Noteworthy (non shmup) doujin action games and derivatives

[Squire Grooktook]

So it suddenly occurred to me that I've followed doujin shmups quite a bit, but I'm not quite sure what else the medium (err genre?) has in the action department. I'd be particularly interested if there are any great 2d run and gun shooters or anything like that out there that are worth a shot.

Few things I'm already familiar with:

Spoiler

Bunny Must Die
Crescent Pale Mist
Croixleur (and Sigma)
Fairy Bloom Freesia
Grief Syndrome
Mitsurgi Kamui Hikae
Ninetail (upcoming)
Rosenkreuzstilette

[BIL]

Good topic. ^__^ I need to get up to speed on these too. A couple I've enjoyed from a few years back, still hold up today:

Gigantic Army Tribute to classic mecha sidescroller Assault Suits Valken (SFC), with the same excellent balance of heft and maneuverability. It unfortunately has little of Valken's celebrated atmosphere or continuity, but beefs up enemy firepower and delivers absolutely savage metal-on-metal violence. It also makes several system refinements. Melee is much smoother with the proximity-activated and brutally effective pilebunker. There's now a guard meter, demanding more judicious shield use. And rather than a set arsenal of four weapons, you get three choices of main gun and bomb apiece, with a good balance of boss-smashing power to popcorn-clearing coverage. JAMMA-ized three button controls work well, with strafe folded into shot Wolf Fang-style. Double tap dash might annoy some, but as someone who always prefers a button, it's very nicely handled (forgiving input window, and like Strider 2 it lets you input the first tap before landing a jump).

There's also a decent, simple scoring system encouraging finesse and speed over the game's arcade-tight duration (avoid damage to stay at max power/HP for surplus item bonus points, plus a hefty remaining time bonus). Best feature is ultimately the sheer sense of explosive impact behind every shot and stab. Unreservedly recommended for mecha sidescrolling fans. As usual with Astro Port, Insane (ie "experienced") difficulty is where it's at. SFX rock, BGM doesn't - >>GREAT SOLUTION<<

Koumajou Densetsu II: Stranger's Requiem "Touhouvania" sequel. Plays like SOTN Alucard in linear action stages, with comparably (read extremely) smooth controls and overall handling. Limited hover mechanic is an interesting addition. I wish it would've laid off the lame fairies for more of the excellent Dracula-style monster hordes, but with it playing so nicely this is a minor complaint. Boss battles are horizontal danmaku, pretty tough and satisfying to figure out/execute. Nice graphics, killer soundtrack.

[Herr Schatten]

There's Maldita Castilla by Locomalito of Hydorah fame. It's more like an homage to G'n'G than run'n'gun, though.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The Mega Man-like Touhou game, how it's called?

[Ghegs]

^- MegaMari?

But speaking of Megaman, Rosenkreuzstilette and its sequel Rosenkreuzstilette: Freudenstachel are both very excellent Megaman-clones. There's even an English patch available for the first one.

EDIT: Derp, you had RKS already on your list of familiar games.

[KennyMan666]

The doujin game to end all doujin games, Ragnarok Battle Offline.



Made by popular doujin devloper French-Bread, also responsible for stuff like Bike Banditz and Lilian Fourhand ~Nuclear Soeur Fighter~, it's a sidescrolling action game based on the MMORPG Ragnarok Online. RPG elements, of course, you gain exp and level up your character and get to pick stats and skills to upgrade between stages. Got three expansion packs with additional stages.

English patch exists that translates 90% of the game.

I'll post more later, but that's the big one.

[Ruldra]

Would Iji count? It's a pretty good game, much recommended.



Also seconding Ragnarok above. I think I beat the game with all classes back in the day.

[Icarus]

Iwanaga.
And that's all I'm going to say about it. ^_-

[manatworks]

Iwanaga.
And that's all I'm going to say about it. ^_-

that one got super awesome atmosphere and art direction , give it a try!

[Squire Grooktook]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

But speaking of Megaman, Rosenkreuzstilette and its sequel Rosenkreuzstilette: Freudenstachel are both very excellent Megaman-clones. There's even an English patch available for the first one.

EDIT: Derp, you had RKS already on your list of familiar games.

That's okay. Haven't actually played it, would be great to hear some feedback. I hear there's an unlockable character in the first game that has a dash and plays a bit like Zero (my interest piqued a bit when I heard that) and that you play as her in the sequel.

Iwanaga.
And that's all I'm going to say about it. ^_-

Is there a way for windows 7 and up users to play the game outside of the super tiny 640x480 window? I believe both that and Vacant Ark have an issue with being unable to play in full screen. Would love to give them a try, but the squinting argh.

[KennyMan666]

I hear there's an unlockable character in the first game that has a dash and plays a bit like Zero (my interest piqued a bit when I heard that) and that you play as her in the sequel.

Yes and no. In the first game you can play as Grolla who normally is one of the eight bosses by hitting a button sequence when you start the game. She has dash, wallgrab and a sword attack. She doesn't have any ranged attack and doesn't gain any subweapons from bosses, and I think she also takes more damage, making playing as her kind of a pain. I never managed to beat the first castle boss when playing as her.

In the sequel, Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, you play as Freudia, another of the eight bosses from the first game. You can hit a similar button sequence to play as Pamela, who also has a dash, wallgrab and sword attack, and an actual ranged attack.

[BulletMagnet]

Not sure if Aces Wild really fits your criteria, but it's held in fairly high regard by at least a handful of people around here.

[Aisha]

Steel Strider released by Astro Port is another one. Tasogare Frontier also made a Touhou-themed Mega Man clone a long time ago, which I remember being very good. I think it was called MegaMari? Since you mentioned Fairy Bloom Freesia, Edelweiss also just released Fairy Bloom ~ Ultra Encore, which is a remake of their very first Freesia game.

While not 2D run-and-gun games, Space Dynagon Kai by PlatineDispositif is a KiKi KaiKai clone which I found very enjoyable. And if you really hate yourself, there is also their brutally hard platformer Maid-san wo Migi ni.

SkyLens by Zenith Blue and Ninja Rising by Cross-Eaglet are 2D action games that might be worth looking into when they're finished, but I have no idea how far along they are. ClassiC also appears to be working on what appears to be a spiritual successor to their earlier work, Crescent Pale Mist.

[Squire Grooktook]

Not sure if Aces Wild really fits your criteria, but it's held in fairly high regard by at least a handful of people around here.

Yeah, I recently picked that one up on Steam along with the aforementioned Gigantic Army. Have yet to really play either, but I definitely look forward to them.

ClassiC also appears to be working on what appears to be a spiritual successor to their earlier work, Crescent Pale Mist.

Interesting, I was hoping they'd have another game in the works. Maybe I haven't given it enough of a chance, but I really wanted to like Crescent Pale Mist for fun basic combat, but just felt that there were too many unnecessary gimmick mechanics making everything too convoluted, and the level design was confusing IMO.

[NRS]

I had a lot of fun with ElePaper Action years ago.

And Duo Princess, too! I really want to replay Threads of Fate now...

[KennyMan666]

Duo Princess is nice, I speedrun it.

Anyway.

Few more:

Another one from French-Bread, Lilian Fourhand ~Nuclear Soeur Fighter~.



One of a lot of doujin games based on The Vigrin Mary is Watching You (aka Maria-sama ga Miteru, aka Marimite) and probably the best one. Autoscrolling action where you have buttons to shoot to the left and to the right to destroy schoolgirls, birds, spiders, angels, flowers and basically everything else in the game.

From the circle D5., which I'm not sure if they exist anymore, Sispri Gauntlet.



Slightly shmuppy, I guess, you choose one of a bunch of girls and then make your way through stages while shooting a lot of clones of the same girls and some other things.

The one really good game from doujin circle Daisessen, Lethal Application.



Lightly shmuppy where you move upwards by shooting downwards. Somewhat challenging. Was made freeware in 2009 so can now be downloaded from here.

Not sure if this is one or two circles because any webpage I've found is broken, but this game's from Donguri Games & Retsuzan Games - Crazy Power Disc.



If that screenshot looks like Windjammers to you, yeah, that's not just you. Crazy Power Disc is a basically a better Windjammers. It got some second probably updated release by the name of Crazy Power Disc Perfect.

And while we're on circles with broken webpages, DK Softwares made Maribato!.



Another Marimite-game, this time a fighting game with a tag system. Got one expansion, and then something called Maribato!+ was made, but I've not been able to figure out if that's a second expansion or a new version of the game. For some reason doesn't work properly on my computer anymore.

And finally, D.N.A. Softwares has made a bunch of Touhou doujin games but the one I want to mention is Mawaru! Maid-san wo Migi ni.



It's doujin Wario Ware and that's really all that needs to be said about it. Unlockables include pictures of cleaning brushes.

[BulletMagnet]

Unlockables include pictures of cleaning brushes.

Now that's some beautiful otaku trolling right there.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I don't think it's doujin, but Aquales is good (something like proto-Valken). Make sure emulator displays transparencies correctly.

[ZellSF]

Iwanaga.
And that's all I'm going to say about it. ^_-

Is there a way for windows 7 and up users to play the game outside of the super tiny 640x480 window? I believe both that and Vacant Ark have an issue with being unable to play in full screen. Would love to give them a try, but the squinting argh.

Switch resolution to game resolution and use any of the borderless fullscreen utilities.

Alternatively you can try to get the fullscreen version working by using wrappers like DXGL and DxWnd (D3DWindower is also a possibility but it needs to be combined with a borderless fullscreen utility).

You should be able to force fullscreen on just about any game using those methods. That said, Iwanaga fullscreen works here (sort of, it's fullscreen, but I'm still getting window borders. That's a Win8 specific bug I've seen in other games, fixable using borderless fullscreen), are you sure you've added 320x240x60 as a custom resolution in your GPU driver settings? The game doesn't support other resolutions and modern GPU drivers do not have that resolution by default.

[Squire Grooktook]

That said, Iwanaga fullscreen works here (sort of, it's fullscreen, but I'm still getting window borders. That's a Win8 specific bug I've seen in other games, fixable using borderless fullscreen), are you sure you've added 320x240x60 as a custom resolution in your GPU driver settings? The game doesn't support other resolutions and modern GPU drivers do not have that resolution by default.

How exactly would I add the resolution in the gpu drive settings? Sorry, I'm not too savvy with graphics cards.

[ZellSF]

AMD (ATI) (yes, you need a third party utility, AMD sucks)
Intel
Nvidia

[Squire Grooktook]

Hmmm, I added the 320x240 with 60 refresh rate as a custom resolution, but I'm still getting crash errors when booting the game

Spoiler

[Volteccer_Jack]

Buster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6qy99S-MqE

Gigadeep: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HIt1o9PqxI

Shadow Break: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tuKN-hwVOU

Three of my favorites. Buster is da bes; I could complain about the level design, but the game just feels so good I don't care. Gigadeep is a complete mess of awesome and awful stuff. When it's good, it's really good, and when it's bad it's endearing. Shadow Break is fucking breakout where you play as a swordsman instead of a bar, AND it has boss battles.

[ZellSF]

Hmmm, I added the 320x240 with 60 refresh rate as a custom resolution, but I'm still getting crash errors when booting the game

Spoiler

I think that's the "can't set display mode" error. You might have to set the correct color depth too, right click stkrun.exe -- properties -- compatibility -- run in 256 colors. Try that. If it's a color depth problem I can't help you much as it's hard to test here (Win8 handles that way differently from Win7)

Make sure the resolution is setup correctly, can you change to it using something like HRC (Windows itself doesn't allow you to set resolutions below 800x600)?