Is there a right or wrong way to play shmups?

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Wed May 24, 2006 8:39 pm

^^^Good point. I'd be surprised if there are members here who do a lot of credit-feeding. Maybe occasionally for specific purposes.

Am I wrong? Fess up!

Post by **Icarus** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:11 pm

A few of my friends used to be 'rabid credit-feeders', and used to just pump in credit after credit on whatever shmup was plugged in. One day they came over for a few drinks and we had our usual gaming session on various stuff - GT2, GTA, SoulCalibur 2 etc etc - typical stuff.

During one of their quick gaming breaks (for beer/food/random chat), I fired up Strikers 2 on the Saturn and spent a credit trying to smash my personal high score. Can't remember how it sparked off - knowing my friends, it was probably some friendly trash-talking - but after I had finished my credit, my friends had decided to take it in turns to spend a credit trying to best my high score. And they went on for several hours, failing each time. ^_^

After they finished with Strikers 2, they moved on to Raiden DX, and after that spent the rest of the night plowing through my PSX, Saturn and PCB collection to feed their newly started taste for high-score competition. ^_^

Needless to say they no longer credit-feed shmups now, and instead play single credit games, especially when they try to beat my records. So I guess you can change even the most ferverent credit-feeder when you get them thinking competitively.

99pence · Post by **99pence** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:33 pm

It doesn't matter if you play it for 1CCs or score, some games aren't fun playing for score. Credit feeding is fine of course, on some games the credit goes up to 11.

I'm supprised nobody is playing it the Max Power way...

Rastan78 · Post by **Rastan78** » Wed May 24, 2006 10:21 pm

I was a beat-'em-up credit feeder as a kid. I credit fed the best of 'em in the arcades. Warriors of Fate, Punisher, Dungeons and Dragons. It's actually really fun to do like once, and then it gets redundant. Now that I've seen the light with shmups and realized what I didn't get as a kid (that they CAN be completed by a mere human player) it makes me wonder about returning to that genre one time and trying to clear one of those games for real. The bosses are always just so damn cheap!

Post by **Icarus** » Wed May 24, 2006 10:46 pm

Rastan78 wrote:I was a beat-'em-up credit feeder as a kid. I credit fed the best of 'em in the arcades. Warriors of Fate, Punisher, Dungeons and Dragons. It's actually really fun to do like once, and then it gets redundant. Now that I've seen the light with shmups and realized what I didn't get as a kid (that they CAN be completed by a mere human player) it makes me wonder about returning to that genre one time and trying to clear one of those games for real. The bosses are always just so damn cheap!

An autofire hack for Final Fight for the win! ^_^

In all seriousness, I used to feed credits into lots of arcade machines as a kid as well, because I used to suck royally at that age. (I still suck at some games, even now. Black Tiger, I'm looking at you.)

The one thing that opened my eyes to the potential of dedicated practice was not only watching someone clear the first loop of R-Type in one life - which at the age of 14 was very magical - but also chatting to the same player, and getting lots of hints and tips for my own practice. I tend to discuss strategy openly, as I love to see the competition improve. Talking to that R-Type player probably started off that habit, as at the time I thought it was so cool that a player many leagues above me in skill could be so open about tips and tricks. And discussing strats helps to build my own, and to reinforce what I already know, I find.

Also, watching my two uncles (who I used to regularly travel to the local arcade with) own all the high scores on a Terminator 2 pinball machine, after lots of practice, even when said pintable was the most popular and most played table in the arcade, was a little bonus. ^_^

Rastan78 · Post by **Rastan78** » Wed May 24, 2006 11:11 pm

Icarus wrote:An autofire hack for Final Fight for the win! ^_^

Heh, too bad the scrolling fighters never got as sophisticated as shmups. Don't punch the boss at first, just dodge his attacks until he goes into his running head butt. After the running head butt, stand directly over his sprite and blow yourself up with the grenade that you just picked up. This will damage his outer armor for extra points. Now hit the trash can with the baseball bat. A bunch of pidgeons will fly out. Get the perfect position and start punching the pidgeons as they fly away for extra . . . . .

Carmen · Post by **Carmen** » Fri May 26, 2006 6:55 am

I despise credit feeding as well, but you know what? Its the games that should be blamed for allowing, not the people who take advantage of it. I don't mind quick restart shooties at all, in fact, I prefer them... but theres absolutly no reason for a designer to not set a credit limit. While I do prefer to 1cc games, I will make exceptions if I'm having too hard of a time... if the game has limited continues. However, if the continues are infinite, then I'd have to force myself to stop continuing at (x) point... which is a very, very hard thing to enforce. As a result, I end up just committing to 1cc those games, and as a result, I never beat them (Gradius IV, I'm looking at you!

)

Even worse (but thankfully rarer!) are games which don't erase your score after a continue, but elect to keep them and even add a point (Raycrisis, every Final Fight.) I mean, should we really be congratulating players for continuing by giving them an extra point? (Obviously not the original intention, but the result is the same.)

Ahh well. Maybe I'll beat RayCrisis (stupid final boss) next week

1up · Post by **1up** » Fri May 26, 2006 10:01 am

Rastan78 wrote:
Icarus wrote:An autofire hack for Final Fight for the win! ^_^
Heh, too bad the scrolling fighters never got as sophisticated as shmups. Don't punch the boss at first, just dodge his attacks until he goes into his running head butt. After the running head butt, stand directly over his sprite and blow yourself up with the grenade that you just picked up. This will damage his outer armor for extra points. Now hit the trash can with the baseball bat. A bunch of pidgeons will fly out. Get the perfect position and start punching the pidgeons as they fly away for extra . . . . .

lol

I remeber when I was a kid the local burger joint had Black Tiger and the owenrs son could complete it with 1 credit. It was a 2 hour run i think and damn impressivel.

I dont think ive ever credit fed any game. As a kid when I went to arcades I would usually play as many different games as possible and wouldnt spend all my money on one machine. Nowadays i only play 1 credit runs because I find it satisfying to go for the high score.

Balzac · Post by **Balzac** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 6:13 am

professor ganson wrote:^^^Good point. I'd be surprised if there are members here who do a lot of credit-feeding. Maybe occasionally for specific purposes.

Am I wrong? Fess up!

I'll credit feed my very first time through a game, just get aquainted with the layouts/boss patterns. I don't use bombs though.

Also, if a game lacks a practice mode and I'm aiming for a 1CC rather than high score, I'll continue after dying just to pick up whatever I can from the later levels. It seems like that's the fastest way to "learning" a shmup and picking out trouble spots/difficult patterns throughout the entire game, rather than perfecting stages 1-3, getting creamed at stage 4, then repeating stages 1-3 ad naseum just for a chance at stage 4.

Granted, this method goes out the window once you start playing for score, but I've only started doing that recently

Middlemoor · Post by **Middlemoor** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:54 am

Heh, too bad the scrolling fighters never got as sophisticated as shmups.

I'm assuming you don't mean that because D&D:SOM or Knights of Valour 2 would have me disagreeing.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:31 pm

Triple Lei wrote: How else would DOJ make my heart race and my palms sweat three years after I bought the game?

Sweaty palms are THE holy grail I look for in games. I guess the game that made my heart race like a rat the most was Megaman Zero 2 and its overwhelming bosses. One wrong move and you`re dead. It`s a little miracle that this game got released here in the West this way - it is so brutally hard but yet SO rewarding.

So yeah, play it the hard way or leave it. A good game kicks you in the face the first time you play it. Hell, even Warioware Twisted kicks me in the face with it`s clock modes. You need to RESPECT a game. And I did not even mentioned Alien Soldier yet.

RoninBuddha · Post by **RoninBuddha** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:48 pm

proper way? well, in vertical shmups...

TATERU of course.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:20 am

Rastan78 wrote:I've gotta take the elitist high ground here. If you're credit-feeding and not playing for completion or score, you're missing the point and the enjoyment with any given title will be very short lived.

I'm all for a "to each his own" attitude, but in this case I've never heard of an example of someone who actually gets a great deal of enjoyment out of credit-feeding and comes back to the genre again and again. Why waste money on games like that?

Maybe I'm wrong and there are these rabid credit feeding shmup fans out there blissfuly enjoying each and every title. Who am I to say that they should stop loving what they do. In fact, I'll be the first to start a strategy discussion for them. This will be the first strategy section that applies to almost every game in your collection: DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-CONTINUE-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE . . .

Are we having fun yet?

Well said...I like that.

There is no "wrong way". But I believe that arcade games should be mastered with a 1CC goal in mind, and always played on either arcade or default/normal settings.

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:28 am

Anymore, I feel dirty if I continue. In any genre. Always.

pugeta · Post by **pugeta** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:47 pm

i feel dumb when i playing dirty like go brother shoot the enemy not the plane *sigh*

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:58 pm

Rastan78 wrote:DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-CONTINUE-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE . . .

You mean Battle Bakraid?

Oh sorry, I didn`t see the "Continue".

Macaw · Post by **Macaw** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 6:04 pm

Rastan78 wrote:I was a beat-'em-up credit feeder as a kid. I credit fed the best of 'em in the arcades. Warriors of Fate, Punisher, Dungeons and Dragons. It's actually really fun to do like once, and then it gets redundant. Now that I've seen the light with shmups and realized what I didn't get as a kid (that they CAN be completed by a mere human player) it makes me wonder about returning to that genre one time and trying to clear one of those games for real. The bosses are always just so damn cheap!

Beat em ups are my most played genre next to shooters, i've managed to 1cc quite a few of them. There are some that are quite fair and good for 1 crediting such as Arabian Magic, Crystal of the Kings, the Knights of Valour series, Battle Circuit, Guardians, Sengoku 3. But there are others that are just FAR too cheap such as D&D Shadows over Mystara.

While the genre has pretty much been dead for over a decade, its important to note that IGS (who created the PGM hardware) have since developed newer beat-em-ups that have been expanded in the way the genre was really meant to go in - adding in extensive fighting-game style moves and combo's to make the games more than just bashing 1 attack button and therefore giving them huge depth. The best example of this is probably their most recent beat-em-up Road of the Sword. See the last screenshot on this page http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=809&page=2 to check out what it looks like.

Rastan78 · Post by **Rastan78** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 2:22 am

FrederikJurk wrote:
Rastan78 wrote:DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-CONTINUE-DIE-BOMB-BOMB-BOMB-DIE . . .
You mean Battle Bakraid? Oh sorry, I didn`t see the "Continue".

In Bakraid you don't die, you "suicide." There's a big difference.