Viscerally satisfying moments in shmups

[LordHypnos]

One of the most enjoyable parts of any shmup is that visceral satisfaction that comes with mowing down swarms of enemy ships with large, loud explosions, and an adrenaline pumping soundtrack occasionally audible behind them.

There are some specific moments, recurring or isolated in our favorite games that are memorable for this reason, and keep us coming back. So how about sharing them? Could be useful to developers who want to figure out ways of making their own games more viscerally appealing, and if not, it'll still be fun to talk about!

To start things off, I'll say that this is one of the things that originally attracted me to Mars Matrix (big surprise, right ). The soundtrack is really intense,if not especially good--though it's grown on me--and the sfx are super loud. I especially like the piercing cannon for this reason. It's really powerful, loud, and a great animation (hard to explain in words why). Normal shot is also pretty good, mostly just because of how it gets visually more powerful as you power it up. It's very powerful looking at level 8, especially for the red ship. Also the spots where you get huge clusters of hundreds of rotating shiny gold cubes (In some areas they'll even induce a small amount of slowdown). Some of the death animations are also really sweet. For example, the 3rd stage boss flashes red as it's exploding, and I like how the final car of the 5th stage boss keeps following your ship as it's exploding (It's like it's still trying its hardest to kill you even though it's bullet-spamming machinery has been damaged beyond repair). Unfortunately I don't have a good video of that . Generally the explosions in this game are pretty good, and loud.

Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed how awesome the explosions in Under Defeat are? They're huge! Especially when you're using your bomb. Also the second stage boss. I love how the battleship explodes spectacularly, and then sinks into the water as it begins raining. Also just normal enemies death animations are pretty cool. lots of smoke and craters.

What are other people's faves?

[system11]

Raiden Fighter 2 train level immediately springs to mind, it's a pretty much perfect combination of audio and setting, the music fits with the noise of a train and it keeps lulling and ramping back up again.

[Pretas]

Some of the most visceral "score jackpot" moments in STGs are grinding the hell out of Deathsmiles' volcano rocks while powered up, rushing through Dogyuun's speed stage while picking up a ridiculous number of bonus items, triggering X-Medals in Raiden Fighters Jet, opening a Volcanon in Giga Wing 2, and getting a Technical Bonus in Strikers 1999/Dragon Blaze.

[Skykid]

We had this thread in a slightly different form before, but:

Espagluda II's epic stage 3 midboss timed perfectly to the music drop.

[BIL]

Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed how awesome the explosions in Under Defeat are? They're huge! Especially when you're using your bomb. Also the second stage boss. I love how the battleship explodes spectacularly, and then sinks into the water as it begins raining. Also just normal enemies death animations are pretty cool. lots of smoke and craters.

Hell the fuck yes. UD is made for this topic. The second boss in particular is an astonishingly gratifying sendoff - I especially like the sequencing of events. A violent initial blast, an uncertain pause, then that almighty camera-shaking *BAKOWWW* you can feel in your chest. Then former ocean pattering down as rain as the smoke clears, the radio crackles, and the flagship's remains silently disappear. Memorable.

Gradius V (assisted by G-Rev) isn't as brutally earthy by nature, but Blaster Cannon Core (st5) goes out in a cataclysm so immense it looks like it could vaporise your ship.

[Shepardus]

Double Break never gets old to me.

[Kollision]

Some of the bosses in Insector X MD are grotesquely impressive, in a totally satisfying way.
Too bad the game itself doesn't deliver.

[Dave_K.]

DFKBL Arange on an HD/LCD arcade cabinet with subwoofer cranking out shit like this.


(pic courtesy of emphatic)

[trap15]

Sitting still at the ending of Stage 6 in Strikers 1945 II to dodge all those spinning enemies's bullets

[BIL]

Two others on MD - Slap Fight's Typhoon Bomber is endlessly rewarding. Build up an absurdly huge screen-spanning warbird, blow it and everything else to hell in a sea of flames leaving only your tiny default ship alive, then do it again. The way the blast picks up and displaces bullets and items is a great touch.

The MD port of Kyuukyoku Tiger's bomb made a big impression on me as a kid. I still check back from time to time, and it still rocks. The porting team managed to get some savagely punchy explosion SFX out of the MD, and some pretty rad power chords too.

Metal Black and Darius Gaiden's sensory overload boss explosions are legend. The thrill of destruction, rendered so life-affirmingly.

[Strikers1945guy]

Futari stage 5 I believe the way the popcorn shoot down the screen at such a fast pace in Maniac makes my blood pump every time.

Second half of stage 3 in Ibara for that epic train level design. So much fun and can get intense with the rank cranked up.

[LordHypnos]

We had this thread in a slightly different form before

aww, sorry
I did do a forum search, but apparently not a good one.

[ACSeraph]

Metal Black and Darius Gaiden's sensory overload boss explosions are legend. The thrill of destruction, rendered so life-affirmingly.

Definitely these

Any boss fight in Darius on a body sonic cab.

Darius Burst G.T. is the most epic fight in all of shmupping imo, from the moment it enters the screen with that pounding music to its final explosion after such a long and intense fight.

Slowing the game down to a slow motion crawl while filling literally the entire screen with score items in Deathsmiles IIX is also extremely satisfying to me. It's almost specifically why I like the game.

Before fighting the Stage 2 boss in Eschatos you fly straight up this mayan Pyramid into the sky to break through earths atmosphere. It's fucking awesome and I always lean back in my office chair every time for that full disney world effect.

[Cata]

Ketsui

All of it

[ProjectAKo]

At 19:52 , it's such a simple thing but it feels good to strafe that huge row of planes and blow them all up in succession. You do it a few more times throughout the stage. This one has nothing to do with music because the stage music is meh, it's more about the sound effects probably. It just feels good to blow a bunch of stuff up while flowing into the stage and evading all the suicide bullets like that. https://youtu.be/3RF_vWJHy5E?t=1191

[mamboFoxtrot]

I'm probably about to list way too many examples, but...

Double Break never gets old to me.

Sinking 16 katanas into either a boss or a wall of enemies and bullets and getting that golden shower in Akai Katana. Also love the moment in Stage 4 when you transition from the water to the air, with the way the music is synched up.

The entirety of Hades' Castle in DeathSmiles. The giant versions of regular enemies, the regular-enemy versions of previous bosses, dropping chandeliers on enemies' heads, the music, and the really frantic and claustrophobic level design compared to the game's regular stages.

Throwing shit around in Cotton 2. Especially the first boss. I just love yoinking his axe/club/whatev and smashing it into his face.

Some of the Spell Cards in Trouble Witches, but especially the massive Fireball. (I always imagine Lina Inverse yelling "Fiyaaaaaa-bawl! ~<3" before using it)

Doing charge shots in R-Type. Especially the double-wave in R-Type 2/Super R-Type, and the explosive charge shot in Delta. The ship with the thunder attack in Delta is pretty fun, too. Just rapidly do light charges and suddenly you're a thunder god!

Rapidly lasering boss weakpoints in RayForce. Something about the rhythm of pressing the button and hearing the lock sound. The fact that doing this usually puts you uncomfortably close to the boss' weapons definitely adds to it.

Borderline example, but stage 3 of AsteBreed. Locking on to the battleships and all their missles, then doing the EX attack where you zoom around and take them all out with flashing x16s all over the screen is just fantastic. Even better when the ships explode afterwards!

Another borderline example, missile counter-attacks in Bangai-O. I have the HD version, so that shit goes up to 1000 gad damn missiles!

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Unleashing a Diffusion blast in Super R-Type is indeed a magical experience, especially considering the maddening timing to get it to sync up with some boss weakpoints.

I'm quite fond of the atmosphere, length, and pace of Futari original stage 4. Those big clusters of zakos shooting waterfalls of purple aimed bullets that you zip back and forth through are really satisfying with the more intense part of the music going. And then when the spider miniboss and celestial web background shows up just as the music hits it's most serene moment: gorgeous.

Any speed up section in a Gradius game.

Any time use use a Recca-inspired bomb on something. Bombing in Yagawa games in general really.

Darius Gaiden's magical/metaphysical boss explosion will always be my favorite. I also like the "diffusion" effect in some Treasure games where the boss's circular exposion shrinks into an infintesmial point as it jetisons particles. A similar effect is used nicely in Vacant Ark and Iwanaga.

[BulletMagnet]

I always liked when the music changes to "Evasion" in Radiant Silvergun (around 1:30 in this video) and the boss comes swooping in; I always got a real "oh snap, here they come, time to rock!" vibe from that transition, which lasts until the Penta shows up and things get dark again.

[LordHypnos]

Oh yeah, forgot about recca. The recca charge bomb and explosions (seizure inducing screen flashes in some places!) are pretty viscerally appealing. Can't say I got that vibe from Batrider or Bakraid bomb, but it's been a while.
Also, IDK that it's visceral exactly, but I love the music transition after the stage 1 midboss in recca 'splodes.

[Squire Grooktook]

Batrider bombs might not be visceral persay, but they sure do win points for style/colorfulness.

-The speed at which Bornam's bomb tears a hole in the fabric of space time and fills the screen with chaos is always amusing.

-Love letting the buzzsaw fly off from your ship on the Criminal team.

-Letting loose those napalm rockets (lifted from Gun Frontier) with Grasshopper is also very satisfying, especially if there's a lot of destructible scenery for it to sweep over.

-There is nothing more awesome than Miyamoto's bomb in any game he's in. Particularly love the versions where he pauses for a brief second to wind up before unleashing hell*.

-The classic Mahou bomb used by Gain received quite an upgrade in Dimahoo as well. Really feels more energetic and imposing, like you just lit off a miniature sun in the room. Karte's laser feels like it packs quite a punch.


Also awww shit, I forgot to mention two of my favorite things for this:

Biometal: I love how oversized many enemies are compared to how much hp they have. It's subtle, but there's a sense of empowerment in taking down a huge battleship with one little thin laser round.

Einhander: Absolute favorite game for moment to moment kick back. The way each and every non-zako enemy has multiple destructible parts, and reels back and reacts to every piece broken makes every battle and kill feel uniquely personal. Like your battling and killing real, intelligent entities bent on your destruction instead of automated attack drones. A lot of the weapons pack amazing punch too, particularly the Cannon and Riot. Even the spread gun feels dangerous with its immense speed, ironic considering its respective strength.


*Come to think of it, attacks that have a brief pause to wind up are quite awesome, especially in character based shmups. Another great example is the Laser in eXceed 2nd, especially when there's enough bullets on screen to go all Psyvariar and chain two or more lasers in a row. The blade attack in Strania is also cool like that, at least when you're not attacking something that can shoot back, ha ha.

[MrChiggins]

The technical bonuses in Dragon Blaze are really satisfying.

[Skykid]

CC Double Break is sex.

Another Espgaluda II: in Zesshikai when you're riding the wave and redirecting bullets and cap a swarm and the screen glitches out at the points overflow.

R-Shark's Double Helix laser

Ketsui boss explosions nuking the screen

The opening of Gradius V stage 3 being the stuff Japanese sci-fi dreams are made of

[ED-057]

Space Megaforce is packed full of stuff that is fun to blow up just for the hell of it.
Stage 1 has some sort of docked aircraft that blow up spectacularly
Stage 3/6/9 have huge fields of destructable blocks
Stage 4 has what appear to be destructable trails of flame running everywhere and one spot where popcorns spawn continuously
Stage 5 has destructable rocks
Stage 7 has more rocks, and some destructable walls
Stage 8 has destructable walls which create destructable flying debris when hit
Stage 10 has rapidly spawning popcorns and destructable blocks
Stage 12 has huge fields of destructable goo and swarms of biological enemies

Blazing Lazers has Stage 3, the exploding brains on Stage 4, and the bubble generators

Enemies in 超連射68K explode nicely

[Nick420]

Eschatos, the section where the yellow and purple spinning bread stick looking things are raining down on you and the following purple UFO boss fight I think has got to my favourite shmup moment for this thread title.
Also those sections like galaga do it for me as well
Eschatos wins as most viscerally satisfying shmup as a whole for me really.

I love when the stage 4 boss of ddp appears all flashing and shit and omg that background is just sex!

Under defeat is a great shout as well.

[gray117]

Ketsui and doj start of stage 4... Mowing down the popcorn types and the sountrack(s).

It's so similar a moment in both games - both made in quick succession i think - that I have to figure it was a by design pick you up kind of thing.

Plus for me if I reach that on a single credit it's a pretty good achievement... Though that's probably not exactly true for the more accomplished round here

[BIL]

Oh yeah, forgot about recca. The recca charge bomb and explosions (seizure inducing screen flashes in some places!) are pretty viscerally appealing.

I don't know if it was for hardware/software limitations or safety concerns, but the portable eShop version of Recca lacks the blistering 30hz screenflash - just not the same as the howling mad FC version, haha.

Favourite thing to do with the bomb: drop it on the second st2 snake midboss, birthing an epileptic framerate-buckling fury of BG distortion, strobe flicker and obscenely grainy SFX, the fucker going up in a necklace of sequential explosions with "HYDE" chomping relentlessly throughout. I've never played another (quality) shooter with quite that gleeful sense of hardware abuse. ^__^

[Stevens]

A few people have said Under defeat, but most games G.Rev has had a hand in has amazing explosions. Ikaruga, Border Down, and Strania come to mind.

Especially Strania - they had gotten really good at explosions by the time it came out.

I adore two things about stage 5:

The opening. As the Allied Forces begin to invade (I'm pretty sure it is supposed to be Berlin) it begins with a sad song and no sound effects. You know that even if you are successful the war is all but lost..

The stage 5 bosses final attack. After the initial shot and symmetrical rows of bullets - as the smoke begins to clear (if you're lucky) the screen gets dark and begins to shake violently. Debris gets kicked up (poor Berlin) and it becomes difficult to see as the screen fills with a mess of unsymmetrical bullets. I call it the chaos wave:D

Great thread!

[Perikles]

Biometal: I love how oversized many enemies are compared to how much hp they have. It's subtle, but there's a sense of empowerment in taking down a huge battleship with one little thin laser round.

That's also a favorite of mine, the explosions in this game feel very "megadrivey", you don't see those fountains of sparkling fire in SFC games too often. Staff Roll gives me shivers every time, too.


A few other ones that haven't been mentioned so far:

The final stage in Axelay masterfully builds up tension.

Battle Mania Daiginjou's screen wiping bomb is incredibly delightful.

Crying has a sublimely creepy atmosphere without peers in my opinion (thanks to that magnificent soundtrack).

Elemental Master's charged laser beam of doom makes me squeal with glee.

Eliminate Down has some of the best explosions ever!

Final Blaster's final stage is just as creepy as Crying, very underappreciated game.

I adore SFC Gradius III's Uncharted Territory. Such an amazing tune.

Killing a dangerous boss in Granada (of which there are many) feels great since those foes are extremely aggressive. So satisfying to see that blast hit a boss while you're being pushed out of harm's way due to the recoil and killing the boss in the process.

Kiki Kaikai: Nazo no Kuro Manto, airship stage. Great music, great use of the scrolling, great game.

Kidou Soukou Dion's final boss vanquishes in a true inferno, only to come back and chase you. Some of the other bosses are fairly impressive, as well.

Override's charge shot is just grand.

I really like Violent Soldier's sound effects, lots of PCE games unfortunately have sound effects that are way too loud compared to the actual BGM, it's not only balanced here, but also very enjoyable. Love how bosses die in an orchestra of crackling sounds.

Uchuu no Kishi: Tekkaman Blade's fighting game bosses are my personal guilty pleasure. The game is so terrible that even your opponents struggle with the god-awful controls.

Undeadline on the Crazy difficulty - so many enemies, so much going on!

I actually get excited by the announcer in Vapor Trail when he informs me to "Go for the kill!" in his glorious muffled voice.

[LordHypnos]

I was thinking of some others from Mars Matrix, and stage 6 is a pretty good one for this. You have vast quantities of (relatively large) popcorn enemies to mow down here, which adds to making your shot feel powerful. Even more so is probably the bullet spamming circular ground based enemies (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...); they can soak up a ton of hits even if you're using the piercing cannon, but they also spew ungodly numbers of bullets, so you can usually make short work of them with an instant backlash of the mosquito. The effect of this is twofold. First of all, it shows just how powerful the mosquito shield thing is. Second, it helps you realize just how powerful the enemies in the sixth stage are. Pretty awesome stuff.
EDIT: Actually, the first phase of the boss is like this too. I don't think you can even kill it with anything but its own bullets... Also I think the brief calm before it approaches adds a lot.

*Come to think of it, attacks that have a brief pause to wind up are quite awesome, especially in character based shmups. Another great example is the Laser in eXceed 2nd, especially when there's enough bullets on screen to go all Psyvariar and chain two or more lasers in a row. The blade attack in Strania is also cool like that, at least when you're not attacking something that can shoot back, ha ha.

Yeah, this is a good point. I was messing around with Strikers 1945 plus and Strikers 1945 II. The spitfire in the former, and the mosquito (yes, I did pick the ship called "mosquito," because Mars Matrix) in the latter have this awesome charge attack where they shoot out a... bomb, I guess (?) and it leaves a trail, then shortly after, an explosion follows in the same space. It's really satisfying

[BIL]

Override's charge shot is so goddamn good. I find myself letting it off even when there's nothing onscreen. The game in general is really good at shunting big, colourful sprites around, no moreso than when that screen-raking hellstorm is unleashed.

I actually get excited by the announcer in Vapor Trail when he informs me to "Go for the kill!" in his glorious muffled voice.

Reminds me of Slap Fight MD's classy emcee and his impassioned yell of "TERMINATE THE FLAGSHIP!" as the boss rolls up. He's like Bob from Donpachi, played straight!

Also Gradius V's peerlessly imperious announcer, who makes shmuppin men out of weenie little noobs. GV was my first 1CC and I literally did it just to hear what he'd say after I made the loop.

st2: "YOU NEED SOME PRACTICE." STFU meanie announcer! ;-;
st8: "WHAT THE HELL?" Yeah I know :[
2-1: "YOU ARE A LIVING LEGEND." Thank you announcer-san. ;__; Hey, the screenshot on the back cover used a credit on stage 2! HE NEED SOME PRACTICE. :3

We could have a whole topic on shooter announcers, assuming there isn't one already. ^_~ AEXCERRENT