What's your favorite weapons and upgrade system?

[Sheado]

Hi All,

I'm currently working on an indie twin-stick shmup and it's to time for me and my team to decide on a weapons and upgrade system. I scoured the forum, my personal game library, online articles, and YouTube to make a list of weapon systems in shmups. By weapon system I'm referring to how a weapon is acquired, upgraded, selected, and what happens when your player characters dies and continues. Please take a look at the poll and vote on your favorite weapons system. I can only list a few items in the poll, so if a system is not listed there, please choose Other.

To keep the poll simple, I left out some important concerns, including the following:

• Upon death - should the player loose their upgrade?
  Accidental weapon pickup - should accidental weapon pickups be prevented? (for example, perhaps your previous weapon would pop out of your ship so you can re-acquire it)

Please share your opinion on these topics as well.

Thanks!
P.S. I'm posting here instead of the dev section because I'd love to hear the opinions of non-developers.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

P.S. I'm posting here instead of the dev section because I'd love to hear the opinions of non-developers.

Non-developers also read the dev section.

Ikaruga isn't a game I think of when I think of shmups with only one weapon throughout the game. Shot type switching is crucial for dealing with enemies, and requires a lot more thought and attention where to use than the Shot/Laser style found in DoDonpachi (use shot for movement speed, laser to focus damage and movement speed on bosses/large enemies). ChoRenSha is also a good example of a single shot type game

Upon death - should the player loose their upgrade?

This depends, is the player screwed by the lack of upgrades? In certain older shmups, like Raiga Strato Fighter, there's a world of difference between max power and minimum power, and losing all of that to one mistake is absolutely jarring. Gradius V is a more modern and better balanced take - you lose a ton of abilities due to the loss of missiles and lasers, but you can recover your Multiples which prevent you from being completely nerfed in firepower. And, compared to older games in the series, the hitbox is tiny, meaning even if you miss all of them it's a lot easier to recover from a death (lots of enemies drop powerups).

Usually more modern games have minimal power loss on death, so that even if you do lose a level of power, it's not a major loss of actual damage. DoDonpachi and Espgaluda do this - you lose some of your offensive power, but it basically amounts to less shot width. Your shots don't lose much actual damage potential.

Dodging bouncing powerups is something that can be very annoying, especially if those powerups are bad. If you have powerups a player could potentially run into by accident, usually best to make their trajectories easy to avoid (straight line, or bounces but can't go to the bottom of the screen, etc). It really depends on how enemies are positioned and how the game is designed on how it'll feel.

I personally like games with lots of selectable shot types that don't require you to mess around with switching them mid-game. Ones that all feel usable and reasonable to clear the game with. Armed Police Batrider is a good example of a lot of freakin' shot types (some are better than others, but they're all quite playable). Or, games with a lot of powerup levels so you eventually fire a whole bunch of different bullets at once (Score Rush, Rapid Hero).

Weapon shop. Buy your weapons in a shop between levels with money earned from killing enemies.

This can be fun or it can be horribly balanced. Tyrian 2000 is amusing on its easier modes like Normal, but on the really crazy hard ones (generally the secret difficulties), your minimum power weapon is too weak to be useful. Shops have the potential of causing the player to not be able to purchase weapons necessary to progress if they can't afford the funds.

One way of working around this is to have the main guns be reasonably effective and tied to in-game powerups, whereas the shop allows you to buy consumable, expendable attacks. Something kinda like Area 88 where you can stock up on a lot of single-use special attacks.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Trouble Witches also has the "buy single-use attack" thing going on.


For multiple-weapon games, I prefer having at least most of the weapons all the time, like RSG, Eliminate Down, AsteBreed, etc over having to collect pick-ups and hope that it's the right weapon for what's coming up. Mostly it's because I just like having buttons to push and the option to do some silly free-styling, but also it's because most of the games I've played or know of with the pick-up system have iffy weapon balance, which makes most of the pick-ups feel more like noob traps than anything (so yes, I approve of a system where the previous weapon pops out in case of accidental pick up).

Gates of Thunder is kinda in between. There's three weapons to switch between, and pick-ups power up that weapon (and if that weapon's maxed the pick-up activates a screen nuke). If you get hit, you lose one level of whatever weapon you were using, or lose the weapon entirely if it was minimum level. The system works pretty well, but really losing your Options hurts more than losing your weapons, since the Options are needed to shoot behind you.

Extra mention goes to building up a power meter for a super mode like Crimson Clover, ESPGaluda, Deathsmiles, or Akai Katana to that list. God I love Break Mode.


I wonder how many people here like special joystick commands...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I wonder how many people here like special joystick commands...

I can't think of a single shmup that has done this well. Namely, the only one I've played that has this is Tyrian 2000, and the abilities you can activate are either nearly useless, or they're too easy to trigger and drain your shields by a ridiculous amount (one ship would drain your entire shield bar for a tiny armor refill, by holding shot and moving left then right, way too easy to accidentally activate).

It could work if you had a special button just for inputting those commands or if activating them accidentally didn't pose a hindrance.

[LordHypnos]

I selected "only one weapon," but actually I think I prefer the "Radiant Silvergun" style on reflection. Preferably not quite that many weapons, though. Also make sure that your stages are designed around the weapons, if you have multiple, so you don't just end up not using some of them.

Otherwise, I definitely prefer either no powerups at all (e.g. Xevious, Vulgus), power ups that stay after a death (e.g. Mars Matrix, Batsugun), powerups that don't make that big of a difference (e.g. Do Don Pachi), or are recoverable shortly after death (e.g. Gunbird 2, or maybe Do Don Pachi, also, I can't remember). I think other systems usually lead to chain deaths, which are really annoying.

Additionally, and probably even more importantly, I'd recommend against Twin Cobra / Raiden style weapon switching. I say this because I've been playing Omega Fighter a lot recently, and it's a really enjoyable game, for the most part, but the default wide shot is too weak once you get past the first stage, and in fact in a lot of places you're pretty much screwed unless you have a several-times-powered-up ion shot. Pretty much every good run I've done of the game, so far, has ended with chain deaths either because I accidentally grabbed a wide shot icon, and couldn't get an ion shot icon before running into enemies with a lot of health, or died and respawned with wide shot (because it's default), and the same thing happened.

As an additional annoyance, as you power up the ion shot it does more damage, but also gets shorter, and the only way to power it down is by grabbing a wide shot icon, and then grabbing another ion shot icon (because you never want to be stuck with wide shot for very long). Some parts are quite difficult if you have an overpowered ion shot because you need to get pretty close to enemies to kill them (incedentally this is better for score, but can be very dangerous). Omega Fighter is truly a power-up dodging game of the highest calibur

So, in conclusion: don't do that! Also don't do speed up power ups

[Herr Schatten]

I wonder how many people here like special joystick commands...

I can't think of a single shmup that has done this well.

Cotton 2 does it quite nicely, but even then, having the specials mapped to buttons in Cotton Boomerang is very welcome. Maybe BulletMagnet can elaborate, he knows a lot more about the series than me.

[juonryu2nd]

I like the SUGURI system of unlocking weapons either by performance or play count. No confusion due a sudden mid-stage weapon pickup and it also feels satisfying if earned by performance. It also kind of reminds me of Mega Man since half the weapons are based on enemy attacks.
QP Shu Dangerous is also pretty interesting with the very unusual shot patterns with different speeds and score bonuses. I'm not very fond of the shop system though.

[Shepardus]

I wonder how many people here like special joystick commands...

I can't think of a single shmup that has done this well. Namely, the only one I've played that has this is Tyrian 2000, and the abilities you can activate are either nearly useless, or they're too easy to trigger and drain your shields by a ridiculous amount (one ship would drain your entire shield bar for a tiny armor refill, by holding shot and moving left then right, way too easy to accidentally activate).

It could work if you had a special button just for inputting those commands or if activating them accidentally didn't pose a hindrance.

∀kashicverse -Malicious Wake- does it pretty well despite the occasional frustration from repeatedly misentering input sequences (which I think is inevitable with such a control scheme). It has, as you said, a special button you have to hold while entering commands.

[Sheado]

Thank you all for the awesome responses! It took me a while to absorb it all - had to go back to YouTube and watch more gameplay videos of the ones I didn't recognize.

Non-developers also read the dev section.

Noted.

Ikaruga isn't a game I think of when I think of shmups with only one weapon throughout the game.

Didn't mean to over simplify Ikaruga. I agree, the color switch mechanic adds a significant amount of depth. Reminds of this analysis of the game: Depth & Complexity

This depends, is the player screwed by the lack of upgrades? In certain older shmups, like Raiga Strato Fighter, there's a world of difference between max power and minimum power, and losing all of that to one mistake is absolutely jarring.

Thanks for elaborating on this. This seems to be a common sentiment on the forum.

re: weapon shops - This can be fun or it can be horribly balanced.

I agree. When done right it can be awesome, but it easily go so wrong. Not to mention the question about how the currency should be acquired.

Gates of Thunder is kinda in between

Thanks for mentioning this game. Hadn't heard of it. That's a really interesting approach. My only concern is if people would feel overwhelmed by having too many weapon choices (I don't think I would be though).

I wonder how many people here like special joystick commands...

Maybe if somebody figured how to make Street Fighter into a shmup, then I'd like this =]

I selected "only one weapon," but actually I think I prefer the "Radiant Silvergun" style on reflection. Preferably not quite that many weapons, though.

Thanks for the feedback LordHypnos. I also wonder if having too many weapon choices would be too cumbersome.

Omega Fighter is truly a power-up dodging game of the highest calibur

Haha.. I can sense the frustration =] Ok, so one thing I'm definitely taking away from this, is that power-up dodging really sucks.

I like the SUGURI system of unlocking weapons either by performance or play count.

Interesting. Haven't played that one either. That's almost swaying in the direction of an RPG. I'll have to look into this more.


Thanks everybody!
To latercomers on this thread, please vote and share your opinion - there is no end date on the poll.

[Shepardus]

By the way, doesn't Ikaruga technically have two weapons, including the one you charge by eating bullets?

[Kollision]

One reason why I always disliked Ikaruga is the absence of power-ups and other weapons.

Thunder Force-esque games are pure win. Select your weapon on the fly.
It's okay to lose a weapon if I die, but oh dear game give it back to me in the next level.

[Kollision]

Sheado, I recommend taking a serious look at how radiangames designs their twin stick shmups. All of them, no exception.
In my opinion they're really awesome and serve as a perfect inspirational template to build upon.

[mehguy]

Weapon pickups float around. Touch one and it changes your weapon if you don't have it already. Otherwise, it upgrades it. Kind of like R-Type.

Oddly enough, I'm the only one who voted for that one.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^ I prefer the "weapons float around but don't upgrade" because uprading by picking the same ones up encourages you to stay with the same weapon for absurdly long amounts of time (which kind of goes against the whole point of having multiple weapon pick ups).

[Biggu Bossu]

I'm not a fan of multiple weapons, because most of the time there's really one sensible option and I tend to stick with it. I dislike the idea of weapon pickups for the same reason, as they just become one more thing to avoid. Not saying that creating a good set of weapons that complement each other is impossible, only that having multiple weapons just for the sake of giving many options doesn't work well. If you gotta have'em, making all weapons permanantly available is a good way to go, I believe. It just feels weird in general to have to "acquire" weapons in the middle of the game. Why didn't they equip this ship with everything it needed from the start?

I love Thunder Force 4. To me, it's the closest a shooting game has come to a great narrative. The weapons, though, feel unbalanced. You got all these unwieldly shots that are rarely of any use (i.e. snake and free-way). And then you have a homing weapon that, combined with a two-hit shield, has the ability to carry you through most of the game unscathed. The game plays very differently if you decide to only rely on your forward/backward shots plus the charging attack (which has an excellent buildup, man).

I like how Mars Matrix does weapons AND powering up. You have to get exp points, which requires you to destroy and collect stuff to keep your combo gauge going for as long as possible, and for that you have to use distinct weapons/abilities in a variety of creative ways. I find Mars Matrix superplays to be exceptionally fun to watch, for that reason. You upgrade your weapon by playing well, essentially. I love this because scoring becomes even more important that way. You score well, you get stronger.

Again, picking up power-ups doesn't feel right. If they make a big difference, one mistake means you'll be left completely defenseless. If they don't make that big of a difference, they feel pointless. Cave games do this a lot, you die, you lose a bit of firepower, then collect some more power-ups in no time. I feel power-ups are reduced to just "things that you can collect" in that case.

I don't like the idea of shopping for upgrades. It feels tacked-on and tacky, like an artificial way of extending content. I see the appeal, though. Raptor Call of the Shadows is a nice distraction, for example, and going through shopping items and their descriptions does feel fun. But it's a distraction that ends quickly. There are things that I can buy, but most of them are unnecessary. If you manage to reduce your items to a nice, useful set, why make them purchasable? If they're as essential as your regular shot, why not just have them be tools to be mastered, available at all times, instead of diluting the game with the additional barrier of purchase?

I hope you find these useful, I wish you and your team the best with your game!

[Jeneki]

I like how Mars Matrix does weapons AND powering up. You have to get exp points, which requires you to destroy and collect stuff to keep your combo gauge going for as long as possible, and for that you have to use distinct weapons/abilities in a variety of creative ways. I find Mars Matrix superplays to be exceptionally fun to watch, for that reason. You upgrade your weapon by playing well, essentially. I love this because scoring becomes even more important that way. You score well, you get stronger.

Mars Matrix is an especially cool example. The better you play, the faster you level up, the more you realize the most used weapon doesn't require any levels anyway. Such an intriguing design.

[Stevens]

I tend to like games with three of less weapons. It doesn't matter if you always have them or their pick ups, I tend to get overwhelmed if there are more choices than that. It's one of the things I love about Under Defeat, Zero Gunner 2, and Mars Matrix.

I'm terrible at it, but Border Down is like that too. I like that you have all your shit at the outset.

[Shepardus]

Again, picking up power-ups doesn't feel right. If they make a big difference, one mistake means you'll be left completely defenseless. If they don't make that big of a difference, they feel pointless. Cave games do this a lot, you die, you lose a bit of firepower, then collect some more power-ups in no time. I feel power-ups are reduced to just "things that you can collect" in that case.

Agree with you about Cave games powerups, I feel like most of the time they're just there to give a sense of progression in the player's power rather than to serve any important gameplay mechanic. I think they realized that too since none of their games from Deathsmiles onwards has powerup items.

I like the way Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider handle it, in that there's enough powerup drops that missing one won't screw you over in most cases and it's easy to reach max power, but the rank system means there's good reason not to go grabbing every powerup you see. So any single mistake is unlikely to have a huge impact, but consistent mistakes and bad planning over a longer timeframe will hurt. Balancing a system like this, however, is probably more trouble than it's worth unless you're already planning on including a detailed rank system.

[Sheado]

I love this forum! So much great feedback. I think you all can probably get a PhD in shmup history and design! Makes me wonder if there is such a program at some game design university..

By the way, doesn't Ikaruga technically have two weapons, including the one you charge by eating bullets?

Touché - just wanted to use Ikaruga as a point of reference for minimal weapon games.

One reason why I always disliked Ikaruga is the absence of power-ups and other weapons.

Thunder Force-esque games are pure win. Select your weapon on the fly.

I loved Ikaruga, but I did secretly wish for another weapon from time to time =] Also thanks for the Thunder Force and RadianGames references.

Oddly enough, I'm the only one who voted for that one.

I always liked pickup-is-the-weapon-select approach, but I have to admit I always got really frustrated when I accidentally got a weapon I didn't want.

uprading by picking the same ones up encourages you to stay with the same weapon for absurdly long amounts of time

Well said. I never thought of it this way before. It's an excellent argument for weapon pickups not upgrading.

picking up power-ups doesn't feel right. If they make a big difference, one mistake means you'll be left completely defenseless. If they don't make that big of a difference, they feel pointless.

Good point Biggu Bossu and thanks for the positive vibes. You make a good point - we have to be careful not to accidentally design power-ups to feel pointless. Thanks for the Mars Matrix and Thunder Force references too.


We're at 29 votes now and although the votes are spread out a bit, there's definite consensus that losing powerful powerups is frustrating if you can't get them back easily. One item that isn't in the poll, but has been mentioned a few times is experience-based powerups (e.g. Mars Matrix).

Latercomers to this post, please feel free to vote and comment - there's no end date on the poll

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Agree with you about Cave games powerups, I feel like most of the time they're just there to give a sense of progression in the player's power rather than to serve any important gameplay mechanic. I think they realized that too since none of their games from Deathsmiles onwards has powerup items.

That's basically it. It makes it interesting to develop a shot from a very thin attack to one that covers a massive portion of the screen by the end of the game. It's not necessary though, and plenty of good games have one fixed shot with no powerups.

had to go back to YouTube and watch more gameplay videos of the ones I didn't recognize.

No, see, don't do this. A lot of the ones being mentioned are emulated in MAME - fire them up and play them to see what we're talking about. See how Omega Fighter's weapon system forces you to dodge wideshot items, see how the powerups work in Espgaluda. If a lot of this is unfamiliar to you, play the games. Hands-on is really the best way to understand why something works in one game and not another.

I always liked pickup-is-the-weapon-select approach, but I have to admit I always got really frustrated when I accidentally got a weapon I didn't want.

This is really infuriating in a game where switching weapons can only be done with powerups that are very spread out. Mushihimesama has 3 shot types and 2 option types. While the shot powerups are generally useful and easy to pickup as they start out as the same one you currently have, the option powerups always alternate between types. The problem is, 99% of the people playing will prefer Formation over Trace, which makes it annoying to pick up Trace by accident. Thankfully, because the powerups are spread out much more than say Gradius or Salamander, it's easier to learn to control it. Dodging bullets is fun. Dodging powerups while dodging bullets: not so much.

Well said. I never thought of it this way before. It's an excellent argument for weapon pickups not upgrading.

If you have an XBox 360, I strongly suggest picking up a copy of Strania. Great game, and it is the king of promoting weapon switching. Scoring is based heavily around using each weapon until you gain experience to 'Master' it, which awards more points at each level, but weapons can be maxed fairly quickly, meaning if you Master a weapon and hang on to it for ages, you're wasting points when you could switch to new weapons. Upgrades are limited only to an extra power level for the Blue Weapons if you pick up one you already have (Red Weapons in the DLC).

[endoKarb]

In CAVE games though, the main shot doesn't scale the same way for every character.
For example in Galuda 2, Asagi's shot starts very weak, but by the end of the game it becomes insanely powerful.
So it actually adds something to the game.

Sucks they removed that from SDOJ, makes the game feel even more flat and samey.

[LordHypnos]

I like how Mars Matrix does weapons AND powering up. You have to get exp points, which requires you to destroy and collect stuff to keep your combo gauge going for as long as possible, and for that you have to use distinct weapons/abilities in a variety of creative ways. I find Mars Matrix superplays to be exceptionally fun to watch, for that reason. You upgrade your weapon by playing well, essentially. I love this because scoring becomes even more important that way. You score well, you get stronger.

Mars Matrix is an especially cool example. The better you play, the faster you level up, the more you realize the most used weapon doesn't require any levels anyway. Such an intriguing design.

Yeah, as the resident Mars Matrix Superfan #1, I definitely agree that it has an amazing weapon system through and through (especially considering it only uses one button for all of it if you're not using autofire). Like Radiant Silvergun, your weapon power is based around how well you can score (actually technically your multiplier, and not your score proper). This might seem like it would make the game unpleasant for anyone who doesn't want to play for score, and it probably does to an extent, but as Jeneki mentioned, you can fall back on the piercing cannon, which is always the same power. Additionally, in my experience playing the game, you're going to be fine as long as you make it to level 5 shot (with the blue ship, I haven't really played with the red ship), and anyone can do that by the end of the 3rd stage, and probably even by the end of the second stage. I'm always there by the end of the first stage, but you do have to learn to chain the first stage to do that.

It manages to strike a good balance with the weapon powering where it still encourages you to score, and rewards you for scoring, but doesn't actually force you to score. I imagine that this is an incredibly hard balance to strike, however, so that's something that you should consider. In fact, Radiant Silvergun is often beraded for forcing you to engage with the highly proscriptive scoring system in order to get your weapons to a reasonable power level to even tackle the game (I couldn't say how true this is, as I've never played it). As far as experience systems go, Batsugun would probably be the more fool-proof plan, where (IIRC) you power up your shot with power up items that show up regularly, such that pretty much everyone will be at the same level of power in any given place in the game, allowing you to design sections around a specific power level.

A few people have mentioned MM's single button control scheme, which is also pretty interesting. FYI, you fire the normal shot by tapping the button relatively fast (though you get more shot per button press than something oldschool like Vulgus), a slower tap fires the Piercing Cannon, wheras holding down the button activates a fairly complicated reflect mechanic where you suck up bullets such that they surround your ship. They will also move to the side of your ship in the opposite direction from your movement, and releasing the button will spray the bullets away from you (In this way you can direct the reflected bullets in whatever direction you want. Both the 1 button control scheme, and the relatively complex reflect mechanic tend to be a kind of "love it or hate it" type thing, but once you start to get the feel for it it really does become very intuitive, and ties in to scoring in an awesome way.

Also, on the topic of Mars Matrix Piercing Cannon (and the frequently mentioned Thunder Force IV), passively charging weapons are awesome. TFIV has the Thunder Sword (or something like that). For the Piercing Cannon, the charge speed is super fast, so it kind of feels like a shot type rather than a charge attack, while I think the Thunder Sword takes a bit longer to charge. Other examples of this include the bomb in Summer Carnival '92 Recca, which I really do find to be the coolest part of the game (Another good example of powerup dodging, btw, since you're kind of fucked without the seeker subweapon, and there're way too many weapons in general). It's a shame that there's nothing that works exactly like that in later Yagawa games (Unless there is, in which case please tell me!). I think the original passively charging weapon was the charge shot in Namco's Dragon Spirits, btw, though I could be mistaken.

BTW, if you want to look at some Mars Matrix footage, I have some of the Dreamcast version uploaded on the Youtubes, and the Dailymotions YT one has annotations (though they're directed at people who already understand the game mechanics pretty well, I'd say), while the DM one is higher video quality and all in one video instead of six. [/shameless plug] There're a lot of better videos than mine out there from a skill and video quality perspective though

As a final note, doesn't Ikaruga sort of have 3 weapons? You've got the normal shot (hold A), the homing missiles that are charged by absorbing bullets (C..?), and the narrow powerful shot (tap A), which is good for killing rows of like colored enemies. Am I remembering that correctly?

I'd also recommend checking out some of these games in MAME / Kega Fusion (TF IV) / fceux (Recca), btw. Experiencing things is big, though to a certain extend it might be hard for you to see something like the wide shot dodging in Omega Fighter, if you have trouble making it to the 3rd stage (because most of 1 and 2 can be done with either weapon), or even just if you don't spend a lot of time trying to find routes in the game (because you'll have other problems). And similar problems might come up with other games. However, the best way to learn about shmup design is probably actually playing the games.

Srry, if you weren't really looking to discuss weapons systems generally, rather than powerup discussion, specifically, btw I know that was a lot of text, but it seemed at least sort of relevant.

[KAI]

Ibara's multi-weapon system rulz, and the Option Complete bonus in Kuro and the Arrange mode is the most original scoring shit ever.
Do something like that if you want to be awesome.

[Shepardus]

I just thought I'd also mention the weapon system used in ring^-27. In the game you have a basic normal shot and a button that creates a link between you and an enemy (the exact system of how the link is created depends on the game mode, for example in Anchor mode it shoots a projectile forward that anchors to the first target hit) that lasts until you either kill the enemy or cancel the link manually. While you're linked your weapon is replaced with a different weapon that depends on the enemy you're anchored to, and the weapon you get is usually similar to the enemy's weapon. For example, there are these big laser-shooting enemies in the third stage that give you a big rotatable laser when you link to them. In Fixed mode, instead of the weapon only lasting until the enemy is killed you actually get to keep the weapon until you replace it with a different one. I think it's a neat way to include a large variety of weapons without turning the game into a powerup-dodger.

Also, on the topic of Mars Matrix Piercing Cannon (and the frequently mentioned Thunder Force IV), passively charging weapons are awesome. TFIV has the Thunder Sword (or something like that). For the Piercing Cannon, the charge speed is super fast, so it kind of feels like a shot type rather than a charge attack, while I think the Thunder Sword takes a bit longer to charge. Other examples of this include the bomb in Summer Carnival '92 Recca, which I really do find to be the coolest part of the game (Another good example of powerup dodging, btw, since you're kind of fucked without the seeker subweapon, and there're way too many weapons in general). It's a shame that there's nothing that works exactly like that in later Yagawa games (Unless there is, in which case please tell me!). I think the original passively charging weapon was the charge shot in Namco's Dragon Spirits, btw, though I could be mistaken.

Pink Sweets has a charge-up bomb system very similar to Recca's FYI.

Armed Police Batrider has a different passive charging system, where not firing for a while creates this small damage aura in front of your ship that's treated as the same type of damage as a bomb for scoring purposes. Then when you press fire you temporarily get max firepower and your options lock in place, which is pretty cool especially when paired with the Garegga ships' option formations. The only problem I have with it is that firing the charged attack forces you to continuously fire for several seconds, which can be a real nuisance when you're trying to limit your damage output (you have to repeatedly cancel the charge by firing a bit). Battle Bakraid has a similar passive charging system.

As a final note, doesn't Ikaruga sort of have 3 weapons? You've got the normal shot (hold A), the homing missiles that are charged by absorbing bullets (C..?), and the narrow powerful shot (tap A), which is good for killing rows of like colored enemies. Am I remembering that correctly?

All this time and I had no idea... yes, you're correct.

Ibara's multi-weapon system rulz, and the Option Complete bonus in Kuro and the Arrange mode is the most original scoring shit ever.
Do something like that if you want to be awesome.

Ibara's options system is pretty cool, but I find it kind of a pain to control which options you're replacing (if I'm not mistaken it depends on the side of your ship you touch the option powerup with). What's the Option Complete bonus? (Kuro/Arrange systems are pretty much a complete mystery to me)

[Chaos]

uprading by picking the same ones up encourages you to stay with the same weapon for absurdly long amounts of time

Well said. I never thought of it this way before. It's an excellent argument for weapon pickups not upgrading.

Some games solve this issue by mixing the upgrade and swapping weapons systems.

In R-type Leo for example, you can either pick up the same color item as the one you have active to upgrade it or collect a different color to swap to a different one at the same power level as the first. This allows players to swap weapons when they want to without being crippled by low power. In addition, having a low max level for each color prevents the player from needing to stick with one weapon to fully upgrade it.

On a slightly different topic, one way to solve the problem of powerup dodging is to include a button that prevents the current weapon from switching. This button could either be held to prevent weapon switching or pressed to toggle between accepting new weapons or not.

[ciox]

Armed Police Batrider has a different passive charging system, where not firing for a while creates this small damage aura in front of your ship that's treated as the same type of damage as a bomb for scoring purposes. Then when you press fire you temporarily get max firepower and your options lock in place, which is pretty cool especially when paired with the Garegga ships' option formations. The only problem I have with it is that firing the charged attack forces you to continuously fire for several seconds, which can be a real nuisance when you're trying to limit your damage output (you have to repeatedly cancel the charge by firing a bit). Battle Bakraid has a similar passive charging system.

If you hold start and press fire you can cancel the aura without doing a charge attack, but this only works in Batrider.

Also regarding Ikaruga, even the polarity lets you do stuff like select how many enemies you want to destroy at once to help with chains, since shooting something with the opposite polarity does more damage the homing lasers take this into account and lock on to more enemies to not waste firepower on dead ones, not to mention how one polarity spawns suicide bullets and the other not in Medium, it's like having two weapons in one at times, really I think only very old school games would fit a "just 1 weapon" category.

Voted all weapons at the same time, I like weapon pickups too but those usually come with a whole shmup design philosophy so it's not very accurate to say you like it as a weapon system alone.

[mehguy]

I'm not a fan of multiple weapons, because most of the time there's really one sensible option and I tend to stick with it.

There's always "THAT" weapon that nobody wants.

[BIL]

All weapons all the time. So I can hit em from the front, the back and even up they crack. Global powerup item plz. Also design the MFN game around said weapons, that goes without saying.

Thunder Force IV, if it didn't have weapon collecting, would be close to my ideal.

[S_Fang]

I voted for only one weapon with pickups, because most games have the annoying habit to switch the pickup without a clear timer and you switch to a weapon that you are not used to it. Is even worse when all the upgrades got cancelled when you switch over, putting you in a nasty situation.
The only games that make those right are Mushihimesama with the timer on the pickup, and Fire Barrel for the untouched upgrade.

I'd voted for all weapons like in Radiant Silvergun: I didn't played that much on MAME, but the system reminded me of Megaman X and Zero's games with their button for a secondary weapon, which is very handy if you do not want to pause the game everytime.

[LordHypnos]

I like the SUGURI system of unlocking weapons either by performance or play count. No confusion due a sudden mid-stage weapon pickup and it also feels satisfying if earned by performance. It also kind of reminds me of Mega Man since half the weapons are based on enemy attacks.
QP Shu Dangerous is also pretty interesting with the very unusual shot patterns with different speeds and score bonuses. I'm not very fond of the shop system though.

Actually, I think that Elemental Master (Technosoft, Sega Genesis / Mega Drive) is kind of an example of this. In each of the first four stages you get a new weapon after defeating the boss. You get to choose the order of the stages as well, though most people just do them in order, because the 3 way shot (first stage) is very useful. Each of the weapons also has a charge shot (though not passively charging, unfortunately), though you don't unlock the default weapon charge shot until after the fourth stage or something. You also get a fairy that acts kind of like an option after whatever stage you play first (she is just controlled by AI, though, basically). I think she might get replaced by the default weapon charge shot once you get that. You can also always shoot forward or backward. There aren't any powerups, and you can't lose your weapons, I don't think, which is kind of nice.

Definitely an interesting weapons system.

EDIT:

@Shepardus: So, only Pink Sweets, huh? That's a shame as, from what I've heard, Pink Sweets is pretty broken. Probably a lot less fair than Recca
Does make me a little more interested in MMP/PS, though...