Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[DarkSlayer]

Continuing the 4:3 vertical journey, been playing ray storm and ray crysis on ps1

The graphics and athestics are amazing in both

Quite enjoy how short the 2nd one is, so packed with detailed scenes. Interesting how you can choose to play the same stage 3 times in a row with increasing difficulty

I don’t love how they narrow the playfield and nudge the player ship around sometimes, I think under defeat does a much better job at this idea

Gotta love how Taito included Pocket Station support with the slick mini game of "Pocket Ray" to d/l to it with the PSX/PSOne disc of Ray Crisis + it takes up a whopping 11 blocks out of twelve leaving just one block of memory allocated for the Ray Crisis game itself (and no more empty blocks of memory to spare either) -- thus using up an entire 1mb-sized PSX memory card indeed.

The opening animated intro that leads into the Pocket Ray main title screen complete with matching BGM tune to back it up is impressive to watch/unfold in "real time." Too bad that SCEJ didn't make a full-color LCD-based Pocket Station "personal digital assistant" device instead of going the cheaper route of using a b&w LCD screen setup as it would've eclipsed/trounced the b&w DC VMU handheld/memory card any ol' day -- Sony's in-house PSX R&D department had the capable hardware, programming, expertise & knowledge to pull it off successfully. Even Namco's PSX/PSOne-based Ridge Racer Type 4 has built-in support for the Pocket Station as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Wow I just watched a vid of pocket ray, kind of looks ok until it clears the screen to show a message EVERY time you kill an enemy XD

[Stevens]

Should have had this Akai Katana clear by now but, I keep dying to stupid shit.

Story of my life with (insert shooter here). You'll get it. I got really close to the Zetsu clear years ago but couldn't quite punch my ticket on the last boss.

Ketsui snip

When this dropped on the PS4 I picked it up. And yes it's awesome. It was also the first time I started to wonder if my eyes were aging out of the genre. I got as far as the shaft of death. I've only dabbled in shmups since, but reading your post makes me want to fire it up again.

I did play a bit of Crisis Wing and Earthion last summer. Love Crisis Wing. Earthion is really close to being great, but has some issues. Edit - Lilac 0 was also in my rotation for a bit last year. Also really good.

Yesterday I picked up Devil Blade Reboot. No issues so far on my end, I can read everything pretty well.

I remember when that dev disc dropped on the PS1 - my buddy was like "Check it out - you can make a shooting game".

And here I am 30 years later finally discovering it. What a gem!

[To Far Away Times]

After a hiatus with playing shmups I decided to try my luck again with Pulstar. I spent the last week re-learning the stages and now I can do all the parts individually. Need to practice up a bit more and really commit it to memory and then hopefully I can string it all together.

[jehu]

Happy Easter, all. I hope you all will observe the holiday with a few credits of Dodonpachi **Resurrection** and blast your way back into heaven like Jesus intended. Amen.

Or play, like, Rabio Lepus if you’re a pagan.

[1000Eyes]

In fact i am playing resurrection. Trying 1.5 power style and made it until stage 4 so far.

I kept hearing for a while how bad dfk is. Always liked the soft, diffused, neon day glo lens flare shunji iwai ish haze it's got going on, but in theory the gameplay system sounds unwieldy as hell. It takes something as elegant as chaining, which is a system that is hard to milk, ties score to destruction, while still forcing you to do weird and skillful things, and feels like it tacks on a ton of things that seem to all result from the idea that hypers can cancel bullets.

DOJ merely added hypers, and that was less of a power up and more of a consolidation of your chaining skills. DFK 1.5 allowing hypers to cancel bullets turn into quite a quagmire. To counter your op ability youve got stuff like hyper rank making it harder to cancel bullets the more you use it, and random lasers that spawn which are there to stop your shot harvesting from becoming too rampant by forcing you to counter laser. There is a multiplier that essentially asks you not to use hypers for as long as possible. Taken together, it is a game of two phases: harvesting bullets with hypers to build the multiplier, and then ignore the hypers and play ddp normally. This dichotomy is further with boost mode in power style, which slows your ship in exchange for an offense that wipes the screen, which trades positioning (too slow!) and selective destruction (which is necessary for chaining) in exchange for fast hyper build up, screen coverage and fast single target destruction.

Really feels like they duct taped a bunch of stuff on top of DDP, but weirdly enough i still find it enjoyable, and the dodging is still more fun than in something like Akai Katana (which i enjoy primarily for score). Is it the novelty, or is there something to the design? Will have to play more.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Should have had this Akai Katana clear by now but, I keep dying to stupid shit.

Story of my life with (insert shooter here). You'll get it. I got really close to the Zetsu clear years ago but couldn't quite punch my ticket on the last boss.

Ketsui snip

When this dropped on the PS4 I picked it up. And yes it's awesome. It was also the first time I started to wonder if my eyes were aging out of the genre. I got as far as the shaft of death. I've only dabbled in shmups since, but reading your post makes me want to fire it up again.

I did play a bit of Crisis Wing and Earthion last summer. Love Crisis Wing. Earthion is really close to being great, but has some issues. Edit - Lilac 0 was also in my rotation for a bit last year. Also really good.

Yesterday I picked up Devil Blade Reboot. No issues so far on my end, I can read everything pretty well.

I remember when that dev disc dropped on the PS1 - my buddy was like "Check it out - you can make a shooting game".

And here I am 30 years later finally discovering it. What a gem!

Why yes, that'd be none other than Athena's PSX-based Dezaemon Plus stg game creator (even the PSX-based Dezaemon Kids is worth giving a spin with it's 2nd disc chock full of 100 different user created stgs using the earlier Dazaemon Plus engine).

From 2000 to 2004, using the DP engine to create my own custom-made BGM tunes (which do, indeed, sound much better than the generic-stock BGM tunes with ths default sampler DP stg titles like "Daioh Gale" (a riff on the classic "Daioh" arcade jamma pcb also released from Athena Co. Ltd. with a 2-button scheme with the JPN region & a 6-button scheme with the USA region selectable via a 2-pin header on a certain jumper on the pcb itself -- thus making the the USA region Daioh jamma pcb the definitive one to own/play as it allows the end-user the ability to play either the original JPN region 2-button or the more robust 6-button endowed scheme afforded with the USA region version of Daioh).

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The use of a 1st-party Sony PSX mouse controller with the PSX-based DP stg engine is necessary/crucial when trying to make your own stg game and/or custom-made BGM tunes over the stock old-school OG PSX digital D-pad controller (non-Dual Shock 1 setup).
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There's the SS port of Deazamon 2 worth giving a spin as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[JBC]

Final 3 Evolved. Mostly because I'm so hyped for Cosmos and also because I got a Brook adapter for my 8bitDo stick.

[Starfighter]

I decided to give the Aces-version of Jet a go since I'm tired of waiting for the patch on Remix, the correct speed and lower input latency makes it so much easier. I have barely seen anything past Simulation Stage 40 on my PS5, but my first credit in the Aces-version ended just before the TLB*. I still have a lot to do (like diving into all the secrets and improve on scoring etc, right now I barely had 50m when I died). Looking forward to giving this game more of my time!

* = I think. I died once in Real Battle Phase 1 and then my last two lives at the Battle Phase 2 boss, that might have shut me out of the TLB... But anway, the difficulty difference was like night and day.

[ForeverGnomed]

Currently playing two:

The side dish is R-Type 3: Third Lightning on SNES. I'm just casually playing it, not going for a 1CC or anything - I'm just curious to see it through (I haven't sat down long enough with it to get to the end yet). R-Type Delta is my favorite horizontal shmup, so I've been checking out each title in the series after playing through that one.

I'm primarily playing Dodonpachi DaiOuJou, for the first time with any serious intent with it, via its PGM cart on the ol' candy cab. I did just 1CC it yesterday, but with an asterix... I set the ship stock to 5 in the PGM settings... So I suppose it doesn't officially count, but still felt great(!) and requires quite a bit of skilled finness, heheh. I did the same with Ketsui last month. I was able to reach that point with DaiOuJou pretty quickly, within about 2 weeks of 2-3 runs per day - probably because I just came off Ketsui, so the CAVE senses are quite heightened, heheh (Ketsui took me quite a while, probably 100 combined hours with that game). But yeah, DOJ is fantastic. I wasn't impressed by it a while back when I dabbled in it, but after spending some time with it, it really grew on me. It's a really fun game for survival. The patterns, while not as dynamic as Ketsui, offer some really great dodging opportunities - I feel like I can always find windows and routes on the fly - and the difficulty is scaled really well, with no hard spikes or walls of difficulty that take a few other CAVE games down a few notches for me. While I'm not sure I can pull off the 1CC with regular 3-stock in Ketsui without some more serious hours of playtime, I may be able to pull it off in DOJ, so I'm going to keep at it for a little bit.

Up next will be Espgaluda. I've gotten close with that one, but as alluded to above, it's that last boss pattern that always stopped me - but I'm ready to go at it again I think...

[Starfighter]

I feel like I can always find windows and routes on the fly

For me it was the opposite! The very moment I strayed off route, without a bomb to get me back on course, pretty much the rest of the stage became about damage control.

[ForeverGnomed]

I feel like I can always find windows and routes on the fly

For me it was the opposite! The very moment I strayed off route, without a bomb to get me back on course, pretty much the rest of the stage became about damage control.

Hahah, damage control... I think that's the state I'm in for 90% of every run

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've been derusting lately on shmups, Metal Black's one I'd like to tackle but I'm still awful. I got into streaming a bit again and banged out some Esp.Ra.De, Espgaluda, and Ketsui clears. Felt motivated yesterday to try and clear Guwange with Shishin, the character I haven't been able to tackle yet (his rapid and shikigami shots are weak, he doesn't have Gensuke's damage output or Kosame's blast range on the shikigami attack). Didn't get very far on Friday or Saturday, but nabbed the clear on second credit yesterday. Woo! Maybe I'll try scoring and see if I can carry a full chain to the end, the scoring is more interesting than the chaining in Dodonpachi I think, even if full chaining is a bit brutal.

[Sengoku Strider]

I picked up Avenger on PC Engine again. After a bunch of danmaku lately it takes some adjustment to go back to something with fast bullets and full size hit boxes, but it's fun. I think it really gets overlooked as a solid B tier shooter on the system.

[ForeverGnomed]

Played through R-Type 3: Third Lightning to the end - A scenic tour of the game (who knows how many continues I used) - it's not a game I'll try and 1CC, but it was cool to play through. I thought the bosses were great, and the graphics are doing some cool things on the SNES, so it was rad to look at. My only mark I'd strike against the game is that level 4 maze section... It was pretty frustrating >.<

Still picking away at 1CC'ing DoDonPachi DaiOuJou - This game is awesome. I've gotten it pretty tight to the point where I just need that "miracle" run. None of the areas give me much trouble any more, so it's just random clips/mistakes that take me out now. I made it all the way to the last 4th of health on the final boss, ran out of resources, and then got clipped! Then I was feeling pretty exhausted from the stress of the grind, so I changed the DIP settings (playing via PGM on a cab) for 5-stock to relieve some pressure and play some fun runs... And then managed to complete a run within 3-stock, hah - but can't count it! Part of the challenge of the 1CC is that pressure/stress knowing you only have those set resources, and playing under those conditions - gotta remove the safety gear and perform all risks involved! - so can't trick myself, haha - so the grind continues!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've been really into CometStriker DX lately:






It's a nifty room/arena based shmup with an invulnerable dash. I got the 1CC of Very Hard recently which features a fairly brutal TLB fight. Should record a run of it for Youtube on the PC version. Anyways, it's a super cute game, very fun, has multiplayer options, 6 characters, also has randomizer mode that has like 300 extra room layouts it'll mash together to create a unique set of dungeons. Fun stuff, very worth it for the price:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/7010 ... triker_DX/

And then managed to complete a run within 3-stock, hah - but can't count it!

It's interesting how different you play when the pressure's reduced, isn't it? That's part of the challenge of a live run, not breaking when it's really down to your last few resources knowing that one hit is the difference between a 1CC or not.

[1000Eyes]

Just got my deepest run on Raiden w/ no autofire to the stage 4 boss. No-missed the first 3 so full power ship was crazy — ive never seen the first 3 bosses go down so fast. I got to see the full stage 4 for the first time, and the most fun segment is probably when I had to checkpoint recover the 2 tank midbosses and actually clutched it on my first go, even if it took 3 of my lives. A lot of fun strategizing there, where I grab the blue laser, but chipped away and held my bombs until the first tank joins its partner, so I get them both with 1 bomb. Raiden checkpoints are super fun so far even if nasty, but surviving them is some of my favorite gaming moments in a while.

[EmperorIng]

R-Type's scent has been in the air thanks to the lackluster port of R-Type 3. Maybe that has inspired me to be playing Pulstar lately. I have played it for the last week or so, and I think I am pretty close to the 1cc after grindin' checkpoint recoveries across just about every stage... Of course, the easiest way to beat the game is to simply never die! The last three stages have checkpoints that are truly brutal. R-Type 2 levels of difficulty. It has been a long time since I've been deep in a checkpoint shmup, so it's a nice change of pace.

My time with pulstar has gone along a predictable path:

>dies
>This game sucks!
>Why is my ship so slow!
>Why are these stages so long and hard!
>dies
>Why can't I recover!
>This games sucks!!

But over time, and getting over the period of being a WHINER, I have come to appreciate just how beautifully-put-together the whole thing is. I love the charge power-up that not only makes your charge shot faster, but easier for you to use your powered-up shot! Even if I am using autofire, it is still a great feature and a nice tweak to the old irem charge-shot mechanic. Great stages and boss fights (when you're good, you don't even see half the cool attacks they can do). The only thing really lacking is a decent score system... unless you wanna checkpoint milk the final boss for a couple of hours! I've practiced the infamous double-k.o. a little bit, so I'll see how much motivation I have to go all in on it.

Hamster's ACA port predictably disables autofire for no good reason in High-Score Mode (especially since they allow it in the normal mode), but luckily the 8bitdo's m30 controller has built-in turbo, which sidesteps this problem This is helpful for Blazing Star, too. I think the top-spot in Pulstar's switch board will be mine soon.

[mycophobia]

r-type stage 6 is a real bitch!!

[1000Eyes]

(when you're good, you don't even see half the cool attacks they can do).

Yeah, it is true even when you dont play with autofire. I find it interesting the games understand the non-linearity of skill, so they bank that because you suck initially you get to experience the boss patterns. When you are good, you get this instant feedback of speedkilling the boss just like any stage mook. I always think the secret to good game design is the same thing as well planned syllabus, and it helps alleviate the static nature of not having a scoring system by having these very variable swings just on tiny shifts of your performance.

[EmperorIng]

Yeah, it is true even when you dont play with autofire. I find it interesting the games understand the non-linearity of skill, so they bank that because you suck initially you get to experience the boss patterns. When you are good, you get this instant feedback of speedkilling the boss just like any stage mook. I always think the secret to good game design is the same thing as well planned syllabus, and it helps alleviate the static nature of not having a scoring system by having these very variable swings just on tiny shifts of your performance.

Well said! You feel great because you style on these lame cunts so hard they immediately explode in shame and embarrassment! Especially if some like the God-damned bitch of a turtle in stage 2 have been giving you trouble for ages... Not that I'd know how that feels!

As well, if you make a mistake and die, you can feel the pain of having to experience all those attacks again since you are not powered-up enough to delete the boss in a timely fashion (this happened to me the other day fighting the giant dick-n-vagina monstrosity in stage 6 when I was killed by hilarious (and predicted) floor panel explosion like a chump).

This evening, I lost it at the final boss; I was one charge shot away from clearing. I couldn't bounce back after two more lives in stock. Should be any day now, I hope.

[Starfighter]

Homura. I bought it in a bargain bin for $5 or something like that around 07/08, gave it a (1) try and went "it looks like a Castle Shikigami type of game..." and never played it again. This past weekend I decided to give it another go and it immediately became apparent to me that while the visuals might give off some slight Shikigami vibes the gameplay has more in common with Giga Wing, and to some extent Psyvariar. I'm completely sold on it now, I've been playing it for hours every day since friday. I think I might be close to a 1CC but I'm having so much fun figuring out various places to use the sword attack and unlocking the gallery (it's wild how much effort went in to the concept artwork) that I'm still doing that rather than focusing on straight up 1CC runs.

[EmperorIng]

Homura. I bought it in a bargain bin for $5 or something like that around 07/08, gave it a (1) try and went "it looks like a Castle Shikigami type of game..." and never played it again. This past weekend I decided to give it another go and it immediately became apparent to me that while the visuals might give off some slight Shikigami vibes the gameplay has more in common with Giga Wing, and to some extent Psyvariar. I'm completely sold on it now, I've been playing it for hours every day since friday. I think I might be close to a 1CC but I'm having so much fun figuring out various places to use the sword attack and unlocking the gallery (it's wild how much effort went in to the concept artwork) that I'm still doing that rather than focusing on straight up 1CC runs.

Great choice! I want to get into this game badly but it's always hard to juggle what to play. M.Knight got into it a little while back. Funny you mention castle of shikigami... Skonec co-developed Shiki 3 with Alfa System, so a close look can see some visual similarities (for me, those lime-green bullets scream Skonec!). I have a copy though sometimes I dabble in PCSX2 when I am too lazy to hook up the console.

[1000Eyes]

The only thing that scares me about Homura is dodging danmaku patterns with non-normalized diagonals It is also kinda ugly looking to me despite charming designs, and the ponderous music doesnt get my blood pumping. It does, however, have a really refined scoring system (that works well on bosses!), so I do go back to it from time to time. I like how unlike GW, you actually have to dodge a lot more in this game since the sword only clears the bullets immediately in front at you, and good luck if your reflection doesnt kill anyone! Great game overall, despite my nitpicking.

[Starfighter]

I'm having a lot of fun with the sword attacks (first the one to build up multiplier and then the second one to score points) specifically! It's like night and day playing the game the first couple of times vs understanding the sword. My first hours with the game I had trouble reaching the second extend (300k), but now I'm reaching it on the stage 1 boss or early stage 2. Not that I'm going for score, but it's just that fun and addicting trying to get the multiplier as high as possible and then just cash in.

I have a copy though sometimes I dabble in PCSX2 when I am too lazy to hook up the console.

Same here! Well, my PS2 is hooked up but my CRT setup is unavailable at the time so I'm using PCSX2. And I might as well, since there's no stage select or anything it's nice to use save states (I soon only have the TLB to practice on and I don't want to play through the entire game each time).

It is also kinda ugly looking

It is! I mean there's at least some color in the third stage and there are some cool things here and there, but... yeah. Which is also why I'm so fascinated by the gallery/concept art. It's so cool looking but alas didn't translate that well into the finished game. I've soon unlocked every entry (you unlock one everytime you beat stage 1) and I plan to take screenshots of them all when I'm done!

[Starfighter]

No idea where to put them (perhaps they're already online somewhere), but I've unlocked and saved the gallery images:

[M.Knight]

Homura is a really cool shmup for sure. The atmopshere is very good. The music may not be intense but it works in context, especially in stages 1 or 4.

It indeed isn't without some input jank because on top of the non-normalized diagonals, your movement speed also differs between shooting and not shooting, plus the bomb is a simultap macro rather than a dedicated button so it won't work if you don't let go of the other buttons. I was coming from Tsukihime no Shiro (a doujin Shikigami/Tsukihime shmup) which is really fun but also has similar (if not worse) issues so I wasn't too bothered by them because the game is absolutely worth it, but yeah it is there. PS2 port not having any practice feature is also a bummer given how complete the Psy 2 PS2 port was, though nowadays save states can alleviate that. Speaking of Psy 2, if you played that, maybe it won't surprise you to know it's the same devs

Spoiler

The Gigawing comparison makes sense with the timed reflects, even if Homura has more versatility with the multiplier build-up by multi-slashing enemies and then the cash-ins yeah. And even though it doesn't play like Shikigami games, I think there is a similar fun to moving the character around, enjoying the animations of the attacks and special weapons. Who knows, maybe the multi-slash attack was inspired by Hyuga's wolf transformation bomb?

No idea where to put them (perhaps they're already online somewhere), but I've unlocked and saved the gallery images:

Maybe you can upload them on archive.org ?

The only thing really lacking is a decent score system... unless you wanna checkpoint milk the final boss for a couple of hours! I've practiced the infamous double-k.o. a little bit, so I'll see how much motivation I have to go all in on it.

Oh man, that would make the Shiki 1 crystal milking look like an Olympic-level sprint in comparison Best of luck if you go for this formidable challenge, though I don't think I'd join you this time around haha

[Starfighter]

plus the bomb is a simultap macro rather than a dedicated button so it won't work if you don't let go of the other buttons.

I was so confused by that in the beginning! "It clearly says I have bombs and I can bind the macro to a button in the settings, why is it only coming out as a sword attack?". Then I realized I have to actually let go of the buttons before activating the bomb. At first I thought that was weird, but I want to use the sword attack while holding down shot all the time so if they only have two buttons in the arcade then it makes sense to have it this way - so players wouldn't activate the bomb when they wanted the much more frequently used sword.

PS2 port not having any practice feature is also a bummer given how complete the Psy 2 PS2 port was

I have the Dreamcast port of Psyvariar 2, not sure how similar they are!

Speaking of Psy 2, if you played that, maybe it won't surprise you to know it's the same devs

I recognized their name (Skonec) right away! But at first I didn't connect the dots, I was like "I have a game by them... I wonder which", then when I had to "dance" around the screen I remembered. Well, that and the boss patterns, hehe! It seems like they really like for us to move about the screen in a stylish way in their games!

Maybe you can upload them on archive.org ?

That's a good idea! I'm using that site for other things so I'm familiar with how it works.

[mycophobia]

i wish the stupid pile of meatballs at the end of r-type stage 5 wasn't so hard to kill on recovery. most annoying part of the game by far

[mycophobia]

also annoying is r-type's speedups, you really only need the one and too often I accidentally pick up 2 (or more) before stage 6 where I really need to be precise with positioning myself. high speed doesn't really work as well in games with lots of scenery as it does in a game like Tatsujin

[mycophobia]

important update i reached stage 7 on my last run. yay!!