hardcoregaming 101 & Racketboy appreciation thread

[crithit5000]

Those who call themselves "hardcore" these days are people who play GTA IV or Gears of War... just lol.

HG101 is more like a mini-weeaboo central with a few handful of other posters/writers who actually have a decent grasp on some seriously obscure games. Other than that, I pretty much agree with your post.

[Ganelon]

Those who call themselves "hardcore" these days are people who play GTA IV or Gears of War... just lol.
Dunno, look at KET or TGA-RET - THOSE are people i would call hardcore gamers.
Not those who watch hours of boring cutscenes.

Note that this also precludes most users here as well since few have spent even 100 hours (1% of the 10,000 hours needed for mastery) on any shooter. But I actually agree with this sentiment. There's a lack of hardcore genre fans as well as a lack of hardcore fans for non-Cave games.

Then again, hardcore isn't really something everyone really wants to (or should) strive towards. Even though I've 1CC'ed the game before, I sure don't have any interest being a hardcore DDP player and learning the top scoring techniques for every single situation in the game.

[FRO]

Who cares what they call themselves? Whether or not they're truly "hardcore" is immaterial. What matters is that it's an informative site that has lots of good information on games & game series, and even offers comparisons between several versions of some games (which ports are more accurate, etc). I like HG101 and will continue to visit it on occasion to read their write-ups. I like Racketboy's site as well, good resource.

[Elixir]

I'm a hardcore shmups poster.

I like how it's just limited to racketboy and hg101, like there's no other sites out there to appreciate. Quick, someone make a 4chan and neogaf appreciation thread so we can do the complete opposite, and declare how inferior they are.

[AraraSPAMWitch]

The site can be a lot of fun to browse just for the sheer number of games featured and the tons of screens, but at times I think the commentary is pretty sketchy. Case in point: the glowing Big Bang Beat article. Does anyone actually play this damn game? They throw out shit like "Hokuto no Ken was only barely popular enough to warrant a PS2 port" and "But it brings a number of elements to the table that elevate it beyond even Melty Blood's ambitions, for a much more fully fleshed out fighting experience."

Considering that you can go on nicovideo and watch bangin' HnK tournaments from like two days ago and the fact that Melty is still played competitively by tons of people and has gotten a fantastic upgrade in the past year, the author seems to have a poor grasp on the fighting game scene. Which isn't surprising, considering that the the intro to the King of Fighters only discusses the story, the music, and the fact that there's a lot of fucking characters. Like I couldn't tell that by inserting a quarter and pressing start. Thanks, Kurt!

But yeah, though I feel the commentary is pretty shallow, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't enjoy occasionally browsing the site and feeling twinges of satisfaction that there's a section devoted to Sting RPGs. I totally fanboyed over that witch from Riviera for about a week. So yeah, I guess the site's appeal is less the commentary than the weird junk and esoterica it's collected, it vaguely reminds me of walking around an otaku's basement and just looking at all the Love-hina figures and bootleg Evangelion dvds they've got stashed away.

[handsome_rakshas]

Racketboy has shown me many hidden gems, bless him I love that guy.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hmm, when did this happen?

No great loss really, although I would rather it be around instead of some scum squatting there.

Heard a few partial stories of salacious happenings on the Assembler message boards over the years about sales shenanigans precipitated by the eponymous site owner, no idea if that's still the case. The site was always fun to read though.

[cools]

ROAR died years ago. Daemon_ is still about, though I've not spoken to him in years.

(NeoGeo Pocket Shock was mine, hosted on ROAR)

[Ed Oscuro]

Forgot about all the other ROAR-hosted sites, no diss intended! Thanks for the info.

[cools]

No attempted diss noticed

Mine was abandoned probably 2002, three years before ROAR eventually vanished. Not owning the system any longer kinda put paid to wanting to continue with updates.

Some real crazy collectors there... Madder than any of the Cave fans. Not quite as bonkers as the rich NG collectors... maybe.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think you're right. There's certainly less use for a $10K Kizuna cart than for some of the crazy shit they obsess over.

To be fair, I own far too much of the stuff you'd need to be part of the "in" crowd over at Assembler Forums (and probably use it just as little as the rest of 'em )

[Ganelon]

Assembler disabled my forum account after about 2 months of inactivity (after already making a few posts). After that, I never bothered posting there anymore.

The thing I couldn't stand with Assembler (both site and forum) is that a lot of folks liked to artificially bump up the rarity of their items and the fools who didn't know any better (by trusting others instead of doing their own research) bought right into that.

Let's take that FM Towns page for instance. It used to say the Car Marty was a rarity (despite being a $10 item in Japan). It also said the TC Marty was much rarer than the normal Marty whereas I found mine for $200 no problem. And then there's the fact that it perpetrated the Marty 2 = 486 myth, which was total BS as looking at the actual parts revealed (exactly the same processor as the original Marty).

So if anything, that page, although well-intentioned in part (and boastful in the other), ultimately just wasted my time. I found way more info (and accuracy) on JP sites.

[Dragoforce]

Oh crap. I just read the Twinbee article at hg101, made me laugh. The people who wrote it doesn't have the slightest idea on what shmups is about.

"The game's biggest flaw is its length: it's short. You'll blaze through the stages (even while losing tons of lives) in a flash; it feels shorter than the "Ohh, it was so short!" Salamander 2 that many lamented about"

"Pop'n Twinbee has a great advantage over Detana: being born on console, it isn't designed to suck quarters. Therefore, our ships come equipped for their first time with an useful energy bar that avoids instant death"

Read and enjoy: http://hg101.kontek.net/twinbee/twinbee.htm

[BrianC]

Oh crap. I just read the Twinbee article at hg101, made me laugh. The people who wrote it doesn't have the slightest idea on what shmups is about.

"The game's biggest flaw is its length: it's short. You'll blaze through the stages (even while losing tons of lives) in a flash; it feels shorter than the "Ohh, it was so short!" Salamander 2 that many lamented about"

"Pop'n Twinbee has a great advantage over Detana: being born on console, it isn't designed to suck quarters. Therefore, our ships come equipped for their first time with an useful energy bar that avoids instant death"

Read and enjoy: http://hg101.kontek.net/twinbee/twinbee.htm

Knowing who did the article, I have to disagree, at least in regards to the original writer. One of the writers is a fellow shmups poster, BTW. The article was written before the author had a full play of the games and it seems Kurt rewrote parts of the article, since they don't seem to gel with what I heard the author say about the games when talking with him. The writing style of those comments seems to be more in line with Kurt, as well.

[Zeether]

Oh crap. I just read the Twinbee article at hg101, made me laugh. The people who wrote it doesn't have the slightest idea on what shmups is about.

"The game's biggest flaw is its length: it's short. You'll blaze through the stages (even while losing tons of lives) in a flash; it feels shorter than the "Ohh, it was so short!" Salamander 2 that many lamented about"

"Pop'n Twinbee has a great advantage over Detana: being born on console, it isn't designed to suck quarters. Therefore, our ships come equipped for their first time with an useful energy bar that avoids instant death"

Read and enjoy: http://hg101.kontek.net/twinbee/twinbee.htm

Knowing who did the article, I have to disagree, at least in regards to the original writer. One of the writers is a fellow shmups poster, BTW. The article was written before the author had a full play of the games and it seems Kurt rewrote parts of the article, since they don't seem to gel with what I heard the author say about the games when talking with him. The writing style of those comments seems to be more in line with Kurt, as well.

So Kurt doesn't know much about shmups?

[Ed Oscuro]

Knowing who did the article, I have to disagree, at least in regards to the original writer. One of the writers is a fellow shmups poster, BTW. The article was written before the author had a full play of the games and it seems Kurt rewrote parts of the article, since they don't seem to gel with what I heard the author say about the games when talking with him. The writing style of those comments seems to be more in line with Kurt, as well.

Fascinating. Sounds like editorial disagreement, at least. I never had considered that articles would be altered in that way - that said, AFAIK HG101 articles have better copy editing (i.e. they're grammar checked) than classic Castlevania Dungeon and so on (done before Kurt broke into pro writing).

[Dragoforce]

Knowing who did the article, I have to disagree, at least in regards to the original writer. One of the writers is a fellow shmups poster, BTW. The article was written before the author had a full play of the games and it seems Kurt rewrote parts of the article, since they don't seem to gel with what I heard the author say about the games when talking with him. The writing style of those comments seems to be more in line with Kurt, as well.

Well, then. Whoever edit the article doesn't have the slightest idea what shmups is about. Overall, the article seemed to focus more on the graphics and music than the gameplay itself, which I found a bit disappointing. Not a word on how scoring works in Yahoo! for example.

[BrianC]

So Kurt doesn't know much about shmups?

I wouldn't say that it's that he doesn't know about them. In some posts, he has commented on liking some fairly recent cave games. However, there was a rant made by him (I think it was him) in the HG101 forums about newer scoring systems in shmups and how they were too hardcore. There has been a few times when he complained about games having infinite continues with instant respawn.

[BIL]

I've liked HG101 since 2004, when I needed info on the then-bewildering Ys series. Still referring back to that article, actually. And I've been reading the CV dungeon since at least 1999, so I'm certainly appreciative of Kurt Kalata et al. Proclamations like these make the site sound like IGN at times, though.

Finally, we have "In The Hunt". In my shoot-em-up career I have saved earth from aliens thousands of times, and fought the Japanese over Midway half a dozen. The genre is rarely original, except in cases like Pocky and Rocky, where I've exorcised goofy Japanese spirits with a racoon as my sidekick. In the Hunt is a nice, fresh concept.

No, I wasn't looking for stuff to nitpick... the "Post-Apocalyptic Irem Shooters" article caught my eye while I was reading the excellent Berzerk article this evening.

[Turrican]

Well, then. Whoever edit the article doesn't have the slightest idea what shmups is about. Overall, the article seemed to focus more on the graphics and music than the gameplay itself, which I found a bit disappointing. Not a word on how scoring works in Yahoo! for example.

I wrote that article, and Kurt only helped me with some of the more obscure entries, such as the Twinbee RPG. It saddens me a bit that you disliked it so much. I could say that it definitely has not aged well, saying it would need further proofreading and such - but I won't make any excuses. The article doesn't go much in depth with scoring mechanisms, you say. That's true, the HG101 piece was aimed at a less hardcore public than the average shmupper on this forum. That said, had I the chance to write it today, while I would certainly revise some of my impressions, the main bulk of the writing would stay close to what I wrote years ago.

The article does indeed focus more on characters, graphics, music and the overall aesthetics of the series rather than going technical on gameplay - and there's a very good reason for that. Quite simply, it's undeniable that the series' charm (and ultimately, significance) relies mostly on those aspects. When I wrote, I was interested on Twinbee as an early form of mediamix - that is, I wanted to explore why the characters had become protagonists of several drama cds, an OVA series and so on. So yes, I was more interested into getting to know about Shuzilow.Ha works; or about the quite staggering amount of Miyazaki-esque references in the games; more interested in getting Moero's timeline correct, or knowing about the seiyu and so on.

I suppose you have absolutely no interest in this kind of trivia. Too bad, because that's exactly what makes the article still worth of a read. And I'll say more - it is certainly possible to write a more technical piece on the series, but the result would be far less compelling. Twinbee's gameplay and scoring mechanics are largely derivative - I think I already outlined the main differences between the original and its obvious referent, Xevious: simultaneous dual play, semiauto ground targeting, bells as a mean of score and power-up. Twinbee it's basically just that. And going a lot more technical on the most advanced in the series (Yahho-!) wouldn't earn you enough written material to write another "Bee Preying". That simply was not the purpose of the article, because Twinbee as a series doesn't offer enough complexity to write about it as if it were a Cave release.

Now about my "laughable" statements... If you like very technical shooters which are heavy on score mechanics, chances are that not even Yahho-! will draw your attention for long. It was universally reviled during the STGT07 after all. On the other hand, if you are someone who has grown with a certain kind of console shmups, you'll definitely recognize that Pop'n Twinbee ranks among the best of the subgenre, and yes, that's due to all the things that are so uncool today: longer stages, slower pace, energy bar and such. An argument could be made about which one truly stands as the epitome of the series... But let's not digress any further.

You thought anyone who had written the article had no the slightest idea of what a shmup is - I think you were fooled by a superficial read or a misunderstanding of the piece. Just because I focused on Twinbee's main originality doesn't mean I don't know how to play it. By the way, if your Yahho-! highscore of 3,527,460 of 28 July 2009 is up to date, you still have some 50,000 points ahead to surpass my 2007 score of 3'579'710... Oh the irony, with your in-depth knowledge of scoring you're below me by just one 57300 bell.

[Dragoforce]

Many thanks for the response Turrican! I owe you an apology for my harsh words. When I read about games in general and particulary shmups I only want to know the pure basics. How the game controls, who the people behind the game are and so on. Things like the artistic side of the game and the music I prefer to make up my own opinion about.

The way you wrote the article clearly conflicts with what I myself prefer to read regarding games. I understand from your response that the article was clearly well thought of and it was I who didn't realise this. I do however still believe that it's not right to say that a shmup (or any arcade game for that matter) "suck quarters" They are designed so that people will throw money into them, but it is always the players skill that determines how long a quarter lasts.

And you must agree with me that this quote are easy to misunderstand:

"The game's biggest flaw is its length: it's short. You'll blaze through the stages (even while losing tons of lives) in a flash; it feels shorter than the "Ohh, it was so short!" Salamander 2 that many lamented about"

For me it sounds like the common complaint agains shmups from mainstream media. "The game is to short and it's no challenge since I have infinite lives" Although i'm sure that was not your intention.

By the way, if your Yahho-! highscore of 3,527,460 of 28 July 2009 is up to date, you still have some 50,000 points ahead to surpass my 2007 score of 3'579'710... Oh the irony, with your in-depth knowledge of scoring you're below me by just one 57300 bell.

Just rub it in me! In theory I am the worlds greates Twinbee yahoo! player, in practice....

[Turrican]

And you must agree with me that this quote are easy to misunderstand:

I agree, that's one rather silly comment. Let's say I'm glad to know that I would rephrase it better today.

[Ganelon]

...And that's why you have to take into account the audience that the writer is addressing an article to. You can't just go in thinking any shooter review outside of Shmups is being written by a novice. But now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

[Dragoforce]

...And that's why you have to take into account the audience that the writer is addressing an article to. You can't just go in thinking any shooter review outside of Shmups is being written by a novice. But now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

The thing is that I didn't. While I am not the greatest fan of HG101, I do enjoy reading their articles from time to time. From the name of the site I assumed that a shmup article would be written for the kind of people that frequent this forum. That's the reason why I misunderstod Turrican's article. An honest mistake from my side.

[Mortificator]

I do however still believe that it's not right to say that a shmup (or any arcade game for that matter) "suck quarters" They are designed so that people will throw money into them, but it is always the players skill that determines how long a quarter lasts.

Not always. Games like Tower of Druaga will end based on factors the played couldn't foresee, and games like King of the Monsters 2 are over when the CPU decides it's time for you to lose. A lot of people write-off any difficult arcade game as unfair, but sometimes they really are unfair.

[Dale]

I do however still believe that it's not right to say that a shmup (or any arcade game for that matter) "suck quarters" They are designed so that people will throw money into them, but it is always the players skill that determines how long a quarter lasts.

Not always. Games like Tower of Druaga will end based on factors the played couldn't foresee, and games like King of the Monsters 2 are over when the CPU decides it's time for you to lose. A lot of people write-off any difficult arcade game as unfair, but sometimes they really are unfair.

That's a fighting game that's a completely different bag of beans(made by SNK no less). And yes old school shmups and many other arcade games have stuff you need to already know about or at least it helps to know about. But to put all arcade games or most in that category is ignorant. Seriously though don't defend them.

[Dale]

...And that's why you have to take into account the audience that the writer is addressing an article to. You can't just go in thinking any shooter review outside of Shmups is being written by a novice.

Ahhhhhhh I just read the Konami shmups article and read's a lot like they are.