Easiest arcade shmups that noobs can 1cc or complete easily?

[Arino]

Ah, that makes sense, the default is low enough that you can tell mashing os faster. Though I believe people were saying even without that they found it quite easy. Like Arino said, opinions will definitely vary.

My vote would be for the Cave games from Mushi on that included a novice mode. Still not the easiest things to 1cc but you'll learn a lot, if danmaku is ever a future goal for you. Forget if Espgaluda has a novice mode but I'd say Mushi novice original is easier than whatever the Espgaluda defaults are for the PS2 port

The PS4 version of Darius Gaiden is quite nice if you want to get it, including different options for auto fire, etc.

Novice or arrange are not part of the arcade versions of those games but I guess we are past that

[bobrocks95]

Ah, that makes sense, the default is low enough that you can tell mashing os faster. Though I believe people were saying even without that they found it quite easy. Like Arino said, opinions will definitely vary.

My vote would be for the Cave games from Mushi on that included a novice mode. Still not the easiest things to 1cc but you'll learn a lot, if danmaku is ever a future goal for you. Forget if Espgaluda has a novice mode but I'd say Mushi novice original is easier than whatever the Espgaluda defaults are for the PS2 port

The PS4 version of Darius Gaiden is quite nice if you want to get it, including different options for auto fire, etc.

Novice or arrange are not part of the arcade versions of those games but I guess we are past that

Oh didn't know it was added on the 360 port. PS4 Darius collection interests me, though they did that weird split on the collection between regions and versions and whatever else, and it sours me on it all a bit since I can't be bothered to remember all the details.

[Lethe]

If you have a controller with turbo that works at, I duno, 25mhz or something like that, the game gets stupidly easier. I was really surprised when I tried it out and it happened to be true.

I don't remember the Saturn Port giving you this type of autofire.

Apparently there's a cheat code for 30hz auto (hold B then press Y, right, left, X, Z, L and R). Should be easier than the arcade version with it. Nice writeup of the version differences

[MJR]

Some people are posting consoles games when the title clearly says *ARCADE* shmups.

Darius Gaiden with Autofire is very easy. But using autofire is... kinda of cheating, so I dunno

Deathsmiles in the easiest route is.... well, among the Cave games and bullet-hell games overall, pretty easy. Still I think most people who never played any shmup before would still be very overwhelmed by it. None of the Cave games are easy.

But, an honest answer here: Gradius. The 1st one.

Yeah, rank is a bitch on that game and all but, if you had zero contact with the genre before, I honestly think you won't feel overwhelmed by the game, and it's really not a hard game to master. It's a game that set a new bar for shmups when it was first released, it was probably the introduction to the genre to many people, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the 1st game ever to some, so it wasn't built considering what people already knew about games and shmups in general before.

All the other sequels are very hard games and even the home games (like Gaiden or V) are pretty tough.

But the first one, while its not a cakewalk, it's a game that I feel anyone can master and feel good about it. It also helps that it is a solid game that aged like wine (IMO at least). You won't beat it on your first try (unlike a lot of console games that were mentioned here that are REALLY every easy), but it's really a game that I find to be doable to anyone who persists just a little bit with it.

EDIT: Just noticed MJR also said Gradius. So, there it is, two votes for it.

Yeah! I knew I was not alone! Gradius it is

[MJR]

Ah, that makes sense, the default is low enough that you can tell mashing os faster. Though I believe people were saying even without that they found it quite easy. Like Arino said, opinions will definitely vary.

My vote would be for the Cave games from Mushi on that included a novice mode. Still not the easiest things to 1cc but you'll learn a lot, if danmaku is ever a future goal for you. Forget if Espgaluda has a novice mode but I'd say Mushi novice original is easier than whatever the Espgaluda defaults are for the PS2 port

The PS4 version of Darius Gaiden is quite nice if you want to get it, including different options for auto fire, etc.

Novice or arrange are not part of the arcade versions of those games but I guess we are past that

Arcade Darius Gaiden increases the rank quite a bit faster if you use autofire, the M2 version actually displays the rank value so you can see yourself. But yes, I can still beat one of the routes. Other routes, not so much..

[Lemnear]

considering both lists:
here , and here

I find that sometimes it is consistent and sometimes it is wrong... each player has more developed skills than others.
I've finished very few games in 1CC and when i tried the ones that according to these lists are of "similar difficulty" i had quite a few difficulties, and sometimes it was the opposite case.

The two lists are also different in some places... like Strike Gunner S.T.G. which many here recommended as Entry Level, turned out to be much more difficult than expected... but there are other examples too (on one list it has a rating of 7, and on the other 27)

[Steven]

Both of those lists have some weird shit going on, but the Perikles list has less weird shit and that shit that is weird on the Perikles list is less weird than the weird shit on the Japanese list. Like holy fuck just Same! Same! Same! alone on the Japanese list is enough for me to consider the Japanese list a worthless meme-tier piece of crap. It has other weirdness going on (Thunder Force AC is way too high, and there is absolutely no way I'd consider Mushihimesama Maniac to be easier than R-Type II, but that might just be because I kind of hate bullet hell game design), but the Japanese placement of Same! is probably the biggest offense on either list.

I also just now realized that all of my R-Type II experience is from the PS1 version, which is harder than the arcade version that I've probably never played, so who knows.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Like holy fuck just Same! Same! Same! alone on the Japanese list is enough for me to consider the Japanese list a worthless meme-tier piece of crap.

As I've repeated in the many, many times we've seen these lists referenced only for someone to say "this list has an entry I disagree with therefore it sucks", the Japanese one appears to have been a community poll-based list and is useful as a general guideline of which game is harder than which. Individual players are going to disagree with individual rankings, especially with games they're familiar with, and quibbling about the individual rankings, especially for games that are only within a few spaces of each other kind of misses the point of the list that it's a general guideline, and especially for games that are ranked close to each other you'll want to take any general ranking with a grain of salt.

With respect to R-Type II, a 2-ALL clear is listed separately as being much, much harder than Mushihimesama Maniac, compared to a single loop clear of the game which is ranked so close to Mushi Maniac that it's well within the bounds of the margin of error where whether you agree or not will differ according to personal opinion.

[Lemnear]

Like holy fuck just Same! Same! Same! alone on the Japanese list is enough for me to consider the Japanese list a worthless meme-tier piece of crap.

As I've repeated in the many, many times we've seen these lists referenced only for someone to say "this list has an entry I disagree with therefore it sucks", the Japanese one appears to have been a community poll-based list and is useful as a general guideline of which game is harder than which. Individual players are going to disagree with individual rankings, especially with games they're familiar with, and quibbling about the individual rankings, especially for games that are only within a few spaces of each other kind of misses the point of the list that it's a general guideline, and especially for games that are ranked close to each other you'll want to take any general ranking with a grain of salt.

With respect to R-Type II, a 2-ALL clear is listed separately as being much, much harder than Mushihimesama Maniac, compared to a single loop clear of the game which is ranked so close to Mushi Maniac that it's well within the bounds of the margin of error where whether you agree or not will differ according to personal opinion.

I agree.. actually many are close, then there's Strike Gunner S.T.G. which in one list has 7 just above Twinkle Star Sprites... and on the other 20 points more (27), but here Twinkle Star Sprites is at 5...

However, according to the Japanese list:
Zero Wing, 3-All without autofire is the most difficult ever at 49 (15, +4 for No Autofire, + 30 for 3-All), followed by
Gradius III at 47 (30, +4 for C +13 for 3-All)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I feel like you quoted my post without reading it.

edit:

However, according to the Japanese list:
Zero Wing, 3-All without autofire is the most difficult ever at 49 (15, +4 for No Autofire, + 30 for 3-All), followed by
Gradius III at 47 (30, +4 for C +13 for 3-All)

Yes, and?

I can't even find any footage of a Zero Wing 3-ALL clear, and all the scoreboards I've seen aside from the world record on the Shmups wiki top out early in loop 2. It's probably like Parodius where a 1CC of the first loop is very doable, but the rank skyrockets absurdly in the loop making it insanely hard.

[Lemnear]

I feel like you quoted my post without reading it.

actually yes ...of course...the Perikles list is purely personal, and the other is of an entire community, yet a large part of the list is the same, with some exceptions, sometimes absurd...of course it is also difficult to find people who can vote and make comparisons.
I suppose there were few who were able to vote, even on this forum there would be very few who could confirm or deny such lists, given that it practically requires a whole 1CC medal list to have the necessary knowledge to judge.

More than anything it was to Steven's joy, in noting that Zero Wing may be the most impossible of all 1CC in its completeness
At least according to the Japanese community that drew up the ranking.

EDIT: is this real ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRmDsap39k

[Jeneki]

Not a bad necrobump as I feel like this question is always relevant.

Some recent discoveries thanks to Arcade Archives:

Ark Area - Lots and lots of 1ups. However I should give an epileptic seizure warning for this game, this one goes hard with flashing lights in certain stages. I wonder if there's ever been an interview with UPL where someone asked about Ark Area stage 16 and wtf they were smoking.

Megablast - Was noted by a number of users clearing it quickly. Lots of firepower in all directions.

[BIL]

Ark Area - Lots and lots of 1ups. However I should give an epileptic seizure warning for this game, this one goes hard with flashing lights in certain stages. I wonder if there's ever been an interview with UPL where someone asked about Ark Area stage 16 and wtf they were smoking.

Was always causing false alarms in Broken PCB threads, bitd

MegaBlast is a good pick. Lives up to its title, nice n' blasty. Some crackin' tunes, too. Last boss will possibly stomp noobs at first, but has a valuable lesson re: macro-dodging.

Albeit the 70s Buck Rogers porno parody premise might cause sensitive souls to abandon the genre. >_> They're not all like that, we promise! Well most aren't anyway! ;3

[Randorama]

I would propose MegaBlast, Karous(easy) and Night Raid as games in which players can virtually avoid dodging bullets simply by positioning themselves in safe spots or by destroying all enemies before they can shoot.

On the Japanese difficulty wiki: my understanding is that they used a scoring system similar to the one for the "top shmups" on this forum. However, the voting conditions were a bit of a mystery, at least when I read the Japanese page via automatic translation.

Participants voted games with scores from 0 to 50 (i.e. via a Likert Scale.), and possibly didn't have to motivate their grades at all (so, no information on why and how they offered their scores).

Likert Scales can quantify general opinions, but usually in a coarse-grained manner.

If 50 people vote, and 40 people vote that Ketsui is easy (e.g. 10/50 score), but 10 say that it is supremely hard (i.e. 50/50 score), the average value is (10*40)+(50*10)=18/50 (below average).

If the 40 people voting "10" are from the "Ketsui 2-ALL membership club" and the 10 people voting "50" are "everyone else", you can see how the final score *might* be a bit biased. More in general, flattening every opinion into a "collective number-based consensus" can create deeply unintuitive results. Ketsui 1-ALL is listed at 21/50, so I guess that I *might* be not too far off the track.

So, the wiki seems to offer the coarse-grained opinions of some Japanese players, based on apparently completely opaque parameters (but at times clearly bizarre, I'd add).

The other issue is how representative the Wiki is. The "top shmups" thread featured 71 voters out of 22231 members of this forum, which is roughly 0.003% of the total "population". The Wiki difficulty poll...beats me.

I wouldn't consider the wiki or the poll particularly representative of anything, to be fair (sample too small/sample unknown), but they can give a first sketch of their own domains of inquiry, perhaps.

Titles can be misleading, of course. Then again, we live in an epoch of endless click-baits, to the effect that newspapers have all turned into sensationalistic penny dreadfuls, more or less.

"Git gud" and games will become easy for you, bit by bit.

Maybe.