Bullet Cancelling

[banjoted]

I know that bullet cancelling can rub some folk up the wrong way, but it's a mechanic I personally really enjoy. I was wondering if you lot could name me some shmups with good/interesting/excessive bullet cancelling mechanics? Stuff I've enjoyed:

* Mushi Futari Arrange
* Akai Katana Slash
* Pink Sweets Arrange
* Giga Wings
* Crimson Clover

Any ideas for other titles?

[SPM]

Rolling Gunner!

And for the most over-the-top bullet cancelling (to the point many people don't like it): its DLC "OverPower"

[To Far Away Times]

Futari also has cancelling outside of arrange mode with its stage gimmicks.

I think stages 2, 3, and 4 all have reappearing destructable scenery that cancels all bullets.

Its pretty nice that since its built in the stage, the levels can be designed around you using a cancel at the right time.

[el_rika]

Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label of course
Picking up those white bees at the last moment in Strong mode with a max. red gauge is something else

[BareKnuckleRoo]

DOJ and Raiden 3's PS2 ports have No Bullets modes. Why cancel bullets after being fired when you can pre-emptively cancel them from ever existing?

Giga Wing, Vasara 1 & 2, and Akai Katana Slash have good cancelling mechanics that are an active part of the game mechanics. Mars Matrix's central mechanic sorta qualifies too but it's not as viscerally satisfying or intuitive to use as Giga Wing's reflect is, honestly.

Deathsmiles has a higher difficulty route you can take that enables special cancellable bullets you use your option to cancel. It's directly tied to scoring.

Pink Sweets is very much about using the special attack to cancel bullets, and is mandatory to cancel laser attacks (the last stage's infamous midboss comes to mind).

Not for score but there's some games like R-Type, Pulstar, and Blazing Star with ships that have gunpods where using them to cancel is a helpful part of survival play.

Rolling Gunner Overpower is just silly.

[Stevens]

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[Kiken]

ESPGaluda and ESPGaluda II are both built around bullet cancelling score mechanics. See also everything by Milestone: Chaos Field, Radirgy, Karous, IllVelo and Radirgy Noa. Also also, the oft-forgotten Homura.

[Lethe]

Progear (because it bears repeating)
Espgaluda, obviously.
Guwange (Blue especially). Guwange 360 Arrange is level.
ESP Ra.De. (dying enemies cancel bullets on top of them)

Who am I kidding, you know all of these already. Here's some you might not.

Eden's Aegis: Galuda-style cancels tied to a Ra.De. powershot. You can and should bullet cancel everything, the game is more cancels than dodging.
Touhou photogames (StB/DS): Bullet cancels are pretty much the only way you interact other than movement.
Imperishable Night: Ra.De. style localized cancels tied to unchaining slave enemies from masters. Also involves the typical "wait for lots of crap to stack up before finishing the boss off" style.
Great Fairy Wars: Primary mechanic is freezing bullets, which stops and defuses them. The ice spreads to other bullets that it touches, expanding as long as there's a physical connection. When it expires the bullets cancel and enemies in contact with the ice are damaged.
ring^-27: Revolves around various means of embedding an anchor into an enemy to steal its weapon; killing an anchored enemy will bullet cancel. Bomb mode specifically is similar to the Fairy Wars freezing, but instant. Also has a reflector weapon.
StellaVanity: In the simple mode, your secondary weapon is a straight-ahead blast that cancels bullets and is vital for scoring and survival. In the complex mode, well, it's really fucking complicated but it comes down to being Galuda style (both Galuda 1 and 2).
And I shouldn't dare mention it, but... Len'en flashbomb spamming is something that exists.

[STGAlmond]

dodonpachi resurrection/daifukkatsu black label would be my recommendation.

[BulletMagnet]

The Bullet Soul games have about as much bullet cancelling as a shmup can have, though weirdly it doesn't really tie into scoring at all.

[XoPachi]

Bullet cancelling is dope. I really like the ones where it's tied to grazing like Graze Counter.

[heli]

Mars-Matrix GHB !

[SPM]

Bullet cancelling is dope. I really like the ones where it's tied to grazing like Graze Counter.

Now that you say so... Also Danmaku Unlimited 3, very satisfying!

[SuperPang]

trap15 has absolutely nailed the joys of bullet cancelling with SDOJ EL.

[MachineAres 1CC]

This thread has already won 2021. It just kinda made me realize that most of the games that have bullet canceling are basically my favorite ones ever. Thanks OP.

[VxD]

trap15 has absolutely nailed the joys of bullet cancelling with SDOJ EL.

Seconding Dodonpachi Saidaioujou exA Label.
Grazing and Bullet Cancelling are at the heart of the scoring mechanics.

Shamelessly plugging my low-rank low-scoring 1CC: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/892312490

[XoPachi]

This game looks wonderful! I can't wait to play it. https://twitter.com/boghogooo/status/13 ... 6060294144

Now that you say so... Also Danmaku Unlimited 3, very satisfying!

Yes! I'm really awful at that one, but it's such a fun and gorgeous time. Such a crispy visual style!

[SPM]

This game looks wonderful! I can't wait to play it. https://twitter.com/boghogooo/status/13 ... 6060294144

I'm looking forward to it! And also its new survival mode (hope it turns out better than Steredenn - which is not bad, but...)

[christianbelchior]

[Mentions of NSFW game in post!]
Yakouga 4 has chain reaction cancelling tied to a counter increased by grazing, goes up to x255x1000 in 1.03 onwards.

[LordHypnos]

Bullet cancelling, especially if you count Takumi bullet reflecting mechanics, is probably my favorite type of scoring system. Most of the ones that I could come up with off hand were mentioned (even Ring⁻²⁷ ), but a few others:

• Hatenkou (an X68000 doujin game from 1998) has a somewhat odd mechanic where all of the bullets will be cancelled into $ items when you take a hit. The game also has a recharging shield, but rather than a Giga Wing type deal it's just an aura around you that goes away after you get hit, so you probably want to intentionally try to get hit while there's a lot of bullets on screen. IIRC bullets will also get cancelled into items when you defeat a boss enemy.
• Mars Matrix has already been mentioned, and the "Absorption Barrier Mosquito" (official term) should qualify, but what wasn't mentioned is that if you make it to Stage 5 there are enemies that, when killed, will cancel all bullets on screen into gold cubes. In case anyone is unfamiliar with the scoring system, it's basically the same as Giga Wing, where reflected bullets that hit things will turn into medals, medals will add to your multiplier, and increase in value each time you pick one up, but in Mars Matrix, there's a chain timer/gauge, and when you run out of gauge, the medal value gets reset. You also have control over how long to use the ABM for and what direction to throw the bullets, whereas these things are always the same in the GW games (it does probably bear mentioning that controlling these things usually takes more practice to get the hang of, though I never personally found it unintuitive).
• Eschatos Advanced mode has cancels. IIRC the F-bombs cancel bullets into items when you use them. Don't really know much about this scoring system
• I guess I could add to Ring⁻²⁷ by saying that there are two modes. Bomb mode is way more about cancelling, as your B button will just cancel all bullets that are close to eachother and to you into items (it also can anchor you to a nearby enemy, because this game is weird). One thing that's kind of neat is that enemies all release clouds of revenge bullets when they die (unless they're like at the bottom of the screen or right next to you, I think, though this could change with rank), which can allow you to set up big cancels. Anchor mode does also have cancelling though. Basically while you're anchored to an enemy if you press the B button (which is anchor in this mode) again you will cancel bullets. This means that if you mash the B button you can continually cancel bullets, but it will usually end up raising rank, and also sometimes it gets so hectic that this isn't really enough to survive. No revenge bullets in this mode, though. It's quite a complex game.

[BulletMagnet]

so you probably want to intentionally try to get hit while there's a lot of bullets on screen.

If I ever get my hands on this title I'll set the world record on my first play.

[LordHypnos]

so you probably want to intentionally try to get hit while there's a lot of bullets on screen.

If I ever get my hands on this title I'll set the world record on my first play.

Nice.

Unfortunately, the shield recharges kind of slowly (too slowly for my taste), so it's not really practical to be hitting bullets like crazy. There's also like a life bonus at the end of the stage. I will say that the floppy disc images that I have start you with 5 lives though. That would be really unusual, so I kind of think this is not the defaults, but I don't think there's any way to say for sure.

[BulletMagnet]

Foiled again!

Slightly off topic, but on a related note I seem to recall that the Arrange mode of Muchi Muchi Pork on the 360 had some really weird mechanic where you built up some sort of shield that would cancel onscreen bullets into items if you hit one, but would seemingly do the exact same thing if you hit the "bomb" button and activated it manually, which seems kinda silly offhand; did anyone ever actually document how the scoring and such in that mode works?

[LordHypnos]

Marion's bomb in Gunbird 2 (Psikyo, 1998) cancels bullets into candy that you can pick up for points. I don't think it's a significant component of scoring, though. Psikyo games usually reward you heavily for not bombing (I guess you can recoup some of the losses?). It's possible that Aine's bomb works similarly (but with roses instead of candy), but I can't quite remember.

[christianbelchior]

Bump it up. (get it?)

[velo]

Not for score but there's some games like R-Type, Pulstar, and Blazing Star with ships that have gunpods where using them to cancel is a helpful part of survival play.

Are there any bullet hell-ish games where you can block shots like this (or X-Multiply, Saint Dragon etc), or where it impacts score?

[LordHypnos]

Are there any bullet hell-ish games where you can block shots like this (or X-Multiply, Saint Dragon etc), or where it impacts score?

The Doll in Illvelo might scratch something of the same itch, though I don't think it can delete non-destructable bullets. It can be positioned strategically, though. Also I'm not sure if Illvelo would normally be considered a bullet hell. Perhaps M Knight could weigh in.

On a somewhat related note, I think that Radirgy could be considered to have cancels. It has the ABSnet, a recharging bomb that dissolves bullets and sucks up items within its range. The bullets get turned into green pills (you also get pills from enemies within the range of the ABSnet). There are two types of pills in this game. Green pills fill the multiplier bar, while blue pills refill the ABSnet. I think you get blue pills just from killing enemies, but if you use the sword you get more of them. You can also use the passive shield (just protects the front of your ship, activated by not shooting or using the sword) to get pills from absorbing bullets or touching enemies, but I'm not sure what kind (guessing green). I guess it's also cancelling the bullets into items, though.

[Lethe]

Are there any bullet hell-ish games where you can block shots like this (or X-Multiply, Saint Dragon etc), or where it impacts score?

Pink Sweets?
Varth involves lots of bullet blocking, not a bullet hell but it's pretty manic.

[Some-Mist]

I fuckin love bullet cancelling and progear was the first CAVE game to really hook me in. I love how active you have to be switching between shots to be successful. timing bullets on top of large enemies and using regular shot to build up to the maximum ring level to then time bullets over large enemies with large patterns to cash in on the highest value stones with focus shot. I love creating a scoring bullet stream from continuing fire from popcorn mobs (thanks to STG on the explanation). I first played the PCB on a supergun setup in 2012 and decided it was going to be one of the first slightly more difficult games to go for the 1CC. I've 1CC'd it a couple dozen times on and off over the last 9 years and still have never reached the 2nd loop. it's a top 3 shmup of all time for me and the only thing I really think isn't top notch is the soundtrack.

I remember when talking with STG about it (I hope I get this right) he explained a very difficult scoring mechanic that some of the top pros can utilize where you leave a single highest value ring on the screen while cashing in on a big spread of the highest stone and being able to pick up the highest value ring to cash in again directly after, but that's way above my skill cap.

[davyK]

Bullet cancelling as a result of destroying a large enemy or piece of the level is far more satisfying than using something like a hyper (though I think DFK Arrange-A has some really satisfying bullet eating moments in boss fights when you use a hyper at the right time).

Futari has superbly satisfying cancels.