Ikaruga - Annoyed with Unlimited Continues

[Rob]

It hurts when I stab myself in the eye with my pencil. How can I prevent this, guys?

Handcuffs + post.

edit: Or hide the pencils.

[dczx]

I don't mind posts that tell me a solution. I didn't mind players who tell me not to continue, or even in a funny way with a Star Wars reference.

What I mind is self-righteous posters who put you down for asking a question. It's great one liner posts by people who've never contributed to the forum, such as, "LAME", etc. Or, you're an idiot, just do this, I want to poke myself in the eye, look how witty I am... ad nauseum

I guess being part of a community is putting up with people who contribute nothing but love to jump in and put down someone who asks a question.

I asked if Ikaruga has a feature to turn off unlimited continues. If this is a bad question, I guess I'm in the wrong forum.

Keep up the elite shmupping! I'm sorry I'm not at your level yet! I'll be sure to throw my memory card in the trash. Geez, these "stupid" questions.

You're all hurt and everything, but participating in a community involves as much as you contributing as it does getting something back.

Did you look at your question? It *is* pretty bad, and if you think about it I'm sure you'll realize that. If the answer to a question is as simple as "stop doing that" then, well, you'll get this. And deserve it

Bill

[dczx]

cfalcon -

Thanks for your initial response. It was informative and insightful, as this post.

In fairness...

What other genre comes with a note that says "Oh, also, if you'd like to just win and never die, hold R."?

Actually, even that's not a fair comparision to the unlimited continues. In an RPG, you probably see the Game Over screen once per ten hours of gameplay, and continuing from your last save is expected.

Modern genres don't expect you to make your own rules up, they expect you to play by theirs. The game can't let you *not* continue, or just give you one credit, or whatever. So, it gives you a limited number of credits and increases them slowly. That seems ok.


Personally, I don't even understand how someone would put in just one credit if they were in the mood to play the game. The only exception I can come up with is if the person in question is really, really good (at the genre or at the game). Assume you are average at video games, and you pick up Ikaruga for the first time. You are going to be out of lives on level 2 (your first continue). The boss of level 2 will own you for even longer. Then, as you progress in the game, two things work against you: first, to get back to where you were takes time (and you could screw it up). Second, the later stages are harder than the earlier stages. So while retrying levels 1 and 2 takes an average of seconds, retrying Mr. Weapons Disabled takes fifteen or twenty minutes plus a good run.

The designerns know this well. So, they have mechanisms built in for you to practice with. The practice option, that's the most obvious. Infinite credits is another.


When I play a game, I'll usually play all the way through, pushing in credits as needed. If I like the experience at all, I'll repeat the process, trying to trim down the number of credits. This has the following advantages:
(1)- It's actually fun.
(2)- I get even practice over all points in the game.

By "fun", I mean that the experience is novel and does not feel like work. The second thing means that I don't get really good at the early parts while being utterly unpracticed at the latter. I mean, if you only have eighty hours to spend at a video game, you are going to try to spend as much of that time at the *hard* parts, not the *easy* parts.

Usually, I'll get it down to a reasonably small number of credits before I'm bored with the game (I'll usually stop playing it for a few months or years or whatever). Sometimes, I'll stick with it and go for the 1cc.




But anyway dczx, the point I'm trying to make is that the game expects *you* to be part of it. If you want to blast through with a friend, now it lets you! A cool feature. If you want to go hardcore and not even lose your first credit (or hell, not even lose your first LIFE), you have to make that rule for yourself. What's a fair number of credits? Well, I offered a suggestion. I didn't think I was being snobbish or anything, but you can really pick whatever you want. Because of the nature of the genre, you are in a lot more control over what happens than in normal games.

I mean, how do you handle games in MAME? Arcade shooters, like poker, are games where that credit is expected to cost you something- real money, cred, a note to yourself that you should do better, something. If it costs you *nothing*, then you are missing out on part of the experience- which might be ok with you. Since you're complaining about it, it obviously isn't, so I think what we're trying to do is to get you to put a price on you pressing start more than some number of times.

Without the threat of failure, it's not really a game, it's a procedure.

[WarpZone]

dczx:

Just in case you didn't know, the right-most digit of your score keeps track of how many times you've continued (ie: a "0" means you didn't continue). Although this isn't a solution to unlimited credits, it may help you keep tabs on how many times you've continued.

[mannerbot]

How can you expect serious replies with a topic this silly? Lighten up.

[EOJ]

What I mind is self-righteous posters who put you down for asking a question. It's great one liner posts by people who've never contributed to the forum, such as, "LAME", etc. Or, you're an idiot, just do this, I want to poke myself in the eye, look how witty I am... ad nauseum

Your question is incredibly dumb, has been asked many times before,
and the solution is so simple it does little but provoke sarcastic replies from those smart enough to know it (which is essentially everyone but you).

FYI, as in many shmups, there really isn't much point in playing ikaruga if not for either a 1CC or for score. If you use a bunch of credits everytime you play you can't do either. So just don't play it. Regulate yourself to playing shooters with set amounts of continues, rejoice in your credit-feeding shmup experiences devoid of any real sense of accomplishment, and stop cluttering these forums with your inane rambles.

[Samudra]

I've mostly lurked on these forums since a Long time with intervals and everytime I come back there is a new forum and a new account necessary.

Reading this topic I felt the need to join in once more.

I'd like to ask the questioner the following:
Would you complain to the manager of an all-you-can-eat restaurant that there is simply too much food available? That eating all that food would make you sick and would take the joy out of eating?

[Turrican]

My friend and I had been playing Ikaruga Dreamcast on and off for some time. We were able to get to level 4 okay. I had almost beat the level 4 boss myself, when all of the sudden, we get unlimited continues.

We went on to beat the whole game in 20 mins.

Consider yourself lucky. The game bored me way before I could unlock the unlimited continues...

[Nate]

mannerbot wrote:

It hurts when I stab myself in the eye with my pencil. How can I prevent this, guys?

That's easy. Just don't....

Ohhhh...Heyyyyyy!!!!

[FRO]

What I mind is self-righteous posters who put you down for asking a question. It's great one liner posts by people who've never contributed to the forum, such as, "LAME", etc. Or, you're an idiot, just do this, I want to poke myself in the eye, look how witty I am... ad nauseum

Your question is incredibly dumb, has been asked many times before,
and the solution is so simple it does little but provoke sarcastic replies from those smart enough to know it (which is essentially everyone but you).

FYI, as in many shmups, there really isn't much point in playing ikaruga if not for either a 1CC or for score. If you use a bunch of credits everytime you play you can't do either. So just don't play it. Regulate yourself to playing shooters with set amounts of continues, rejoice in your credit-feeding shmup experiences devoid of any real sense of accomplishment, and stop cluttering these forums with your inane rambles.

Pardon me, but I think `tis you who may have missed the point. Let me extrapolate...

The primary reason to play any game (including shmups) is FUN. If your idea of fun is to go for the 1CC, that's awesome. If it's not and you simply play to enjoy the experience of playing it, awesome. If you like playing for a high score, awesome. If you like to credit-feed to play through the game to see all the levels, awesome. You can play these games any way you feel. By making a blanket statement saying that the majority of shmups can't truly be enjoyed unless you're going for a 1CC, you're cutting out a good portion of people in this forum (like myself and cfalcon) who use credits as a mechanism to check out the game or play through it simply for the fun factor (or sometimes because we're so pissed at dying 30 times we feel compelled to continue to torture ourselves ).

Remember, these are GAMES we're talking about. Not life-changing philosophical or religious topics...GAMES. It's a hobby or a pasttime. An engaging one to be sure, but nothing more.

[TVG]

Remember, these are GAMES we're talking about. Not life-changing philosophical or religious topics...GAMES. It's a hobby or a pasttime. An engaging one to be sure, but nothing more.

liar.

[the2bears]

I guess being part of a community is putting up with people who contribute nothing but love to jump in and put down someone who asks a question.

I asked if Ikaruga has a feature to turn off unlimited continues. If this is a bad question, I guess I'm in the wrong forum.

Seriously dczx, my reply was pretty nice, not very sarcastic and actually contained some advice. Sounds like a solid answer. So here's some more, laugh this off, lighten up, admit it was a silly question and become part of the community. It's not a bad group and we love shmups.

Bill

[raiden]

The primary reason to play any game (including shmups) is FUN. If your idea of fun is to go for the 1CC, that's awesome. If it's not and you simply play to enjoy the experience of playing it, awesome. If you like playing for a high score, awesome. If you like to credit-feed to play through the game to see all the levels, awesome. You can play these games any way you feel.

so where´s the problem?

[gs68]

It's funny, once I unlock free play in a shmup with limited continues, I never continue in that game again.

[EOJ]

What I mind is self-righteous posters who put you down for asking a question. It's great one liner posts by people who've never contributed to the forum, such as, "LAME", etc. Or, you're an idiot, just do this, I want to poke myself in the eye, look how witty I am... ad nauseum

Your question is incredibly dumb, has been asked many times before,
and the solution is so simple it does little but provoke sarcastic replies from those smart enough to know it (which is essentially everyone but you).

FYI, as in many shmups, there really isn't much point in playing ikaruga if not for either a 1CC or for score. If you use a bunch of credits everytime you play you can't do either. So just don't play it. Regulate yourself to playing shooters with set amounts of continues, rejoice in your credit-feeding shmup experiences devoid of any real sense of accomplishment, and stop cluttering these forums with your inane rambles.

Pardon me, but I think `tis you who may have missed the point. Let me extrapolate...

By making a blanket statement saying that the majority of shmups can't truly be enjoyed unless you're going for a 1CC, you're cutting out a good portion of people in this forum (like myself and cfalcon) who use credits as a mechanism to check out the game or play through it simply for the fun factor (or sometimes because we're so pissed at dying 30 times we feel compelled to continue to torture ourselves ).

You need to read my posts more carefully, I said "for a 1CC or for score" not just for a 1CC. Credit-feeding to see later levels is something most people do, but they don't do that every time they play the game (I do that once or twice when I first get the game just to get a feel for the later levels). They play for a 1CC or for score (or both). I play mainly to beat my score and compete against others, in the process (and after enough play time) I can usually get the 1CC. But sometimes I don't, and I'm content just playing to beat my score in those instances.

What 'fun factor' is in a shmup if you're not playing for score or a 1CC, or even a 'challenge' (like playing through ikaruga as only one color and trying to get the best score, or trying to get the LOWEST possible score in a shmup)?
Just blasting crap to pieces and dying every two seconds whilst feeding in credits is your idea of FUN? Well, I guess that could be fun to people with not much going on in their heads, but not for me and I doubt it's fun for most people on these boards.