Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[CWM]

Get to end boss in Espgaluda with 5 lives in stock, game over on final pattern. Next run, get to end boss with 2 lives in stock, clear with 1 life in stock.

What is consistency and where can I buy some?

On the plus side, I'm almost as good with a stick now as with a keyboard. Took less than two weeks, expected longer.

[LordHypnos]

Decided I needed a break from Under Defeat, so I went back to Gunbird 2, because I figured it would be a lot easier after over a year of getting better at shmups. I've already made some improvements, but I can't quite make it to 1-5. I'm playing it in MAME, since my current monitor doesn't cooperate with the DC version. Unfortunately that means no Morrigan. I do like how much faster Marion's melee attack regenerates, but it's much weaker and narrower than Morrigan's. Seems like this makes some parts notably harder, but other parts notably easier.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Holy crap, Blaynix is awesome. The presentation is incredibly slick, bosses are well animated, each end of level sequence is unique, the final boss fight is a shock... really fun stuff.

Scoring is very reliant on using rapid shot constantly to build meter for the 'hyper', and then using shot during that to try and repeatedly Overdrive (refilling the meter during 'hyper' increases hyper duration, there's one spot during the final level where you can keep your 'hyper' essentially full due to all the enemies you're killing).

It's not the greatest scoring system as one screwup loses a crucial hyper during a lucrative section, and getting the second extend requires really knowing what you're doing. Kinda feel the same way about Kaikan (made by the same guy) - the variety of shot types is cool, but the medalling is annoying. So many times I let go of fire only to have a high speed popcorn enemy ram me, or drop a medal that appeared from an enemy at the bottom. Dropping the medal chain feels way too easy in Kaikan, but it is pretty darn satisfying when you're consistently cashing in.

[Jonst]

Still doj... Not playing as hard core as usual but can feel the progress. Second time making the final boss but died with 4 bombs in stock I doubt I would have cleared but it still pissed me off... Getting there, it just needs to be more regular.

[copy-paster]

been playing Famicom Gradius II today

So I've managed to beat this done with type-1 ship, 2 options, and w/o force field because getting the ship with fully power-up makes the game billion times easier, but the main problem is the hitbox in enemy bullets/projectiles is too large than actual sprites and despite this I always lose in stage 2-3 cause for getting hit by that.

[Fenrir]

I have dug Viewpoint out today. Damn that was hard as nails. But so amazing.

[Ikazu-san]

Messing around with Crimzon Clover 1.00 glitch. THIS IS FUN.

[Shepardus]

Got to the final stage of Ikaruga for the first time yesterday, so now I've got all the stages unlocked for practice. Wish there were a way to practice the boss fights alone though...

The stages themselves are well-made for the most part (I particularly like stage 3), but the bosses are pretty terrible. I think the stage 3 midboss is the only one I kind of like. It's like the guys at Treasure ran out of ideas after pouring all their good bosses into Radiant Silvergun.

[Gamer707b]

I totally disagree with you Shepardus. Having both Ikaruga and Rs, I'll say Ikaruga is brimming with just as much innovation. Besides the craziness of the boss battles I also LOVE their designs as well. You've got to see the last boss. It is a truly WTF moment in gaming.

[trap15]

Sorry, but nothing in Ikaruga comes even close to nearly half of the bosses in RSG. Stage 2A boss alone beats just about everything in Ikaruga, and the last boss is way better.

[Gamer707b]

As I said, I have both games. And I personally love both games. Its like picking a favorite pet. I just cant. Funny thing is that Im not a huge shmup player, but I just love these 2. I bought Ikaruga back when it came out on the Cube. RS I paid $120 a couple years ago and have gotten every pennies worth. Its just all a matter of preference on which 1 is better.

[Squire Grooktook]

I really like the stage 1 boss in Ikaruga. Launching time delayed grenades and homing orbs at you is super cool, even if it's not too hard.

I'm also quite partial to the stage 2 boss. I like how you have to go out of your way to expose his weak point, and then perform a new action just to reach it. Super fun. Then again, I'm kind of a sucker for bosses revolving around strategic weak points.

[Shepardus]

No-missed the first four stages of Ikaruga, still managed to game-over on the stage 5 boss...

Spamming stage practice on the last stage now, but still struggling to find a consistent strategy for the second to last attack (the one where the things chase after you and leave behind trails) that's easy enough for me to execute. The attack before that was also giving me trouble but at least I'm slowly getting used to that one from all the practice spam, it just requires focus to execute.

[ciox]

No-missed the first four stages of Ikaruga, still managed to game-over on the stage 5 boss...

Spamming stage practice on the last stage now, but still struggling to find a consistent strategy for the second to last attack (the one where the things chase after you and leave behind trails) that's easy enough for me to execute. The attack before that was also giving me trouble but at least I'm slowly getting used to that one from all the practice spam, it just requires focus to execute.

It's the game telling you to score and bring some extends into the fight, that part is relatively easy though as long as you keep circling and make sure the circles start small and get slightly bigger, that way you can avoid crossing through the trails at the bottom, also getting full energy before the 2nd phase is highly recommended.

IMO this game compares favorably with RSG even if you go on bosses alone, it has polish and brevity where RSG is awesome but all over the place, there's plenty of bosses in RSG that are bullet sponges and barely even shoot at you, while each Ikaruga boss has a quick kill strategy and still provides a challenge.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

i did a thing



I actually forgot this boss existed since it's usually so easy and dies in like a second. I had planned to counterstop against the Red Bombardier, but with this I just had to use the twin laser and grab boxes every so often. Game has a hard crash upon a counterstop, yay! Because the status bar VANISHED I wasn't sure what score it crashed at but I think it was when it tried to go to 10 million+.

this was like over 5 hours of my life wasted what is wrong with me

[SMC]

Mushi 1.5 Original MAX
I love this mode so much

[BIL]

this was like over 5 hours of my life wasted what is wrong with me

Weird little big shooter. You ever find yourself spending way too much time letting those overworld spider thingies multiply until you can't see the floor, then trying to exterminate the stubbornly regenerating horde with the lightsaber or some other sub-optimal weapon? I coulda gone for a whole game of that. ^__^

[BareKnuckleRoo]

When there's so much onscreen that there's flicker EVERYWHERE, it gets pretty awesome. =D

[ACSeraph]

Been so crazily busy lately I haven't had any time for shmups or the forum but hopefully things are calming down a bit lately and I can jump back in and be more active on here again. Sorry to everyone who was enjoying Death Roulette. I'll be updating it this week and try to get things back on track with it, but that assumes anyone is still even interested at this point...

But I have played some random things lately. Got a new 52 inch TV and sound system, rendering my 32inch tate obsolete. I don't intend to tate the 52, but it's still bigger than the old tate even yoko. Kind of ridiculously big in the room actually; can't see my window anymore.

Anyhow I've been testing the consoles on it after rewiring everything and got sidetracked playing Gradius Rebirth on the Wii. Ended up 1cc with Metalion on my first try. Level 2 up-laser is ridiculous. Pretty cool game even if it's no Gradius V. I was surprised by how short it was though. 5 stages feels weird for Gradius.

Also been getting back into Darius Gaiden. I've gotten lazy and I've been playing auto-on these days, just because I want to learn some totally new courses without breaking my thumbs and burning out. Currently doing a course that runs through M and ends at W. I think I'll be able to 1cc it after a short time, but damn Titanic Lance is a beast. It's going to take some practice and routing. God that game looks and sounds awesome on the new system... I don't think anyone has ever topped Taito's 2D art direction from this era.

(also 1cc-ed ACEX 2p coop with my new wife at the arcade for the first time, life is good.)

[LordHypnos]

Shit, tryin' to learn Gunbird 2 stage 1-5 and it's hard as balls. especially everything after those turrets that take a long time to kill. Nobody has ever arranged enemies to make basic aimed shots so damn hard to avoid, and it just gets more intense from there.

[Stevens]

There is a copy of Gunbird 2 under the counter at my local game shop. Which (no joke) I could throw a rock from my window and hit. I asked my wife if that it is still there around the holidays that she get it for me:)

I took a few days off from blowing things up to play Grandia 2. I have Skies of Arcadia waiting for me, but I think I am going to wait a few days before I start another RPG.

I'm off to blow shit up.

**face palm edit**

Other day on 2nd loop. Dies on stage 3 in back to back runs stupidly, plays in practice mode at max rank and no misses. Today stage 5 - get there with a full stock of lives and a bomb - dies at flying tanks. Plays stage 5 in practice with max rank and same parameters and clears the stage.

The fuck!?

[LordHypnos]

^Yeah, that kind of inconsistency is really frustrating.

As far as gb2 goes, it's a pretty fun game. A few things to note about the DC port, however: You can't choose the stage order (though it always starts with the default order if you hard reset). In Zero Gunner 2 this is also the case, but the difficulty change is much more extreme in GB2, so it's more of an issue (I think this is becase rank is harsher in GB2.) Also it doesn't support VGA. Also there is not a very good yoko mode. You get to choose between a poorly rebalanced semi-vertizontal mode, a weird mode where the screen will scroll with you as you move up and down (usually called wobble-mode), but you get an entire fullsize vertical playfield, and a straight tate mode that you need to rotate the screen for. It does actually give you the option to rotate the controls so that you can play it like a hori, though (hard for me to wrap my head around, personally). If you don't have a good tate setup then ghetto tate might be in order (meaning rotating yourself instead of the screen).

The good news is that Morrigan is a fun DC-exclusive character. Additionally you can play as two characters at once (for the two-player cutscenes); it alternates between them every other life. Finally you can unlock the debug mode and use it to practice stages individually on any rank and either loop. There are probably a few other options.

I'm about to play either Gunbird 2 or Mars Matrix. I haven't decided yet.

[atheistgod1999]

Gradius on NES. I'm new. Need to get an Advantage controller because those damn Easter Island heads take so many hits!

[BIL]

There's a secret autofire powerup exclusive to the FC/NES version, incidentally.

To get the rapid fire,you must do the following things...

1.Set the cursor on ? gauge.
2.Make sure your score's 4th figure is 0(like 0020000,0030400,0010550...)
3.Get a red capsule.

Fun to trigger it under pressure, especially at a nasty checkpoint - almost reminds me of Raiden Fighters-style stuntmanning.

[Blinge]

Blinge playing Ikaruga:

"Okay, you're only getting a kusoclear to get back into it. No need to go for the flashy stuff when you're this rusty, you'll just die. So play it safe..."

..goes for flashy stuff. Dies.
>_<

[Shepardus]

Sounds just like my experience with Ikaruga. Half the battle for me was just restraining myself from doing anything too fancy.

I've been playing a mix of Battle Bakraid, Fairy Wars extra stage, and Cho Ren Sha 68k. I just managed to no-miss the first loop of Cho Ren Sha for once, and then proceeded to die nine times in 2-1 and 2-2...

I'm quite a fan of how lives and bombs work in Fairy Wars. It works a lot better for the extra stage than most of ZUN's resource systems do, since you can keep fighting for more lives rather than just doing the boss fight with whatever you managed to collect during the stage portion, and you can do stuff like take the risk of milking spellcards to get more lives and bombs for later. The low maximum bomb stock compared to other Touhou games also encourages you to use them more strategically rather than just stock them up really high and spam them through the latter half of the boss battle. It's almost like Battle Garegga in that respect, especially since dying gives you 1/4 of a bomb.

[Stevens]

Thanks for the GB 2 write up LH.

Those things coming to light may have actually swayed my away from wanting it. If it can be forced into VGA then I may consider it, but I already have one game that I can't force boot (Last Blade 2 - Fuck you SNK). I'm just not set up for it without wire switching and it being a pain in the ass. Never mind the fact that it looks like shit via S video on an HDTV.

Was all over the place yesterday:

Couple of runs on the 2nd loop which I mentioned above.

Played a little Mushi Futari yesterday. Maybe 3 or 4 runs...each run ended somewhere progressively further on stage 4 each time. Which is a far cry from where I was when I stopped (almost to Larsa), but at least I haven't reverted back to complete shit.

Several beers in I played Raiden IV last night while the wife worked (she close captions from home if anyone cares:). Didn't get passed stage 3 before I switched to Skies of Arcadia. I tend to play more non shooters in the summer.

I would like to commit to something soon from my list of shit I have't cleared:

Mushi Futari
AK
Raiden IV
ZG 2
Border Down
Fast Striker Maniac

Getting that 1st Cave clear would be nice...

[LordHypnos]

^Technically it can be forced into VGA, but it gets glitches and slowdown, so it's not really a viable solution (the slowdown in particular kind of ruins the game). Unfortunately it's not very good for the modern Dreamcast owner unless they have multiple monitors around or a multisynchronous broadcasting monitor (also you'd want something small enough to tate). It looks great on a SDTV, though. No morrigan, but I believe there is a PS2 version which might or might not be a bit better in terms of options (not familiar with it).
Also, I should mention that when I was writing about the debug mode, I phrased it kind of poorly. All you have to do to enter debug mode is hold start at the sega screen. Very straightforward.

Today I played a bit of Gunbird 2, including a credit with Alucard, but I was surprised by how much I missed Marion's bomb and charge attack (even though I only use those a handful of times). The shot is more powerful, but also lacks the homing which is sometimes a problem. I think his speed and close attack are better though.

Also I played a few credits of Mars Matrix. They were all pretty unsuccessful, but I did have one where I got +800 in stage one and +1700 in stage 3 which was awesome, but unfortunately I also died twice in stage 2, so I couldn't make it further than halfway through stage 5. Then I ended up having to continue like 3 times to get through the rest of it. I still have no idea how to deal with the RNG-filled stage 5 boss battle. I can't help but die twice it seems. Literally the hardest part of the game.

[Squire Grooktook]

Shmups I played tonight, rated on how much fun I had (that is, how much fun I had tonight, not how much I like them in general)

G-Darius (6/10) - probably would have been a healthy 8/10 had I dug out my ps2 or ps1 copies, but I played on mame out of laziness and the input lag annoyed me a bit.
Gun Frontier (7/10) - tense, big hitbox dodging sends shivers down my spine
Suguri (6/10) - finally getting into this, though I'm dying a bit early to get really hype (see Undeadline below also)
Thunder Force IV (5/10) - Tried Maniac mode for the first time. Game overed due to enemies coming from behind me lol. Will have to memorize more.
Undeadline (6/10) - mostly played the first stage casually, enjoyed it but didn't feel like continuing after game over on the golem boss.
Elemental Master (8/10) - Mania difficulty, always a rocking time.
Darius Gaiden (7/10) - Same as above, ironically found it less intense than the above for once.
Armed Police Batrider (7/10) - Dropping medal chains when I really need an extend :'(
Mecha Ritz (10/10) - Helluva game, golly.

[Blinge]

After a couple of sangrias, decided to pick up Gradius V, first time in months. Made it to 2-3
(now i'm knackered)

Really don't know how to deal with ST2 boss in 2nd loop!