7th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time! - Discussion thread

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:30 pm

I don't care if the votes are put together or not, but I think they did try to make a different game, considering the allegedly negative response to the arcade original and drastically rebalanced SNES version.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:58 pm

jpj wrote:can votes for Ketsui, as well as Ketsui Death Label, be counted as the same entry, in the same way that Ibara and Ibara Black Label were last year (despite them being very different titles)?

--Team KDF

Except that they're different games. Death Label doesn't have proper stages, and it has a different scoring system.

Also can votes for Gradius 3 arcade and Gradius III snes, be put together. After all, Konami tried to make a faithful port, not a different game (and on a 16bit system, which is not THAT far from the arcade hardware).

And they failed, because Gradius III on SNES is a different game, it has different stage layouts even if the overall stages are still the same idea/theme.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:03 pm

kengou wrote:
jpj wrote:can votes for Ketsui, as well as Ketsui Death Label, be counted as the same entry, in the same way that Ibara and Ibara Black Label were last year (despite them being very different titles)?

--Team KDF
Except that they're different games. Death Label doesn't have proper stages, and it has a different scoring system.

exactly

lgb · Post by **lgb** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 7:24 pm

Parodius / Parodius-Da!

Is this referring to the NES Parodius?

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:01 pm

lgb wrote:
Parodius / Parodius-Da!
Is this referring to the NES Parodius?

It's the first arcade / first SNES Parodius.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 10:05 am

jpj wrote:can votes for Ketsui, as well as Ketsui Death Label, be counted as the same entry, in the same way that Ibara and Ibara Black Label were last year (despite them being very different titles)?

--Team KDF

IIRC, the matter of grouping them together hasn't really been solved. There has been quite a bit of discussion, but no clear solution was reached. Last year, that didn't matter, however, because no one voted for Ibara Black Label.

I propose to decide on a case-by-case basis whether ports or black/green/red/blue labels or arrange modes are counted as seperate games or as simple variations or game modes (a la Mushi).
As a rule of thumb, I'd say that if the stage layouts and enemy placements are largely the same, then it's the same game. In some rare cases, that might be debatable, though, so I'd leave it up to incog to decide.

However, grouping Ketsui and Ketsui Death Label together would be pure madness. They are very different.

Btw, can you please make the KDF sig picture smaller, so it doesn't break the forum rules? I'm sure you can squeeze the holy cow into the required size of 200x50 pixels.

Post by **spadgy** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:01 pm

Wow - I missed out on this thread until today - it's been a year already? Time flies! Well, with another year under my belt, time to get voting, and catch up with our ongoing 'discussion' about how the system should work!

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:43 pm

emphatic wrote:Would ya'll consider Rush & Crash / The Speed Rumbler a shmup?

I couldn't say. However, you may vote for Rush & Crash this year if you'd like.

nimitz wrote:also, what about Devil World

Sorry, Konami's Devil World/Dark Adventure is not eligible for votes this year.

Ed Oscuro wrote:Bloodreign was wondering about Namco's Battle City (Tank Force is another game in that series).

Battle City and Tank Force are both eligible for votes this year.

Turrican wrote:I'm interested in Thexder because I stumbled in a half-similar game years ago. Thexder comes with unlimited jetpack propulsion, and the complex stages have separate goals just like Bangai-O. I suppose it's eligible then.

I do not see a conflict with the current rules to exclude it from this year's voting. You may vote for Thexder if you wish.

Turrican wrote:Edit: oh, I forgot to mention that a good chunk of Bangai-O stages are definitely on the puzzler side of things - in some you push crates to open an exit and no firing is required.

Ah. I may have been too hasty in my judgment of Bangai-O then. I couldn't stand the game for long enough to see the puzzles and such. I will give its current inclusion more thought.

God · Post by **God** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:23 pm

incognoscente wrote:I apologize if my wording made you feel that you had to like manics to vote. :) Are you reasonably familiar with them? Can you recognize (and explain, if necessary) the differences between Battle Garegga, Dodonpachi, and Giga Wing? More importantly, have you played and achieved familiarity with most of the other (non-manic) games on the Top 25 and Honorable Mention lists? If your specialty is older shooters, I don't mind you voting if you know your stuff.

I've cred-fed two or three times through Dodonpachi and Giga Wing each. Battle Garegga... it's likely that I've played the first few levels then forgot about it.

Lets see...I've played through the Treasure shooters, the majority of Irem shooters and about half of the Gradius/Salamander series. I've only briefly tried the rest of the Gradius series, the whole Darius series, most of the Thunderforce series, every mamed Cave game and the Kenta Cho games.

If familiar means "played most of the way through more than once" then my total percentage is 13%. If it means "briefly tried" then my percentage is 52%.

(With manics filtered out it works out to 20% and 61%)

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 8:08 am

incognoscente wrote: (...)
nimitz wrote:also, what about Devil World
Sorry, Konami's Devil World/Dark Adventure is not eligible for votes this year.

(...)

Could you tell us which existing group you would put this into (Action-adventure)? And the rule (filter) used?

I'm following your experiment as an outside observer. I know you're testing your method for inconsistencies, but I'm also observing your method as a control to my method...

msm · Post by **msm** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:51 pm

just noticed the change in rules, in past years i've been no where near the requirements, and although i still don't meet them, i'm much closer now. odly i think most of the ones i haven't played are available in mame

29/43 ~ 67%

16/39 ~ 41%

also bangai-o on the ds has some sokoban style stages, which i don't think the dc version has? so the dc version would be more eligable imo.

Chi_Ryu · Post by **Chi_Ryu** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:10 pm

msm wrote:just noticed the change in rules, in past years i've been no where near the requirements, and although i still don't meet them, i'm much closer now. odly i think most of the ones i haven't played are available in mame

29/43 ~ 67%

16/39 ~ 41%

voting thread rules wrote:but as a general guideline: voters should be familiar with 50% or more of the games on previous years' Top 25 lists and Honorable Mention lists combined.

It would appear you are eligible this year!

msm · Post by **msm** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:33 pm

^ ah thanks, i thought it was 80% and 70% or something

Chi_Ryu · Post by **Chi_Ryu** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 2:07 pm

msm wrote:^ ah thanks, i thought it was 80% and 70% or something

It was initially (80% of main list, 70% of honourable mentions), but it was changed quite early on. I think this new requirement is reasonable - it weeds out those who haven't played enough shooters, whilst not forcing you to need to have played almost all of them (=not possible unless you have unlimited finances, since some are expensive PCBs).

neist · Post by **neist** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:48 pm

Enhasa wrote:
neist wrote:And Granada is a great game. Second favorite Genesis game.
What's your favorite?

Slightly late response, but Sub-Terrania.

Excellent thrust-styled clone.

And, since I'm already posting in this thread, thoughts on thrust-styled games? If rule #9 were to be assumed in it's inclusion, I'd say yes, but I want to hear the opinions of others.

Now that I'm actually eligible to vote, I actually have to quantify my choices. It's so much easier not voting.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:08 pm

Why aren't some people able to use the brackets properly STILL? People aren't doing this by hand, it's being fed into a program. Take some extra time and do it right.

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:48 pm

That's true, but then again, it's trivially easy to parse without the brackets or even to add the brackets automatically. Same with superfluous lines or missing spaces between the brackets.

The one big thing that requires a good deal of human effort (unless they have a dictionary of shmups, which would be funny but I doubt it) is combining votes for the same game. If I was running something like this, I would cut down on this problem a lot by asking people to always copy the name found on wikipedia (or gamefaqs fallback), like ESP Ra.De.

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:14 pm

God, please check your private messages.

jpj wrote:can votes for Ketsui, as well as Ketsui Death Label, be counted as the same entry, in the same way that Ibara and Ibara Black Label were last year (despite them being very different titles)?

Ketsui and Ketsui Death Label will be counted separately. Further, I will not be counting Ibara and Ibara Black Label as the same game this year.

(By the efforts of your campaign, Ketsui is bound to do well enough by itself. You don't need to look for extra advantages to cement its position.)

j^aws wrote:Could you tell us which existing group you would put [Devil World/Dark Adventure] into (Action-adventure)? And the rule (filter) used?

My apologies. The necessity of finding a key to unlock the gate to progress leads me to consider Devil World an action-adventure game.

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:33 pm

incognoscente wrote: (...)

j^aws wrote:Could you tell us which existing group you would put [Devil World/Dark Adventure] into (Action-adventure)? And the rule (filter) used?
My apologies. The necessity of finding a key to unlock the gate to progress leads me to consider Devil World an action-adventure game.

No apologies necessary; I'm not personally asking for its inclusion.

However, you still failed to answer my questions. I'm basically asking you to define the group "Action-adventure". I'd like this answered please, because this is an experiment I'm also conducting, a controlled experiment. And your answers are conflicting with mine (with my method). And I need your answers to explain this conflict...

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:56 pm

okay, thanks for the clarification

i didn't realise ibara black label received zero votes last year, but they should indeed be separated. just a cheeky request on my part

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:19 pm

@incognoscente:

Here's a simple conflict: "The necessity of finding a key to unlock the gate to progress", as you put it, currently defines the group "Action-adventure".

"The necessity of finding 4 humanoids to unlock the Stargate to progess" is sufficiently close for me to show that your current definition will make Stargate (the game in the OP that got 666999!), ineligible. There is a *flaw* somewhere...

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:25 pm

j^aws wrote:@incognoscente:

Here's a simple conflict: "The necessity of finding a key to unlock the gate to progress", as you put it, currently defines the group "Action-adventure".

"The necessity of finding 4 humanoids to unlock the Stargate to progess" is sufficiently close for me to show that your current definition will make Stargate (the game in the OP that got 666999!), ineligible. There is a *flaw* somewhere...

The flaw is in your wording.

You don't NEED four humanoids to progress in Stargate. You do this normally by blowing up all the enemies in a given wave. The Stargate is simply a "skip levels" device that gives you bonus points for doing it (up to level ten I think by default).

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:29 pm

The Coop wrote:
j^aws wrote:@incognoscente:

Here's a simple conflict: "The necessity of finding a key to unlock the gate to progress", as you put it, currently defines the group "Action-adventure".

"The necessity of finding 4 humanoids to unlock the Stargate to progess" is sufficiently close for me to show that your current definition will make Stargate (the game in the OP that got 666999!), ineligible. There is a *flaw* somewhere...
The flaw is in your wording.

You don't NEED four humanoids to progress in Stargate. You do this normally by blowing up all the enemies in a given wave. The Stargate is simply a "skip levels" device that gives you bonus points for doing it (up to level ten I think by default).

The *concept* of a key is close enough...

This is why I'm asking for a more definitive wording to describe the group "Action-adventure"...

I'm running my experiment alongside this one, and there is no such conflict...

EDIT:

@The Coop: You NEED 4 humanoids to skip multiple levels (through the stargate) for a bigger bonus...

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:55 pm

j^aws wrote:
The Coop wrote:
j^aws wrote:@incognoscente:

Here's a simple conflict: "The necessity of finding a key to unlock the gate to progress", as you put it, currently defines the group "Action-adventure".

"The necessity of finding 4 humanoids to unlock the Stargate to progess" is sufficiently close for me to show that your current definition will make Stargate (the game in the OP that got 666999!), ineligible. There is a *flaw* somewhere...
The flaw is in your wording.

You don't NEED four humanoids to progress in Stargate. You do this normally by blowing up all the enemies in a given wave. The Stargate is simply a "skip levels" device that gives you bonus points for doing it (up to level ten I think by default).
The *concept* of a key is close enough...

This is why I'm asking for a more definitive wording to describe the group "Action-adventure"...

I'm running my experiment alongside this one, and there is no such conflict...

EDIT:

@The Coop: You NEED 4 humanoids to skip multiple levels (through the stargate) for a bigger bonus...

And again, you don't NEED four humanoids to progress in the game. Read how you have it worded in your post I first quoted, and you'll find the flaw. In Gauntlet and its kin, you have to have a key to unlock doors to move on to the next level. That's not the case with Stargate, as you can play through the game without ever getting the gate bonus.

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:02 pm

The Coop wrote:
j^aws wrote:
The Coop wrote: The flaw is in your wording.

You don't NEED four humanoids to progress in Stargate. You do this normally by blowing up all the enemies in a given wave. The Stargate is simply a "skip levels" device that gives you bonus points for doing it (up to level ten I think by default).
The *concept* of a key is close enough...

This is why I'm asking for a more definitive wording to describe the group "Action-adventure"...

I'm running my experiment alongside this one, and there is no such conflict...

EDIT:

@The Coop: You NEED 4 humanoids to skip multiple levels (through the stargate) for a bigger bonus...
And again, you don't NEED four humanoids to progress in the game. Read how you have it worded in your post I first quoted, and you'll find the flaw. In Gauntlet and its kin, you have to have a key to unlock doors to move on to the next level. That's not the case with Stargate, as you can play through the game without ever getting the gate bonus.

I hear you still but that's is not the point I'm making. It's technical point based in mathematics: incognoscente created a Set that is currently inconsistent...

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:07 pm

j^aws wrote:
The Coop wrote:
j^aws wrote: The *concept* of a key is close enough...

This is why I'm asking for a more definitive wording to describe the group "Action-adventure"...

I'm running my experiment alongside this one, and there is no such conflict...

EDIT:

@The Coop: You NEED 4 humanoids to skip multiple levels (through the stargate) for a bigger bonus...
And again, you don't NEED four humanoids to progress in the game. Read how you have it worded in your post I first quoted, and you'll find the flaw. In Gauntlet and its kin, you have to have a key to unlock doors to move on to the next level. That's not the case with Stargate, as you can play through the game without ever getting the gate bonus.
I hear you still but that's is not the point I'm making. It's technical point based in mathematics: incognoscente created a Set that is currently inconsistent...

Please define this inconsistency. Right now, it sounds like your trying to compare apples and oranges, seeing as one it a required gameplay mechanic that can't be bypassed, and the other is completely optional for extra points and level skipping.

By the way, is this site running rather slow for anyone else?

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:18 pm

The Coop wrote:
(...)

Define this inconsistency. Right now, it sounds like your trying to compare apples and oranges, seeing as one it a required gameplay mechanic that can't be bypassed, and the other is completely optional for extra points and level skipping.

Alright, I'll define this, without getting too technical:

The forum is running an experiment and for arguments sake, they have this Black Box. Think of this as a device that answers simple questions: "Is this game eligible?"... and returns an answer Yes/ No/ Don't know...

I have a similar Black Box, that I'm using, as a scientific control; but it returns different answers for the same questions...

A technical discussion is required to explain these conflicting answers... Does this help?

RGC · Post by **RGC** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:22 pm

I don't get it. What's in this box?

Should I post my ESPGaluda Arrange request again, or has it already been rejected?

The Coop wrote:By the way, is this site running rather slow for anyone else?

Yup.

j^aws · Post by **j^aws** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:44 pm

RGC wrote:I don't get it. What's in this box?

(...)

You don't really need to know for now; but it helps to explain results that don't match/ inconsistencies etc... Hence, why I asked the earlier questions... Just think of the contents as some simple algorithm...

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:03 pm

RGC wrote:Should I post my ESPGaluda Arrange request again, or has it already been rejected?

Just vote ESPGaluda (PS2) if it matters, but even then splitting games from their separate/bonus modes seems like something pointless to do. Super Aleste Short Game Lunatic