Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Buzzy]

Has there ever been an attempt to make a Gradius V romhack that allows you to skip the cutscenes?

Or better yet, a romhack that makes Gradius V actually good. The green goop stage is one of the most yawn-inducing stages in Gradius history, next to the underground area of Gradius III's third level -- almost feels like something out of R-Type with how dull & slow the pacing is.

[Nugs]

Has anybody been able to get the Mushi Futari Black Label DLC to work in Xenia. I tried with the Canary version I have from about a year and a half ago with no luck. Even tried a rip of the game and DLC that supposedly fixed the issue with no luck. Is there a particular version of Xenia where it does work or any tricks I can do to get it to work?

There is a specific build of xenia just for this purpose.
I won't link it as it includes the rom with the download I found.
It is using an old verison of xenia though.

[Creamy Goodness]

Has anybody been able to get the Mushi Futari Black Label DLC to work in Xenia. I tried with the Canary version I have from about a year and a half ago with no luck. Even tried a rip of the game and DLC that supposedly fixed the issue with no luck. Is there a particular version of Xenia where it does work or any tricks I can do to get it to work?

There is a specific build of xenia just for this purpose.
I won't link it as it includes the rom with the download I found.
It is using an old verison of xenia though.

Mind PM'ing me the deets please?

[AGermanArtist]

I got it working just fine in the most recent Canary. I'm assuming you know how to install DLC?

[Creamy Goodness]

Correct I did the install. I forget where I got it from, but I used a tutorial for how to work with DLC including install steps. What is the date of your version? Mine is not super old, but I think it is from like early to mid 2024.

[aak]

So how do people play DoDonPachi in the actual arcades with that control scheme where the rapid button is a whole button away from the laser button with the bomb in the middle? Do they really keep their fingers spread apart the whole time to be able to hit rapid or laser at any given time or do they jump their finger from the rapid to the laser button every time?

[AGermanArtist]

Correct I did the install. I forget where I got it from, but I used a tutorial for how to work with DLC including install steps. What is the date of your version? Mine is not super old, but I think it is from like early to mid 2024.

Canary 765073021 Aug 2025

[Creamy Goodness]

I think I just had a bad rip of the DLC. Tried again with a different download and it works fine.

[Steven]

So how do people play DoDonPachi in the actual arcades with that control scheme where the rapid button is a whole button away from the laser button with the bomb in the middle? Do they really keep their fingers spread apart the whole time to be able to hit rapid or laser at any given time or do they jump their finger from the rapid to the laser button every time?

My hand on my control panel in its natural resting position

Spoiler

No contortion required. And yes, my chair is a guitar amp lol. The height is perfect.

[Sweatlord_STG]

So how do people play DoDonPachi in the actual arcades with that control scheme where the rapid button is a whole button away from the laser button with the bomb in the middle? Do they really keep their fingers spread apart the whole time to be able to hit rapid or laser at any given time or do they jump their finger from the rapid to the laser button every time?

Most people have five fingers per hand so they can cover all three buttons at the same time The layout you described is standard Cave and it works for me.
Index finger is focus shot
Middle finger is bomb
Ring finger is full auto

Same for FTGs where index finger is LP/LK, middle finger is MP/MK, ring finger is HP/HK?!

[aak]

I guess where I was confused was like having a finger on bomb the whole time. Because arcade buttons are sensitive I don't usually want to have my finger on the B button until I actually use it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

You get used to holding your middle finger gently on the bomb button or just above it so it's ready to go immediately. You could also rest it on the panel immediately beside the button I guess.

Before I'd ever played in an arcade and knew the "norm" I grew up with Rapid on index finger, Laser on middle finger, and Bomb on ring finger. It wasn't too hard to learn to switch though. The reason this became the standard is because auto rapid buttons were initially seen as an optional thing you had to enable in the test menu, then everyone realized they're great and mashing was silly and it became the standard to have them ON (seriously why would a futuristic ship's guns work like a pistol). Having Shot and Bomb on the first two buttons means you could play the game with just Shot + Bomb even if the cab didn't have a third button wired up.

If you own a cab yourself you can always rewire it so your thumb is on button 4 for rapid shot if you like. A few games actually let you remap the controls that way, namely Espgaluda (hold button 3+4 before pressing start to swap them), Espgaluda 2, Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, and Akai Katana (these three have a button config choice after character select in the arcade versions, console ports have these prompts removed).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You get used to holding your middle finger gently on the bomb button or just above it so it's ready to go immediately. You could also rest it on the panel immediately beside the button I guess.

Before I'd ever played in an arcade and knew the "norm" I grew up with Rapid on index finger, Laser on middle finger, and Bomb on ring finger. It wasn't too hard to learn to switch though. The reason this became the standard is because auto rapid buttons were initially seen as an optional thing you had to enable in the test menu, then everyone realized they're great and mashing was silly and it became the standard to have them ON (seriously why would a futuristic ship's guns work like a pistol). Having Shot and Bomb on the first two buttons means you could play the game with just Shot + Bomb even if the cab didn't have a third button wired up.

If you own a cab yourself you can always rewire it so your thumb is on button 4 for rapid shot if you like. A few games actually let you remap the controls that way, namely Espgaluda (hold button 3+4 before pressing start to swap them), Espgaluda 2, Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, and Akai Katana (these three have a button config choice after character select in the arcade versions, console ports have these prompts removed).

When my local arcade hangout, Cals-R-Cade, had gotten in Konami's newest A-Jax arcade stg housed in a generic upright cab, it sported just two buttons (Fire & Bomb) on the control panel itself even though it's a three button game to begin with. I never knew that A-Jax was truly a 3-button arcade stg title to begin with until years later when I acquired an USA region A-Jax pcb with an instruction manual included stating that it was setup as such.

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Plus the fact that A-Jax supports both upright cabs & "old-school" cocktail table cabs with screen orientation switching between 90 degrees for Player 1 and 270 degrees for Player 2 if setup for alternating gameplay rather than two-player joint co-op play via dipswitch settings, thus making A-Jax quite versatile as it is.
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So if Cals-R-Cade had implemented a three button scheme for both players from the get-go, the control panel would've been quite populated with two 8-way digital joysticks, three buttons per player + both P1 & P2 Start buttons making for a grand total of a whopping 8 buttons altogether on a typical American cab's control panel setup with just the USA region A-Jax jamma pcb alone (with space at an absolute premium as it was, had to be taken into consideration if an 8-button layout was even physically feasible/possible back in 1988).
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Konami's A-Jax/Typhoon jamma pcb was considered one of the earliest examples of a modern-day arcade stg title release with a dedicated 3-button setup indeed back in the late 1980s era.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I never knew that A-Jax was truly a 3-button arcade stg title to begin with until years later when I acquired an USA region A-Jax pcb with an instruction manual included stating that it was setup as such.

Tragic. ;w;

[AGermanArtist]

Did you never wonder what the POW bomb was?

[Lethe]

Looking for suggestions on what I'll call "collage shmups". Games that are built around an apparent mish-mash of disparate concepts instead of a single aesthetic, and focus on incoherent raw creativity or visually impressive gimmicks over the gameplay.

Examples of what I mean could be Vimana, V-V, Gunnail, and Nostradamus.
Weak examples might be Varth (varied but not very creative) and Dogyuun (visually obsessed but bordering on cohesive).
I am not looking for things like Metal Black (chaotic imagery with a strong underpinning idea), or games that just did random shit for graphics because it wasn't particularly important (a lot of very old games).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Looking for suggestions on what I'll call "collage shmups". Games that are built around an apparent mish-mash of disparate concepts instead of a single aesthetic, and focus on incoherent raw creativity or visually impressive gimmicks over the gameplay.

I'm not quite sure what qualifies since there's no examples to compare it to, but I'd argue that everything Railslave's ever developed qualifies, what you're describing sounds very much like his design style for pretty much all his games except maybe the last one where he deliberately admitted he was trying to be more "conventional".

[Rastan78]

Dangun Feveron seems like a perfect example. Looks as if they developed a normal shmup and then added the disco theme to it. Nothing in the backgrounds or ship designs seems like there was an awareness of tying it into space disco whatsoever.

[jpd66]

Interesting question. The first game I thought of is Zero Wing- an aesthetic hodge-podge throughout. And perhaps to a lesser extent, the other Toaplan hori, Hellfire.

Edit: Maybe Dragon Saber?

Edit: Dezatopia?…Actually, after looking a little further, this game seems to be more in your “Metal Black” category, as there appears to be a background story behind all of the disparately varying locales/aesthetics. I’ve never played it; but its surreal weirdness seemed to fit your parameters.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Dangun Feveron seems like a perfect example. Looks as if they developed a normal shmup and then added the disco theme to it.

This is actually exactly what happened:

Dangun Feveron

Originally, the soundtrack was entirely heavy metal. However, one day we were reviewing the whole game and thought it might be better to make it more thematic somehow, when someone said, “you know, guys… don’t you feel the fever?” And with that, we hurriedly changed almost everything to an 80s style disco soundtrack. To this day, though, the question remains as to why the boss music alone stayed heavy metal… (Sound Engineer)

[Acid]

Your nose itches...

Do you scratch with your movement hand or your buttons hand?

[Faith]

Your nose itches...

Do you scratch with your movement hand or your buttons hand?

Mind over body. So: don't scratch!~

Haha, it is true for me. When playing... that is most important thing!~

[Lethe]

everything Railslave's ever developed qualifies, what you're describing sounds very much like his design style for pretty much all his games except maybe the last one where he deliberately admitted he was trying to be more "conventional".

Dezatopia?…Actually, after looking a little further, this game seems to be more in your “Metal Black” category, as there appears to be a background story behind all of the disparately varying locales/aesthetics. I’ve never played it; but its surreal weirdness seemed to fit your parameters.

Dadaism isn't really what I'm getting at. I guess I'm more looking for an absence of context, like "we've got all this spare concept art lying around the office, let's make a game out of it".
I think it's really hard for any solo project to qualify, there's an intrinsic cohesion in anything that's made by a single person, while the above is anti-cohesion.

Hellfire is a good pick, and I've just remembered Xexex. I guess Turbo Force qualifies? Nobody said the execution had to be good.

[BulletMagnet]

I've always maintained that Mushi Futari was cobbled together from leftover pieces of unfinished projects. Time to blow up more giant bugs...and dinosaurs! And sea creatures! And dragons, because why the heck not?

Space Megaforce/Super Aleste always struck me as pretty surreal, though I'm not sure that's the sort of approach you're after.

[Steven]

games that just did random shit for graphics because it wasn't particularly important (a lot of very old games).

Does this disqualify Bakuretsu Breaker?

Your nose itches...

Do you scratch with your movement hand or your buttons hand?

Depends on game and location in current stage.

[Light1000]

Not a shmup but the Shinobi games kind of feel like that. For example there's a boss in Shadow Dancer (MD) which is a fire wheel (depiction of the angel Throne I think) that just comes out of nowhere with no previous context or explanation.

[aak]

Is this a known bug in Battle Garegga Rev.2016?

https://files.catbox.moe/jfc13o.mp4

Notice the controls gadget on the left. It correctly registers me pressing circle or cross, but in reality circle does both the action it's assigned as well as the action assigned to cross, while cross does nothing. I'm using a Mayflash F300 arcade stick btw, but the issue seems to be software rather than hardware since the gadget in-game sees what buttons I'm pressing correctly.
This also happens with different button settings, and in the opposite direction. For example setting cross to rapid shot and circle to quick restart makes it so cross both quick restarts and shoots and circle does nothing. Setting cross to rapid shot (my rapid set) and circle to rapid speed change makes cross do both things and circle do nothing, again. Setting cross to rapid speed change and circle to quick restart straight up swaps the function of the buttons while still displaying the correct button pressed on the gadget. The buttons also function perfectly normally in menus.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

There's been a few shmup ports I can think of with unusual quirks with respect to remapping. The PC ports of Mushihimesama and Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu for instance have a bug where if you pause during the game then unpause, for a few frames after unpausing it uses the stock controls (so if you've remapped the bomb button to rapid shot, if you're holding rapid you'll immediately deploy a bomb upon unpausing). A minor headache, but still.

If it's a major problem and you're focusing heavily on that game, you can always open up your Mayflash and move the wiring around so the buttons are remapped to what you want.

[Sweatlord_STG]

https://youtu.be/Qq4fCHFMKTg?si=5j_Zps1um-Ng7bFQ

Platypus Reclayed has incredible grafx/art style which makes it stand out, but is it good? Who has played it?

[aak]

https://youtu.be/Qq4fCHFMKTg?si=5j_Zps1um-Ng7bFQ

Platypus Reclayed has incredible grafx/art style which makes it stand out, but is it good? Who has played it?

Faith and repoman posted about it on the Shmup Ticker thread recently and they didn't seem to like it very much.