Best Cave Shooter of All Time

[finisherr]

State your position. Best Cave shooter of all time.


I'm going with Ketsui. Great soundtrack. No gimmicks a.k.a shields. Challenging, yet balanced. Scoring system feels natural and rhythmic. 2nd loop offering available to those who can actually clear the first loop -- in other words, its there for those who are ready. No whining sprites. Classic, hardcore shooting game.

[Bananamatic]

sdoj

[Squire Grooktook]

I like Dangun Feveron for the agressive, high mobility dodging and scoring, and Guwange for the unique "two symbiotic characters" mechanic, environmental hazards, simple/basic patterns, and incredible atmosphere.

DOJ and Ketsui are the quintessential danmaku games, but I don't like pure danmaku that much TBH.

[Xyga]

Pink Sweets

[trap15]

dangun

[Harpuia]

I'm going with Guwange. Absolutely beautiful art direction and music, a scoring system that's fun and satisfying without being too rigid like the Dodonpachi games, and it doesn't really play like any other bullet hell that's been made. It also arguably has the best ever use of a health bar in a shmup.

[Shepardus]

Tough pick between Ketsui and Dangun Feveron for me.

Ketsui's got a great rhythm to its scoring mechanics and stage design, cool boss patterns that aren't as reliant on overwhelming quantity of bullets as many of their later shooters, great soundtrack, and the scoring is accessible - someone can pick it up and get a feel for it and figure out ways to improve without having to go all-out on it. If there's anything I have to say I don't like about it, it's that the conditions for getting into the Ura loop are way more unforgiving than I can reliably achieve in much easier games so it's pretty much an impossibility for me, and the clouds of suicide bullets in the loops kind of detract from how cool the patterns themselves are.

Dangun Feveron's also got a great rhythm and pace (the caravan-style nature of the game kind of enforces that), great soundtrack, and intuitive scoring mechanics that makes improvement fun and comprehensible. Also, unlike any other CAVE shooter it has next to no slowdown.

I'm also fond of Dodonpachi, and thanks to its simplicity actually prefer it over DOJ (I must admit the better spritework also helps its case). The hyper system in DOJ is incredible for people who really want to go full shmup on optimization and planning, but it kind of turns me off to know that simply breaking your chain at a bad time can throw off hyper timings and screw up plans in later stages. It's not something I'd really like to think about, I'd rather just try to chain and if I lose my chain I lose a bunch of points but can just start chaining again and make the best of the rest of the credit without having to worry about which shot type to use to get the most amount of hyper meter.

Also, here's an ordered list of what CAVE shooters people here like.

[Lyv]

None. They're all bad.

I'll go with Dangun Feveron too, though. Frantic, easy to understand, original presentation. I only wish the scoring system were a bit less punitive.

[copy-paster]

Doj black label.

ketsui second.

[arcade-stg]

Doj black label.

ketsui.

[Shadowduel]

Ketsui or death.
DonPachi/ESP RA.DE. are close second.

[pandoraXhunter]

Dodonpachi

[KAI]

Ibara because hosoe, yagawa, 1 loop, multi weapons and no slowdowns.

[The Armchair General]

Dodonpachi Daioujou [White Label]

[NTSC-J]

DOJ is the best but Muchi Muchi Pork! is my favorite.

Ibara because...no slowdowns.

Try the PCB sometime.

[finisherr]

DOJ is definitely up there for me as well. I just didn't choose it because the scoring system is so harsh. Outside of that, excellent game.

[Some-Mist]

progear. I just have too much fun chaining gems.

[louisg]

Dodododododododododododododododonpachi!

It was a total breakthrough of a game that cemented the formula for their shmups to come, and still holds up great today. The graphics look a little dated, but IMO it's as fun as it was in the late 90s. I have to admit I'm not the biggest Cave fan, gravitating more towards the non-manics, but this is one that I still like to play. Later entries in the series might have improved on the gameplay, but this is *the* classic IMO.

[Cuilan]

Overall, it's Deathmsiles for me.

[beatsgo]

UO POKO STG

[pokemon123]

ketsui or ibara.

Ketsui because i feel like it has this unique feel while managing to be "CAVE-ish" while all other ikeda CAVE games, while good just feel samish to me. Ibara because it is like a yagawa game which i like but the movement in his raizing games has always been awkward to me while movement in ibara feels a lot better IMO.

[Skykid]

DOJ White/Black.

[monouchi]

DOJ white/black is perfection.

[chempop]

How can one of CAVE's most ugly games be their best, let alone perfection?

[Jonst]

Ketsui, for all the same reasons listed above. I also love the ww3 military/suicide mission setting. The final 2 stages are just brilliant, I had the most fun learning this game.

... But my heart will always belong to akai katana for many similar reasons. Ketsui wins out for being more challenging. Tough for me to choose, as I'm a total cave fanboy and love all of their games.

[trap15]

How can one of CAVE's most ugly games be their best, let alone perfection?

Was kinda about to ask the same thing. A game can't be perfect if it has glaring flaws.

[Squire Grooktook]

For a survival horror or adventure game or something, aesthetics matter a lot to me.

But to me, they're completely extraneous in shmups and fighting games, and icing on the cake at absolute best.

The reason is that when I get super into a shmup, I find it impossible to focus on anything but the hitboxes and the challenges. I really like Forgotten Worlds world and aesthetic, and as a result I try to soak in as much of it as I can on the first stage, because after that it just gets way too intense to pay attention, and I just end up going full on zen-focus-mode whether I like it or not. Sometimes I try to manually force myself to take in the atmosphere during more intense moments, but it's tough. Similarly, in fighting games, I never notice all the crazy details and animations till after I'm done playing and am watching replays or experimenting in training mode.

Atmosphere is nice and all, and it does sometimes catch me in runs when it's really strong (see: the aforementioned Guwange, and also Rayforce), but another thing is that IMO, aesthetics and gameplay appeal to different parts of the brain. It's not a universal scale of fun vs not fun, it's more like having several fires lighted at once. I might find the gameplay in a particular game incredibly engaging to one part of my brain even if it does nothing for the others, and another game might fire up another part while leaving the others dry. It's almost impossible to find something that lights all fires at once for me, so I tend to value all these experiences equally and enjoy them for what they do right.

Fighting games and shmups could be stick figures and hitboxes, and I'd still enjoy the gameplay just as much.

Hell, most shmups might as well be because, to me, space ships are the most boring lifeless things ever.

[ciox]

Well for starters DOJ has the best, most complex and inspired 3D modelling of all of CAVE's pre-rendered shmups sitting behind its supposedly drab color scheme, besides if Garegga can get away with real visibility/contrast issues in its color scheme and still reach for perfect status, then DOJ can get away with a palette that hardly affects gameplay.
I never really got that argument anyway, the first stage is half bright orange, the second mostly yellow and green (basically the moon that's become swampy from terraforming) and the third is white and blue, even if the next two stages were a non-stop grey sludge (they aren't) that would still be enough color variety, and the actual detail under the colors is great like I said before, you've never seen more effort put into 3D modelling in a pre-rendered shmup.

Honestly it's impossible to pick between DOJ and Ketsui, I need to spend a lot more time with both games before being able to decide.
Gotta say, if this was all about atmosphere and setting and so on, the prize would probably go to Esprade, there's something magical about how that game meshes together a normal city, psionics and giant robotic bugs and makes it all work.

[Satan]

I don't have a specific favourite. Of all of Cave's back cat, I'd like to see a sequel to Dangun Feveron.

[chum]

Guwange is the only CAVE game that I genuinely love, but I don't think it's actually that great aesthetically, it really shines in stage 3 mainly but other than that it's (almost) just another CAVE-style game (though much prettier than most) and I don't view CAVE-style as eye-candy.

I love the mechanics which provides a depth I can appreciate a lot more than what the other CAVE games have, and stage design mainly, as well as the catspider, and it has my favorite CAVE final boss too. Gara would be my pick for aesthetic reasons but the slowdown in Esprade makes it awful to play and Gara's last pattern is some boring garbage too.

I respect Ketsui and DOJ as hardcore scoring games but I don't find them very enjoyable to play so to each their own, all I need from CAVE is Guwange and maybe some Dangun on the side

I never play either of these games so it doesn't matter what I think anyway lol, but still, why not

For a survival horror or adventure game or something, aesthetics matter a lot to me.

But to me, they're completely extraneous in shmups and fighting games, and icing on the cake at absolute best.

I see what you're saying and I'm still torn about how much I agree on this.

I think almost anyone will agree that CAVE games provide a good experience in terms of gameplay, but the fact that I don't like the style so much probably hinders my enjoyment. Enjoying just looking at and feeling the game you're playing, regardless of what you're actually doing in the game, can make a difference, at least for me. I do think that this really wears off in the long run, though. When I first played Mahou Daisakusen or Battle Garegga or Darius Gaiden or RayForce (well, this last one still wows me, but I played it so little) I was really enthralled with the universe they created, but the more I played them, the less I cared about it, the more I was just focusing on performing well, I think anyone would just start taking the visuals for granted after a while, so it's more effective at pulling players in than keeping them playing.