TRP-STGT 2014 Conversation Week 3: Sengeki Striker

[nZero]

- Scoring in this game demands that you delay destroying enemies. I hate counterintuitive scoring mechanics that force me to do dumb, suicidal things.

- In 1997, I can be playing DoDonPachi, Battle Garegga, Einhander, G-Darius, Gradius Gaiden, or...

Uh-huh.

[shmuppyLove]

- Scoring in this game demands that you delay destroying enemies.

Hardly unique to Sengeki Striker. Chaining in *pachis or cancelling in other Cave games also uses a similar gimmick. I guess the idea is to reward the player for careful planning and skillful play instead of just blowing everything up as quickly as possible.

I'm not a huge fan of it either cuz i'm a scrub, but it does at least add some depth and replayability, should you feel the desire.

[Eno]

I feel the scoring system is pretty awesome in concept. It's the consistency needed to make some ships hover above the right place and the fact that the few really fat scoring bonuses make it almost irrelevant to even try getting to get more of the other drops that make it so annoying.
Really wish the idea were recycled by some more competent devs.

[Blackbird]

It's true that other games like DDP and Garegga also make you delay destroying enemies and it's a very common mechanic in shmups. I'm still not a huge fan of it, but those other games have a long list of things I like about them that outweigh the things I don't like. It basically comes down to Strikers just not having enough redeeming qualities for me to forgive the gameplay elements I don't like.

I mentioned those games to point out that Sengeki Strikers is a direct contemporary of games that are regarded within this community as some of the best shooting games ever made, and that it is nowhere near the par level of quality for that time period.

Later Cave games also balance the difficulty of flooding the screen with bullets by allowing you to destroy their source and cancel them.

[Blinge]

- Scoring in this game demands that you delay destroying enemies.

Let me add that, if you try to stop firing to delay your kill... your options fire and destroy it

[Ed Oscuro]

All the people who hated Raiden Fighters are probably all over this game since it's easy to remember these single scoring opportunities. Seems to be perfect for an STGT or alzheimer patients in general.

As the resident Alzheimer's Patient-In-Training, I dunno - being able to get a top five score by just repeatedly playing the first stage feels cheap and un-fun.

btw, I totally get the comments that say that SS's way of doing things being different is okay. Not everything has to be like a Hudson caravan game or a Toaplan-style survival shooter, to brush aside two general categories.

The combination of this game's shot patterns with singular scoring opportunities makes perfect sense also - I just wish it wasn't so much an all-or-nothing proposition that required run restarts when you fail to meet a big opportunity. And this is what the Raiden Fighters series does better; it breaks up these scoring opportunities into easier-to-digest chunks so that you can still get a good score while ignoring particular scoring opportunities (for me, mostly the Micluses and fairies).

Incidentally, I suppose you could say that Toaplan already prefigured the "delay shooting for better score" movement by having the cycling options in games like Twin Cobra and Fire Shark, where you forego instant gratification (picking up items) to maximize score from item pickups (item chaining).

[EmperorIng]

Can't wait for 'mediocre shit week' to be over. Only a few more hours.

[Ed Oscuro]

Playing week ends Monday, 2 June, 2014 at 00:00 GMT

[DocHauser]

Do jaimers and erppo like keeping us in suspense every week? Just post your 700 million+ scores already, we know you've got them!

[bkk]

Good change of pace for week 3. Instead of a game you either love or hate (or love then hate, or vice versa) I don't see anyone having a different attitude toward this game than "Meh."

[mastermx]

Haven't played it that much, but just wanted to chime in and say that the sprite and hit-box seem strangely unproportional. I don't mind games that don't show me the hit box, but this one is a strange case, I can't figure out what's wrong, I can just feel it.

I enjoyed RF and Gemini more than this. But this is perhaps because I haven't put enough time into SS.

[EmperorIng]

Playing week ends Monday, 2 June, 2014 at 00:00 GMT

shit. I thought today was Sunday.

Guess I have the "privilege" of practicing this game all night.

[hanasu]

This game feels like a bootleg in overall quality. Reminds me a lot of 1945kiii.

[Blackbird]

No Blackbird wrap up this week. I've already said pretty much all my feelings about this game in the mega-rant one page up =P.

I discovered a quirk about this game's scoring at the last minute. I thought I'd mention it in case someone wants to continue playing this for score. Sometimes you can still get the "wreckage drop" bonus on a target if you partially hit it, but didn't actually destroy it. To clarify, let's say that you destroy the midboss plane on Stage 1 too early and it only hits the front part of the tank, destroying the frontal turrets, but leaving the rear ones intact. Occasionally I would get still get the "wreckage drop" bonus by destroying the remaining parts manually, even though the plane crash didn't destroy them, just because the plane had hit at least some of the tank. It doesn't work every time, but it might save a few runs.