Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Blinge]

Had a look through the options? filter settings? Set them to nearest neighbour if there isn't an option to turn filters off.

[Skykid]

Anyone know how many stages in Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings 2?

And recommendations for best character for a quick n dirty clear?

[Immryr]

Had a look through the options? filter settings? Set them to nearest neighbour if there isn't an option to turn filters off.

there is a setting in the screen options for "simplify draw" i turned that on and it looks a lot cleaner! not quite as sharp as espgaluda 2, but a massive improvement.

[DocHauser]

Anyone know how many stages in Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings 2?

And recommendations for best character for a quick n dirty clear?

I think it might be 10. I've made it to Stage 8 using Hi-en, who seemed like the best character to me. Some of the other games in the series are easier to clear - I've 1CC'd Aero Fighters 1, 3 and Special, but not 2.

[mastermx]

Anyone day dream whilst playing a shmup, only to wake up and found that you've nmnb a very hard section? Sometimes it's better to be on autopilot. All about these strange trance states.

[Skykid]

Anyone know how many stages in Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings 2?

And recommendations for best character for a quick n dirty clear?

I think it might be 10. I've made it to Stage 8 using Hi-en, who seemed like the best character to me. Some of the other games in the series are easier to clear - I've 1CC'd Aero Fighters 1, 3 and Special, but not 2.

Thanks for the info. 10 stages. Damn. I was hoping 8 was it, since that's the stage I keep dying on.

[Mortificator]

8 is it.

Stage 1: Kyoto
Stage 2 / 3 / 4: New York
Stage 2 / 3 / 4: Paris
Stage 2 / 3 / 4: Mato Grosso
Stage 5: Sydney
Stage 6: Teotihuacan
Stage 7: Hawaii
Stage 8: Another Dimension

The order for stages 2, 3 and 4 is random.

Edit: I forgot about those two little bonus rounds. I don't think of them as true stages, but the game does number them as such.

[EmperorIng]

Experts, chime in!

Are there extends in RayStorm?

I don't think there are in RayCrisis, but I know there are score extends in RayForce.

I mean, by stage 3 in RayForce, I've already amassed two extends.

[BIL]

Nope.

None in Under Defeat either. A spiritual Ray* successor in more than its odd viewpoint. :3

[LordHypnos]

Anyone day dream whilst playing a shmup, only to wake up and found that you've nmnb a very hard section? Sometimes it's better to be on autopilot. All about these strange trance states.

Yeah, sometimes this happens to me. It's always surprising.

[EmperorIng]

Nope.

None in Under Defeat either. A spiritual Ray* successor in more than its odd viewpoint. :3

Man, what a bummer.

At least UD learned from RayStorm's mistakes of having nigh-unreadable enemy attacks, and hard-to-distinguish backgrounds and foregrounds.

After so much frustration last night, I had to give up and play something palatable (Strikers 1945 II) to put myself in a good mood again.

[Blinge]

Does the wingspan in Strikers 1945 affect the planes' hitbox?

I liked playing the spitfire but if there's a smaller hitbox available I might have to change, I only want the 1-ALL

[DestroyTheCore]

Is there a superplay of Espgaluda II with a higher score than this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t90acPEkOd8

Even the official DVD has less impressive runs. I wish I could find a recording of someone nearing 1 billion points...

[ACSeraph]

At least UD learned from RayStorm's mistakes of having nigh-unreadable enemy attacks, and hard-to-distinguish backgrounds and foregrounds.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels that way about Raystorm. Game is absolutely unplayable to me because of this. I actually have a similar problem with Strania, but Raystorm is the worst.

[Pretas]

I found it easier with the higher visual fidelity in Raystorm HD. I also find it simpler to track 3D visual elements in Raystorm/Raycrisis than in Strania, because the camera is far more stable. But ideally, the series should have stayed 2D.

I wonder if a prototype of R-Gray will ever be uncovered. It seems that the game was nearly complete before Taito decided that the sequel to Rayforce would have to jump on the 3D bandwagon. At least they managed to include a nod to R-Gray with Raystorm HD's unlockable ship.

[EmperorIng]

The jump in graphical quality makes RayCrisis far more palatable, though that game has its own host of issues. I'll have to save my thoughts though when I make my planned slugfest topic between the two Ray- games in Shmups Chat later this week for some much-needed ol'fashioned shmup debate!

[Mero]

Anyone know how many stages in Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings 2?

And recommendations for best character for a quick n dirty clear?

Spanky is the best, by miles.

[Bonus!]

It is just me or is Touhou pretty 'meh', compared to genre standards? I tried playing a few, and they just didn't grab me at all. I might have liked them ore if they were much shorter, but my only thought, before deleting the games, was that there is no reason to play this when Crimzon Clover is just a click away.

[Bonus!]

Another question that's a bit easier to answer: do the ship types in Eschatos have any effect on gameplay? It seems they just have a different color.

[Plasmo]

It is just me or is Touhou pretty 'meh', compared to genre standards? I tried playing a few, and they just didn't grab me at all. I might have liked them ore if they were much shorter, but my only thought, before deleting the games, was that there is no reason to play this when Crimzon Clover is just a click away.

It's not just you. Touhou is that meh that people refer to 20 games as one single game. Go play Mars Matrix.

To be fair, they are only homebrew games. But then again we have excellent stuff like XOP Black, Aero Chimera and Final Boss, so who needs Touhou?

Another question that's a bit easier to answer: do the ship types in Eschatos have any effect on gameplay? It seems they just have a different color.

Just the colour, no gameplay changes.

[mastermx]

I got that same feeling when I first tried touhou too. With excellent freeware shmups, and doujins like crimzon clover, not to mention mame, I can't really get into it. The one thing touhou does do, is innovate really well.

[d3vak]

One cannot simply devalue Touhou's soundtrack xD

[nasty_wolverine]

One cannot simply devalue Touhou's soundtrack xD

Well, you never have never heard HELLSINKER's soundtrack.

[d3vak]

One cannot simply devalue Touhou's soundtrack xD

Well, you never have never heard HELLSINKER's soundtrack.

I'm not saying it is the best out there. Just saying that it is not bad at all.

[nasty_wolverine]

I'm not saying it is the best out there. Just saying that it is not bad at all.

It sounds overly generic tbh. There are a few good tracks in there. but music really isnt its strong point.

[Squire Grooktook]

It is just me or is Touhou pretty 'meh', compared to genre standards? I tried playing a few, and they just didn't grab me at all. I might have liked them ore if they were much shorter, but my only thought, before deleting the games, was that there is no reason to play this when Crimzon Clover is just a click away.

It's not just you. Touhou is that meh that people refer to 20 games as one single game. Go play Mars Matrix.

To be fair, they are only homebrew games. But then again we have excellent stuff like XOP Black, Aero Chimera and Final Boss, so who needs Touhou?

I got that same feeling when I first tried touhou too. With excellent freeware shmups, and doujins like crimzon clover, not to mention mame, I can't really get into it. The one thing touhou does do, is innovate really well.

I like Touhou for one thing that, to me, puts it some ways above Crimzon Clover and many other shmups. And it has nothing to do with innovation or music. One word:

RNG

(okay well that's kinda three words but whatever).

Not saying Touhou is the only shmup that does it, but I absolutely love and adore the pattern design in the series for having an absurd degree of randomness on almost every damn pattern while still having a strong element of strategy and planning to them. It's really a perfect balance, with each non static pattern being unique and forcing strategic variety, while still having an ultra fun reflex and improvisation element.

It's not unique to Touhou, but it's a consistent design element present in that series that I look for in every arcade game and action game in general that I play. Reaction and improvisation, is to me the most fun thing you can do in a game, and so it's almost impossible for an arcade or action game to score a 10/10 score from me unless it has a consistent element of randomness throughout.

As much as I like Crimzon Clover for its polish, I don't think the pattern design will ever be as fun for me as something like (any Touhou) or Cho Ren Sha 68k on hard mode.



On a side note, it's kind of funny how people are talking about how Touhou didn't grab them after credit feeding through it once, and than holding up Crimzon Clover as a better game. CC is excellent, but I've heard people who only credit feed through it once and than hold up Cave titles as better games ("it's just another standard danmaku game rip off of Dodonpachi I don't see the hype"). Bit of a pattern here. I would say judging a shmup based on only a few runs generally doesn't scratch the surface.

[Bonus!]

I wasn't just credit-feeding. I 1cc'ed three Touhous on 'easy', to get a feel for those games, and then proceeded to pick one for more serious play. After a few credits I made it to stage 6 on Normal, but it just felt like such a chore. Conversely, it often happens that when I play Crimzon Clover, for just one credit, I end up playing for two hours, because I just like it so much. No, I haven't aced that game, and I'm far from it, but I get pretty okay scores on Novice Boost, with a boost counter of sometimes over 30 minutes, i.e. boosting the majority of the time. I've sunk a few dozen hours into CC so far, and I don't see myself tiring of it anytime soon.

[Squire Grooktook]

I wasn't just credit-feeding. I 1cc'ed three Touhous on 'easy', to get a feel for those games, and then proceeded to pick one for more serious play. After a few credits I made it to stage 6 on Normal, but it just felt like such a chore. Conversely, it often happens that when I play Crimzon Clover, for just one credit, I end up playing for two hours, because I just like it so much. No, I haven't aced that game, and I'm far from it, but I get pretty okay scores on Novice Boost, with a boost counter of sometimes over 30 minutes, i.e. boosting the majority of the time. I've sunk a few dozen hours into CC so far, and I don't see myself tiring of it anytime soon.

I know some people might get mad at this, but honestly for Touhou you should be playing on Lunatic or bust. AT LEAST if you're trying to just enjoy the games on a basic/survival level.

Easy and Normal are basically designed to be blind cleared (or close) by most arcade experienced players and 1cc'd by even people who's most challenging prior gaming experience was Super Mario World. I'm talking from experience here, because even when I was new to the genre and would flail around and die on stage 2 of most games even after memorizing, I was still able to 1cc every Touhou on normal in quick succession with barely any effort (with the exception of maybe SA which took a BIT more effort, though it was still easy to cheese through after a very short time).

The patterns on normal have a fatal combination of being not too dense and very slow, and on top of that they basically throw resources at you. Strategy and reflexes are important in a shmup, and barely come into play when nothing is hard enough to make you think.

"But it's good for practice/scoring/newcomers to shmups!" some people will shout at me. Okay maybe so. But if your an arcade player and you're new to the franchise, you have got to play lunatic. It's the arcade setting aimed at arcade players (stated as such in game I think, one or two times) and it's there that the pattern and level design starts to really get involved and just shine.

tl;dr: Never play normal if you are an arcade aficando and want a feel for the series. Play Lunatic.



I might also add that Touhou tends to have a different (and not immediately obvious) scoring mechanic each game, so you might want to research some of that before starting because otherwise your missing out on half the mechanics (like playing CC without knowing how to Break).

[trap15]

Best way to learn to like 2hu: Get drunk and play Ten Desires on Normal.

[Squire Grooktook]

Or alternatively, stay sober and never ever play Ten Desires.