My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

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ADM
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My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

I've made a list of the top games suggested in the voting thread and I've tried to order them by difficulty level according to previous posts in this forum, but I'm still missing info for many of the later console releases. What difficulty level would you assign to the following games (default difficulty) using viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59651 as a basis?

Einhander
Shikigami No Shiro II
Ginga Force
Hellsinker
Judgement Silversword
Kamui
Parsec47
Psyvariar 2

Here's the current full list, based on difficulty...let me know if anything stands out as being blatantly wrong:
Tatsujin Oh (40)
Same! Same! Same! (40)
Raiden II (30)
Thunder Dragon 2 (28)
Shienryu (25)
Dangun Feveron (25)
Soukyugurentai (25)
Gunbird 2 (24)
Raiden (24)
Sengoku Blade (24)
Dogyuun (24)
Ibara (24)
Kyuukyoku Tiger (Twin Cobra Japanese Version) (24)
Parodius-Da! (24)
Muchi Muchi Pork! (24)
Gradius V (24)
Pulstar (23)
Gokujou Parodius (23)
Rayforce (23)
Dimahoo (23)
Battle Garegga (22)
ESPGaluda II (22)
Dragon Blaze (22)
Battle Bakraid (22)
Crimzon Clover (22)
Radiant Silvergun (22)
DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (21)
Mars Matrix (21)
Raiden DX (21)
Ikaruga (21)
Strikers 1945 II (21)
Ketsui (21)
Armed Police Batrider (20)
Radirgy (20)
Cyvern (20)
19XX (20)
Zero Gunner 2 (20)
Strikers 1945 (20)
Tatsujin (20)
Strikers 1999 (20)
Guwange (20)
DDP DOJ (20)
Giga Wing 2 (20)
Sorcer Striker (20)
R-Type (19)
Giga Wing (18)
ESP Ra.De. (18)
Progear (18)
Pink Sweets (17)
Gunbird (17)
Blazing Star (17)
DonPachi (16)
Thunder Force IV (16)
Mushi Futari (16)
Zanac (15)
Sexy Parodius (15 or 25?)
Under Defeat (15)
Border Down (15)
Gradius Gaiden (15)
R-Type Delta (15)
DDP DFK BL (15)
Mushihimesama (15)
Eschatos (15)
Twin Cobra (NOT the Japanese version) (14)
Gaiares (14)
U.N. Squadron (14)
Darius Gaiden (14)
Hellfire (13)
DDP (13)
R-Type III: Third Lightning (13)
Akai Katana (13)
G Darius (13)
ESPGaluda (13)
Out Zone (12)
Flying Shark (12)
Raiden IV (12)
Metal Black (12)
Triggerheart Exelica (12)
DDP DFK 1.5 (12)
Blue Revolver (12 - Hyper)
Batsugun (12)
Undefined Fantastic Object (12)
Salamander 2 (11)
Gradius II (11)
Gradius (10)
CRS 68K (10)
Raiden Fighters Jet (9)
Salamander (Arcade) (9)
ZeroRanger (9)
Deathsmiles (9)
Gradius III (SNES) (9)
Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream (9)
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (8)
Life Force (NES) (8)
R-Type Final (8)
Thunder Force V (7)
Thunder Force III (6) - 1CC Complete (TF AC)
Blazing Lazers (6)
MUSHA (6)
Phantasmagoria of Flower View (6)
Mountain of Faith (6)
DariusBurst AC (5 to 14) - will probably play between 9 and 10 for a better experience
Soldier Blade (5)
Axelay (5) - 1CC Complete (Normal)
Imperishable Night (5)
Perfect Cherry Blossom (5)
Gate of Thunder (4) - 1CC Complete
Space Megaforce (3) - 1CC Complete (Normal)
Blue Wish (3) - 1CC Complete (Heaven Mode)
Lords of Thunder (3) - 1CC Complete (no continues)
Raiden Fighters 2 (2 or 20?) - Will probably wait for the 20s instead of cheesing it
Mecha Ritz (2) - 1CC Complete (should probably revisit)
Last edited by ADM on Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:57 am, edited 10 times in total.
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Lethe
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by Lethe »

Others' opinions on this subject which may help:
viewtopic.php?p=533304#p533304
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=64428
https://zps-stg.github.io/dc
Unfortunately you'll find this kind of thing varies a lot based on what skills you have and what you're inclined towards, but I guess seeing how that works out is much of the fun.

I'm surprised nobody's put Cho Ren Sha on one of these yet. A 1-ALL is maybe a 4 or 5, and a 2-ALL maybe in the 18-19 area? Not really confident.
Mecha Ritz low rank with red ship is a 1.
ADM
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

Thanks, Lethe, that actually helped a lot - I didn't know so many of those were Touhou (haven't explored that series yet). I made an educated guess on a few of the others as well and updated my original list.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by To Far Away Times »

Imperishable Night is a bit easier than Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. It has a spell practice mode, easier patterns, and a very forgiving death bomb window that can easily be done on reaction.

Eschatos is challenging but not that challenging. Took me about 16 hours without a practice mode. You can make a few random mistakes and be fine. The game is hard but forgiving.

Thunderforce V is a breeze. Great game though.

R-Type Delta and G-Darius are definitely beatable by the average/newer player (G-Darius was among my first 1CC's) but you have to have the mindset for punishing old school horizontal shmups, which isn't for everyone. They are both really great games though. Delta is amazing.

And if you are looking for best in genre quality games that aren't too hard Mushi Futari Black Label is untouchable.

Batusgun Special and the normal courses for Armed Police Batrider and Battle Bakraid are very good and not too demanding.

I also would give a nod to Thunderforce III, altough it has fallen a bit in the annual rankings, at one point it was in the top three, and its certainly a memorable and must play game. It's also on the easier side.
ADM
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

To Far Away Times wrote:Eschatos is challenging but not that challenging. Took me about 16 hours without a practice mode. You can make a few random mistakes and be fine. The game is hard but forgiving.

Thunderforce V is a breeze. Great game though.

R-Type Delta and G-Darius are definitely beatable by the average/newer player (G-Darius was among my first 1CC's) but you have to have the mindset for punishing old school horizontal shmups, which isn't for everyone. They are both really great games though. Delta is amazing.
I pulled the scores for these games from a list that was mostly console shmups, rather than arcade, so I may have rated them all too high. I'll make some adjustments based on this guidance, thank you! I think the old school, heavy routing shmups may be my best options, as I'm probably too old to develop good bullet hell reflexes...we'll see.
And if you are looking for best in genre quality games that aren't too hard Mushi Futari Black Label is untouchable.
I really want to get this working (loved Mushi on Steam), but I can't seem to get the ROMs to run. Not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'll keep at it.
Batusgun Special and the normal courses for Armed Police Batrider and Battle Bakraid are very good and not too demanding.
I've heard Batsugun Special is supposed to be intentionally easy, but Batrider on normal seemed brutal to me the couple times I attempted it. Maybe I just need more time with it, but there seemed to be a lot of overlapping patterns that were nearly undodgeable.
I also would give a nod to Thunderforce III, altough it has fallen a bit in the annual rankings, at one point it was in the top three, and its certainly a memorable and must play game. It's also on the easier side.
I have TF AC on the Switch, which I believe is supposed to be similar enough. I've played it a bit, and I like it, but there are a lot of "gotcha" moments. It will certainly be coming up relatively soon in my list.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by BulletMagnet »

ADM wrote:I've heard Batsugun Special is supposed to be intentionally easy, but Batrider on normal seemed brutal to me the couple times I attempted it. Maybe I just need more time with it, but there seemed to be a lot of overlapping patterns that were nearly undodgeable.
If memory serves, the Special revision shrinks your hitbox, grants a shield whenever you level up, offers more opportunities for exp bonuses, and increases the power and range of your bombs. Some years ago I managed to make it to the third round, a very rare feat for my paltry skill level; I think most players could likely clear the first round with some practice.
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LordHypnos
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by LordHypnos »

FWIW, I would rate Cho Ren Sha 1-ALL as harder than Deathsmiles ALL (via easiest route and Rosa) and Raiden Fighters Jet ALL1* with Miclus. Both of those are still significantly harder than Batsugun Special, which I was able to 1-ALL in two days with minimal practice. I would also put Eschatos quite a bit higher than those three, though 20 seems high. I never managed to 1cc it (on normal or higher), personally. Seems like most people consider the CRS 1-ALL really easy though, so this might be a case where I just suck (have not 1cc'd it). I think it's safe to say that it's a good deal harder than Batsugun Special, though, as I have put at least as much time into it without being able to clear it.

I also feel like 22 seems high for Giga Wing 2, that would be harder than Ketsui 1-ALL (which I have no experience with), and almost as hard as Mars Matrix and Gunbird 2 1-ALL (almost certainly not the case). It's been way too long since I actually 1cc'd it, but I don't really think it's much harder than Giga Wing. I mean, the first couple stages are (GW first 2-3 stages are kind of a snooze fest), but it's not like you'll be able to make it through the last half of the game without practicing. It's also much shorter than GW. Perhaps there's someone who played them closer together than me who can weigh in. I think that I found it more difficult than R-Type 1-ALL (done around the same time), so that's a starting point, at least.

*In the JP wiki list, the RFJ entry is specifically for ALL3 with Fairy, and it seems lower than I would expect, but I haven't explored the ALL3 route yet. RFJ does give you tons of bombs, but no extends, so it's probably automatically much harder for me than most people because I usually suck at panic bombing. ALL1 is probably the easiest route, only about 10 minutes long, but you have to suicide once pretty early, you can't really see the bullets in the final stage, and I found the second to last stage to be fairly difficult, as well. Most of the difficult parts can be bomb-spammed though.

I'm tempted to say that Mecha Ritz is not quite a 1, though it's very easy. I say this on the basis that Night Raid (the difficulty 1 game on the list) has a safe spot in the top left corner of the screen that can be used for pretty much the entire game (maybe not the bosses?). Mecha Ritz is definitely one that is realistic to 1cc on your first try thanks to bombs, shields, and rank, though.
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Lethe
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by Lethe »

Eschatos Normal is 13ish IMO, Hard 20-something and Hardest off in the nightmare realm somewhere.

Garegga/Batrider/Bakraid aren't that hard when played pragmatically, but they demand more knowledge of the mechanics/secrets than most games do. They also all have the problem of being multiplicatively harder at the end than they are at the middle, and varying hugely with ship/team selection. chum has solo Shorty Batrider at 17(~20 on your list) and Garegga at 19(~22) (presumably with Miyamoto).

Hellsinker's a hard one to place. The difficulty is in how quickly you can grasp using its weapons. It's not difficult, but I wouldn't know how to put a number on it. Could say similar about ZeroRanger, although the end of ZR is actually kinda demanding.

There's no way Dangun Feveron is a 30. A basic clear is 25 at the most and that might still be too high.
Same! Same! Same! is widely attested to being one of the hardest 1-ALLs ever; both Perikles and chum have it at ~40.
Blue Revolver Normal at 5 sounds right, but be aware that the default difficulty is Hyper which is more like 15.
Gun.Smoke NES (which is easy) shouldn't be confused with Gun.Smoke arcade (which is tough). Same goes for Sorcer Striker vs. Mahou Daisakusen.

The logic I follow with these lists is that, at my mediocre skill level, if I can clear something in a couple of credits with only a superficial understanding of what's happening then it doesn't deserve to be above 15. (Of course that doesn't apply both ways; some "easy" games can still be too unforgiving to flail through)
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by NMS »

For Gradius games, the only comprehensive ranking I could find was this: viewtopic.php?p=1265700#p1265700

This would put Gradius Gaiden at something like 15 or 16, considering that he rated Gradius II 14. Having 1cc'ed Gaiden a few weeks ago, I would have rated it around 15 myself, give or take a couple of points. It's long, it has a fair share of challenging bosses, and even if recovery is doable (actually, fairly easy if you're not in the Moai stage), having to fight a boss at low power is tough. It's in the same range as II and harder than the first one (arcade versions), anyway.

This would put Gradius V at 24, I don't have any opinion on that, it's just there for a rough estimate. Still, I think everybody considers it to be considerably harder than Gaiden/II/I, and closer to III and IV.

For Cho Ren Sha, maybe I would have put 1-ALL at ~10 and 2-ALL around 22. Pretty hard to rate this game because you get a billion ressources but it gets very hectic and you will probably use half a billion of those ressources, at least in the second loop. Still took me a fair amount of time, and I agree with LordHypnos who said that it's harder than Deathsmiles (with Rosa and without doing the Canyon). If Deathsmiles is 9, CRS 1-ALL should be 10 in my opinion, if I think about how much time it took me to clear it. 5 is a bit too low in my opinion, but anyway a 1-ALL is not extremely hard.
For the record, the Sharp X68000 version is slightly easier because it's slower (55Hz vs 60Hz) and has slowdown at some parts, whereas Windows version is always full speed, but it's not game-breaking (from my experience, I would probably remove 1 or 2 points off a 1-ALL on x68k, and I don't know how bad slowdown is for the 2-ALL since I only did it on the Windows version).

ZeroRanger - 9 for 1-ALL, I guess. Again, it's a game that I have a hard time rating because of the way it gives extends (the less remaining lives you have, the more extends you get), and because it has many weapons and you have to get used to it. The game itself isn't extremely hard, but you have to adapt. I struggled at first, but all of a sudden it clicked and I cleared it fairly easily once I understood how to play. Took me about as much time as Deathsmiles and that's why I would rate it 9. It needs some adaptation and it's worth some points because of that, but it's not hard anyway.

I recognize some of your ratings from the "japanese STG difficulty wiki" or whatever it's called. Some are known to be blatantly wrong.

Only talking about the games I really know and which ratings are off:
- Same! Same! Same! should be around 40 yes, it's really hard.
- Be cautious when it comes to Twin Cobra: the Japanese version (Kyuukyoku Tiger) is very different and much harder. 24 for Kyuukyoku Tiger is fair, in my opinion. For what it's worth, I would rate it a bit lower, at 21-22. Twin Cobra should be around 14, it's definitely not 24.
- Out Zone and Flying Shark are slightly overrated and should be around 11-12 (no big deal but still). I generally don't care if a rating is a few points off because there's always the personal appreciation, but 16 is really too high in my opinion, especially when you consider that these games are fairly straightforward.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

Thanks everyone, the list has been updated to be more accurate (I think, let me know if I misunderstood anything). It's a shame Gradius V is so difficult - I just picked up a physical copy last month and was looking forward to it.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Soukyugurentai probably belongs somewhere around the Gradiuses (Gradii?). It's in the "stiff challenge but doable by humans" category.

Speaking of, Gradius III on SNES is for sure in a tougher class than Thunder Force III.

Feeling validated seeing Shienryu that high, I find it fairly challenging and I was worried it was just me. Unlocking everything in Mars Matrix broke my soul back in the Dreamcast days, but if people see Shien in the same tier then it makes me feel like I must have come a long way since then because I'm still having fun with it.

Gunbird 2 is way tougher than it though, it needs to be higher up for sure. The game flat out goes on a psychotic rampage against you over the last three stages. It fills the screen with bullet spreads and aimed sniper shots moving at absolute warp speed. This quote from the hi score thread always stuck with me:
NTSC-J wrote:2-6 is 3 minutes of terror and may be the greatest stage in shooters.
I have not played Life Force on NES in a long, long time, but I don't remember it being easy at all. I don't know how many people ever finished those NES Konami arcade titles without the extra lives code.

Pulstar is wayyyyy too low. That game is a grind among grinds. On the hi score thread only nine people actually finished it, and one of them is Perikles. So only 8 people finished it.

On the other hand, for the sequel SNK asked Yumekobo to tone down the difficulty because it was breaking more Americans than Ivan Drago. So Blazing Star doesn't belong all the way up there. It puts up a fight toward the end but it's not spiteful toward the player.

Is Rayforce really that tough? I haven't put tons of time into it and I don't think I've gotten past the mech boss at the end of area 5, but overall it doesn't feel that rough.
ADM wrote:I have TF AC on the Switch, which I believe is supposed to be similar enough. I've played it a bit, and I like it, but there are a lot of "gotcha" moments. It will certainly be coming up relatively soon in my list.
Like a lot of old school games in general it does require memorizing level layouts for certain choke points/skill checks, but that isn't that hard to do. Your weapons are more than up to the task of whatever the game throws at you. The game's not a walkover, tbh the difficulty is in line with most games in general, but it's not hard by shmup standards at all. It's quite pleasant in that way.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

Sengoku Strider wrote:Soukyugurentai probably belongs somewhere around the Gradiuses (Gradii?). It's in the "stiff challenge but doable by humans" category.
I placed it at 11 for now. And I think I'm going with Gradiopodes as the pluralization of that word.
Speaking of, Gradius III on SNES is for sure in a tougher class than Thunder Force III.
Moved this up to 9 - just below arcade Gradius 1 & 2 but I'm not sure how they compare.
Gunbird 2 is way tougher than it though, it needs to be higher up for sure. The game flat out goes on a psychotic rampage against you over the last three stages. It fills the screen with bullet spreads and aimed sniper shots moving at absolute warp speed.
Moved this to 29 - did I go too far? I have yet to put any time into any of the Psikyo games.
I have not played Life Force on NES in a long, long time, but I don't remember it being easy at all.
I agree, but I was also 10 when the game was released and haven't really played it since then. I'm guessing the memorization is a pain but the actual play isn't bad.
Pulstar is wayyyyy too low. That game is a grind among grinds.
Moved this to 23 - may have gone too far. Is it actually super hard or just tedious because of checkpoints?
Blazing Star doesn't belong all the way up there.
Moved this down to 17.
Is Rayforce really that tough?
Everything above 10 may as well be a 40 for me...we'll have to get someone else's opinion. :)
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by Lethe »

Gunbird 2 at 24 was fine, maybe a tiny bit high even then. It's fairly precise but also short and not at all complicated (at least if you're being pragmatic with resources). Easy to plan, easy to screw up in the heat of the moment. The second loop is insane but that's beyond the scope of this thread.

Hopefully we can get another comment about Souky. 11 sounds really low for a game that involves so much use of the whole screenspace. I don't have the experience to say, though.
Progear should be up around 20 with its contemporary Cave brethren.
Fairy Wars is missing from the former HM list even though it's been there before - I think I'd give A1 route a 9 just because the mechanics take a bit of getting used to, with some other routes being substantially harder. It's the single Touhou game I'd shill to anyone so if you do play one...
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

Lethe wrote:Gunbird 2 at 24 was fine, maybe a tiny bit high even then.
Ok, I moved it back...for the record, I love you both equally. Also moved Progear up as suggested - I had a feeling it was placed too low, but was kind of hoping it was easier than typical Cave games. I should have known better.
Fairy Wars is missing from the former HM list even though it's been there before
I'll be sure to check it out, although I am a little wary about Touhou in general (even though they are supposed to be great learning tools).
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

Before my first game entry, I guess I should give a little info about where I'm coming from and what my goal is. I'm a middle age guy who grew up mostly in the 80s. I dabbled in the genre, playing an occasional arcade game as well as home ports on the NES. Once in a while I would rent something like Gradius or Life Force, but didn't really think of these games as "well-made" because they still had that quarter muncher mentality, while other genres were moving to a more friendly "everybody wins" level of difficulty.

In the early 90s I had an SNES (my preferred system) and a Genesis. I remember trying out MUSHA, Air Buster, and Space Megaforce, but the only shmups I really loved and completed were Axelay and U.N. Squadron. On the arcade side of things, graphics were getting even more impressive and I wanted to play them, but I had already learned my lesson - at most I would spend a dollar to see the first couple levels of Vapor Trail or Raiden, then call it quits; these games (in my opinion) were for rich kids or suckers.

Despite these issues, I still developed a lot of nostalgia for the classic games. The ship designs, especially, were kind of magical to me. I couldn't make it past 2 levels in Super R-Type, but that didn't stop me from restarting the game repeatedly just to watch 5 seconds of that ship launching.

I missed out on pretty much all of the shmups released during my early adult years, but due to the recent rise of roguelikes and indie games, I found myself getting interested again. I came across this forum a couple years ago and was surprised to find a list of games that I thought were impossibly difficult getting cleared with only a single credit. I always thought I was pretty good at gaming, so what was going on here?

The answer is, I think, that people who truly love shmups and love learning them have a very different mindset from most of today's gamers. It takes a lot of focus and dedication to do that hard work, and you have to learn to appreciate the process. My goal is to see if I can develop that focus, by starting with the easiest games and working my way up. I may not have the talent necessary to 1cc even half of this list, but I would at least like to give most of them a fair shot.

As I go through each game, I plan on writing progress reports, along with a rating system aimed at other new players. I hope at least a few people will find this to be useful and/or entertaining.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by Sengoku Strider »

ADM wrote:The answer is, I think, that people who truly love shmups and love learning them have a very different mindset from most of today's gamers. It takes a lot of focus and dedication to do that hard work, and you have to learn to appreciate the process. My goal is to see if I can develop that focus, by starting with the easiest games and working my way up.
Yep, that was what brought me to the genre as well. So many games these days - especially those which cost a pile of money they need to make back - have turned into Skinner boxes, hypnotizing you with flashing lights & fireworks going off to congratulate you with 500 XP for successfully hitting the pause button or whatever. An endless hamster wheel of meaningless dopamine triggers design to keep you addicted...er, 'engaged,' squeezing your brain out like a sponge and leaving you depleted.

I wanted something that was the polar opposite of that, something which demanded focus and commitment to enter a flow state, rather than hijacking your attention mechanisms to achieve it.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by velo »

ADM wrote:
I also would give a nod to Thunderforce III, altough it has fallen a bit in the annual rankings, at one point it was in the top three, and its certainly a memorable and must play game. It's also on the easier side.
I have TF AC on the Switch, which I believe is supposed to be similar enough. I've played it a bit, and I like it, but there are a lot of "gotcha" moments. It will certainly be coming up relatively soon in my list.
TF AC is a bit harder than TF 3 (on normal). To me the difficulty is just right: not boring but not frustrating. The worst gotchas are all the surprise fire geysers in level 2, if you can deal with that you can deal with everything else.

Gotta say I went into TF 4 thinking "it's a 16-bit console shmup, how hard could it be" and as it turns out, pretty hard, for me anyway... I feel vindicated seeing it ranked over a bunch of arcade games I got frustrated with and dropped.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by wiNteR »

This is a pretty long post. Anyway, that's much of what I have to say. Naturally some people will disagree on some specifics.

Regarding some of the games in the list that I have a 1CC on. Here is the order in which you listed the difficulty (easiest to hardest):
Thunder Force III
Deathsmiles
Gradius
Under Defeat (1 loop)
ESPGaluda
Donpachi (1 loop)
Dodonpachi (1 loop)
Gunbird (1 loop)
GigaWing
Progear (1 loop)
Guwange
ESP Ra.De.
Ketsui (1 loop)
Strikers 1945 II (1 loop)
Gradius V
Gunbird 2 (1 loop)
Dangun Feveron
Mars Matrix

======================================================

Here is how my order would be:
Thunder Force III
Deathsmiles (easiest path)
Gradius
Dodonpachi (1 loop)
DonPachi (1 Loop)
GigaWing
ESP Galuda
Gunbird (1 loop)
Gradius-V (1 Loop)
Strikers 1945 II (1 loop)
Progear (1 Loop)
ESP Ra.De.
Mars Matrix
Guwange
Gunbird 2 (1 loop)
Dangun Feveron
Ketsui (1 loop)
Under Defeat (1 loop)

======================================================
======================================================

Some comments on why some games are placed the way they are. For 1 loop of dodonpachi, it is enough to learn to say get around to stage-5 on first life. There are too many bombs available at that point then. Probably it would be useful to learn few easy parts in stage-5 and stage-6.

For donpachi, I was assuming the japan version. The US version would be higher in difficulty I think.

Gradius-V (1 Loop) is on the easier side but it definitely is long. So it definitely tests some endurance. Also, the "option hunters" can spoil runs at times. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem to me that it should be placed too high.

Regarding Strikers 1945 II (1 loop) and Mars Matrix (for survival only), they are a bit easier than they look. For Strikers 1945 II, it is about learning the specific patterns (say, from videos). For Mars Matrix it is about using the "bullet reflect" mechanic effectively.

ESP Ra.De. perhaps might be placed a bit lower, but the character movement can make it harder (harder than it should be probably) to "get" the hitbox in the game.

Under Defeat (1 loop) should definitely be higher than you placed it. Maybe it might be slightly lower in some lists than I have placed it, but the big hitbox along with some unexpected shots/collisions means that unexpected deaths in this game can come pretty easy.


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Comments on some other games:

Regarding "Darius Burst AC" and "Ikaruga (easy)", I cleared them but I don't know whether there is any difference between the original "Darius Burst" and the AC one (so I didn't add it). Ikaruga would also be fairly low on the list on the easy difficulty (survival only).

Regarding "Border Down", it depends but it seems to me that probably should be higher on the list than it it currently. I mean it isn't a difficult game (at least on the easiest routes), but it gives very few chances. Also, it can be a bit hard if one doesn't have access to save (for example, on dreamcast) the last stage isn't available for practice. That's one of the reasons I reached the last stage on it years ago but didn't clear it (though I probably should have made more effort to clear it). With access to "saves" or "last stage practice" it would be fairly manageable though (probably).

Also I am not certain about Battle Garegga. I feel it should be higher definitely. Last time I played it was over a decade ago and my best at that time stage-5 boss. There are lot of patterns to learn (that one can't sight dodge etc.) and fair amount of variability.

U.N. Squadron always seems to be low in these kind of lists, but I remember playing it just a few years back (probably 4 or 5). I didn't find it easy at all. Maybe there is some trick to it.
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Lethe
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Post by Lethe »

Interesting to see Ketsui so high. I don't disagree that it's harder than most Cave single loops (I find it substantially more demanding than DOJ for example, but most lists put them close together). But I think this is due to other games being overrated in difficulty rather than Ketsui being underrated.

Re: ESP Ra.De. personally I think most of the weird hitbox perception comes from the slowdown. The constant-yet-intermittent slowing down and speeding up is really disruptive and leads to misses that feel "wrong". In reality the game's heavy enough on micro that the effect of the hitbox tilting should be marginal. Either way it's harder to play than it deserves to be.

For Garegga, I just tried a run - Miyamoto-C, 10hz autofire until BH2, go straight for the core on every boss, bomb everything that looks hard, ignore medals/scoring/suicides after stage 4, use stage 6 homing setup. Rank was super low and most bosses died in 10 seconds. The only scary part was getting absolutely horrible RNG on BH2. BH2's winder vulcan can be misdirected or bombed out of if you don't like dodging it. It absolutely can be much harder with default ships though.
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Post by wiNteR »

Well ship/character selection can definitely make a difference. For example, with strikers-1999, the secret selection can make the game easier (or so I have read).

With Battle Garegga, I think I used to pick the plane with "flame thrower" style bomb. It was definitely one of the default ships though (and not a secret one). I didn't know people use autofire in battle garegga.

So is there anything special about using 10Hz (compared to other autofire rates)? I mean (probably) using an autofire rate too high might not be as beneficial in this game [as, say, compared to something darius gaiden maybe] as that might lead to a rank increase faster and not enough increase to damage rate on bosses. But I am just guessing.
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Post by ADM »

So is there anything special about using 10Hz (compared to other autofire rates)?
Apparently 10 is the highest you can go without causing rank to increase - I'm definitely not an expert, but I watched a video where this was explained.
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by ADM »

Thanks everyone for all of your responses - I'm reading them but I'm on vacation for the next week and don't have a lot of free time to answer.

I was working on Winds of Thunder before I left - made it to the last level after a couple days but I can tell it's going to take some work.

I brought my Switch on the trip and the easiest game I have on there is Thunder Force AC. I can make it to the 4th level pretty consistently but I'm focusing on stage 2 and 3 right now - need to get through without losing my weapons and options if I'm going to finish this thing.
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Post by velo »

ADM wrote:Thanks everyone for all of your responses - I'm reading them but I'm on vacation for the next week and don't have a lot of free time to answer.

I was working on Winds of Thunder before I left - made it to the last level after a couple days but I can tell it's going to take some work.

I brought my Switch on the trip and the easiest game I have on there is Thunder Force AC. I can make it to the 4th level pretty consistently but I'm focusing on stage 2 and 3 right now - need to get through without losing my weapons and options if I'm going to finish this thing.
Fantasy Zone for Switch is still on sale for a few hours if it interests you, it might be considered easier than TF AC.

Anyway, in TF AC, stage 5 is kind of a freebie and 8's pretty much just the final boss iirc, so it sounds like you're in good shape. Recovery's not THAT bad, you can blow a few lives early on and still squeak across the finish line.
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Post by Lethe »

Refreshed my memory on a few games to make some suggestions. (Anything to procrastinate from playing the games I really should be)

Flame Zapper Kotsujin 11 (included since it made HM this year, and would give you something to do with a PC-98 emulator that isn't the awful experience which is PoDD Normal)
DoDonPachi 17 -> 13 (C-Shot bomb spam)
EspGaluda 16 -> 13 (final pattern...)
Eschatos 13 -> 15 (based on how easy it is to die with little warning to collisions etc)
Blue Revolver 15 -> 12 (v1.1 or later, with Follow + Laser or Missile)
ESP Ra.De. 20 -> 18
Progear 20 -> 18 (with Bolt/Rivet, might be slightly too high because I'm terrible at horis)
DDPDOJ 19 if Black Label, can stay at 20 for White Label
Mahou Daisakusen 18 -> 20 (with Bornham)
Armed Police Batrider 20 -> 23 (with strong solo ship; realistically, I think most people will find it harder than Garegga)
Batsugun Special 3

Things that still feel off but I don't know where to put:
G-Darius (too low, even with autofire)
Darius Gaiden (too high, assuming autofire)
Soukyugurentai (too low - JP wiki list has it at 25)
Mars Matrix (too high based on several comments, I know next to nothing personally)
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Post by wiNteR »

Lethe wrote:Armed Police Batrider 20 -> 23 (with strong solo ship; realistically, I think most people will find it harder than Garegga)
I generally agree with much of the other rankings [since there will always be few minor (and actually, sometimes more than minor) differences in specifics based on personal exp.].

Are you talking about "normal course" or "advanced course"? If you are talking about "normal course" however, then I am surprised about this. I would rank the "normal course" way lower than this.

Edit: Also, I am assuming that in this thread we are really only talking about survival only. For example, talking about Marx Matrix for instance, it can become harder when playing for score (and hence going for chains). Since going for chains (not just on the really parts but generally), one will inevitably tend to die more on parts that would not be particularly difficult for survival (much stricter routing, division of concentration due to chain, more precise control of shield needed etc.).
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Post by LordHypnos »

wiNteR wrote: Edit: Also, I am assuming that in this thread we are really only talking about survival only. For example, talking about Marx Matrix for instance, it can become harder when playing for score (and hence going for chains). Since going for chains (not just on the really parts but generally), one will inevitably tend to die more on parts that would not be particularly difficult for survival (much stricter routing, division of concentration due to chain, more precise control of shield needed etc.).
The japanese list, at least, was meant to be for survival difficulty only. I think most games will get a lot harder when playing for score.
Lethe wrote:Mars Matrix (too high based on several comments, I know next to nothing personally)
Wish I could chime in about the difficulty of Mars Matrix, but there aren't really any other games that I've cleared that are in the same range. Before I got into it, I was playing Gunbird 2 (DC) extensively, and I don't really feel like there's any patterns in Mars Matrix that are as difficult as like stage 1-5 of that game (At the time I only made it to S4 boss, I believe). However, Gunbird 2 does also give you tons of bombs, so there's that. OTOH, Mars Matrix gives you a recharging shield that can be repeatedly triggered for a couple of i-frames without much recharge time if you play that way (It definitely gets much harder when you're trying to use the shield for scoring instead).
YouTube | Restart Syndrome | 1cclist | Go Play Mars Matrix
Solunas wrote:How to Takumi your scoring system
1) Create Scoring System
2) Make it a multiplier for your actual score
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Re: My Quest to Become an Approved Voter - Please Help

Post by Buffi »

SDOJ is definitely not that hard for a 1CC.

I got a clear with A-S by just saving a bunch of bombs for s5.

Pink Sweets is also harder than that imo, even with infinite lives glitch.
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Post by Sengoku Strider »

That Japanese wiki list is interesting. I was thrown when I saw Life Force at 8, but then I saw the top ten is under the header "Can be cleared within a couple of months on average." That's a refreshing way to frame the easiest arcade titles.

Some of those rankings are just plain bizarre though. The 21-30 range is listed as "Well balanced titles reachable even for beginners inside half a year." This range includes games like R-Type II, Gunbird 2, Ketsui, Strikers 1945 II and Battle Garegga. WUT

Alongside things like Blazing Star & Deathsmiles. DOUBLE WUT
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Post by Lethe »

wiNteR wrote:Are you talking about "normal course" or "advanced course"?
Advanced, because that seems to be what ADM was going for. Normal course would certainly be low, probably single digits.
Buffi wrote:SDOJ is definitely not that hard for a 1CC.
I was hoping you'd post here. What do you think about the placement of Dimahoo? It's not a common game to see played for survival (and therefore not so often seen cleared at all!).
The SDOJ rank's so high because it's for a Hibachi clear; the JP wiki has a regular 1CC at 21.
Sengoku Strider wrote:The 21-30 range is listed as "Well balanced titles reachable even for beginners inside half a year." This range includes games like R-Type II, Gunbird 2, Ketsui, Strikers 1945 II and Battle Garegga. WUT
Isn't that 11-20? But I don't think it's wrong in any case.
I know you're not asking for advice, but I'm going to suggest improving your flailing skills. Even for Psikyo et al, the better you get at playing dynamically the less difficult it gets to route. I went for a Gunbird 2 1-ALL when I realized I could gorilla the first three stages, and then found I could do the same on the harder parts of stages 5/6 after bumping a zako to lower the rank.
You want a game that pushes you but is simultaneously comprehensible; at least for me, trying to incrementally memo my way through a game/segment I can't yet keep up with is ultimately a waste of time that could be more effectively spent on something I can just play right now. I expect that changes when you get to truly difficult games, but I've got a way to go before that becomes an issue.
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Post by Sengoku Strider »

Lethe wrote:Isn't that 11-20?
Durr, you're right. 21-30 just says intermediate to advanced. Crisis averted.
But I don't think it's wrong in any case.
I think it's an exceptional beginner who can go from zero to Ketsui in 6 months or less.
I know you're not asking for advice, but I'm going to suggest improving your flailing skills. Even for Psikyo et al, the better you get at playing dynamically the less difficult it gets to route. I went for a Gunbird 2 1-ALL when I realized I could gorilla the first three stages, and then found I could do the same on the harder parts of stages 5/6 after bumping a zako to lower the rank.
TBH if I have a problem, it's that I split my time between way too many different STGs. I'm just not built to monotask to extremes, so it's what keeps me going. I've also still got a ways to go with pattern recognition & angle reading. I do okay, but I'm not yet up to the demands some of the tougher games throw at you toward the end.
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