What is exactly the appeal in Yagawa's games?

[Skykid]

I thought YGW's initial play for alternative victory was only established with Battle Garegga. It was only after that that what he'd done was considered an original branch for the genre, and then purposely implemented and adapted with his later works as a continuation of the theme.

[ptoing]

Dimahoo has been mentioned a couple of times but, it bears mentioning, is not a Yagawa game. Where is the Toyama Elitist Club I ask- the next cool thing!

I dont think fans of Yagawa are any more elitists than fans of (recent) Cave, but I guess most STG players with some sort of dignity are elitists.

Boss-milking in Pink Sweets is not at all like boss milking in most others shooters like say Esp.ra.de. In PS, boss-milking is very dynamic, you choose how intense you want it to be, both the amount of bullets it spits at you and the degree of rank increase. And each fight gets more and more intense towards the end as bullet amount and speed increase towards the climax. I dont know what's up with stage 1 boss milking though. :/ Stage 2 Madball in BG has also aged a little me thinks. But in general, Yagawa makes very good boss battles relative to other developers that make them too static and unengaging imo.

I don't know why he decided to do loops in MMP though, not his decision maybe?

I was mentioning Dimahoo as far as art goes because COS said "no Raizing game", not just no Yagawa Game.

[nasty_wolverine]

Not sure if pointed out before, YGW games tend to have more boobs/pantyshots then IKD games.
just saying.

[LordHypnos]

I really like medalling as a scoring system, and even like the idea of suciding for survival or score quite a bit. I tried playing Raizing games a few times, mostly Batrider. What actually turned me off most was the sloppy control that all of the bat trilogy games, at least, seem to have, though I'll guess that it's mostly the fault of lag in MAME, so that's not really the fault of the game design. That's actually the main reason why I haven't played them very much, because I think that survival, at least, would be pretty enjoyable provided that you had access to some version of the game that lacked that lag.

The other thing, though, that turned me off of the games was actually watching high level Batrider gameplay. There are so many really specific places that you have to bomb in order to get medals that you could never figure out without doing some pretty substantial research on the internet, and I really don't have the motivation to do that. I didn't even realise that medalling was a mechanic beforehand, because I never saw a single medal. Additionally there was a ton of boss milking going on that could maybe add up to an additional 10-15 minutes* of extra time that you would have to spend on the game if you were good at it. As if most shmups weren't already way too long. I'd much prefer a game where being good at it meant less time that it would take to get through everything, or just a game that was only 10-15 minutes long total.

Recca would be awesome if it weren't for the infinite milking, cheap deaths and powerup dodging. That charge bomb is so awesome, and could easily carry the game, not to mention that the medalling doesn't require any arcane knowledge to figure out.

Additionally, I found bullet visibility a little less than up to par in what little I played of Yagawa games, but I wouldn't be surprised if you get used to it.

Take this all with a grain of salt since I haven't spent too much time with any Yagawa game. These are just kind of vague impressions.

*Figures pulled out of LH's ass and should not be taken as fact

[Erppo]

Additionally there was a ton of boss milking going on that could maybe add up to an additional 10-15 minutes* of extra time

The real number is well over 30 minutes.

[chempop]

I never understood why people only judge games based on how world record holders play them.

As someone who has cleared batrider and bakraid advance courses, garegga, and ibara (scoring low letter grades in the latter), I think it’s safe for me to say that you don’t have to play these games like the superplayers to enjoy them. By saying you CAN milk bosses for an extra 30 minutes does not mean you have to, or even are capable of doing so. I never learned how to Midi-milk (ibara stage 2) for the extra 4 minutes of doing absolutely nothing, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the game. People act like if it has a “flaw” they don’t agree with, then the game is unenjoyable or not worth playing. I don’t get it.

Maybe it’s the really skilled players who are capable of top-top scores who are most vocal about the questionable shit in Yagawa games? I’m curious how the breakdown works. It seems the touhou crowd is sorta split, maybe leaning against YGW, then the Ikeda fans typically can’t deal, then the well rounded players seem to love em.

And comparing run and gun and fighting game animation to a shmup is not a very logical argument.

Sorry, that was a bad post, end of week only half cup of coffee in me.

[ptoing]

Did not sound too unreasonable to me, I have to say. Of course as a designer you should try not to make your game have horribly boring stuff (ESPRade milking, which I reckon was not on purpose, but could have been tested for). But that does and should not mean that you can not enjoy them as a player unless they are broken in really fundamental ways. I almost cleared Bakraid a few times with super kusoplay and it was still very fun, esp because of the slighly more dynamic element.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

It might depend on if you're more a survival or scoring player in terms of Touhou as well.

Survival players are going to want to try to minimize their deaths and bombs, which obviously doesn't go well in most Yagawa games. You can get away with not suiciding in Pink Sweets and if you want the absolute highest score in the arcade version of MMP, you have to actually survive the first loop since deaths will keep you from the second. DFK BL adds a different survival challenge(though 1.5 is still the better game), but it looks like it's actually preferable to avoid Hibachi or Zatsuza considering that 1.4/1.5 trillion Strong video that was posted a short while ago, which is just lame if it actually is better for score to not fight the TLB. I know you also don't want to die in Akai Katana, but I don't know how much Yagawa even did for that game, and it just didn't click with me.


Score players could vary depending on which ones are being played for score. LLS/EoSD/PCB/SA/UFO/GFW/10D/DDC all reward you for suiciding and bombing for score. MoF rewards bombing but not deaths, while Mystic Square and IN don't reward either.

So scoreplayers for some of the Touhou games may be a bit more interested in some of the mechanics in Yagawa games or might be more interested in the more standard mechanics for scoring.

[chum]

Additionally there was a ton of boss milking going on that could maybe add up to an additional 10-15 minutes* of extra time

The real number is well over 30 minutes.

nah, even if you try to do pretty much everything, you hardly spend an extra 30+ minutes of just milking, unless you count simply unlocking bosses and fighting them from scratch as milking.

some of the time you spend milking wouldve still been spent regardless, if you were playing without milking (for instance blackheart and grubby take a while to beat without milking so the "extra time" you spend milking them isnt as big as you may think)

I never understood why people only judge games based on how world record holders play them.

i am going to ignore the bolded word for now because i dont think anyone actually does that. of course people care about all the basic and more immediately accessible components of whatever game. however, as for why this is put into account at all...

it is because deep down you want to be that player yourself, or you empathize with those players and the high score culture.

to me the high score chasing is by far most important aspect of stg. if you reach the point where you need to do unfun things to improve your score then it is time to contemplate if the fun things that are present are really worth experiencing anymore or if you should just drop the game. there is not enough time in anyone's lives to dedicate themselves to every little game out there so it's a matter of prioritizing which game do you want to focus on. you have to understand that the more time you spend on the game, the more focus you will put on "how world record holders play them" and all the other things mainly serve as a reminder of why you got into the game in the first place.

holding something annoying about scoreplay against a game is totally legit because part of genre is about reaching the highest score, and to me and many others that is the single most important part, that grants the genre the most longevity

[Xyga]

One can play for score, or just using the scoring mechanics, in order to 'ease' a survival run, but not necessarily aiming at a good final score...

(Personally I learn how to score only when it reveals a superior and more fun experience of the game, or if it helps me for a 1cc.
Otherwise I don't really care about competing with the top scorers, it demands more time than I am ready to spend.)

[LordHypnos]

I never understood why people only judge games based on how world record holders play them.

Please don't misunderstand the nature of my post; I will refer you to this excerpt

I think that survival, at least, [in Raizing games] would be pretty enjoyable provided that you had access to some version of the game that lacked that lag.

Which, unfortunately, I do not, but if I did I think that I would enjoy Raizing games a lot. Hell, even with the horrible crippling flaws that Recca has, I still find it super fun. Then I accidentally get any subweapon that isn't seeker, die quickly and then rage quit. (Anyone else think we need a name for powerup dodging shmups? Like how we call reflect-based shmups "reflect 'em ups," and games with a lot of bombing "bomb 'em ups")

That being said, however, I think that when you are critiquing a game, it is important to take into consideration the scoring system even if you aren't really a skilled enough player to make full use of it, just 'cause it is an element of game design. I think the best games out there are those that have good design in all areas. Then again, good design is subjective. I like games that are short and intense regardless of if you're scoring or not. Most people don't mind the length when there are things that keep them suitably interested the whole time. I certainly see how Raizing scoring system are as highly rated as they are.

nah, even if you try to do pretty much everything, you hardly spend an extra 30+ minutes of just milking, unless you count simply unlocking bosses and fighting them from scratch as milking.

Ah yes, I forgot about that. That explains the huge difference in length between high scoring and survival only videos on YT. I certainly wouldn't count that as "milking," But it still might very well push the length of the game to undesirable levels.

[Strikers1945guy]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that many who dislike YGW games are just general players in the genre as a whole who have a hard time even 1ccing the general cave beginner stuff (mushi original for example).
Not that there's anything wrong with that at all, but so many games especially cave games go from meh difficulty to kick you in the balls once you go from survival play to scoring play. Many cave fans who just casually play can still enjoy cave games. YGW shmups are hard to even play casually if you are a moderate shmuper. I have read so many posts from people who can't beat the first stage or 2 of Ibara but have no problem beating deathsmIles.

Just a thought...

[Xyga]

(Anyone else think we need a name for powerup dodging shmups?)

(The other day I was playing Fire Shark when I ended up having four or five green weapon items bouncing around at the same time, dodging those was clearly the most fun I ever had playing that game)

I have read so many posts from people who can't beat the first stage or 2 of Ibara

WAT

[LordHypnos]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that many who dislike YGW games are just general players in the genre as a whole who have a hard time even 1ccing the general cave beginner stuff (mushi original for example).
Not that there's anything wrong with that at all, but so many games especially cave games go from meh difficulty to kick you in the balls once you go from survival play to scoring play. Many cave fans who just casually play can still enjoy cave games. YGW shmups are hard to even olay casually if you are a moderate shmup per. I have read so many posts from people who can't beat the first stage or 2 of Ibara but have no problem beating deathsmIles.

Just a thought...

There's probably some truth to this. I mean, I can't really fairly judge Yagawa games, because of the aforementioned control issues in MAME. I wouldn't go as far as to say I either like or dislike them, but sure, I find them intimidating, and I'm certain that I fall into the category of "scrub who can't clear CAVE games." In fact I kind of fall into the category of "scrub who can't clear Touhou games," which is even more extreme (though this probably has more to do with the miniscule amount of time I've spent on either of them than anything else just for lack of being able to get into them).
Two counterpoints to this argument however are:
1) From what I understand Batrider and Bakraid are both pretty easy to clear when you're playing for survival only, especially the beginner courses
2) Looking through the replies there are several fairly high level players posting who are not incredibly hot on Yagawa games.

(The other day I was playing Fire Shark when I ended up having four or five green weapon items bouncing around at the same time, dodging those was clearly the most fun I ever had playing that game)

[Strikers1945guy]

I have read so many posts from people who can't beat the first stage or 2 of Ibara

WAT

SO many people play that stage 2 boss and go FFFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[ptoing]

I have read so many posts from people who can't beat the first stage or 2 of Ibara

WAT

SO many people play that stage 2 boss and go FFFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

HADOUUUUUUUUUUUU GUN!

[CStarFlare]

I owned the Ibara PCB for three months and saw stage 3 twice. It's rough for being so early in the game.

[Strikers1945guy]

I owned the Ibara PCB for three months and saw stage 3 twice. It's rough for being so early in the game.

True, it is. And like much of the YGW stuff, once you learn the tricks of the stage 2 boss battle it becomes much more manageable, as well as understanding that coming into the battle with 2 extra live stock makes it a harder battle than coming in with no extra lives, but thats something a casual player wouldn't know, and would be instantly turned off by. Where as any typical cave stuff its just "stockpile lives and bombs"

I guess I also love that YGW games don't award you for having bombs or bomb fragments at the end of each stage. Use the damn thing !

[Xyga]

I remember the first time I saw stage 4, because I was drunk.
People don't get YGW shmups, it's a hidden feature in every game; past stage 3 you need stronger and stronger power-ups, like cocaine, shrooms, meth, and bath salts.

[Shepardus]

It might depend on if you're more a survival or scoring player in terms of Touhou as well.

Funnily enough I've always been turned off on Touhou scoreplay (despite really loving the survival play), yet the same doesn't really happen to me for Yagawa game scoreplay. I've realized this before but I'm not entirely sure why that is. It's probably because if you drastically reduced or removed the milking in both games, there's still a lot to do in Yagawa games but most Touhou games would play totally differently, I dunno. You could also argue that much of Yagawa-style milking is so mindless after you set it up that it's easier to tune out while doing it and ignore the fact that it exists, but that's stretching things to say the least.

Either way, to me the milking is the most questionable part of both (except stuff like Black Heart 2 grenade milking, but that's kind of a different dynamic where you're cashing in your rank and lives/bombs instead of just getting something for minimal extra effort), and I've actually fallen asleep watching Battle Garegga stage 6 boss milking.

Additionally there was a ton of boss milking going on that could maybe add up to an additional 10-15 minutes* of extra time

The real number is well over 30 minutes.

I think 10-15 minutes is more accurate for Battle Garegga, maybe 20 minutes for Ibara (haven't counted myself). Batrider probably takes longer to milk simply because of how many bosses there are (if you go for all the bosses it's going to take a long time regardless), so I can see milking all the bosses in that adding over 30 minutes. Battle Bakraid has the least by far from what I can tell, because of the multiplier system.

The other thing, though, that turned me off of the games was actually watching high level Batrider gameplay. There are so many really specific places that you have to bomb in order to get medals that you could never figure out without doing some pretty substantial research on the internet, and I really don't have the motivation to do that.

IMO it's not as bad as it sounds at first, since most of the best spots to bomb are indicated by specific objects on the map, such as the silo-things in stage 3 of Battle Garegga and the things that the tanks come out of in stage 4. There are some weird ones like the flamingos in stage 2 of Garegga and the rails in stages 3 and 4 but most is pretty easy to find through experimentation once you realize for the first time that certain scenery can be bombed for medals. I've personally had a lot easier time with it than trying to memorize all the bee locations in DoDonPachi. What's more difficult to learn is the fact that certain enemies and parts of bosses are worth more when destroyed with bombs (or aura in Batrider and Battle Bakraid), since many of them aren't things you would normally have any good reason to bomb and even if you do bomb them you're not going to notice the score difference unless you're paying close attention to your score, unlike scenery that leaves medals behind.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I'm not familiar with how you fight the Ibara stage 2 boss as I never played it, but the Muchi Muchi Pork stage 2 boss was also pretty ridiculous to me at first. Madball and the Batrider depending on which stage you go to second weren't necessarily bad though.

Once I found out you could point blank kill one of the sides at the start of the MMP stage 2 boss so you only had to dodge half of the pattern, I felt so dumb for not thinking of it(though I didn't think I could do that much damage before seeing it done). Of course, it did take a bit of time before I caught what I needed to do to get it to properly work each time. It was almost always deaths/bombs before that. And I recently changed up the lard distribution a bit opting not to go for gold on one of the parts so I could quickly kill the small turrets in 3rd phase so that I wouldn't have to worry about the extra shots nailing me while dodging an otherwise easy pattern.

[LordHypnos]

I guess I also love that YGW games don't award you for having bombs or bomb fragments at the end of each stage. Use the damn thing !

Yeah, I kind of like it when your "panic button" is actually a tool, that's definitely something that interests me about Yagawa games, not that it's unique to Yagawa, though, at least not if you include reflect mechanics (I imagine there are other games that do it with bombs, too, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head).

[MathU]

Bombs are often used for attacking in Hellsinker. Your bombing ability recharges and its strength and availability is also tied to your shooting attack power.

[nasty_wolverine]

Bombs are often used for attacking in Hellsinker. Your bombing ability recharges and its strength and availability is also tied to your shooting attack power.

bombing least affects your rank, second is taking a bootleg ghost hit, the worst is loosing a life. high rank means higher score. also, the raizing style bomb which betters your score is only available for deadliar, you can hit multiple things and raise spirit value considerably. other bombs are not good for scoring much. fossilmaidens invincibility bomb is used for grazing.

there are actually similarities between hellsinker and ygw games, most probably inspired. rank meter, agressive play gives more points, lots of pointblanking (in HS it raises spirits, YGW games let you pointblank invincible parts for more chipping points), its length, secret bonus enemies...

[MathU]

While it's true that bombing affects both your adaptive difficulty meter and another meter for accessing an important level for scoring later in the game, it's usually not by a significant amount and there are often instances where it's more desirable to bomb something for points. These instances do depend heavily on the character currently in use. As you pointed out one of Fossil Maiden's bomb types for instance allows for invincibility without canceling bullets, making it useful for grazing needles for points. Her offensive bomb type on the other hand can help speed kill targets when doing so will lead to more points. Minogame's bomb is even more useful for a wide variety of speed killing. It just depends a lot on the level and character being used, but you can most definitely reap more points in general Hellsinker by bombing strategically instead of sticking to a rigid hoarding attitude.

The main point that makes its bombs different from a lot of other games with smart bombs is that you get an infinite number of them and hoarding them affords little end-stage bonus.

[Bananamatic]

I never learned how to Midi-milk (ibara stage 2) for the extra 4 minutes of doing absolutely nothing, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the game.

having a 4 minute loading screen after stage 2 is enough to ruin the whole game if you're playing for score which is a real shame because ibara looks like a decent game otherwise

and playing for score means potentially spending years on one game compared to 1ccing it in a week and then reselling it or having it collect dust because there's nothing fun left to do

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

You and I must have different ideas of what makes pixel art awesome... Yagawa's games do have the odd beautiful sprite, and some of the bosses look excellent, no doubt about it. Still, in their entirety, no Raizing game can hold a candle to Metal Slug 3, Demon Front or Street Fighter 3 (all of which include super fluid animation, which is a lot harder to make look good than static warships). Also, some of the settings are nice, Battle Garegga and Bakraid just seem very generic to me.

It's definitely not how I see it, to me most of the YGW games = most daring, batshit insane orgies of detailed and beautiful sprites in your face and still with a meaning (well there were some accidents in terms of visibility with Garegga or Ibara but no game's perfect), it's raining hot metal and I can see the screws and cables: 100% talking directly to my mind. Generic ? Never ! For someone who's into the genre they're masterpieces.
The bosses are either magnificent and intimidating, or outrageous, or everything at once, but never lame in my eyes. Even the toys in PS are pure provocation considering how brutal the game is.
Some backgrounds are empty yes but that happens with many shmups which have very busy screens anyway (the thouhou backgrounds are just plain shit 3D and it's still okay, it's not like we're really watching the scenery anyway) then many other are incredibly detailed, those are practically the majority.
And when it's not serious atmosphere stuff à la Garegga I find myself to like the wackiness of PS and MMP, or the abusive-fantasy Mahou, all incredible works, some equally or even better designed than Garegga in some aspects.

Comparing other game's pixel-art quality is fine but those you mention I don't put them in the same category, well MS maybe but 3 isn't the best example (1 definitely is the standard) and certainly the best Nazca-designed stuff stands at the top with some of the Toaplan, Irem, or even Technosoft or Psikyo designs, but they're not shmups.
Demon Front is behind all those IMO (I don't like many of the color tones they chose), and if we have to talk about a really non-shmup...although SF 3.3 has got incredible character details, stunning animation, and godly fighting engine, I find most of the characters ridiculously ugly, I hate the musics and even most backgrounds. It's probably the best fighting game ever made by the most competent developers, but with shit taste (in my view of course).

So to summarize: to me what's top-grade 2D for a shmup (or a side-scrolling action game even though it's OT), is an orgy of beautiful and detailed sprites, and in that discipline Raizing games certainly do stand at the top together with the other mentioned best-looking and great atmospheric shmups.

The enthusiasm in your post is refreshing. Good read mate!

[Xyga]

The enthusiasm in your post is refreshing. Good read mate!

My nerdy rant in poor English ? Really ?

Well here's more!

What's the appeal in Raizing/YGW games huh ? I want to add something.

I remember the early 90's and what most kids wanted to see and play (at least where I lived); 'arcades-level' games, screens literally filled with beautiful, humongous, multi-jointed sprites, parallax, and visual effects, mostly in cyberpunk/alien/fantasy themed worlds.
Always arguing over which of the MD or the SNES had the games closest to our ideal, or weeping over the NEC and NeoGeo marvels we couldn't afford, also the latest batshit insane games seen at the local arcades we couldn't play without asking our parents.

(Stuff like super-detailed animation or high-res backgrounds or even early 3D weren't really part of the dream, but more 'hype' things, like David Perry's sprites, or Delphine Software's cutscenes, computer adventure games, and Star Wing)

Well that blessed 'fat sprites action' era ended brutally as we were all (well, most) instantly mesmerized by the low-res polygons of the PlayStation, the 2D 'Holy Grails' kind of never happened at home, or more precisely the most incredible stuff did not end up in our hands because it arrived too late, on the wrong console (Saturn, what else), and never leaved Japan.
We'd only had a glimpse of what the epitome of heavy sprite-based, golden 90's arcade-oriented gaming, could be.
The old Grails were quickly buried in a corner of our memories.

My gamer background is probably similar to that of many; at the time (second half of the 90's) I was into RPG's, the SquareSoft and then FFVII hype hit me and I got deeper ever into the genre... until the early 2000's when for some unknown reason (like a ghola of the Bene Tleilax something in my subconscious was triggered by sex, beer, pot, uni, whatever) I remembered Thunder Force, MUSHA, Axelay, etc, plus many vague memories of games I could never play as a kid were starting to flash in my head.
So I began retrogaming, the good years when used games stores were still Ali-Baba caves where I could spend my university money kind of allowed me to satisfy my crave for lost gaming pleasures, but only in part, because a persistent "there was more" thought wouldn't leave me.
After a few years haunting stores and flea markets, the internet happened (2003-4 for me, yeah quite late) and I was finally able to put names on forgotten gaming gems and 'Grails' I was only dreaming about 15 years before.

I won't list every title and genre that popped, but it happened that among those now accessible treasures were the Raizing/YGW games, which pretty obviously for a crypto-90's kid were 'Grail-level' material in the flesh...er...pixels.
Finally, they were real, and I could play them (thanks to MAME in the beginning).

Not saying YGW games, nor Cave or anything are like perfect beings that came out of the God of Gaming's ass, I'm too old to idealize things now, but as far as an over 30 years old gamer can tell even with modest/average knowledge, those really do stand at the top of what games used to be and guys like me always wished they would become.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The enthusiasm in your post is refreshing. Good read mate!

My nerdy rant in poor English ? Really ?

Well here's more!

What's the appeal in Raizing/YGW games huh ? I want to add something.

I remember the early 90's and what most kids wanted to see and play (at least where I lived); 'arcades-level' games, screens literally filled with beautiful, humongous, multi-jointed sprites, parallax, and visual effects, mostly in cyberpunk/alien/fantasy themed worlds.
Always arguing over which of the MD or the SNES had the games closest to our ideal, or weeping over the NEC and NeoGeo marvels we couldn't afford, also the latest batshit insane games seen at the local arcades we couldn't play without asking our parents.

(Stuff like super-detailed animation or high-res backgrounds or even early 3D weren't really part of the dream, but more 'hype' things, like David Perry's sprites, or Delphine Software's cutscenes, computer adventure games, and Star Wing)

Well that blessed 'fat sprites action' era ended brutally as we were all (well, most) instantly mesmerized by the low-res polygons of the PlayStation, the 2D 'Holy Grails' kind of never happened at home, or more precisely the most incredible stuff did not end up in our hands because it arrived too late, on the wrong console (Saturn, what else), and never leaved Japan.
We'd only had a glimpse of what the epitome of heavy sprite-based, golden 90's arcade-oriented gaming, could be.
The old Grails were quickly buried in a corner of our memories.

My gamer background is probably similar to that of many; at the time (second half of the 90's) I was into RPG's, the SquareSoft and then FFVII hype hit me and I got deeper ever into the genre... until the early 2000's when for some unknown reason (like a ghola of the Bene Tleilax something in my subconscious was triggered by sex, beer, pot, uni, whatever) I remembered Thunder Force, MUSHA, Axelay, etc, plus many vague memories of games I could never play as a kid were starting to flash in my head.
So I began retrogaming, the good years when used games stores were still Ali-Baba caves where I could spend my university money kind of allowed me to satisfy my crave for lost gaming pleasures, but only in part, because a persistent "there was more" thought wouldn't leave me.
After a few years haunting stores and flea markets, the internet happened (2003-4 for me, yeah quite late) and I was finally able to put names on forgotten gaming gems and 'Grails' I was only dreaming about 15 years before.

I won't list every title and genre that popped, but it happened that among those now accessible treasures were the Raizing/YGW games, which pretty obviously for a crypto-90's kid were 'Grail-level' material in the flesh...er...pixels.
Finally, they were real, and I could play them (thanks to MAME in the beginning).

Not saying YGW games, nor Cave or anything are like perfect beings that came out of the God of Gaming's ass, I'm too old to idealize things now, but as far as an over 30 years old gamer can tell even with modest/average knowledge, those really do stand at the top of what games used to be and guys like me always wished they would become.

he not a bad rant. If you lived in my street we'd probably go through shitloads of games and weed on a regular basis and our wives would hate us haha. but I can totally see where you're coming from, I had a similar video game based upbringing, in my case though I never really got into 3d I have to say. I mean I was fascinated with teh first pictures of Toshinden that German mags had printed, but as soon as I saw the games in motion and played them (ugh, Tekken... and all that shit. Mario 64 was cool though, but obviously not as good as Mario World) I was turned off of 3d games for one and a half decades. we're now approaching a level of 3d graphics I can live with, but mostly I still prefer bitmap graphics over 3d ones (yeah yeah the demos were better, get with the times grandpa).

Spoiler

mate most of Cave's games still look a lot better than Raizing games... half of the time when you play them you look at something like this:


wow, trees...

in the same year, Cave released this:

[Xyga]

Spoiler

mate most of Cave's games still look a lot better than Raizing games... half of the time when you play them you look at something like this:


wow, trees...

in the same year, Cave released this:

Tks tsk tsk. Don't troll me sir, please.
One of the weakest Raizing VS. one of the most beautiful Cave, how's that an honest example ?