Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[BIL]

Out of curiosity, are there any top-down games where the ship has an asymmetric design, like with the hitbox off to the side? Something like the Outrider from Star Wars where the cockpit is off to the right. I'm trying, and I honestly am struggling to think of a top-down shmup where the shmup isn't symmetrical in design.

Interesting question. Can't think of any offhand, but tangentially, I am currently experiencing off-centered weaponry in Flak Attack (Konami, 1987). Oi! Gaffer cunts! Me fookin' bombsight is a pixel off to the right! :O

Spoiler

Game's a fast-moving Xeviousesque where destruction% is directly tied to upgrades, noticed something was off straightaway while chasing down kills. Can't tell if it's an attempt at perspective as the bomb falls (the guns aren't affected), or just rough edges on otherwise solid work, as was typical of late-80s Konami.

Fairly trivial to bias left while nailing turrets, at least. Cool game with a nice crisp Top Gun Plus Lazors aesthetic. In an era of consistently strong Konami OSTs, st2 BGM COUNTER BLOW is the fieriest Toaplanesque I've heard outside of Dogosoken's CRUEL KILLERS and "Run To The Field."

[BulletMagnet]

Out of curiosity, are there any top-down games where the ship has an asymmetric design, like with the hitbox off to the side? Something like the Outrider from Star Wars where the cockpit is off to the right. I'm trying, and I honestly am struggling to think of a top-down shmup where the shmup isn't symmetrical in design.

There are some where the hitbox is closer to the top or bottom of the ship, but off to the side I'm having trouble thinking of (not terribly surprising, it'd be kind of a pain to keep track of). Off to the side, Keio Flying Squadron is the only shmup I know of that actually lets you adjust the location of your hitbox in the options menu, though that one's a side-scroller.

[MJR]

Out of curiosity, are there any top-down games where the ship has an asymmetric design, like with the hitbox off to the side? Something like the Outrider from Star Wars where the cockpit is off to the right. I'm trying, and I honestly am struggling to think of a top-down shmup where the shmup isn't symmetrical in design.

Viper Phase 1 has animated glowing rectangle only on the right side of the ship, but the ship's actual shape and design is still symmetrical. That's the closest I can think of..

[Sengoku Strider]

Out of curiosity, are there any top-down games where the ship has an asymmetric design, like with the hitbox off to the side? Something like the Outrider from Star Wars where the cockpit is off to the right. I'm trying, and I honestly am struggling to think of a top-down shmup where the shmup isn't symmetrical in design.

There are some where the hitbox is closer to the top or bottom of the ship, but off to the side I'm having trouble thinking of (not terribly surprising, it'd be kind of a pain to keep track of). Off to the side, Keio Flying Squadron is the only shmup I know of that actually lets you adjust the location of your hitbox in the options menu, though that one's a side-scroller.

Esp.Ra De Psi lets you do it in the custom mode.

[o.pwuaioc]

Still not as bad as Metal Black's bonus rounds ;3

Which is the only thing that mars the otherwise excellent hori. But I kind of get them, in that 90s arcade-fun kind of way. They're not excellent shooter rounds, but they do make the game unique.

That said, I still could do without in Metal Black specifically. Maybe shoehorn them into another game.

[Ice Beam]

Does what Japan call STG only refer to shoot-em-ups? What's their term for rail shooters, run n' guns (runs n' gun?), and FPSs?

[Bawa]

I currently don't have much free time on my hands and it bothers me that I can't put much time aside from a few minutes on going after my next 1cc (hopefully it'll be Espgaluda).
I discovered that the ACA Star Force release has some kind of caravan mode or something like this that might be fun to put a few minutes a day.
So I'd like to ask some recommendations for quick games that I can play a few minutes a time and still feel that I made progress or anything, if possible.

Please forgive me if I've not made myself clear on exaclty what I'm looking for, as I'm still not sure if this kind of shmup exists. Thank you in advance.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Vastynex is a love letter to Thunder Force that's honestly quite easy but still super fun because of how it's presented. Great beginner game, very cute graphics.

Zakesta is a one level shmup that's pretty fun, with a weapon system kind of like Aleste or Blazing Lasers? It's good stuff.

The Touhou "Shoot The Bullet" games are good for short play sessions as it features a bunch of smaller levels you play through individually, and are fun and unique in how they work.

Noiz2SA: 10 individual levels you play through separately, as well as endless modes.

[Bawa]

Vastynex is a love letter to Thunder Force that's honestly quite easy but still super fun because of how it's presented. Great beginner game, very cute graphics.

Zakesta is a one level shmup that's pretty fun, with a weapon system kind of like Aleste or Blazing Lasers? It's good stuff.

The Touhou "Shoot The Bullet" games are good for short play sessions as it features a bunch of smaller levels you play through individually, and are fun and unique in how they work.

Noiz2SA: 10 individual levels you play through separately, as well as endless modes.

Thank you very much!!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

No worries, let me know how you enjoy 'em. I'm struggling to think of other shmups where the gameplay is broken up into distinct chunks other than some Flash-based games like Bullet Heaven.

[floralcateyes]

I currently don't have much free time on my hands and it bothers me that I can't put much time aside from a few minutes on going after my next 1cc (hopefully it'll be Espgaluda).
I discovered that the ACA Star Force release has some kind of caravan mode or something like this that might be fun to put a few minutes a day.
So I'd like to ask some recommendations for quick games that I can play a few minutes a time and still feel that I made progress or anything, if possible.

Please forgive me if I've not made myself clear on exaclty what I'm looking for, as I'm still not sure if this kind of shmup exists. Thank you in advance.

Any game where you have access to practice mode and/or save states

For a more serious answer, Ginga Force seemed focused on individual stages from what I played of it.

The recently released CosmoDreamer has a story mode where you also play individual stages. Finishing all stages on a particular difficulty level unlocks that difficulty level for the more traditional/arcade-style "Trial" mode. But even with the latter unlocked, it's still fun to score attack single stages.

Caravan games/modes in general, of course.

Runs of Shmups Skill Test are relatively short. And you get graded, so you can more easily watch yourself improve (if, unlike me, your skills are actually improving and not degrading...)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Ginga Force's story mode is a great suggestion, seconding that.

[Stevens]

Crisis Wing has a caravan mode.

[Sengoku Strider]

Was there any staff overlap/movement between Raizing & Psikyo? I'm playing Sōkyūgurentai and:

1. It kicks ass, I absolutely love it.

2. I can't shake the feeling that it has some Psikyo dna in it. Similar explosion sounds, the multi-stage bosses, foregrounding of individual pilots, etc. But in particular, it's the sound design that jumps out at me (not soundtrack).

[floralcateyes]

Was there any staff overlap/movement between Raizing & Psikyo? I'm playing Sōkyūgurentai and:

1. It kicks ass, I absolutely love it.

2. I can't shake the feeling that it has some Psikyo dna in it. Similar explosion sounds, the multi-stage bosses, foregrounding of individual pilots, etc. But in particular, it's the sound design that jumps out at me (not soundtrack).

Doesn't really answer your question (shame and apologies!), but try out Mahou Daisakusen if you haven't yet. Feels the most Psykio-esque of Raizing's work to me. Straightforward fun (on the surface, at least) and lotsa relatively fast, aimed bullets. Gets a mean streak when you really dig in, despite its colorful cast of characters and settings. Lotsa yellow bullets too, iirc.

As for your actual question: interested in that as well! Raizing was (supposedly) formed by ex-Toaplan and/or ex-Compile people (info on the web is confusing/conflicting about this). Pyskio, as you probably know, mostly originated from Video System. Might be interesting to see if those three progenitor devs had overlapping staff, etc.

[trap15]

They have no overlap at all.

Raizing is ex-Compile, I've never found any evidence on ex-Toaplan other than using Toaplan's hardware (which I believe I've seen mention was manufactured by Eighting or something strange like that? I should research that more...), unless you count Uemura writing the sound program for Bakraid (I wouldn't).

[Sengoku Strider]

Doesn't really answer your question (shame and apologies!), but try out Mahou Daisakusen if you haven't yet. Feels the most Psykio-esque of Raizing's work to me. Straightforward fun (on the surface, at least) and lotsa relatively fast, aimed bullets. Gets a mean streak when you really dig in, despite its colorful cast of characters and settings. Lotsa yellow bullets too, iirc.

As for your actual question: interested in that as well! Raizing was (supposedly) formed by ex-Toaplan and/or ex-Compile people (info on the web is confusing/conflicting about this). Pyskio, as you probably know, mostly originated from Video System. Might be interesting to see if those three progenitor devs had overlapping staff, etc.

I understand what you mean, I actually thought it was a Psikyo game for the longest time (some compilation video on Youtube got me crossed up), it gives off Gunbird vibes. I'm not sure why that hasn't been the thing the shmup community tried to put forward for speed running/AGQ, but I don't own it yet so I can't say. It's on the list though.

They have no overlap at all.

Raizing is ex-Compile, I've never found any evidence on ex-Toaplan ... unless you count Uemura writing the sound program for Bakraid (I wouldn't).

I did find this really interesting podcast transcript that goes through the entire history of Toaplan, with staff interviews. Apparently they were all drunk the whole time:

http://tenpencearcade.co.uk/wp-content/ ... pecial.pdf

This is the relevant section:

-----------------

Toaplan personnel helped found four new shooter-centric game development companies.

Gazelle
Takumi
Eighting / Raizing Cave

Gazelle

Tatsuya Uemura, Junya Inoue, Mikio Yamaguchi, Kaneyo Oohira, and Yoshitatsu Sakai formed Gazelle and released Air Gallet and Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon for Banpresto before that company crashed.
Inoue: A couple of us Toaplan staff (most of them were from the BATSUGUN team) were selected by our boss to be transferred to another company, which turned out to be Gazelle. We weren’t able to quite get along with Gazelle staff, so we eventually left the company one by one.

Takumi

Masahiro Yuge and Sanae Nito, along with several new hires, created Kyukyoku Tiger II and released it through Taito as Takumi. Masahiro Yuge also worked on Giga Wing and Mars Matrix before leaving Takumi.

Eighting (sales & dist) / Raizing (development).

When Uemura left Gazelle he did sound programming for Battle Bakraid and assisted on Great Mahou Daisakusen.
After Yuge left Takumi he contributed to Great Mahou Daisakusen at Eighting and more recently designed Kuru Kuru Kururin, also for Eighting.
Raizing continued to use Toaplan version 2 hardware in making their games, starting with Mahou Daisekusen (Sorcer Striker), along with Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, right up to Battle Bakraid, released in 1999.


--------------------

There's also this fantastic interview, where they mention that Toaplan staff gave them a bunch of advice when they were making Mahou Daisakusen; from the sound of things they all hung out:

http://shmuplations.com/raizing/

...other than using Toaplan's hardware (which I believe I've seen mention was manufactured by Eighting or something strange like that? I should research that more...)

I believe this is what you're looking for:

https://gamerepair.info/hardware/29_raizing_toaplan_2

-------------------------------

Raizing Toaplan 2
Raizing (1993-1999)

"Toaplan 2" is an umbrella term referring to games which utilize Toaplan's second-generation chipset. As Raizing made their own expansions to this hardware, "Raizing Toaplan 2" is an appropriate designation for these variants.

Each game makes their own specific additions to the hardware, but all have the earmarks of Raizing's additions. The most immediately noticeable change is the addition of a superimposed text plane, freeing up the GP9001's "text" layer to render normal graphics instead.

[trap15]

No, I specifically meant manufacturing the hardware for Toaplan while Toaplan existed.

Also, Bakraid and Dimahoo are from 1999 and 2000 respectively, so I think it's a little weird to say Raizing was formed by ex-Toaplan when their direct contributions were at least 6 years after their first game.

[floralcateyes]

Well, apologies again, that's what I get for trusting random articles on the web. Where exactly did that myth come from anyway..?

[Sengoku Strider]

No, I specifically meant manufacturing the hardware for Toaplan while Toaplan existed.

Also, Bakraid and Dimahoo are from 1999 and 2000 respectively, so I think it's a little weird to say Raizing was formed by ex-Toaplan when their direct contributions were at least 6 years after their first game.

Only if you interpret 'formed' as meaning 'founded by' rather than 'made up of.' But I don't think it's a huge deal either way, just one of those tidbits that seems to have been thrown into the stock description of the company every fan wiki on the internet copied off each other to highight some cross pollination.

But that second interview I posted does have some really good anecdotes, like this one:

—What made you choose a sword and sorcery fantasy world as the setting for a shooting game in Mahou Daisakusen?

Yokoo: In the beginning it was titled Haougekiden Saifuaa 2 and was planned around a Chinese martial arts theme, but some staff from Toaplan gave us some advice that “shooting games should have worldwide appeal,” so in order to attract more players we revised the game, and Mahou Daisakusen was the result.

-----------------

There's also this:

Toyama: Mahou Daisakusen was Raizing’s first game, so we recieved various advice from Toaplan staff at the time. I think they taught us about the difference between arcade and console games, and how to approach making games that would be profitable at game centers.

—Was there any other advice you received from Toaplan staff?

Yokoo: They also told us things like “Shooting games are about the journey, not the destination, so boss battles should simply be a bonus extra. They don’t have to be incredibly difficult to be fun.” It was different from our thinking in a number of ways, but those words taught us the value of interesting zako fights, and in that respect we incorporated their advice into our games.

Toyama: I had a lot of discussions with them about technical things like programming methods, but I don’t think we talked about the games themselves much. Other than that, they told us we should choose titles for our overseas versions that didn’t obscure or hide the titles of our products or company name here in Japan. Toaplan’s games definitely followed this naming rule with things like “Truxton,” which sounds similar to “Tatsujin,” and they had various English titles which looked like neologisms of the original titles. But in America, there are many similar names of things domestically, so who knows now whether something is a reference to something in Japan or not. In the end we didn’t follow that advice and named the overseas version of Mahou Daisakusen “Sorcer Striker.”


---------------

So there isn't any question Toaplan folks were involved with them right from the beginning, helping guide their first game. Though if I had to guess, this happened over drinks with Toa guys as they talked about their new venture, rather than any formal consulting.

[trap15]

Two guys contributing to two or three games doesn't really constitute "made up of" I think. It's definitely one of those things someone decided was the truth a decade ago and everyone just accepted and copy-pasted it, so it's why I'm so adamant about correcting the record. Someone has to combat the fake news

[el_rika]

1. Does scoring in Futari original BL/original and ultra 1.5, means just changing shot type when you hear the sound (or color change of numbers)? What more is there to it?

2. How can one do massive damage in Futari BL (God) with Reco shot on some bosses? (staying on top of level 3 boss and using shot, does fast massive damage in superplays, that i can't replicate). Is there a combination of buttons involved, that make the point blank shooting much stronger?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

1) Use rapid shot to finish enemies when the counter is green, use laser to finish enemies when the counter is blue. In Black Label Original, you get a pointblank gem shedding bonus for using the appropriate coloured shot at close range, and when the Stage Counter gets maxed at 9999 you enter a high rank mode where speeds increase, but all gems shed this way are large gems.

2) Reco Abnormal in 1.5 and Reco BL both have a pointblank bonus when using shot. Look at the explosions when your main shots hit enemies when at long range vs at pointblank range; that's the indicator when you're doing boosted damage. In both cases, Reco still does as much/more damage when using laser with full lock ons, though.

[el_rika]

Thanks very much, so that's the purpose of the (up to) 9999 number in BL.

[dmk1198]

Gonna install retroarch on my new pc, it's only got soc Intel uhd graphics , I fucked up abit as older model had iris graphics card urghh but these shmups we all love, none of em need fancy graphics card do they? Think my 8 yr old Mac played mush,ket,dodon etc
Thnx in advance

Sent from my Redmi Note 8T using Tapatalk

[Rastan78]

Two guys contributing to two or three games doesn't really constitute "made up of" I think. It's definitely one of those things someone decided was the truth a decade ago and everyone just accepted and copy-pasted it, so it's why I'm so adamant about correcting the record. Someone has to combat the fake news

From what I know it would be more accurate to say that Raizing was formed by ex Compile staff. That was the common thread between Kazuyuki Nakashima, Yuichi Toyama, and Kenichi Yokoo who made Sorcer Striker along with a composer. They worked on games like MUSHA and Spriggan. I think it was just Toyama who was also at Toaplan.

Speaking of correcting the record Nakashima also directed Battle Garegga, not Yagawa.

[Issac Zachary]

Question... is there any way to buy The Simpsons Arcade game for PS3?

Today I happened to come across a PS3 with a couple games for cheap and so went ahead and bought it. I got home and plugged it in and found that everything is working just fine. But I don't know much about PS3's or their games. (I do have a PS2 and play PS1 and PS2 games on it.) But one game that was available on the PS3 that had me wanting to buy one a few years back was The Simpsons Arcade game. It looks like it's a downloadable game, or at least was. I just can't seem to find it in the PlayStation Store.

Anyhow, maybe I'm just venting a bit since I was bummed that I won't be able to play this game. I loved playing The Simpsons with my brothers and sister in an arcade we visited once when I was a kid.

[trap15]

I think it was just Toyama who was also at Toaplan.

I'd never heard of Toyama being at Toaplan, have a staff roll entry or something?

[Sengoku Strider]

Question... is there any way to buy The Simpsons Arcade game for PS3?

It was delisted years ago, so unfortunately no. I don't think it's available anywhere outside of emulation.

[Rastan78]

Oh yeah, you're right. For some reason I was conflating Toyama with Tatsuya Uemura.

Uemura went from Toaplan to Gazelle and only did work for Raizing later on.