Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Steven]

Yeah, different person did the original Raiden. I think it's finally time to check out Raiden aside from the 1 coin I gave to DX like 2 months ago, as I've been meaning to try the series for some time as it is.

Anyway, I will ask Uemura about autofire, and also Yuge if he shows up. I was actually planning on asking about that safe spot on the Kyuukyoku Tiger stage 10 boss, lol. I think I read somewhere that some developers (not necessarily Toaplan) put safe spots there intentionally, so it will be interesting to see what Uemura says.

I imagine it will be difficult to have much of a conversation in the live house while the bands are playing since those places get loud, so it will probably have to wait until whatever event it is that happens afterwards in order to actually have a decent conversation. I'll probably bring my Switch and my M2 Toaplan collections, so if we end up going to drink or whatever I'll see about playing Kyuukyoku Tiger 2P version or 2P Same! or something with Uemura and the other fans or whoever else shows up. That should be fun. I deeply regret not taking a picture with Namiki and Battle Garegga or playing it with him last week when I met him at Mikado... oh well. Not making that mistake again, though.

I recently watched Jaimers' Same! 1P version 1CC and I saw that instakill on the stage 1 bosses with the 30Hz autofire, so I tried it myself in Kyuukyoku Tiger a few days ago and sure enough, it works with the blue shot on a few bosses there as well, like the stage 2 boss, which you can kill before it even is fully on the screen, and also both of the stage 4 bosses as well. That's definitely not intentional and it feels cheap as hell, even if it is kind of funny the first time you do it, but it does make the fights that it works in a hell of a lot easier... well, they aren't even really "fights" in that case since they never get a chance to even start shooting at you or even get fully rendered on the screen before they are dead.

[MidnightWolf]

Posting this question here, as it's not worth creating a thread for (probably more of a rant on my part too, if I'm being honest) so here goes...

Exa-Arcadia have had both Akai Katana and Dodonpachi SaiDaiOuJou removed from MAME, because they want exclusivity, but less than 3 months later, Akai Katana is announced for Nintendo Switch and other "current generation platforms" at Shooters Fes 2022. So what is the logic behind Exa-Arcadia's decision there?

"We want to keep these games exclusive, by releasing them on multiple platforms"

Maybe I'm just being dumb, but makes that C&D notice handed to MAMEdev even more petty and pointless.

[Lethe]

Players sometimes debate how much rank systems were a cynical method to increase income without much thought put into the relationship between score and rank. Even Garegga's balance gets called out as nothing more than a happy accident sometimes. This is a clear example of a dev acknowledging and highlighting that relationship.

I let this drop the last time the subject came around but I feel like bringing it up now: IMO, the comparison between DG's and Garegga's systems is faulty.

In DG, as in many other games, there's a direct score -> rank relationship. Destroying boss parts and collecting spare powerups contributes most of the rank. It's safe to assume that this is so scoreplayers can get more mileage out of the game. It's also safe to assume that the devs were aware that higher rank could lead to higher scores during development; after all they were the ones who chose to give the boss projectiles score values in the first place. But that's clearly not the main design focus, just a natural consequence of how the game handles rank. They probably realized it was there, thought it was cool, and didn't think too hard about it. (Actually, I could make a very similar argument about autofire)

Batrider is a 100% score -> rank game: Everything you do to increase score also increases rank. Even Bakraid is similar with its gigantic rank penalties on big chains and 100k medals - although the devs obviously didn't grasp how far the scoring could be taken, leading to a quick counterstop and the Unlimited revision. But Garegga doesn't really have anything comparable and the relationship between score and rank is constantly muddy. Basic scoring competency makes the game easier, and certainly isn't much harder overall than playing in the most survival-centric way possible. Rank control on a crap ship like Baron is much less about not making the game too hard and much more about keeping the enemy HP low enough that your bomb remains functional and you can kill the BH2 grenades.

What's more, the (virtually unplayed) later revisions of Garegga have this going on:
New version
- Yellow dot bullets
- Shot fires in 4-shot bursts minimum
- Extend every 2mil
Type 2
- Yellow dot bullets
- Shot fires in 4-shot bursts minimum
- Option formation locked to Search
You either get less extends and less resources, or you lose control of your options and can't milk properly. In both cases you lose precise control of the shot. I don't see what purpose these changes could have other than to stop players from abusing the game so hard.

So my question is this: If Garegga's scoring is a work of intentional genius, why was there an obvious impetus to revise Batrider and Bakraid to have a less backward relationship? If the way the game turned out was fundamental to the developers' vision, why was it neutered in the revisions? If it was such a success, why did nobody try to replicate it until Ibara?

[Rastan78]

I do think the comparison between DG and Garegga rank system is a good one. Yagawa even said he was playing a lot of DG back then which came out over a year before Garegga. So likely he was playing it simultaneously to working on Garegga.

I've thought about that point you made before how the relationship between rank and score is more linear in DG whereas with weaker Garegga ships especially you have to control rank to keep enemy HP reasonable. Like if you're playing Chitta you can't have the carrier platforms on cloud stage get too much HP for example.

With a no auto run in DG (which is how Yagawa said he played except with a lot of mashing) you run into the same problem with the later midboss captures. Play too aggressive early picking up extra powerups etc and your end bonus score will massively tank when you miss those captures.

The game's difficulty balances are pretty different though. With auto and stalling out every boss fight to the max you can max out DG rank by stage 5. And the game is still playable with a no miss no bomb, although much more difficult than a low rank run. Meanwhile in Garegga at extreme high rank, you would practically need to have superhuman dodging skills to no miss Blackheart mk2 and Glow Squid.

[To Far Away Times]

One thing that is kinda dumb in Darius Gaiden is that taking powerups can make you weaker due to how the rank works and boss HP will outpace your powerup gains.

You can do some hilarious quick kills in DG if you don't level your shots up past the first set and use autofire. Bosses go down super quick this way, so if you're looking for a super cheesy 1CC, that's the way to do it.

[BrianC]

One thing that is kinda dumb in Darius Gaiden is that taking powerups can make you weaker due to how the rank works and boss HP will outpace your powerup gains.

You can do some hilarious quick kills in DG if you don't level your shots up past the first set and use autofire. Bosses go down super quick this way, so if you're looking for a super cheesy 1CC, that's the way to do it.

Sounds almost like the earlier versions of the original Darius all over again where the first set fully powered is more powerful than the later weapons later in the game.

[Steven]

How does Garegga Rev.2016's Premium mode's autobomb work? Sometimes it activates, but sometimes I die while having bombs left.

[Rastan78]

How does Garegga Rev.2016's Premium mode's autobomb work? Sometimes it activates, but sometimes I die while having bombs left.

Is it that you have to be holding down shot when you get hit? Pretty sure this is how it works in easy mode at least, but don't have PS4 set up at the moment to test.

[Steven]

How does Garegga Rev.2016's Premium mode's autobomb work? Sometimes it activates, but sometimes I die while having bombs left.

Is it that you have to be holding down shot when you get hit? Pretty sure this is how it works in easy mode at least, but don't have PS4 set up at the moment to test.

Yeah, I thought that's how it is as well, but sometimes I still die when shooting. Maybe you have to have at least 1 big bomb icon in order for it to happen, but I haven't tested it yet.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

My question is what did the devs think about autofire usage? In some ways its too game breaking, in others it seems almost impossible that the game was designed without considering it. IMO this is an important question since this game along with others like Gun Frontier and Battle Garegga were important in fleshing out the relationship between rank and scoring in shmup design.

As I've said previously in other threads, an extremely high rate of autofire is shown in the attract demos. It's not quite 30 hz, but it's definitely faster than you can get with normal mashing, certainly not all game long without tiring yourself out. That, in my opinion, makes it totally okay to use. The interview you found is just another nail in the coffin that confirms the game didn't expect players to simply hold down the shot button for the slow shot speed all game long.

And as a side note, since I recently cleared Gun Frontier I can say that the rank isn't as unforgiving as I've seen some claim it to be. It remains manageable, albeit difficult, once you've maxed it out, and autofire significantly improves things. It's an extremely button mashy game without autofire.

Sounds almost like the earlier versions of the original Darius all over again where the first set fully powered is more powerful than the later weapons later in the game.

This is pretty much the case. The power curve is very weird; when you go from the bright blue/white balls to the thin piercing yellow lasers, those lasers deal less damage per hit and thus take longer to kill enemies. Your power improves once you get to the green waves onward though.

Coincidentally, I have been thinking about autofire in older games that don't have autofire recently. It feels like cheating even though it's not considered to be cheating (and many arcades have autofire on their old games now anyway), but I don't know. I still use it anyway because smashing that fire button for like 30~45 minutes sucks and nobody's going to argue with that, but I do wonder about it.

Does it make the game feel more fun? Then do it. Autofire isn't just about making it easier, it's about getting the best possible experience out of games with sometimes archaic mechanics (button mashing).

My personal recommendation is to see what speed you can sustain without hurting yourself, and set autofire to that. I don't recommend 15 - 30 hz auto range because that's often way too fast and can trivialize stuff in older games.

Maybe I'm just being dumb, but makes that C&D notice handed to MAMEdev even more petty and pointless.

They're just trying to protect their commercial interests by saying "hey, this is still a current game we're selling, please don't provide emulation for it" which they're perfectly entitled to do. Considering both are already in the wild and playable on specific builds of MAME, it may seem somewhat pointless. However, it also sends the message that they don't want people releasing Exa emulation either (the Exa releases tend to have extra modes that home ports have not received yet, thus upping their exclusivity and value).

[Steven]

Coincidentally, I have been thinking about autofire in older games that don't have autofire recently. It feels like cheating even though it's not considered to be cheating (and many arcades have autofire on their old games now anyway), but I don't know. I still use it anyway because smashing that fire button for like 30~45 minutes sucks and nobody's going to argue with that, but I do wonder about it.

Does it make the game feel more fun? Then do it. Autofire isn't just about making it easier, it's about getting the best possible experience out of games with sometimes archaic mechanics (button mashing).

My personal recommendation is to see what speed you can sustain without hurting yourself, and set autofire to that. I don't recommend 15 - 30 hz auto range because that's often way too fast and can trivialize stuff in older games.

I can normally maintain what looks to be around 12Hz or so with two fingers. Same with 1 finger, but it's tiring. I was actually just trying arcade Zero Wing on the MiSTer and my arcade stick has 5Hz (pretty useless in most cases, I think), 12Hz, and 20Hz. I tried 20Hz to see if it ruins the game, and it does, making it even easier than the Mega Drive version, so I will try 12Hz next time, which is normally what I use for other Toaplan games anyway.


Since I mentioned Zero Wing, another random question, this time on Zero Wing: where the hell is Pipiru at on stage 4? I want to tractor beam him and there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on this online, even in Japanese.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I usually use somewhere between 7 - 10 hz depending on the game. It gives a steady rate I can realistically get with 1 finger without being overly strenuous and risking feeling too much like it's game breaking. Really, just adjust it to whatever feels fun for you.

[Steven]

I'll mess around with autofire a bit more. It does depend on the game, though; I mentioned Hishouzame before and it seems like the 5Hz autofire is actually reasonably useful there for many parts of the stages. 12Hz is way too fast in most cases and leaves huge gaps, so you'll miss lots of enemies.

I also found Pipiru in Zero Wing. Seems there was actually a thread over in the strategy section for this, but the URLs for pictures were all long dead, so I took some new ones.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Posting this question here, as it's not worth creating a thread for (probably more of a rant on my part too, if I'm being honest) so here goes...

Exa-Arcadia have had both Akai Katana and Dodonpachi SaiDaiOuJou removed from MAME, because they want exclusivity, but less than 3 months later, Akai Katana is announced for Nintendo Switch and other "current generation platforms" at Shooters Fes 2022. So what is the logic behind Exa-Arcadia's decision there?

"We want to keep these games exclusive, by releasing them on multiple platforms"

Maybe I'm just being dumb, but makes that C&D notice handed to MAMEdev even more petty and pointless.

Exarcadia don't own Akai Katana, they just bought the rights to make a specific revision for the arcades, and they thought that having the original AK in Mame-based cabinets could harm their business (lol). The ones to blame are therefore Mamedev, as they knew (or had to know) that they weren't attending a petition from Cave nor the rights holder of the original game, despite what they've tried to make the people believe. It's all quite lame in the grand scheme of things, but this attitude places the Exarcadia platform closer to being cracked one day, if you ask me.

[XoPachi]

Does anyone else make STG's with the pixel style of Seibu Kaihatsu and Raizing? Things with the detail, depth, and crisp look of Viper Phase 1 and BatRider?
I feel like I don't see it ever.

[To Far Away Times]

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but Jamestown has really good pixel art and a lot of little details in the backgrounds.

[Rastan78]

Kazuyuki Nakashima worked on graphics at Raizing and Compile. Games like Battle Garegga, MUSHA, Kingdom Grand Prix etc. He also worked on the recent GG Aleste 3. I think you can easily see some similarities despite the game being designed for the lower resolution of the Game Gear spec. At times youll see a color palette used (pure reds and blues along with browns and greys) or some boss designs that echo Garegga. Stage 2 beginning with birds flying out of the trees? At one point I thought I was fighting Satanic Surfer from BG for sure. GG Aleste is a must for fans of 2D pixel art IMO.

I shudder to think what that team could accomplish when targeting more powerful hardware. Just imagine a successor to Spriggan designed for MD or PC Engine with Namiki returning to do the OST. Ah man.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but Jamestown has really good pixel art and a lot of little details in the backgrounds.

Yeah the art in Jamestown is very well done. I wanted to like it when I played it a few years back (whenever it first came to PS4 so my memory's a little hazy). There was just something about the slightly euroshmuppy underpowered shot combined with the 16:9 aspect that made the game feel overly tedious to me. When learning the game you feel like you're slowing drowning under the weight of the enemy's HP. Then you see even more enemies waaaaay over there.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Jamestown is, to me, a failure. It's a good looking game with very high production values, but it has issues both as a single player game and, more seriously, as a multiplayer game (a heavily promoted feature) that keep it from achieving its true potential. Decent, but not fully realized.

With respect to single player, I agree that the shot types feel a bit underwhelming. Balancing shot power in single player vs multiplayer is a tricky thing, but I generally say it's better to err on the side of being slightly overpowered rather than slightly underpowered. It's not really super exciting in terms of mechanics in single player, and is considerably more fun with a group of friends.

However, multiplayer a fundamental design error that keep it from being a truly great co-op experience. Namely, the screen shifts left and right as players move horizontally. You can't see the full playfield, which gets really disorienting in multiplayer when another player moving suddenly shifts the entire playfield unexpectedly for you. It makes it very difficult to dodge. The best coop shmups are ones where the entire playfield is visible and does not shift as the player moves. Takumi games like Giga Wing, Mars Matrix, Night Raid, Psikyo games like Gunbird and Strikers, and Konami games such as Parodius are great examples of how to make a good coop experience. Other games with no screen shift include Mahou Daisakusen and R-Type Leo to name a few off the top of my head. CAVE's games are fun in single player, but the only one that lacks screen shifting is Progear (and possibly Akai Katana? I forget).

There's another game called Score Rush that is amazingly fun in multiplayer that unfortunately has left/right screen shifting, but it gets away with it by having relatively low speed screen shift that requires close to the edge of the screen. i.e. if all players are on the right hand side, it won't shift much. Its bullets are also quite slow so it's a bit more forgiving that way. Crisis Force is another coop-geared shmup that has left/right shift on several stages but gets away with it to some degree by being relatively forgiving.

Something that applies to both single player and multiplayer is the lack of difficulty modes. Or rather, the fact that there's no way to see the entire game in a given difficulty mode. The game locks the later stages behind higher difficulties; if you want to see the entire game you can't simply play the game on the easier modes. There's like 5 difficulty modes and the final stage can only be played on the highest one (or highest two? I forget - this also might've been changed recently, there's a DLC update or something I've not played).

I'm not fond of this; I think that players should be able to experience the full game in any difficulty mode available and kind of shames beginners. It's also worth noting that the highest difficulty modes are quite a bit tougher than say your average Touhou game on Normal.

Does anyone else make STG's with the pixel style of Seibu Kaihatsu and Raizing? Things with the detail, depth, and crisp look of Viper Phase 1 and BatRider?
I feel like I don't see it ever.

There's some Toaplan stuff like Batsugun that feels like it comes close, but Seibu Kaihatsu and Raizing definitely are the best at that sort of thing. There's some NMK games that might give you the same vibe even if there's not the same number of animations going on in the background. The backgrounds are really pixel rich and detailed in Super Spacefortress Macross (arcade) as well as Rapid Hero.

[Rastan78]

For highly detailed shmups also check out In The Hunt. In terms of rich shading and extravagant explosions and destruction animations, both on enemy weaponry and background elements, it can easily hang with any Raizing or Seibu shmup.

Also Taito is no slouch in that department. I know it's not a shmup, but Elevator Action Returns is full of detailed animations on its small sprites. You see shell casings hitting the floor, multiple animations on enemies that catch fire etc.

[EmperorIng]

Does anyone else make STG's with the pixel style of Seibu Kaihatsu and Raizing? Things with the detail, depth, and crisp look of Viper Phase 1 and BatRider?
I feel like I don't see it ever.

One of the best animated games in that vein is Warashi's shooter, Shienryu. Definitely takes after the Seibu model of debris everywhere, long, exaggerated explosions/ships crashing, and is generally full of life.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Air Gallet might count for this, too, though its shading style is a deal "softer" than Raiden/Raizing.

Roo mentioned NMK, and from them I think Thunder Dragon 2 would be the best example to pick.

[To Far Away Times]

I do like Jamestown, it has some euroshmuppy elements but I feel like it only dips a toe in there, and theres a lot of CAVE influences too including the DDP style laser and enemy tank formations, and there's a full blown Mushi Stage 4 clone. The game is designed with a 1CC in mind and its a legit shmup. At the same time, I think the game is less than the sum of its parts, and a few tweaks could have really pushed it higher.

[o.pwuaioc]

For highly detailed shmups also check out In The Hunt. In terms of rich shading and extravagant explosions and destruction animations, both on enemy weaponry and background elements, it can easily hang with any Raizing or Seibu shmup.

I was going to say this as well. If you like Metal Slug's look, you'll like In the Hunt.

For its age, I think Gradius III's sprites are really cool.

In a totally separate way, I always liked Abadox's art, but I can't say the pixelwork is amazing.

[OmegaFlareX]

I was going to say this as well. If you like Metal Slug's look, you'll like In the Hunt.

Same with Gun Force II/Geo Storm.

I can't really tell if the SPI hardware games were made using computer renders or the old-fashioned way. Compare say, Strikers 1945 to its sequel where it's really obvious. Speaking of, I like the look of Psikyo games from their first set of hardware; the SH2 stuff is kinda ugly.

Shienryu was already mentioned, maybe try Sengeki Striker as well? Same devs - Warashi.

[Valtele]

what's your opinion on credit-feeding while playing with MAME for learning purposes? if it's already exhausted theme, sorry for that xD

[To Far Away Times]

what's your opinion on credit-feeding while playing with MAME for learning purposes? if it's already exhausted theme, sorry for that xD

Personally I am not a fan of credit feeding. I usually drop games that I credit feed as I get discouraged this way. If you are not ready for the easier stuff you won't be ready for the harder stuff and you can't learn from an ass kicking if you can't understand how your ass is being kicked in the first place.

Credit feeding a checkpoint based powerup dependent game like an R-Type or Gradius sounds like a not so fun experience.

I really like bite sized saved states at choke points, where you can run reload something over and over again and try different things back to back to see what works best. If I'm really dedicated to clearing a particular game I'll usually memorize a level or two per day like this, any more than that and I start to see diminishing returns. I might set up 20 or so save states for an arcade difficulty 20 or 30 minute game, most of them in the back half of the game. I also won't move forward to the next level until I can clear the current level in one life (or use only a few planned resources/bombs).

[Valtele]

thank you for your tips!

[To Far Away Times]

I should probably note that this just my own thoughts though. There are superplayers who credit feed to learn the game, don't play on emulators, and never touch save states. Gotta find what works for you.

[SPM]

Hyper Duel: Arcade or Saturn? Which one is better? I've played the arcade version and know about the "locking" feature in the Saturn (which I think could work well). Any more meaningful differences aside from their presentation?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Personally I am not a fan of credit feeding. I usually drop games that I credit feed as I get discouraged this way. If you are not ready for the easier stuff you won't be ready for the harder stuff and you can't learn from an ass kicking if you can't understand how your ass is being kicked in the first place.

I'm not fond of credit feeding either as practice. I find it's important when playing a shmup or any other precise action game that you need to learn how to manage your tension, and that playing under pressure can be a good thing if you know how to handle it. Credit feeding to practice a spot late in the game or using savestates to help learn a particularly difficult pattern is handy, but I spend well over 90% of my time doing full runs, to get a better feel for the game as a whole and to learn how to handle the pressure of doing badly early on in a run only to recover and play the rest of the game well.

If you were playing the game in an arcade you wouldn't have access to save states either, and credit feeding costs money, so gaining more confidence at full runs better prepare you for the real thing, too.