What is best in shmup

[Captain]

A poll meant to find out what people play these games for, or rather, what they enjoy the most in them.

I look forward to personal opinions, discussions and arguments.

There is no Yagawa option because it is taken for granted. All shmuppers love yagawa or they are a disgrace to the community :>

[Imhotep]

an stg fulfilling the last three criterias would be the genre's masterpiece.

[soprano1]

1 and 5 seem a good combination, so i'll go for that.

[CloudyMusic]

I don't see "waifu material" on this list

[Captain]

Sir, this is a poll about shooting games, not sexuality.

That said, fanservice is everywhere and should not be considered a part of the shmup genre.

[Kollision]

"Extreme difficulty, bullets everywhere, filthy gaijin go home"

this one made me giggle
but I did vote for it

[S_Fang]

For a game to appeal to both newer players and veterans (difficulty select, very well implemented rank, clutch mechanics, etc)

Behaving like precious chosen ones is not a duable option in today market, so the audience made of newer players (cadets, so to speak) must be included in a convincing manner.

Mechanics that tie into the game very well and don't just feel like a slapped-on addition.

This must be noted on ported games or remakes, but a new and fresh game must prepare its script right in order to be fun, even mechanics like health system if the design is solid and balanced.

Epicness. I'm talking Beam-Duels, special interactions, special mechanics for fights, climatic battles. Have an intense fight against your enemy and unleash your full power without the game becoming any easier. (Some other examples include the final battle of Gun & Frontier, stealing boss weapons from Gradius, capturing enemies in Darius, having one-on-one fights in Akashicverse, the final battle of Ether Vapor etc...)

Because bullets' density is not enough, if not cheap, in these days. I'm not asking for a cinematic QTE crap, but at least add more variety in the challenge and level design.

[Shepardus]

I really want to vote for four of them (#1, 2, 5, 6) but since I'm limited to three I'm going to have to go with 1, 2, and 5.

I'm not good at shmups anyway so extreme difficulty is the least of my concerns. If anything, extreme difficulty, or the appearance of extreme difficulty, just alienates inexperienced players who think the point of the game is to be difficult rather than to be fun and engaging, while not doing a whole lot for the experienced players who are competing for score anyway and/or realize that the value of the game isn't directly proportional to its bullet count.

I prefer scoring that isn't directly tied, or at least not entirely dependent, on survival. To me scoring and survival are like two games that can be played either separately or mixed together in various ways that interact with each other, such as learning to bomb the birds in Battle Garegga for points that lead to lives, or on the flipside sacrificing lives for the sake of scoring. If survival and scoring are too similar to each other then it doesn't really take full advantage of the possible interactions between the two systems, and there isn't really enough to do after you've learned to survive.

Secrets are cool, but hardly a top priority in my opinion. Besides, eventually people discover and document them and they're not so much secrets anymore, but rather cool additions for satisfying certain conditions, and they should be treated as such - that is, they shouldn't compromise the rest of the game if they're discovered.

Similar thoughts about "epicness" - it's great if it's there, even if (or perhaps especially if) it's not in the form of special mechanics (like Touhou's flashy bullet patterns or Crimzon Clover's epic boss designs), and it really doesn't hurt to include it, but it's more of a bonus to me than a requirement.

"Well-implemented rank that adapts to your playstyle" is nice to see when it works out well, but is hardly something I'd like to see in every shmup.

Mechanics that tie into the game well is important to me, the game should feel as tight as possible without loose ends like that hanging out to distract players from the mechanics the game was really designed for. Kind of self-explanatory if you ask me.

Appealing to both newer players and veterans is important to me, and can take a variety of forms. Difficulty selection is one - I don't think I ever would have gotten into shmups if Touhou didn't have Easy and Normal difficulties. Rank can do the trick but can potentially confuse the beginner more than it helps. Something like Crimzon Clover's Boost Mode, on the other hand, is very intuitive and fun to work with, even though in Arcade difficulty the "dynamic difficulty" actually ranges from hard to ludicrous. I also like "clutch mechanics" like deathbombing in Touhou and various stuff in Hellsinker, such as the Shrine of Farewell (gives a boost to lives usually right when you need it the most) and the gradual replenishment of life if you're on your last life in one of the earlier stages. A lot of it comes down to presentation as well, as most shmups are already simple enough to be accessible to anyone but are often misunderstood as some sort of hardcore masochism for Asians stuck in the 80s because they don't do enough to teach newcomers how they should be thinking about the game and the genre.

[Mortificator]

To crush the score techniques, see players broken by rank, and to hear the lamentation of the forum.

[Captain]

To crush the score techniques, see players broken by rank, and to hear the lamentation of the forum.

He gets it!

[ACSeraph]

Gotta be epic. That's one of the major major things that gets me into a game at all. But what constitutes epic probly depends on the person.

Obviously the mechanics have to be well implemented and not some randomly taced on bullshit. I also think that whatever unique mechanics a game has should be tied into survival and not just scoring. This is because such a mechanic would force survival players to learn the basics of scoring, and will help them get into higher level play in the long run.

And that brings me to a preference for games that emphasize survival on top of a deep scoring system. Basically I feel like having both really seperates the men from the boys. It's badass to score high, and it's also badass to no-miss. If you can do both at the same time, you deserve a significantly higher score than other players imo. I understand that there are many players that view these games as number generators, but I still view them as an adventure. No matter how high your score was, if you failed to kill the final boss then you failed your mission imo. The citizens of earth arent gonna care much about how high you scored as they are getting anal probed by the ones you failed to defeat.

A game that fulfils all of this? Caladrius. Go play it.

[Captain]

A game that fulfils all of this? Caladrius. Go play it.

You spelled Hellsinker wrong.

[Squire Grooktook]

5,6,7 for me.

[trap15]

1,2,3,6. Dropped 2 due to only 3 entries, but yes. Secrets and style are really important to me.

[Captain]

The number of choices is now four.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Difficulty options, non-tacked-on mechanics, and "epicness*" is just what I want out of pretty much every game. I also chose "focus on survival", not because I think its superior game design (although scoring being at least somewhat related to survival beyond point extends falls under "non-tacked-on mechanics"), but simply because that's how I'm playing these games right now. I don't really see myself doing any hardcore score chasing in the future... but I do sometimes take risks for extra score anyways, even though it often leads to my death, so maybe I shouldn't have checked that one...

*Like the description, or general "Treasure-ness". Not so much 300-esque hyper-machoism or constant bullet time and execution mini-cutscenes. That shit gets tedious FAST.

[Lilium]

My votes:

Extreme Difficulty: I am considering pattern difficulty entirely here, not the actual difficulty of the game. If a game is rather easy but doesn't give you any extends, it'll likely still be way harder than a game that gives you 8 extends but has really high pattern difficulty to compensate for it. I am all for the latter and typically don't like the former. Typically I like games with difficult bullet patterns and I would typically couple those with high standards for what passes as an acceptable run for me (example: a DDP 2-all with a bad score isn't worth much imo) - Games that doens't deliver this sort of experience are typically not very interesting to me. Old school memorizers or games that feature simple patterns while focusing on convoluted scoreplay are not appealing to me at all.

Scoring that ties into survival: I don't play a lot of shmups for score because typically the scoring tend to involve doing a whole bunch of other things unrelated to what I'm here for. To dodge bullets without fail. I don't like having to bomb for points, I don't like having to suicide for points (DFK suicides and bombs are fine due to their nature - nothing here is absolute) and I don't like things like EspGaluda's bullet cancelling mechanics or having to milk something for a long time. I started out as a player fascinated with minimizing deaths and bombs while playing and I prefer score systems that reward doing so highly. My favorite scoring mechanic is probably Dodonpachi's maximum bonus which if carried to the end of the second loop makes up an absolutely huge chunk of score, somewhere in the vicinity of 350 million. Ketsui's Loop also springs to mind.

Also, I guess I might back up around epicness but I don't know for sure if I want to. I guess I would as well executed gameplay is epic and the desire to watch others perform epic stuff and the desire to perform them myself is a good part of the appeal for me. However I get the impression that in this context its more about flashy cinematic stuff boring games use to compensate for their lack of substance (i don't care if this is a gross generalization!)

[1up]

I voted for Epicness. I'm all about the boss fights. I especially like the creative boss designs and love battling the bosses from the Darius series.

Other than that I play STGs for the adrenaline rush. I mostly always play for survival as I don't have the time/dedication to stick with the same game and go full shmup. The rush of zipping through patterns, barely making it and overcoming the odds is a thrill. Sometimes after a intense and fun session I can be shaking from all the adrenalin.

[Obscura]

I'm amused to see 5 polling so well when we just voted a game where the score mechanics have literally nothing to do with the action happening on screen and are just a meta-game pasted on top of the game as the #1 best shmup ever.

[trap15]

Obscura, you should know by now that nobody here actually plays the games

[emphatic]

I voted 1, 2, 3, 7.

Must be fun (manageable) without you knowing about scoring but become extremely fun (much harder) when you know about scoring. A survival 1CC with a week's play and a WR with 2 year's play.

[ProjectAKo]

To crush the score techniques, see players broken by rank, and to hear the lamentation of the forum.

He gets it!

thank jesus, I thought I was gonna have to post for once

[Squire Grooktook]

I'm amused to see 5 polling so well when we just voted a game where the score mechanics have literally nothing to do with the action happening on screen and are just a meta-game pasted on top of the game as the #1 best shmup ever.

I'm not too well versed in maniac or ultra, but I don't see how that really describes the scoring mechanics in Mushi original? Point blanking, shot swapping, and no miss/no bombing pretty clearly changes "what happens on screen". Not to mention everything I just mentioned boosts the rank and makes shots much faster.

I mean, there basically are no extra mechanics in Mushi or most Cave shooters. Except for maybe Galuda, it's mostly just shoot, bomb, dodge. There's not much extra to integrate with the scoring system.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Would be "good first impression" for me.

[Obscura]

I'm amused to see 5 polling so well when we just voted a game where the score mechanics have literally nothing to do with the action happening on screen and are just a meta-game pasted on top of the game as the #1 best shmup ever.

I'm not too well versed in maniac or ultra, but I don't see how that really describes the scoring mechanics in Mushi original? Point blanking, shot swapping, and no miss/no bombing pretty clearly changes "what happens on screen". Not to mention everything I just mentioned boosts the rank and makes shots much faster.

I mean, there basically are no extra mechanics in Mushi or most Cave shooters. Except for maybe Galuda, it's mostly just shoot, bomb, dodge. There's not much extra to integrate with the scoring system.

I'll just quote what I've posted about this before (and Futari Original is actually the *worst* about it):

compare Futari's score system to that of a good Cave game (which basically means DDP, DOJ, and Ketsui):

Pachis: You have a shot that lets you move quickly and covers a large area, and you have a shot that does big concentrated damage, and lets you move precisely. How do you score better? Usually, by using shot on popcorn (especially in DOJ, where killing popcorn with the shot fills up the hyper meter faster than with laser) and laser on big guys, since laser holds your GP gauge steady.

Ketsui: Your weapons blow at long range because of lock-on time, but they're great up-close... and the score system rewards getting up close. The powerful lock-on scores better against big stuff (where you can apply your multiplier), and the spread-out shot does better against popcorn (where you want to build your multiplier, rather than apply it).

Hell, even Espgaluda, which is an awful game, gets this somewhat right. You have a button that slows down time. When is such a thing useful? When there's lots of bullets on screen, of course. When does it score for you? When there's lots of bullets on screen.

Now, look at Futari. In both modes, the shot you want to use has absolutely nothing to do with what it's actually good for. In one of the modes, you just go by what color a counter is. In the other, you go by how big a multiplier is. In neither case do you actually choose based on what you're actually shooting at or what kind of pattern you're trying to move through or whatever. The scoring system is just a dumb metagame tacked onto the game, which is lame even by the pathetic standards of modern Cave.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Ketsui has 3 different scoring systems, one for first loop, one for the Omote Loop, and one for the Ura Loop which is pretty similar to Omote but allows even the sealed bullets to count. The first loop scoring system while a neat idea is also broken because you'll want to get both the benefits of the spread and lock on at the same time because empty locking is a thing. Yes, optimally you would kill everything in Ketsui loop 1 with spread shot then empty lock to get the lock bonus as well. So scoring in loop 1 Ketsui gets ruined thanks to a glitch and I have no idea how well second loop scoring works cause I'm not good enough to get into either. Even the DDP scoring systems pretty much stay the same in loop 2 barring higher leniency in chain timings, though that doesn't apply to DFK.


Futari's score system is a lot better despite the horrible shot switching thing.

For Original you do want to use the correct shot type, you're also going to want to be up close cause you get more points if you collect the items quickly. There's also some emphasis on bullet canceling at times. Much crazier in Black Label too as you want to be point blanking even more and the rank is even higher. Black Label also changes the counter changes from every 500 which was way too low to a more reasonable every 3,000. There's also a few exceptions to the shottype rules like wanting to finish the stage 3 boss and stage 4 midboss with normal shot regardless of the color(though I don't do that on Stage 3 boss cause I don't want to risk dying).

Maniac is a chaining system as well. You chain smaller enemies then kill larger ones while the bar is maxed to get more items to increase multiplier quickly then cash in on bullet cancels. I think it works better in Black Label though since it's easier to take advantage of the scoring system and the multiplier transfering between stages, but in Black Label it gets outdone by God Mode.

Ultra's similar to the Original score system except the color change is every 2,000. However, due to the ridiculous extreme bullet density, it's more about cancels and a little less about the correct shot and point blanking thing(though you should do that if it doesn't mess up survival). Black Label of course changed it to be a lot more manageable in its God Mode and switched the scoring system to the Maniac one(though up to x30,000) which I think works better as well.

[Obscura]

For Original you do want to use the correct shot type,

The problem is, "correct" shot type is based on the color of a stupid fucking counter, rather than on what you're shooting. It's an unbelievably artificial gimmick, and the slower shot-switches in BL make it feel even worse (crawling all over the screen at 1mph holding laser because the counter is blue = NO THANK YOU).

Maniac is a chaining system as well. You chain smaller enemies then kill larger ones while the bar is maxed to get more items to increase multiplier quickly then cash in on bullet cancels. I think it works better in Black Label though since it's easier to take advantage of the scoring system and the multiplier transfering between stages, but in Black Label it gets outdone by God Mode.

The problem is, you hold the bar up on large enemies by using shot, not laser. Use laser on a large enemy (that is, IF YOU MAKE THE HORRIBLE MISTAKE OF USING THE SHOT TYPE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AGAINST LARGE ENEMIES ON LARGE ENEMIES), and the bar empties almost instantly, leaving you with a forced cancel.

Sorry, but Futari's score systems fucking suck. I understand that they couldn't really come up with well integrated ones because of the "three difficulty modes/game" thing, but they'd have still been better off going with either a Mushihimesama Original style "shoot things, get points" system, or a Donpachi-style "super strict chains that don't last for more than about 100 hits at most, and usually only about 20-50" system.

[Squire Grooktook]

imo ddp and ketsui are just as arbitrary if not more so. There is "no reason besides a meter" to keep killing enemies rhythmically in ddp. Your main weapon far from "blows" in Ketsui at close range (the focus laser does not do more damage at close range, and the shot point blanking damage bonus is not that massive), so there's not much reason you couldn't just overlay some other scoring system in that game like chaining or whatever.

Most stage enemies in Mushi have little enough hp that the time it takes to kill them with shot vs laser isn't that big, not to mention you want to kill everything with point blanking ideally which makes the difference even smaller or even the same. For bosses you just use laser all the time and finish them off with shot if needed.

If you really hate "meta" scoring systems that much, I think the only thing that would be good is just medal chaining.

Hell, even Espgaluda, which is an awful game,

All dat bad wrong man. All dat wrong.

[Obscura]

imo ddp and ketsui are just as arbitrary if not more so. There is "no reason besides a meter" to keep killing enemies rhythmically in ddp. Your main weapon far from "blows" in Ketsui at close range (the focus laser does not do more damage at close range, and the shot point blanking damage bonus is not that massive), so there's not much reason you couldn't just overlay some other scoring system in that game like chaining or whatever.

Most stage enemies in Mushi have little enough hp that the time it takes to kill them with shot vs laser isn't that big, not to mention you want to kill everything with point blanking ideally which makes the difference even smaller or even the same. For bosses you just use laser all the time and finish them off with shot if needed.

If you really hate "meta" scoring systems that much, I think the only thing that would be good is just medal chaining.

There's no way that DDP is as arbitrary as Futari.

Imagine playing Futari original with a bit of duct tape covering the counter (and let's pretend for sake of argument that we're talking 1.5, or a modified BL that has the chime sound removed). Scoring the game at all would be damn near impossible, unless you have the game to such a robotic point that you know when the colors are going to change entirely by memory (oh, and this would also require a NMNB of the whole game, killing bosses on the exact same frame every time, always being exactly as precise in your "stop lasering for a sec to grab the amber", etc).

When was the last time you needed to watch the GP gauge to chain a Pachi game? Like, never?

Ketsui is a bit "meta", but it at least points you to the things that you need to do to survive (well, at least it does until you learn about empty lock). "Get close, use shot on zako, use laser on big enemies" -- am I describing scoreplay or survivalplay here? Obviously, even without empty lock score and survival routes won't be the same, but scoreplay is based on the kinds of things you should be doing anyways.

(And there's more kinds of "non-artificial" scoring than just medal chaining. Psikyo-style "coin flash" systems, Raiden DX's radar dishes, Dragon Baze's "dragonshot stuff -> get coins", whatever you'd call Border Down's system... none of those score systems involve anything that isn't the actual moment-to-moment in-game action.)

EDIT: Espgaluda really is an awful game, though. It seems like a conscious attempt to make a shmup that isn't fun by adding a mechanic with the sole express purpose of removing excitement from the game.

DOUBLE EDIT: Oh, btw, the laser does do more damage at close range in Ketsui; the tickle laser itself does some damage apart from the lock-ons, but its range doesn't extend the whole length of the laser sprite, and its range gets shorter with each lock. Plus, lock time is reduced with closer distance (meaning more damage in practice), and Panzer Jager has to get pretty close to get the 4th lock at all.

[Squire Grooktook]

Imagine playing Futari original with a bit of duct tape covering the counter

The numbers next to your ship when you absorb amber change color from green to blue along with the counter, so this would be totally doable.

Using laser vs big enemies and shot vs popcorn isn't what makes ddp arbitrary. It's the timing of the chain counter. There's no reason to keep chaining enemies other than the designers decided to add a "meta" element to the game that increases your score if you follow it. Same with Ketsui. Point blanking is powerful, but not a great deal moreso than ddp or any other shmup, and the difference isn't huge enough to justify most of the things you do in score play. To an extent, most of the level design would be more fitted to pure macro dodging in my experience, but scoring forces you to do a lot of unneeded micro. It's a totally arbitrary system that just happens to be really fun. Same as Futari.

EDIT: Espgaluda really is an awful game, though. It seems like a conscious attempt to make a shmup that isn't fun by adding a mechanic with the sole express purpose of removing excitement from the game.

Except for the part where the patterns are still challenging and exciting even when slowed down, and you only get to use slowdown for a few seconds at a time.

Galuda II is great.