Accessible and awesome shooting games (for new players???) !

[cave hermit]

Blue wish resurrection plus looks really intimidating, but in reality is a complete pushover; I 1cc'd it on my very first credit, and I'm fucking terrible at shmups.

In that sense, it would probably be a great confidence builder for newer players.

[Pretas]

For better or worse, BWR is the light beer of Cave-style STGs. I'd only recommend it to someone who's just starting out with the genre and is still intimidated by the mere sight of dense patterns. It's a good way to show them that such attacks can be easy to dodge in practice due to small hitboxes.

[Squire Grooktook]

Blue wish resurrection plus looks really intimidating, but in reality is a complete pushover; I 1cc'd it on my very first credit, and I'm fucking terrible at shmups.

In that sense, it would probably be a great confidence builder for newer players.

Were you playing with shield and wait off? I keep hearing people say the game is easy because of slow down, but iirc you can turn all slowdown off.

[gray117]

There probably isn't one.

i) Old looking/feeling is an immediate impressions that are often flung against most shmups... not helped by the common - 'it isn't fullscreen'.
ii) Theme wise most are esoteric with 'different' titles.
iii) Many of the most intriguing to replay/conquer are quite punishing.

The irony is that apart from scoring tricks, most of these games are pretty damn simple.

It probably comes down to picking one whose theme will suit the person being targeted on a device they own. Free or not something like touhou just isn't going to fly with most people I know who are not into that kind of style at all. As ubiquitous, and on as many devices as it is, ikaruga does not have a lot for new comers to relate to and latch on to; and as graceful as it is, it is not Michael-Bay-shock-and-awe these days.

... Apart from the title, you can kind of see what they were trying to do with sine mora, but didn't quite pull off...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

\Were you playing with shield and wait off? I keep hearing people say the game is easy because of slow down, but iirc you can turn all slowdown off.

There's no option to turn slowdown off in BWR - there's no artificial slowdown at all in fact (the game might have a frame drop if you get a giant cancel, but otherwise no). It's also in your interest to play with autobomb OFF because you get an increased clear bonus for lives stocked when you beat the game without autobomb.

Blue Wish Resurrection Plus does have artificial slowdown, which is enabled by default, and which you can turn off, but I think it helps play to the game's strength, its scoring system that's based around pointblank kills. Both BWR and BWR Plus have pretty easy Heaven difficulty modes which are quite accessible to beginners, but are still fun to play for score. Original isn't too bad either (and Blue Peace is a pretty darn powerful shot type which is why it's so popular).

[Special World]

As ubiquitous, and on as many devices as it is, ikaruga does not have a lot for new comers to relate to and latch on to; and as graceful as it is, it is not Michael-Bay-shock-and-awe these days.

I disagree. IMO Ikaruga's core concept is one that a lot of people immediately understand and appreciate. It's pretty intuitive, and makes the game feel like more than "some dumb shooting game," as well as making the game feel more fair in the sense that you can always cancel out any bullet. I don't love the game like I used to (though I still like it a good deal) but I think its status as the shooting game for people who don't play shooting games is pretty evident.

Speaking of Ikaruga, which version is better — PC or 360? I've heard the 360 one is pretty inaccurate and takes a lot of liberties with the game, but I've only played the Gamecube one so I wouldn't really know.

[Pretas]

Speaking of Ikaruga, which version is better — PC or 360? I've heard the 360 one is pretty inaccurate and takes a lot of liberties with the game, but I've only played the Gamecube one so I wouldn't really know.

PC, it was ported by Treasure themselves and is essentially 100% accurate to the Naomi version.

[Squire Grooktook]

\Were you playing with shield and wait off? I keep hearing people say the game is easy because of slow down, but iirc you can turn all slowdown off.

There's no option to turn slowdown off in BWR - there's no artificial slowdown at all in fact (the game might have a frame drop if you get a giant cancel, but otherwise no). It's also in your interest to play with autobomb OFF because you get an increased clear bonus for lives stocked when you beat the game without autobomb.

Blue Wish Resurrection Plus does have artificial slowdown, which is enabled by default, and which you can turn off, but I think it helps play to the game's strength, its scoring system that's based around pointblank kills. Both BWR and BWR Plus have pretty easy Heaven difficulty modes which are quite accessible to beginners, but are still fun to play for score. Original isn't too bad either (and Blue Peace is a pretty darn powerful shot type which is why it's so popular).

Sorry, I was talking about BWR+, which I keep hearing people say is so much easier than the original due to slow down.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The slowdown does help make Plus a good deal easier, but another major factor that you might not be aware of is the change to extend rates. In BWR, you get two scoring extends plus a stage 3 extend.

In BWR Plus, you get extends every X number of points. It's possible to arrive at the boss with 8 lives in stock, even on the lowest difficulty (and is in fact what you're aiming for if you want a massive high score - you can get 9 lives after the final boss due to clear bonus, and having 9 lives left really gives you a lot of points for the clear).

On the easiest difficulty, Heaven, there really isn't that much slowdown. Few patterns are dense enough to trigger it, and they're never really the harder patterns (stage 4's last one which is also his easiest attack to dodge IMO, a couple stage 5 boss patterns I think, one of which is just tap dodging aimed sprays of bullet). It's more help in Original and Hell, where stuff gets dense enough to actually trigger it.

[drunkninja24]

Speaking of Ikaruga, which version is better — PC or 360? I've heard the 360 one is pretty inaccurate and takes a lot of liberties with the game, but I've only played the Gamecube one so I wouldn't really know.

PC, it was ported by Treasure themselves and is essentially 100% accurate to the Naomi version.

Oh really? I haven't really seen or heard any direct comparisons, I kinda expected it to be based on 360 version since the porting would be super simple there.

[Sir Arthur ahf]

I would say Death Smiles

Great art direction, easy scoring system and as far as you keep choosing the easy route it is an easy 1CC

[ratikal]

Dodonpachi Daioujou, Ketsui, and Espgaluda.

This is what I consider the "big 3." All three of these games will teach you how to properly play an arcade STG through resource management and planning.

[gray117]

As ubiquitous, and on as many devices as it is, ikaruga does not have a lot for new comers to relate to and latch on to; and as graceful as it is, it is not Michael-Bay-shock-and-awe these days.

I disagree. IMO Ikaruga's core concept is one that a lot of people immediately understand and appreciate....

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear - I too agree gameplay is fine, but the game's character/theme itself is a little mysterious/removed - gracefully done, and something I like, and something you can't really object to, but also it isn't exactly the most main stream friendly. It's not as readily identifiable (/cliched) as, say, something like street fighter.

PC would be the better version; developed off the nesica version which is a very good port of the original (small differences/refinements 3 button vs 2, extra modes). There's some slight graphical variances depending on hardware, but plays fine. 360 version is a fine game, but it's not a wonderful port in terms of accuracy - timing and pattern differences - not as bad as you might get the impression, but simply noticeable to the more keen players.

On topic though, I'd just recommend getting on whatever your subject would want to play on... but yeah, pc is the more accurate port