shmups.system11.org

Once and for all, how the fuck do you trigger the 1st Ura boss in Daiffukatsu1.5?

I am collecting all 3 bees, destroy ALL the tanks before they touch any silos (or sometimes i destroy the silos first) and i have a full hyper (which must not be used..!?) way before the last tank. What am i doing wrong? Is there a point in the level scrolling where it is "too late" to kill the last tank/silo? What am i missing here? Vids where it is triggered show the player do exactly as i am doing, but there's obviously more to it.

The trigger is more about destroying the silos than destroying the tanks, I think you need to destroy all or all but one of the silos without letting them get run over by tanks (including the first one at the edge of the screen which can't be run over by a tank). You don't actually need to collect all the bees, though it can help in getting the hyper. Have a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=53002

I had a modchip put in my PS2 so I could play imported games I bought for 100 bucks. It's been working fine ever since it got put in my slim PS2 a decade or so ago. I believe it's a Matrix Infinity based on the startup logo? I'm not sure of the specs, it was done by a local shop, told them I wanted to play imports, they got it done. Was very satisfied, no issues with any of the North American PS1 or PS2 games I already owned.

Yeah I have that too I think. It also plays downloaded games from a disc.

Thanks.

I'm slowly breaking down the factors.
It doesn't matter if you go after the tanks or siloz, either will do. As your link describes, there are only 2 factors it seems: Destroying the tanks\siloz before they make contact and (the difficult one) having a full hyper by the time 1/4 of the last silo/tank are revealed, WITHOUT beeing still in hyper. This is i think the catch. If you use the first hyper you get, it must finish a split second before the 2nd activates, and all this inside that window up untill the reveal of last silo. Bees and lifes do not matter (still not 100% sure about bees).

I'm not yet good enough to destroy all siloz without hyper, but that may be easier overall in terms of requirements, for a more skilled player.

I ultimately went in with this fat ps2. Guy's feedback seemed legit enough, though we'll see! I'm looking forward to spending some time with some mid2000s-era shmups, since there are a lot of interesting specimens that never made it out. The only downer is a loud-ass console playing my copy of Gradius V (and presumably others). My original PS2 was a fat before I found a cheap slim down the line. Time to get used to the woodchipper again.


This is true and will help alleviate allsome import concerns, like Ibara, ho ho.

I know Axelay is regarded very highly by most shmuppers. Why can't I get into it? The difficulty seems unfair and mostly down to the game's design (for me at least).
There's very little time to avoid bullets due to the narrow vertical screen, and movement just seems very restricted.
Playing on easy difficulty I can't even get past the middle of the 1st stage... I'm not pretending to be a virtuoso at shmups or games in general but I've never had
another shmup give me so much grief, hell even DS 1/2/3, Sekiro and Bloodborne were fine compared to this. Besides using cheat codes is there anything else I can do?
Maybe the speed setting in the Options to max will help a bit... I expect to get stuck on stage 4, but not on the 1st one

I've never warmed up to Axelay, either, and the goofy perspective in the vertical stages, mimicking the curvature of the planet, is part of it. It's an awesome effect, but it does throw me off, and I run into similar problems. I want to like it, but I just haven't got that far yet.

Am I overlooking something or is there not a "highest score replay available" thread for doujin/indie games?

Outside of the 1942 and Raiden series, are there any shmups where a good portion of your score comes from a destruction bonus? I'm kinda fond of the concept just because that's what I used to think it meant to "no miss" a game.

There's Dead Moon on the PCE, although it really doesn't matter much there since the bulk of your score comes from destroying meteors in stage 2.

It is, however, crucial in BlaZeon (ignore the terrible SFC port here). It's not a game for everyone (or even most people), but if you have a propensity towards Iremesque games, you might enjoy this.

Not sure if you had Viper Phase 1 already in mind with the "Raiden series", that's another one.

Radiant Silvergun has a destruction bonus for the bosses.

Oh man, Blazeon awards you only for 100% destruction rate. Sounds pretty strict, I'll check it out just in case I like it. Speaking of Irem, been playing a bit of Mystic Riders lately, or rather Gun Hohki. Pretty fun game. Maybe one day I can make it past stage 3.

Somehow still never played Radiant Silvergun, maybe I'll try that tonight.

I felt the same for a while. The game is kinda hard for what it is in the begining, but it never really ramps up all that much.
It just kinda clicked for me after a while and now I love it.

@To Far Away Times, I managed to get to the end of the first level eventually, so far I always die on the boss at the end. Spacing in that game really messes me up, its cool that the bosses are huge but its not cool that there's no space left to dodge their bullets in time. The ship feeling slow and clumsy like doesn't help a great deal either. I'll keep trying and maybe eventually I'll get the hang of it, although don't see myself seeing the end of this game without cheats for level select or unlimited lives.

Have you watched any replays to help yourself out? Axelay's generally not considered one of the harder shmups to beat, I'm sure it's doable once you get the hang of it.

There are those games the majority shares an opinion on, like 'rather easy', yet a handful of players will have a problem with the gameplay, and fail at it.
Happened to me more times than I want to admit.

There's challenging games with a good balance and fair learning curve. There's also hard games due to questionable game design choices or over inflated difficulty, what describes the term artificially hard imo. I think Axelay falls into the 2nd category here, and I might be into the minority, which I'm fine with. I do want to like the game and at least see the end of it, so if nothing changes with time I will just stick some cheats on and get it over with. Then at least I can be like yeah I've played Axelay before ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You're probably over thinking the vertical sections in Axelay if you are struggling with them. There's not a lot going on with them to be honest. Sometimes it can be difficult to go from more modern manic shooters to something much more basic without a deliberate mental shift. At least, that's how it is for me.

The top-down stages in Axelay always bored the hell out of me. A perfect example of style over substance. If the entire game had been side scrolling levels (much better designed and more interesting to look at), I would view the game in much higher regard.

Style is important too, Axelay without the vertical stages would lose a lot of its identity and interest, adding more generic horizontal ones instead (you know they would have been very generic) wouldn't necessarily make it better.

Rather than non-existent those vertical stages should have been more polished...damn you Axelay 2 that never was !

Not sure either of these are quite what you're after, but later Psikyo games have technical bonuses for killing the bosses in a specific way, and Yagawa games can have significant portions of your score come from destroying all of a boss's parts completely and in the proper way.

Amusing that you should mention Psikyo, because I gave the most earnest attempt possible to learn Dragon Blaze for the past week or two. The game finally made me submit and give up. Dense Cave-like patterns mixed with Psikyo bullet speed is a terrifying combination. I've come to view it as my favorite game that I simply cannot play. Love the dragon attack, the coin collecting, etc, but damn it's far beyond my skill level.

As for Yagawa games... yeah, I've still not come around to his school of game design. Learning all the arcane secrets and then also remembering those secrets is not my idea of a good time. Allow five of the same item to drop in a row for a special option formation? I'm sorry, that sounds baffling to me. I feel I've possibly built up the game too much in my head, though. Maybe a lot of these secrets aren't necessary for a dirty clear. Maybe, maybe not?

Speaking of Daifukkatsu up above, I am fucking around with Black Label. One day I'd like to get a Hibachi clear.

Some questions:

For the Hibachi requirement, you can only use 2 bombs. What counts when you use bombs with Bomb Style? Does activating a Hyper when it says "Maximum" count as using a bomb? Or should you only activate a Hyper when your meter is full? Or does it only count when using the bomb itself?

I am worried that I am developing bad habits already by not activating hypers - or activating them too much. I am already getting frustrated with stupid deaths on stage 2 (goodbye TLB requirements) despite managing to eke into the beginning of stage 4 a few times. Is there a tip to more quickly build hyper meter with bomb style? Strong Style seems to be more constant but the bullets are too thick at that point, and if I can't get to Hibachi then there isn't much use in going for Zatsuza.

Not really, they can help but clearing is perfectly viable without any "arcane" knowledge other than a basic understanding of rank control. People like to get the homing option formation for stage 6 of Battle Garegga because it's easy to set up with the turret wall, but the special option formations don't see much use outside of that.

How do you unlock the type E shot in Gradius Rebirth?

I cleared the easist difficulty and unlocked Type D.

I agree that style is important, but also feel it's completely pointless if there's no substance to go along with it. It's even worse when said style is doubled with a nauseating viewpoint and wonky collision detection like it is in Axelay.

Personally, I don't find its side scrolling stages generic in the slightest. They are full of life and detail, more so than any other game in the genre on the system. It's like actual creative effort was put into them, and it shows.

I've really never understood the big revulsion some people have for Axelay's vertical stages. To my mind it always looked and played like a very standard vert, but with just a bit of mode 7 distortion of the background and (some) enemy sprites near the top. It never felt to me like it controlled or played differently at all compared to a standard vert (IIRC neither bullets nor player hitboxes or speeds are distorted further along the screen, so it's purely visual).

Auspiciously timed discussion for I just revisited this - while I either don't mind or even like most parts in the vertical stages now, I will concede that this was a long process for me. I concur with To Far Away Times that you probably have to invest some time into figuring out reliable solutions for some of the trickier spots even though your intuition tells you that they are in fact not all that difficult (and they aren't for the most part). There are a handful of decisions that can lead to frustration at first for sure:

- The hit detection is immaculate when it comes to actual bullets, it's rather harsh in conjunction with enemy collisions. It seems like either some enemies have a hitbox that extends their sprites or a couple of pixels above your ship are also considered to be part of your hitbox, leading to some situations where you might unceremoniously bump into an enemy that clearly is not touching you at all. With regular enemies, most of this can be mitigated if you stick to proper routes in the stages, except for stage 1 on the highest loop (either the third on Normal or the second on Hard), where the added resilience results in hectic melanges.

- The worst offender in that regard is by far the midboss in stage 3 as far as I'm concerned. Despite quite a bit of experience with the game over the years, I almost always lose a life during the second phase. Chances are he's going to corner you in an infelicitous manner sooner or later, leaving you with only the option to hopefully get hit by a bullet so that the temporary invincibility allows you to not get crushed either by the boss itself or its constant swarm of escorts. It is possible to manipulate his movement in such a way that you can escape unscathed, it's deceptively difficult to actually pull off, especially on higher loops.

- The fire dragons in the fifth stage likewise have an iota too much health for my personal taste, it's not all that uncommon to lose a life while they are on their last sliver of health. This is particularly vexing for they just move around the screen, making you feel like a fool to die to such a jejune behaviour.


Generally speaking, one trait in Axelay that can be hard to stomach is that when you start out, the game ostensibly has a tenet which it rarely follows. You notice that a hit from a bullet doesn't kill you yet only takes away one slot and are delighted. Soon after you discover that almost all of your deaths will come from the instant sort, however: collisions with enemies, getting hit by needles in stage 4 or missiles in stage 6, those terrifying flyswatter guys in the final stage (always lose a life on difficulties above Normal there, too), the fourth boss can swap your currently selected weapon for an empty slot, upon which the next hit kills you, the list is respectable. The procedural process of learning how to overcome some of those hurdles was not all that pleasant for me (unlike, say, a second loop in an arcade Irem game where much of the enjoyment originates from finding strategies that let you overcome seemingly overwhelming odds), it becomes a much better game once you do have the exigent knowledge, though, at least that was the case for me. I will also say that I consider the bosses in the vertical stages to be delectable, especially the third; their patterns sport a healthy dose of RNG on the highest loops which can lead to exciting constellations.

'nother big part of learning the game is just getting the most out of the Vulcan, and knowing when to use Macro Missiles (or whatever your third slot choice may be) for focused damage. Just using the Vulcan well is like half the game imo.

What do you define as 1cc in games like Alpha Mission 2, where there are two loops, but not much of a divider between them, and level numbers just go up.

Normally, 1cc means first loop, right?

Example video: Second loop starts at about 41:15, and level is just called Area 7.
https://youtu.be/WNLZzshvtNU

Does that mean that reaching area 7 = 1cc?