really bad shmups

ED-057 · Post by **ED-057** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:29 pm

has anyone played the NES ROM "Jet Fighter Z" aka stars.nes?

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:36 am

BrianC wrote:BTW, this topic is for games that are truly awful and poorly designed, not games you dislike.

/nods

By no means do games like Axelay, Kyokyuku Tiger II, XII Stag, Super Aleste (Space Megaforce) belong on a worst list... but this always happens whenever "worst games" threads pop up on any forum, and so threads like these should be taken with huge grains of salt. Like on non-shmup boards when people inevitably post Final Fantasy X or Halo.

I haven't seen anyone defend Planet Joker yet though!

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:45 am

there's no way a game like XDR or action 52 would get an approval to be released today, so im picking XII stag as my top choice for crappy shmups in modern times.

feel free to edit my posts, tho

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:04 am

I love the way you twisted some of XII Stag's strengths into "flaws" in your little review there. Genius. No really... your opinion is highly valued...

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:06 am

gameoverDude wrote:Stargoose Warrior on Amiga and PC is a real turdgulper. A friend of mine saw me playing and started calling it "Cheesegoose", and I couldn't keep from laughing.

Dude. Whoa. I thought Stargoose was pretty cool. In fact I urge other people to go track down a copy (it can be found on various "abandonware" sites) and give it a shot. A very different kind of shooter.

Blue Lander · Post by **Blue Lander** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:11 am

I haven't played Stargoose since the early 90's (on a 286), but I remember only liking it a little. It's slow and tedious. But we didn't have much to play on the computers at school in those days, so it was better than nothing.

stoneroses · Post by **stoneroses** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:54 am

Viewpoint - PSone

This is one gigantic suck-fest. When I first picked it up, I played it for about 30 seconds only so that it could collect dust until I enabled the invincible code which made it a tad more enjoyable. If anyone else has experienced this disaster, you know what I mean. Perhaps there are better versions of this game - if you know, please let me know.

Blue Lander · Post by **Blue Lander** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 5:08 am

I thought the Neo Geo version was pretty good. I hear the Playstation port is horrid, but I don't know why. I've never played it.

There's also ports to the Genesis, X68000, and FM Towns. I have no idea if any of those are okay or not.

theevilfunkster · Post by **theevilfunkster** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:11 pm

c'mon, XII stags not that bad. or maybe im just trying to justify spending so much money on it

Tony Gradius · Post by **Tony Gradius** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:24 pm

Herr Schatten wrote:For a shmup which was obviously done by non-shmuppers, Xenon II was decent.

Wasn`t Xenon 1 known for it`s real "arcade feel"? At least C&VG wrote this when I remember it correctly. And wasn`t this the Bitmaps Brothers first game? So, why do you call the "non-shmuppers"? Because of Megablasts somewhat unbalanced gameplay?

PS: Do you remeber Sarcophaser? It was bad but I liked the soundtrack. Andreas von Lepel did it, am I right?

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:44 am

Tony Gradius wrote:
Herr Schatten wrote:For a shmup which was obviously done by non-shmuppers, Xenon II was decent.

Wasn`t Xenon 1 known for it`s real "arcade feel"? At least C&VG wrote this when I remember it correctly. And wasn`t this the Bitmaps Brothers first game? So, why do you call the "non-shmuppers"? Because of Megablasts somewhat unbalanced gameplay?

PS: Do you remeber Sarcophaser? It was bad but I liked the soundtrack. Andreas von Lepel did it, am I right?

It's not simply unbalanced gameplay. It's a hardly explainable feel certain shmups have, most of which are of western origin. It's mostly in the enemy placement and general level design, I think.

In shmups done by non-shmuppers, enemy formations often appear unmotivated, just because the developers felt that some enemies should appear at a given time and not because the formations serve a deeper purpose in the layout of a stage. Idea overflow which leads to lots of cool but useless wepons is another indicator that developers of a game love shmups alright, but didn't really play a whole lot of them before starting work.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it leads to pretty creative stuff and the games are good, even if they lack the level of refinery a deeper insight into the mechanics of a shmup had allowed for (examples: Wings of Death, Katakis), but most times it just leads to games with unbalanced gameplay and stage design that's either full of boredom or full of 'what the hell'-moments or both. Mind you, this doesn't always mean that the games can't be fun, they just 'feel' different.

Just compare the likes of Carcharodon, Menace, The Oath, Blood Money, X-Out or Megablast (obviously done by non-shmuppers, all of those bear at least one of the symptoms I've mentioned above) to Apidya, Z-Out or Battle Squadron (all obviously created by experienced shmuppers, brilliant level design, each weapon serves a purpose, etc.) and you can easily see what I mean.

The Bitmap Brothers were creative jacks-of-all-trades who made good or very good games in various genres, but never really exceeded in any of them (if you only look at gameplay and ignore the astonishing artwork).

All I remeber of Sarcophaser is a preview in some gaming mag. It sounded quite interesting (whilst looking utterly awful) and I always planned on picking it up, but I never got around actually doing so. Is it true that you have to solve a short text adventure after beating all the shmup levels?

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:19 pm

Oh wow, I can't believe no one's mentioned the NES port of Magmax. Never played the arcade original, but the NES game is beyond awful...only good thing about it is the Voltron-thing it has going on.

Frogacuda · Post by **Frogacuda** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:46 pm

stoneroses wrote:Viewpoint - PSone

This is one gigantic suck-fest. When I first picked it up, I played it for about 30 seconds only so that it could collect dust until I enabled the invincible code which made it a tad more enjoyable. If anyone else has experienced this disaster, you know what I mean. Perhaps there are better versions of this game - if you know, please let me know.

Poor Viewpoint. The Neo Geo original really is a classic. But the Genesis game was bad, and Visual Concepts PSX remake was atrocious, despite perfectly redone art resources. You're absolutely right about it being a trainwreck, but don't hold it against the 16-bit arcade classic.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:48 pm

LoneSage wrote:Oh wow, I can't believe no one's mentioned the NES port of Magmax. Never played the arcade original, but the NES game is beyond awful...only good thing about it is the Voltron-thing it has going on.

I actually liked that game, but I don't remember why.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:49 pm

LoneSage wrote:Oh wow, I can't believe no one's mentioned the NES port of Magmax. Never played the arcade original, but the NES game is beyond awful...only good thing about it is the Voltron-thing it has going on.

I'm collecting NES shooters and Magmax is one of the one's I'm probably going to get soon. It makes me sad to know that it sucks, yet I have to get it anyway.

666 · Post by **666** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:54 pm

trevor mcfur and the cresent galaxies - atari jaguar

my god what a horrible game. it dosent even have music. you just fly around for a set amount of time with randon enemies getting thrown at you until you reach a one-pattern boss. i guess the graphics are pretty good for the jaguar and the weapon system could be deep if one actually played this game long enough to get used to it. but im still convinced that tempest 2000 is the only good game for jaguar.

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:17 am

Andi wrote: I'm collecting NES shooters and Magmax is one of the one's I'm probably going to get soon. It makes me sad to know that it sucks, yet I have to get it anyway.

Magmax is so bad it's good. Real campy Voltron feel to it.

Blue Lander · Post by **Blue Lander** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 2:03 pm

Herr Schatten wrote: It's not simply unbalanced gameplay. It's a hardly explainable feel certain shmups have, most of which are of western origin. It's mostly in the enemy placement and general level design, I think.

In shmups done by non-shmuppers, enemy formations often appear unmotivated, just because the developers felt that some enemies should appear at a given time and not because the formations serve a deeper purpose in the layout of a stage. Idea overflow which leads to lots of cool but useless wepons is another indicator that developers of a game love shmups alright, but didn't really play a whole lot of them before starting work.

I think a good example of an uninspired western shmup made by non-shmuppers is Gates of Zendocon on the Atari Lynx. The enemy formations feel random, and the levels just continue on and on with no structure whatsoever. You just destroy random wave of enemy after random wave of enemy.

And while we're bashing Atari, the port of Raiden to the Jaguar is pretty abysmal. Why doesn't this game have any music?

highlandcattle · Post by **highlandcattle** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:57 pm

Thunder Force wrote:I love the way you twisted some of XII Stag's strengths into "flaws" in your little review there. Genius. No really... your opinion is highly valued...

[Kelso]That's a buuurn baby[/kelso]

highlandcattle · Post by **highlandcattle** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:01 pm

666 wrote:trevor mcfur and the cresent galaxies - atari jaguar

my god what a horrible game. it dosent even have music. you just fly around for a set amount of time with randon enemies getting thrown at you until you reach a one-pattern boss. i guess the graphics are pretty good for the jaguar and the weapon system could be deep if one actually played this game long enough to get used to it. but im still convinced that tempest 2000 is the only good game for jaguar.

Naaah
Iron Soldier 1&2
Battlesphere
Protector
Battlemorph
Attack of the Mutant Pinguins
Zero 5

And there are numerous good multiplatform titles

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:08 pm

All this mentioning of European shmups reminds me why I like Iridion II. The weapons may be unbalanced, but the game never forces you to use the stranger weapons. The level design and enemy placement is excellent IMO. While it's not perfect, I do think it's a very well designed shmup. It really kicks Xenon 2's butt IMO.

As for bad shmups, I would like to give special mention to this keychain handheld named Intruder. It's a very simple shmup and it's very glitchy (and I use the batteries that came with it). It seems to have random enemy patterns and the game actually freezes or locks up at moments.

drohne · Post by **drohne** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:18 pm

i often enjoy bad shooters, including the ps2 version of choaniki and star soldier: vanishing earth. in fact i can't think of many shooters that slip below my threshhold. but king's knight on nes is unbelievably, unplayably bad. square developed...might have been their first game. handy thing they switched over to rpgs, i guess. sol divide is probably the worst shooter ever produced by a skilled shooter developer. i spent quite a bit of money importing the saturn version when it was new, too. "how bad can a psikyo game with such neat graphics be?" very, it turns out.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:23 pm

drohne wrote:i often enjoy bad shooters, including the ps2 version of choaniki and star soldier: vanishing earth.

I'm wondering why Star Solider: Vanishing Earth is considered a bad game. Most of the complaints I heard about the game aren't related to the actual gameplay. Maybe I should get the game and see if it's really as bad as some people say it is.

drohne · Post by **drohne** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:25 pm

i don't think it's as bad as its reputation, but it is undeniably clunky. the way enemies flash black (of all colors) when they're damaged, the laggy movement and explosions, and the awful sound effects make it unsatisfying to play. otherwise it's just mediocre. worth picking up cheap just for the novelty of playing an n64 shmup.

edit: i haven't played it in a while, but i also remember there being a "roll" move which reflects most bullets, and which you can do almost constantly.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:32 pm

drohne wrote:i don't think it's as bad as its reputation, but it is undeniably clunky. the way enemies flash black (of all colors) when they're damaged, the laggy movement and explosions, and the awful sound effects make it unsatisfying to play. otherwise it's just mediocre. worth picking up cheap just for the novelty of playing an n64 shmup.

edit: i haven't played it in a while, but i also remember there being a "roll" move which reflects most bullets, and which you can do almost constantly.

ahh. That does sound disappointing. I wish there were more shmups for the N64, but Star Fox and Rebel Assault do help fill the void somewhat, even if they aren't real shmups.

I wonder if some of those European developers were actually "inspired" by Scramble Eggs and Battle Cross considering the randomness in some of the poorly designed games.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 6:02 pm

Frogacuda wrote:Poor Viewpoint. The Neo Geo original really is a classic. But the Genesis game was bad, and Visual Concepts PSX remake was atrocious, despite perfectly redone art resources. You're absolutely right about it being a trainwreck, but don't hold it against the 16-bit arcade classic.

Hey, the Genesis version was much closer to the Neo original in comparison to the PSX release. All things considered, taking a 72 Meg Neo cart and cramming it into a 16 Meg Genesis cart, it was a rather surprising port.

Anyway, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned TwoTenkaku and Stahlfeder (both for PSX).
And I guess Toilet Kids is so horrific that it goes without saying, huh?

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 6:17 pm

Hey, what was so bad about Sol Divide? I thought it was a really unique concept for a shmup.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 7:03 pm

tehkao wrote:Hey, what was so bad about Sol Divide? I thought it was a really unique concept for a shmup.

Well, a unique concept isn't enough to make a game well-executed...I liked Sol Divide's look and some of the ideas it had (as I do with many Psikyo shmups), but most every time I died I felt that it was the game's fault and not mine...I haven't played it in some time so I don't remember the specifics, but my brief memories of it are not good ones.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 7:07 pm

I know these are more along the lines of bad ports, but the GB/GBC Centipede and Millipede are both terrible ports and I think both of the GB versions of these games are pretty bad in their own right. The gameplay is so slooooooow compared to the originals. These games had excellent ports of the Atari 2600 and there is no reason why they couldn't be ported better on the GB. I'm glad Infogrames made that great Atari collection for the GBA with a much better port of Centipede.

I know I mentioned it before, but it's so terrible, I believe Action 52 deserves another mention. The shmups in that collection on both the NES and Genesis are among the worst shmups ever made.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 7:18 pm

i bought sol divide and the play is horrible. its really heavy and un-fun. great graphics though.