Least Favorite Cave Shooter

[DestroyTheCore]

progear's a steaming turd, I just hate doj or deathsmiles more. progear's cancelling takes out the joy of dodging, the failure to correct for aspect ratio makes movement and sprites totally fucked up, the loop is maximum retarded, the heavy bomb punishment makes using your resources incredibly over-punishing, most of the stage design is really formulaic (shoutouts to st4 and st5 for actually being really good though). I could probably keep going, but yeah progear blows ass.

Wow, that's a very harsh opinion about shmups that are without a doubt better designed than most video games. You set the bar way too high. You must be like the kind of guy who says sex is overrated but never really tried it.

[pegboy]

The only thing that sucks about progear is the stupid and arbitrary checkpoints they put into loop 2. What a stupid idea. Also the music is pretty bland but the game itself is absolutely gorgeous.

[trap15]

Wow, that's a very harsh opinion about shmups that are without a doubt better designed than most video games. You set the bar way too high.

When there's so many amazing games around, I've no reason to deal with or play games that I don't find exquisite.

[The Armchair General]

progear's a steaming turd, I just hate doj or deathsmiles more

Why don't you like DOJ? Just curious.

[trap15]

I find absolutely nothing appealing in it. The graphics are boring at best, the scoring system is the opposite of my opinion of fun, don't like the music at all, don't find the stages particularly interesting, don't like any of the ship types, overly restrictive system basically destroys your run for minor mistakes, punishment for using resources is (again, like most CAVE games actually) way too strong, don't like any of the boss (or enemy in a fair few cases) patterns. Etc.

[Elixir]

Would you rather just have a dead forum that consists of people saying "I like Game X!" "I agree!"?

It's the only other alternative.

pretty sure neogaf already exists

[Strikers1945guy]

Would you rather just have a dead forum that consists of people saying "I like Game X!" "I agree!"?

It's the only other alternative.

pretty sure neogaf already exists

Yup. If you don't like a game don't say anything on neogaf or instant ban. Communist forum at its finest

[Imhotep]

For me it's probably Akai Katana, because the transformation between human and plane totally throws me out of the game. I remember reading a developer interview where it's stated that the samurai thing was pasted in rather late in the design process by order of the management, giving the developers headaches. I really dig the teleportation of military machines during the bosses though.

I'm a bit surprised by the fierceness some of the Cave games get discarded. In Progear i.e. I find the creation of busy situations and the following escape via huge chain reaction super satisfying. I also think it sports one of the most successful art directions.

[Skykid]

progear's a steaming turd, I just hate doj or deathsmiles more. progear's cancelling takes out the joy of dodging, the failure to correct for aspect ratio makes movement and sprites totally fucked up, the loop is maximum retarded, the heavy bomb punishment makes using your resources incredibly over-punishing, most of the stage design is really formulaic (shoutouts to st4 and st5 for actually being really good though). I could probably keep going, but yeah progear blows ass.

Progear is absolutely beautiful.

Cancelling for diamonds is what makes the game so engrossing. It's about banking your gems by pipping popcorn enemies over bullet clusters for instant credit, and then exploiting just about everything to cash out in a storm. I love the way you often have to hold off on the fire button and invite a screen of bullets toward you, primed to trip off one enemy or obstacle to kick off a chain reaction that not only saves you from certain death, but sets the score counter blazing.

It's a rush, one of Cave's more successful scoring systems; one that makes each section of each stage a game within itself.

As someone who's cleared it several times, I can comfortably assess your assessment as ill-informed nonsense bar the second loop. I always felt it was poorly conceived in requirement and leap in difficulty. But the aspect ratio doesn't hamper gameplay at all, the boss fights are superb, the stage design is anything but formulaic if you know what you're looking for, and the 1cc score/survival interplay is borderline genius - and all this without mentioning the marvel of the aesthetic.

[copy-paster]

one of Cave's more successful scoring systems

and one of Cave's more awful loop systems

[Skykid]

one of Cave's more successful scoring systems

and one of Cave's more awful loop systems

I already agreed on that point, why repeat it?

[Danbo]

truthfully i'd say DFK. i probably own 3 different versions of the game (as well as black label and the ketsui arrange mode), i've played it quite a bit, but the game just never ever ever really clicked with me in any form.

people like it a lot, and i definitely wanna like black label because of the music, but i just never ever felt i was getting anywhere close to understanding what was going on on any deeper level. never had that "aha" moment. i must have a head made out of balsa wood or something.

there's games like deathsmiles or whatever that i've just never ever ever really played, but DFK is a game that utterly frustrates me.

[Beebop]

i had my first look today at bee storm: dodonpachi 2, and i was pressed to believe this is even a cave game at all. very dissapointing.
in general i like cave games but i find them way to hard. the only game i truelly got addicted with was esprade. even the countless hours i played that game, the best i could do was reach the last level with a single credit.

[BIL]

Bee Storm actually isn't a Cave game - they licensed the Donpachi ip to IGS. (despite this, DOJ is still referred to as "Donpachi Episode 4" in-game)

Spoiler

[Bananamatic]

Cancelling for diamonds is what makes the game so engrossing. It's about banking your gems by pipping popcorn enemies over bullet clusters for instant credit, and then exploiting just about everything to cash out in a storm. I love the way you often have to hold off on the fire button and invite a screen of bullets toward you, primed to trip off one enemy or obstacle to kick off a chain reaction that not only saves you from certain death, but sets the score counter blazing.

What really sets the score counter blazing is never bombing or dying, just watch any of STG's runs and notice how his score basically comes to a halt after one mistake

hard to say that I could like a game when both the second half of the game and the scoring mechanics are annoying as fuck

[Skykid]

hard to say that I could like a game when both the second half of the game and the scoring mechanics are annoying as fuck

Never annoyed me, I had a blast with Progear's scoring mechanics - they're the best thing about the game. You don't have to forge a super play performance to enjoy it; a 1cc with experimental scoring strats and straight up survival is great fun.

It's all bullshit anyway, you guys are just dumping on a game you seemingly haven't played to any meaningful degree.

[Some-Mist]

Cancelling for diamonds is what makes the game so engrossing. It's about banking your gems by pipping popcorn enemies over bullet clusters for instant credit, and then exploiting just about everything to cash out in a storm. I love the way you often have to hold off on the fire button and invite a screen of bullets toward you, primed to trip off one enemy or obstacle to kick off a chain reaction that not only saves you from certain death, but sets the score counter blazing.

What really sets the score counter blazing is never bombing or dying, just watch any of STG's runs and notice how his score basically comes to a halt after one mistake

hard to say that I could like a game when both the second half of the game and the scoring mechanics are annoying as fuck

ugh.... I love progear so much, but I guess another problem with the scoring system is that the majority of your scoring is achieved in the 2nd loop. you can still die and bomb in the first loop and achieve a 15-20mil score with a 1-ALL easily if you can cancel well and know how to abuse the scoring system regardless of bombs of lives. you won't see many runs higher than 25mil in the first loop (and maybe STG can correct me on this) even if you hoard all your bombs without dying. the additional 100mil comes from the 2nd loop, and I honestly don't have much experience past 2-1 to verify if bombing ruins the score... dying of course does though.

that doesn't take away from the fun of the scoring system, and if you don't know how to use it, that's the difference between a 6mil run and a 15mil run.

[Shepardus]

The player here (really amazing run by the way, NMNB all the way to 2-5) scores 75mil in the first loop and reaches 317mil at the end of the game (273 million before the stage/game clear bonuses). Dodonpachi has a similar thing going on where the maximum bonus is worth way more in the second loop (in a 700m+ run you'd probably have around 200-210m by the end of the first loop).

[Some-Mist]

what the fuck... corrected for sure.

I can't believe that's even achievable in the first loop. his score by the 2nd of stage 2 is in-fuckin-sane. that's pretty much my score going into stage 5 if not partway through

I barely watch other people's runs tho stv has made me some pretty helpful vids to get through a couple parts - mostly for gem streams, bullet sealing, and the 3rd boss final pattern. the 2nd loop is still where the majority of the score comes from, which I guess might be common in many stgs, but it sucks since the progear 2nd loop is so frustrating.

[STG]

What really sets the score counter blazing is never bombing or dying, just watch any of STG's runs and notice how his score basically comes to a halt after one mistake

hard to say that I could like a game when both the second half of the game and the scoring mechanics are annoying as fuck

Well, I'd say that I'm getting scores that are comparable to my level of skill with the game, meaning that I have to "get more good".

At least to me, I see Progear as basically the summation of IKD's philosophy that "no miss = skill = higher score". I think most of his other games from that era are pretty much in line with that concept, just that others show it in different (and sometimes equally or more brutal) ways, like DOJ WL's removing/earning lives in the second loop, or the only way to experience the Ura loop in Ketsui is flawless execution of the first loop. And don't you have to restart 2-5 just to credit feed and practice Doom? And that's just the requirement to simply nab the ALL, those games still require no miss no bomb play for the highest scores.

I don't really see Progear that much differently. You can still score on certain areas even with a death and a high enough ring count, and bounce back by getting a bomb and continuing to play by not bombing. Unfortunately I just find myself in more trouble before I can capitalize on that scenario, especially since the first bomb appears in 2-2 and I'm running into consistency problems on 2-3...

The video Shepardus linked to is a great example of bouncing back and still scoring a ton. The player (who I'm guessing is R.?) dies 3 times on 2-5, yet still pulls out a score of over 300 million due to that fat end game bonus. Even understanding the thought process of what he did on 2-5 is fascinating: the first life (when he had a full bomb bonus) I could understand the player's reservation not to bomb as he had big points on the line, but the next two attempts he could have easily panic bombed through the stage especially with his incredibly solid line. On a good day, he probably could beat that stage without bombing at all, so it's interesting to see the player's continued resistance to even use a bomb in his line unless he wanted to. And on top of that, he (iirc) no misses Volvox. It's impressive for sure.

what the fuck... corrected for sure.

I can't believe that's even achievable in the first loop. his score by the 2nd of stage 2 is in-fuckin-sane. that's pretty much my score going into stage 5 if not partway through

He's using many double dipping techniques by gem-ing/ringing at the same time for many parts of the first loop, it's pretty insane stuff. It's something I barely do except in a few instances, as you have to set that up by leaving a diamond ring somewhere on screen in many scenarios. I'd like to learn how to incorporate it more in my line because as you can see, you can really score with that technique.

And happy to help with the vids buddy!

[Hagane]

I care very little about Cave games outside of Progear, Ketsui and Dangun. Progear is a masterpiece with a great scoring system that, contrary to most Cave games, is well integrated to the rest of the game. If you don't cancel well you are not only not going to score well, at higher stages you will die miserably. Gem streaming is extremely satisfying to pull off. Second loop punishing you a lot for failing doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. Seems weird to have checkpoints only in a certain part of the game, but anyways in any game you strive to die as little as possible anyways.

I like Ketsui for its proximity emphasis and the relative simplicity (compared to other games from the company) of its scoring system. My main gripe with Cave games are their needlessly convoluted and strict scoring systems that usually end up being broken and demand several updates to unbreak. That's also why I like Dangun a lot: simple, fast paced fun.

I'm on the fence with the mushis. Lower difficulties have really really dumb scoring systems, but Ultra/God don't seem that bad in that regard, and it has excellent patterns and survival challenge. I haven't invested any significant time in those difficulties yet so I can't say what I think of them with certainty.

What I'm certain about is that I absolutely detest the Pachis. That style of chaining is the most restrictive and annoying scoring system I ever played. And Cave fans dare to accuse Psikyo games of being memorizers.

[Despatche]

It's Mushi Maniac/Ultra that's the problem. The other scoring systems are okay.

[mamboFoxtrot]

I'm curious -- if we changed the question to "your least favorite CAVE game for survival", how many of you would change your answer? Cuz, like, 7/10 times I see someone complaining about a CAVE game (or really almost any modern-ish shooter), they're complaining about the scoring system. Or at least what the scoring system ends up being like when you wanna be a BIGGU-TIME PRAYER.

[Bananamatic]

I'm curious -- if we changed the question to "your least favorite CAVE game for survival", how many of you would change your answer? Cuz, like, 7/10 times I see someone complaining about a CAVE game (or really almost any modern-ish shooter), they're complaining about the scoring system. Or at least what the scoring system ends up being like when you wanna be a BIGGU-TIME PRAYER.

pink sweets is shit for everything except for the OST

[KAI]

pink sweets is shit for everything except for the trap

Fixed that for you.

Just kidding, everything about PS is super good.

[Strikers1945guy]

Pink sweets is amazingly fun to play for survival. Plus it truly is a puzzle game in shmup form.

[Chacranajxy]

For me, it's Akai Katana. I just found it frustrating, and not particularly interesting aesthetically or mechanically.

I should give it another shot, but yeah, I was disappointed.

[Some-Mist]

For me, it's Akai Katana. I just found it frustrating, and not particularly interesting aesthetically or mechanically.

I should give it another shot, but yeah, I was disappointed.

arcade mode? I only played through to the 1cc and enjoyed it evenif among our peers it's the least favorite mode of the package.

many people say slash mode is a lot more fun but I honestly put minimum time into it. might be worth checking out if you give it another go.

[PROMETHEUS]

I think Pink Sweets is my least favorite. Barely played it though. I don't know if I would say it is bad, but not my kind of game.

[Some-Mist]

punishment for using resources is (again, like most CAVE games actually) way too strong

been playing thunder dragon 2 all night and this is what I've been thinking of. granted you can use bombs once you stock 8 and there's many ways to generate a lot of them each level, but at least in cave games you have extends and losing your bomb stock isn't detrimental to your run. still love it tho.