World's Greatest Shmup Player - Part 2

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:40 am

Let's talk Game Selection for a second here...

I don't want to dive too deeply into exactly how each game would be played right now, but I wanted to toss out a bunch of game names to see if they stuck. If none of these sound good for a particular system to you, suggest something. I pciekd what I picked because I've played them and I think that I may be able to get my hands on four copies for the finals of these...

Tell me if you think these might be great, good, poor or broken to use in a tournament, with a reason why:

1942 (NES)
1943 (NES)
Xevious (NES)

Fantasy Zone (Master System)
Fantasy Zone 2 (Master System)

Steel Empire (Genesis)
Thunder Force (Genesis)
Thunder Force 2 (Genesis)
Lightening Force (Genesis)
Whip Rush (Genesis)
Sol Deace (Genesis)
Vapor Trail (Genesis)
Gaiares (Genesis)
Raiden Trad (Genesis)

Raiden Trad (SNES)
Axelay (SNES)
Phalanx (SNES)
Biometal (SNES)
UN Squadron (SNES)

Trevor McFur (Atari Jaguar)
Raiden (Atari Jaguar)

Darius Gaiden (Saturn)
Strikers 1945 (Saturn)
Galactic Attack (Saturn)

Star Soldier Vanishing Earth (N64)

Ikargua (Dreamcast)
Mars Matrix (Dreamcast)
Giga Wing (Dreamcast)
Giga Wing 2 (Dreamcast)
Gunbird 2 (Dreamcast)
Mars Matrix (Dreamcast)

Castle Shikigami 2 (PS2)
Metal Black (PS2 Taito Legends 2 comp)

Chaos Field (GameCube)

Any thoughts? I didn't put down any Turbo games only because I don't know of enough of them, as that is one system that for whatever reason, I could never really get into.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:47 am

Gunbird 2 would be a good one. Players would have to choose between focusing on survivial or chaining coins.

I think Shiki 2 would be good because it's scoring system is really easy to get the hang of, but is dangerous to employ.

Metal Black on the Taito Legends 2 comp. has a glitch in it. I think you'd be better off going with Icarus' idea and using G-Darius from the same compilation. Very well emulated!

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 6:10 am

Steel Empire (Genesis)
Thunder Force (Genesis) - doesn't exist
Thunder Force 2 (Genesis) - no time limit on overhead stages. People who have never played it might take way too long.
Lightening Force (Genesis) - good choice if you turn the difficulty up to manic
Whip Rush (Genesis) - easy and average
Sol Deace (Genesis)
Vapor Trail (Genesis) - you can pick better games than this
Gaiares (Genesis) - only if you hate the people who go to the tournament
Raiden Trad (Genesis) - definitely stick to a better Raiden port. There is no excuse.

Raiden Trad (SNES) - universally acknowledged as terrible
Axelay (SNES)
Phalanx (SNES) - too long and worthless
Biometal (SNES) - maybe too easy, but good and short
UN Squadron (SNES)

To say it again, 16 bit shooters are generally poor, especially for competition. To underrepresent them would be doing everyone a favor.

Would recommend:
-Space Megaforce -- -3 mode only
-Varth -- I think this is on the Capcom collection volume 2. Early 90s shooters with good scoring elements are an extreme rarity. This is one.
-Gun.Smoke -- on Capcom collection volume 1
-Einhander

Sonic R · Post by **Sonic R** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 11:40 am

As much as I love older generation shoot them ups, I have to agree that these games are not well suit for competition play

Some games I will recommend:
Super Star Soldier and Soldier Blade offer caravan modes with 2 and 5 minute modes. These are both Hucard games available for the Turbo Grafx 16 and also on download ($6 each) on the Wii Virtual console. The Soldier Blade Hucard is a bit difficult to find however Super Star Soldier is common (for a TG16 game anyways

)

Also Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth (Nintendo 64) and Star Soldier (GCN/PS2 import) offer caravan modes as well.

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:40 pm

If you want some older games you could try the Midway compilations. Those seem to be good emulations.

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:45 am

Rob wrote:To say it again, 16 bit shooters are generally poor, especially for competition. To underrepresent them would be doing everyone a favor.

I do tend to agree with you, but I would want at least one NES / SMS era shooter in there then. Are there any suggestions for that?

Oh, I'll also admit that I haven't played too many of the 16 bit shmups due to the very fact that you mentioned. I don't think I really truly "discovered" the genre until finding Raiden in an arcade...

Speaking of which, does it work as a tourney title?

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:52 am

Raiden can be really long, especially if people can loop it. DX is a better option.

Recca bootleg cartridge might be an option for NES. Not sure Fantasy Zone holds up as a competition game, but that'd be about the best you could do for SMS.

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 5:15 am

Rob wrote:Raiden can be really long, especially if people can loop it. DX is a better option.

Recca bootleg cartridge might be an option for NES. Not sure Fantasy Zone holds up as a competition game, but that'd be about the best you could do for SMS.

Can't do bootlegs (same thing as MAME, there are too many industry people who attend and / or watch the show, and I don't want to step on anyone's rights).

Would Raiden work potentially as a single level playthrough though? I mean, I can loop Raiden, so I definitely am concerned about that...

Also then, which version? PS1 or Jaguar potentially?

On the same topic, how great or not-so-great is Raiden III? I really enjoyed the original Raiden, but I haven't yet picked this up. I don't yet have a PS2, although I do own a bunch of games for it, and need to pick up one soon. Should I look for it?

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:07 am

If you don't think a single play through of Raiden is too long then that should be fine. It will just come down to who can clear it without using many bombs or dying. I'm not familiar with the Jaguar version but the PlayStation version is about as arcade perfect as it gets. It's basically (or is) just the ROMs on a disc.

Raiden III is average-slightly above average, but would be a fine pick for a competition. The scoring system is very simple and doesn't require much of any memorization. Decent fun, competent game. It just doesn't excel in any way.

mikwuyma · Post by **mikwuyma** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 2:29 pm

If you need some more PS2 games.

G-Darius (Taito Legends 2) - I like this game, and it seems to be harder than Darius Gaiden.

Gekirindan (Taito Legends 2) - Easy shmup that anyone can play. You will see a lot of 1CCs if this is picked.

Espgaluda (Japanese import) - Fairly simple shmup with a good scoring system.

I don't think any of these games have broken scoring systems, though I know Gekirindan has some milking.

Boric · Post by **Boric** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 4:37 pm

goatdan wrote:On the same topic, how great or not-so-great is Raiden III? I really enjoyed the original Raiden, but I haven't yet picked this up. I don't yet have a PS2, although I do own a bunch of games for it, and need to pick up one soon. Should I look for it?

I liked it in last years' competition

For the record here were all games played last year:

Qualifying round:
Fire Shark
1943
River Raid
Radiant Silvergun
Parodius

Semifinals:
Galactic Attack
Mars Matrix
Gradius V
Silpheed

Finals:
Demon Attack (thrown out, but came back as tiebreaker)
Aerofighters
MegaSWIV
Raiden III
and Blazing Lasers

Mills · Post by **Mills** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 5:55 am

postman · Post by **postman** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:11 pm

Looks like everyone got thier wish, they changed the name:

2008 Worldwide Shmup Open

http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/con ... rticle=151

Mills · Post by **Mills** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:42 pm

postman wrote:Looks like everyone got thier wish, they changed the name:

2008 Worldwide Shmup Open

http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/con ... rticle=151

That what the tournament should have been called. i hope we get to some pics/clips from the event.

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:28 am

postman wrote:Looks like everyone got thier wish, they changed the name:

2008 Worldwide Shmup Open

Yup -- it's back, and it should be better than ever this year. We put a lot of work into thinking it through and as stated earlier in this thread, we intend on announcing four of the five games that we will be using and how they shall be scored in the upcoming weeks.

Also, the prizes this year are straight cash prizes as suggested by some people. We will be increasing the prizes based on how many entries there are.

The one change that you may see happen is that we are working on tweaking our finals methods. If we use only the same games, it wouldn't make sense to have two final rounds. It works well with pinball, but in this case it wouldn't work as well. Also, we want the final "mystery" game (which can change round to round) to be a game which everyone is forced to play, so this portion of the contest may need some tweaking.

Finally, if you are in the area and interested at all, please come out and support this. We need this tournament to do at least decently to consider it for inclusion every year, as it takes a lot of resources to both plan and run it. The tournament is only as good as the competitors playing in it. Help us make this one amazing!

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:51 am

you should totally throw in a random TSS sidetournament

Arvandor · Post by **Arvandor** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:08 am

Wow, as random and weird as shoe-sama normally is.... That's an amazing idea =D

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:25 am

of course then people might stop caring about the main shmup tournament but w/e

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:47 pm

shoe-sama wrote:you should totally throw in a random TSS sidetournament

I'd look into expanding things if we had more people, but we're really limited on people to run the tournament this year. Having said that, if anyone wants to start an unofficial tournament, just bring the game and I'm sure you'll be able to find a system to compete on!

zaphod · Post by **zaphod** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:32 pm

Suggestions.

NES: Gradius. FIrst loop only, no codes. (but rapid fire capsule wrap trick and 10k capsule wrap bonus ok)
Guardian Legend, shmup mode (password TGL) milking is possible, but counterproducive, as the clear bonus for beating bosses fast outweighs any gain from milking.

And "stock controllers only."

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:22 am

zaphod wrote:And "stock controllers only."

This is the plan for this year... mostly. We were going give people the option of stock or JAMMA, but unfortunately we had to discontinue the JAMMA line up, so stock is the choice. The *one* exception will be if we do anything on the 2600, as in my opinion the stock joysticks are utter crap, in which case we will give the option of using something else which we decide upon what that something else is. That way, if the stock joystick doesn't quite get the directions right, it was the user choice in using that controller.

Squirrel · Post by **Squirrel** » Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:43 am

goatdan wrote:
zaphod wrote:And "stock controllers only."
This is the plan for this year... mostly. We were going give people the option of stock or JAMMA, but unfortunately we had to discontinue the JAMMA line up, so stock is the choice. The *one* exception will be if we do anything on the 2600, as in my opinion the stock joysticks are utter crap, in which case we will give the option of using something else which we decide upon what that something else is. That way, if the stock joystick doesn't quite get the directions right, it was the user choice in using that controller.

I fully suggest a Sega Genesis controller.

For NES you should do Gun-Nac, Level 4.