Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[EmperorIng]

Mainly playing RayForce now, I like this game because I wouldn't be pissed when dying with full bombs stocked like many other games lol

One of the true joys of RayForce is not having to worry about stocking up on 5 or so bombs just to see them evaporate instantly during a single mistake. The pain is still there, but less so.

[cave hermit]

As my new sig implies, I'm going for a 1cc run of Pink Sweets v1.00. Many tears will be shed.

I actually just downloaded the new mame build so I could try out Ibara (Battle Garegga make my peepee hard). The first thing I thought was, "I can't hear any of the music over all the explosions and gunfire!" (Is that just because of imperfect SH-3 emulation, or is the real PCB like that too?) As for the gameplay, well it's Yagawa. Need a bit more time for a real opinion though.

[chempop]

If your first 1CC is Pink Sweets you are officially GUSmk2

[hismit]

Well reached the 5th stage of Giga Wing today and the game getting nastier from then T.T

[eatdogs]

Ketsui death label ds (got it for under 80 bucks)

[ACSeraph]

Ketsui death label ds (got it for under 80 bucks)

D:

Is it really worth that much?

I should sell my copy... <_<

[LordHypnos]

Mars Matrix again.
I was doing awful though. Couldn't even make it to stage 4. I was doing fine on friday, but perhaps it's an off day.
Interesting fact: when you play Mars Matrix directly after Zero Rei, MM feels slow. Especially if you played fast mode of ZR a couple of times.

[xorthen]

Currently trying to 1cc Crimzon Clover. The stage 3 mid boss is ruining my run! Stage 2 boss when his health is low is fucking me up too. STILL PRACTICING

[xorthen]

Mars Matrix again.
I was doing awful though. Couldn't even make it to stage 4. I was doing fine on friday, but perhaps it's an off day.
Interesting fact: when you play Mars Matrix directly after Zero Rei, MM feels slow. Especially if you played fast mode of ZR a couple of times.

*SIGH* It gets progressively harder just like Strikers 1945 on stage 3 or 4.

[EmperorIng]

Before TRP-STG begins, I'd like to finally 1CC Darius II (Saturn port). The route I'm practicing is ABEINTZ (Bio Strong route). I think if I can make it past Leadain's zone N without dying (to say nothing of Grand Octopus), I have a decent chance at getting the clear. A spread shot makes short work of Bio Strong, but anything less is a bit of a hassle.

Leadain itself can be a pain the ass with those hard-to-see needles.

If I were adventurous, I'd try to mix it up by going ACE or ACF - onward, but those bottom-route stages are way too tough for my weapon level at that point in the game.

[eatdogs]

Ketsui death label ds (got it for under 80 bucks)

D:

Is it really worth that much?

I should sell my copy... <_<

That's the cheapest I've ever seen it. It's always listed over 100 on eBay and those are from Japanese sellers. I got lucky and bought mine off an American. Yahoo Japan auctions seem cheaper than eBay.

[LordHypnos]

Mars Matrix again.
I was doing awful though. Couldn't even make it to stage 4. I was doing fine on friday, but perhaps it's an off day.
Interesting fact: when you play Mars Matrix directly after Zero Rei, MM feels slow. Especially if you played fast mode of ZR a couple of times.

*SIGH* It gets progressively harder just like Strikers 1945 on stage 3 or 4.

This is very true. I have managed to no miss stage 3 before, numerous times, but it's definately tough as hell. The difficulty spike after the extend in stage 4 is ridiculous though.

[xorthen]

Before TRP-STG begins, I'd like to finally 1CC Darius II (Saturn port). The route I'm practicing is ABEINTZ (Bio Strong route). I think if I can make it past Leadain's zone N without dying (to say nothing of Grand Octopus), I have a decent chance at getting the clear. A spread shot makes short work of Bio Strong, but anything less is a bit of a hassle.

Leadain itself can be a pain the ass with those hard-to-see needles.

If I were adventurous, I'd try to mix it up by going ACE or ACF - onward, but those bottom-route stages are way too tough for my weapon level at that point in the game.

Good luck on that run. Darius kicks my ass always. Darius Gaiden gets insanely hard later. I still shit bricks when I watch people do runs on youtube.

[XoPachi]

I just got RefleX on Steam because I was told it was a classic that everyone needs to play...
Not seeing why. Game's kinda boring and plain. :I
I would have preferred they brought over Crimzon Clover. Oh well.

[aoiddr]

Been trying (and failing) to play through the Parodius MSX port that's on the Parodius Portable (PSP) disc... why is this game so freaking hard?! Between the terrible PSP controls and the back-to-back bosses that take a near infinite number of hits from the pea shooter, it's like the game takes delight in hearing me yell obscenities at it.

[ShamefurDispray]

Raiden Fighters in my Raiden Fighters Aces collection. The best I've done so far is beat it using 2 continues on easy. My name is so damn accurate. I'm having a shitton of fun though and that's what counts. Put in 8 hours to the collection so far. My favorite ship in Raiden Fighters is Endeavor.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've been obsessed with playing Eschatos/JSS/Cardinal Sins. Racking up a bunch of scores to dump including a good 110 mil CS one. They're super fun, but there's weird shit in each of them that I wish didn't exist like bullets going UNDER your ship's sprite layer making it hard to see exactly when they will hit you (you have a much smaller hitbox than the ship sprite). Eschatos fixes this, but instead of your hitbox being the bright yellow and obvious cockpit, it's a small, much harder to discern dot on the middle of your ship, and your spreadshot feels just a bit iffy for the task at hand. Scoring's also not as much fun, it's way too easy to drop your multiplier with just a few enemies escaping offscreen so scoring well is quite finicky.

Does the TLB in JSS only show up in Normal and Hard? I've cleared Easy, and I'm stuck at Divine Flow in Normal, wondering if I'm going to have to deal with it for the 1CC in Normal. :p

[ratikal]

I think the way the TLB's work in JSS is that you have to have a "number" of lives left. For example, you need your lives counter to display the number 6 or higher instead of having 5 separate icons.

However, I recall seeing SFKhoa playing below 6 lives and still getting the TLB. He was playing the secret ship though.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Only shows up on Normal and Hard. You must 1cc the first 30 stages to get to it. I've also seen mention that you must be on Default Settings, but I've never actually bothered to check whether you can see it with settings at something other than default. I do know that you must start from Stage 1(assuming you don't select that actual stage to practice it)

Life count doesn't matter, but you're going to want a decent amount going in.

[ACSeraph]

Before TRP-STG begins, I'd like to finally 1CC Darius II (Saturn port). The route I'm practicing is ABEINTZ (Bio Strong route). I think if I can make it past Leadain's zone N without dying (to say nothing of Grand Octopus), I have a decent chance at getting the clear. A spread shot makes short work of Bio Strong, but anything less is a bit of a hassle.

Leadain itself can be a pain the ass with those hard-to-see needles.

If I were adventurous, I'd try to mix it up by going ACE or ACF - onward, but those bottom-route stages are way too tough for my weapon level at that point in the game.

Does this route generally avoid the laser satellites yet also fights Leadain? Maybe I should learn this course too. I want to know a course in SAT DII that doesn't make me want to punch a kitten.

Good luck with it. I don't find Leadain to rough personally, only tip I can give regarding the needles is that you can actually very easily time out his first phase and only have to deal with them during the second phase.

[EmperorIng]

ABEINTZ (Bio Strong route).

Does this route generally avoid the laser satellites yet also fights Leadain? Maybe I should learn this course too. I want to know a course in SAT DII that doesn't make me want to punch a kitten.

Good luck with it. I don't find Leadain to rough personally, only tip I can give regarding the needles is that you can actually very easily time out his first phase and only have to deal with them during the second phase.

That route I picked specifically because it bypasses Yamato and there are no laser satellite dishes at all. Other than that it's fairly conventional, and like I said if I were good I'd switch up the first few stages to have some variety. Unfortunately for Darius II, variety usually equates to "complete and utter rage."

[ACSeraph]

I didn't realize that Z was a Bio Strong course, since Z' is Mother Hawk. I had assumed V would be the second Bio Strong.

Sounds like this course is low on the rage factor, and it's nice that it also doesn't end with White Stripes, because seriously what the fuck kinda final boss is that? Bio Strong is easy, but at least he looks the part. I do believe I'll learn it too once I finish up my current 1cc attempt (which will probably happen tonight).

---

And for those wondering (probably nobody ), the game I am currently learning to clear is Sore yuke! Burunyanman Portable. I know what you are thinking, because I thought the same thing, but...



As it turns out, when you look past all the ero-moe, there is a surprisingly decent shmup hiding underneath. Especially for a PSP original title. It's simple, but the mechanics it has are solid, and even more surprising, it has a legitimate scoring system that is actually really fun and challenging. It's a medal chaining system with a multiplier, and it performs particularly well due to the way it's designed. And as is often the mark of good scoring games, a survival run yields a vastly lower score than what is actually possible. A scoring run of stage 1 can yield more points than a survival run all the way through stage 4.

No one ever realized it since the game was almost completely ignored on the forum, but as it turns out it's actually damn good fun to play for score. I'll write up a system guide later today for anyone that wants to try it out. Only one warning, it's a good game, but it's hyper-ero. It makes Caladrius look sexually progressive. If you can get past that part, it's actually worth your time.

[ACSeraph]

That route I picked specifically because it bypasses Yamato and there are no laser satellite dishes at all. Other than that it's fairly conventional, and like I said if I were good I'd switch up the first few stages to have some variety. Unfortunately for Darius II, variety usually equates to "complete and utter rage."

Just gave it a quick run to see what it's like. I've gotta say it's quite a lot easier than the upper path, and not really frustrating at all since you don't have to deal with any bugged enemies. I made it to Grand Octopus on a blind run. You may have just saved my Saturn copy from being a total waste. Also I see what you mean about Leadain's spines, in stage N with the gray background they actually are quite hard to see. In L the fight takes place in Antarctica with a black night sky background, so they are pretty easy to see.

[LordHypnos]

Decided to try playing Metal Torrent in Accipiter mode (easy mode, but it also plays quite differently) for score, because I figured it would be relaxing, and score is really the only point of the mode. ended up around 90,000,000 points (20,000,000 improvement), and weighing in a little above 4000th on the online leaderboards. On the plus side, I'm a little below the top 100 in Bateleur (insane difficulty) mode, and came very close to clearing it, once (around 60,000,000 points). Bateleur is the better mode, overall, but they're both fun, and Accipiter is kind of relaxing. Note: last I checked SFKhoa, from this board, holds the number 1 position in Bateleur mode.

[50Hz]

∀kashicverse ∀lternative ∀rguments
haha wow. It's quite something.
I can almost clear the first stage boss finding it hard to correctly input methods under the pressure of what feels like Psikyo speed bullets heading straight at me, what the exact input needed to perform that teleport attack? I can only ever do it by mistake and I have a difficult time understanding the tutorial at that part.

[LordHypnos]

∀kashicverse ∀lternative ∀rguments
haha wow. It's quite something.
I can almost clear the first stage boss finding it hard to correctly input methods under the pressure of what feels like Psikyo speed bullets heading straight at me, what the exact input needed to perform that teleport attack? I can only ever do it by mistake and I have a difficult time understanding the tutorial at that part.

So is it an autoscrolling shooter that has a hyperspace function like Asteroids?

[50Hz]

So is it an autoscrolling shooter that has a hyperspace function like Asteroids?

Pretty far from it aha, more like bullet hell with fighting game commands.
Like the full game, you only get one life and have a shield to compensate, hard to explain briefly so this vid would probably give you a better idea of how it plays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1DNQRw_m9s

[mastermx]

So is it an autoscrolling shooter that has a hyperspace function like Asteroids?

Pretty far from it aha, more like bullet hell with fighting game commands.
Like the full game, you only get one life and have a shield to compensate, hard to explain briefly so this vid would probably give you a better idea of how it plays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1DNQRw_m9s

Now this looks like an interesting game. Don't know of much shmups with fg commands.

[LordHypnos]

So is it an autoscrolling shooter that has a hyperspace function like Asteroids?

Pretty far from it aha, more like bullet hell with fighting game commands.
Like the full game, you only get one life and have a shield to compensate, hard to explain briefly so this vid would probably give you a better idea of how it plays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1DNQRw_m9s

thanks

[ACSeraph]

God, I am so in love with Daioujou 360 Arrange <3 <3 <3