TRP-STGT 2015 Conversation Week 5: Gunnail

[Squire Grooktook]

I use mameplus for a few games, but shmupmame too for the few lag improvements (particularly the later Psyikyo games).

[Despatche]

I haven't read that spiel dude, could someone briefly explain why shmupmame is shit? Is it because it supports fewer games?
I've got hold of mameplus now anyway.

trap15 really hates lagless patches because the big ones produce weird minor inaccuracies in specific games. He actually made a standalone lagless patch for later versions, but he took it down for some reason. It probably broke an NMK game in a later version, lol.

Aside from that, ShmupMAME v4 is a bit old, we need a v5. MAME Plus! is about as bad anyway, all those unofficial hacks and weird new individual roms!

[trap15]

I dislike the "lag reduction" patches because their method of action is lowering accuracy and causing graphical glitches. In some games it does a lot more harm than normal (Undercover Cops particularly gets fucked hard). Aside from that, shmupmame is very old so many fixes and game additions aren't in it. MAMEPlus is kept up to date and has all the convenient things like autofire and custom buttons that shmupmame has (SM took those features from mameplus directly).

Shmupmame: inaccurate, out of date, broken.

[Bananamatic]

more like memeplus tbh fam

[Blinge]

Jeez, this game really isn't clicking with me.

The slow movement speed, strange scrolling, flashy confusing bullets make it really claustrophobic.
Add snipers and big spread shot enemies coming in from below and I'm at boiled piss status.

I preferred zing zip to this. Urgh what am I saying??

[Perikles]

I preferred zing zip to this. Urgh what am I saying??

I was too afraid to state this, but Sand Scorpion and Zing Zing Zip don't seem so bad anymore.

Gunnail is without a modicum of doubt better in technical terms, but I can't stand the scoring system in the slightest. You either get a low-scoring ALL, a really high-scoring ALL or nothing at ALL, pardon me, all. I suppose it might be possible to develop some weird approach to the game like "Score for the first three stages, play with two full health bars up until stage 6, lose one more for stage 7 and then get on your last life in the final stage", but why on earth would you practice something like that? You get 20 million points just for killing the last two bosses with the max multiplier, that's about 2/3 of your final score. It's pretty darn frustrating to say the least. Especially since there's no point in submitting a score once you got the ALL unless it's a higher-scoring ALL, of course.

[CWM]

I generally just don't like the combination of big hitbox + fast bullets + slow movement speed. Add snipers and high health enemies getting right in your face, and the whole thing becomes annoying really fast.

That said, for a survival ALL it seems like a more friendly game than Zing Zing Zip at least.

[Squire Grooktook]

Movement speed seems fine to me, it's just the kusoge-style screen scrolling and "let me shoot you at point blank range with fast bullets" garbage some of the later enemies and bosses do that annoys me.

Beyond that, I think it's a solid game in terms of level design, bosses, etc. The scoring system is frustrating, though, yeah. But I'd rather be playing it then something like Sand Scorpion where the first 4 stages are pointless once memorized, and then the rest is a clusterfuck.

My current ranking for TRP-STGT games would be:

Strikers > Bee Storm == GunNail > Zing Zing Zip > Sand Scorpion

[ProjectAKo]

it's a bad scoring game in the context of the STGT

Strikers > ZZZ > Gunnail > Sasori > All Other Things > DDP2

[gimebe]

I hate this game, the screen wobble is insane and stage 5 and stage 6 have horrid visibility with fast bullets from off-screen enemies. For extra fun, compare the screen scrolling in Stage 5 with its awesome background to the rest of the game.

Bee Storm > ZZZ > Strikers 1945 > Gunnail > Sand Scorpion

ZZZ was eye-rape, but at least its kusoge ways gave you a fast ship with strong shotgunning and better visibility than this thing - and the enemies stopped firing if they were off-screen. Gunnail is filled with hilarious bullet sponges and off-screen sniper zakos when the red weapon doesn't kill them, it's a total shitfest.

[DocHauser]

Hmm, I thought the bullet visibility was much worse in Zing Zing Zip.

I think the developers could have done more with the 'speed' stages in Gunnail. The speed up/multiplier mechanic is a good idea (good enough for a game on its own, if they'd put more work into it), but there isn't really enough going on in terms of stage design. Still, I think this is probably my 2nd favourite game of the STGT, after Strikers.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hmm, I thought the bullet visibility was much worse in Zing Zing Zip.

Felt the same. I think the only thing in Gunnail that really bothers me is that they were so close to just making the ultimate Gradius Syndrome-embracing game, but then chickened out, so we get another game with an asinine setup dance to get good scores (namely, just getting whacked intentionally a few times as soon as the game starts to get your multiplier up). That's the major thing about the games in this tournament that I don't like - a number of them are really aggravating if you try to be a perfectionist.

Other than that it's a swell game.

I also wish that the version of MAME Plus that got linked earlier had the fields for times played / times played, but other than that it's the same good ol' MAME Plus, now free of EmuCR branding.

[Illyrian]

I miss Strikers 1945

[Perikles]

You only get the *10 to the ending multiplier if it's your last life, which is important. So you can't go into a boss with x5 when you could be going in with x10, no-miss and expect to get x50. In that case you must go for the full x100 if you want the *10 to the ending multiplier.

I'm pretty sure by now that it's not that simple. I attempted to get the max multiplier on the final boss in one of my runs and failed even though it should've worked. I started the final stage with two lives, purposefully sacrificed one of them about two thirds into the stage (long before the boss fight starts; I also got x10 from the remaining enemies since I was on my last life, as it should be) and still only got a x10 from the boss. You're either not allowed to lose lives later in the stages or there's some other obscure requirement if you don't do it right at the beginning.

[Shepardus]

Hmm yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with that. I've experienced something similar once or twice too. I think it's worth noting that if you gain lives in the middle of the bossfight (even if it's through continues), you can sacrifice them before the end of the bossfight and still get the x10 multiplier, provided you were on track to get the multiplier beforehand.

[EmperorIng]

Gunnail is filled with hilarious bullet sponges and off-screen sniper zakos when the red weapon doesn't kill them, it's a total shitfest.

I am starting to feel this way - at least it is suspiciously feeling like enemies are firing from off-screen. Bullet visibility is also hurt by over-busy backgrounds (stage 3 comes to mind) and flashing bullets. Better than Zing Zing Zip but this won't win any awards otherwise.

[gimebe]

Off-screen shots aren't that frequent because enemies have very low rate of fire and the red/blue weapons will generally kill zakos effectively before they go into hiding, but when that pack of 3 red zakos swoops in and the furthest one lives, or a yellow tank makes it to the bottom of the screen, you're not going to have a good time. There is a particularly fun yellow tank on Stage 8 at the end which will follow you at the bottom of the screen (without you being able to damage it) for a couple of seconds as it moves up the screen to stay active, in case it survives.

The kusoge screen scrolling is part of the problem - if the camera is skewed towards one side of the screen after you held a direction at the side of the screen, the very opposite side is a sizable blind spot that can hide zakos if you're not moving the camera to the other side for a few seconds. On Stage 5, the screen scrolling quirk seems to be gone for the entire stage section, but when the boss appears it returns to being a kusoge - they were pretty close to not fucking it up with at least one stage working sanely.

There might also be some degree of off-screen enemies phasing in and out of existence based on camera position - another example from Stage 8, with the very last yellow tanks in the stage (coming from both left and right after the red sponges). It is very difficult to kill every tank on both sides since they are still coming in when the screen has nearly scrolled past them, so you're very likely to end up with living yellow tanks on one side of the screen. If you swoop to the opposite side to dodge the incoming wave of red zakos too early, those tanks will fire at you from below the screen while you do so. But if you stay in the corner, wait for them to "phase out" and make smaller movements, they will pass without firing any shots despite being visible for a brief moment earlier. It feels like side-hugging and diving up the screen is more safe than trying to move towards the center and chase down enemies.

I'm not sure how the multiplier works with mid-stage deaths... I never got a good boss score multiplier when delaying suicides past the very beginning of a stage, so I gave up and just did them as soon as possible.



ZZZ's visibility was pretty bad on Stage 2, Stage 3, and the flashing bosses, but the later stages seemed more tolerable (aside from the Stage 7 battleship, which I never got to). For Gunnail, Stage 3, 5, and 6 are the offenders. Personally, I initially had more problems with visibility in the Gunnail stages than in ZZZ... maybe the faster ship, smaller hitbox, and generous resources in ZZZ made it less of an issue, along with Gunnail's blinding stages seeming more difficult to no-miss than ZZZ's 2-3. After playing Gunnail more and learning the stages, I have to admit that visibility is a slightly lesser problem in Gunnail than in it is ZZZ - Stage 6 with the worst visibility becomes a very easy stage once you get it down, so you don't have to look at its bullets. The game is still horrible, though.

[Blinge]

Imagine:

-Hey man, those shooter games you play look pretty fun, wanna recommend me one?

"Yeah sure BRO, try out Zing Zing Zip, or Sand Scorpion"

[Perikles]

Imagine:

-Hey man, those shooter games you play look pretty fun, wanna recommend me one?

"Yeah sure BRO, try out Zing Zing Zip, or Sand Scorpion"

I certainly don't want to exculpate it, but Sand Scorpion is probably a good arcade shooter for beginners. I cleared the first loop on my very first try after watching that one suitable video that was on Youtube at that time. Not that I would recommend starting with it, but it's at least a laughably easy 1-ALL.

[Blinge]

I cleared the first loop on my very first try after watching that one suitable video that was on Youtube at that time.

... ahh screw you, man


Edit: Actually, all joking aside: there's a reason you're near the top of the list for every game. Probably a lot of it is natural talent, complimented by your experience. You're too far from being a beginner to make that judgement

read: I'm butthurt because I didn't clear the game.

[ProjectAKo]

I didn't come close to 1-ALL on my first try, and that is because of the garbage weapon upgrade system

[iMauroPB]

Sorry guys, i wasn't able to play in this week because i have no idea what happend to my PC, it freezes everytime when i try to open a aplication and the game runs like sh*t on my school computer.

[CWM]

Sorry guys, i wasn't able to play in this week because i have no idea what happend to my PC, it freezes everytime when i try to open a aplication and the game runs like sh*t on my school computer.

No worries, I'm not submitting any scores this week either, as I'd rather spend my very limited free time on something I actually enjoy doing instead.

[ProjectAKo]

After watching heavyviper stream this on a recent version of mame I must say the music is kinda cool.

[copy-paster]

So..... this is the end of TRP-STGT?

[EmperorIng]

Maybe officially, but copy, nothing can stop you from booting up MAME right now and playing Zing Zing Zip to your heart's content.

So this has to be my possibly 4th NMK game (Saint Dragon, P47[?], Gunnail, Task Force Harrier) and each of them have a general ranking "You know this would be great, if not for..." The backgrounds (stage 5 being my least favorite) and bullets feel like Gunnail's biggest disqualifier. I just have to wonder how the issue didn't come up in loke-tests.

I'd like to try out Thunder Dragon 2 and Black Heart at some point.

[Emuser]

Can confirm Thunder Dragon 2 for excellence. We should just have a month long TD2 shmupfest and see what limits people can reach.

[Shepardus]

I didn't like Gunnail much despite its having some nice pixel art, but I can also confirm that Thunder Dragon 2 is pretty legit (at least the first four stages, since I haven't gotten further than that yet). Definitely the best of what little I've played of NMK's games (Saint Dragon, TD2, Gunnail, Rapid Hero, USAAF Mustang), though Rapid Hero is also good (and doesn't have NMK's crazy flashing bullets!).

[Nifty]

I really really wish they hadn't made it so that almost all the score came from perfecting the bosses. It would be so much better if they'd at least made the x10 a x2 (and ditched the siren) and kept it for every multiplier level, thereby letting players actually adjust the risk/reward challenge in a way that's meaningful instead of wasting all its potential like this. It was 1993, hardly anything had done things like score multipliers or direct suicide rewarding back then, plus there are the speed stages as a neat change-up. It didn't have to be perfectly polished to stand out. As it stands, I can only rate it as interesting-but-very-flawed from a scoring perspective, along with the likes of Batsugun and Gun Frontier. (I am noticing a trend...) Having said that, it would need more than number adjusting to be as good as I'd hope for; those tanks need to stop firing from way offscreen for a start.

Even then there's still a little room for scoring strategy, I had a plan to score around an extra million but couldn't pull it off, and another one higher than that that I didn't even get to test and might well have been easier anyway Quite a few scores popping up I wasn't even game to try for though, when usually by week 5 most of the tourney interest has faded.