going to play - all I ask is that you keep 'em around for someone that will.)

Thank's for the offer, but i'm more for Bust-A-Move .
(Teki-Paki looks and sound a bit....disturbing...and normally i like that, but this...repels me on so many levels...)

1942 was the first one, then 1943 (which got the subtitle Battle of Midway for some strange reason since the actual Battle of Midway was in 1942), then 1941 Counter Attack, then 19XX, then 1944, then 1942 Joint Strike. Yeah, they didn't really care about doing the years in order or anything.

yesterday was casually trasmitted Pearl Harbor on tv... (1941) , i think that's another sign of the destiny

[Nose Laughin]

1942 was the first one, then 1943 (which got the subtitle Battle of Midway for some strange reason since the actual Battle of Midway was in 1942)

To be fair, when you've got a lone fighter plane destroying the entire Japanese battlefleet and a small country's worth of bombers, it's probably safe to say that realism's already taken a backseat.

[Flycast]

1942 was the first one, then 1943 (which got the subtitle Battle of Midway for some strange reason since the actual Battle of Midway was in 1942)

To be fair, when you've got a lone fighter plane destroying the entire Japanese battlefleet and a small country's worth of bombers, it's probably safe to say that realism's already taken a backseat.

Well...since you normally shoot at a tons of enemies, the plot of a "One Man Army" is intrinsic to the gameplay, and inscindibile from the genre

[Steven]

1942 was the first one, then 1943 (which got the subtitle Battle of Midway for some strange reason since the actual Battle of Midway was in 1942)

To be fair, when you've got a lone fighter plane destroying the entire Japanese battlefleet and a small country's worth of bombers, it's probably safe to say that realism's already taken a backseat.

I'm actually more concerned with the giant battleships in Hishouzame that move like five times faster than your plane does lol

Well...since you normally shoot at a tons of enemies, the plot of a "One Man Army" is intrinsic to the gameplay, and inscindibile from the genre

Then Daisenpuu comes along and you can cheese the entire game by chilling at the top of the screen with autofire and letting your squadron of allies do all of the work while you do nothing~

"Sonic Eraser but good" is Teki Paki BGM's official genre Abrasive, piercing, metallic, yet insidiously agreeable in its discordance. The arcade flyer doesn't call it "Brain Washing Game" for nothing. Actually, just the way blocks get machinegunned out of existence is wickedly compulsive. Clearly the work of STG demolition specialists.

More like TEKI-CRACKPIPEY

Spoiler

Apparently it was wildly popular at the office, either Yuge or Uemura said someone was always playing a credit, without fail. MaybeA that's why they went under, secretary was too busy playing Teki-Paki to pay the utilities 3;

All of this is true, including it being made by a great STG developer (Yuge-san worked on it), except for the reason that they went bankrupt lol. Everything about Teki-Paki is awesome, including the music. Brilliant game, and potentially one of the top 5 best Toaplan games. They took Takanohashi off of programming and made him do only sound after they heard his awesome music on Teki-Paki.

[SavagePencil]

EDIT: PLEASE IGNORE; THE NEO SD BUILDER TOOL MUST USE TIME/DATE OR OTHER VALUE AS PART OF GENERATING THE .NEO FILES. ALL SOURCE .BIN FILES MATCHED PRE- AND POST-PATCH.




Maybe a little in the weeds here but I'm trying to find out what "the" definitive Metal Slug 2 "Turbo" mod is.

1. I followed the instructions on System11's page to manually patch Slug 2. These steps patched a single ROM in the set, and mine matched what was expected here. After converting for my NeoSD card, the resulting .neo file had a CRC32 of 2056E958.
2. I found a version online that also appears to have the speedup fix in it, however this .neo file has a CRC32 of 58132A76.

File sizes of both .neo files are the same.

Were there any later fixes done after the one linked on System11's page? Is there a canonical home for this mod?

[Steven]

Twinkle Star Sprites La Petite Princesse does not have progressive scan, only interlaced, right?

[Lemnear]

What are the controllers that works on PS4 ? excluding the Sony/Nacon/Razer/Hori.
8BitDo ? SEGA ? etc. are compatible?

EDIT: the Psikyo games ported by City-Connection are "HD"? (for example Zero Gunner 2) or are at original resolution?

[Lemnear]

Another stupid question...how can i link another mex directly? i've seen a lot of 1 CC links, but idk how to link the exact message of another topic.

[BIL]

how can i link another mex directly? i've seen a lot of 1 CC links, but idk how to link the exact message of another topic.

See the "Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 9:26 am" at your message's top-right? The little note icon next to it is a direct link; right-click and copy that link into your post.

For example, here's a direct link to my previous post in this thread. Ancient forum magicks.

[Lemnear]

how can i link another mex directly? i've seen a lot of 1 CC links, but idk how to link the exact message of another topic.

See the "Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 9:26 am" at your message's top-right? The little note icon next to it is a direct link; right-click and copy that link into your post.

For example, here's a direct link to my previous post in this thread. Ancient forum magicks.

Thank you BIL !!!!

Is an error, or Blue's Journey costs more than any other ACA Neogeo?

Spoiler

EDIT: ops..is not the ACA NeoGeo topic ....

[Lemnear]

mmm i've got too many shmups together (+ other games) and jumping between them is not so helpful, so i really need to get some order :

Spoiler

1943
1943 Kai: Midway Kaisen
1941: Counter Attack
1944: The Loop Master
19XX: The War Against the Destiny
Air Carrier Wing
Varth: Operation Thunder Storm
Progear
Eco Fighters
Giga Wing
Strikers 1945 II
Aero Fighters 2
Blazing Star
Dariusburst: AC Chronicle Saviour
Gleylancer

For now i've only finished but not "completed":

Spoiler

Progear (1CC till Stage 3, then i've died miserably at Stage 4 and 5).

Strikers 1945 II: 1CC but at Monkey difficulty...one day i will become a "Child" maybe...

Blazing Star: 1CC till the 6th Boss..then i have no idea on how to not die to that boss ,and the next and final boss (especially one attack in particular).

Aero Fighters 2 // Sonic Wings 2: 1CC till the pyramid boss, then, from that point till the end is impossible!

What is the "Difficulty Curve" that should i follow?
(i mean , finishable with 1CC and/or in an "acceptable" manner)

PS: Other Stuff (non-shmups):

Spoiler

Battle Circuit
Darkstalkers: The Night Warrior
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Vampire Saviours: The Lord of Vampire
Pnickles
Street Fighter Alpha 3
King ot Fighters 98: Ultimate Match

[Technicolor]

A pair of questions this time. I’ve heard specific topics brought up here and there, but can’t really seem to find much information on them when I go looking.


1. Complex enemy AI in old school shooters. I know Gun Frontier does some really interesting things with its popcorn enemies, but I also saw early Namco brought up while reading old threads earlier. Can some of you give examples of specific games, maybe particular resources I could go read or watch to learn more?


2. I hear in passing that Hellsinker has been fairly influential to the genre, but in the discussions of it I get a semi-consistent impression that the game is actually somewhat insular relative to other shmups. Are there specific games that cite a Hellsinker influence (I know of TH11)? Did its QoL features set a new standard for PC shmups when it first released? Or is there something else I’m unaware of?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

1) In most shmups, enemies either follow a predetermined path as they move onscreen, or they move in relation to your position (i.e. flying right at you as they appear, or flying so they stay just in front of you). I can't think of any shmups with enemies or bosses that really complex AI in terms of attacks and movement that's significantly different from your average autoscrolling shmup, so I suspect it's a relative rarity, but others should be able to provide better examples.

2) Hellsinker's interface and design are sufficiently crazy that I don't think it's had a broad impact on the genre as a whole. It was released after most of the influential arcade shmups were made, and CAVE and Touhou games in general have had a far more influential impact on game design in more modern games I think, particularly with respect to shot types and movement (having a button dedicated to immediately slowing the ship and focusing attacks is now a common element of bullet hell style games).

[Lethe]

Are there specific games that cite a Hellsinker influence (I know of TH11)

Hadn't heard of this, do you know what the connection is supposed to be specifically? It does make some sense. Coincidentally Hellsinker has many similarities to TH08, which came out early in its development period, but it's difficult to say how much of that is happenstance.

"Complex" shmup AI is just simple procedural behavior. Remember that these developers were really trying to get the most bang for their buck programmatically. The only consistent variable in these games is the player, so like BKR says it usually comes down to 1 or 2 actions that are modified by player positioning in a less or more obscure way. IIRC the Gun Frontier zako just try to fly in a circle around your plane, but the fact that they hang around and actually try to kill you instead of flying on a wire puts them well above many other games. Try Robotron enemies or Gun.Smoke grey dudes.

[Rastan78]

Darius Gaiden and G Darius come to mind as having a lot of enemy types with unique or slightly complex and unusual behaviors. Gaiden for example has an enemy that only takes damage when you're not firing, an enemy that can only be rammed into but is otherwise invincible, lots of enemies that have unique movement that responds to your own position etc.

If that's what you're looking for there are probably a lot of other good examples. Truly complex enemy AI though? That's probably something of a rarity. It might not even fit well with the genre bc shmups are more about forming consistent and repeatable patterns with like 5 or 10 percent being pure skill and reaction once you git gud at a specific game. If you introduce an AI that's so complex it can't be easily manipulated in repeatable ways that would really change up the way a shmup played for better or worse.

Oh and Xevious has a hidden enemy that can generate term papers and deep fake pics of Trump getting arrested.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If you introduce an AI that's so complex it can't be easily manipulated in repeatable ways that would really change up the way a shmup played for better or worse.

Yeah, at least in a traditional autoscrolling shmup. How about in something nontraditional, like a vs shmup? Change Air Blade, Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream and Phantasmagoria of Flower View at least seem to have competent AI, even if they're not actually technically complex.

[jehu]

K. Tiger is another game with absolute son'bitch zako like Gun Frontier - I can't play one without thinking of the other. In the relative sense of AI that you're talking about, I think this fits the bill. I'm assuming this is what you're looking for, yeah?

It's true that the scripts are not particularly complicated - but I suspect you're not confused about this. It is fun to imagine how terrible it would be to play a game where the zako have collective intelligence and shoot at you in undodgable configurations, adapt to how you dodge, aren't fooled by restream attempts or whatever.

[velo]

mmm i've got too many shmups together (+ other games) and jumping between them is not so helpful, so i really need to get some order :

Spoiler

1943
1943 Kai: Midway Kaisen
1941: Counter Attack
1944: The Loop Master
19XX: The War Against the Destiny
Air Carrier Wing
Varth: Operation Thunder Storm
Progear
Eco Fighters
Giga Wing
Strikers 1945 II
Aero Fighters 2
Blazing Star
Dariusburst: AC Chronicle Saviour
Gleylancer

For now i've only finished but not "completed":

Spoiler

Progear (1CC till Stage 3, then i've died miserably at Stage 4 and 5).

Strikers 1945 II: 1CC but at Monkey difficulty...one day i will become a "Child" maybe...

Blazing Star: 1CC till the 6th Boss..then i have no idea on how to not die to that boss ,and the next and final boss (especially one attack in particular).

Aero Fighters 2 // Sonic Wings 2: 1CC till the pyramid boss, then, from that point till the end is impossible!

What is the "Difficulty Curve" that should i follow?
(i mean , finishable with 1CC and/or in an "acceptable" manner)

PS: Other Stuff (non-shmups):

Spoiler

Battle Circuit
Darkstalkers: The Night Warrior
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Vampire Saviours: The Lord of Vampire
Pnickles
Street Fighter Alpha 3
King ot Fighters 98: Ultimate Match

There are some difficulty ranking lists on this forum, much debated. From your list, Gleylancer must be the easiest.

[BIL]

K. Tiger is another game with absolute son'bitch zako like Gun Frontier - I can't play one without thinking of the other. In the relative sense of AI that you're talking about, I think this fits the bill. I'm assuming this is what you're looking for, yeah?

Kt is extra-cute with each zako heli having its own colour scheme :3 Some rubberband down and back in a "U," pelting all the way (Seibu nicked these for Raiden), some aggressively camp at your flanks, others (Basic Blues) just go for the banzai head-on collision... as it typical of Toaplan, so much personality despite the balls-hard military aesthetic.

I'd definitely file KT, Gun.Smoke and Gun Frontier in this bracket, all games with inventively devious zako behaviours. G.S's contemporary Capcom stablemates Vulgus and to a lesser exent Exed Exes' zako tend to be highly-regarded, too, though I've not put as much time on them. Both certainly seemed to have that sense of swarming mischief.

Anyone remember lovable forum pet CoderGames, creator of the esteemed INVADER ATTACK 2, and purveyor of Constant Brutal Action? Later got Uncle Phil'd off the premises by bloodf himself, rather hilariously, but he was pretty hot on his Space Invaders-esque with onboard Skynet. Buddy needed a publicist, got a bit hot under the collar and flat-out weird, then eventually busted out the ol' Groucho Marx alt account (it always works!) - but he sure believed his own press.

I programmed a larger set of different AIs, so invaders do think.

HOLD ON TO YER BUTTS (■｀w´■)

[dojo_b]

Tiny Q about Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (NES). Sometimes the friendly faeries who speak at stage end appear in greyed-out silhouette (example here). Is there a pattern or significance to when this happens? Or just a glitch?

This port/sequel is completely neutered from the arcade version, but it's still a really pleasant fantasy outing, and its lack of intensity serves the atmosphere of soaring majestically high above the realm. The st4 "Grave Yard" tune is standout on both arcade and NES (where it's been reworked to good effect) and combines a solid, humble foundation with surging pitch shifts and ecstatic synth-solo outbursts.

[BIL]

I'm only passingly familiar with the FC version, though I'm very fond of its artfully consolised take - I just gotta second Graveyard as one of Hosoe's all-time best. Ingeniously catchy. Reminds of Gradius Gaiden's Formidable Guardians (Part 1), the way its shimmering sketches breezily orbit the riff. Hosoe has a consummate musician's gift for those comfily stomping/soaring tunes; see also Tank Buster from Metal Hawk.

Faaack this genre can be curative sometimes. I'm 99% sure Gaiden's emcee also played Harry Mason in SH1, and while he kinda shat the bed there, he's in absolutely rare form here. "Here they come! Crush all of them." You got it Harry! Let's blow this thing and find out what's up with that radio!

[dojo_b]

the way it hews close to its comfily whirring dynamo riff.

YES, that's extremely apt! What it called up for me in this vein, actually, was Guaraldi's Linus and Lucy.

[edit, sorry to outpace your self-edit, and of course I appreciate your attention to saying exactly what you mean to say, but you were already spot-on.]

[BIL]

Can't beat a good riff, absolutely magical. ^__^ Rhythm and constance is something very near and dear to the ol' neurosystem, I hear... in a slightly chillier but still unmistakably orbital tone, there's No Answer Is Also An Answer from Abandoner... a game I've never played, but that OST has stuck with me. Great title, too. Incidentally, regular STG guitar hero SSH composed for the series too, or perhaps even that same game? I remember BITD, people hearing the trip-hop stuff and going "Yo WTF, where the dual lead at?!"

[edit, sorry to outpace your self-edit, and of course I appreciate your attention to saying exactly what you mean to say, but you were already spot-on.]

De nada mon frere! I'm quite fond of those, it's like getting a free doublepost

[el_rika]

Hi friends,

Please clear up for me the requirements for entering Ura mode in Daifukk Black Label Strong mode.
I know you can do it from both level1 or level3 just like in regula Daifukkatsu.

Without recalling doing anything particulary differnt, i found myself in Ura at the very beginnig of level 3 the other day in Strong mode. Is it the bee collecting of level 2 + no death ? Or something more?

Thanks a lot!

[Lemnear]

mmm i've got too many shmups together (+ other games) and jumping between them is not so helpful, so i really need to get some order :

Spoiler

1943
1943 Kai: Midway Kaisen
1941: Counter Attack
1944: The Loop Master
19XX: The War Against the Destiny
Air Carrier Wing
Varth: Operation Thunder Storm
Progear
Eco Fighters
Giga Wing
Strikers 1945 II
Aero Fighters 2
Blazing Star
Dariusburst: AC Chronicle Saviour
Gleylancer

For now i've only finished but not "completed":

Spoiler

Progear (1CC till Stage 3, then i've died miserably at Stage 4 and 5).

Strikers 1945 II: 1CC but at Monkey difficulty...one day i will become a "Child" maybe...

Blazing Star: 1CC till the 6th Boss..then i have no idea on how to not die to that boss ,and the next and final boss (especially one attack in particular).

Aero Fighters 2 // Sonic Wings 2: 1CC till the pyramid boss, then, from that point till the end is impossible!

What is the "Difficulty Curve" that should i follow?
(i mean , finishable with 1CC and/or in an "acceptable" manner)

PS: Other Stuff (non-shmups):

Spoiler

Battle Circuit
Darkstalkers: The Night Warrior
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Vampire Saviours: The Lord of Vampire
Pnickles
Street Fighter Alpha 3
King ot Fighters 98: Ultimate Match

There are some difficulty ranking lists on this forum, much debated. From your list, Gleylancer must be the easiest.

I've found some topics but are all personal 1CC Difficulty list, and a lot of games are missing.
Yeh i've figured out that Gleylancer is the easiest, maybe DariusBurst (not sure) but the rest? I can't jump seamlessy between them, or i'll forgot the patterns!