Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[BEAMLORD]

As part of a warts-and-all history of the series, I would accept its inclusion in any future DDP collection. Who knows, maybe M2 could even redeem it totally with an arrange?

[Steven]

I'd actually rather see ShotTriggers Bee Storm than most of the other, safer options like Batrider or CAVE games just because of how weird it would be. I thought about buying a PGM and the cart, but it's a little bit too far out of my price range for non-Toaplan. I was seriously considering buying a Daioujou PCB until that got a ShotTriggers release and the PCB doubled in price, so maybe I'll get lucky again.

[stellar_light]

Man, I was playing Bee Storm the other day for the first time. What the fuck is going on with that game? I understood it's not a canonical DDP game and had no input from Cave, but feels like some kind of cursed basement homebrew. Bullet patterns seem so ill-considered, and it takes an age to kill anything. Gonna have to do some reading up to satisfy my curiosity. I thought it was horrendous, but someone's gotta love it i suppose

The tankiness of the enemies is definitely the worst part, everything has juuuust enough health to grate on you and bosses go on for a crazy amount of time if you aren't playing Energy style. That said, after the horrendous pacing of the early stages I do think some of the later sections can be quite fun to dodge even if they're obviously not designed with the same flow as CAVE's stages, and the bosses occasionally have neat patterns as well. Never bothered with a TLB clear though cuz grinding out all the safespots on Great Value Hibachi is pretty annoying.

[pegboy]

Don't hate on beestorm, it ownz. Also, it is a legit entry in the series. DOJ even has a mid stage cutscene that says doj is donpachi episode iv, which implies that beestorm is episode iii lol. And they even later called the international release of DOJ as DDP III.

I kind of love the it but only as playing energy style.

[bsidwell]

Gekirindan went down surprisingly easily so up next on my revenge tour of easy games i inexplicably failed to beat for years on end: Deathsmiles, a game I have now bought at least three times.

Deathsmiles 1cc get! I might return to it at some point to try the other modes and maybe futilely beat my head against the Gorge but for now I'm moving on. Deathsmiles II didn't really grab me so instead I'll be going for the 1-ALL in Donpachi.

[AGermanArtist]

I paid for the REDREAM upgrade and right now I'm playing Border Down in 4K, and it looks beautiful. I've never really played it much previously (I had a CDI disk years ago and sold it with my DC w/out really playing it) and after getting a few levels deep into it, I think G-Rev's input into Gradius V is understated. It's always credited to Treasure. You can see so much of Border Down's DNA in it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Oh wow, I knew Gradius V was a Treasure production but I didn't realize they also contracted G-Rev to help on it, really interesting to know!

[the-ERA]

currently bashing my head repeatedly into musihimesama and dodonpachi daifukkatsu though ive yet to do particularly good in either, im pretty much a noob but im in a wierd spot where i cant find anything hard enough that isnt too hard, maybe i just dont know where to look tho

[XoPachi]

I've actually been playing it the past week. It's so incredible just how GOOD this game is when there's a lot that should really be riding against it. There's some pretty bad weapon balancing and the stages are extremely long. But like...damn, I kinda don't care? This game is incredible. I have never gotten sick of this one.

I'm also playing Gradius ReBirth a ton, just hopping back and forth between them. This might be among my favorites. It's insane how much they squeezed into this one. The variants of stage 1, all the bonus stages, unlockable ships, the stage layout changes on higher difficulties, the additional loop variations. There's even a replay function which I don't think Gradius ever had prior to this? They really wanted to make this a legitimate Gradius that played extremely well, looked excellent, sounded great, and lasts a while despite being 5 stages.

[Flashman]

Under Defeat HD on PS5 - kind of casually been going for the 1cc for a number of weeks now, I feel it's one I'll get with time, kind of on the Raiden V difficulty level.

[DarkSlayer]

Under Defeat HD on PS5 - kind of casually been going for the 1cc for a number of weeks now, I feel it's one I'll get with time, kind of on the Raiden V difficulty level.

I was playing this last night, what mode and input method were you using? I’m struggling to decide if I like the 16:9 version with controller or the arcade version with stick more. Awesome game and sound track

[LordHypnos]

Mostly been playing Giga Wing and Tumiki Fighters.

In Giga Wing,I've been enjoying trying to figure out routes to Ruby's stages 2 and 3. In the past I kind of ignored these stages, and thus had a very frustrating time trying to actually get to stage 4. That being said, my consistency is extremely poor still, so a lot of work to do. I also can't figure out how to get 100% break on S2 boss, so I should probably net-deck that.

Tumiki Fighters doesn't give me much to practice it (really just continues that start you at the beginning of the stage where you died, and only like 3 of them), but I think I've still managed to improve and figure out some semblance of routes in a few places. I also haven't managed to beat my old high score, but scoring in this game seems quite swingy, so that's not entirely surprising.

[Randorama]

Shameless self-promotion: the Slap Fight squib is up. A review version (i.e. without the personal waffling) will appear in a week's time. Be sure to brush up your Slap Fight skills.

[JustCav]

DoDonPachi dfk 360 = )

[Faith]

Mushihimesama and regretting it bad @_@"...

Don't like any STG with too much random crap, and this game has too much random crap.

Two biggest offenders are:

(Mostly playing Arrange for now because of Steam Achievement.)

1. Power-up drop. Cave knew what they were doing. These stupid power-"up" are designed to kill run, not give you power-up. Picking up wrong Trace/Formation late game can kill whole run... and they make these things drop before e.g. mid-boss (usually starting with Trace) and then you are forced to dodge hard mid-boss bullet pattern and stupid power-up drop bouncing all over screen (with random pattern) at the same time. I measured, and Trace is less DPS than Formation. So if e.g. pick up Trace by accident at Stage 5 mid-boss, might as well restart (or SD if have enough extends to switch back to Formation). DPS is only half of problem, because on Stage 5 it is very hard to route it with Trace because screen coverage is worse than Formation to kill all the 999 popcorn.

2. TLB. Many phases have too much random parts. E.g. 2nd phase, there is 3x attack pattern, and each pattern has a chance of two different variants. They are not hard to dodge, but one of them will mess up DPS badly because player will be forced to move too far to side of screen. I had one practice where I got 3x of that worse pattern, and slow DPS meant had to repeat later phase. Also, the phase with stupid balls coming down, possible to get very bad overlap. Not often, but if it happens, it is forced bomba. Definitely few other issues, but this TLB is just bad design. And of course everyone's favorite, the last infamous last phase, even on Arrange it is possible to get very bad overlaps which are just impossible to dodge. So it becomes a resource spam joke.

And with the TLB, comes my biggest complaint. Even on Arrange, it is almost a forced no-miss all the way from start to end of game, just to spend all extends on TLB. On training, best I can do is do TLB with 2 extends, but super unreliable. Mostly need 3 or 4. That means need to 1-miss from Stage 1 to end of Stage 5 boss.

Really don't like this kind of design, it gives a lot of false hope and makes extends pointless since they are really just there to resource spam the TLB.

It also means a lot of early restarts because you know it is pointless trying to continue run.

I feel Mushihimesama Arrange is harder than Crimzon Clover Arcade Unlimited (which I 1CC a lot); at least with Crimzon Clover, I can e.g. make super stupid mistake and die 2 times in Stage 2, another 2 times in Stage 3, and reach Stage 5 with 0 extends... but I can still recover it and 1CC (even on Unlimited). Good luck doing this in Mushihimesama Arrange.

[StoneofTriumph]

Going back to play Musha Aleste/M.U.S.H.A.

I kinda forgot whether I 1cc'ed it when I was younger, so I'm going back to do that again/for the first time, depending.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

So if e.g. pick up Trace by accident at Stage 5 mid-boss, might as well restart (or SD if have enough extends to switch back to Formation). DPS is only half of problem, because on Stage 5 it is very hard to route it with Trace because screen coverage is worse than Formation to kill all the 999 popcorn.

It's not that bad; I do agree I'd generally refer Formation for consistency's sake, but I've seen plenty of players use Trace there. The more concentrated fire is also probably better for the Aki fight. If you're playing Arrange, remember there's a button to swap shot types on the fly, so if you're feeling like your shots are too thin for popcorn it's a fixable problem. The lasers don't actually have much damage and can't safely handle popcorn by themselves anyways.

even on Arrange it is possible to get very bad overlaps which are just impossible to dodge. So it becomes a resource spam joke.

Arrange isn't a mode that gets taken super seriously from what I'm aware. It first popped up on the PS2 port and was basically a way for people to get a chance to see the Aki fight that wouldn't normally have been able to trigger it on the standard mode's Ultra difficulty. The difficulty balance is clearly silly.

[Faith]

Arrange isn't a mode that gets taken super seriously from what I'm aware. It first popped up on the PS2 port and was basically a way for people to get a chance to see the Aki fight that wouldn't normally have been able to trigger it on the standard mode's Ultra difficulty. The difficulty balance is clearly silly.

Thank you for reply @_@"...

I have tried to have patience with this game, but it is just making me very angry.

This is the worst RNG STG I have played in a long time. I just had a run, reach Stage 5 boss with 4 extends... and still failed to 1CC it.

Why? Because got all of the worst patterns with TLB.

It should never be made a requirement to 1CC or have achievement tied to it with this amount of RNG in it.

At this point, not only does the game expect you to no-miss until Stage 5 boss, it also expects you to keep doing it until you get RNG that is not complete rubbish with the stupid TLB.

It is also very poor balance and design to have all of the difficulty all the way at the end of the game; it is extremely crap and super lazy design I feel.

If they wanted to make TLB so random it should be completely optional in all modes like DU3.

What a joke of a mode ruining the game this is.

Edit:

Cleared -____-"...

F this mode can finally throw it into the bin, really such a joke lol.

Actually, another problem I did not realize was... if you no-miss a stage, the boss patterns will get harder, which was confusing.

Because as I got better, especially for Stage 3 and 4, adjusting to the high rank pattern was hard.

1.5 is peak Mushihimesama though!~

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Actually, another problem I did not realize was... if you no-miss a stage, the boss patterns will get harder, which was confusing.

Congrats, fyi if you look in the practice mode you'll see Rank settings which includes "No Miss" (no mistakes as in deaths) as a setting. A lot of their games have a separate high rank if you've not died yet in the game. A lot of games have a higher rank if you've not died, though it depends on the game as to how much harder it is.

[Faith]

fyi if you look in the practice mode you'll see Rank settings which includes "No Miss" (no mistakes as in deaths) as a setting.

Haha yes, I saw that when I first used Practice; but I was confused as to what that did and thought it was translation booboo.

Sometimes for me, it is hard to notice hidden rank vs RNG.

Or rather, to tell difference between those two. For Arrange anyway I actually feel the hidden rank is not super aggressive, I think I only noticed it with the bosses much much later. Level feels same.

Hidden rank will always be my nemesis in this genre, but I know these two come together.

[Jack Emerson]

Just picked up 1944 Loop Master on steam sale. Definitely worth $1.00. This was my first Raizing experience and I think it is their only game on steam. After my first few credits, I am really enjoying the game.

[LordHypnos]

Still only really playing Giga Wing seriously. I'm slowly routing stage 5 at the moment. This one definitely requires a route to a greater extent than the earlier ones, though all stages benefit from it, obviously. I think it will probably take a while to route the entire stage, but I get a lot of satisfaction from coming up with my own routes in this game, even though they are probably extremely suboptimal.

My continued dabbling into handheld shmups eventually led me to spend a decent amount of time on Cotton NGPC. I think it's very fun, but it does have a few too many empty stretches for my taste, and I'm feeling the screen crunch in a few places, though most of the time, trying to quick kill the bosses with magic can skip the roughest patterns. So far I've made it to stage 5, I believe. It seems at least a little bit harder than GG Aleste II, but probably easier than GB Parodius, if only because of how hard it is to get past the sexy-lady-boss in that one.

[Sweatlord_STG]

I get a lot of satisfaction from coming up with my own routes in this game, even though they are probably extremely suboptimal.

I'm the same. Coming up with my own strats is part of the fun for me. What's the point in watching a video and trying to copy everything they do? That is so lame. Also, if you just copy someone else, you might not fully understand why they do certain things, so I'd rather go through a learning process myself.

GB Parodius, if only because of how hard it is to get past the sexy-lady-boss in that one.

I recently played Parodius Da! again on Mame and I find her annoying in all versions of the game. I rarely nag about certain aspects of a game. Mostly I either like a game, or I don't like it. But when it comes to Parodius Da! I really dislike two things and they almost make me not wanting to play the game entirely: The big lady, and the roulette. The part with the lady is just so boring and it comes so early in the game. It is such a drag every time. If I remember correctly they made it extra long in the Famicom version. Due to censorship there is a different character (fully dressed lol) and I don't know how many times that thing walks back and forth but it feels like an eternity. In the Saturn version you can disable the roulette at least if I remember correctly, so I should probably just play that version because I just hate the roulette. There is nothing funny about it to me, it just ruins my runs for no reason. I also like the Game Boy version because it just shows how awesome Konami was back then, how they made super awesome games, even on the most limited hardware. Plus the GB version has that certain GB charme to it that I like as well.

I just checked here https://youtu.be/8fbs13Kcv1A?si=I3z7cSTHqkWnTcqX and the walker section goes from 7:55 until 11:10 Torture.

[LordHypnos]

I'm the same. Coming up with my own strats is part of the fun for me. What's the point in watching a video and trying to copy everything they do? That is so lame. Also, if you just copy someone else, you might not fully understand why they do certain things, so I'd rather go through a learning process myself.

I definitely haven’t always applied this philosophy consistently, but I’m making a point of doing it with Giga Wing. Part of the reason is also that learning other people’s routes is annoying because you need to keep jumping back and forth between the video and the game.

I recently played Parodius Da! again on Mame and I find her annoying in all versions of the game. I rarely nag about certain aspects of a game. Mostly I either like a game, or I don't like it. But when it comes to Parodius Da! I really dislike two things and they almost make me not wanting to play the game entirely: The big lady, and the roulette. The part with the lady is just so boring and it comes so early in the game. It is such a drag every time. If I remember correctly they made it extra long in the Famicom version. Due to censorship there is a different character (fully dressed lol) and I don't know how many times that thing walks back and forth but it feels like an eternity. In the Saturn version you can disable the roulette at least if I remember correctly, so I should probably just play that version because I just hate the roulette. There is nothing funny about it to me, it just ruins my runs for no reason. I also like the Game Boy version because it just shows how awesome Konami was back then, how they made super awesome games, even on the most limited hardware. Plus the GB version has that certain GB charme to it that I like as well.

I’m using automatic power ups specifically to avoid the roulette, lol. Worth it.

Yeah, the game is super fun if not for those two things (well at least from what I’ve played). I’ve also played the pcengine version, and the sexy lady is also annoying there, in a slightly different way. In the GB version, its screen crunch, in the pcengine, I think it was the speed that she moves (which is presumably also the issue in the non-handheld versions)

It is cool how solid Konami’s GB shmup ports are. Kind of a shame they didn’t do anything on the GBC. Even just a “DX” version of Parodius would be pretty sweet.

I just checked here https://youtu.be/8fbs13Kcv1A?si=I3z7cSTHqkWnTcqX and the walker section goes from 7:55 until 11:10 Torture.

That’s awful, why would you do that

[Marc]

Sigh, getting destroyed by ST3 of Flying Shark. The snipers are insane at this point.

[Steven]

Sigh, getting destroyed by ST3 of Flying Shark. The snipers are insane at this point.

Easiest way to deal with the small boats that come from behind is to memorize the spawn locations and seal and destroy them as they appear. On loop 2 they become more dangerous because sealing distance, turret rotation speed, and firing rate increase, and on loop 3 they're super dangerous because the sealing distance is only a few pixels and they are extremely aggressive, so be careful. Their HP increases too, so you can't one-shot them at max power by loop 3, at which point you'll destroy the boats' turrets but the hulls will remain. Maybe on loop 2 as well, but definitely on loop 3.

On loop 2, bomb the second big ship's turrets as you seal + destroy the small boats. On loop 3, you probably won't be able to get over there fast enough, so consider bombing both sets of turrets and then chilling on the left side of the screen moving forward and backward to not get hit. You can still get over there in time to seal them on loop 3, but it's very difficult and if your timing is off you're way more likely to get pointblanked than to live. This is the single most dangerous part of the game starting on loop 2, especially because dying there will cause you to respawn between the two big ships, and on loops, the turret rotation speed is fast enough to have both big ships' turrets firing at you at the same time, and since you can't shoot backwards, it's very possible to get insta-killed by the first ship upon respawning there on loop 3 and beyond.

[Faith]

I get a lot of satisfaction from coming up with my own routes in this game, even though they are probably extremely suboptimal.

Hehe I am the same, I always try to route myself first @_@"...

What is even more satisfying... is when I start aiming higher and I watch superplays and I find sections of my route which are 100% the same as the superplay route.

Feels good!~

It is a balance though. Sometimes, it can be very difficult to do major route changes because muscle memory.

[Sweatlord_STG]

Chopper 1 aka The Legend Of Air Cavalry aka Koukuu Kihei Monogatari aka 航空騎兵物語 by SNK, 1988

Playing the Arcade Archives version.

This game is badass to the max. I love everything about it. The music, the graphics, the military setting, and how it's one of these STGs where you are slow and big, everything is a serious threat and the game feels very dense and claustrophobic at all times. Kind of like Tiger Heli, Kyukyoku Tiger, Hishozame, Daisenpuu, or even Raiden. Anyway, you get the idea.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Got to play Earthion for the first time on the weekend. This was after the visibility patch was released. It's fun, but very chaotic and memorization heavy. The meta for 1CCing and even scoring both seem to rely on upgrading your shields to the max as quickly as possible, then just getting extra lives. It's a fun game, a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 experience. The visuals and graphics are fantastic, the gameplay just doesn't quite match the hype. The subweapons in particular are fairly unbalanced and because you need to carry an upgrade pod between levels to upgrade, you can usually only carry one subweapon from one level to the next, the starting one that rapid fires a spreadshot is the best 99% of the time. Because of the limited carrying capacity and how easily you can lose them, and how dominant one weapon is compared to the others, it's kinda limited.

I'd have much rather it be like TF or Firepower 2000 where you can carry all weapon types at once and just use whatever, it'd give you more reason to use the hyperspecialized ones.

Also 1CC'd Esprade's World version, doesn't seem any different from the JP one in gameplay.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Got to play Earthion for the first time on the weekend. This was after the visibility patch was released. It's fun, but very chaotic and memorization heavy. The meta for 1CCing and even scoring both seem to rely on upgrading your shields to the max as quickly as possible, then just getting extra lives. It's a fun game, a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 experience. The visuals and graphics are fantastic, the gameplay just doesn't quite match the hype. The subweapons in particular are fairly unbalanced and because you need to carry an upgrade pod between levels to upgrade, you can usually only carry one subweapon from one level to the next, the starting one that rapid fires a spreadshot is the best 99% of the time. Because of the limited carrying capacity and how easily you can lose them, and how dominant one weapon is compared to the others, it's kinda limited.

I'd have much rather it be like TF or Firepower 2000 where you can carry all weapon types at once and just use whatever, it'd give you more reason to use the hyperspecialized ones.

Also 1CC'd Esprade's World version, doesn't seem any different from the JP one in gameplay.

I've noticed that you can actually buy a Sega Genesis Earthion cart with the latest fw 2.01 (aside from the earlier Earthion rom release carts with the older fw version intact as is the case with some repro cart sellers nowadays) and even comes with a proper MD game case + matching Japanese MD Earthion artwork for completeness. Are you playing the MD/SG Earthion cart setup on real hardware, BareKnuckleRoo?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~