Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Squire Grooktook]

Eschatos love <3

You're already proving yourself to have good taste

[Vludi]

Sengoku Ace. Pretty much Aero Fighters in scifi feudal Japan, fun game.

[atheistgod1999]

Played Shmups Skill Test. Here are the results of my first attempt:

Spoiler

Those flat square things really gave my right arm a workout

For other people who have played this, what have your results been?

[Kiken]

Revisiting Thunder Force II MD. What an archaic mess this game is! Playing this again makes me really appreciate all the changes that took place in TFIII (especially the speed select). I feel the same way about the random-ass overhead stages as most of this forum feels about Axelay's overhead levels. Why? Why is stage 9 overhead?

[Squire Grooktook]

I love fast movement, but only when it's implemented organically and is genuinely effective against the games challenges, rather than being simply forced and making easier challenges harder due to loss of precision (which feels awful to me).

Hellfire and Slap Fight are two more Toaplan games that seem to be designed around playing with maximum speed (and Tatsujin Ou). It can be a wee bit tricky in Hellfire since you might crash into obstacles at first, it's really intuitive after a little while, though. Slap Fight is all about blazing across the entire screen, trying to eliminate small tanks everywhere while misleading several fast clouds of bullets. Higher loops get outright frantic (the MD port has a highly durable shield that makes things considerably easier, loops 6-8 of the console-exclusive Special mode are still pretty challenging in spite of the shield), you would probably enjoy it.

Late reply, sorry! I had actually spent a large amount of time with Slapfight a year or two ago, but felt like replaying it to jog my memory before responding, and to confirm some thoughts*.

Slap Fight is indeed a gorgeous game, though its fast dodging is less "pure" to me than Tatsujin, due to the presence of the whole ship transformation mechanic and the bizarre, intentionally unwieldy hitboxes it entails.

I like to think of Slap Fight as primarily a "shape shifter shooter" where you're constantly adaptively trading in body mass and strategically picking different parts to add on to yourself to fit the situation. From that perspective, and in combination with the excellent dodging, I think it's quite sublime in its own way. But it's definitely different from a pure zipper, especially with the supremely chunky hitboxes that become involved.

I'd really love a Slap Fighter spiritual successor with the body horror aesthetic of the Gallshell/Akiragoya games. Going from a character shmup to a chimeric bio-monstrosity as you take on parts would fit my ghoulish sensibilities quite well~


*Note: All of the above is primarily about Slap Fight MD's special arrange, which is my favorite from what I've played.

[EmperorIng]

Sengoku Ace. Pretty much Aero Fighters in scifi feudal Japan, fun game.

But a lot more fun than Aero Fighters!

I think the only faults I find with the game are the 5-second music loops (...why?) and the useless charge attacks. Maybe some people will count those "you'd better memorize this!" boss patterns in Psikyo games as a flaw. I usually don't.

I bought a lot of shmups this weekend, so I am going to need to clean my game shelf out in order to recoup the losses.

Some games I finally bought:

Exzeal: I am not sure if I am behind Fujino's love of wiggle-shot. T-Service's fetish for abstract, almost puzzle-ish levels is unique, but also very weird and off-putting (case in point: endless bomber formation in stage... 2? that almost led me to think it actually WAS endless scrolling until I destroyed all the planes repeating the same formation for 60 or so seconds). Of all the Triangle games I've played I think I might like DeltaZeal the most!

Kamui: Credit-fed like a scrub just to take it all in. A lot of love in this game, and I can see myself really digging it the more I figure out how to survive in-game. I think my one complaint is that it seems like you NEED to have some charge-laser to clear bullets; there's no way out otherwise.

[Perikles]

Slap Fight is indeed a gorgeous game, though its fast dodging is less "pure" to me than Tatsujin, due to the presence of the whole ship transformation mechanic and the bizarre, intentionally unwieldy hitboxes it entails.

You know, I never bothered with that entire aspect of the game, be it the original arcade game, the MD port or the MD-exclusive mode. I always play with just the regular ship and the default shot - sometimes switching to the homing missiles -, it seems much more organic to me. I'm pretty sure this improves the odds of both survival and scoring (since you can focus longer on the Space Invaders aliens thanks to the smaller hitbox), too. I'm sure that the game(s) can be played with some or all of the wing upgrades, it's not what I would necessarily recommend, though.


I tried to play R-Type Final yesterday, gave up after 30 minutes again. I love the R-Type series and don't mind slow-moving, methodical games, but R-Type Final is almost as boring as Vimana. Nothing happens in the first few stages, and when you get three or so enemies on-screen, massive slowdown occurs. I sometimes lethargically watch a glacial bullet heading towards me and don't even make any effort to dodge since I couldn't care less. What's even worse is that they evidently went the cinematic route with Final, but they did infinitely better with Delta already. I'll muster the mental fortitude to play Final to the end - one day. I hope.

[Squire Grooktook]

The Typhoon Bomb mechanic really shines in the md special version at least.

>power up, gaining the wings
>aggressively blast everything, preventing bullets from flooding the screen and allowing the longer ship room to manuever
>can't dodge anymore? cash in the wings for a TYHPHOON BOMBA!!
>repeat from the beginning

Great flashy fun.

Definitely feels wrong (and less interesting) to play MD Special without (I tried), since there's no danger of doing this (wings autobomb if hit) and those stars are just going to waste otherwise~


Also yeah fuck Final man. The battleship stage nearly gives me cancer. Last two stages are interesting, I guess. I like the atmosphere on the finalie.

[wgogh]

Tried a run on the Giga Wing Generations for the Playstation 2

Spoiler

Well, I found out that I got a little better at it

[Square_Air]

Been putting some serious time in Dangun Feveron over the last 2 weeks, going for that 1cc. I can't believe I never appreciated how fast and frantic this game is. It's very quickly becoming one of my favourites. I know it goes without saying, but, HEAVEN IS HERE INSIDE MY SOUL

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Easily top 5 or top 10 for me. My only complaint is that it's so violent, I often feel dehydrated after playing

Speaking of

Wooooooooow

Sora is fucking good.

Had been holding off on this one for a while, given I've always felt that its mechanics and playstyle made it more of a fighting game/character action title masquerading as a shmup, but you know what? That's not a bad thing.

Sora's joyful dashing, sliding, and fighting game precise omni-ranged mix up and offense/defense game are simply out of this world.

Every type of combat expertise comes in to play at some point. Attack start up and recovery management, spacing games, i-frame usage, bullet cancelling and dodging...and it's all so fluidly balanced and interlinked. What a game.

[necrosonic]

I am trying to get somewhere in Life Force, this is the 1st time in many years I have attempted to seriously beat a shooter and so far it is kicking my ass. It's funny because I can get through something like Contra fairly easily but this is messing with me hard for some reason. My goal is to beat (not even 1CC) a couple of old NES favorites, try a few of my old arcade favorites and then to try and get through just one bullet hell game.

[EmperorIng]

The stage 4 enemies coming up from the bottom were the biggest obstacle to me in clearing Life Force. You really need to know where they are coming from and importantly how long they can linger on the bottom of the screen, catching you off-guard while you worry about a barrage of kidney stones (in the liver!!!).

[Square_Air]

Sora is fucking good.

This and Suguri have been on my radar for a while now. They seems a little out of what i'm familiar with, but from the runs i've watched they seem really kinetic and the dash mechanic looks like it could be a lot of fun. I might pick one of these up before the sale ends if I can. $6 is pretty reasonable, but heaven knows I could drop over $100 easily on this sale if I didn't control myself. *Salivates*

[necrosonic]

The stage 4 enemies coming up from the bottom were the biggest obstacle to me in clearing Life Force. You really need to know where they are coming from and importantly how long they can linger on the bottom of the screen, catching you off-guard while you worry about a barrage of kidney stones (in the liver!!!).

That sounds frightening as I haven't even made it to stage 4 yet! But I did just get it yesterday, heh. I was able to get to the last stage as a kid so hopefully it will start to come back as I play more.

[Squire Grooktook]

Sora is fucking good.

This and Suguri have been on my radar for a while now. They seems a little out of what i'm familiar with, but from the runs i've watched they seem really kinetic and the dash mechanic looks like it could be a lot of fun. I might pick one of these up before the sale ends if I can. $6 is pretty reasonable, but heaven knows I could drop over $100 easily on this sale if I didn't control myself. *Salivates*

Yes, kinetic describes it perfectly.

It's not a game to play if you want traditional shmup dodging. It's there, but its like a 5-10% ratio snuggled between 8-9 other types of evasion/countering/spacing. I'd describe it as character action with a side of shmupping.

Sora is the better of the two BTW and a better starting point. Suguri is much more rough around the edges, and the lack of a dedicated melee hurts quite a bit. Still good though. And the main characters theme song is rad.

[Shepardus]

I want to like Sora but I'm so bad at it. Doesn't play like other shooters, dashing takes some getting used to. I just dash around everywhere and get hit by everything and die even on the second or third stage of easy difficulty...

[Stevens]

Took a little break but am looking forward to some Cave and Takumi goodness this weekend.

After actually sitting down with Esp 2 360 mode I have finally wrapped my head around scoring. I think I'm going to stay here for a bit.

[Stevens]

Esp 2 360

Figured out the 1st extend pretty quick, no issues getting it before the mid boss. Now I want to maximize the rest of the stage. Getting the 2nd extend on stage 1 would be cool, but 25 - 30 million would be good too.

[zorn]

Zenodyne R.
Still have not managed to 1CC it.. those bullets are quick!

[wgogh]

Zenodyne R.
Still have not managed to 1CC it.. those bullets are quick!

I had to google it. Looks like a PC Engine shooter for me.
Nice attempt at retro style, even with the name.

[zorn]

Nice attempt at retro style, even with the name.

The dudes making it are active here on the forums, actually.

[wgogh]

Nice attempt at retro style, even with the name.

The dudes making it are active here on the forums, actually.

Really? Nice! There are a lot of devs here.
Just read that they used the YM2612 Genesis chip for the soundtrack, really nice.

[Perikles]

I feel like devoting some more time into a handful of games, but I'm a bit burned out on bells after several TwinBee titles, so I'll drop Gokujou Parodius for the time being - I made some good progress and a few relevant discoveries (the boss at the end of the high speed stage for example is significantly easier with three speed-ups at full rank, I simply cannot beat him with just two) so I should be able to get back into the game at a favourable pace whenever I decide to revisit it again. Special Stage will be a nightmare no matter what since it's so fiendishly difficult, but that's not going to change either way.

Instead I'll look into Gradius II and Dragon Blaze. While I know precisely what I have to do in the former (play with three speed-ups and look how it affects some crucial areas; try to use the fourth option whilst stalling some bosses in order to get a preferable timing for the option hunter; most importantly: learn high-loop checkpoint recovery!) I'm much more uncertain with Dragon Blaze. For starters: is there a way to hold down the shot button without activating magic? I know that it's no strain on the fingers to achieve an optimal rate of fire in this game, I can nonetheless concentrate much better when not being distracted with tapping, so it would be great if there were some solution for this. Both with and without autofire activated it seems like holding the button will activate magic provided there's enough energy to cast it unless I'm gravely mistaken (which is a very distinct possibility!). Pressing the dragon shot button once the creature is deployed works a little bit like calling the Flint back in Xexex, right? It might take a while for the draco nobilis to return, yet it does affect its behaviour, correct?

[pegboy]

I haven't played Dragon Blaze but if it's anything like Strikers 1999 there should be a separate button for autofire. If not, you can setup a custom button in MAME to achieve the same thing perhaps?

[Shepardus]

I'm much more uncertain with Dragon Blaze. For starters: is there a way to hold down the shot button without activating magic? I know that it's no strain on the fingers to achieve an optimal rate of fire in this game, I can nonetheless concentrate much better when not being distracted with tapping, so it would be great if there were some solution for this. Both with and without autofire activated it seems like holding the button will activate magic provided there's enough energy to cast it unless I'm gravely mistaken (which is a very distinct possibility!). Pressing the dragon shot button once the creature is deployed works a little bit like calling the Flint back in Xexex, right? It might take a while for the draco nobilis to return, yet it does affect its behaviour, correct?

I haven't tried setting up an autofire button (far too used to playing without it) but if autofire is still triggering magic then maybe you need a slower autofire rate? I'm not familiar with Xexex but yes, pressing the dragon shot button after sending out the dragon will call it back. You can also buffer the input as you send the dragon out so it starts coming back to you immediately afterwards (how long this takes depends on the character). This is useful for repeated dragon-shotting which is the staple of the game. While the dragon is coming back, you can press and hold the dragon-shot button to pause the dragon in the middle of its return (useful for adjusting the dragon's position if you mispositioned it under a coinhead, for example).

I haven't played Dragon Blaze but if it's anything like Strikers 1999 there should be a separate button for autofire. If not, you can setup a custom button in MAME to achieve the same thing perhaps?

No dedicated autofire button in Dragon Blaze - it's got three buttons but the third button is used for dragon-shot, similar to how the third button in Gunbird 2 is used for melee.

[Perikles]

I haven't tried setting up an autofire button (far too used to playing without it) but if autofire is still triggering magic then maybe you need a slower autofire rate?

I tried extremely low rates (even less than 1.5Hz) as well as some of the usual ones (30Hz, 15Hz, 10Hz), the result is always the same. Looks like the magic will always activate whenever the shot button is pressed down for a little while. Well, looks like the fabric of reality is highly instable in my world of Dragon Blaze, I'll just hold down the button for now despite the indubitably negative side effect.

I'm not familiar with Xexex but yes, pressing the dragon shot button after sending out the dragon will call it back. You can also buffer the input as you send the dragon out so it starts coming back to you immediately afterwards (how long this takes depends on the character). This is useful for repeated dragon-shotting which is the staple of the game. While the dragon is coming back, you can press and hold the dragon-shot button to pause the dragon in the middle of its return (useful for adjusting the dragon's position if you mispositioned it under a coinhead, for example).

That is some great piece of information, thank you very much for that. Should be jolly fun to figure out the uses and limits of the dragon, just like the Flint in Xexex, indeed.

I haven't played Dragon Blaze but if it's anything like Strikers 1999 there should be a separate button for autofire. If not, you can setup a custom button in MAME to achieve the same thing perhaps?

No dedicated autofire button in Dragon Blaze - it's got three buttons but the third button is used for dragon-shot, similar to how the third button in Gunbird 2 is used for melee.

Switching between four buttons would probably be rather unwieldy, although it is a bit sad that it doesn't seem to work. I'm willing to confess that I'm rather pettish when it comes to tapping buttons instead of holding them down, it's certainly not a huge objective issue.

[Blinge]

I'm reviving a demon I left years ago.

Gonna start playing Gradius arcade again and try to clear it

[Ruldra]

Casually playing Raiden II these days. Damn this game is tough.

[maximo310]

The one and only GOAT tank game, Assault/ Assault Plus. Tough, but I'm getting closer to completing it.