My take on the "slow bullet" games' problem

[Rob]

Stuff like the last boss in futari are incredibly hard, even though it just looks like tap dodge to you.

This is not what I'm saying, I'm just explaining my dislike of it since a comparison was brought up with MM.

I know DDP would be really really tough if I bothered. It focuses on two things I'm not great at: quick learning and sharp reflexes. The longer it takes to get one chain down, the less rewarding and more frustrating it has to feel. If I could pick up a chain more quickly and didn't have such a high rate of error, I'm sure I could enjoy it. Mars Matrix keeps me going from other elements, like imagining new strategies and a different style of play from any other game. I've never been able to completely chain stages 1-5 (let alone 6) in a single game. This is something a great DDP player would be expected to do twice. Basically just not my style and don't have the skills or patience for it.

[PROMETHEUS]

oh ok I brought that up because I seemed to recall you and some other people were talking like that about futari and manic play. It's funny though because I was thinking while trying a little bit to do the stage 1 chain in Mars Matrix : "wow, I would have a huge failure rate if I was going to try that in runs". It really doesn't seem easier to pick up to me ~

[shoe-sama]

its really easy

all you do is get the items lol

just takes some time to adjust to the timing thing (items only increase the timer to their base time value, and don't increase it past that)

[Gungriffon Geona]

Of course, the fact that I not only suck at shmups; but I tend to refuse to bomb and restart on death helps the series gain point on my personal difficulty scale...

I dunno. I only reset if I die way too often (for retreaded levels) than my usual alotted amount of tolerance in deaths. But I always save the bombs for difficult bosses and situations.

To be honest I tend to reset on most games when I start messing up bad, because it usually kills my mood if I go through and continue on past where I've lost my score/credit. I usually reserve doing that for when I feel like just breezing through a game for the hell of it. Most of the time I like going "ok, made it this far, how far can I go to the next time?"

My qualm perhaps with Touhou is that they're too easy for veterans, too difficult for methodical shmupists, and add a boatload of penalties in score to create fake difficulty. That's not to mention that, until Mountain of Faith, playing entirely for survival; score secondary was not an option. You simply cannot "enjoy" the game; you have to "work" for it.

I find this to be hitting the nail on the head, especially because I'm one to play a game for the fun first, and accomplishment second. It doesn't really help that it's a really rigid form that doesn't allow you to get creative in strategy, mostly just "do it this way or you lose a bucketload of points. no ifs ands or buts, just do it this way". while this harkens back to the days of R-Type, even those games allowed some breathing room once you found the patterns, and the patterns were usually quite interesting in the long run. with these you have one obstacle, and that's a bunch of slow moving bullets that don't feel like a threat.

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have heard about the games if it wasn't for it's overblown fandom, and as an art student, I can't really hate the game for having appeal outside of shmups nuts.

You should. They're in it simply to wank off to the Marisa and Alice doujin porn out there. It also gives doujin developers ideas that they could get away with poorly executed (even though they might be ambitious in their concept) design simply because it has moé.

As an artsy person myself, I hate moe because it immediately rquires no originality. it's as I said, choose your tard archetype like a fighting game, and change a small point about them to make them "different". I mean, just how many times are they going to use the blue dress blue hair stoic girl with lots of frills and ribbons before they can't change the small things anymore? eventually you have to start realizing that people will get tired of this.
And I can definitely say alot of doujin games show huge ammounts of promise for the concept alone, but turn out a craptastic product because they figure that people will buy or play their game for some pretty girl who isn't even that interesting. It's arduous for me to see that, especially when I could write a decent humanly possible character in about 5 minutes and it'd be better than these impossibly maligned archetypes.
The only time I've ever found moe bearable was in ZOE Dolores, where you had a giant death machine acting like a frail girl for no real reason, and it comes off as plain out hilarious. That and Sispri Gauntlet, where you're basically killing hundreds of awful stereotypes with crazy guns and really high difficulty curves, where you can have more fun watching them explode into a see of ex attack bullets then you can anything else.

[moozooh]

I guess you're looking at the player barely doing a few moves to navigate through a pattern, and from a methodical point of view they are overly simple actions. But in truth, the player is reading really complex patterns and making up a path through them in his head every time he plays. Often the path you find through a pattern doesn't require you to make very complex moves, but what is hard is figuring out which exact moves you have to make, and/or doing them very accurately. Stuff like the last boss in futari are incredibly hard, even though it just looks like tap dodge to you. They're not memorized taps, you have to figure them out while you play.

That's exactly what I wanted to express in my original post, but failed to elaborate as well as you did here. Thanks. :)

[SockPuppetHyren]

As an artsy person myself, I hate moe because it immediately rquires no originality. it's as I said, choose your tard archetype like a fighting game, and change a small point about them to make them "different". I mean, just how many times are they going to use the blue dress blue hair stoic girl with lots of frills and ribbons before they can't change the small things anymore? eventually you have to start realizing that people will get tired of this.
And I can definitely say alot of doujin games show huge ammounts of promise for the concept alone, but turn out a craptastic product because they figure that people will buy or play their game for some pretty girl who isn't even that interesting. It's arduous for me to see that, especially when I could write a decent humanly possible character in about 5 minutes and it'd be better than these impossibly maligned archetypes.
The only time I've ever found moe bearable was in ZOE Dolores, where you had a giant death machine acting like a frail girl for no real reason, and it comes off as plain out hilarious. That and Sispri Gauntlet, where you're basically killing hundreds of awful stereotypes with crazy guns and really high difficulty curves, where you can have more fun watching them explode into a see of ex attack bullets then you can anything else.

I see your point, and agree about anti-original character designs ( I didn't like Rei even before she became an arch-type), but on that note, the Touhou series is actually very good about it's use of lolis ( no counting fanworks). Most of the cast has something that makes them distinct and feel different from each other (which in Touhou's case is very important being that the in-game character art is craptacular, and the cast is so large). Sure, there is a maid (Sakuya) and a witch (Marisa), but those are only two characters, not to mention that even those two have MUCH more personality than the stock archetypes they were based on.

And for the rest of the cast? They're mostly unique to themselves also. I don't care what you saw in whichever fanart, Reimu, the main character, doesn't look or act like an arch-typical Miko character. Many of the final boss characters, namely Yuyuko (PCB), Yukari(also PCB) and Kaguya (IN) have pretty interesting back story to their characters and explanations ( although vague) as to how they ended up in the games world (or in Yukari's case, how she took hand in creating the game's world).
Even the more minor and un important characters are far from being bland stereotypes and rehashes of other, more famous characters.

None of the girls in the cast give off an "I IZ YOUR SLAFE ONI-TAN! UZE MEH!11oNE" vibe, nor do you feel they are helpless, which many moeblobs tend to be. The cast have pretty well rounded characters, and you almost never see ZUN taking things from the moe-moe database (Normally because he's too drunk to do so, but that's another story). If anything, I'd say that the Touhou series is the only property that does "cute girls in frilly dresses" right. How else could a game with such bad character art have fanboys slobbering over the girls?

As for me personally, I like the games, quite a bit. I read some of the fancomics from time to time too (It's stuff I could show my mother...stop looking at me like that). Though, as games go, I prefer R-Type. Now, I'm gonna blast me some space vaginas! Pew! Pew!

[sfried]

I see your point, and agree about anti-original character designs ( I didn't like Rei even before she became an arch-type), but on that note, the Touhou series is actually very good about it's use of lolis ( no counting fanworks). Most of the cast has something that makes them distinct and feel different from each other (which in Touhou's case is very important being that the in-game character art is craptacular, and the cast is so large). Sure, there is a maid (Sakuya) and a witch (Marisa), but those are only two characters, not to mention that even those two have MUCH more personality than the stock archetypes they were based on.

And for the rest of the cast? They're mostly unique to themselves also. I don't care what you saw in whichever fanart, Reimu, the main character, doesn't look or act like an arch-typical Miko character. Many of the final boss characters, namely Yuyuko (PCB), Yukari(also PCB) and Kaguya (IN) have pretty interesting back story to their characters and explanations ( although vague) as to how they ended up in the games world (or in Yukari's case, how she took hand in creating the game's world).
Even the more minor and un important characters are far from being bland stereotypes and rehashes of other, more famous characters

....

As for me personally, I like the games, quite a bit. I read some of the fancomics from time to time too (It's stuff I could show my mother...stop looking at me like that).

Argh!

I dislike the characters and story elements of Touhou. They rely too much on back story and most of the time I found myself scratching my head when they had those forced (translated) dialogue conversations that don't make any sense. I can't follow what's going on, and it's as if alot of when they say are insider jokes that I wouldn't get unless I played pasts installments or whatnot. It's completely pandering-esque and not self contained.

Shame on you too for following the fan crowd. Now you're gonna be one of those people who are going to justify ZUN's drinking habits and claim him like some sort of god.

I'd care less about character development (or should we say, lack thereoff) in my shmup. But please stop using it as an excuse to cover the glaringly obvious problems the games have. While Touhou isn't bad, again, I'm not going to feed quarters just because it has so-called "cleaver use of lolis". #1 They're still lolis #2 The story itself sucks. And even if the story does not suck, since when did storyline ever justify people playing shmups?

I played Einhander not because of the interesting concepts behind Earth and Moon governments. I played it because I want to discover all the secret paths the game has to offer, not to mention discovering the hidden weapons. Touhou can't give me anything but beautiful bullets, lousy penalties, and tons of fodder faries to shoot. Sure call Einhander's aspects "gimmiky", but I could similarly accuse Touhou (or at least its fanbase) for using moe as the main appeal of the series, as it serves nothing but to superficially spice up an otherwise "bland" danmakku shooter.

[SockPuppetHyren]

Argh!

Is that some NEEERRRRD RAAAAAAGE I sense?

I dislike the characters and story elements of Touhou. They rely too much on back story and most of the time I found myself scratching my head when they had those forced (translated) dialogue conversations that don't make any sense.

They make sense, here's some translations for you:

1st three bosses: I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!

4th and fifth bosses: I'm going kick your ass. *curtsy*

Last stage boss: I'm going f*** you up *Ufufu*

Xtra stage boss: Who are you? And why are you in my house?

Very simple, no?

I can't follow what's going on, and it's as if alot of when they say are insider jokes that I wouldn't get unless I played pasts installments or whatnot. It's completely pandering-esque and not self contained.

That's mainly because ZUN loves word plays. You'd probably have a better chance if you knew Japanese, and even that's not a garuntee. On the other hand, it's better than the manga dialog he writes (Don't waste your time reading SSiB).

Shame on you too for following the fan crowd. Now you're gonna be one of those people who are going to justify ZUN's drinking habits and claim him like some sort of god.

Shame on you for following the anti-fan crowd; now your probably going to say I'm a pedophile and claim I don't play shooters at all. Then all your anti-fan buddies will pat you on the back for being a cool guy who fights the evil moe organization on the internet.

Sriously, I never said anything about the games being perfect in anyway, not to mention I even made fun of ZUN's drinking in my post, assuming you read that far before going into RAGE! In fact, my post had nothing to do with the quality of the games themselves, as it's all upto opinion anyway. I simply pointed out how ZUN uses and builds his characters beyond stereotypes. In short, you missed the point, way to go.

I'd care less about character development (or should we say, lack thereoff) in my shmup. But please stop using it as an excuse to cover the glaringly obvious problems the games have.

This is the point.







This is your head.

While Touhou isn't bad, again, I'm not going to feed quarters just because it has so-called "cleaver use of lolis". #1 They're still lolis #2 The story itself sucks. And even if the story does not suck, since when did storyline ever justify people playing shmups?

I don't play shmups for the story either, nor did I imply I did. I didn't even care about Touhou's storyline nor it's cast going into it. I just head it was a good game with pretty patterns.

You're putting a lot of words in my mouth, y'know. And you're doing a bad job.

I played Einhander not because of the interesting concepts behind Earth and Moon governments. I played it because I want to discover all the secret paths the game has to offer, not to mention discovering the hidden weapons. Touhou can't give me anything but beautiful bullets, lousy penalties, and tons of fodder faries to shoot. Sure call Einhander's aspects "gimmiky", but I could similarly accuse Touhou (or at least its fanbase) for using moe as the main appeal of the series, as it serves nothing but to superficially spice up an otherwise "bland" danmakku shooter.

It's all opinion in the end.

Like I said before, I like the games it's personal preference. I said nothing bad about people not liking the games. I simply responded to a comment about the characters. You would know that if you actually read my post. Now, back to those space vagina...

[VorpalEdge]

I'm glad Touhou has a storyline. It makes ZUN create better music.

[orange]

touhou is to shmups what soulja boy is to music

[Frederik]

touhou is to shmups what soulja boy is to music

The more research I do on Touhou, the more pathetic it becomes. I think this shouldn´t be connected through the same genre as Battle Garegga and Ketsui.

[Nuke]

touhou is to shmups what soulja boy is to music

The more research I do on Touhou, the more pathetic it becomes. I think this shouldn´t be connected through the same genre as Battle Garegga and Ketsui.

Have you played it?
And even so, did you know it's all done by one man?

[sfried]

Is that some NEEERRRRD RAAAAAAGE I sense?

Oh god...That's the last thing we need: 4channers in shmups forums.

Soon there's going to be a ton of touhou hijacking out of nowhere.

(And you just simply evaded my points. Did you even read my post?)

[SockPuppetHyren]

Is that some NEEERRRRD RAAAAAAGE I sense?

Oh god...That's the last thing we need: 4channers in shmups forums.

Soon there's going to be a ton of touhou hijacking out of nowhere.

(And you just simply evaded my points, but it's no use arguing over a /b/tard)

Not really, if anything, you evaded mine.

What, just because I didn't keel over and say you're, right about everything you said I'm a /b/-tard? Right, good logic there.

EDIT:

okay, Ill give you a better answer.

Yes, I read your post, I read it up, down, and side to side. After reading it, I came to this conclusion:

"That isn't what I was talking about at all."

So, I responded accordingly. Your post assume that I'm using the story and characters to defend the gameplay. That's not it at all. I'm arguing the opinion that Touhou character are flat and stereotypical, two very different things.

The rest of your post was you stating that you dislike said story and characters, or did you like the gameplay.

That's fine and dandy. I don't care.

I already gave you my opinion on the game, I don't care to repeat it, nor do I care to stop liking the game because you said so. Now, space fetuses...

[Nuke]

Hey, no dissing 4chan unless you think you can handle the wrath of the Mudkip!

[sfried]

okay, Ill give you a better answer.

Yes, I read your post, I read it up, down, and side to side. After reading it, I came to this conclusion:

"That isn't what I was talking about at all."

So, I responded accordingly. Your post assume that I'm using the story and characters to defend the gameplay. That's not it at all. I'm arguing the opinion that Touhou character are flat and stereotypical, two very different things.

I see. So you were merely justifying the loli aspect, not the entire game itself. I understand. Thanks for clearing that up. I was just trying to put it in perspective with the thread since this is about the analysis of bullet hell shooters.

Which makes me wonder, are there danmakku shooters were bullet fly FAST?

[Nuke]

Wat's wrong with non-objec/sexified gothic loli?
I'm kind of repulsed/amused at the overt sexification of Cave games but the Touhou series does it in a tasteful manner that I appreciate.
And yes, the loli thread was meant to be sarcastic

[Veracity]

The more research I do on Touhou, the more pathetic it becomes.

Since they almost all have free demos, you could try just playing them instead of 'researching' (?) them, though maybe you already did and thought they sucked? Not sure I understand the substance of some of the objections here - they're too easy and too unforgiving? Not entirely mutually exclusive, but a bit of a stretch. Maybe if I clearly understood what 'fake difficulty' is it'd make more sense. I think Shoot the Bullet alone's enough to make the series worth looking at, and find Imperishable Night's scoring above average entertainment-wise, but I'm hardly up for trying to explain to anyone that their taste is incorrect. And I really couldn't give a toss about the loli smack-talk intermissions - an option to disable them would be nice, but the skip button's good enough.

How'd we get onto yet another bitching about Touhou's shortcomings thread, anyhow? The original topic was relatively interesting. The aspect of bullet spammy games whose sanity I'm most inclined to question is the micro-hitboxes. The genre seems to have gone full circle - you used to need to learn your oversized hit detection boundaries (bullets hitting engine flare, etc), then there was a shift to smaller hit zones that tended to ensure hits would always feel 'fair', but now we're often shuffling a dot through a bunch of other dots, the graphical representations of which are only loosely related to what's happening. The fact people who don't play modern shooters will ask questions like 'how many hits can your shield take?' when seeing this stuff in action indicates it's gone a fair way past intuitive, imo. Though visible hit boxes seem to have become fairly widespread, which I guess addresses that neatly enough.

I would like to see a modern game with a more traditional approach, (fast, aimed shots etc.) but with a more elaborate bullet "setup". Cho Ren Sha has some of it and (parts of) the first few levels of Gigawing is nearly there.

Have you seen Zen-Ichi? That might suit - has a mixture of shot speeds, not all that big on screen-wide spam, and uses a fairly high proportion of aimed attacks. It's also got a kind of affectedly grainy look (sorry, too clueless about graphics tech to be clearer than that) that might satisfy your elsewhere-stated preference for 'chunky' sprite work, or words to that effect. Everything's gigantic compared to its hit zone, though, so steer clear if that annoys you.

[Frederik]

Have you played it?
And even so, did you know it's all done by one man?

Yeah. ABA games are also made by one man and I like them much better.

The more research I do on Touhou, the more pathetic it becomes.

Since they almost all have free demos, you could try just playing them instead of 'researching' (?) them, though maybe you already did and thought they sucked?

I was talking about the horrible "scene", weird fanfiction and "artwork".
The games themselves are okay, even though I never could stand playing them for longer periods of time, but the surrounding settings are what I called "embarassing". It´s stuff that reminds me of My Little Pony. Maybe I just hate all these cute witches. Sorry for being imprecise in my inital post.

[SockPuppetHyren]

I was talking about the horrible "scene", weird fanfiction and "artwork".
The games themselves are okay, even though I never could stand playing them for longer periods of time, but the surrounding settings are what I called "embarassing". It´s stuff that reminds me of My Little Pony. Maybe I just hate all these cute witches.

That is what s called a fandom. Unlike a scene, which is dedicated to game mechanics, fandom s focused on story and characters.

Almost all fandoms are filled weird fanfiction and "artwork". Claiming otherwise will result in you being struck by lighting and having your pants set on fire, because you'll be clearly a lier.

[Frederik]

I think I´ll just cop out here

[orange]

"have you played it?"

yes and this is precisely my reason for disliking it so much, seriously terri shiavo is active enough to play it competently

also ZUN's music is some of the worst sounds i've ever head (i'm too cautious to classify it as music)

comparing touhou to any decent shmup is on the same level as comparing halo to quakeworld or promode

[Gungriffon Geona]

I think that in the end, trying to say that the characters have some sort of story and development is like saying that people like starship troopers for the engaging plot and well developed characters. nothing is really there. you have something that's created it's own little niche where every pedophilic wet dream can be fulfilled because the guy behind the games made a character for every archetype there is. it's a laugh to say it HAS development, when it hasn't developed anything except a huge market pandering to horny teenagers. you could just as easily attatch the characters to an anime or a strategy game, and they would be eaten up because of the fact they're just there to be some horny guy's wank material. hell, that's what japan basically does now in order to ensure sales. it's like how most every FPS is burly manly men that are bald space marines FIGHTAN ALIEN ENVAYDORS and giving each other grand pats on the back for killing that giant bug. it SELLS.

[Twiddle]

anyone who thinks touhou is well written in any aspect thinks epic movie and meet the spartans are the pinnacle of modern cinema

[orange]

anyone who likes touhou should be autobanned from this forum

[Gungriffon Geona]

anyone who likes touhou should be autobanned from this forum

yes I think this is a good idea. let's send it to the legislature to ban it from the earth.

[Twiddle]

I wouldn't go that far. The people who actually like the games would be victims of circumstance.

I don't like the games just because I don't find them fun, and I do not like the hellacious amounts of fan-wank surrounding it for reasons that will remain obvious. That said, I will not confuse fans of the former with fans of the latter. They like games that consist of 4 minute boss fights and scoring systems that depend entirely on whether the slow key is being held, I like stunt-man scoring systems and rooms with literally thousands of enemies and bullets going so fast you need to either have a sixth sense or good memory. No skin off any back.

[Gungriffon Geona]

they can live on mars or something. the government probably has stuff there now and doesn't tell us. then we can have a mars matrix war of people who like good games versus pedophiles.

[Twiddle]

they can live on mars or something. the government probably has stuff there now and doesn't tell us.

katie^ is that you

[shoe-sama]

DID SOMEONE SAY

PVP?