These are my Shmup confessions...

[MaXXX]

One guy compared save state practice to an athlete using steroids.

Well they're both performance enhancing I suppose

[Stevens]

I'm not gonna read that bad thread but are there actually people who think practicing with savestates is cheating

One guy compared save state practice to an athlete using steroids.

I don't use save states, but are you fucking kidding me?

A better analogy based around athletics would be save states are practice, full runs are games.

[BIL]

I can't love a vert lacking ground targets. Respect and thoroughly enjoy, absolutely, but not love. I need a certain amount of scorched earth, shattered asphalt and general ground activity to be truly content. Thus I'll more readily enjoy a competent Toaplan-alike than something more ambitious, even if the latter is technically superior.

[Drachenherz]

I... I haven't played a shmup for months... or maybe even over a year now... and still lurk these boards every day for prolonged times... what's wrong with me?
(Well, having 3 kids now, a kickass pc gaming rig and a Vive VR system and more games in my steam backlog that I could ever play, that's wrong with me, among other things..)

[Sumez]

Same here man, that's why I'm only active in the non-shmups threads, adding to the forum's increased amount of off-topic banter that detracts from its true purpose

That said, one of my 2017 resolutions is a Blazing Star 1CC

edit: 2017. It's a little late for 2016

[BackwardPlot425]

I never 1CC any shmups. Not even Gradius for MSX, a shmup on MSX I do love oh so much. I guess I prefer MSX Gradius over NES but I digress.

Anyways, I am a chump but I am willing to change that soon.

[OmegaFlareX]

I can't love a vert lacking ground targets. Respect and thoroughly enjoy, absolutely, but not love. I need a certain amount of scorched earth, shattered asphalt and general ground activity to be truly content. Thus I'll more readily enjoy a competent Toaplan-alike than something more ambitious, even if the latter is technically superior.

Which games would you say have the best tank craters?

[BIL]

Raiden DX is the definitive town and countryside ruiner. Even falling aircraft get in on the intricately pixelled property-devaluing fun!

[MaXXX]

Batsuguns pretty good
https://youtu.be/qSMwbFgcdys?t=326

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I learned the invincibility cheat for Gaiares (something about tapping a,b,c buttons many times while paused don't recall) and I've never beaten the game properly.
I'm not good at playing Ikaruga "properly".
I kind of ignore complex scoring systems and play for fun, yielding terrible scores.
Every once in a while I try to play my copy of Grindstormer for Sega Genesis hoping it will work but knowing the carts had a history of failure with time.
I've never posted in the high scores sub forum mostly due to not always keeping score but playing for the 1CC.

That said I think a confession should be more of an exposition of humility and weakness than simply complaining.
"Lulz i thnk kav suks 2hu is lolis" doesn't count as a confession.
Your confession goal here is to make the shmup Father in the booth shake his head in disgust.

[Stevens]

Which games would you say have the best tank craters?

I'm biased as fuck, but Under Defeat. If there are other games that are better or as good with this aesthetic I need to play them.

[bikingjahuty]

- I can't say I care at all about scores in any SHMUP I've ever played or sunk serious time into
- I think most of the SHMUPS officially released in the US on the Dreamcast are mediocre at best (save Mars Matrix). The Dreamcast is my favorite console of all time btw.
- I think Cave has done just as much good as they have bad for the genre in general
- I hate both Giga Wing games
- Gradius as a series is fairly meh in my book
- Thunder Force VI is my favorite in the series
- I have a hard time enjoying most SHMUPS released before 1990

[Shepardus]

I wish more shmups would try implementing health systems or at least something beyond "you get hit once by anything, you're dead." You know the frustration of dodging some big and difficult attack, only to run into a single stray bullet and die anyway? That's because that little bullet has exactly the same importance as the giant laser you just dodged, and running into either has the same effect. To me that's unnecessarily annoying, but most shmup developers seem to just take it as a fact of life, or even as a good thing. Alternatively, Cho Ren Sha 68k with its shield system (a one-hit shield granted by a pretty frequently appearing item) circumvents much of this frustration without the balancing nightmare of a full health system. All bullets do the same damage, but its effect on the player depends on the player's state, namely whether they have a shield. Taking a hit once in a while is fine - it's getting hit twice in a row that you really want to avoid, since that'll make you lose a life and all your powerups and also has a much larger scoring consequence than losing a shield. I like that system because it concentrates the tension into the little moments between getting hit and reaching the next shield powerup which makes it more palatable to me. It also makes it less likely that I'll lose all my bombs without using them because I can be more liberal with bomb usage when I lose my shield. I get a similar feeling with shields in Gradius and Parodius.

[Stevens]

I wish more shmups would try implementing health systems or at least something beyond "you get hit once by anything, you're dead." You know the frustration of dodging some big and difficult attack, only to run into a single stray bullet and die anyway? That's because that little bullet has exactly the same importance as the giant laser you just dodged, and running into either has the same effect.

AK does a good job of this with its non instant death lasers.

[Shepardus]

I wish more shmups would try implementing health systems or at least something beyond "you get hit once by anything, you're dead." You know the frustration of dodging some big and difficult attack, only to run into a single stray bullet and die anyway? That's because that little bullet has exactly the same importance as the giant laser you just dodged, and running into either has the same effect.

AK does a good job of this with its non instant death lasers.

One of the few CAVE games I've never played (PC port plz).

The Extra stage in Fairy Wars also has an interesting mechanic where lasers don't kill you but instead drain your life (which is represented as a percentage, each 100% being a single life) and reduce the spell card bonus rather than set it to zero.

[Sumez]

I'm a dinosaur.

I'm horribly presumptious about which games I play and don't play. In general I tend to avoid shmups with polygonal graphics (save the occasional Treasure game), but more than anything if a game only exists on PC, I will most likely never play it. Crimzon Clover is one of the few exceptions, it was simply too badass to ignore.
Apart from the fact that I don't have a PC intended for video games, and never play -anything- on my PC, I don't really have a logical excuse, I just don't like it.
As a bonus, a new game would probably have to either come from a developer that I'm already very familiar with, or at least be marketed as the sequel of a series I like (see Dariusburst CS)

Additionally, shmups I haven't played tend to just not even exist in my consciousness, even if I continously see people talk about them, and as a result the genre has completely stagnated fom my perspective. The last five years could (and probably did) see a ton of amazing quality releases from smaller companies or doujins, or even solid western developed products, and you would still have me drooling more over the rumor of an upcoming 2d shmup by Ikeda as if the genre had been dormant since Saidaioujou - which I really didn't like anyway.


Don't get me wrong, I've been following the discussions here and everywhere else. I've noted the names of multiple games that I know I should check out, whenver they come up repeatedly. The dinosaur genes in me just really don't want to acknowledge anything other than the release of a new JAMMA board with 2D graphics. Something that's obviously never going to happen.

https://youtu.be/c8Gfq6BwYj4?t=46s

[sn0zc0r3]

• Maybe I just never gave it enough time, but I have never liked Radiant Silvergun. Ikaruga really helped re-invigorate my enjoyment of the genre, though.
• I get very overwhelmed in terms of strategy with shmups, and when I'm given more options in terms of how to score or more or less how to attack, I just shut down and lose interest. I really, really enjoy the genre, but I'm pretty lazy towards it. As I have less and less time to play games these days, I see shmups as great pick-up-and-play entertainment but have trouble getting past that.

[gs68]

- I'm more or less done with Dariusburst CS DLC; Taito pack was good, Sega pack was weird, CAVE pack was sorely disappointing. Not even gonna add the Raizing pack to my cart. For the price of one pack I can buy a full other shooter instead.
- I'm tempted to make signs saying "PLEASE DON'T JOIN MY GAME WITHOUT ASKING FIRST" for use at arcade machine events like MAGFest and California Extreme, but I keep backing out of doing it out of fear I'll be seen as rude for "hogging" the game even though I don't use continues.
- I haven't participated in TRP-STGT in a while but I appreciate how it does rankings (prioritizing stage then score), as it encourages progress and the one-see-see instead of just scoring magic tricks (because otherwise you have, for example, people who end on stage 1 in Esp2 but with higher scores than many people who reach stage 6)

[Sumez]

Never heard of TRP-STGT. A new thing around here? Or another community somewhere?

[Squire Grooktook]

It's an annual shmup scoring tournament Trap hosts here. It's pretty fun.

[Sumez]

I thought the concept was that it's not about scoring?

I never participated in any STGT's as I'd never be able to set enough time aside to get really into a new shooter in just a week, several weeks in a row

[ave]

I have owned Thunder Force III and IV for almost 10 years and only played them now for the first time.

[Kollision]

It's an annual shmup scoring tournament Trap hosts here. It's pretty fun.

yeah
lots of kuso and suffering, but fun nonetheless

[trap15]

You can set DBAC to not allow join in. I believe on the "entry screen" you hit down once or twice.

[CloudyMusic]

You can set DBAC to not allow join in. I believe on the "entry screen" you hit down once or twice.

I think it's up, and down is to signal "join-ins encouraged."

[Doctor Butler]

I've only 1CC'd Ether Vapor and Mushihimesama Futari Novice.

And those don't really count.

[gs68]

You can set DBAC to not allow join in. I believe on the "entry screen" you hit down once or twice.

Yes, though sadly it didn't stop people at MAG from getting into the cab and trying to join anyways. Better than nothing, at the least.

[ShootTheCore]

- I think the whole Raiden series is "meh". They're not awful, but every title is bland and mediocre.
- Soul Star on Sega CD is a guilty pleasure. The awesome music and how well the music matches up to what's going on in the game push it over the top for me.
- I paid through the nose and bought a PS3 at launch entirely just because Konami pre-announced Gradius 6 was in development for it, and I loved Gradius V so much. Too bad 6 never happened...

[NickPalmerDegica]

If a game expects me to use more than 3 things (shot, bombs, one special thing), I'll never remember any of it.

[Kollision]

- I paid through the nose and bought a PS3 at launch entirely just because Konami pre-announced Gradius 6 was in development for it, and I loved Gradius V so much. Too bad 6 never happened...

Same here!