Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Squire Grooktook]

Anyone played Artesneit's games (NSFW)? They look decent but the art style is... well:

Maebari girls, BLAST AWAY!

* What is "maebari"?
Outfits with a kind of, um, design focused on the crotch front.

I could overlook if they're good, but I don't want to spend $10 on a pervy game that sucks.

I've played Artesneit's Yakouga 4 off a recommendation thread I made here a year or two ago, and it's pretty solid. Progear explosion bullet cancelling mixed with touhou graze surfing and YGW chain medal dropping. Great fun, though the survival difficulty is a bit low and I have no idea how to unlock hard mode.

I've heard good things about Yakouga 5 too, which seems to be an incredibly manic combination of Recca and Side Arms, been meaning to give that one a shot.

[CStarFlare]

I'm starting to get the impression that Artesneit might actually deserve their own thread. Sprite is selling a bunch of stuff for next to nothing on DL Site at the moment so I've bought a few of those instead. But I'll keep my eye on Artesneit in the future.

[BulletMagnet]

Sprite is selling a bunch of stuff for next to nothing on DL Site at the moment so I've bought a few of those instead.

If you don't mind me sending a question back your way, which ones did you buy, and how are they? There are loads of them on DLSite, and I've been curious about them but never actually settled on one or two to try; what do you think of them?

[CStarFlare]

I've played all three of my purchases very lightly, but here are my impressions:

Hisyou-Gumi is the best of the three I got. Hori shmup where you gain experience by collecting blue orbs that enemies drop. When at max level the orbs give points instead. You'll hit max by early stage 2; in Easy you don't lose levels unless you game over, but Normal and Hard bump you down every time you die. If you stop shooting, orbs will rotate around your character blocking bullets and destroying certain obstacles that are aren't damaged by your shot. It defaults to Easy Mode with 9 lives and even if you bump the difficulty up I suppose 9 lives is still the default. It's competent but a bit bland - one of those cute em ups that doesn't really have charm or personality though it ticks the boxes. I think Hard mode might be good.

B-System is wants to be Darius+Gradius, with mecha fish bosses and a Gradius-style upgrade system. Unfortunately, it seems to just be an uninspired boss rush. If you like boss milking this may be for you - it seems that destructible boss shots are the only things that give points, the bosses themselves don't seem to. Seems like the worst of the lot.

Titei Senki isn't a scrolling shmup at all - it's one of those games where you destroy all the enemies to open a goal. You control a sidescrolling mech game with infinite boosting and weak gravity - basically a flying game as long as you keep tapping up. You can switch between two (straightforward) weapons at will, and the recoil from shooting will push you back. I only played the first stage (consisting of six areas) and didn't care to continue, but that might have been the expectation gap and the fact that I usually don't go for this kind of game. Hard mode has some promise; Normal didn't do anything for me and seemed a little light (though, again, I just saw it through stage 1).

All three seem to be X68000 ports, judging by the group's work on that system and the fact that all the title screens indicate copyright dates of 1997/2016. It looks like I have Xadlak Plus in my library at DL Site though I don't think I ever played it - it's probably OK though.

Since we're talking DL Site, anyone know about Rayhawk? I'm extremely skeptical looking at their list of very similar games.

[BulletMagnet]

Since we're talking DL Site, anyone know about Rayhawk? I'm extremely skeptical looking at their list of very similar games.

Ah, actually that was the company I was thinking of, my bad. I actually have Hisyou-Gumi myself.

[doom_]

[quote=niche genre thread] To newbies?

From arcade titles, some rarely mentioned games I'd suggest are Last Resort, Sky adventure, and I'm thinking Zero Wing?

From "meta" games, Donpachi comes to mind.[/quote]

what is a "meta"-game?

[Blinge]

The literal definition is a game about games.

A common use of the term is for a game within a game, or the emergent gameplay that may differ from how the game was intended to be played.

Metagaming is any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself.

For example: As people find new scoring techniques or safe spots etc in a shmup - these optimal strategies are adopted by anyone going for the highest score possible. Discovery, sharing, learning these methods is the metagame.

Metagame is often used in fighting game discourse. Ken and Chun Li are top tier in the SF: 3rd Strike meta, for instance.
(correct me if I'm wrong)

I don't know what Captain meant when he said metagame but from here it looks like he's misused the term.
Oh, and according to the wikipedia page, the definition is much broader than I thought.

[Despatche]

what is a "meta"-game?

When that poster said "meta", I think they meant simply games that have come to represent the genre. Space Invaders, Galaga, Gradius, Raiden, Dodonpachi, Ikaruga, Touhou, etc. The biggest of the big, ever.

[system11]

Does anybody know what the hell happened to SDLMAME on Linux lately? I know that it had inherent input lag problems compared to the standard Windows build, but now it is just horrendous. I used to be happy enough with version 169 when stuck with a Linux machine, now updated to 173 and shmups are unplayable. Anybody figured out a fix, something to tweak in the config?

Hey, would you mind trying versions between 0.169 and 0.173 and seeing where the problem starts? There was a recent bug affecting some games (I forget which ones) which cut the performance by 4 - might be something else which needs raising as an actual bug.

[NormalFish]

Hey, I looked around but I think my search terms are probably bunk.

Anyone know which PS1/2 Vertical shmups allow for a tate/yoko hybrid mod designed so that you can play with your screen in yoko, but in full resolution? I know some of the Cave offerings on the PS1 allow for this, but I don't know which. Would be nice to have a proper list but if anyone knows any for sure I'm anxious to hear.

[The Armchair General]

Anyone know how to play Wing Force with autofire? I can't find any versions mameplus or wolfmame that support that game.

[Shepardus]

trap15 has a build of MAME to support that. I think this is the link: http://daifukkat.su/secret/wingforcemame.7z

[The Armchair General]

Thank you and Trap15 very much!

[BIL]

Anyone know which PS1/2 Vertical shmups allow for a tate/yoko hybrid mod designed so that you can play with your screen in yoko, but in full resolution? I know some of the Cave offerings on the PS1 allow for this, but I don't know which. Would be nice to have a proper list but if anyone knows any for sure I'm anxious to hear.

Do you mean tateyoko (as Battle Garegga's Saturn port calls it)? Full vertical display rotated, scaled down and pillarboxed to fit standard TV orientation? Offhand, I can confirm all of the below allow this (edit: listing only NTSCJ versions):

PS1

Capcom Generation Vols. 1, 3 & 4
DonPachi
Namco Museum Vols.1-5 & Encore
Raiden DX
Raiden Project
Sonic Wings Special
Toaplan Shooting Battle Vol.1
Twinbee Deluxe Pack*
Xevious 3D/G+

PS2

DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou
Double Shienryu
ESPGaluda
Homura
Ibara
Mushihimesama
Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol.2: Sengoku Ace & Sengoku Blade
Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol.3: Sol Divide & Dragon Blaze
Taito Memories Joukan* & Taito Memories Gekan*
Taito Memories II Joukan & Taito Memories II Gekan

*lacks tate altogether; scaled yoko is only option

[AxelMill]

DoDonPachi PSX has the so-called "Tate (Yoko Mode)". Same thing. Handy when playing it on a PSP.

[Stevens]

I'm going to jump in the meta discussion:D

Like Blinge has already pointed out - it is a game within the game. And since he brought up SF (and I played it competitively for years) I will run with that.

I choose my character - opponent selects his. How well do I know this match up? I run Claw so generally you want to keep motherfuckers at a distance (at least up to V), but then there are match up specific things:

At a reset or round start what do I need to do to win? If I'm at a disadvantage what is the best way to at least score a reset (at a safe distance like the start of the round)?
What are your options if you get knocked down? Do I have a wake up with invincible frames? Maybe my opponent is going to try and bait me into using it and then punish. What do I do if I'm cornered/have my opponent in a corner? If I score a knockdown can I cross up? Or will I go for a mix up with my overhead, sweep, or throw and see if I can get my opponent to guess wrong and maybe score another knockdown.

It can also refer to the mind game aspect too.

[NormalFish]

Thanks a bunch, BIL and AxelMill. Exactly what I was looking for!

[BIL]

That sounds uncannily like DECO's Wolf Fang/Rohga in several regards (custom 3-part mech, pilot eject, lifebar, ground-based autoscroller) - but that one's a sidescroller with occasional vertical sequences.

Thought I'd mention anyway in case there's some vertical equivalent I'm unaware of, haha.

[OmegaFlareX]

Anyone know how to play Wing Force with autofire? I can't find any versions mameplus or wolfmame that support that game.

Didn't see this yesterday. Autofire is baseline in MAME now, but the devs consider it cheating so you have to enable cheats first and find it under that menu.

[LDigital]

Can anyone recommend a good vertical arcade shooter that plays on a horizontal screen? like gigawing but without the brutal price tag

[Stevens]

Jamestown is the cheapest one I can think of. OK as a single player, a lot of fun if you have people that will play it with you.

[harveybirdman]

Can anyone recommend a good vertical arcade shooter that plays on a horizontal screen? like gigawing but without the brutal price tag

What platform? Arcade? Console? PC?

Raystorm and Mars Matrix come to mind, but I have a lot of fun with some of the PC engine (TurboGraphix16) titles myself using emulation.

[LDigital]

Can anyone recommend a good vertical arcade shooter that plays on a horizontal screen? like gigawing but without the brutal price tag

What platform? Arcade? Console? PC?

Raystorm and Mars Matrix come to mind, but I have a lot of fun with some of the PC engine (TurboGraphix16) titles myself using emulation.

Sorry, I meant actual arcade pcb.
I can't do the screen rotate thing but want a nice vertical to play in full screen

I'm seeing gigawing for around £200 ish :/

[endoKarb]

Is there a build of MAME other than ShmupMAME that plays Gunbird without ridiculous input lag?

Something tells me the answer is "no".

[ProjectAKo]

I just tried it on wolfmame 161... wow that is friggin long

[Xyga]

Is there a build of MAME other than ShmupMAME that plays Gunbird without ridiculous input lag?

Something tells me the answer is "no".

GroovyMAME using Direct3D9ex output and fine-tuning frame_delay.
(Disabling Aero and increasing USB polling rate as a bonus of course if you're on Windows)

There isn't any lower delay solution than that when it comes to MAME, otherwise you'll have to go with 15Khz, non-windows setups.
You'll have to learn how to configure it, how to tune frame_delay etc. Good luck!
BTW: latest build is 0.171

[endoKarb]

Adding some details to my question.

The issue I'm having is the old Psikyo driver (psikyo.cpp) has 3 frame of input delay. If you input a direction for example, it waits three frames then moves on the fourth. This is completely unrelated to video lag, or USB related lag and all that, so GroovyMAME doesn't really help with it.

AFAIK ShumpMAME is the only build that fixes this, but apparently also introduces some bugs. In particular when playing with Ash (and maybe others) the charge attack stops working on the 1-6 boss. Pretty weird.

It'd also be nice to know whether this specific lag is present in the PCB too. Not sure if there's a good way to test it though.

[Harpuia]

In the set 2 version of Raiden, are there any factors that go into whether or not you'll get a full power-up upon death? In my experience it seems to be somewhat random.

[Xyga]

Adding some details to my question.

The issue I'm having is the old Psikyo driver (psikyo.cpp) has 3 frame of input delay. If you input a direction for example, it waits three frames then moves on the fourth. This is completely unrelated to video lag, or USB related lag and all that, so GroovyMAME doesn't really help with it.

AFAIK ShumpMAME is the only build that fixes this, but apparently also introduces some bugs. In particular when playing with Ash (and maybe others) the charge attack stops working on the 1-6 boss. Pretty weird.

It'd also be nice to know whether this specific lag is present in the PCB too. Not sure if there's a good way to test it though.

ShmupMAME doesn't really fix anything, iirc it's disabling a sprite buffer so at best reduces the total lag by 1 frame.
ShmupMAME also probably only gets decent lag using ddraw, since it's old and doesn't feature frame_delay for D3D you can't go the next step in reducing video lag.
All-in-all with the two methods you should get to the same total amount of total delay, at a number of scanlines of difference (thorough testing required to tell how many).

Dunno about the pcb but with emulators you can only reduce the lag anyway, not eliminate it (well in the case of driver like this one at least).

[The Armchair General]

In the set 2 version of Raiden, are there any factors that go into whether or not you'll get a full power-up upon death? In my experience it seems to be somewhat random.

IIRC the first death has a 100% chance of dropping a full power-up if you have full power already. There is a glitch on stage 7 where if you're at the bottom of the screen and die, the full power-up can fly off of the screen and you can't get it. Either that or the glitch doesn't let the full power-up item spawn in the first place.

Past the first death things get a little more complicated. I can's say this with 100% certainty but....

You see, all of the items (power-ups, bombs, full power-ups) in Raiden are all in a static conveyor belt and every time you die the game takes a random amount of items off of that conveyor belt. Let's say that you die and the game decides to spawn three items after you die and the three power-up ships after your death have a power-up, a bomb, and another power-up. Then the items the game is going to spawn after your death will be a power-up, a bomb, and a power-up and the three ships after your death will drop the items that the three power-up after them was supposed to drop. This ties into how to get full power-up items because in order to get it to where they spawn after you die, you just need them to be the next item in the conveyor belt. There are two full power-up items in the game and they are on stage 4 and stage 8. If you offset the conveyor belt enough you can get those two to spawn from your second death onwards.

Also there's one other way to offset the conveyor belt and that's if you kill this boat in stage 3 while it's docking. It has a very VERY low chance to drop a life but that chance can be heightened by dying before you get to that boat. If that boat doesn't drop a life, then it will drop a power-up instead. This will offset the conveyor belt by one. This can be proven by the fact that in Cream's run (which destroys the boat) the first power-up ship of stage 5 drops a power-up while the first power-up ship in my run drops a bomb.

Hope this makes sense. Also are you the guy who commented on my Raiden video and asked some questions a little while ago?