Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Lemnear]

Just to let you know, there are several Macross Shooting Insight keys out there that range from €5 to 13$ depending on the region and platform.

[To Far Away Times]

What's the most recently released game that has speed powerups? I mean like original release date/year, not rereleases, of course. I was thinking of Tatsujin Extreme today and about how people are probably going to complain about it having speed powerups, which probably died a long time ago. The most recent one that I know of is Gradius V.

I’m struggling to think of any modern ones. Speed power ups have gone the way of the dodo.

[Stevens]

What's the most recently released game that has speed powerups? I mean like original release date/year, not rereleases, of course. I was thinking of Tatsujin Extreme today and about how people are probably going to complain about it having speed powerups, which probably died a long time ago. The most recent one that I know of is Gradius V.

I’m struggling to think of any modern ones. Speed power ups have gone the way of the dodo.

Good riddance. I bet it was in GV cause Konami wanted it, not G Rev.

[BulletMagnet]

The closest thing I can think of are the permanent upgrades you can buy between stages in GanaBlade, which include movement speed, though that's a stretch from the sort of "power-up" that the OP had in mind.

[Steven]

What's the most recently released game that has speed powerups? I mean like original release date/year, not rereleases, of course. I was thinking of Tatsujin Extreme today and about how people are probably going to complain about it having speed powerups, which probably died a long time ago. The most recent one that I know of is Gradius V.

I’m struggling to think of any modern ones. Speed power ups have gone the way of the dodo.

I'm pretty glad they are gone, as I don't think there are any benefits from having them instead of having a fixed speed or a speed that the player can adjust at will. Same! Same! Same! would be at most half as difficult as it is if you didn't lose your speed after dying, even if you still lost your weapons.

The closest thing I can think of are the permanent upgrades you can buy between stages in GanaBlade, which include movement speed, though that's a stretch from the sort of "power-up" that the OP had in mind.

Xeno Crisis has the same thing. Not sure how I forgot about Xeno Crisis.

[To Far Away Times]

Yeah, and I say this as someone who really likes old school horizontal memo games, but the loss of power ups and the resulting death spiral just sucks.

Losing speed ups feels even worse than losing weapons.

If you're in one of the later stages of an R-Type game you might as well just end the credit there.

[Steven]

I'd absolutely prefer to lose weapons instead of speed. There is maybe only one exception to that: Tatsujin Ou, where I'd probably prefer to lose speed instead of weapons unless I am at the part with those evil potatoes.

[jackpottt]

I'm looking for a space shmup game I've played a long ago but couldn't remember its name.
Here are things I could vaguely remember from it:
-player controls a spaceship in space
-bosses are giant robotic sea creatures. Robotic seahorse and whale are the most notable. There are indicators that shows their weakness and their attacks if they attack off screen.
-player can change into many weapons and even change its firing direction (limit to only up, down, left, right)
-one of the weapon player can use is lightning that can keep zapping in straight line instead of auto target like the one in raiden
-presumably played on dos98 or xp

[BIL]

-presumably played on dos98 or xp

Sounds a lot like G-Darius, which did get a PC port back in the day. If that's the one, you might be interested in the more recent G-Darius HD. (also on PS4 and Switch)

[m.sniffles.esq]

I got a hankering to play Black Bird again after many months, and while the first run sucked because I forgot which button was bomb, the second run produced my best score EVAH.

Is there a name for this phenomenon?
(I mean, not just for Black Bird, but for any game)

[SavagePencil]

I got a hankering to play Black Bird again after many months, and while the first run sucked because I forgot which button was bomb, the second run produced my best score EVAH.

Is there a name for this phenomenon?
(I mean, not just for Black Bird, but for any game)

Many focus on the early part of the Dunning-Kruger effect (where all the overconfident idiots are), but what you’re describing is the ascent of learning and mastery that comes after the pit of despair.

Perhaps the time between runs allowed you to reflect and let the knowledge gel.

[m.sniffles.esq]

after the pit of despair.

That may be a little strong. I'm not sure if any game caused me to despair, I'd be revisiting.
But I have noticed that occasionally I'll put a game aside for whatever reason, and upon picking it up again, suddenly having the best game I've ever had. And I've certainly noticed others speaking of this... whatever it is, and wondered if there was some sort of term for it.

[jackpottt]

-presumably played on dos98 or xp

Sounds a lot like G-Darius, which did get a PC port back in the day. If that's the one, you might be interested in the more recent G-Darius HD. (also on PS4 and Switch)

Good news. Turns out the game I have been looking for is called MESSIER/THE EXTREME DESTRUCTIVE DEVICE. Which is a Darius fan game made in 2000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8YxfgIoHSw

[BIL]

Good news. Turns out the game I have been looking for is called MESSIER/THE EXTREME DESTRUCTIVE DEVICE. Which is a Darius fan game made in 2000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8YxfgIoHSw

Oh rad, that's a super cool find! Great title too. In case it's of interest, the ship and its weapons are straight from Thunder Force IV, with a bit of Thunder Force V's special attacks. Those games and Tecno Soft's other STGs are worth investigating. Besides TFIV, I particularly recommend Hyper Duel, Elemental Master, and Blast Wind.

[Starfighter]

I have a few questions leading up to my main question, any answer to any of them is much appreciated.

1. As I've understood it, for games to run well (or at all) on MAME/FB they need to be of certain romsets that matches the version of MAME/FB. Correct?

2. Will games from older romsets work on newer versions of MAME/FB, as long as we're not counting games that's been removed by design? Like is there a version that can play pretty much any shmup?

3. I was thinking of the possibility of having a small SoC hooked up to an arcade stick that allowed for a plug-n-play situation where I could bring the arcade stick with me and hook it up to any CRT and have my entire library of arcade shmups ready to play. If no to question 2; is there a SoC friendly solution out there which lets us have several versions of MAME/FB installed at the same time (I've done this through Playnite on my main PC, but I want something more streamlined and not so PC like) while being able to go between them using only an arcade stick? If yes to question 2 then it seems plausible that my idea of a one solution arcade focused SoC has already materialized somewhere out there - and then my main question becomes: What's the best/most popular one?

[Lemnear]

I accidentally tried Dragon Spirit for X68000 and...I wonder why I didn't do it before! It's beautiful to look at! Then I went to see how the arcade version looks, it seems to have duller colors, is it the emulator or was it just like that?

[BIL]

Yeah, Dragon Spirit is a pretty chromatically reserved game. I used to wonder if Namco Museum Vol.4 (PS1)'s port was messed up somehow, but it just looks that way on PCB too. (with the far more recent ACA ver. following suit)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

1. 2.

1 and 2 can both be answered as you need a romset that matches the version you're using. Or rather, it's probably easier to understand if you know what a "romset" is.

In emulators for cartridge based games, each game is dumped as a self-contained image file. My understanding is this is how it's typically also stored on the game itself on a single ROM chip, and what you're dumping is that ROM itself as a self-contained file.

On arcade hardware, there's a ton more chips on a given arcade board that handle things, and the architecture can vary wildly from one manufacturer to the next, so the MAME team has it setup so each game's ZIP file actually contains the necessary ROM data for each chip within very specific file names, and when loading a game it searches the game ZIP for those to know what to load, but if the naming for those chips has changed or the files themselves has changed with better dumps, the way it handles them changes significantly, which is why MAME romsets need to be produced and are not compatible universally with older versions.

The way MAME handles games is necessarily a lot more complex than an NES or SNES emulator due to how arcade hardware tends to be setup, so there's no guarantee the files from an older romset will work with a newer one. Sometimes they do though, because there haven't been any changes in the way the files are named and organized between MAME versions, but if you're using files from one romset in a different version of MAME, it's a bit of trial and error involved (or using the Audit Files command found in some versions like MAMEPlus GUI which will automatically check all your game ZIPs and show which games are compatible).

In an emulator for a system where the data is entirely in one ROM file, the system won't care about what the file name is, only the formatting of the data in the file itself (which can get messed up if there's something like headers that have been inserted into the file). So it's generally a lot simpler to emulate these kinds of games. CD/DVD based consoles also more or less function the same way, with discs stored as a single image file that's then easily loaded by your Playstation emulator or whatnot, and then handles all the files on the image itself without needing any user intervention in formatting or version control.

3. I was thinking of the possibility of having a small SoC

What's "SoC", does this mean System on a Chip? If so, I imagine you're looking for something small and portable, like a Raspberry PI. They're a bit underpowered but will work decently for a lot of arcade games even if it's imperfect compared to a proper PC setup. Generally speaking I wouldn't worry too much about trying to juggle multiple versions of MAME unless you're on a PC setup, anyone who's playing on a Raspberry PI or comparable SoC setup isn't likely to care too much about version specificity or minor emulation hiccups.

One alternative I'd recommend is a minature sized desktop computer. They're popular for businesses and you can get them about the same size as a small book. MAME runs decently enough for older 2D games that a graphics card shouldn't be necessary, and you can hook it up via HDMI to any flat screen. I don't know of a handy way that'll make CRT connectivity convenient, I'm much less familiar with PC to CRT solutions. One friend I know owned an unusual, large size CRT that had a VGA input on it which supported 640 x 480 resolution I think, but I've never connected PCs to CRT lately personally.

[Bassa-Bassa]

hook it up to any CRT

Which kind of CRT? 31khz/VGA and above or RGB 15khz? There're solutions for the latter (namely Groovymame) but you'll need a compatible ATI card (and even additional hardware, depending on what you pick), so compatible mini-PCs are not many (but there are). Even if you're using a 31khz monitor I'd really take the Groovymame route - it can get nasty though specially when picking hardware as the better the CPU, the better the performance (if you care about latency, I assume for these games you do) but at the same time, Windows 7 compatibilty and analog video outputs will save you some headaches.

[Firehawke]

Is there any functional difference between Gradius 4's type-1 and type-2 lasers outside of the graphical effect added to the type-2?

[Starfighter]

Thank you BareKnuckleRoo for the answer, I have a better understanding of how it fits together now. You're also quite right when assuming I'm talking about something like (but not necessarily specifically) a Raspberry Pi. I have a compartment in my arcade stick where the cord goes - which would also be able to house something the size of that (this is why a miniature desktop computer would be out of the question).

And Bassa-Bassa: I don't have a specific CRT in mind, I just want it to be able to connect to just about anything in general. So I could go around with my arcade stick and whenever I encountered a screen of any sort I'd be able to just plug in the cord(s) and press start. If it's tricky to have it play nice with CRT:s (I've heard of Groovymame but never really learned the technical stuff behind it) then "any flatscreen via hdmi" would also be acceptable.

[Starfighter]

New (unrelated) question - wasn't there a site out there with everything you could ever want to know/see about the Don Pachi series? Like... every last sprite and its variations, high resolution artwork scans, every bit of information on the game, you get the picture. Everything. I went to the Peaceful Death-site thinking that was what I remembered, but it wasn't. The Shmup Wiki is close info wise, but it's missing a lot of the artwork and extra eye candy I remember seeing.

Have I just dreamt of a site like that? Am I having a stroke? Are you my real father?

[BIL]

New (unrelated) question - wasn't there a site out there with everything you could ever want to know/see about the Don Pachi series? Like... every last sprite and its variations, high resolution artwork scans, every bit of information on the game, you get the picture. Everything. I went to the Peaceful Death-site thinking that was what I remembered, but it wasn't. The Shmup Wiki is close info wise, but it's missing a lot of the artwork and extra eye candy I remember seeing.

Have I just dreamt of a site like that? Am I having a stroke? Are you my real father?

The Sheep's World of Arcades?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I think it could also be Slateman's website:

https://slateman.net/beestorm/

You're also quite right when assuming I'm talking about something like (but not necessarily specifically) a Raspberry Pi.

Maybe ask in the Hardware forum for suggestions; there's a lot of experts who lurk exclusively there and don't read the other subforums as much. Hardware is absolutely not my expertise, so I can't be of much help.

[Starfighter]

The Sheep's World of Arcades?

This isn't it either, but I like it a lot so into the bookmarks folder it goes!

I think it could also be Slateman's website

YES, there it is! Once again you come to my rescue, thank you very much!

[BIL]

Bookmarked too. I had no idea Slateman had another site besides Peaceful Death. Glad to see he's still trucking along, PD takes me way back.

[Lemnear]

Is there a release calendar topic?
Is there a date for Raiden Fighters Remix? And for Aleste Branch?

[Randorama]

Do we have a thread for Air Gallet and its new version? Please feel free to open one if we do not.

[Lemnear]

ah..well, now even Air Gallet will never get a non-Arcade porting...

[Bassa-Bassa]

In actuality, seems it didn't have many chances to ever get a home port, to begin with. If my friend's speculation elsewhere is on point (and rarely it isn't), this would be another of those Exarcadia releases without formal license from all the parties which takes advantage of the legal limbo this IP may be in. In other words, your ordinary company of Japanese gentlemen wouldn't have ever touched this.