Why are Cave games so highly regarded?

[kathy]

Cave stuff came from a totally different era from what you're describing here though. I think it's more fair to compare Cave's stuff to other modern options. Modern takes on classic horis don't tend to screw you as much with powering down, and I can't think of any modern games without autofire.

That's a good point regarding most modern games having a dedicated autofire.

I think Psikyo is another great company the OP should have a look at if he hasn't already

[Despatche]

That's pretty much why videogames generally are so popular isn't it? RPGs certainly work on the same premise. Work, reward, more work, bigger reward, repeat.

shmups are skilled labor and more like a sport, rpgs/grindy games are generally unskilled

[ptoing]

That's pretty much why videogames generally are so popular isn't it? RPGs certainly work on the same premise. Work, reward, more work, bigger reward, repeat.

shmups are skilled labor and more like a sport, rpgs/grindy games are generally unskilled

Player skill vs character skill.

[Blackbird]

Seconding praise for the playability of Cave games. Most of Cave's games, especially the newer ones, have a flexible difficulty level that can cater to different audiences. You can play a Cave game on a superficial/casual level where you concentrate mostly on survival without learning too much about the game. It'll still be challenging, but there's a lot of fun to be had just blowing up stuff and admiring the awesome visuals and sound. However, you can also play a Cave game at a hardcore level, and there is basically unlimited reward to mastering the game and the scoring system.

[mastermx]

I don't know why, but I get the sense that cave games require less memorization than other shmups. Perhaps that also has something to do with their popularity.

[Krooze L-Roy]

I don't know why, but I get the sense that cave games require less memorization than other shmups. Perhaps that also has something to do with their popularity.

I think you've got a point there. In something like Radiant Silvergun (or more recently, Ginga Force), there are a ton of different types of enemy attacks - direction changing, ricocheting, homing, exploding - and some of them are almost guaranteed to kill you the first time you encounter them. In Cave games, the patterns have a variety of behaviors, but the bullets themselves all function pretty much the same, so playing intuitively is far more viable.

[LordHypnos]

I don't know why, but I get the sense that cave games require less memorization than other shmups. Perhaps that also has something to do with their popularity.

Not if you're playing e.g. Do Don Pachi for score, but otherwise I think you're probably right, and take you're point. >_>

[mastermx]

Yeah, for score dodonpachi becomes a brutal memorizer. You're right I'm speaking from the survival perspective.

[nasty_wolverine]

I don't know why, but I get the sense that cave games require less memorization than other shmups. Perhaps that also has something to do with their popularity.

I think you've got a point there. In something like Radiant Silvergun (or more recently, Ginga Force), there are a ton of different types of enemy attacks - direction changing, ricocheting, homing, exploding - and some of them are almost guaranteed to kill you the first time you encounter them. In Cave games, the patterns have a variety of behaviors, but the bullets themselves all function pretty much the same, so playing intuitively is far more viable.

I dont think so. anything beyond the second stage in any cave game (except deathsmiles maybe) requires memo, or else you cant survive at all. pretty much all bosses require memo. maybe not as strict as rtype, but its there, you cant escape certain attacks with out memo. the first two stages are made so that it requires less memo is because that is what will get you to play the game, its an arcade game remember. its just like the game saying, "look how awesome you are, you are breezing through the first two stages." and when the third stage comes on "die mongrel, keep feeding me coins, keep playing to get better, until then FEED ME MOAR COINS!!!"

and if you are trying to score, you have to memorize everything literally, timing, positioning, routes, strategies... you cant freestyle for scoring at all.

For surviving you can free style the first two stages, then on you gotta have your routes. if you have routes for stages after the second, might as well make some good routes for survival in the first two stages as well. if you have routes, might as well have routes that score well. And thats the cave hook, there is always a way, you just gotta find it. you always have it at the back of your mind, that there has got to be a way, and you start making routes, and then start scoring, because just surviving just gets boring after a while. Then you get addicted and take crotch shots with PCB's.

[Erppo]

anything beyond the second stage in any cave game (except deathsmiles maybe) requires memo, or else you cant survive at all. pretty much all bosses require memo.

This is completely false. Even if you manage to get trapped, there are always bombs. In general, the games give plenty enough resources to flail your way to victory.

and if you are trying to score, you have to memorize everything literally, timing, positioning, routes, strategies... you cant freestyle for scoring at all.

This, on the other hand, is true for every game out there.

[nasty_wolverine]

anything beyond the second stage in any cave game (except deathsmiles maybe) requires memo, or else you cant survive at all. pretty much all bosses require memo.

This is completely false. Even if you manage to get trapped, there are always bombs. In general, the games give plenty enough resources to flail your way to victory.

yeah, i should rephrase that. have routes or bomb spam. but its still tough to get a 1loop clear with just flailing and bomb spamming. specially the later stages, flailing and spamming will not get you the clear. you gotta memo the tough spots and divide your resources way before hand than doing it on the fly.

[mastermx]

I think the key point here is that cave games require less memorization. No one is claiming that they require no memorization. This cannot be said for all shmups. I have nothing against memorizers, in fact some of them happen to be my favourite. But most Casuals hate the idea of memorizing anything.

[Drake]

Are we calling "know what patterns come next" memo, now?

[Bananamatic]

yeah, i should rephrase that. have routes or bomb spam. but its still tough to get a 1loop clear with just flailing and bomb spamming. specially the later stages, flailing and spamming will not get you the clear. you gotta memo the tough spots and divide your resources way before hand than doing it on the fly.

i cleared/looped most of cave's 1st loops just by spamming credits without even memorizing or practicing anything
you can bruteforce even DFK omote strong without any actual routes by the way

[Patashu]

This, on the other hand, is true for every game out there.

In some games what comes at you is randomized, so you can't memorize your way to survival/scoring victory.

What I like most about Cave: The fact that it respects you.
You'll never see stuff like:
-You can't see enemy shots because your shots, enemies, larger enemy shots or terrain are obscuring them.
-Something swoops out from the bottom of the screen with a hitbox and immediately starts shooting you/ramming into you.
-Enemies still firing at you even when they're practically off screen (this is pretty rare)
-Being screwed over due to picking up the wrong power up or losing all your power ups (ala Gradius)
-Getting shot at by a regular enemy that you're very close to
-Not being able to see a bullet because it's not vibrant or distinctive enough
-Deadly/'surprise' environmental hazards
In general they're low on annoyances and high on polish. It's really clear from playing just how tweaked and playtested they ensure everything is.
Cave shmups know that you're here to shoot and dodge (and later score), and are unobtrusive in providing you with that goal.
(There's also stuff like enemies having a shadow if they fly in, or being invulnerable/not shooting for a moment if they're on the ground and scrolling in, so you can just look at the top of the screen if you don't know what's coming next)

[Erppo]

specially the later stages, flailing and spamming will not get you the clear. you gotta memo the tough spots and divide your resources way before hand than doing it on the fly.

I still won't agree. Unless we start classifying things like "I died here last time, maybe I should bomb" as memo and you're not going to need a much more advanced plan to clear most games given some base amount of dodging skills.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think the key point here is that cave games require less memorization. No one is claiming that they require no memorization. This cannot be said for all shmups. I have nothing against memorizers, in fact some of them happen to be my favourite. But most Casuals hate the idea of memorizing anything.

I think they generally encourage a lot of memorization on stage 4 and 5 (Ketsui is a good example). By that point, the game just starts cranking out outright walls of bullets that you have to luck dodge unless you know the exact way to herd zako fire so that you don't get walled or are very very good player who can sight read even the most complex pink clusterfucks..

There's also the fact that a lot of Ikeda programmed Cave games have very little rng, generally. Pretty much everything can be routed.

It's still doable, like most shmups, without memorization if you're good enough. But personally on the scale of improv vs memo, I definitely place Cave slightly more to the latter due to lack of rng and the design of later stages.


On the other hand, I will admit that I got through the last stage of DDP DOJ Black Label after 3 attempts by just picking Laser type and bomb spamming through most of it.Though I had to memo stage 4 pretty hard to make it there with that many resources.

[ptoing]

I think when speaking of "memoriser" many people mean things like instant non-telegraphed deathlasers you really can not see coming the first time you play. As far as that goes, Cave shmups do not have this. And they also don't really have confusing bullet patterns/trajectories (apart from Ketsui) or things like homing bullets and the like. All fairly standard stuff.

[nasty_wolverine]

I still won't agree. Unless we start classifying things like "I died here last time, maybe I should bomb" as memo and you're not going to need a much more advanced plan to clear most games given some base amount of dodging skills.

"I died here a few times, cant just sight read and dodge, I am going to bomb this from now on and just not bother with it". I would consider anything memo that you cant dodge or survive with just sheer dodging skills, and either bomb or develop some strategy to deal with it.

[mastermx]

Yes, Cave is nothing like what's found in Irem games. Those are what I'd call memorizers.

[Erppo]

"I died here a few times, cant just sight read and dodge, I am going to bomb this from now on and just not bother with it". I would consider anything memo that you cant dodge or survive with just sheer dodging skills, and either bomb or develop some strategy to deal with it.

My entire point is that there are very few sections like this in Cave games. Ignoring the hard stuff, I would say only Ketsui does this regularly.

[chempop]

Cave games are my favorite...

not including Raizing

I think it really comes down to having two-dozen titles under their belt. What other developer has that selection and retains such a high level of quality. None.

[ACSeraph]

Are we calling "know what patterns come next" memo, now?

Not sure what else you would call it, it's not particularly strict or difficult memorization, but it's still memorization.

This is completely false. Even if you manage to get trapped, there are always bombs. In general, the games give plenty enough resources to flail your way to victory.

You are by no means an average player Erppo, there aren't many Cave games your average player is going to be able to flail their way through (with a couple exceptions). This aint Touhou.

Pretty sure this was for you->

I think they generally encourage a lot of memorization on stage 4 and 5 (Ketsui is a good example). By that point, the game just starts cranking out outright walls of bullets that you have to luck dodge unless you know the exact way to herd zako fire so that you don't get walled or are very very good player who can sight read even the most complex pink clusterfucks.

---

Rather than, "Cave games don't require memorization for survival play", I think it's more fair to say that "Cave games require significantly less strict memorization for survival play."

stuff

Lots of great points here.

[Laurel_McFang]

Irem = memorizer

I found the cave games have the right amount of bullet hell. The patterns are creative, but not touhou level insane which means the games consistently have the right amount of hectic, but not enough to be impossible (at least on normal difficulty). It's also the world design, bug princess has an amazing world design as ESPgaluda. They get what makes danmaku work and work from there. Was going to buy donpachi iOS later today so we'll see. It's really just a sense of quality, they worked at the genre and found what works. As for the scoring system the weapon switching mechanic means the game is playable for normal players and then requires skill for high scorer chasers. Which makes me think maybe I should try and do no hi score run of ESPgaluda. There are completely different than Irem shmups which require consistently analyzing and thinking about the level cave games are all about twitch reactions and knowing patterns.

[Special World]

They're some of the most solid shooters around with some of the best and most original scoring systems ever created.

[Drake]

Are we calling "know what patterns come next" memo, now?

Not sure what else you would call it, it's not particularly strict or difficult memorization, but it's still memorization.

I'm saying you can't equivocate everything that could be considered some sort of memorization. Being familiar with a game is trivial and bringing something like that up in order to say things like "if you don't memo you can't win" is frankly ridiculous. Sure, if you aren't familiar with a game at all or you have no dodging skills then flail and bombspam might not be enough to clear, but that's an incredibly weak and silly point to make. Like Erppo says, if you're including things like "oh I died here before maybe I should bomb or learn how to do it" as memo then you've given up your ground to seriously talk about memorization in games. In the same vein, we can't just call everything below IREM-tier as light on memorization and be like "well at least game X isn't like IREM". These sorts of points just sail either way under or way over the realm of where most games stand.

[ACSeraph]

^I think the only point that was really being made was that all shmups require quite a bit more memorization than other modern single player genres, and Cave is no exception even if it doesn't usually require an excessively strict path. I don't really disagree with you, but telling more casual players that Cave games are good because they can be survived on sheer reflex with just a little bit of familiarity of what is coming next is a lie I think. There are unusual people who can do that sure, but most people are going to find the memorization aspect, or familiarization aspect if you prefer, quite challenging.

Cave games are not "memo games" in the context of the genre though, I agree completely.

[Squire Grooktook]

^I think the only point that was really being made was that all shmups require quite a bit more memorization than other modern single player genres

This is only because shmups are a lot harder though, not because its necessarily anything intentionally designed into the game (sometimes, depends on the dev and the game). There's also lots of trial and error in other games too, but it's not quite as noticeable because you don't have to restart the game from the beginning when you do fail. Like you might die 3 times to a boss in some Platinum Games game or whatever, but it's not as noticeable or frustrating for most people because there's less penalty.

That being said, there are a lot of shmups that can in fact be blind cleared. Most modern shmups in fact are probably doable for a sufficient enough player blind.

[ACSeraph]

Good points and I agree, but

sufficient enough player

is a very small group in shmups.

But to the point that Cave games require less memorization than others, I do agree. Because when you said most modern shmups can be cleared blind by a good enough player I immediately thought "sure as hell couldn't see that with Caladrius". Caladrius = not Cave.

[mastermx]

All difficult games require some level of memorization. From fighting games: frame data, combos, hit box etc. Adventure games: dark souls familiarity with mechanics, bosses and geography, actions games: take Dmc3, and even difficulty platforms such as megaman games, contra, metal Slug, and gng. Familiarity is needed for difficulty.

What we are trying to get at is specifically accessibility, and degree of memorization. Cave games have a distinct ratio of accessibility and memorization that gives them a special appeal. Now if we are talking about whether they are memorizers within their genre, then of course they aren't like Irem games.

I don't think rng should be the sole factor whether something is memory intensive or not. In some rare cases rng can in fact break the balance of a game completely.