You really need to play Battle Garegga

[phase3]

After only a few days of dedicated playing of Battle Garegga, I've come to a few realizations about how I think Battle Garegga may be brilliant beyond any conceivable measure.

Battle Garegga employs lateral thinking on a subconscious level more than anything I can recall playing. Only after reading a few preliminary guides and playing that cursory first few hours of digesting the mechanics, did I begin to try and decipher how each medal/icon/coin/(whatever) was going to affect the the inevitable rank up. I began playing while heavily considering this, and thus each run would vary wildly each time. Whereas in other shmups I would often have a sort of a rough muscle memory path through tricky parts, I found it I never developed (or haven't yet developed) that sort of path-like thinking.
I found that the icons are less useable items, but more as a sort of risk/reward resource that would deeply affect the run you would make. Where one run might be dedicated to putting less discretion to how many items you pick up, and others where it would be crudely calculated by what you think may be usable, and then selectively dodge/avoid things you worry will fuck up your game.

I think that this is a fucking brilliant mechanic. What ends up happening is that I am both dedicating thinking about dying by contact with a bullet, and actually having to account for the concept that "if I take/do this now, it may or may not screw up my ability to 1cc this game. I think this, by design alone, sort of makes is some sort of meta-shmup, in that you are both dodging physical bullets, but you are also having to "dodge" the concept of "rank," which at least as I have played the game, makes for a very novel sort of experience. In many ways, it has the purest gimmick possible in a shmup, because it doesn't as much rely on the visual aspect of it, like Soukyugurentai's or Layer Sections literally "layered" design, or Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun's more traditional puzzle-game logic, Battle Garegga somehow subverts any sort of visually acknowledged strategy, and places it in the subconscious, where a decision to do nearly anything differently in any given games, sort of makes the game branch off and make potential for millions of other paths you may or may not take.
I think that these "branches," exist in nearly every shmup of the sort. However, so far in my experience, Battle Garegga is the only one i've ever played that invites the player to conceptualize rank, and in doing so, make actually controlling the inevitable end result of a run a, understanding of and ability to dodge the games physical bullets, but also sort of have a lucid command of nearly every one of the games components, only by deciding to take a certain path, or play a certain way.
It forces you (or at least, me) to be quite zen about things.

This is something I felt was a notable observation, but if the forum is particularly disinterested or tired of talking about Battle Garegga, I"d have no issue deleting the thread. Also, these are just opinions and observations. I don't want to irritate anyone.

[Shepardus]

You might appreciate this site: http://www.battlegareg.ga

[phase3]

You might appreciate this site: http://www.battlegareg.ga

I always find it odd when somewhere else on the internet, things I've been thinking about crop up and so accurately resemble these abstract concepts i've been fiddling with. It never ceases to amaze.

[KAI]

Then Ibara must be the work of a god.

[phase3]

I think that these "branches," exist in nearly every shmup of the sort. However, so far in my experience, Battle Garegga is the only one i've ever played that invites the player to conceptualize rank, and in doing so, make actually controlling the inevitable end result of a run a, understanding of and ability to dodge the games physical bullets, but also sort of have a lucid command of nearly every one of the games components, only by deciding to take a certain path, or play a certain way.

I seem to have muddied up my language a bit here. What I mean is that in addition to playing the game as a bullet dodger, as in appropriately placing your ship on screen as to avoid bullet patterns, you also have to place your entire "credit" in a particular position, by using your ability to control the elements of the game that give you immediate feedback.
What I mean by "credit," how everything you choose to do between starting the game and getting a game over have affected your game.

I apologize if my terminology is confusing. I'm having trouble accessing the proper vocabulary for describing what i'm thinking.

[brokenhalo]

Then Ibara must be the work of a god.

Seriously. I keep trying to come back to garegga and it's just too long for my taste. Ibara seems much more focused and approachable, assuming that's a word you can use to describe a yagawa game.

[Vludi]

I want to like Ibara but i don't find it near as stylish as Garegga, and for some reason i dislike the visuals of Cave games from that era (while i find DOJ or Ketsui pretty nice and "cleaner" in comparison)

[KevinDDR]

I agree, that's why I bought battlegareg.ga.

[Xyga]

This is the best Gabonese shmup-themed website tbh.

[Eaglet]

This thread is love. <3

[Jelloman581]

As a shmupscrub, wow, I've never seen that site before. I love the bits of discussion on the narrative in the story and how it ties into their attacks. It's a great breakdown of the game and illustrates the choices that can be made, based on the kind of player you are. Now I see why this game is so loved.

I wish there were more sites like this for other shmups, really gets you into the game. Bravo!

[Cagar]

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[Giest118]

The thing about Battle Garegga is that it calls into question the fundamental nature of what game design actually is.

I would say that it's a game that's badly designed (or at least mediocre). But players evolved its metagame into something that turns dodging the bad design into a game itself, and it is that metagame that is open-ended and deep. You take a hodge-podge of design choices and mechanics of varying levels of coolness and shittiness and you Macgyver them into an experience that's fun and successful.

So I wouldn't describe the game itself as a work of sublime genius. I would say that the dedication of its players, guide writers, hackers, etc has caused a totally random smattering of mechanics to take on a coherent form that is very fun to play when you stop thinking about all of the horseshit.

[Cagar]

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[phase3]

So I wouldn't describe the game itself as a work of sublime genius. I would say that the dedication of its players, guide writers, hackers, etc has caused a totally random smattering of mechanics to take on a coherent form that is very fun to play when you stop thinking about all of the horseshit.

I think that the dedication of it's players is grounded in the fact that there is so much explorable depth to the mechanics. It is from the game's brilliance (however accidental its brilliance may be) that makes it so endlessly mineable for new and nuanced ways of playing.

You said your runs haven't been as 'path-like' as in other shmups, but I'd guess that's just a matter of being new to the game.

You make some good points, and this may very well be the case. However, it's not quite that I'm not generating so much of a set path with each run, but it's in how the game has sort of made me consider what exactly a "path" is, and is it one i'm making physically on screen, or is it an activity one more cerebral than that?


I'm certainly not going to argue that Battle Garegga isn't flawed or is a perfect game. It is however a very smart game, which challenges me on a more thoughtful level than I'm used to in any game of any genre.

[Eaglet]

Cagar; A high scoring Bornnam run contains almost no tricks to get extra points. Just handling every situation as correctly as they were designed for (bombing the right stuff etc.). All of those things were obviously designed with a purpose. Why would you otherwise get something as irrational as the largest amount of points for bombing certain boss parts (the place were bombs - from a quarter munching perspective - should yield the least points)?

A lot of things in the game are great by what might be accident, but that doesn't mean that the core game is a badly designed mess. While Our Lord might not have designed it with the level of players in mind that have pushed the game to it's limits (like any other shooter ever developed) there's still cohesiveness to the game's structure.
What makes the game great for us who like to push things a bit farther is how deep it is and how there's so ridiculously much room for improvement.

[Vludi]

The game has very reachable extends at 1M, and you don't have to be a wizard if you just want survival (just medal chain and a couple tricks will give you enough extends). The game is a lot more approachable that you guys make it look.

[Shepardus]

The rank system works shockingly well for something that was ostensibly designed to extract money from players, but yes, it doesn't do a great job of communicating its workings to players, most likely by design. Icarus's ST is pretty much required to fully appreciate the game. Before the rank system was reverse-engineered and shared publicly, there were many misconceptions about how it worked because individual effects are just too subtle for a player to notice. Even when people know what raises and lowers rank they often overestimate the impact of some factors (that item screwed up my rank and got me killed, etc.). I find that my routing in Garegga, at least with Miyamoto who I have the most experience with, is about as "path-like" as other games of similar difficulty, but I also rarely do much scoring in the most unpredictable parts of the game such as stage 6 medal chaining.

IMO the rank system in Armed Police Batrider is more intuitive and obvious to the player - extend management has an easier to notice impact on the game, and big powerups/medals add more rank than little ones, so players can apply a lot of what they know from other, more traditional rank systems. In my experience Batrider's extend management game also encourages on-the-fly decision making a bit more (pick up the extend? commit suicide and pick it up? let it drop and go for a special extend later?), though that may be because I'm worse at it and don't play with teams much. Same with Battle Bakraid if you don't extensively chain that game (but you should ). I think to truly minimize the tendency towards fixed paths, though, you need to go simpler and more random, like Cho Ren Sha 68k's hard mode.

The subtlety of Garegga's rank system works against its clarity but I also think it's one of its greatest assets. Rarely does any single action alone make a significant impact on rank - picking up a couple bomb fragments more than you need here and there won't end your run, and reaching an extend before committing suicide instead of the other way around usually won't either. What will screw you over is making many mistakes throughout the course of the game or consistently approaching the game badly. Individual mistakes can make subtle changes but the game gives enough room to adapt to these differences, which allows players to still make good things happen even when they stray from their plan, or learn individual scoring tricks without having to route the entire game to make them work properly. The rank system in Garegga operates over a long timescale encompassing and informing the pace of the game as a whole. That I like. The game as a whole comes together really nicely even though I like many individual sections in Batrider more.

The game is a lot more approachable that you guys make it look.

Yeah, just play Miyamoto, he's OP.

[Strikers1945guy]

Then Ibara must be the work of a god.

Yup.

[Squire Grooktook]

A lot of things in the game are great by what might be accident, but that doesn't mean that the core game is a badly designed mess. While Our Lord might not have designed it with the level of players in mind that have pushed the game to it's limits (like any other shooter ever developed) there's still cohesiveness to the game's structure.

Yeah, I've always felt similarly about Marvel Vs Capcom 2.

Mvc2 is my favorite fighter of all time, and a lot of people like to say "it's good by accident". It is true that many of the high-level strategies that push the game into the realm of sublime were likely un-anticipated by the developers, but at the same time, the very core and fundamentals of the games system that allow it to reach such heights are extremely elegant and obviously the result of the years and years of experience that Capcom's (then) fighting game development team had accumulated. If those fundamentals and that core weren't there, the game would never have been able to facilitate those higher-tier strategies.

And even if you ignore the high tier characters (the ones who have access to those sublime, player developed strategies) and focus on the low tier part of the cast, the game still has a flow, pace, and uniquely refined sense of tactics and strategy that you can't get anywhere else. If you play Capcom's other fighters from around the same time period, you can see those same design philosophies running through them and being developed with each game. It's more then just an accident, it's a game where legendarily strong genre design fundamentals collided with some very happy accidents to make something totally unique.

I think Battle Garegga is the same. It's the genius who made Recca, making another brilliant game, and having everything else just fall into place.

You have to come up with some strategies to play around the rank-system, and that's about it.

To me, part of Garegga's magic is that it has strategy at all. The vast, vast majority of shmups do not.

Most shmups have tactics, but they don't have much meaningful strategy IMO.

Tactics are your immediate, moment to moment maneuvers to achieve you're immediate goals (like a route). Strategy is more subtle, it's the long-term goals with which you plan to achieve your ultimate goal. Tactics might be how you maneuver your troops in an individual battle, while strategy is how you plan to ultimately shut down the enemy army by seizing all their resources, tiring them out, taking their land, etc. over time.

Most shmups have routing, which I define as a long collection of moment to moment tactics. Most routes come down to "how do I dodge X" followed by "how do I dodge Y". The extent of strategy in most shmups is usually limited to just managing your bomb stock, which is a rather shallow and limited form of strategy IMO, all things considered.

Garegga on the other hand, has lots and lots of subtle elements that allow you to pursue the game with several long term strategies in mind. Everything is a resource in Garegga, not just bombs. Life, bomb chips, score, auto fire rate, certain enemies themselves, secret option formations, special level ups, rank. Most of these are accumulative, so you really have to have a long term strategy in mind to take advantage of them in the way you want.There are a multitude of ways to manipulate the system whether you're playing for survival or score, and thanks to some rng (IIRC), you'll often have to come up with new strategies on the fly (my favorite thing) each time. In some ways, I like to think of BG as the shmup equivalent of a dungeon crawl, where correctly managing your cunsumption of resources over-time is more important (or at least of equal importance) to any moment to moment battle decision.

To me, it's planning a long term strategy suited to your unique goals each playthrough, and organically adjusting it and cleverly thinking ahead on the fly in response to mistakes and some rng, that makes the game so satisfying. Of course, that may not be everyone's cup of tea. Garegga isn't my favorite shmup, but I definitely appreciate it as a change of pace.

I also really like some of the bosses, tricks, and stage layouts too. Medal chaining for life yo.

[AxelMill]

It's not called "You really need to play Battle Garegga" - 4/10

[Obscura]

Cagar; A high scoring Bornnam run contains almost no tricks to get extra points. Just handling every situation as correctly as they were designed for (bombing the right stuff etc.). All of those things were obviously designed with a purpose.

Yes, I'm sure that resetting the board before every run in an arcade setting was entirely the intended way of playing the game, and so was milking BH2 for fifteen minutes just so he'd do that one pattern, and so was sitting on a boss that literally can't fight back for those extra tick points.

Garegga is a cool game, don't get me wrong, but stop pretending its rank system is some inspired work of genius. It's not. It's a busted mechanic that just happened to break in a cool way. Besides, the real reason Garegga is good is because of the level design, but no one ever talks about that.

[Eaglet]

Yes, I'm sure that resetting the board before every run in an arcade setting was entirely the intended way of playing the game, and so was milking BH2 for fifteen minutes just so he'd do that one pattern, and so was sitting on a boss that literally can't fight back for those extra tick points.

Sorry but you're absolutely clueless.
None of the instances you mention matter in a Bornnam run.
Educate yourself before talking shit plz.

Also, great post on the strategizing, Squire.
It really is unique in the level of strategy you'll have to employ in a high scoring run. No other shooting game has as many factors to take into consideration imo.
Only in the first couple of seconds you perform something (setting autofire) that effects the entirety of the game!

[phase3]

the real reason Garegga is good is because of the level design, but no one ever talks about that.

The level design is linked to how the game is inevitably played, including any rank control strategies. The rank system and the great level design coexist and aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm not sure it's quite right to say that the game's brilliant level design doesn't get it's due when there is a website devoted to analyzing it's brilliant level design. http://www.battlegareg.ga

[Obscura]

Yes, I'm sure that resetting the board before every run in an arcade setting was entirely the intended way of playing the game, and so was milking BH2 for fifteen minutes just so he'd do that one pattern, and so was sitting on a boss that literally can't fight back for those extra tick points.

Sorry but you're absolutely clueless.
None of the instances you mention matter in a Bornnam run.
Educate yourself before talking shit plz.

Every ship resets the board before a new run to reset the rank (and item order), and every ship can do the Earth Crisis tick-damage trick. Maybe you're the one that should educate yourself?

(I thought that Bornnam was one of the ships with a bomb that could milk BH2's nades as well, but I don't play Bornnam, so I could be wrong on that one.)

[CloudyMusic]

Earth Crisis milking isn't as lucrative with a number of ships, and even for ships where it is, it's not exactly a required trick, despite how many people seem to assume it is. I got roughly a D score without doing it, and I believe Plasmo got much higher (F?) before he first included it in his runs.

Also, BH2 has a fixed maximum number of attacks before he times out, so "fifteen minutes" is completely absurd. There's RNG in terms of which attacks he chooses to do, but you can't just "keep waiting until he does the good ones."

I do agree that having to reset the board is dumb.

[Eaglet]

Every ship resets the board before a new run to reset the rank (and item order), and every ship can do the Earth Crisis tick-damage trick. Maybe you're the one that should educate yourself?

(I thought that Bornnam was one of the ships with a bomb that could milk BH2's nades as well, but I don't play Bornnam, so I could be wrong on that one.)

If you don't have a hacked Rom, that is.
Resetting with Bornnam is not necessary if the rank isn't ridiculously high.
Bornnam doesn't tick milk if you aren't going for a WR as the point gain is minimal.
Don't want to pull rank but do you realize who you're talking to?

Yes, you milk the grenades, but you would reach that form no matter what you did as it is the second one and it's impossible to not trigger it at all.

The only BH2 attacks you bomb milk are fixed.

[Obscura]

Yes, I do realize who I'm talking to. It doesn't change the fact that the "carry-over" rank shows that rank was a way to munch more yen, not some genius mechanic designed to create a never-before-seen layer of strategy.

I'm aware that BH2's nade attacks happen in the second form, but I also know that a score-run with Gain or Bornnam is going to keep him alive as long as possible in that form to get as many nades as possible to milk. Somehow, I don't think "stop shooting the boss to maximize the number of nades he drops" was intended by YGW.

[Shepardus]

I'm not sure I understand the point here; even if Bornnam play doesn't involve a lot of unintended tricks there are other characters that do use tricks that I'm willing to bet are unintended (Gain suicide trick on birds, anybody?). Every character is subject to the rank system anyway.

[Obscura]

The point is that claiming that "OMG, all of these things were designed like this on purpose, YGW is genius!" is dumb.