Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Thanks for the recommendation, I didn't realize there were two Darius SNES games. I'll check out Darius Force tonight. Any major differences between Darius Force (JP) and Super Nova (US)?

Ruby's a solid shot type but she's a high skill ceiling character where her usefulness is maximized when you have enemy appearances memorized, so you can be in front of dangerous enemies and firing away as soon as they're on screen (the large planes later in S4, the various giant enemies in S5). Stuck is powerful even if you don't have enemy locations memorized as his cannonballs alone are decent at sweeping stuff. Ruby has one major advantage over Stuck though, which is she can deal exceptionally high damage at long range to the TLB since all three of her beams of damage can hit the rather small TLB at once. Stuck generally only hits the TLB with main gun + 1 cannonball whenever you use reflect.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by To Far Away Times »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:I tried playing Darius Twin for the first time in a while because I couldn't remember why I hadn't played through it and got a very rude reminder on S1 when I'm getting smacked by popcorn enemies flying across the screen. It's a game where you really gotta learn what enemies appear where because collisions appear to be the primary threat. Very annoying when it's from behind, I suppose I am spoiled by games with warnings on where enemies show up. Played a few credits, didn't even make it to S1 boss. Brutal.

I missed that Kiken got that 1cc of Giga Wing they were working on, congrats!
Super Nova/Darius Force is even more egregious with the enemy collisions. Both games get easier as you power up though. Gotta keep the opening levels hard for the rental market.

Darius Twin feels a lot like the other Darius games, but Super Nova/Darius Force is a bit more memorization heavy and probably a little tougher than its SNES predecessor.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Mortificator »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Any major differences between Darius Force (JP) and Super Nova (US)?
Not that I know of, just the title screen and censoring out the word "kill" as if it's the '90s and we're watching Toonami.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by pja »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:. It's a game where you really gotta learn what enemies appear where because collisions appear to be the primary threat. Very annoying when it's from behind, I suppose I am spoiled by games with warnings on where enemies show up. Played a few credits, didn't even make it to S1 boss. Brutal.
It certainly did feel like that for me on a couple of first attempts, but I found that just staying somewhere in the middle works for most of the game. And your firepower ramps up, but the enemies mostly don't, which IMO makes for a game easier to beat than most console shmups (at least the ones I tried, which may not be that representative since e.g. I didn't play a single Megadrive one yet ;) )
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by LordHypnos »

Was just playing Ring^-27 Anchor mode. I've unlocked some more ships, now. I think that Homing Laser seems best for Survival, it's generally easy to collect a ton of gems so rank stays pretty low if you want it to. It is a bit trickier to anchor onto enemies, though, I think because you often kill them before you can. Even when you do anchor enemies, you're not generally right under enemies you kill, which makes it harder to collect medals. So far my favorite ship is Long Laser. It's harder to keep rank under control, because it's a relatively narrow shot for taking out popcorn enemies for gems and such, but it's very powerful. Made it to S5 twice (playing easy). Damn this gets intense. I think I was only at Rank 17 too, lol. I'm not really sure how to handle it. I suppose it will make sense with more practice, though. Super fun game, in any case.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Eyvah_Ehyeh »

Pulling an all-nighter with shmups extravaganza - right now feeling done with Giga Wing mode in rRootage, and, hm, maybe a round of Futari, then? More tea, first, and then, let's see if I can get saidoujou to work.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Jasonbartfast »

Played Layer Section for the first time last night on the Saturn - got a good deal on it on eBay somehow. Once I looked-up how the upgrade and scoring systems work it was a real blast!
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I spent most of the weekend derusting on Giga Wing. It's the sort of game where I feel like I need to play it exclusively for a week to crank out a proper score because the boss milking is so complex. Someone suggested I try No Reflect runs with the remaining two characters, Sinnosuke and Isha (both of whom coincidentally have the train stage as their third stage).

Isha's the worst character I think. Her lack of spread is an issue for some shootable bullets as well as for sweeping around S5, and her damage output is lower than Sinnosuke's (who can crank out considerable damage at close range when the opportunity arises). The homing missiles don't contribute all that much, so Ruby is a far better straight shot type. She has considerable difficulty on S6 killing the small turrets that pop out of the boss when the boss stretches itself out.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Stevens »

Played a credit of Zero Ranger's WV. What a great mode.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by LordHypnos »

Was doing a little S4 and S5 practice in Giga Wing, and really enjoying it. Brimming with Takumi goodness.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I decided, why not play some Super Spy Hunter (NES) today? After all, it's a cool game about a transforming car with an auto lock on attack and neat boss battles! The graphics and music are really cool!

Oh no, it's a terrible game. My nostalgia is gone. My fondness for it when I was younger has completely evaporated. It's got some great ideas, but they're hidden under an abject mess of mechanics.

Your car has serious inertia. It makes certain denser boss patterns really difficult to precisely dodge that would be far easier in a shmup without it. And there's some sudden and nasty appearances of instant kill attacks, such as S3 boss's giant beams that require very quick reflexes to dodge. Die even once during a boss and your lifebar which you can beef up massively with red L items is reduced to a tiny fraction for subsequent lives. And you will want to stock up on L items, because there's tons of attacks during stages such as the flame barrel trucks or just various helicopter shots that feel way too hard to actually dodge them and it feels like you're just expected to tank the hits. I revisited it toying with the idea of trying to no-miss it and was harshly reminded how unforgiving it is, where your precious lifebar is absolutely crippled should you die once at any point.

On the good side, if you're at max Rapid or max Power, their respective red items will give you a bit of health if you accidentally get one from the powerup carrier. However, the extremely useful auto lock on is toggled by collecting the C powerup, instead of swapping with the Select button or something. This means it's easy to grab one by accident, thus losing it, and it can also be a pain in boss fights where you might prefer more focused damage. Why not make it a select button toggle?

There's a bunch of blue single use items, mostly as a minor bonus. However, blue trucks also carry 1UPs which the game seems to expect you to stock up on heavily. You can carry tons of extends this way, which is fortunate, because the game loves cheap instant deaths outside of bosses. Specifically, some of the actual stages consist of memorize-or-die kind of nonsense.

In stage 1 for instance, there are several jumps you have to make blind. You can't see in front of you, so if you don't hit the jump at the right horizontal position, you'll land in a pit with no time to correct. Slow down too much, and you won't be able to speed up enough to make it over the ramp. You have to memorize the level's jumps to survive properly. Stages 2 to 5 are quite tame with traps by comparison, with S4 having a neat high jump gimmick where you have to land on a rapidly approaching highway below multiple times, which looks and feels cool, and even the section at the end of S1 where you slow down and have to drive over a bunch of trucks is well done.

Then there's Stage 6. Stage 6 is a mess of memorize-or-die traps, with multiple jumps you have to make blind and learn the position and speed of each. In order to actually scroll the screen upward, you're stuck in the vertical middle of the screen, leaving and effectively tiny amount of room to see what's ahead compared to a game where you are more at the bottom of the screen, especially in a horizontal game.

I'm dreadfully torn. It's mechanically far more complex, and the inertia helps make it feel like a driving game, but the inertia hurts it as a shmup and the very limited draw distance hurts it as a driving game. Something like VICE: Project Doom / Gun-Dec's car stages may have been much simpler, but they're mechanically executed well. If Super Spy Hunter wants to make complicated stages with jumps, it needs to telegraph the jumps and give the player better feedback on what speed is needed to do the jump properly. There simply isn't enough view distance or informative enough indicators to do them blindly, turning Stage 1 and Stage 6's jumps into memorize-or-die nonsense you have to fumble through while losing lives.

Some of the bosses are also very demanding given the harsh inertia present during them (dodging around the S4 boss's bullets comes to mind); I would've reduced or eliminated the inertia during the bosses perhaps? Others are simply way too easy at max power, since you can take numerous hits with a full lifebar. The enemies feel either way too easy or insanely hard; there's rarely a middle ground.

It's a game that's as cool, imaginative, and often entertaining as it is frustrating and deeply flawed in its execution.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Licorice »

I didn't 1CC Battle Formula, but I played enough to regularly get up to the end of stage 4 on one credit about 2 years back.

I really liked the game and I don't remember any inertia at all.

Do you mean the fact that scroll speed depends on your Y position and you can't immediately teleport to the bottom edge to stop the scrolling?

EDIT: Or maybe you mean those vortexes in the desert stage?

Really creative levels in it. There is some hard memorization or just excellent intuition required, but it's nothing too egregious for a shmup I don't think.
Last edited by Licorice on Sat May 01, 2021 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BIL »

I'm very fond of Battle Formula, probably too fond ("Why not sell up?" said the wife "We're 1%er scum in no need of money" I replied "Yes but you put all those games on your dad's phone" she reminded me "Bitch imma kill you!" I yelped, once she was safely out of earshot - everybody's got their vice Image). Posted a short 2-ALL review a few years back.

My approval comes with a truckload of caveats, comparable in tonnage to that of its Sunsoft contemporary Raf World - but while RW is only a moderately jank run/gun, BF is an ambitious experiment in driving (not racing!)/STG hybrids. So I can forgive 90% of its bullshit. At first I thought it was near-unplayable, because stage 1 gets off to a brutal start, compounded by the shitty base car. Nothing moves intuitively, your weapons are pitiful, and it seems to punish you for both going fast and slowing down.

Eventually, I realised it was going for something similar to Alien Soldier, which is also very stop/start at first. You won't be doing bouncing cock pushups on exploding boss faces there initially, either. AS is much less off-putting, though, because you're on foot and well away from the screen edge, and going faster doesn't preclude your ability to avoid enemy fire (even expert BF play entails slowing down just a tick, to dodge things like stages 2 and 6's heli fusillades)

Once I'd rehearsed a path that'd see me seamlessly snatching upgrades, sniping helis, and crushing rail tanks at maximum speed (in fact, smacking a couple of the fuckers clean off the bridge, as my thrashing Options locked into place), I started enjoying myself. The rest of the game was nowhere near so onerous. TLDR: Sunsoft should've ditched the powerup curve, and/or put stage 1's opening bridge later into the game.

Of the remaining stage designs, it's only the finale's jumps I find really unconscionable... and despite Sunsoft's propensity for Memoriser Bullshit in even their best works (Gimmick, Batman), never mind their clunkier ones (Raf World, Dynamite Batman), I suspect this part is glitched. If your car is in any form up to its penultimate (red with devil horns), you can floor it without issue. If you're in the fully upgraded (blue) car, though - max speed will see you overshoot the jump into the dark section, and die. You have to hit max, then tap [down] very precisely (watch your car - when it shifts position downward, just a pixel, you're good - any more and you'll come up short).

My other complaint is the stupidly overlong trad STG section, following Stage 5's nice boat stage (and by "nice" I mean "nightmarishly inertial," but again, nail down a good route and it's smooth sailing Image). I actually kinda dread it, nowadays. What's worse is, with that silky-smooth engine, Sunsoft could've created The Great Famicom Toaplanesque that never was (Micronics' Kyuukyoku Tiger, while a staggeringly competent effort by their woeful standards, doesn't quite hit the spot). Has all the basic components for a very nice Hishouzame/Kyuukyoku st2 (either game!) tribute. Instead, it loops, and loops, and loops, the biggest threat by far being dozing off at the controls. Then a shit-ton of brussels sprouts tumble downscreen, and you can literally close your eyes while tapping [fire]. Finally, an okayish boss (who's nowhere as menacingly memorable as the road-based ones) ensues.

However the BGM is admittedly shaweet, though not as shaweet as when it's used in stage 3-2. PUMPIN CHOONZ as expected of Sunsoft. Image

Dream Hackz: indeed, put Manual/Homing on [Select]. Adds a needless, unlovely layer of memorisation - as if Alien Soldier attached its [free/lock] modes to powerups (I'm screaming internally just typing that). Also, either ditch or severely condense the powerup curve - it's overlong. Finally, for the loop, let the player carry in their upgrades. If 1-1 is unfortunately awkward, 2-1 is just asinine, to the point it'll turn off all but the most infatuated.

A cool game whose flaws I'm willing to put up with, 90% of them promptly burning off en route to a 1CC. Not recommendable without a ton of caveats. Walloping SFX and verving Mancini-esque BGM from Naoki Kodaka and his killer team help a great deal.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Licorice »

Speaking of Toaplanesque, the long power up curve you mention is very Toaplan.

I measured, and the amount of time required to get to full power in Kyukyoku Tiger is ~6 minutes, in Same!^3 it's ~10 (which is 1/3rd of the game!). Compare with Irem's Image Fight's paltry ~2 minutes.

Don't know what Battle Formula's is, but it'd be good to see how it compares.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BIL »

Going off memory, I'd say it takes just a bit longer than the first stage to get your full weapon loadout (max shot power + max shot limit). IIRC, there aren't quite enough drops for you to get both by the first boss - by the point I could easily nomiss the first loop, I'd always be grabbing the last piece of the pie in stage 2's opening highway battle (prior to going off-road into the desert, where I liked to oil-slick pursuing cars to a fiery demise in the canyon walls... god damn, such a cool game :cool:). Optimal setup for the first boss (who's quite a bit more dangerous in the loop) is the penultimate car with maxed shot limit. Max shot power gets nerfed hard by the firing cap.

This ignoring the lifebar upgrades, OFC.

I suppose it's not so much the duration, as it is the player contending with an onerous first stage during it. This goes double for the loop, where everything spews suicide bullets if not killed nose-to-nose. Simply folding the Shot Power/Shot Limit upgrades into a single drop would help. Including the lifebar extend might be a bit generous, from learner perspective - but then again, anyone learning the first loop is already going to be contending with more than enough, between the stages, bosses, and involved vehicle handling. Confident 1-ALLers, meanwhile, won't be dying even at base HP, so such a tweak would be neither here nor there. Given the aesthetic of suping up your killer machine, it'd make sense if each new model got the full set of upgrades (power/frequency/armour), too.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

BIL wrote:If you're in the fully upgraded (blue) car, though - max speed will see you overshoot the jump into the dark section, and die. You have to hit max, then tap [down] very precisely (watch your car - when it shifts position downward, just a pixel, you're good - any more and you'll come up short).
I'm not sure I have the vocabulary to properly express just how infuriating this is. I never knew this; it explains so much why Stage 6's jumps feel wildly silly, like I'll hit them at full speed and be fine but sometimes not (obviously when at max power).

I might actually stick to the power level just below max specifically to make the opening S6 jumps... not that the following jumps afterwards over the lava aren't difficult, either.
Once I'd rehearsed a path that'd see me seamlessly snatching upgrades, sniping helis, and crushing rail tanks at maximum speed (in fact, smacking a couple of the fuckers clean off the bridge, as my thrashing Options locked into place), I started enjoying myself.
This has been my experience too. When you know the level enough to weave in and out and have a gameplan for the bosses, it can feel really fun. It's both enjoyable and intensely frustrating if you're going into the instant death obstacles blind.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BIL »

I'd just go with the maxed-out blue car - its massive shots shred boss armour, and it looks the coolest, too. :cool:

The st6 jump workaround is very consistent, in my experience. There's probably significantly more wriggle room than I'm describing, but for safety's sake, I go for overkill. Just tap [down] until the car has visibly nudged down a tick, and you're set - you can floor it through every jump after that.

I've seen the final series of jumps (the slalom over lava that lands in the boss rush) behave weirdly if I'm flooring the gas, with not only the blue car, but also the next few rungs down - IIRC, I overshot there a few times. So I tend to throttle back slightly there, too. The deceleration is nowhere as exacting as that (seemingly glitched) first jump into the dark, though. A casual nudge [down] will do.

Out of curiosity, have you played Battle Mobile (SFC)? I've mulled over picking it up a few times. AFAIK, it's not a sequel, spiritual or otherwise, just another STG/driving hybrid. IIRC, it handles a bit nearer a straight STG than Battle Formula. One thing that stuck out to me is, you kill most of your on-road enemies by boost-ramming into them, a bit like Konami's topdown AC racer Road Fighter. Your car has a surface-to-air rocket launcher, but it's used strictly for helis and other aircraft. Neat obscurity, though I don't find it as memorable as BF.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by LordHypnos »

So at this point, I think I've pretty much relearned my routes for Mars Matrix, but it turns out that routes that aim to chain over 4,000,000 XP are really hard, and I'm very far from actually 1ccing the game again.

I have also been trying to route stages 4 and 5 of Giga Wing, and have not done a very good job yet. I probably actually need to route stages 1-3, as well, because, while I certainly can get through them sometimes without dying (can also do this with S4), it's not really consistent enough.

I also started messing with Bomb mode in Ring^-27, a little bit.

Taking a break from this, I decided to revisit some of my Xbox 360 games. Played Futari, Akai Katana Shin, Trizeal Remix, and Exzeal a bit. Also Prismatic Solid, which I pretty much forgot existed. Pretty fun game, albeit with some visibility issues at times.

I also noticed that there was a Steam sale, and got Castle Shikigami, Dariusburst, and Deathsmiles at criminally low prices. Still downloading Deathsmiles, but Shikigami and Dariusburst seem pretty fun so far.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

BIL wrote:Out of curiosity, have you played Battle Mobile (SFC)?
I have not. It looks really cool though and will definitely play it.

Ended up trying a few more runs of Battle Formula. One attempt ended annoyingly at the lava where I was slightly slow and despite my car's front overlapping most of the next platform, I still somehow failed to land. I'll have to memorize the lava path better, but your trick for the initial jumps is consistently working, thanks.

I also had a run where after the S5 boss I just straight up smacked my plane into the item carrier and died. I gave up, could tell the 1cc, let alone a possible no-miss, wasn't gonna happen that day. The jumps in Stage 1 at least come early enough that they're easily memorized and failure isn't as punishing, but the ones in Stage 6 severely punish you for what are easy to screw up. ;w;

Also played a bunch of other NES stuff this weekend. Got the 1cc in Rad Racer again, still super inconsistent at it. Went back to Crisis Force on Hard too, I'm slowly getting closer to the no-miss on it. Planning bombs for the really scary stuff will be necessary. The final boss's second phase has bullshit lasers that you pretty much want to bombspam through, so the key is getting there with at least 4 or so bombs so you can teleport on top of him repeatedly for the glorious telefrag kill.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BrianC »

Watched a video of Battle Mobile. Definitely looks interesting. Opening cutscene reminds me a bit of Mad Max and Road Avenger.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I can't tell if I blame or if I'm grateful to BIL for this. :lol:
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BIL »

;3

Good going! Personally, I don't think the game gains anything from the loop. Where other leading FC action games like Dragon Fighter and Metal Storm's loops fill out the slack, emphasising their sharp controls and rugged mechanics, Battle Formula merely exacerbates its worst features. Sunsoft did everything they needed to in the first loop.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Oh right, definitely blame. >;3
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by LordHypnos »

Mars Matrix progress: Managed to 3cc the game once. Chaining is not going so well. Best was probably 3.5 million exp (in a like 5 or 6 credit clear), thanks to an in-tact S3 chain. I really need to relearn how to dodge bullets, somehow X_x. I did learn that In Elite Mode B, and presumably Elite Mode A there's a special Dreamcast-exclusive ending, nice! Weird that I never played through Elite Mode B until now. For those not in the know Elite Mode B is (seemingly) identical to arcade, but allows you to use special options like the palette-swapped ships, alternative ship speeds or starting shot power, or the BG graphics. Elite Mode A also lets you do these things but it is an arrange mode that's really freaking hard, but has the same bosses as the arcade mode

Giga Wing progress: Basically none, sadly. Too many games in rotation :oops:. I did make it to S5 again, though, and did some practice on the first 3 stages. I keep forgetting to bomb, though. Or dying because I'm trying to be too fancy (which always feels really dumb :lol:).

Have made it to the first boss in S3 of Shikigami no Shiro. Pretty fun game! S3 is brutal though! Have mostly been playing Hyuga. The character animations in this are pretty amazing, by the way. Hyuga, for example, grabs his hat so that it won't fall off when he's moving across the screen. Gangsta AF! Ditto here on not bombing or trying to be too fancy. Especially foolish because I only have the most superficial understanding of the scoring system, anyway.

Deathsmiles I have been enjoying way more than I expected to. It does a really good job of having scenery that matters, like in a classic hori, but without actually hurting you when you touch it, which gives it more of a modern feel. Bidirectional shooting is, of course, a solid mechanic. While I don't doubt that the lock-on shot makes sense within the context of the game, it feels like the game would have been complex enough without that mechanic (especially with the multi-faceted scoring system). I have not really found a good use for it, personally, but I also have barely scratched the surface, I'm sure. Have been playing Rosa. Her movement speed not changing between tapping and holding shot gives her kind of a unique, and perhaps more old-school feel. I have made it to the final stage a few times, but I don't think I've made it to the final boss in original arcade (I have in some of the modes where it's easier to do that). Unsurprisingly I have also been forgetting to bomb much of the time. This game is super generous with bombs, too.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

What I'm playing right now? Cybxus Heart, a terrible PS4 shmup which I'll demolish on an upcoming review.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by sunnshine »

Armed Police Batrider and I absolutely stink at it but it's ace so I'm sticking with it. I don't expect to improve much :lol:
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Flobeamer1922 »

Tatsujin Oh. It's the only shmup I've been putting any significant amount of time into over the past few months. I may have done a 1-ALL, but I'm far from done with the game.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by DMC »

Playing the Pc Engine CoreGrafx Mini and enjoying Soldier Blade right now. That bass sound is something!
Barely played any PCE before this so it's pretty refreshing to discover some of these gems now.
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by Creamy Goodness »

Batsugun Special. I know it's supposed to be "easy," but man that 4th level boss is a slog and hands me my ass. Difficulty in that game feels a bit weird in general. Like later stages and bosses feel easier than earlier levels.
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ACSeraph
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Re: Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

Post by ACSeraph »

Trying to clear R-Type one via PS1 R-Types. The fifth boss is absolutely maddening. We're it not for that awful random fight I would have claimed the clear ages ago. Helps me feel a bit better to know I am far from the first to suffer through it and I certainly won't be the last.
<STG.1cc> 死ぬがよい <ACT.1cc>
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