STGT '09 Hidden Gem Week 1, Varth - Thoughts

[Aquas]

Yo, return of the "thoughts" stgt threads from last year. How'd it go? Seems there's been some mixed response to this game like 19XX of last year. I think this was a better game than 19XX, though, heh. I had fun playing it but I was kinda glad it was over once I got the clear... the deaths mostly pissed me off when I started because of ambushes and shit. How many of you knew about the "Armor" powerup in the bonus stage? And what the hell, fixed was like bullet hell. The music was cool, it sounded like some of the U.N. Squadron songs from the SNES, same composer? I guess we are awed once again by the no-pod deed of sikraiken, "THAT'S SICK!"

oh, and "LAVAPROOFED BOATS" - someone in #shmups irc, gave me a laugh.

Last boss was a joke! HARDY HAR HAR!!! It was Skynet!?!? You guys can post links to your plays or inps or whatever, here btw.

[sikraiken]

http://beatthegame.net/jvl-varthu8.5wolf99.zip
Requires wolfmame99 to playback. 8,510,200 no miss, no pod ALL.


Varth would be ok if it wasn't such a long and slow game. I feel like it gets easier as you go through the stages - shouldn't it be the other way around? :D It wasn't too bad I guess. I'll probably never revisit it.

I found the Armor powerup. It was actually helpful.

[Herr Schatten]

I really like the game. Actually, I like it more than any entry in the 19XY series Capcom is so renowned for. Varth feels fresh, has solid level design, and graphics and music are top notch. I also like that not every level has to end with a boss. The replenishing bombs (without the waggle) are a feature I'd like to see in more games, as it encourages you to use the bomb offensively. I feel that just a little more polish might have turned Varth into a real classic.

Best bit: Hitting stage 16, finding out the the boss of stage 1 is a regular enemy now, then finding out you can still obliterate it within 3 seconds.

I agree, though, that it's too long, the bullets are badly visible at times, there's too much sniping and point-blanking (by enemies - there's never enough point-blanking for the player), and score relies too much on hidden boni.

[unsane]

Didn't realize there'd be a separate thread for discussion, so i'll repost this more appropriately here:


Here's my week's scores:



Got that 2nd place score just before the week ended. :/

Being my first stgt and not knowing what to expect, my goal for the whole month was to finish top 3 for my team at least once, which i've already managed! Plus it's the one game i'd never played before, so i'm likely to do better on future weeks. I was hoping to beat my high score every day, but i played more yesterday and today than the other 5 days combined, and couldn't beat it. I guess i plateau'd, as evidenced by my top 10 which is riddled with 2.5M-3M scores. Was starting to get burnt out too, i really like this game, but i'm going to enjoy it a hell of a lot more without the time pressure of a tournament. A couple credits now and then.

my heart and vocal chords can't take any more snipers.

During my one really long session, yesterday, i never swore so much in my life, every 10 minutes it was FUCK! My neigbors must be wondering what's going on, as i'm normally quiet as a mouse.

My reset rate is like 95%...

I hate stage 3. No matter how many times i'd done it, i'd still fuck it up half the time. Add to that the rare fuckup in stage 1 or 4 and the occasional fuckup in stage 2 and yeah, reset rate is high. My cutoff requirements for resetting were dying before stage 5 and/or missing the stage 4 glitch bonus. The secret to not going insane is bombing the living fuck out of stage 3, after that the next 10 stages are a lot easier.

[sven666]

great game, love all the bonuses and whacky shit that pops up everywhere, gameplay, gfx and music are all top notch.

enemy assaults from behind kinda suck tho and being pointblanked by enemies that you just scrolled into view too.. but yeah those are the only real bad points, if i had played more id proboably complain about its length aswell

[emphatic]

Too damn long! I had to switch chair after a while as my back was killing me. Also, this game's sniping makes Flying Shark all warm and fuzzy in comparison.

[charlie chong]

i enjoyded it even tho i only managed an hour an evening. i might even try and get a bit further

the ship is a bit slow for my tastes the game is that bit too long and the sniper tanks/boats are some cheeky motherfuckers.
a fine game apart from that. i quite like how losing all your weapons didn't totally cripple you

[Voxbox]

It's always the snipers or other stray bullets that get ya
Serious balance issues in difficulty, but otherwise a cool well made game. But as someone else said, the game hates me and I hate it right back.

[Arvandor]

It's fun, it looks pretty good, has great music, but it's certainly not without its flaws, most of which have been covered already.

I didn't put much time into it because I could only take so many restarts because I'd get sniped in stage 2 or 3, which seem like the hardest stages of all the ones I played =P And I don't know if it actually was, but it felt pretty long and slow. And I didn't even get half-way apparently? Geez.

[RGC]

I put in six hours in total this week and achieved 2.9m. Not sure if that's respectable, but it certainly felt as though I only got into the 'flow' of things in the final 2-3 credits. Whoever said it was right: Varth somehow feels as though it gets progressively easier. Also not holding back with bombs was a big challenge for me. I enjoyed the presentation of the game though, and it's definitely more likely to receive a revisit than 19XX (which has significant scoring design flaws). 7/10

[Dragoforce]

I liked it a lot. Nice gameplay, good music, lots of snipers.. Yeah, everything I appreciate in a shmup

[Davey]

I feel like it gets easier as you go through the stages - shouldn't it be the other way around?

I only got to level 17, so I could be wrong here, but it seems like:
Early stages: Not many bullets, but there are a lot of snipers that come from the sides and behind and shoot you at point blank.
Later stages: A lot more enemies, but the bullets are slower and more manageable. Slowdown helps a lot.

Once I got past stage 4 I had some fun with the game, but those early stages were the death of me.

Also, I didn't do my homework. I didn't even know about wiggling.

[crithit5000]

Indeed, the early stages are just blargh. I initially hated Varth years ago when I first tried it, and after playing further into it for this week I began to like it quite a lot. I think if a bunch of stages were cut, the enemies that come from behind were removed, and the weapons a tad bit balanced better, then Varth would be pretty close to a A+ game.

[Ruldra]

This game is awesome, one of my favorites. I'm glad it was chosen for STGT.

At first I wanted to get the highest score possible in the hopes of beating sik, but after I got 8m I didn't care anymore, it's a score I'm really happy about. And the podless ALL was a goal I had given up a long time ago, thinking it was impossible to me, but since I knew he was going for that I had no choice but to attempt it myself. In the end, if he weren't participating I would've never pushed myself this hard, so I need to thank him for that.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think that enemies that come from behind are a valid tactic, they're in games like Fire Shark after all.

Overall I rather like Varth, but it doesn't compete with Raiden Fighters Jet for the sheer awesome factor, heh. Still a damn solid pick, though I know it drove lots of us crazy (random deaths to dumb things kept making me reset the game - I only cleared Stage 4 maybe 4 or 5 times for my highscore).

[Davey]

I think that enemies that come from behind are a valid tactic, they're in games like Fire Shark after all.

I can't really think of any modern shmups that have them, though. That doesn't necessarily make them bad, but they do make the game feel more dated IMHO.

They create a sort of claustrophobic tension because danger can come from anywhere. They also make it harder to just wing it because you have to know where enemies are coming from in advance or risk being blindsided. In that sense, they sort of make the game feel more like a hori, even though the game is mostly proto-manic (especially the parts with slowdown).

I'm sure they're not hard to handle once you get used to them, but not being a fan of the old school, they destroy me. Also, at a visceral level, they're not as satisfying to kill because they're basically a popcorn enemy with a sneak attack. Manics have programmed me to expect dangerous enemies to reward me with a shower of point items or an earth shattering kaboom or something.

[Shatterhand]

The game should be just the last 10 stages. They are a lot more fun than the rest of the game.


And I want to add, it seems oldschoolers won't be even close to a treat to us this year. So I declare our nemesis to be the TRAITORS from Garrincha Shooting Team. Using FAKE BRAZILIANS is the lowest point you guys could get.

Tsk.

[Limbrooke]

Not registering for the tournament gives me a different perspective, one where I don't care how well I do or if I put any effort into a game. Being on the outside looking in, it's given me better respect for Varth and as a result I enjoyed the couple hours or so this weekend spent running it.

While I like RFJ, I doubt I'll be mock testing the next week.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Likewise, I'm in the same boat with fellow shmupper Limbrooke having not registered for this STGT '09 competition. Having played Varth at the CircusCircus hotel/casino in Reno back in the mid 1990s, I found playing the CPS1 powered Varth an interesting game, especially with it's highly touted 30 stages galore. ^_~

However, upon reaching the dreaded Stage 24, I could not advance any further and remained stuck on it. So I wasn't able to see the last six remaining stages of this fine arcade shmup title.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BulletMagnet]

The game was a bit ahead of its time in some ways, but it's still a combination of sniper memorization and hoping that your smart pods do their jobs (or else deal with stupidly high rank with fixed ones) that just plain doesn't agree with me. Found myself even less motivated than usual, and that's saying something.

[Danbo]

lots of bombs = me like

[Ed Oscuro]

lots of bombs = me like

That's it in a nutshell. By themselves, the pods don't carry the game; ditto for bombs. But together, BY YOUR POWERS COMBINED I AM SHORYUKEN!!

[Zejiro]

Um, where do I start. The first credits i played, it felt like an OK game. Pretty nice graphics, sweet music, lots of movement pretty much all the time, pod-protection...

...the last credits I played my thoughts were more like;
"God I hate them fucking clouds making the enemy bullets almost invisible"
"Gotta turn the sound off, getting tired of the lvl 1 song!"
"Fucking pods!"

Are the (smart) pods random sometimes? It feels like they can block a wave of 10 bullets some times, and some times they can't even block one, when you don't feel the need for using a bomb.. which off course means DEATH.
I said I would stop playing many times, but I kept going. Mainly because I wanted a better score for the team, but also because the game pissed me off so much I just HAD to beat "that" and "that" level.

I'm glad it's all over. Not too happy about RFJ though, oh well. For the hor....team!

[Ruldra]

So what does the armor powerup do? Let you take a few hits before dying?

[sikraiken]

It's like Ghosts and Goblins armor. It appears on your ship when you pick it up, and if you get hit once, it falls off.

[TodayIsForgotten]

Varth was awesome. The sniping as a whole wasn't bad. If you want to play aggressive and kill everything like i do, then it becomes a problem, since i constantly do stupid things. It seemed like the game being so "franatic" that i never really was calm when playing nor really thought things through until later in the week. The game was as hard as you wanted to make it as its easy to lose your patience. I agree the planes coming from behind is a bit annoying as ive lost many lives running into them. I didn't mind boats coming from behind, though. It added to the suspense.

I loved how the game had junk (points) littered all throughout. And they weren't a pain in the ass to get at times like in RFJ, if you aren't adept at revealing miclus'.

I wish there were more newer games that would be made in this more traditional style, but that's wishful thinking.

Good pick.

[sunburstbasser]

Not a big fan of Capcom shmups personally. I liked this better than 19xx at first but its a tossup now. Old-school Capcom rock is good stuff, and really I thought Varth got a lot of things right. Seeing the rest of the tournament's themes, this will probably be my least favorite week which isn't too bad. RFJ has been fun for those first 3 credits or so, Raizing and Psikyo are personal favorites, dragon week it depends on the game I guess. So Varth being a personal least favorite for the week is OK with me.

I probably won't be coming back to it, as I didn't between voting last year and last week more than 10 times or so. And thats about 7 times more than 19xx.

[Necronopticous]

I was only able to play a handful of credits of Varth last week. It's an okay game after you get past the first few stages—doesn't hold a candle to 19XX.

[Warp_Rattler]

I remember giving this a few tries last year when it was up for voting and coming away pretty unimpressed. After I gave it a few shots and started to get the scoring down, though, it was pretty enjoyable. I'm with everyone else on the obnoxious restarts when your carefully planned pattern for the first three stages goes awry for some reason and completely bones your score for the rest of the run, but once you get to stage 4 it really becomes quite enjoyable. The tank/boat fire up your tailpipe was pretty bullshit, but other than that the game didn't feel too ridiculous.

I finally made peace with the smart pods. I initially used fixed--after all, which is better--knowing your ship will always be protected from one side, or hoping it will on all sides? The increased bullet density was a bit painful, but my biggest problem was running right into shots moving at a slight diagonal that happened to completely miss the pods and blow me out of the air. After a while I went to smart pods just because it seemed like it was working for everybody else, and then I discovered you really should play like you don't expect the smart pods to save you, and from there things were a lot easier.

In comparison to this week's game I really liked Varth's simple scoring system. You had end-of-level bonuses which were pretty easy to understand, lots of hidden point items that didn't make or break a scoring run depending on if you missed ONE or not, and a fairly simple boss glitch for an extra couple of hundred thousand points. Also, I love the hidden Ryu.

The graphics were also pretty nice, I thought. The game was from what, '92? Stood the test of time pretty well in my opinion. Music and sounds were neither cool (except SHORYUKEN!) nor annoying; I just tuned them out most of the time. I liked the little visual touches, like if you moved your plane to the edge of the screen and kept holding the joystick, it would start doing a continual barrel roll. Nothing fancy, just an extra little touch.

It's hard to say if I'd ever consider getting this on PCB or not. I mean, I'm not sure I'd be willing to sink as much time into it if I wasn't competing for score in something like this, but on the other hand I'm not completely sick of it as I was 19XX last year, which was a game I went into the tourney quite liking on a casual level.

Sniper tanks aside, I had fun, and that makes it a pretty good week in my book.

[captpain]

A fun game, but not a great one.