Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[city41]

What is up with tate in Shienryu on the Saturn?

It rotates the screen, but not the controls. Is it possible to rotate the controls too?

In other words, it effectively turns it into a horizontal game.

[city41]

Ah ha, after picking arcade mode, go back into options again and it then has a rotate option to fix the controls. Phew.

[Shepardus]

In Strikers 1945 II, what determines which of the two(?) midbosses spawns in stage 7? Is it random, or is there a positioning trick like in the other two Strikers games?

[Lyv]

If there is a trick, I haven't found it yet, and none of the replays I've watched seemed to do any special positioning to get one or the other.

It's not impossible there is one though. I had two slightly different routes for the part just before the midboss (killing the big planes more or less quickly depending on either a lvl1 or lvl2 charge shot), and it seemed to have an effect on the midboss spawning.
Not sure about this, obviously. I haven't investigated more since both midbosses are pretty easy after a while.

[Stevens]

If anyone cares to - tier list for Gunbird 2 characters?

[BIL]

In terms of scoring potential? Notorious bum driller AINE is the master killer afaik. Stealing from NTSC-J's WR thread:

Gunbird 2

Aine
World: God Hand - 5,322,600 - ALL (NMNB) - 168 max chain
Community: Zil - 2,821,500 - ALL

Alucard
World: カミーユ・ビンタ - 5,190,200 - ALL (NMNB)
Community: Zil - 2,307,700 - 2-7

Hei-Cob
World: 三茶鮫 - 5,019,500 - ALL (NMNB)
Community: Zil - 2,143,000 - ALL

Marion
World: H.K - 5,126,400 - ALL (NMNB) - 191 max chain
Community: BOS - 2,044,300 - ALL

Tavia
World: GAL - 5,134,000 - ALL (NMNB) - 136 max chain
Community: Zil - 3,563,200 - ALL - Tavia pic1 pic2

Valpiro
World: H.K - 5,126,400 - ALL (NMNB) - 191 max chain
Community: Zil - 1,416,400 - 2-2

[Shepardus]

The WR is with Aine (and what a record it is), but he's kind of hard to play thanks to his very narrow attacks. Tavia's the most popular, at least among western players aiming for a 2-ALL, thanks in large part to her bullet-canceling melee attack. If you're playing the Dreamcast version you might also want to try Morrigan, I've heard she's pretty good though she's not popular thanks to being a Dreamcast-exclusive.

Other things I've heard is that Hei-Cob is bottom-tier (though still worth checking out since he's got a distinct playstyle), and Valpiro's hard to play in the second loop (I guess because he's slow) but does fine in the first loop (great damage output).

[BIL]

In Blast Wind, during the last boss's intro, one of the stage's grazing horses will run into the fleeing GORN ship along with the leader and his subjects. Clever horse! Its position is variable, and possibly dependent on player position.

Horse at the very top-right. (player on left)

Horse at upper-left. (player on right)

I have never seen the horse come tumbling out of the ship with the rest of its passengers later on. Admittedly though, with all the lasers and explosions and fn' sweet metal at that point, I may have just missed it. Has anyone seen Mr. Horse after his boarding the doomed vessel?

Perhaps he was eaten by the crew in the ensuing panic. Or Tecno Soft just couldn't be arsed to draw him some "falling to doom" frames.

[LordHypnos]

If you're playing the Dreamcast version you might also want to try Morrigan, I've heard she's pretty good though she's not popular thanks to being a Dreamcast-exclusive.

Unfortunately I don't have enough experience to know very definitively, but based on my impressions, Morrigan's melee attack has very nice spread and damage, but doesn't necessarily charge that fast (not as fast as Marion, anyway). The homing missiles that are part of Morrigan's main weapon are kind of nice for the same reason as Marion's homing stars are, but I think the shot part of Morrigan's attack might be more powerful than Marion's, but I haven't played the DC version for a long time, so I can't really say for sure. I'm like 90% sure that Japan is way easier with Morrigan than with Marion, but that probably doesn't help you much. Morrigan's charge attack seems pretty solid, but not necessarily above average in any way (Then again I almost never use charges in GB2).

Seems like Tavia is the most accessible, though, on account of the crazy powerful shot, and maybe also the bullet cancelling melee.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

A little while ago I updated the version of RetroArch my Wii is running. Just tried to boot up Batrider and it seems to be broken in this version. I'm 100% sure it was previously working, I'm pretty sure Garegga was too. Rather than trying out all the previous versions (which is gonna take me forever as my PC really struggles to read / write Wii SD cards) - does anyone know which version(s) run these games? If you have them working - the build number is listed in the UI when you boot it up if that helps.

Cheers!

[Perikles]

I was playing a bit of Image Fight today, looking into the depths of the second loop, when I discovered an astounding quirk: once you get 800,000 points you'll gain four (!) extends one after another. At first I thought it to be a bug of some kind, but since it persisted even when I killed enemies in a different order I looked up saucykobold's videos and sure enough, that seems to be conforming to standards. Is that some error in conjunction with MAME or is this intentional? I've never seen such an oddly specific extend behaviour before...

[trap15]

Sounds like an original game bug. I'll look at the code tonight.

[Stevens]

Thanks for the GB2 replies folks.

[The Armchair General]

I've been playing Mushihimesama and I'm wondering how to get your autofire like this in MAME+. If I set button 3 to the maximum speed it can go my options don't fire. If I lower my autofire rate then my options shoot but Reco doesn't shoot as fast. Can anyone help?

[Erppo]

I've been playing Mushihimesama and I'm wondering how to get your autofire like this in MAME+. If I set button 3 to the maximum speed it can go my options don't fire. If I lower my autofire rate then my options shoot but Reco doesn't shoot as fast. Can anyone help?

The highest firepower for W-shot is "trigger 1, interval 2" (in the A button of course). I believe that would mean the same as a 20Hz autofire in MAME, unless I'm misunderstanding the notation. I don't think MAME has the tools for the fancier fire rates where the button is held for a longer time.

[The Armchair General]

I've been playing Mushihimesama and I'm wondering how to get your autofire like this in MAME+. If I set button 3 to the maximum speed it can go my options don't fire. If I lower my autofire rate then my options shoot but Reco doesn't shoot as fast. Can anyone help?

The highest firepower for W-shot is "trigger 1, interval 2" (in the A button of course). I believe that would mean the same as a 20Hz autofire in MAME, unless I'm misunderstanding the notation. I don't think MAME has the tools for the fancier fire rates where the button is held for a longer time.

I made a work around. I made button 1 (The shot that slows you down) have the highest autofire rate it can and made a custom button that's button 1 without autofire. I don't think it's as effective as what Jaimers and you were doing but it's something.

[copy-paster]

If I played Battle Garegga with MAMEplus autofire delay "5", would it increase the rank brutally?

[trap15]

Why would you do that anyway, the game has built in auto

[copy-paster]

I know.

I just tried it for the first time yesterday, just asking is it increase the rank brutally?

[Shepardus]

Autofire delay 5 should be 10Hz autofire, so no. (Check Icarus's ST for an explanation of how autofire affects rank.)

[trap15]

Except if the game slows down it's effectively 20Hz. Basically, don't do it :V

[The Armchair General]

Does anyone have an easy method to disabling the "Save Loaded" message when using a save state in MAME? It really annoys me when I'm practicing STGs.

[Shepardus]

Pause the game until it disappears.

ui_transparency will adjust the transparency of the message (and of other menus). Here's some options I found in my mame.ini that you can play around with:

Code: Select all

ui_transparency           215

#
# CORE PALETTE OPTIONS
#
main_background           16,16,48
cursor_sel_text           255,255,255
cursor_sel_background     60,120,240
cursor_hov_text           120,180,240
cursor_hov_background     32,32,0
button_red                255,64,64
button_yellow             255,238,0
button_green              0,255,64
button_blue               0,170,255
button_purple             170,0,255
button_pink               255,0,170
button_aqua               0,255,204
button_silver             255,0,255
button_navy               255,160,0
button_lime               190,190,190

These don't get rid of the message entirely but may make it less in the way.

[pegboy]

Is there anyway to output videos from MAME without the audio being all fucked up? I know you can record the INP and then play it back later and it will work, but I'm having a hell of a time getting desynced for apparently no reason so it would be nice to just record it directly the first time. Maybe I need some external software to do it.

[microfolk]

Is there a way to work around Mame's shitty support to save states for Darius Gaiden? The best way I found to use them is to load them after resetting the machine when the "Wait a Moment" message is on the screen: in this way the graphics loads correctly but I get to play with "Wait a Moment" always hovering in the middle of the screen and that's a little bit annoying.

[DoomsDave]

What is the announcer saying when you die in Dangun Feveron? I keep hearing "oh fuck" but it can't be that.

[trap15]

"Oh myyyyyy"

[DoomsDave]

Ah yeah that makes sense. Thanks

[Shepardus]

What's the difference between Darius and Darius Extra?

What is the announcer saying when you die in Dangun Feveron? I keep hearing "oh fuck" but it can't be that.

"Oh my," as trap said. Obligatory link to Dangun Feveron soundboard

[Harpuia]

What's the difference between Darius and Darius Extra?

The biggest difference is that Fatty Glutton is much easier to beat with the laser, and aside from that I think some of the enemy placement and power-up distribution has been changed too.