Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Kollision]

Well, imo in general the CD shmups just trump most if not all Hucards, except for those made by Konami.

[Perikles]

I actually prefer the HuCard selection over the CDs as a whole, for a few reasons:

- The selection of arcade ports is significantly better in my opinion. The PCE CD has Gradius II, Forgotten Worlds and Cotton which I'd call first-rate, and a healthy selection of good games (Super Darius & Super Raiden, for example). The HuCard selection includes Gradius, Salamander (which is my pick for the single best 16-bit port out there), Detana!! TwinBee, Side Arms (which is better than its CD counterpart), Dragon Saber, Dragon Spirit, Kiki Kaikai, Tatsujin, Galaga '88 and quite a few more solid conversions. It's hard to argue against the almighty PCE CD Gradius II, but you have even more Konami ports on the HuCard front.

- The amount of terrible/clearly below average games is a bit higher with the HuCard selection, yes (Barunba, Deep Blue, Toilet Kids, that godawful Saint Dragon port, Power Gate, Toy Shop Boys). But the CD has its fair share of forgettable/mediocre/bad games as well (Legion, Ai Cho Aniki, Hawk F-123, God Panic, Terra Forming), yet not as many games in general. There are also quite a few "unnecessary" CD games such as the hilariously incomplete "R-Type Complete CD" which lacks the second loop (unlike the sterling HuCard port), the already mentioned inferior CD Side Arms, Hellfire S and Zero Wing, both of which are much weaker than the MD ports.

- I'd even say the console-exclusives are about equal on both fronts, too. The CD has the deepest 16-bit game of them all (Sapphire) and both Rayxanbers are thoroughly excellent, I also really like Image Fight II. But there's Violent Soldier, Final Blaster, Soldier Blade, Hana Tahka Daka!? and Magical Chase (which is also one of the few truly great 16-bit games as far as scoring is concerned) for the HuCards. I personally favour the CD on that account since I'm moreso in love with iremesque games than your typical Compile/Hudson selection, but it's still a close call.

[Feedbacker]

Does anybody know how to enter service mode in Progear no Arashi? I'm using shmupmame where service mode is set to F2 but it adds credits instead.

[OmegaFlareX]

Try holding down 9 or 0 for a few seconds.

[EmperorIng]

Question regarding Gunbird's sega saturn port:

I've seen videos of its Original mode, which has the scrolling playing field that "wobbles" as you move up and down to reveal more of the level. I hate that stuff. Is there an option for just a smaller or scaled-down playfield, like the Strikers 1945 port?

[BIL]

IIRC, there's just the annoying push-scroll letterbox yoko (Original), and full tate display requiring rotated monitor (Arcade). Don't think there was Strikers-style tateyoko, but I'm without a Saturn atm... if I'm wrong, I'll happily be the first volunteer for an exciting new thread: shump forum posters who don't deserve to live.

[EmperorIng]

If so, that's too bad; Psikyo apparently learned their lesson by the time they ported Strikers 1945 over - the home ports settling into the format they kept all the way through Gunbird 2.

I'd be the second volunteer, if only for constantly putting RayForce in my top 3 shmups voting bloc during the annual 25, and never even clearing the game.
I'm working on it, I swear!

[atheistgod1999]

I used to have an Xbox 360, but sold it to get a PS3 almost 3 years ago. Now I hear people using it here. Are there a bunch of shmups available exclusively for it or something?

Also, are there any HD console games that support TATE? Because my new monitor can be rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

[WelshMegalodon]

One word: CAVE.

[atheistgod1999]

How come they didn't make them for the PS3? No one even cares/cared about any Xbox in Japan.

Any good shmups on Steam? Even better if they support TATE.

[WelshMegalodon]

Every single vertical shooter in MAME supports TATE and most of them will run better than anything on Steam.

[trap15]

How come they didn't make them for the PS3? No one even cares/cared about any Xbox in Japan.

Microsoft money-hatted the first couple and then since all the shooter players/buyers were on 360 the other devs went with it.

[drunkninja24]

Because for whatever reason (nobody can say exactly why though there's plenty of theories) the 360 became the console of choice for shmups in Japan pretty early in the console's life, so that's just where devs sent their games to.

Even though the PS3 did get a few shmup releases (most notably Ketsui and Under Defeat HD), they always underperformed in sales compared to their 360 counterparts in Japan.

As for Steam, yes, you can get a few Cave ports now on there such as Deathsmiles and Mushihimesama (and soon Dondonpachi DFK) and several other releases if you look around.

[Squire Grooktook]

Steam is pretty much the best shmup platform in existence right now.

I can't even vouch for all the good games on it right now, because I can't afford them all! But from personal playtime, you can't go wrong with:

Sora/Suguri
Crimzon Clover
Gundemonium Recollection
GundeadliGne
eXceed 2nd
eXceed 3rd
Eschatos
Judgement Silversword
Darius Burst: Chronicle Saviours
Mecha Ritz: Steel Rondo
Xenodyne R
Ether Vapor Remaster
Raiden IV
Kamui
RefleX
Alltynex Second
Ikaruga
Mushihimesama
Strania - The Stella Machina

Favorite bolded.

And again, those are just the ones I've played.

[tomwhite2004]

Steam also has Satazius, Refrain, Deltazeal, XIIZeal, EXZeal, Trizeal remix etc.

Start with Crimzon Clover and Mecha Ritz, really cant go wrong with those.

[OmKol]

Danmaku Unlimited 2 and REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR is also fun.

[tomwhite2004]

And outside of steam you have amazing games like Battle Traverse and the whole doujin scene. I only bought my first pc a month ago but its already the best purchase I could have ever made for playing shmups and arcade games. A Japanese 360 is still worth picking up though as the next best way to play Cave games outside of buying the pcbs.

[Kollision]

Every single vertical shooter in MAME supports TATE and most of them will run better than anything on Steam.

Half the games I purchased on Steam run at an awful 30fps on my PC.
Granted, those are the oldest ones, but still (Ether Vapor Remaster, Reflex, exceed).

I tried everything to correct that, to no avail.
Recently I upgraded from Windows 8 to 10, but haven't tried to play them.
Should I have some hope or not?

[tomwhite2004]

Every single vertical shooter in MAME supports TATE and most of them will run better than anything on Steam.

Half the games I purchased on Steam run at an awful 30fps on my PC.
Granted, those are the oldest ones, but still (Ether Vapor Remaster, Reflex, exceed).

I tried everything to correct that, to no avail.
Recently I upgraded from Windows 8 to 10, but haven't tried to play them.
Should I have some hope or not?

What processor / gpu do you have? To be honest I cant see going from win 8 to 10 making any difference though.

[Shepardus]

Somehow nobody mentioned Astebreed which is great and available on Steam, Playism, GOG, and the Humble Store.

[BIL]

Question regarding Gunbird's sega saturn port:

I've seen videos of its Original mode, which has the scrolling playing field that "wobbles" as you move up and down to reveal more of the level. I hate that stuff. Is there an option for just a smaller or scaled-down playfield, like the Strikers 1945 port?

IIRC, there's just the annoying push-scroll letterbox yoko (Original), and full tate display requiring rotated monitor (Arcade).

Just confirmed the above by sticking my disc in the PC and firing up SSF. Saturn GB only has wobble yoko (Original) and full rotated (Arcade) modes. Annoyingly, there's actually option menus within each, but no dice. Saturn Garegga port, now that's service! The GB port itself is great otherwise though, as far as I've always heard.

Dunno how the PS1 port (NTSCJ) holds up. There's the PS2 pack too but again, never had much reason to look into it.

[OmKol]

Every single vertical shooter in MAME supports TATE and most of them will run better than anything on Steam.

Half the games I purchased on Steam run at an awful 30fps on my PC.
Granted, those are the oldest ones, but still (Ether Vapor Remaster, Reflex, exceed).

I tried everything to correct that, to no avail.
Recently I upgraded from Windows 8 to 10, but haven't tried to play them.

Can't say anything about Windows 10 but for Windows 8 this works great.

[EmperorIng]

Just confirmed the above by sticking my disc in the PC and firing up SSF. Saturn GB only has wobble yoko (Original) and full rotated (Arcade) modes. Annoyingly, there's actually option menus within each, but no dice. Saturn Garegga port, now that's service! The GB port itself is great otherwise though, as far as I've always heard.

Dunno how the PS1 port (NTSCJ) holds up. There's the PS2 pack too but again, never had much reason to look into it.

If I were a rich man, I'd consider that Battle Garegga port*, but MAME will have to do. So too with Gunbird! Thanks for double-checking ;3

For right now, my Psikyo Saturn offerings are confined to the excellent and better-than-people-give-credit-for Strikers 1945, and the... not-so-excellent Sol Divide. Really don't know how to articulate my emotions on that game, other than continuously laughing at the descriptive "Psikyo's collaboration with Ray Harryhausen," as seen on shmupsfarm. Trying to 1CC that one over this past week has elucidated to me the many weird design choices Nakamura et al. made in the game: it's like the anti-Psikyo, in that there is no memorization, no planning - it's all reactive, melee-mashing and grouping enemies together to maximize your killing power. Replete with a few simplified Psikyo bullet patterns with orange balls to remind you that yes, you are playing a Psikyo game.

*Old (actually young) Ing might have made a mistake in already ordering a particularly rare and sought-after Saturn shooter several weeks ago, so only one of those at a time I'm afraid.

[BIL]

Ah, Sol Divide... or as I like to think of it, When Harry Met Nacky.

[copy-paster]

When I have successfully record vertical games in MAME via internal avi record, the video shows the game with 7:12 ratio instead of 3:4, why is this happen? Does it still shows the 7:12 ratio if I upload the video on YT?

[Shepardus]

MAME will always export videos at whatever resolution the game renders at, which for some games is at a different ratio than the aspect ratio that actually gets displayed (the pixels are stretched to be rectangular in such cases). Ketsui and other PGM games, for example, have a 1:2 pixel aspect, Great Mahou Daisakusen and other CPS2 games have a 7:12 pixel aspect, and Dragon Blaze and other Psikyo games have a 7:10 pixel aspect. If you want the YouTube video to have a 3:4 aspect ratio you have to scale it yourself before uploading.

[atheistgod1999]

So I downloaded MAME to try it out, a Galaga ROM, and it won't work. I put the .zip file in the rom folder, it recognizes it in the menu (even says it's working), but it says it's missing one or more ROM files or something when I click on it. Can someone help?

[WelshMegalodon]

http://choccyhobnob.com/articles/demyst ... mame-roms/

http://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/FAQ:ROMs

Some outdated ROMs will still start when run through the command line, so try that too.

[Synnae]

I've been wanting to ask this for a while. Raiden Densetsu/Trad for MD/GEN is apparently a combo of the Japanese and Western versions of the game into the same cartridge. You can see that it has both names on the title screen. But when I press start, the game defaults to Raiden Trad. I've tried to press all buttons, button combinations, etc... but I can't get the game to select Raiden Densetsu. I know it's possible because I've seen some people doing that, like this person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53fisjVYnIs

Can someone tell me what I should do to select Raiden Densetsu?

[BIL]

AFAIK: that's just a weird quirk of the Japanese version, which is officially titled "Raiden Densetsu." In spite of this, it'll display "Raiden Trad" on bootup/attract. Then you hit [Start] and get the "Raiden Densetsu" screen with Options.

The US Raiden Trad cart is adjusted appropriately so you never see the Japanese title.

The Japanese version is, however, one of those earlier releases with multiple regions on the same cartridge (like Thunder Force III). Try booting it in an emulator that allows you to select region, like GENS, and you'll notice the behaviours mentioned above.