The BIG thread of Shmup grievances.

[LordHypnos]

Spots where you die once and then lose all 3 of your extra lives in quick succession

EDIT: Also spots where dying = your score is decimated, though that's not a problem I've had for the past few days. Mostly just getting stuck in an endless restart loop in the first stage.

[Blinge]

You gotta hand it to Cave, they sure know how to sucker-punch. I'm talking about the final boss of deathsmiles 360 mode, I fancied a bit of fun and an easy clear, then after sleepwalking through the game I'm given a rough wake up-slap to the face
Damn son, even Jitterbug is pretty hard, I have to bomb that huge spread he chucks out every time he does it.

[Lilium]

Are you making sure to pick Level 3 on the stages? (well 4 of them because you don't wanna deal with death mode unless you're hardcore)
The game difficulty feels a bit more balanced that way and the game is more fun.

Also, try to practice how to do Jitterbug without bombs. Its very doable when you get used to his patterns and if you kill him without a bomb you get a Large Cake which neatly sets you up for defeating the final boss.

[Blinge]

Sorry, I forgot to include that in my last post - nope I was sleepwalking through level 1. I've only myself to blame =P
Yeah I guess I should play level 3 from now on.
A Large cake? well god damn, I'll take your advice.

Edit: Welp, I just got the clear thanks to you! cheers dude. Did a mix of rank 2 and 3 on the stages, I'll try and go for an all rank 3 now

PPS: Ah, so that's death mode.. that was another shock indeed 0_0

[ACSeraph]

Fuck games that swarm you with enemies from behind while also giving you no way to deal with them.

[Blinge]

Ummm i got this one... Rayforce! Pulstar!?

[Squire Grooktook]

Ummm i got this one... Rayforce! Pulstar!?

I don't remember there being any enemies that come from behind in Rayforce (except maybe ones that fly in the background before charging you from the front, but they're not active till they're way ahead of you).

Sounds a bit like Metal Black, though I could probably think of others.

[ACSeraph]

Good guesses but you should know that I mostly consider this to be the Gradius discussion thread. Was a bit salty after getting fucked over using Twinbee in the pinball stage of Parodius Da!

[BIL]

Konami & Toaplan liek 2 HIT IT FROM THE BACK

~The Theme of 1980s Shooting~ (Penny Arcade RIDDIM)

[Blinge]

Ummm i got this one... Rayforce! Pulstar!?

I don't remember there being any enemies that come from behind in Rayforce (except maybe ones that fly in the background before charging you from the front, but they're not active till they're way ahead of you).

Stage 5, i think. the one in the city.

[ACSeraph]

uuuuuuggghh I wish I could get a time machine and go break the kneecaps of the guy who put the powerup roulette into Parodius.

[Lilium]

For that you won't need a time machine, just a japanese phone book and a look at the game credits

[ACSeraph]

Bad powerup systems / useless powerups that fuck you over if you accidentally pick them up.

[Blinge]

Any tips on concentrating? when i lose focus (all the time) it's game over.

[ACSeraph]

Sleep.

If you find yourself performing badly because of lack of concentration it's because you are tired. Sometimes it's hard to pull yourself away, but trust me you'll be kicking a lot more ass the next day as long as you rest properly. Your brain also seems to digest the things you've learned (routes and such) and it comes more naturally the next day. I was having the exact same problem during my Caladrius addiction.

[Patashu]

Besides sleep (do this a lot), make (or find) a route and memorize it. Then at every point in the route, remind yourself in advance of what the part of the route after the one you're doing is. Think of it as an early warning system for your brain.

[nasty_wolverine]

become gus

[Blinge]

It's a problem during all times of the day, the main thing is unrelated thoughts taking over my brain during play, repeating whole conversations i had years ago for instance- until i'm not focused on the game at all anymore, it happens far more with games i'm playing a lot or have memorised.

I'll try that patashu but won't that also distract from bullets flying at me in the present moment?

[LordHypnos]

Adderall?
In all seriousness, tho, personally I don't find thinking ahead to be too distracting from the present, but you do need to know when you need to be paying close attention to the present instead. I tend to do it in breaks between stages, before bosses... Maybe a particularly easy part of a stage. If you're having trouble focusing on the game though, you might still have those problems when you're trying to think ahead.

EDIT: Also, becoming Gus would definitely do the trick. Might want to try that.

[ACSeraph]

OK seriously fuck you Capcom. FUCK. YOU.

I have been playing 1942 FC for an hour, a fucking hour straight with only 6 stages remaining (32 total) and it got to the point where the enemies were shooting so many bullets the game couldn't really keep up anymore. So you know what happened? Slowdown maybe? I shit you not, the game speed and enemy firing rate remained the same while MY FUCKING SHOTS slowed to such a crawl that they were shooting at a rate of about 1 shot per second. So slow that it was just totally impossible to deal with the massive onslaught of kamikaze planes surrounded by ridiculous amounts of bullets. I literally could not shoot fast enough to keep them from crashing into me because the game wouldn't let me. I haven't felt this much like throwing a chair though my god damn TV in a long time. I never want to play this shit again.

Also seriously, WWII era Japanese kamikaze pilots were total dicks the way they fought. At the very least the game executes the concept of fighting a bunch of psychopathic fighter pilots with no regard for their own safety pretty well.

[Patashu]

OK seriously fuck you Capcom. FUCK. YOU.

I have been playing 1942 FC for an hour, a fucking hour straight with only 6 stages remaining (32 total) and it got to the point where the enemies were shooting so many bullets the game couldn't really keep up anymore. So you know what happened? Slowdown maybe? I shit you not, the game speed and enemy firing rate remained the same while MY FUCKING SHOTS slowed to such a crawl that they were shooting at a rate of about 1 shot per second. So slow that it was just totally impossible to deal with the massive onslaught of kamikaze planes surrounded by ridiculous amounts of bullets. I literally could not shoot fast enough to keep them from crashing into me because the game wouldn't let me. I haven't felt this much like throwing a chair though my god damn TV in a long time. I never want to play this shit again.

When's TAS?

[Blinge]

Strikers 1945. Fucking Psikyo man..

Piss status: boiled

[gs68]

Bad powerup systems / useless powerups that fuck you over if you accidentally pick them up.

And that's why I don't play Eschatos on Advanced. I could play Original, but the scoring is literally "one death and you pretty much ruin everything" if it was in an enemy-dense area.

Result: I end up playing Judgement Silversword and Cardinal Sins far more than Eschatos proper.

[Eno]

The Reimu fight on Imperishable Night. Holy cow, if you really want to fill the screen with millions of bullets and yin-yang balls then at least have the decency of doing it while standing still like most other bosses.

[Special World]

Bad powerup systems / useless powerups that fuck you over if you accidentally pick them up.

And that's why I don't play Eschatos on Advanced. I could play Original, but the scoring is literally "one death and you pretty much ruin everything" if it was in an enemy-dense area.

Result: I end up playing Judgement Silversword and Cardinal Sins far more than Eschatos proper.

The powerups are pretty easy to avoid in Advanced... I do think it would be better if you didn't have to, though.

[Strikers1945guy]

Strikers 1945. Fucking Psikyo man..

Piss status: boiled

Dat bullet speed?

[Blinge]

Haha yeah that's part of it but the rage has subsided now. I've abandoned Spitfire in favour of the bf-109 (sorry granddad...) For that option damage vs bosses and the bigger enemies.
I can get to stage 5 without dropping a life sometimes, but I still have a habit of not reacting on time and wasting 5/6 bombs, even when i know what pattern is coming and how to dodge it! Also that damn Flying Fortless robot likes to get up close 'n' personal huh? It's just a case of tying to commit the next half of the game to memory I suppose, and to stop thinking "this is too brutal! " every time I reach a boss.

I generally suck at the more old school vert shmups, compared to danmaku. Either it's poor reaction times or I'm just not versed enough in the style. Then again Psikyo is kind of a mongrel. I do want to clear A Psikyo game as it's one more step on the shmup journey.

Can I bug you with questions over PM when i have them?

[Special World]

Ketsui patterns don't make no sense.

I can at least understand the patterns in other shmups but from like... boss 2 (!) on, I don't understand Ketsui patterns at all.

[Patashu]

Ketsui patterns don't make no sense.

I can at least understand the patterns in other shmups but from like... boss 2 (!) on, I don't understand Ketsui patterns at all.

Ketsui boss patterns are gimmicky, yes.
Watch superplays until you can figure it out.

[Lilium]

What's so strange about Ketsui patterns.

The stage 2 boss for example is simple. First attack is a spread of blue bullets with large gaps in between them and red aimed bullets. Then it starts some weird looking thing but all the blue bullets move around you and all you really do is not touch the very few red bullets aimed at you.

Then it fires an attack where you move between the lanes and an attack where the bullets home in on your position where you'll want to be high up the screen and then move down with it. First form dies. Second form is composed of three attacks; Red lines of bullets fired at you, then a set of blue walls that you herd and then finally the attack where it shoot mines that explode into red bullets that you then dodge by simply going through the gaps.

Now, none of this is even remotely gimmicky to me and I want to know what it is you think is gimmicky. I've played bosses where horizontal movement controls gets flipped, patterns that grow your hitbox to a much larger size, patterns where you have to follow a circle that moves around the screen in a fixed pattern that you must follow lest your character drowns, patterns where the background is a wavy curtain of strong red, yellow etc. colours, same colour as the bullets and when red bullets pass over red background (the background scrolls) you'll simply have to remember where the bullets be at.

I could go on. Ketsui is not gimmicky at all lol.