Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[S_Fang]

Bottom line, possible 1cc with intense training except the crappy TLB.

I don't know whether Mushihimesama has rank, but some Cave games do, which means that they are harder if you're on your first credit.

I didn't spot any change in difficulty, considering that I used almost 20cc in the whole game. My first continue was on the first stage and nothing seemed to be easier not harder.

[Bonus!]

You're basing your judgment on one play through?

[LordHypnos]

Couldn't sleep last night so I spent some time practicing stage 2 and 3 of Samidare. Kept dying on stage 2 until the really hard pattern, which I somehow managed to get by without missing (though it took me a lot of playthroughs to actually get that far because my lifecount was reduced to 1 by 1LCing the stage, and only went up by 1 life at a time with each gameover), in spite of the other parts killing me. Stage 3 was rough though. Was playing awfully.

Afterward I decided to mess around with a few games in MAME, casually, including Batsugun Special (in which I got a better score than ever before, not that that's saying much), Battle Bakraid, Gunbird 2, Giga Wing, probably some others I'm forgetting. Then I played Cho Ren Sha 68k for a bit. Stage 3 was a lot harder than I remembered.

EDIT:
@Stevens: Sweet! Sounds like you're moving right along in MM! Once you make it to stage 6 you're getting really close

[Chaos Phoenixma]

It's right though. Only the original mode in the Mushihimesama games use Rank. Maniac/Ultra/God stay the same regardless.

[S_Fang]

It's right though. Only the original mode in the Mushihimesama games use Rank. Maniac/Ultra/God stay the same regardless.

I played the normal version, not the V1.5, as I tried to find that and I only got 1.5 of Mushihimesama FUTARI.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Vector Wars and Radiant on Windows phone. The only good shmups I've found on the platform so far. Radiant is really solid.

There's an Aero Fighters snes emu version, but it's impossible to control. Every time I play it it just makes me sad that phones don't have dpads.

[Kiken]

For no discernible reason I started playing Area 88 (SFC ver) again yesterday. After 2 days of practice I nailed my first SCC of the game with Mickey Scymon (died 4 times, IIRC). The cave stage (in the upper-right of the map) is easily the most difficult level.. especially that bullshit ceiling tank boss! After getting past that thing, the final stage was a breeze. I guess I'll shoot for a No Miss run... the biggest hurdle is getting up to $300,000 so I can buy the third craft in the selection (to hell with that second ship). Then I just ride it out until I hit $1 million for the Efreet.

[Nate]

Didn't do much of this when I initially Gradius Collection on PSP, but it's been Gradius Gaiden for about 3 days...learning to take advantage of the gauge edit feature and placing "limit" in slot-1. Wow! You can really do some "sight-seeing" with that! A little something I picked up on YouTube.

[Cata]

Making some progress in Ketsui while waiting for my Japanese 360 to come in. Currently able to make it to stage 4 somewhat frequently. Been banging my head against a wall trying to come up with a good route for the assault at the beginning of stage 4. Watched a bunch of replays on PSN and found one that I think should work really well but man, I spent like an hour and a half easily yesterday experimenting with different routes and nothing felt even close to comfortable hahaha

[Jonst]

^ Roughly, left, right, centre, centre, left and right take out the bigger planes that come in three's from the sides (lock shot) using tiger schwert using a lot of shot to take out pop corn... Persevere, ketsui is awesome!

[LordHypnos]

Been playing a bit of Cho Ren Sha 68k on the side of Samidare

[SuperSoaker360]

QP Shooting - Dangerous!!

Having trouble finding the right combination of attack formations that fit my play-style. I don't like how I have to grind to get the different formations though, so getting into it at the moment is really difficult for me.

[CStarFlare]

Agreed about the grinding. Jaimers' video made me say oh, that's neat - but it's frustrating that you can't really start playing for score until you've played for however many hours it takes to build up enough cash to buy all formations.

[Stevens]

Two decent Mars Matrix runs.

First one I no missed until the field of death. Then naturally I died 3 times in the field and then lost my last two ships on the boss.

Second run I broke 13.5 billion and 564,000 xp.

Despite all this I still have yet to make stage 5 on a credit. Getting close though..

[Anesthetize]

Playing some shmups again for the first time in about three years (I guess having kids will do that to you).

Spending time with SDOJ 360 mode, Raiden Fighters Jet (I've had this for way too long to have not really played it yet), and just picked up Crimzon Clover World Ignition last night.

How different is WI compared to the doujin release I bought in 2011? Seems a bit harder, but that could be my skills rusting over my 3yr break.

Anyway, good to be back!

[Bonus!]

How different is WI compared to the doujin release I bought in 2011? Seems a bit harder, but that could be my skills rusting over my 3yr break.

Doujin Simple is easier than WI Novice Arcade
Doujin Standard is easier than WI Arcade, but harder than WI Novice Arcade
Doujin Unlimited is (presumably) easier than WI Unlimited

Overall, the Boost modes in WI are more difficult than the regular versions. You get greater fire power, but there is rank.

[Bananamatic]

How different is WI compared to the doujin release I bought in 2011? Seems a bit harder, but that could be my skills rusting over my 3yr break.

Doujin Simple is easier than WI Novice Arcade
Doujin Standard is easier than WI Arcade, but harder than WI Novice Arcade
Doujin Unlimited is (presumably) easier than WI Unlimited

Overall, the Boost modes in WI are more difficult than the regular versions. You get greater fire power, but there is rank.

novice is imo slightly easier than doujin simple, you get like 2.5x more extends than in the arcade versions on top of easier patterns

meanwhile in the doujin you got a ton of lives(as much as in WI novice i think?) while in the arcade version you get only 4 extends not counting the mercy extend, and the last one is really hard to get without playing for score so you can't die all over the place anymore
original and unlimited are both a fuckton harder than in the doujin, boost is slightly harder than original imo

WI novice anything<doujin simple<<doujin original<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<WI arcade original<WI arcade boost<doujin unlimited<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<WI unlimited

assuming no type Z in anything

[Anesthetize]

Ok cool, thanks guys. I've only played Original so far on WI, and thats mostly what I played on doujin. Glad it's not all due to my lack of skill

[Bananamatic]

anything arcade in CCWI is a bitch to clear due to the combination of 3-4 extends and the game being way longer than an average cave shmup, and on top of that it has a TLB
even if you are 90% consistent on most of the game, the small mistakes eventually wear you down and the TLB just punches you in the face for a game over

[Anesthetize]

Ouch. Yeah, I had to rely on the stage end extends to get my original clear back then.

Are there no Hi Score boards here for the WI version?

[Shepardus]

There's a thread here.

[Anesthetize]

Thank you, sir. I didn't see it in the index.

[Cata]

^ Roughly, left, right, centre, centre, left and right take out the bigger planes that come in three's from the sides (lock shot) using tiger schwert using a lot of shot to take out pop corn... Persevere, ketsui is awesome!

I'll have to try this this weekend! Will be getting my 360 on Monday so the Cave Shooting Collection will probably make me set aside Ketsui for awhile but I want to get as far as I can in my runs until then

[LordHypnos]

I decided to finally drag my Dreamcast out for the first time in a while and play some Mars Matrix. It's amazing how much I've lost. I can't even get close to remembering my route in a bunch of places. My videos will help me, but it's super hard to imitate videos.

Does anyone have any advice about trying to recover latent memories of shmup routes? Is it best to just keep grinding practice mode until you start remembering, or are there other things that are recommended?

[Stevens]

Dreamcasts should never be dug out of anything. They should always be at the center of all gaming and entertainment centers on a pillow made from unicorn tears.

Of course mine was stored away for quite some time too

When I got back into UD I just played it and within a few credits it had come back to me. MM is admittedly a bit more complex, so the same thing might not work for you. Sorry

Speaking of MM - I still haven't gotten any further on a credit, but I am earning around 190,000 XP on stage 1 and have been finishing stage 2 with close to 300,000. My score list is filling up with more and more scores over 10 billion (not great I know) and XP well over 400,000. At least I'm consistent!

Just need to break through to stage 5.

[LordHypnos]

^Very true, it definitely feels better that it's finally out, again. Also, there was something satisfying about entering a date of January 8, 2015 into my Dreamcast's bios .
Sounds like you're doing pretty well. Getting through stage 4 is an ordeal, but if you keep at it it will come!

[Stevens]

This just in. Stevens is a retard who does not know how to count.

I realized my high score in Mars Matrix isn't 13 billion, it's 134 billion. I wasn't reading it properly.

Is there a face palm smiley?

[LordHypnos]

This just in. Stevens is a retard who does not know how to count.

I realized my high score in Mars Matrix isn't 13 billion, it's 134 billion. I wasn't reading it properly.

Is there a face palm smiley?

There should be.
You know, something did seem kind of suspect about your score versus your experience before, to me, so that makes sense. That means you're a little farther than I was when I first joined shmups forum / submitted a score to the MM board (121b).

[Kollision]

Cardinal Sins and DDP.
Is it true what I read about chaining in the PS1 port of DDP being botched?

[Strikers1945guy]

The original Raiden jamma PCb on my cab. It's kicking my ass, although to be honest I've maybe put in 10 credits thus far. I read something vaguely about the 2Player side having much easier default difficulty? I hope this isn't so as I only have a 1P control panel wired in my cab. Which also pisses me off as I want to use Dyne in Ibara also but cant