Most high fidelity shmup experiences

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

tldr: What shmups in what setups feel the most exuberant and luxurious to you?

Which shmup in what setup gives you that feeling of opulence, like you driving the newest car, nay, the newest SPACE CAR? I mean I'm all for games such as Blue Wish Resurrection, or emulating old cave shmups with random settings, but damn, Danmaku Unlimited 3 with a really good monitor looks outta this world. In general it would be cool with more PC/HD ports of shmups, because the visuals are superior and the experience more luxurious in for example Mushi/Dodonpachi Resurrection on PC, and Futari/Espgaluda 2 on 360, as compared to their mame counterparts. Even just hearing the soundtrack in say Mushihimesama in the PC port makes it impossible for me to go back to hearing the music in MAME, which is horribly mistreated, because the mix is just so clean in the PC port. And imagine for example Touhou getting the Danmaku Unlimited treatment - the bullet curtains would look even more impressive.

I also have to mention PARSEC47, as in all my posts, but in all honesty because playing it in window mode does feel very modern - in part due to the gameplay itself which feels very responsive and super-powered, but in part due to it having such slick presentation in a -- albeit abstract -- high fidelity package. Come to think of it, a bit of abstraction might even be easier for making something "feel high fidelity", but I guess that just depends whether you feel like you're more in the future when space driving in an environment that looks more spacey/abstract, or more earthy/pixelated. I mean from far away most cave shmups look awesome (arguably even those with very grayish/bland background, like Espgaluda), but up close, things feel a bit low fidelity to me often, even in the HD versions, the original Dodonpachi being one exception, a game which just feels super crisp until this day.

[Yoshi]

I'm going to go with DariusBurst on an ultrawide monitor, though it could certainly be argued that PCBs on a candy cabinet remain the ultimate experience.

[spmbx]

All the HD fluff tends to turn it into a quite soulless affair. I agree with the pcb+crt as highend experience.

[Sengoku Strider]

Crimzon Clover is like getting punched in the eyes with a slot machine jackpot over & over, so that's pretty deluxe.

[wht11]

All the HD fluff tends to turn it into a quite soulless affair.

I think it's just a coincidence, actually. And even apart from that, people going into gaming only recently (for this point I mean mainly kids) years later might see current games rich in everything, or at least not as "soulless", you thought about that in this context?

[spmbx]

All the HD fluff tends to turn it into a quite soulless affair.

I think it's just a coincidence, actually. And even apart from that, people going into gaming only recently (for this point I mean mainly kids) years later might see current games rich in everything, or at least not as "soulless", you thought about that in this context?

It's just my opinion since the topic's question is literally:
tldr: What shmups in what setups feel the most exuberant and luxurious to you?

i'm happy to read yours or anyone else's opinion that might be different to mine.

[wht11]

All the HD fluff tends to turn it into a quite soulless affair.

I think it's just a coincidence, actually. And even apart from that, people going into gaming only recently (for this point I mean mainly kids) years later might see current games rich in everything, or at least not as "soulless", you thought about that in this context?

It's just my opinion since the topic's question is literally:
tldr: What shmups in what setups feel the most exuberant and luxurious to you?

i'm happy to read yours or anyone else's opinion that might be different to mine.

As it happens we share the opinion on it or maybe I'm even more into retro but getting old I started to wonder if all the "HD" are really that poor in content or is it just me. Hence the question what someone else thinks, as you pointed out maybe off topic, in this case sorry for that.

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

Crimzon Clover is like getting punched in the eyes with a slot machine jackpot over & over, so that's pretty deluxe.

Haha I mean all jokes aside maybe modern japanese shmups have been influenced by the sensory deluge of Pachinko? Cave (and Clover) certainly seem to have, and I for one would prefer for it all to be toned down a bit, rather than have gone the way of "new game=must have EVEN MORE STUFF than old game", hence why I prefer the more streamlined visual experience of say Danmaku Unlimited or PARSEC47. I'm glad I don't have to go to the arcades to play this stuff because I don't last very long in environments that compete for your attention like that and I prefer the luxury of playing my own music, a cup of tea, and even a pause button.

[Haddock]

A problem with these kind of questions in general is semantics. How do we define "high end"?

I grew up during the N64/PS1 era so as a kid 3D was all the rage. It wasn't;t until much later that I played older games like Castlevania SOTN and Metal Slug (naming some beautiful 2D games). Now that I am a grownup and have a PVM monitor with RGB connections for mot of the consoles I have to say that I much prefer the look of 2D sprite based shmups to 3D polygon based ones.

I remember looking in awe at something like Border Down when I was a kid because it looked amazingly flashy, but looking at it now it's pretty bland. It's a problem that most purely polygon based games have and will continue to have, although it will reach an relative upper limit at some point (i.e. playing PS4 games doesn't feel very old when compared to PS5, but playing a PS2 3D game definitely feels dated).

I think by large the way to circumvent these issues is art design. Looking at something like Ikaruga, it does not feel as dated simply because it has very strong thematic and cohesive art direction and it sticks to it. Darius CS doesn't particularly have this (imo) and thus feels a little barren and lacking in interesting visuals.

So for me, the most hi-def experience when it comes to shmups are games like Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga (although I don't like playing it so much), and Zeroranger. All of these games focus thematically on a leitmotif and stretch their concepts to the fullest, visually but also sonically and game design wise.

[Mortificator]

Rez with Trance Vibrators properly positioned.

[Rastan78]

Rez with Trance Vibrators properly positioned.

[LordHypnos]

Rez with Trance Vibrators properly positioned.

I will say that my mind was entirely blown the first time that I played Rez Stage 5, though. Simply incredible.

As for more typical STGs, Garegga, Thunder Force IV, and Ray Force all have amazing graphics and music. I have not played any of them extensively, though.

[Eaglet]

For me, since I'm mostly playing lo-res 68k games anyway, the ultimate STG experience is the setup I have at home:
NAC
PCB
Sanwa deluxe buttons (with the bigass microswitches)
Seimitsu LS-32 modded with stiff spring (gifted by emphatic way back when)

All of my notable playing has been done on this setup and it feels just right.

[Sengoku Strider]

As it happens we share the opinion on it or maybe I'm even more into retro but getting old I started to wonder if all the "HD" are really that poor in content or is it just me. Hence the question what someone else thinks, as you pointed out maybe off topic, in this case sorry for that.

There's absolutely nothing about HD that would stop it from producing incredible visual experiences, as it does on the regular:



Guilty Gear coming in strong with the all-polygon 4K HD thigh jiggle worthy of any late 90s pixel artist.

What HD does do is expose simple 3D or cheaply developed games. Basic models, bad textures, simple or poorly implemented lighting, background resolutions that can't keep up, etc., it's not tough to to see. Back in the pre-HD days CRTs were glowy enough to mask a lot of things.

Crimzon Clover is like getting punched in the eyes with a slot machine jackpot over & over, so that's pretty deluxe.

Haha I mean all jokes aside maybe modern japanese shmups have been influenced by the sensory deluge of Pachinko? Cave (and Clover) certainly seem to have, and I for one would prefer for it all to be toned down a bit, rather than have gone the way of "new game=must have EVEN MORE STUFF than old game", hence why I prefer the more streamlined visual experience of say Danmaku Unlimited or PARSEC47. I'm glad I don't have to go to the arcades to play this stuff because I don't last very long in environments that compete for your attention like that and I prefer the luxury of playing my own music, a cup of tea, and even a pause button.

Unquestionably they are. You'll see pachinko & slot machines in pretty much any arcade in Japan (albeit not for gambling purposes, you need a dedicated pachinko parlour for that). Like, go to a major shopping mall, game centre next to the food court, they're in the back. I'm quite certain Cave et al looked at that and saw how transportable the same sort of experience would be to their own offerings, or at least had it in the back of their minds as part of the arcade environment.

[dmk1198]

Returnal ps5 feels deluxe
As does dariusburst on PS4 on 65" screen in surround sound

Sent from my M2007J20CG using Tapatalk

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

A problem with these kind of questions in general is semantics. How do we define "high end"?

Indeed. I mean Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 in HD - yes please. The remake of Metal Gear Solid on gamecube - no thank you. Mass Effect Legendary - yes please. Silent Hill 2 HD remake - no thank you. And then there's always the _Observer and Observer: System Redux, where the remake is wonderful in some areas, but lost a lot of identity and mood in others. Art direction, stretching concepts, etc, is important, for sure. Knowing what your game is, and committing to it. Using the limitations to your advantage. Maybe not letting some twitchy slowdowns in for example mushihimesama be a thing and instead utilize less bullets in some places. Music from the NES still sounds so damn crisp until this day, whereas music from the playstation era which tries to sound more like regular music has simply been outdone on more modern consoles, as is the case with graphics as well. And yet, something about the original Metal Gear Solid for example to me feels very impressive, to this day (although I did play it at the time). Sometimes not exposing everything to the light of the day, like the remake, is a plus. It reminds me of the case hbomberguy was making about how the low fidelity of VHS/TV affected the language of movies of those days, and for example made horror movies more scary because you couldn't see as much as in the HD remasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZMqS-fW-8

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

Rez with Trance Vibrators properly positioned.

Haha I even remember play-asias product page of this vibrator back in the day had pictures of a girl there, seemingly for no reason.

But yeah wow Rez felt deluxe for sure when it came out. Mind blown. Something which wasn't the case with Luxuria Superbia, which one might argue the vibrator was better suited to.

[Haddock]

A problem with these kind of questions in general is semantics. How do we define "high end"?

Indeed. I mean Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 in HD - yes please. The remake of Metal Gear Solid on gamecube - no thank you. Mass Effect Legendary - yes please. Silent Hill 2 HD remake - no thank you. And then there's always the _Observer and Observer: System Redux, where the remake is wonderful in some areas, but lost a lot of identity and mood in others. Art direction, stretching concepts, etc, is important, for sure. Knowing what your game is, and committing to it. Using the limitations to your advantage. Maybe not letting some twitchy slowdowns in for example mushihimesama be a thing and instead utilize less bullets in some places. Music from the NES still sounds so damn crisp until this day, whereas music from the playstation era which tries to sound more like regular music has simply been outdone on more modern consoles, as is the case with graphics as well. And yet, something about the original Metal Gear Solid for example to me feels very impressive, to this day (although I did play it at the time). Sometimes not exposing everything to the light of the day, like the remake, is a plus. It reminds me of the case hbomberguy was making about how the low fidelity of VHS/TV affected the language of movies of those days, and for example made horror movies more scary because you couldn't see as much as in the HD remasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZMqS-fW-8

Interesting note about music since that is sort of my cup of tea:

During the earliest days of gaming (70s, early 80s) music was generated "live" by the hardware itself, using synthesizers from Yamaha and other companies. Because of this the amount of sounds was very limited, and as a result the music focused almost solely on melody the rhythm contained within a melody, and not so much on harmony (because there wasn't enough space for that).
This trend continued during most of the Famicom/NES era but slightly more space became available. In some cases game companies even added their own custom sound chips to their cartridges in order to have more channels available to create music with! A nice example is the late famicom release called Gimmick (by the great Sunsoft):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZKx5o9N5A

The real change came when the format of choice for media storage shifted to CD. Suddenly there was way more space available, and different teams fought over who gets what piece of the pie (composers typically get assigned 3-5% of a total budget for a game). With this development games really started to become more ambitious in their presentation and gameplay. More traditional composers could suddenly compose for video games (before you had to have quite a bit of technical knowledge) and as ambitions grew so did the soundtracks. Having orchestral recorded music for Final Fantasy and the likes. With this technological expansion happening, video game music became much more complex, conveying more complex emotions to the player that fell in line with the increasingly more complex games they were experiencing. Harmony became much more important because simply put; it was possible to do so (and harmony is generally what conveys more complex emotions in music). An example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdi1DSqBZ6Q

A complex piece of music emotionally speaking. Conveying a sense of anxiety and strangeness. Which makes sense since the game is about a boy traveling to a strange land to save his presumably dead girlfriend by striking a deal with a supernatural being. Basically video games became more like movies in this sense (musically speaking). You mentioned Silent Hill 2, now there's an amazing example of a soundtrack that displays emotional complexity. Speaking of that remake, it's indeed the furthest from hi-def.. The people who worked on that remaster apparently didn't understand that the fog serves an atmospheric purpose as well as a technical one (obscuring the players vision so the PS2 could load areas ahead). A good example of just because you can doesn't mean you should!

Anyway, video game music is weird. Some music works without the context and you'll gladly listen to and some of you don't (or I don't). I was playing Radiant Silvergun yesterday and the music is a very surprising orchestral (well MIDI, since actual orchestral was too expensive) arrangement that features a very strong thematic cohesion (the same melodies repeat basically in all the songs, with variations). To listen to the OST on it's own is...kind of boring. But when I'm playing the game it fits like a glove

[MJR]

Interesting note about music since that is sort of my cup of tea:

During the earliest days of gaming (70s, early 80s) music was generated "live" by the hardware itself, using synthesizers from Yamaha and other companies. Because of this the amount of sounds was very limited, and as a result the music focused almost solely on melody the rhythm contained within a melody, and not so much on harmony (because there wasn't enough space for that).
This trend continued during most of the Famicom/NES era but slightly more space became available. In some cases game companies even added their own custom sound chips to their cartridges in order to have more channels available to create music with! A nice example is the late famicom release called Gimmick (by the great Sunsoft):

..Unless we are talking about Commodore 64, which SID chip was a analogue synthesizer in itself. Having grown up in the 80's on all those amazing SID tunes by Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway and such, 8-bit console tunes and even 16-bit console music - sometimes even music in arcade games felt too primitive and pathetic in comparison to my ears that I could ever get kicks from listening to music from old console games (from this I rule out as an exception the amazing title track from Final Fantasy VI). I think it was only in Playstation era that I feel I was really in love with videogame music again.

These things are highly personal though, of course.

[MJR]

A problem with these kind of questions in general is semantics. How do we define "high end"?

Indeed. I mean Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 in HD - yes please. The remake of Metal Gear Solid on gamecube - no thank you. Mass Effect Legendary - yes please. Silent Hill 2 HD remake - no thank you. And then there's always the _Observer and Observer: System Redux, where the remake is wonderful in some areas, but lost a lot of identity and mood in others. Art direction, stretching concepts, etc, is important, for sure. Knowing what your game is, and committing to it. Using the limitations to your advantage. Maybe not letting some twitchy slowdowns in for example mushihimesama be a thing and instead utilize less bullets in some places. Music from the NES still sounds so damn crisp until this day, whereas music from the playstation era which tries to sound more like regular music has simply been outdone on more modern consoles, as is the case with graphics as well. And yet, something about the original Metal Gear Solid for example to me feels very impressive, to this day (although I did play it at the time). Sometimes not exposing everything to the light of the day, like the remake, is a plus. It reminds me of the case hbomberguy was making about how the low fidelity of VHS/TV affected the language of movies of those days, and for example made horror movies more scary because you couldn't see as much as in the HD remasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZMqS-fW-8

You are talking about highly personal perceptions here. The feeling of "luxury" usually can come across when you get to experience new form of entertainment or graphics tech for the first time; ie. playing a computer game for the first time, seeing 16-bit graphics on 1987 for the first time, like Gauntlet on arcades (if you are old enough to having experienced that), seeing smooth 3D for the first time, seeing normal maps on game for the first time, etc etc etc.. it all gets old, and when it's old, the "luxury" is gone. You can then derive pleasure from having unique gaming rigs and setups, and owning original, collectable rare hardware, but it's bit different. Or you can enjoy good art direction / playability / story, and argue that it's luxury. But, in fact, all gaming is luxury so the whole question is kind of a moot.

But never mind, I'll play along to your original question just for fun. My "luxury" experiences in shmups was when I saw Star Force coin-op, Space Harrier coin op, Narc coin op (first real high res shooting game!) and Star Wars coin ops for the first time. Truxton (or Narc if it could fit the definition, not quite) was the last shmup to wow in graphics, soon after that the paradigm had already shifted away from shmups. If I now want "luxury", I would guess that Alyx: Half Life on wireless headset with good PC is probably closest thing to it; new hardware and new amazing experience, needs kinda expensive setup, so it fits definition of new luxury tech toy.

[Haddock]

Interesting note about music since that is sort of my cup of tea:

During the earliest days of gaming (70s, early 80s) music was generated "live" by the hardware itself, using synthesizers from Yamaha and other companies. Because of this the amount of sounds was very limited, and as a result the music focused almost solely on melody the rhythm contained within a melody, and not so much on harmony (because there wasn't enough space for that).
This trend continued during most of the Famicom/NES era but slightly more space became available. In some cases game companies even added their own custom sound chips to their cartridges in order to have more channels available to create music with! A nice example is the late famicom release called Gimmick (by the great Sunsoft):

..Unless we are talking about Commodore 64, which SID chip was a analogue synthesizer in itself. Having grown up in the 80's on all those amazing SID tunes by Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway and such, 8-bit console tunes and even 16-bit console music - sometimes even music in arcade games felt too primitive and pathetic in comparison to my ears that I could ever get kicks from listening to music from old console games (from this I rule out as an exception the amazing title track from Final Fantasy VI). I think it was only in Playstation era that I feel I was really in love with videogame music again.

These things are highly personal though, of course.

Yes the Commodore had its own synthesizer, which is exactly why it's felt so ahead of the pack.

To be honest I do often feel that in the modern era composers tend to go overboard with their arrangements. I always say that video game and filmscores are already contained in the game/movie itself, the composer just has to extract it out. Sometimes this works wonderfully (Jet Set Radio, Super Metroid) because the composer(s) work with the material (the game) and don't overdo it with preconceived notions of what they want the music to be like (aka most modern shooting games, not shmups mind you!). You mention Final Fantasy VI, and a great example of not overdoing it in that game is Terra's Theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6t_uyg_pF8

The melodic ideas here are super simple, varying a couple of notes here and there most of the time. But it just works beautifully especially considering the context where it plays in the game. Anyway I'm rambling too much about video game music here, I love making music so I always get carried away lol.

[MJR]

Interesting note about music since that is sort of my cup of tea:

During the earliest days of gaming (70s, early 80s) music was generated "live" by the hardware itself, using synthesizers from Yamaha and other companies. Because of this the amount of sounds was very limited, and as a result the music focused almost solely on melody the rhythm contained within a melody, and not so much on harmony (because there wasn't enough space for that).
This trend continued during most of the Famicom/NES era but slightly more space became available. In some cases game companies even added their own custom sound chips to their cartridges in order to have more channels available to create music with! A nice example is the late famicom release called Gimmick (by the great Sunsoft):

..Unless we are talking about Commodore 64, which SID chip was a analogue synthesizer in itself. Having grown up in the 80's on all those amazing SID tunes by Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway and such, 8-bit console tunes and even 16-bit console music - sometimes even music in arcade games felt too primitive and pathetic in comparison to my ears that I could ever get kicks from listening to music from old console games (from this I rule out as an exception the amazing title track from Final Fantasy VI). I think it was only in Playstation era that I feel I was really in love with videogame music again.

These things are highly personal though, of course.

Yes the Commodore had its own synthesizer, which is exactly why it's felt so ahead of the pack.

To be honest I do often feel that in the modern era composers tend to go overboard with their arrangements. I always say that video game and filmscores are already contained in the game/movie itself, the composer just has to extract it out. Sometimes this works wonderfully (Jet Set Radio, Super Metroid) because the composer(s) work with the material (the game) and don't overdo it with preconceived notions of what they want the music to be like (aka most modern shooting games, not shmups mind you!). You mention Final Fantasy VI, and a great example of not overdoing it in that game is Terra's Theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6t_uyg_pF8

The melodic ideas here are super simple, varying a couple of notes here and there most of the time. But it just works beautifully especially considering the context where it plays in the game. Anyway I'm rambling too much about video game music here, I love making music so I always get carried away lol.

Agree with you I do. It's little bit the same with everything, you throw too much stuff in and it's not as good anymore. When I was working with musicians for my game project, it was the first demo that was always the best. I had to tell them to stop adding any more instruments or effects. I love FFVI's tracks for their simplicity. All you need is a good melody.

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

Haddock: What do you think of Shovel Knights soundtrack? It feels a bit "busy", especially compared to the classical simplicity of say NES mega man soundracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdNpaJwLiZA At the same time I understand why the composer would want to make it more complex, give the sound more texture, more harmonies (?), stuff like fading in/out, and just make the "loop" much more longer. When it comes to shmup music I honestly prefer listening to my own music these days more often than not, even if the dodonpachi soundtrack always will be cool, even if I don't listen to it outside of playing the game. I think the only shmup music i ever rock out to separate from the game are Strikers 1945 Part 2, and UN Squadron:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQRQlpP ... 31&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Mlpyb ... E&index=11

Maybe I just enjoy "rock" much more than the technoish stuff that dominates a lot of (cave) shmups.

MJR: I'm 34 so for me the "whoa" of a lifetime was to see Super Mario World on the SNES, and then Mario 64 on the N64, and then Half-Life 2, and since then nothing has compared in pure shock value, even if I'm still awestruck by good artwork or by how "lifelike" games are these days. I mean I was playing Detroit: Become Human just now and I'm sure it's nothing special graphics wise, but damn did it feel luxurious to play it on my computer without any hassle, as did playing observer: system redux, or everyone's gone to the rapture, etc. I think my brain hasn't caught up to the fact that this is just how games look these days so it's in a state of perpetual getting surprised by that this is indeed the case.

[Stevens]

..Unless we are talking about Commodore 64, which SID chip was a analogue synthesizer in itself. Having grown up in the 80's on all those amazing SID tunes by Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway and such, 8-bit console tunes and even 16-bit console music - sometimes even music in arcade games felt too primitive and pathetic in comparison to my ears that I could ever get kicks from listening to music from old console games (from this I rule out as an exception the amazing title track from Final Fantasy VI). I think it was only in Playstation era that I feel I was really in love with videogame music again.

These things are highly personal though, of course.

The 6581 and 8580 are the best sound chips ever.

Imo of course.

[chempop]

High Fidelity: the reproduction of an effect (such as sound or an image) that is very faithful to the original


Basically not using save states or stage practice makes the experience as faithful as possible to playing in an arcade. Throw in a candy cab, PCB, and yen 100yen tokens and you got the whole shebang.

[kid aphex]

If we’re sticking to straight-up shmups, I think Sine Mora, Astebreed and Cygni: All Guns Blazing are the best looking ones out there.
Of course, Sine Mora and Astebreed both suck, and Cygni is being developed by an unproven team, so...

When I think of really well-produced shmups that feel like the highest-quality experiences around... well, it’s gotta be Ikaruga and Gradius V.

Having said all that....


I do believe that Sin and Punishment 2 is the PEAK of old-school, hardcore game design.
It’s what 10-year-old me thought all games would eventually be like.
Classic gaming meets modern graphics, new controls and a big Nintendo budget.
No corners cut and no compromises made.

It’s a few years old, so obviously the graphics aren’t cutting edge anymore... but it really is a super-produced masterpiece of shooting.

[Haddock]

Haddock: What do you think of Shovel Knights soundtrack? It feels a bit "busy", especially compared to the classical simplicity of say NES mega man soundracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdNpaJwLiZA At the same time I understand why the composer would want to make it more complex, give the sound more texture, more harmonies (?), stuff like fading in/out, and just make the "loop" much more longer. When it comes to shmup music I honestly prefer listening to my own music these days more often than not, even if the dodonpachi soundtrack always will be cool, even if I don't listen to it outside of playing the game. I think the only shmup music i ever rock out to separate from the game are Strikers 1945 Part 2, and UN Squadron:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQRQlpP ... 31&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Mlpyb ... E&index=11

Shovel knight is an interesting example and a good case study for any indie game composer (which are most composers lol).

Trying to straddle the line between nostalgic NES music while making use of more modern capabilities, in this case way more soundlayers than would be possible on the NES. For my personal tastes in some tracks it goes a little too chaotic aswell. The problem with the chiptune sounds is that they use a lot of very specific frequencies unlike for example a string section or other love instrumentation or soft synths which have a more broad sonic frequency range and sounds more “mellow” to the ear. So when you use 10 layers of NES style sounds it gets busy really quick and you risk “ear fatigue” quickly.

As another user already noted when making his own game, composers/musicians tend to want to do more whenever it’s possible. Yeah me of the biggest lessons a musician or composer can learn is that the game or movie guides itself, and less is usually more..

A good example of combining more harsh NES sounds with softer harmonies and melodic ideas is a game called Fez. The composer combines these sounds masterfully IMO.

Ofcourse all of this is my opinion.

[DMC]

Probably BIL's faithful representation of the Dangun Feveron warning message

HEAVEN IS HERE INSIDE MY SOUL

Close second, a visit to Sven666 around 2007 when he had a couple of Taito Egret 2, SEGA Astro City, and Blast City cabinets in his apartment. That amount of cabs, in such great conditions, with such nice selections of great/exclusive titles, and fitting so well in that apartment was quite impressive. First time I played Muchi Muchi Pork too, which had just been released.

Seimitsu LS-32 modded with stiff spring (gifted by emphatic way back when)

Hm, maybe a stiff spring is something I should explore as well. Any suggestion of where to look?

[davyK]

I feel privileged to have a dedicated rotated CRT with RGB SCART. Sitting at that playing my console shmups with an arcade stick feels damn good.

A sit down candy cab would be the ultimate for me. Though - I own a refurbed Asteroids Deluxe and that is pretty hard to top. Owning a piece of gaming history is a privilege.

[dmk1198]

If we’re sticking to straight-up shmups, I think Sine Mora, Astebreed and Cygni: All Guns Blazing are the best looking ones out there.
Of course, Sine Mora and Astebreed both suck, and Cygni is being developed by an unproven team, so...

When I think of really well-produced shmups that feel like the highest-quality experiences around... well, it’s gotta be Ikaruga and Gradius V.

Having said all that....


I do believe that Sin and Punishment 2 is the PEAK of old-school, hardcore game design.
It’s what 10-year-old me thought all games would eventually be like.
Classic gaming meets modern graphics, new controls and a big Nintendo budget.
No corners cut and no compromises made.

It’s a few years old, so obviously the graphics aren’t cutting edge anymore... but it really is a super-produced masterpiece of shooting.

Great post, agree with ikaruga and s&S2, radiant silvergun also
They feel like a cut above for sure
One common denominator to lol

Sent from my M2007J20CG using Tapatalk