13th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - Results

[BIL]

Compile games and the closely related caravan games of the era by Hudson/Kaneko/etc are just stupid flashy toys and I kinda love that about them, but I play video games to feel like a kid for a little while and I get people who take games more seriously may be kinda repulsed by that type of "basic" entertainment.

To be fair to Kaneko though, Super Star Soldier and Nexzr's respective SUGEEZE/HIDEEZE modes are real as fuck. :O Some of the best casual shooting I have ever seen. ¦3

[pestro87]

Just curious, has a similar Top 25 shmups poll been made in Japan at some point (reader votes in Shooting Gameside perhaps)? Would be interesting to see how our picks differ from theirs.

With regards to the previous discussion in this thread, Space Invaders was the last good shmup. It's an undeniable fact.

[Square_Air]

Just curious, has a similar Top 25 shmups poll been made in Japan at some point (reader votes in Shooting Gameside perhaps)? Would be interesting to see how our picks differ from theirs.

Second this notion. I've been unable to find anything on this myself.

With regards to the previous discussion in this thread, Space Invaders was the last good shmup. It's an undeniable fact.

That's not how you spell "Sinistar".

I think we can all agree that BIL-senpai is the best <3

Agreed. Even if he is a bit of a Ninja Gaiden apologist.

"Drive by one liner"

Your home planet is calling for you to return

you are mentally ill

yup dude's got issues

Even though I don't care much for Despatche either, making multiple comments like this aren't as productive as they could be.

[Xyga]

you are mentally ill

yup dude's got issues

Even though I don't care much for Despatche either, making multiple comments like this aren't as productive as they could be.

Clearly you don't have much experience with his habits. I can't think of anyone more skilled at fucking up threads than him here, but you haven't been around long-enough to have a broad-enough view of the communities 'strongest' personalities (to stay polite) I think.

[BIL]

Ninja Gaiden apologist.

*supremacist

[Square_Air]

Clearly you don't have much experience with his habits. I can't think of anyone more skilled at fucking up threads than him here, but you haven't been around long-enough to have a broad-enough view of the communities 'strongest' personalities (to stay polite) I think.

That's a fair assumption, but I lurked the forum on and off for almost a year before I joined to see if it was worth making an account, and to improve my shmup knowledge so I would have something to talk about. I honestly meant no insult to you or d0s, It's just that I spent so much time many years ago on 4chan (particularly /mu/, but now I avoid 4chan like the plague) and after years got really frustrated with the hostility, so I try my best to stay somewhat civil even if inside I despise who i'm talking to. It's just a difference in philosophy.

Ninja Gaiden apologist.

*supremacist

Actually made me laugh out loud. I honestly love Ninja Gaiden, even though i haven't played too much of it since i got the 1cc back in 2010; maybe one day i'll be inspired enough to go for the 1lc, I know you have a good thread on here with resources on it. I can live with the bosses being overall a little lame (first 2 are laughable, safe spot on 4, the Malth damage race), and the game being a just a little lacking in preparing new players for the Jaquio(I guess the cruelty of the malevolent birds somewhat prepares you for him), but I still think to this day that repeating the last act is pretty lazy game design, less of an interesting challenge and more of the rug being pulled out from underneath unsuspecting players; even if I don't really encounter that problem anymore, it has stopped all of my friends from completing it. I would have rather fought all the bosses on a single life bar instead, that would have been truly hardcore.

[Bananamatic]

It's just that I spent so much time many years ago on 4chan (particularly /mu/, but now I avoid 4chan like the plague)

Do you like Death Grips?

[BIL]

I can live with the bosses being overall a little lame (first 2 are laughable, safe spot on 4, the Malth damage race)

They all suck. Jumpslash 'em. ;3 (the PCE port's removal of JS instakill is one of several reasons for its rueful inferiority)

The boss rush knockback is indeed lazy, in the most literal sense. It was a programming glitch they noticed, then decided to leave in. Then they brought it back for the next two games! I rove it!

[Square_Air]

Do you like Death Grips?

Nowhere near as much as I used to. In 2012 I was right there with everyone saying The Money Store was cutting edge, but now i can't stand by that. TMS still has some pretty good tracks on it, and many tracks have really interesting ideas, but I feel they were underdeveloped. The pacing of the album is not bad though, its one of its strengths IIRC. I think I prefer Exmilitary to TMS in retrospect, but even that album is a little bit limp when compared to Nation Of Millions, 36 Chambers, Endtroducing, and Paid In Full. After NLDW disappointed me I stopped listening to them. /mu/ started treating them like the second coming of hip-hop jesus though, not to mention Fantano gave TMS a 10 which I strongly believe they didn't deserve, not that I really follow Fantano much at all. They've since become one of the most overrated groups of this decade.

To answer your question in short, I think they're alright. I've heard good things about their latest album, but I'm in no hurry to catch up with them.

They all suck. Jumpslash 'em. ;3 (the PCE port's removal of JS instakill is one of several reasons for its rueful inferiority)

The boss rush knockback is indeed lazy, in the most literal sense. It was a programming glitch they noticed, then decided to leave in. Then they brought it back for the next two games! I rove it!

I've only barely touched 2 and 3, do you prefer one over the other? I think I might tackle one of them after I finish with Fire Emblem 7. If you want to be the cheerleader of repeating last acts in NG, go for it, but i'll be booing you from up in the bleachers, BIL.

[BIL]

I've only barely touched 2 and 3, do you prefer one over the other? I think I might tackle one of them after I finish with Fire Emblem 7. If you want to be the cheerleader of repeating last acts in NG, go for it, but i'll be booing you from up in the bleachers, BIL.

The second and third both add lots of cool stuff to the NG1 chassis, albeit with tweaks that make me prefer the original (NGII's tiny sword hitbox, NGIII's floatier gravity). Smoother climbing, busier stages, much bigger guns... they're distinguished by difficulty, mostly. NGII's fairly mild on account of its firepower and plentiful score extends (still a pretty intense no-miss; sudden death via pit knockback is everywhere). NGIII's quite hard to finish, mostly due to a brutal damage scale and limited continues. The Famicom version is actually the easiest of the trilogy by far, but I prefer the NES's slightly higher enemy numbers.

The boss rush knockback is actually slightly more reasonable in both, you only get sent back a stage. No more free life refills between bosses though! Ultimately I prefer the simplicity and crisp handling of the original, but the sequels are certainly high-quality sidescrollers in their own right.

[Square_Air]

The boss rush knockback is actually slightly more reasonable in both, you only get sent back a stage. No more free life refills between bosses though! Ultimately I prefer the simplicity and crisp handling of the original, but the sequels are certainly high-quality sidescrollers in their own right.

That sounds pretty fair actually, If NG1 only sent you back to 6-3, I would have zero complaints, because 6-2 is the tricky stage of the last act while the other two are pretty straightforward.

Back on topic with more list observations

-Soukyugurentai is something that I need to have another go at. All I remember from the one time I played it is that I was unable to see past how dreadfully ugly I thought it looked. Maybe it's not as bad as I remember?
-A toast to CRS68K for rejoining the HM list, here's to hoping it can finally crack the T25 next year.
-I didn't know Bangai-O was considered a shmup o:, I've always thought this game looked amazing, but I've never had any luck with Dreamcast emulators. I might have to break the bank to pick this one up.
-Speaking of emulators, just found out I can run Recca in FCEUX. Feels different from other Yagawa games, but pretty cool for a NES shmup. Looking forward to sinking a bit more time into this.

[qmish]

Maybe it's not as bad as I remember?

Some boss battles have pretty cool mode7-style zoom in/out.

[Stevens]

-I didn't know Bangai-O was considered a shmup o:, I've always thought this game looked amazing, but I've never had any luck with Dreamcast emulators. I might have to break the bank to pick this one up.

If you have a 360 you might want to try grabbing it there first. It has an interesting control scheme that I just couldn't get into. It is also a fuckton cheaper.

[EmperorIng]

-Soukyugurentai is something that I need to have another go at. All I remember from the one time I played it is that I was unable to see past how dreadfully ugly I thought it looked. Maybe it's not as bad as I remember?

Years back I would vote for it in my top 25. I like the game quite a bit, but it is ugly (muddy pre-rendered sprites), and has one of those Raizing rank quirks that makes it a bit of a chore (ie: don't pick up any powerups to control rank and increase bomb stock, and never use your normal attack). RayForce by comparison has a useful forward shot (something its sequels forgot to do), whereas you almost never use it in Souky, at least if you are playing for score. Note that I still like the game; it has some great levels and boss fights.

[Despatche]

I felt the need to bump this, and I'm pretty sure we all know why. Posts I missed, some more clarification.

I agree completely with how irritating it is that so many Ray Force clones and sequels greatly downplay the normal shot. Might as well not even have it in the game sometimes. Kamui does it too, very annoying.

You'll be delighted to hear that Musha's scoring is actually broken. If you sit in the lower left or lower right corner right at the beginning of the game after acquiring your first little helpers you'll be able to milk the projectiles from the huge tank forever, you can even walk away from the TV if you weight down the shot button.

god damn it of course it's something super obvious

It seems like every single Compile game has at least one spot somewhere that'll allow you to gather as many points as you want. Gunhed has the eyeball turrets, Super Aleste that one checkpoint in the final stage, Zanac the infinite warp, Gun-Nac at least one boss with milkable projectiles, Seirei Senshi Spriggan the endless supply of power-ups... Dennin Aleste is great, though. I suppose you could milk the penultimate boss there, but I wouldn't dare to do that for he's extremely dangerous as is.

dennin aleste once again triumphs over all

he's clearly the happiest, most mentally healthy person here, look at how much fun he always seems to be having.

Yeah, look how much fun I'm having actually playing games, some that might not even be shmups! You need some TrackMania in your diet, I think.

Honestly none of this stuff makes these games bad to me. They're console games that weren't really designed for the hyper focus on scoring that arcade shooters are, where extends are worth real world money. I'll bet a lot of this shit is intentional just to make the target audience of 10 year old japanese kids feel like badasses, nobody making these games thought people would seriously care if you could get a billion points by holding a button for four hours. Compile games and the closely related caravan games of the era by Hudson/Kaneko/etc are just stupid flashy toys and I kinda love that about them, but I play video games to feel like a kid for a little while and I get people who take games more seriously may be kinda repulsed by that type of "basic" entertainment.

Scoring has nothing to do with extends. Extends are only to make things seem less harsh, and they initially caused lots of problems. They're not like continues, and are not nearly as bad as continues, no. Extends would be a lot better off divorced from score.

Scoring is the only reason you would ever want to take a game seriously, and artificially applying scoring to a game (speed does = score) is why games like Ocarina of Time are played more than once every few years; both are good things when there was little good before.

The rest would actually make sense if Musha wasn't literally a void where nothing happens and no game actually takes place. Yes, you supposedly don't like Musha, I know, even as you consistently fail to understand why I think it's a problem. But most Compile games have about 90% of Musha's voidness. That means a lot.

That's a fair assumption, but I lurked the forum on and off for almost a year before I joined to see if it was worth making an account, and to improve my shmup knowledge so I would have something to talk about. I honestly meant no insult to you or d0s, It's just that I spent so much time many years ago on 4chan (particularly /mu/, but now I avoid 4chan like the plague) and after years got really frustrated with the hostility, so I try my best to stay somewhat civil even if inside I despise who i'm talking to. It's just a difference in philosophy.

He's just mad because I similarly called him out for being a forum problem a few months ago. TrevHead, DTP, Estebang, Pretas, Xyga, and now d0s; anyone I'm forgetting? They're all the same, just with a different level of eloquence. edit: Oh, Obscura and ChainsawGuitar, how dare I forget the greatest of them all.

It depends on the fine elements of the mechanics, what the game has to offer, how it plays, and a billion other elements of pure subjective preference.

Which, again, is fine. But the problem is that so many people bring up how they like the graphics or music, or how they like x game from their childhood, to defend truly bad games. It's such warped logic that these same people apply it to actually good games in order to show that they're supposedly so bad as to defeat a person's nostalgia. At a certain point, it stops being opinion and starts being plain old evil. It's all hivemindy, anti-individual, anti-discerning, anti-brain bullshit, and it scares me to the core to see it happen around me all the time, sometimes with people I otherwise respect dearly.

Because it's very basic human thinking, it gets into heads of so many other humans; it's like a virus. I'd call it intellectual cancer if you didn't insist on thinking this has anything to do with "just some video game". I didn't magically come up with this, it's similarly taken for granted that people obsess over doing what everyone else does, and people don't even care about knowing that anymore.

edit: "He takes things too seriously, how weird is that??? Man, why does he get so mad at the problems other people cause? They only affect him because he lets them!"

[Xyga]

anyone I'm forgetting?

What you forgot is to take your meds.

[Eaglet]

Cut it out with the fucking kiddy ass sandbox behaviour.
Personal problems are for PMs. This shit just pesters the forum.

[Some-Mist]

kinda wish I could revote for this year because I've been spending a lot more time recently with gunbird 2 and I think it would be a good addition to my list. same with battle bakraid but I haven't really gotten any notable scores despite my normal clears.

Do you like Death Grips?

Nowhere near as much as I used to. In 2012 I was right there with everyone saying The Money Store was cutting edge, but now i can't stand by that. TMS still has some pretty good tracks on it, and many tracks have really interesting ideas, but I feel they were underdeveloped. The pacing of the album is not bad though, its one of its strengths IIRC. I think I prefer Exmilitary to TMS in retrospect, but even that album is a little bit limp when compared to Nation Of Millions, 36 Chambers, Endtroducing, and Paid In Full. After NLDW disappointed me I stopped listening to them. /mu/ started treating them like the second coming of hip-hop jesus though, not to mention Fantano gave TMS a 10 which I strongly believe they didn't deserve, not that I really follow Fantano much at all. They've since become one of the most overrated groups of this decade.

To answer your question in short, I think they're alright. I've heard good things about their latest album, but I'm in no hurry to catch up with them.

I just want them to break up so zach hill can do something interesting again. it kinda grew stale after ex-military.

[Shepardus]

I would probably reserve more space for Psikyo on my list now and move Dragon Blaze up a couple places. I didn't play much Psikyo before this year but I'm really liking their style.

[Illyrian]

Cut it out with the fucking kiddy ass sandbox behaviour.
Personal problems are for PMs. This shit just pesters the forum.

Looking at your forum avatar makes me hungry

[Eaglet]

Looking at your forum avatar makes me hungry

Just had me some grilled chicken.

[d0s]

What you forgot is to take your meds.