As a kid, I was firmly in the "autofire controllers are cheating" crowd, and I'm glad I've since learned better. There are still games out there where using 20 or 30 hz autofire rates are frankly a bit silly, but I can't think of any game that doesn't benefit from using a more humanly achievable rate around 7-10 hz.
I see Thunder Blaster and Blazing Star have both been mentioned, but to me both are frankly the prime examples of games that prove that button mashing as a central mechanic is lame. Both play better without the mashing element:
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Thunder Blaster, you mash shoot to fill a meter which progressively makes your shot stronger and wider as you mash more quickly, and then you can fire off a bomb whose size is determined by how high up the meter was when you launched the bomb. To max out the meter by tapping is quite difficult. It's a neat game, but it's in spite of the autofire mechanic, not because of it, and plays better when you setup autofire for it and treat it as a shmup with a rapid recharging reusable bomb/charge shot, similar to Giga Wing's auto recharging shield.
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Blazing Star has different ships feature wildly different properties, including how difficult it is to actually achieve the high speed rate needed to trigger. The charge shot is just straight-up worse for damage for most ships and isn't worth using for damage if you're capable of maintaining a high tap rate, primarily existing for the sake of score (with the exception of Aryustailm's sword/shield charge attacks, with the sword being insanely powerful but difficult to hit with). It's actually a pain to play the Pulstar guest ships without autofire as you need a fairly high tap rate to keep the options locked in place and firing forward. Windina's got the least demanding tap speed requirements, but it's still nice to have autofire with it to spare your finger, and Hellhound really wants the extra damage as it's still fairly average even with it anyways.
There's also two frankly weird ships in the mix. You've got Aryustailm, which requires a super high tap speed to get its "upgraded shot" that gives it inaccurate piercing lightning beams that deal WAY less damage and have less spread than simply tapping slowly (use a low enough autofire rate that it doesn't trigger the worthless lightning shot for best results). And there's Peplos, which goes from insanely weak to literally banned in scoring competitions due to a high autofire rate dealing unmatched damage (allowing for final boss milking). Both of them are rather odd design choices.
ZPScissors wrote:Funnily enough I generally don't play Deathsmiles with autofire, too many buttons when it is used.
This is basically the only game I play without autofire, nowadays. 4 separate shot buttons and a bomb button feel like too many to manage for me, easier to deal with the mashing. I'm curious how a setup like Raiga: Strato Fighter would have worked, with a Change Direction button instead of two separate shot buttons for each direction. Would have probably preferred that, and if I could script a way of doing that it's what I'd likely use instead. You could have Shot / Laser / Bomb/ Change Direction and make it so holding Change is what initiates the lock-on.