Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Jonst]

My yearly annual mission of trying to learn to play ibara properly.

[Stevens]

JONST! Where you been homey? Life treating you OK?

[Jonst]

JONST! Where you been homey? Life treating you OK?

Thanks man!

Aside from beating my previous akai katana scores (except shin, check forum leaderboard), I've been lurking. I was feeling disconnected from games for a little while and couldn't set myself a new goal or clear to achieve... Work, life and people were becoming a hassle, but I've always checked in. I see a lot great clears have happened recently!

I might go quiet, but I'm always around!

How have you been man, what are you working on?...

[Stevens]

How have you been man, what are you working on?...

Things are good across the pond. Wife is good, just started Convict Conditioning with my partner at work (been into calisthenics for years), and work is pretty OK:D

Was playing the stuff in my sig for a bit and then picked up Gunbird 2. Then naturally Under Defeat started calling again. Hit 4.9 a week ago and then re routed part of stage 4 and found another 5 - 8,000 points. Playing it enough to have a chance with every credit, but not overdoing it

Just looking for that one run..

[Jonst]

Nice one man, glad to hear it!

Oh yeah, I remember reading some posts where you mention playing gunbird 2... Ah, under defeat, of course you're still striving for "that one run" will you ever truly be done with that game?

[Stevens]

Pick one -

Probably not - 300 hours and counting.

or

Yes I will - when you're done with AK:D

[cave hermit]

Popped in my copy of Raiden Fighters Aces after having it sit on my shelf for god knows how long.

This time I want to try and stick with one of the games until I beat it, so I went with RF2 based on suggestions from IRC.

So ridiculously fast paced, I love it. I'm still trying to figure out which ship fits my playstyle best, and right now I'm mainly using the Hell Diver, Flying Ray, and the Hell Diver's slave variant. I also started fiddling around with the Dark Sword, with surprisingly good results despite the psychotic speed on it.

I can get up to Violet Head (stage 3 boss) pretty consistently, and I can beat it semiconsistently; hopefully I'll get the 1CC soon!

At some point I'd like to move up to Raiden Fighters Jet, but given that game's skill based branching pathways, I'm going to stick with this based on it being a bit more straightforward.

Edit: just "beat" the game on my last life using Hell Diver's slave after 2 continues! Making progress...

[ZacharyB]

I've rediscovered White Butterfly by Linley Henzell.

The three weapons each selectable ship has can only be strengthened when all three are used equally. At first, this is annoying, because some weapons are more cumbersome to use than others. However, after playing for a while, it becomes easier and easier to juggle the strategies required for each weapon.

[Shepardus]

Playing Gunbird so I don't completely burn out on Dragon Blaze. I'm so bad at the first three stages (the random ones), even the fourth and fifth stages don't feel as rough on me (and yes, I've no-missed to those stages before so it's not just low-rank making them feel easier). Fun game though, I like the style and character designs. Hope I can get a 1-ALL of this in a reasonable amount of time since I do have a bunch of other games I'd like to get around to, though it might take me a while to learn the stage 6 bosses, and I've yet to reach stage 7.

[copy-paster]

Darius Extra, fuck Zone H.

Playing Gunbird

Gunbird 2?
The first one did not impressed me much.

[NeoStrayCat]

Deathsmiles on Steam, trying to do "Virtuoso" again, is being a real pain in the ass, yeah, I did it before on the X360, but times sure have changed.

[Shepardus]

Gunbird 2?

Gunbird 1.

[Jonst]

Making some progress with ibara. Made it to the stage 4 boss, with my highest score yet, I totally fucked up the mid boss extend though, but I think I'm finally getting a proper feel for the game now. It's so addictive!

[Imhotep]

I've tried out Thunder Blaster today and was pleasantly surprised, Irem quality through and through. I haven't used autofire, this way the level design actually makes sense. I've made it to stage 6 with lots of credits (it's a checkpoint game) and the obstacles seemed harsh but fair, the game doesn't expect you to be in full power mode all the time. I'm not sure where it leads though, as the game clearly has an extra physical aspect because of the button mashing (it can be worked around though by using the right strategies, the game's designed around imperfect autofire skills).

The bombing reminds me of Pink Sweets, it's also infinitely usable, requires only short charge periods and creates a safe spot that stays on screen for a while. You start with the weakest shot level afterwards though, so having a bomb end in a crowded place is deadly.

[Stevens]

Haven't had much time to play this week, but there is going to a fuckton of Gunbird 2 today.

[CloudyMusic]

Been fiddling with DDP recently, after not having really played it in a few years. Coming back to it now with more experience, I appreciate its relative simplicity. No hypers, no complicated systems, just chaining and surviving. I've always had a soft spot for the uniqueness of the B-type heli in the games that include it, but A-type really does seem a bit more forgiving when it comes to chaining, especially when my execution isn't perfect.

[G-Darius]

Another mixed bag for me thanks to my short attention span -
(ARCADE) Battle Of Atlantis , Lightning Fighters , Strato fighter , Salamander 2 , Space Firebird , Gyrus , USSAF Mustang ,
(Colecovision) Cosmic Avenger
(Sharp X68000) Phalanx , Star Force , Star Trader
(Dragon 32) Astro Blast
(Vic-20) Weetabix Vs The Twitches ..(BELIEVE IT OR NOT LOL)

I have my eye on Super Cobra , Moon Cresta , Aero Fighters 2 and perhaps some Darius games for later or tomorrow.

[OmKol]

Deathsmiles on Steam, trying to do "Virtuoso" again, is being a real pain in the ass, yeah, I did it before on the X360, but times sure have changed.

Also trying to do "Virtuoso". Dead on final boss, so it's very close to clear.

[Shepardus]

Been fiddling with DDP recently, after not having really played it in a few years. Coming back to it now with more experience, I appreciate its relative simplicity. No hypers, no complicated systems, just chaining and surviving. I've always had a soft spot for the uniqueness of the B-type heli in the games that include it, but A-type really does seem a bit more forgiving when it comes to chaining, especially when my execution isn't perfect.

Same reason I like Dodonpachi - it doesn't overwhelm me with variables to monitor and factor into a route. Chaining is hard and strict but at least I can comprehend where my points are coming from and where I can seek improvement even without drawing from superplayers' calculations and experimentation. Recently I find myself most drawn to games where it's hard to take advantage of scoring opportunities but easy to figure out what those scoring opportunities are in the first place. (On a side note, I probably wouldn't enjoy Garegga's scoring as much as I do if I didn't already learn its secrets from Icarus's ST and Special Demonstration videos and I instead had to figure it out myself.)

And yeah, I'm partial to the Type B helicopter too, even if in practice it isn't drastically different from Type A.

Anyway, still playing Dragon Blaze but switched from Gunbird to Strikers 1945 after getting the 1-ALL in Gunbird. I much prefer Strikers II and III's gameplay over the first, but I got close enough to a 1-ALL during TRP-STGT that I feel bad not finishing what I started. It's not like it's a bad game either, so I'm not forcing myself to play something I don't want to play. My performance varies quite wildly - sometimes I no-miss through the first five stages, sometimes I can't get past stage 1 without dying multiple times. Random stage order really screws with me.

[davyK]

Have been spending some proper time with Gigawing on Dreamcast. I bought this new back in the day and didn't really invest any time in it - I guess I was pretty intimidated by it.

But since going back and after looking at some playthroughs it looks like it a 1CC may be doable to even someone like myself with lesser skills. Having said that - so far I can't get past the level 2 boss (!) I'm using the default character.

My scores are varying wildly too.

[Stevens]

More Gunbird 2 yesterday- Super comfortable with the four randoms, stage 4 is getting better and I am finally starting to wrap my head around the fuck storm that is stage 5.

Mostly using Tavia as the majority of my furthest runs (1-5) are with her. Although Marion, Aine, Valpiro, and Morrigan are all fun to play.

[MediumSizedCore]

Enemy Mind,though i'm thinking of playing some ALLTYNEX.

[OmKol]

Just did Deathsmiles 1.1 Virtuoso. Wanna improve my results after some bug fixes.

[NeoStrayCat]

Just did Deathsmiles 1.1 Virtuoso. Wanna improve my results after some bug fixes.

Cool, I'll try and get that done sometime, the Gorge and Castle is gonna haunt me screwing up in those parts, lol.

[Stevens]

Gunbird 2's debug is a godsend.

After I dialed rank in I practiced stage 5 for a bit. It isn't as daunting as it was, but there is still work to do.

My first credit after practicing I made 1-5 with one ship in reserve. Tapped out on the bosses 2nd form.

[LordHypnos]

Actually am getting close to figuring out stage 1-4 in UD. Almost to the end now. I've basically made it a little bit past the rail tanks. Sometimes I get further, naturally, but don't really have things figured out yet. Should probably watch a replay again.

[Perikles]

What is best in shmupping life? Stumbling upon safespots for otherwise ludicrously difficult second loop Irem bosses, of course. Gun Hohki sure is odd - the first half of the second loop is not too vastly different from the first, but starting with the 2-4 boss the game really intensifies. Figuring all that out will be interesting. Fun fact: if you clear both loops you have to enter the initials for the second player even if you played solo for the entire time, but if you game over, you only need to type in your own name.

[davyK]

Still at Dreamcast Gigawing.

After reading through the high score threads I realised I needed to abandon Sinnosuke (default selection) as he is deemed the weakest.

Have opted for Stuck (green). Most popular is Ruby - powerful so I can see why - but she moves a bit too quick for my skills. Of course I've had to abandon my muscle memory as the levels have changed order. Advantage of Stuck is that it brings that boat boss down to the 1st level (deemed the hardest of the 1st 3 levels) so makes that a bit easier too.

Tough adjusting to the new character but that's the value of STGs that the uninformed don't appreciate - having diff characters really adds value to a title when it's done right.

[Stevens]

Actually am getting close to figuring out stage 1-4 in UD. Almost to the end now. I've basically made it a little bit past the rail tanks. Sometimes I get further, naturally, but don't really have things figured out yet. Should probably watch a replay again.

The part right after the trains - when you launch the rocket into that easy payoff - Right after that until the two EMP's next to each other took me a while to figure out. I still bomb it sometimes.

[LordHypnos]

Actually am getting close to figuring out stage 1-4 in UD. Almost to the end now. I've basically made it a little bit past the rail tanks. Sometimes I get further, naturally, but don't really have things figured out yet. Should probably watch a replay again.

The part right after the trains - when you launch the rocket into that easy payoff - Right after that until the two EMP's next to each other took me a while to figure out. I still bomb it sometimes.

Good to know. I actually seem to have trouble with the second round of EMP cannons, because they seem to fire the EMP too fast to actually rocket them. I think my best luck has been with killing them with shot. That being said, I still haven't practiced the section after the rail tanks too much.

Advantage of Stuck is that it brings that boat boss down to the 1st level (deemed the hardest of the 1st 3 levels) so makes that a bit easier too.

Worth mentioning that this is also an advantage of Isha, and her shot has homing needles that you might find helpful. I haven't played this one for a while, though, and definitely don't know whether Stuck is better than Isha or not. There was some player who liked her a lot, here. Possibly Battletoad.