Rob wrote:
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.
You know... design-wise, Cannon Spike/GunSpike bears quite a bit in common with Zero Gunner 2. The primary difference is that GunSpike has proximity attacks (which have been done in other Psikyo shmups: Gunbird 2, Dragon Blaze and Sol Divide). I don't really see the arena-style fixed area detracting from the game falling into this genre (we include Bangaioh, don't we?). In fact, I'd say that GunSpike is far more shmup-like than Sol Divide, as it incoporates far more traditional bullet patterns and places the focus on shooting, not the proximity attacks.
And it's good to see some Sengoku Blade and Cannon Spike love in this thread.
There really needs to be more arena/multi-direction shooters. Cannon Spike/ZG2 should've been the start of a new era for Psikyo that didn't involve being liquidated.
Middlemoor wrote:A good feature is the initial random stage order.
Yeah, that's what makes Psikyo shooters a lot harder then the ones from Cave.
At first I've hated Psikyo games for a lack of movation and just the pure hardness of the bullet patterns. But later on I keep playing the Strikers series and I just love it!