Psikyo evolution

[sjewkestheloon]

After reading a few topics previously posted on here, i seem to pick up on a lot of mixed reactions to psikyo's shmups on this board. it seems a little like a love hate relationship, and i find this pretty interesting.

recently i've been playing a lot of gunbird and i've finally started to use the power up shot properly instead of completely ignoring it, and understanding some of the more complex bullet patterns. and what influenced me to pick gunbird up again for some extended play? gunbird 2 handing my ass back to me.

whenever i play a later psikyo shmup now, i can see genuine but for me unmanagable brilliant design. some devotion to gunbird over the last few days has allowed me to pick up some skills to manage at least the first 3 stages of gunbird 2.

i gues what i'm trying to say is that they are for me the best series of games that allow you to transfer your skills form one to the next. there's a lot of criticism saying that psikyo simply made the same game over and over again, but i'd argue that it's all about evolution and refining the features.

i'll be picking up dragon blaze as soon as it gets a pal release but i seriously doubt i'll make much progress in it until i've got more of a handle on gunbird 2, and probably strikers 1945 II. and that probably won't come until i've finally 1cc'd gunbird, which will probably lead to the first strikers game... etc.

i'm sure you get the idea. what do you think?

[Frederik]

Dragon Blaze pretty much demands skills in previous games like Gunbird 2, because you have to get real close to enemies to kill them with you dragon shot; not to mention that you can get a nice technical bonus if you take down bosses with that dragon shot while they pull off VERY mean patterns.

Psykio shmups have a very twitchy gameplay - the combination of many slow bullets and extremely fast ones make those games very hard in my opinion. And trying to pick up coins in a certain moment to make chains while you are assaulted by speeding bullets is another very hard task.

There are some things that I dislike about Psykio shmups, for instance the mumbled soundtracks - especially sad in Dragon Blaze, as the songs itself might be quite nice but the low quality instruments ruin them totally. And I never get a feeling for the hitboxes in Psykio games; and its not that I demand glowing hitboxes (like in Shiki) in every game. Most ships move too fast IMO. The room for mistakes that can be corrected is much smaller than in cave shmups - if you blink you`ll die certainly applies to Psykio games. You`ll have to BEHOLD the patterns very quickly - there`s not much room for improvisation.

I guess if you want to improve in Psykio shmups you have to play them very often; I don`t seem to be able to use my earned skills from DoDonpachi in Psykio games. If you have MAME, get that cheat.dat file, put it on invincible and let the game simply run through - you`ll see that the game gets insanely hard later on... and that`s before the second loop. And whereas later games are simply too frustrating to me, Gunbird 1 is too bland in the first levels. That doesn`t mean that I wouldn`t appreciate some simple twitch gameplay in Strikers 1999 occasionally.

[Frederik]

Oh, and you MUST try SPACE BOMBER. I bet this is the least known but the most unusual Psyko shmup, and one of the weirdest shmups EVERY. Read the review in the Xenocide files. That game is SO much fun, and has an addictively good scoring system.

[professor ganson]

Psikyo games are probably my favorite. I began with Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze and found them entirely unmanageable at first but also very addictive. They were the first shmups that compelled me to put in more than 25 hours. It probably took that long for me to get to 1-5 in each, and my scores are still terrible.

Only then did I go back to the earlier Psikyo. I found Strikers 1945 even more addictive. I probably put in more than 40 hours. I managed to get to 1-6 with an ok score (for me), but 1-6 was just too hard without a practice mode. It was frustrating having to give up without having seen 1-7 and 1-8.

I think the next Psikyo I will take up is Strikers 1945 II. But there's no doubt that I need to go back and get better scores on GB2 and DB.

[iatneH]

I lean more into the "hate" camp, but I got a Strikers 1945 PCB for ultra cheap a while back, and I fire it up on my supergun once in a while. And every time, I decide that I really like the game.

Dragon Blaze is a different story. That game simply kicks ass from the start.

[dpful]

I've always love Psikyo's art style. That attracted me to a lot of the strikers 1945 games at first.
I think they always feel cheap at first till you get them memorised a bit.

[Benjamin]

I love Psikyo's games because they're actually shooters and not shooters+puzzle games or shooters+RPG games. You can actually have fun playing the game your own way and not be necessarily forced into a hidden predefined path for survival. Plus, Psikyo was the only developer who seemed to bother putting in a difficulty mode option, one with enough variance so you can ease yourself into the game and still be challenged but not frustrated.

[raiden]

I don´t think Psikyo games are really that twitch-oriented. Instead, they are memorizers hidden in a manic vert style. Because of the big hitzone, dodging through dense patterns instinctively is a lot harder than in Cave games, but the key to survive and score well is knowing things like:
- in which order to attack enemies so the remaining patterns won´t be too hard at any point
- proper moments to use charge shots, close range attacks, dragon shoots and even bombs (for intermediate players, once you clear both loops, you can save bombs to earn score bonus)
- which patterns are aimed and which aren´t. There are quite a few bullet patterns in Psikyo games that seem very dense but can be dodged by just staying where you are when they´re fired or at a certain point on the screen. Example: Strikers 1945 II - Stage 6 shortly before the boss.

[BulletMagnet]

Instead, they are memorizers hidden in a manic vert style.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[professor ganson]

Instead, they are memorizers hidden in a manic vert style.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Memorizers to a point. In later levels or second loop I think only twitchdoctors have a shot. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps what you need for later levels is more time than I have.

[Never_Scurred]

I love 'em. Psikyo is my 3rd favorite shooter developer next to Cave(1st) and Raizing(2nd)

[PsikyoPshumpPshooterP]

1. strikers 2
2. strikers 99
3. strikers plus
4.dragon blaze
5.gunbird
6.strikers 1

[Never_Scurred]

1. strikers 2
2. strikers 99
3. strikers plus
4.dragon blaze
5.gunbird
6.strikers 1

hell yeah.

[1up]

Psikyo is my preferred shmups developer

strikers III
dragon blaze

play these two often

also started picking up Gunbird 2

The sprites are sharp and the animation crisp, i love it

[Ghegs]

Memorizers to a point. In later levels or second loop I think only twitchdoctors have a shot. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps what you need for later levels is more time than I have.

I'd say it's the other way around. Granted, I've only cleared the first loop on the earlier and easier Psikyo shmups (Gunbird and Sengoku Ace), but even in those games the second loop gets pretty crazy from the start and you really need a solid plan to get through them. In contrast, it's possible to twitch your way to 1-4 or 1-5 in those games before running into patterns that require a specific approach to deal with.

[sjewkestheloon]

I'd say it's the other way around. Granted, I've only cleared the first loop on the earlier and easier Psikyo shmups (Gunbird and Sengoku Ace), but even in those games the second loop gets pretty crazy from the start and you really need a solid plan to get through them. In contrast, it's possible to twitch your way to 1-4 or 1-5 in those games before running into patterns that require a specific approach to deal with.[/quote]

which is probably why i always struggle at 1-5 and past as i can never bring myself to play for as long and as hard as to get a totally consistent play pattern through 1-5 and 1-6 and this leads to a random deaths which lead to annoyance and the loss of a lot of stored bombs and then i fuck it all up lol.

however now i've got a good d-pad, essential for psikyo shmups in my opinion, i think i'm actually going to devote myself to actually finishing the first loop of gunbird and possibly trying to get a ways into the 2nd loop.

it's good to hear the praise! i thought htere would be a lot more cynicism.[/quote]

[professor ganson]

Memorizers to a point. In later levels or second loop I think only twitchdoctors have a shot. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps what you need for later levels is more time than I have.

I'd say it's the other way around. Granted, I've only cleared the first loop on the earlier and easier Psikyo shmups (Gunbird and Sengoku Ace), but even in those games the second loop gets pretty crazy from the start and you really need a solid plan to get through them. In contrast, it's possible to twitch your way to 1-4 or 1-5 in those games before running into patterns that require a specific approach to deal with.

Good point, I hadn't thought of it in that way. I suspect, though, that having super-twitch abilities is a necessity for much later levels. A plan is not enough. Too bad for me.

[Frederik]

I love Psikyo's games because they're actually shooters and not shooters+puzzle games or shooters+RPG games. You can actually have fun playing the game your own way and not be necessarily forced into a hidden predefined path for survival.

The only two games that fit your description are Radiant Silvergun (+RPG) and Ikaruga (+Puzzle). As much as I appreciate the puzzle-like attempt with Ikaruga (one of my first shmups ever, and it was pretty much downhill from there until I discovered Raizing and Cave), I HATED it in Silvergun; I played it on MAME a bit, and even though it was running slow like a slug (I say this because I don`t want to hear "Yeah, but you need to play it properly emulated or on Saturn), THIS game actually FORCES you to chain, whereas Ikaruga didn`t. Of course you have the Saturn mode on the console release, but this is like cheating.

I use to think that scoring systems should be a opportunity to go deeper into a game, for instance, play for survival until you survive for the first three stages, and then start chaining or whatever it is. In DDP for instance, the first stage stays fresh this way. Playing the first stage OVER AND OVER in a pure survival shooter is a bit dull.

And by the way, let`s not forget that shining gold bars/shining coins in Psykio games. If you want to score properly, you have to pick them up in the right moment, which is REALLY hard if you are in the middle of a barrage raining down. So its not that Psykio games are devoid of any scoring system besides shooting enemies and milking bosses!

[Herr Schatten]

THIS game actually FORCES you to chain, whereas Ikaruga didn`t.

Not quite true. I hear this argument a lot, but it's just not true. Ikaruga is built so much on the chaining that playing it "properly" is pretty much the only way to actually get some enjoyment out of it. Playing Iky without paying attention to the chains is a very tedious exercise. No fun at all. The chains are the game, it makes no sense to ignore them.

RSG, IMO, is much more of a puzzle game than Ikaruga. Its "puzzles" are deeper and more elaborate. My main gripe with the game is that other than Iky it could actually be fun without paying attention to the chains. Unfortunately, the RPG-like level up system makes it impossible to play the game that way. For me, that's a major design flaw.

And by the way, let`s not forget that shining gold bars/shining coins in Psykio games. If you want to score properly, you have to pick them up in the right moment, which is REALLY hard if you are in the middle of a barrage raining down.

I had the pleasure to watch Mills play Strikers and Strikers Plus. He picked up every single gold bar at maximum value. A beautiful thing to behold.

[ill6]

psikyo games are good but tend to feel a little flat/oldschool/one dimensional compared to Cave/Treasure/Raizing/Takumi who all add lots of tricks etc.

Psikyo just make solid shooters when they sit down; the others spend time fiddling with new ideas which are more progressinve.

Personally; its all about Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze (though they never get much time in the cab).

[Ko.oS]

okay, i apologise for bumping yet another thread, but i always wanted to ask, and this seems like a good place -

the shining gold bars/shining coins in Psykio games. (...)you have to pick them up in the right moment

what is/are the oldest shooter(s) you can think of that included this type of gameplay mechanic (picking up an item that changes value over time)? just curious.

[Middlemoor]

A good feature is the initial random stage order.

[neorichieb1971]

Psikyo is an aweesome developer. The only game i've played that I didn't like was gunbird 2 for some reason, mind I was playing it on a DC pad. Not very cool.

[EOJ]

THIS game actually FORCES you to chain, whereas Ikaruga didn`t.

Not quite true. I hear this argument a lot, but it's just not true. Ikaruga is built so much on the chaining that playing it "properly" is pretty much the only way to actually get some enjoyment out of it. Playing Iky without paying attention to the chains is a very tedious exercise. No fun at all. The chains are the game, it makes no sense to ignore them.

No, it is true. If you don't chain in Ikaruga you can still beat the game just fine (it may be boring for you this way, true, but what about Dot Eater? No chaining there and many find it a fun challenge). If you don't chain in RSG and upgrade your weapons, it's (near-)impossible to beat the later levels/bosses. I think this is what FrederikJurk was referring to. You have to learn to chain pretty good in order to beat RSG. Not true for Ikaruga.

On topic, my fave Psyiko game is definitely Zero Gunner 2. I'm surprised (horrified?) to see no one mention it.

[Herr Schatten]

If you don't chain in RSG and upgrade your weapons, it's (near-)impossible to beat the later levels/bosses. I think this is what FrederikJurk was referring to. You have to learn to chain pretty good in order to beat RSG. Not true for Ikaruga.

I know that and I understood quite well what he wanted to say, but, as you might have guessed, that' wasn't my point. I'm not talking about the technical possibility to go through the game without completing a chain. If you don't chain in Ikaruga, large parts of the stage design don't make any sense (yes, even if you go for dot-eater rank). Sure, you can just shoot your way through them, but it isn't as satisfying an experience as it would be in a shooter that's built solely on survival-based gameplay. Chaining in Ikaruga is more than an just an option, it's the whole point of the game, even if technically you're allowed to skip it (which you can't do in RSG).

[EOJ]

I know that and I understood quite well what he wanted to say, but, as you might have guessed, that' wasn't my point.

All FrederikJurk said was RSG FORCES you to chain whereas Ikaruga doesn't. This is true. You responded to these words of his by claiming that it wasn't true. I showed how it was true--you even agree with me on this in your reply! You come back with "but of course that wasn't my point! Ikaruga isn't satisfying without chaining, that's the point!", which is fine if that's what you think (everyone has an opinion, and this is just an opinion you know--I happen to share this opinion btw), but it has nothing to do with FrederikJurk's original point (being FORCED to chain), which is what you quoted and addressed.

Anyway, no need for this to drift into a needless OT argument.

[incognoscente]

the shining gold bars/shining coins in Psykio games. (...)you have to pick them up in the right moment

what is/are the oldest shooter(s) you can think of that included this type of gameplay mechanic (picking up an item that changes value over time)? just curious.

Vertical: V-V/Grindstormer ('93), Raiden DX ('93), and Sonic Wings 2/Aero Fighters 2 ('94).
Horizontal: Darius ('86)

These are off the top of my head--my knowledge of the more obscure '80s titles is poor. Also, I usually pass on Capcom shooters, so they may have used a similar system somewhere.

[Rob]

On topic, my fave Psikyo game is definitely Zero Gunner 2. I'm surprised (horrified?) to see no one mention it.

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have sold this game, twice. I keep turning my back on it.

GB2, Strikers II, Dragon Blaze, ZG2, Sengoku Blade, Cannon Spike - all really fun. The rest pretty decent to annoyingly bland.

[Ko.oS]

[snip]

zerogunner2 is okay i guess, quite fun in 2pl mode, moderately easy (1st round on defaults anyway), and the "pivoting" control is a nice change from the usual. i sold my copy too, but kept a back up. and yea, dragon blaze is okay, too bad the stage6 boss is (nearly) impossible w/o plagiarizing some japanese dude who was nice enough to post a replay on the interweb . . .

anyway, im off checking out D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D--DA-RI-US.


edit: snipped the treasure blabber and fixed some shitty typing

[professor ganson]

GB2, Strikers II, Dragon Blaze, ZG2, Sengoku Blade, Cannon Spike - all really fun. The rest pretty decent to annoyingly bland.

Is Cannon Spike a shmup? I hear it mentioned so infrequently.