PS2 Shmups, need a piece of advice

[KindGrind]

It's quite confusing indeed, so you did well to ask. I started playing original first, and didn't like it. Maniac is a lot more my cup of tea.

I like what a previous poster said, that you can enjoy a random arrange game because it's pretty much stress free. Don't forget that you bomb the screen automatically when hit, which makes you do things you wouldn't normally do (no panic bombing).

I have never played the PCB, so I'm quite content with the port. I can only play it Yoko for the moment, too, which is a great disappointment. (I play on a 32' LCD, so I use roughly 1/3 of the screen...

I understand pretty much everybody and the way they feel about DDP. It's challenging, intense, but so unforgiving that the fun factor is just not there. I think we all enjoy the easy shmups sometimes. Aren't Blast Wind and Hyper Duel still played a lot these days? And these two are pretty easy.

[Ruldra]

I do agree that Mushi Arrange is the perfect way to get started on bullet hell games. You'll really learn to focus on your hitbox and make your way through small gaps. The only problem is, when you get to the real game, you won't bomb when you should and will die with a full stock

And too bad you didn't like DOJ. I was going to suggest you try Death Label mode, but you'll end up hating the game even more

[henry dark]

I understand pretty much everybody and the way they feel about DDP. It's challenging, intense, but so unforgiving that the fun factor is just not there. I think we all enjoy the easy shmups sometimes. Aren't Blast Wind and Hyper Duel still played a lot these days? And these two are pretty easy.

The reason I dislike DOJ has nothing to do with the intrinsic difficulty of the game per se- like I said I was enjoying it before I started playing for score.

It's a shame you can't play Mushi in tate though. I have a silly method of playing in tate that doesn't involve flipping your TV that I won't go into because it's probably not the done thing (although I bet there are a few others around here that do it too!)

[ForceDevice]

I have a silly method of playing in tate that doesn't involve flipping your TV that I won't go into because it's probably not the done thing (although I bet there are a few others around here that do it too!)

What method is it? Now you got me curious

[KindGrind]

Same here. How do you do it?

[Ruldra]

“Ghetto Tate”: Popular term for a “view mode” (of sorts) used by certain players who want to play vertical shmups in tate mode, but do not want to deal with the risk factors of rotating their television sets; as such, they adjust the game to put its display in tate mode, but instead of rotating their TV, they simply lay on their side and play from there, in effect “rotating” themselves instead of their televisions.

[ForceDevice]

“Ghetto Tate”

Uh... I was expecting something else.




...

Well, now that I think about it, there really isn't anything else to expect. ._.

[henry dark]

“Ghetto Tate”: Popular term for a “view mode” (of sorts) used by certain players who want to play vertical shmups in tate mode, but do not want to deal with the risk factors of rotating their television sets; as such, they adjust the game to put its display in tate mode, but instead of rotating their TV, they simply lay on their side and play from there, in effect “rotating” themselves instead of their televisions.

Ha! That's it.

I didn't know it had a name either. In my little apartment I can lie on the bed and be at eye level with the TV. Some people will scoff, but it works...

[evil_ash_xero]

So I snatched Mushi, DOJ and Galuda from Venom, and thought I'd share my first impressions, after a a couple of games with each.

Mushi

When I first played it, I thought the basic shot was very weak, and that Reko moved VERY slowly, especially when shooting. (Knowing about auto-fire would have helped) I left it aside, only to try it a bit more yesterday night, and boy I was blown away. I mostly played arrange, and could go to St4 boss in my 2nd game, netting quite a bit of points (although from what i've seen in the High Scores forum, you guys totally abuse the game... 300M upwards!?) scoring like 50M. The game, especially arrange, feels easy and quite forgiving (tiny collision mask, or is it just me?)

Galuda

Probably my favourite. Again, not very tough, wise scoring, nice enemy/bullet patterns, great bosses. Annoying is the change of controls config. in arcade and arrange. Other than that, I can get to end of ST3/ST4 on the first continue, take another one for ST4, and 25 for the boss on ST5. WTF? Fun times to be had. With practice, I think this one will become a great contender for a 1CC (up to the last boss anyways).

DDP

By far the hardest of the 3, and the less forgiving. Scoring system is super tight, the use of bombs is VERY penalizing. Chainging in this one (for me) is a lot tougher than in DDP (SS). On survival mode I can get pretty far, trying to chain here and there, but the amount of points I get is ridiculously low. Tons of memorization needed. The one I played less.

Yeah, I just found this thread, and if I was had seen it earlier, I would have said "DON'T GET DDP DOJ FIRST!". I like it OK, but it is genuinely too hard to have a good time with. You can have fun with it, but basically in a "I can't believe I didn't die there!" every 30 seconds kinda way.

ESP is definitely my favorite of those three. It's fun, and it's still got some challenge to it. Not too shabby looking to boot.

You should try Ibara. It's totally different than those three, and it's a lot of fun too. On normal level it's a bitch, but if you can always turn down the bullet speed and difficulty(I do).

On a related note, you should take a look at the "de-interlacing Mushi and Ibara thread". I just did it with Mushi, and it took a lot of the blur out. I recommend it.

s/m