Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

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Jonpachi
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Jonpachi »

Thanks all for the great suggestions! I've got a LOT to work my way through now.
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Udderdude
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Udderdude »

Good news: Omega Five has been re-listed. Yay.
Bad news: It's only for Xbox One and Series S/X. Still can't buy it on the 360.
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Rastan78
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Rastan78 »

Udderdude wrote:Good news: Omega Five has been re-listed. Yay.
Bad news: It's only for Xbox One and Series S/X. Still can't buy it on the 360.
That's great news. Now people can have all the Tengo Project games. This along with the new SNES remakes. A real hidden gem IMO. Sad that it ever got delisted.
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Bear78
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Bear78 »

Udderdude wrote:Good news: Omega Five has been re-listed. Yay.
Bad news: It's only for Xbox One and Series S/X. Still can't buy it on the 360.
Supposedly you can DL it to your 360 by going though the purchase history / download again section of your account on the 360.
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Udderdude
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Udderdude »

That's not the same as buying it if you didn't own it before.

Edit: I'm dumb. It is possible to download on 360 if you buy it on xbox.com. It's just hidden away in "Download History" or "Download List" or w/e.
Last edited by Udderdude on Sun May 29, 2022 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MidnightWolf
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by MidnightWolf »

- Bullet Soul
- Bullet Soul Infinite Burst

Great games, and love how the elitist SHMUP nerds rage when they hear that name mentioned, because it's "not a proper shmup blah, blah, blah". I do it just to piss them off. XD

Good luck finding either for under £100 if you go physical though.
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

MidnightWolf wrote:Great games, and love how the elitist SHMUP nerds rage when they hear that name mentioned, because it's "not a proper shmup blah, blah, blah". I do it just to piss them off. XD
I've never heard anyone say that about either one, seems like an awfully vague complaint. I've heard people complain about Bullet Soul being too easy though, which is certainly a fair point, and that the "souls" of the bullets you can collect don't appear to have any purpose (something that's rectified in BS: Infinite Burst where they spawn coins and Danmaku Unlimited 3's Spirit Mode where you can collect/graze them).
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by MidnightWolf »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:
MidnightWolf wrote:Great games, and love how the elitist SHMUP nerds rage when they hear that name mentioned, because it's "not a proper shmup blah, blah, blah". I do it just to piss them off. XD
I've never heard anyone say that about either one, seems like an awfully vague complaint. I've heard people complain about Bullet Soul being too easy though, which is certainly a fair point, and that the "souls" of the bullets you can collect don't appear to have any purpose (something that's rectified in BS: Infinite Burst where they spawn coins and Danmaku Unlimited 3's Spirit Mode where you can collect/graze them).
I'm guessing you don't visit many video game websites, many people trash them. :P

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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Uh.

Image

So yeah, like I was trying to say politely, Bullet Soul is honestly kinda garbage. It's got extremely high production values, and creative shot types, but the whole bullet cancelling thing is a really poorly implemented gimmick that ruins the whole experience and makes many stages about as exciting as watching paint dry. It's shocking how big of a disparity there is between the quality of the graphics and music, and how off-putting the gameplay itself is. It's deeply unfortunate that it could have been spared from infamy by simply offering a mode where the bullets don't constantly get cancelled by kills. It's not bad to have an easy game necessarily, but there are more interesting and more enjoyable ways to make a game easy (see: Vastynex).

I literally do not know a single person who plays Bullet Soul seriously and cares about the game as more than a strange curiosity. And that includes multiple people who bought the game. Which is unsurprising, given that the gameplay consists of cancelling over half the bullets shot at you without any effort before they ever reach you. I mean, if you dig it, go for it. But there's very little dodging to do (at least in the stages, the bosses are pretty fun) compared to most shmups so it's little surprise it's not highly regarded.

The problems were rectified in Infinite Burst at least so that there's medals to collect after cancelling bullets. Stages are still easy because there's not much you actually have to dodge compared to other shmups relatively speaking, but it's far more interesting than the vanilla game.

Bullet Soul has many of the same problems as Rolling Gunner Overpower, though I'd argue RG Overpower is even worse, much to my supreme irritation given how much I loved the original game, because you basically cancel your way through all attack patterns effortlessly. The only thing that's ever remotely threatening are the revenge bullets that can fire at crazy angles towards you as things explode. :/ Fortunately it's just an arrange add-on and the vanilla game, Rolling Gunner, is exceptional.
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by MidnightWolf »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Uh.

Image

So yeah, like I was trying to say politely, Bullet Soul is honestly kinda garbage. It's got extremely high production values, and creative shot types, but the whole bullet cancelling thing is a really poorly implemented gimmick that ruins the whole experience and makes many stages about as exciting as watching paint dry. It's shocking how big of a disparity there is between the quality of the graphics and music, and how off-putting the gameplay itself is. It's deeply unfortunate that it could have been spared from infamy by simply offering a mode where the bullets don't constantly get cancelled by kills. It's not bad to have an easy game necessarily, but there are more interesting and more enjoyable ways to make a game easy (see: Vastynex).

I literally do not know a single person who plays Bullet Soul seriously and cares about the game as more than a strange curiosity. And that includes multiple people who bought the game. Which is unsurprising, given that the gameplay consists of cancelling over half the bullets shot at you without any effort before they ever reach you. I mean, if you dig it, go for it. But there's very little dodging to do (at least in the stages, the bosses are pretty fun) compared to most shmups so it's little surprise it's not highly regarded.

The problems were rectified in Infinite Burst at least so that there's medals to collect after cancelling bullets. Stages are still easy because there's not much you actually have to dodge compared to other shmups relatively speaking, but it's far more interesting than the vanilla game.

Bullet Soul has many of the same problems as Rolling Gunner Overpower, though I'd argue RG Overpower is even worse, much to my supreme irritation given how much I loved the original game, because you basically cancel your way through all attack patterns effortlessly. The only thing that's ever remotely threatening are the revenge bullets that can fire at crazy angles towards you as things explode. :/ Fortunately it's just an arrange add-on and the vanilla game, Rolling Gunner, is exceptional.
So, you've never seen anybody trash talk bullet soul... Then in your next post, you actually drag-up a 10 year old post where you're actually trash talking it yourself?

That's certainly an interesting way of going about things, possibly borderline sociopathic, but interesting nevertheless. :roll:
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

No, I said I've never seen anyone level such an awfully vague complaint like that Bullet Soul was "not a proper shmup blah, blah, blah" because the people who have complained have had very real, legitimate complaints about the game.

For reference, here's the GameFAQs thread you're quoting from: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/70 ... s/65872021

The person you quoted responded later to add that the challenge or lack thereof was off-putting, and even someone else who's a fan admits that the game isn't terribly impressive:
I love Bullet Soul and I also understand the hate. It's too easy, and the bullet patterns are quite bad compared to a CAVE Shmup. Simple as that, really.
It's okay to enjoy a game that you recognize is kinda bad but find fun nevertheless. We all have our guilty pleasures like that. *cough* >w>;;;
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Udderdude »

Bullet Soul is one of the only 360 shmups I'm glad I didn't bother importing back in the day, lol.
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by BrianC »

Udderdude wrote:Bullet Soul is one of the only 360 shmups I'm glad I didn't bother importing back in the day, lol.
Me too, though I did eventually get it on steam, though I was put off by how bullet cancelling and the souls were handled. I didn't bother to import a Japanese 360 because some of the better shmups like Eschatos and Mushihimesama Futari were region unlocked for the US and some region locked games like the original Mushihimesama were ported elsewhere.
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Re: Best non-Cave shmups on Xbox 360?

Post by Jeneki »

Bullet Soul haters are on another level. I remember when there was this dude who would message everyone on Amazon who rated the game more than a couple stars, with angry rants about how we should lower it. It's such a random game to get crazy upset about.

Then again there's always been some weirdos there. Another dude got angry because I rated 360 Deathsmiles 2 at four stars, going on about how anyone who rates it less than 5 stars must not understand how scoring works and other nonsense.
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