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

Gespenst · Post by **Gespenst** » Sun May 17, 2009 1:09 am

incognoscente wrote:Private messages sent to charlie chong, Gespenst, jp, louisg, rolins, rtw, Shelcoof, and sven666 regarding vote formatting and/or eligibility.

Sorry, I don't have time to edit it

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Sun May 17, 2009 1:37 am

incognoscente wrote:
jpj wrote:did ketsui get in...?
It did fine. You can stop voting for it now.

Well, looks like KDF accomplished its mission, so now I'm retiring my top hat. It was fun to support this voting campaign

Danbo · Post by **Danbo** » Sun May 17, 2009 3:21 am

The problem with Ketsui is that its kinda hard to be fair and unbiased in your appraisal of the game after you just dumped $1000 on it.

louisg · Post by **louisg** » Sun May 17, 2009 4:23 am

Danbo Daxter wrote:The problem with Ketsui is that its kinda hard to be fair and unbiased in your appraisal of the game after you just dumped $1000 on it.

That's one of the perks of shmupmeets

Danbo · Post by **Danbo** » Sun May 17, 2009 4:42 am

Yeah... shame there'll never be a scottish meet with Ketsui or other similarly lofty games

Chi_Ryu · Post by **Chi_Ryu** » Sun May 17, 2009 8:25 am

Danbo Daxter wrote:The problem with Ketsui is that its kinda hard to be fair and unbiased in your appraisal of the game after you just dumped $1000 on it.

I sold it on (precisely because it is worth so much money and I needed the $$$), so I can be perfectly fair and unbiased. I will re-buy it in the future, for sure.

Danbo Daxter wrote:Yeah... shame there'll never be a scottish meet with Ketsui or other similarly lofty games

Come to Insert Coin (Northampton, England, July 18th-19th)! I know a few Scottish dudes who are making the trip, ad there'll be plenty of shooters there

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Sun May 17, 2009 11:17 am

Ruldra wrote:
incognoscente wrote:
jpj wrote:did ketsui get in...?
It did fine. You can stop voting for it now.
Well, looks like KDF accomplished its mission, so now I'm retiring my top hat. It was fun to support this voting campaign

i've been kinda looking forward to changing to putting down the top hat also. it may make a return next year though..

thanks for joining in the fun ruldra

is ketsui actually gonna be at IC09...? is there a list of what games are confirmed?

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun May 17, 2009 11:57 am

Danbo Daxter wrote:Yeah... shame there'll never be a scottish meet with Ketsui or other similarly lofty games

Just wait until it inevitably falls in price to $1 and can be found even lying in gutters.

Maybe I should move to Scotland. I don't dislike the weather terribly much (except for snow, that's no good).

jpj wrote:edit:
Ed Oscuro wrote:If a chance should ever present itself to plant a banana peel at the top of a flight of stairs when jpj was walking by, I wouldn't complain if it were to be taken advantage of, however.

Perfect! Wait, in that costume you'll see me coming. Wait, I didn't say me. I mean somebody else, with the banana peel. Yes.

*twirls moustache*

Wait. Does this mean jpj is actually Penelope Pitstop?

Chi_Ryu · Post by **Chi_Ryu** » Sun May 17, 2009 12:51 pm

jpj wrote:is ketsui actually gonna be at IC09...? is there a list of what games are confirmed?

Dunno about confirmed, but I'll personally be providing DeathSmiles MBL, DeathSmiles, Muchi Muchi Pork, Progear no Arashi, Armed Police Batrider, Ibara, Zero Gunner 2, Ikaruga, Esp.Ra.De, Raiden Fighters and Flying Shark (and my Egret II)

You should come fo' sho, dude.

I'd be *very* surprised if there is no Ketsui, tbh.

I'd be up for donning the KDF raiments again next year... unless there is a worthier cause to fight for (after all, many more people will have played Ketsui by then thanks to the port).

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Sun May 17, 2009 1:53 pm

yeah, i keep getting nagged to go

but i'm not buying any cabs or whatnot. you're bringing a hell of a lot of stuff

and yeah, maybe a muchi pork campaign next year..?

Ed Oscuro wrote:Does this mean jpj is actually Penelope Pitstop?

no, she's under the patio

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun May 17, 2009 2:00 pm

jpj wrote:
Ed Oscuro wrote:Does this mean jpj is actually Penelope Pitstop?
no, she's under the patio

Who's trying to receive whose inheritance now?!

Chi_Ryu · Post by **Chi_Ryu** » Sun May 17, 2009 2:10 pm

jpj wrote:yeah, i keep getting nagged to go but i'm not buying any cabs or whatnot. you're bringing a hell of a lot of stuff

I'm not buying any cabs or whatnot either (though may try and sell some PCBs there). I'm there to drink beer (and play some games, maybe) and hang wit' my bros

Plus more people need to play DeathSmiles MBL, tbh.

jpj wrote:and yeah, maybe a muchi pork campaign next year..?

Hell, yeah!

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Sun May 17, 2009 2:39 pm

you know that i'd just spend two days sat on your ibara?

IC09 should be good, but it's not the easiest place to get to for me (which would have to be by rail

), and i'm trying to be very conservative with my £££ at the moment. if it's happening in 2010, i'll tell alan to host it in birmingham

from cows to pigs..? makes sense to me

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:30 pm

CAVE/IKEDA/ICHIMURA FANS:
I need your help.

As you may know, some releases are merged and others are split for the purposes of the Top 25. Batsugun and Batsugun Special are merged, for example. Same with Dodonpachi Daioujou (white label) and Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label. By contrast, Ibara and Ibara Black Label as well as Ketsui and Ketsui Death Label are split. There are no precise rules for guiding the decisions; it's ultimately a judgment call.

"So what?!" you may ask. Well, I haven't really been keeping up with Cave releases since around the time of the first Mushihime-sama, so I want your opinions regarding the prospect of merging the multiple versions of the recent(ish) Cave releases:

Mushihime-sama Futari
Mushihime-sama Futari 1.5
Mushihime-sama Futari... Black Label?

Death Smiles
Death Smiles Mega Black
Death Smiles... 1.5?

Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5

Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X (Xbox 360) -- is there anything here to make it clearly different from arcade Black Label?

When reading EOJ's description of the differences between Futari versions 1.0 and 1.5, I didn't get the impression that the games are much different. An adjusted scoring system is different than a new scoring system. Adjusted difficulty of stages pales in comparison to new stages. If the changes are small adjustments, I'm inclined to count them as the same game. I'm not fully confident in my assessment, however, and it's delaying my tabulation of the results.

Explain the differences between the various releases and discuss with each other which games should and shouldn't be merged. Let's get it done!

Post by **nZero** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:36 pm

incognoscente wrote:Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X (Xbox 360) -- is there anything here to make it clearly different from arcade Black Label?

Released this year. Eligible? Does contain DOJ Black Label, White Label, as well as the brand-new 360-exclusive arranged X-Mode. Also, considering the sheer amount of bitching in the main thread, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to complain that the bugs make it a completely different game or something.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:58 pm

tricky...

first off there isn't a deathsmiles 1.5

for futari 1.5 and DFK 1.5 these were free upgrades due to some oversights/balancing issues, so i would consider them the same game essentially as 1.5 supercedes the original product.

doj black and regular doj should be counted as the same as doj black label also has white label present on the pcb

and as nzero has said blex also offers white label and black label, so i would include that with the doj / doj black label vote

futari black label and deathsmiles black label offer new gameplay modes (god mode and level 999 respectively), and as such are "remixes" and were not free pcb upgrades, so i think they should be classed differently. although they are not as wildly different from the originals as ibara black label was to the original ibara, so i dunno..

...however, it's slightly more difficult with deathsmiles (and possibly futari in the future) because the black label(s) version is also downloadable content.

are doj death label (the ps2 only "boss rush" mode) and espgaluda's arrange mode counted as separetely? they are very different and esp arrange especially is almost a different game, but it's included in the same product. what's the rules on this, and how will that extend to DLC?

now that we have a comments section available, as well as all the other threads related to the poll, i think for the sake of simplicity they should be amalgamated, and if someone wishes to specify exactly which version/remix/mode they were voting for, could just do it that way ..?

ie:
doj / doj black label / doj blex
deathsmiles
deathsmiles mega black label
daifukkatsu / daifukkatsu 1.5
futari / futari 1.5
futari black label
ibara / ibara arrange
ibara black label

Chi_Ryu · Post by **Chi_Ryu** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:58 pm

incognoscente wrote:Death Smiles
Death Smiles Mega Black
Death Smiles... 1.5?

There is no 1.5 - there is an Xbox-only arrange mode called 1.1, which is bundled along with the Xbox360 release od DeathSmiles.

MegaBlack Label was an arcade release (now available on Xbox360), which added 1 new character, 1 new extra stage, a new difficulty mode and made some revisions to the scoring system (as well as the threshhold for being able to enter power-up mode being lowered from 1000 to 500 items). It's not as major a revision as Ibara Black Label was to Ibara (they play like totally different styles of game), IMO, and I'd suggest that all three of these should be merged together.

Similarly with Mushihimesama Futari and Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 - the revisions don't make it a totally different game, so definitely merge it. I can't comment for Mushihimesama Futari Black Label as I've never played it.

Agreed totally that Ketsui Death Label should not be merged with Ketsui.

If you are already merging Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou with DDP DOJ Black Label, I'd suggest it is sensible to merge in the PS2 port and the Xbox360 port, too.

PROMETHEUS · Post by **PROMETHEUS** » Sun May 17, 2009 6:02 pm

incognoscente wrote:CAVE/IKEDA/ICHIMURA FANS:
I need your help.

I think you should merge all of these because if you do not, you are splitting their votes between each of their versions, therefore drastically decreasing the amount of votes they are given, making the final list even less representative of which games are the best / most liked on the forums. That's because most people will tend to vote only for their favorite version of the game and not for the others at all.

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Sun May 17, 2009 6:19 pm

Ketsui arcade and Death Label should definitely be counted separately in any case.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon May 18, 2009 5:14 am

My name is Limbrooke my vote is asking to be disqualified because I am butthurt about the trolls on the forum and the only way I can lash out is to vote 29 on a game I've never played and they all hate

charlie chong · Post by **charlie chong** » Mon May 18, 2009 7:52 am

Danbo Daxter wrote:Yeah... shame there'll never be a scottish meet with Ketsui or other similarly lofty games

umm there has already been about 5 scottish meetups where ketsui has been played

i also disagree that it is impossible to be non biased when you've spent money on a pcb. the fact that i can't decide whether to sell ketsui even tho i got the 1-all says it all. usually i would sell that shit straight away to pay for a different board but something tells me i want to play it more. i'm lucky tho cos i know another local player so we can swap pricy boards and get some different games to play once in a while. i don't own muchi pork i've just lent it yet it still makes my top 10.

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Mon May 18, 2009 1:26 pm

Twiddle wrote:My name is Limbrooke and my vote is asking to be disqualified

This issue was resolved within hours of the closing of the poll, but I forgot to make a note on his ballot post. Similar corrections were made to three other ballots.

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Tue May 19, 2009 5:26 pm

-Bridget-, Icarus, jp, Koma, Sonic R, and Zigfried the Trizealot : Please check your private messages.

nZero wrote:[Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X was] released this year. Eligible?

Good catch! My mistake.

Chi_Ryu wrote:If you are already merging Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou with DDP DOJ Black Label, I'd suggest it is sensible to merge in the PS2 port and the Xbox360 port, too.

Daioujou's PS2 release has always been merged with the Arcade release. I simply forgot to mention it.

Duly noted about the Xbox 360 port. I will merge it next year if I'm the one tabulating the scores again.

Thanks for the replies!

To aid my understanding of Futari 1.5 vs. Black Label, I sought videos of the same stage played in equivalent modes in both versions. With the input I have received, my decisions are as follows:

Merge all known versions of Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu (1.0 and 1.5)
Merge all known versions of DeathSmiles (1.0, MegaBlack Label, 1.1)
Merge all known versions of Mushihimesama Futari (1.0, 1.5, Black Label)
Split Ketsui and Ketsui Death Label
Split Ibara and Ibara Black Label
Split Ibara and Ibara Arrange
retain the decisions made within the past few years to
- Merge all known versions of the first Mushihime-sama (Arcade and PS2, including Arrange Mode)
- Merge all known versions of ESPGaluda (Arcade and PS2, including Arrange Mode)
- Merge all known versions of Dodonpachi Daioujou (White Label, Black Label, PS2, and Xbox360 version when eligible)

Edits to post: Removed unnecessary preposition.
Grayed out names of users who have contacted me.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue May 19, 2009 5:28 pm

good call

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Tue May 19, 2009 5:57 pm

you split ibara and ibara arrange, but not espgaluda and espgaluda arrange?

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Tue May 19, 2009 7:00 pm

Yes. Decisions to merge or split are ultimately judgment calls made on a case-by-case basis.

When playing ESPGaluda Arrange Mode, I never felt that it was a different game than ESPGaluda. It added ESPra.de.'s bubble shot to the Kakusei system. It added more bullets and two different characters. I failed to see much more that separated the two.

I have never played Ibara in any form. My decision regarding the splitting of Ibara Arrange Mode is due to complaints and the explanations of others. It is possible I have been misled. The impression I had was that the factors which separate Ibara and Ibara Arrange Mode are far more numerous and glaring than those of ESPGaluda versus ESPGaluda Arrange Mode.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue May 19, 2009 7:08 pm

i think that's about right

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Tue May 19, 2009 7:37 pm

Those separations and merges all make sense to me. The differences between Ibara and Ibara Arrange, and ESPGaluda and ESPGaluda Arrange are not really similar.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Wed May 20, 2009 6:19 am

imo since Ibara and Ibara Arranged are different enough that the former feels more like Raizing while the latter feels more like Cave, it should be easy enough to call them different games.