Shmup Nightmares (or, your WORST frustrations in a shmup).

[Adigun A. Polack]

In all of my time playing lots and lots of shmups from arcade, console, and even the PC (including the doujin and freeware ones from Japan as well, too!) from over the many, many years, somewhere within lurked a nasty all-too-common pain that I am sure we all have suffered through at one time or another while playing: frustration and cheap, unknown hits from enemies.

For example, my WORST frustration that I have suffered was that in a checkpoint-laden shmup (think late ‘80s Toaplan, folks! ) that I have played from years ago, once my ship got shot down, I had to restart from a certain point within a current level... only to suddenly bite the dust again a few seconds later by another fast-moving bullet that I did not see coming at all, restarting me further back away from my last checkpoint reached... and all with nearly *no* firepower enough for me to recover from all of that as well... that is one of my MAIN turn-offs when it comes to playing these types of games indeed, and it is just enough to make you rip the whole arcade controller from the machine and throw it hard right through the monitor, you know!? See, that is just one of the many shmup nightmares that I have ever faced over my time ( ! ), and that was from my early years of playing, too!!!

And that brings me personally to this: what are your own all-time WORST frustrations that you have ever experienced in your times of playing shmups (be it horizontal, vertical, bullet-hell, top-down, or anywhere in-between, for example!).

Let’s hear ‘em now, and be seeing you in a bit. =b !

[toaplan_shmupfan]

Both Truxton (Toaplan) and at least on the Genesis version of Fire Shark (also Toaplan, that one uses checkpoints and has a one player only mode)--those are the ones I know of that will often take the player back one additional checkpoint if they lose a ship/plane within the first few seconds of a checkpoint. Both those games also take away all of the speedups earned (even though firepower powerups can be kept in reserve) when a ship/plane is lost, so recovery from the checkpoint is done at a very slow initial speed.

The biggest nightmare for me is any behind the back ship/plane attack when no immediate back attack weapon is available. Going back to Truxton once again, the Sega Genesis version fixed that problem too much by modifying the 3rd level red shot firepower to a "rainbow circle shot" that almost acts as a shield when rapid fire is active. (Nothing can really hit the ship with the rainbow circle shot so it can only be shot down.) However, getting stuck with the green Expert beam weapon tends to really make the behind the back attacks a nightmare to deal with.

One other nightmare for me is outright insufficient firepower as the enemy gets closer and closer. SNK's Last Resort is a great example of this, IMHO, in that anything larger than the smallest targets just doesn't get shot down fast enough.

Yet another nightmare is bosses that get way too close and then attack at near point-blank range. (At least give me some space between the boss and the ship before it attacks!) I don't mind if the boss does a charge, just as long as it doesn't unleash a shot attack with no real room to get out of there.

[sunburstbasser]

Gradius syndrome. Get a good power level, die, and have NOTHING. Sent to a checkpoint and you might get a pair of speedups by the time you get to the point you died at. Poor balancing all around. R-Type at least tried to fix this by giving you the charge shot so you weren't dependent on the Force for your offense.

Darius II is even worse. Instant respawn, but you'll go from full-power to nothing. I quit playing this game on MAME because it seems like you have one life; the others are just to get a few points before game over rather than for victory. Darius Gaiden fixed this by knocking down your power but not raping you completely.

Truxton II is making me made because it seems that the hit box isn't just the ship, I'd swear its actually a little larger (reverse bullet-hell?). The weapons also seem designed for popcorn enemies rather than larger foes and don't deal enough damage consistently.

[Kollision]

Dying in stage 6 or 7 of R-Type. Period.

[Battlesmurf]

I've got one to add to the list.

Air Buster

Super awesome game- great music- good pacing- but the stock weapon is garbage (really bad). If you're not powered up in the later sections- you're not killing anything and you'll be spending a ton of time on bosses. If the game as a whole wasn't so neat I wouldn't play it

[mirkvid]

Being killed by an enemy that spawns from the bottom of the screen, or one that makes its way beneath you....WEAK.


Also - 400th post!

[landshark]

Learning Gradius V's acid level 6 (easy once learned)
Dragon Blaze's level 6 boss. (never got easy)
Blazing Star's scoring system. (never got it)
Chaining in DDP or DDP:DOJ. (definitely never got it)

[Dragoforce]

This.

[Ed Oscuro]

Agh, fading scenery kills. Stage 6's waving tentacle things from Gradius Generation are less fun for me, though. Also, don't forget REGENER-O FLESH WALLS!

My Shmup Nightmare is Phase 1. Pretty much a hard limit on game progression for me right now

[Elixir]

Lasers in any shooting game.

[The Coop]

This.

Ha ha! I've have that kind of thing happen so many times in different shmups. It makes your heart drop

[Adigun A. Polack]

Gradius syndrome. Get a good power level, die, and have NOTHING. Sent to a checkpoint and you might get a pair of speedups by the time you get to the point you died at. Poor balancing all around. R-Type at least tried to fix this by giving you the charge shot so you weren't dependent on the Force for your offense.

Darius II is even worse. Instant respawn, but you'll go from full-power to nothing. I quit playing this game on MAME because it seems like you have one life; the others are just to get a few points before game over rather than for victory. Darius Gaiden fixed this by knocking down your power but not raping you completely.

Truxton II is making me made because it seems that the hit box isn't just the ship, I'd swear its actually a little larger (reverse bullet-hell?). The weapons also seem designed for popcorn enemies rather than larger foes and don't deal enough damage consistently.

You are *so* right about the Gradius series as far as I am concerned, sunburstbasser ( ), as well-apparently most of these kinds of shmups here can SEVERELY punish you indeed for the rest of the game if you even goof up in the slightest and die just once, especially in the later stages... no matter how hard you try!!!

The 1989 arcade version of Gradius III (as well as a direct port of it on PS2) is quite the worst offender of the bunch, frankly, because of its outright outrageous difficulty level at default, and also because of the fact that there are no continues either. I mean, once you are shot down, you are totally screwed big-time with absolutely 0% chance of a recovery period, with the worst place for this being the end-section of Stage 9 where you have to dodge so many countless fast-flying cube crystals that stick to both the wall and themselves upon impact, also!! We are talking about “force my blood pressure past the forsaken-damned roof in under 5 seconds” hard, you know that!?

As for Truxton II though, I noticed myself that it was MUCH tougher to blow up larger enemies (including bosses) with even your fully powered-up weapons than you can with popcorn enemies (usually the smaller ones)... add that to the overwhelming number of enemy shots coming right towards you, and the enemy has quite an unfair advantage itself, with the large hitbox on your ship not helping matters much in your favor. Look, no wonder Truxton II is such a rather damned difficult shmup to clear through in one credit, let alone no-miss all of the whole six (6) stages that this game provides in total!!!

Being killed by an enemy that spawns from the bottom of the screen, or one that makes its way beneath you....WEAK.


Also - 400th post!

First of all, mirkvid, congratulations to you on your 400th post here on these fantastic Shmups forums right here... I’ll bet it took you a damn good while to get to this milestone of yours, so TRULY well done for getting there!!! !!

Second, being killed by an enemy from behind *really* sucks big indeed... I have had quite some of those moments, and they truly annoy the living piss out of me as one of my shmup nightmares that I have been through in the past.

This.

Ha ha! I've have that kind of thing happen so many times in different shmups. It makes your heart drop

Absolutely. In fact, it is just one of those “punch the monitor hard and break it with your fist”-based moments for so countless many players (as was shown in that brief video piece that Dragoforce presented us a link to just now here), which is another reason why Gradius can play such a cruel, cruel game against you in this kind of an unfair regard... WOW!!!

[Sasupoika]

Blunt ( or any other Rival-boss ) from Armed Police Batrider.

[Udderdude]

This.

Solution: Don't play Gradius

[fogelmir]

Dying in any Raiden game when you saw a powerup and you "Went for it."

Playing mushi when I had no miss, no bombed 3 stages in maniac. Some troll made a negative comment, and I lost all 4 lives in the first half of stage 4, talk about a mind $*&%!

[dpful]

Credit feeding through a JAP region psikyo game and then getting sent back the the beginnings of the last levels.

Dying with bombs when I'm trying hard for a high score

Accidentally picking up red, blue, red, blue, icons in raiden style games (no power upping)

[orange]

SNIPER TANKS

[monkeyman]

Checkpoint games where it restarts you after death so underpowered that the game may as well give you only one life in the first place.

[orange]

gradius fucking 3

[dpful]

I'd never even put a credit into gradius III unless it was just to see how soon I would die (rathar than how far I'd get, I mean)

[sunburstbasser]

Apparently I'm not the only frustrated Gradius player!

I think what adds to the frustration is that Gradius tends to have really cool level design. I end up playing way more Thunder Cross 1/2 and Salamander 1/2 simply because the respawning makes it that much less frustrating. In Salamander 2, you can even nab some options when you respawn.

I sort of mentioned it about Truxton II, but hit boxes need to be reasonably sized. Dodonpachi got it perfect because if the hit box isn't the size of the sprite, it'll be smaller, like those fat blue bullets. Lots of older games with bubble levels use square hit boxes on those bubbles, so you'll die without the sprites actually touching. Hell, the only hard thing in Darius Twin on SNES is evading the crab miniboss's rings because they are actually squares and considerably larger than the visible sprite. Having two or three of those bastards on screen at once during the mini-boss rush last level takes the game from cakewalk to near-arcade difficulty instantly.

Asinine scoring can be frustrating. Battle Bakraid is a lot of fun to play, and when you finally get a x64 multiplier going and do a strategic suicide you don't feel bad. Getting more than a few million points is so drab and irritating that it ruins a big portion of the gameplay, but Bakraid gets away with it because if you try to just beat it you'll still have a good time at least.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Checkpoint games which restarts you're ship moving at a snails pace and stupidly high score counters with no commas

[Gespenst]

Trizeal: Tatoo (stage 4 boss), descending part of stage 5, rotating turret hell in the end of stage 5
and those pesky asteroid turrets and ambusher ship in stage 4.
And trio pesky flying-tanks in the end of stage 5 in Under Defeat.

[gs68]

Gradius syndrome. Get a good power level, die, and have NOTHING. Sent to a checkpoint and you might get a pair of speedups by the time you get to the point you died at. Poor balancing all around. R-Type at least tried to fix this by giving you the charge shot so you weren't dependent on the Force for your offense.

Darius II is even worse. Instant respawn, but you'll go from full-power to nothing. I quit playing this game on MAME because it seems like you have one life; the others are just to get a few points before game over rather than for victory. Darius Gaiden fixed this by knocking down your power but not raping you completely.

Truxton II is making me made because it seems that the hit box isn't just the ship, I'd swear its actually a little larger (reverse bullet-hell?). The weapons also seem designed for popcorn enemies rather than larger foes and don't deal enough damage consistently.

Dying in Darius in general is a load of crap. At least most Gradius games--at least the newer ones, give you generous amounts of powerup capsules, but for Darius? Enjoy having about two or three shot powerups per stage.

[nash87]

dying after the boss dies, right before the bullets get canceled

dying from the very last possible bullet of a pattern, it seems like i do that at least once a week when i've got the time to play

i couldn't manage to find the youtube fail video of someone about to kill Doom in ketsui and then dying at the very last second, you know the one. just watching it hurts. I'm sure someone here has the link

[ncp]

you know the one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotZMGkR_0M

[Gespenst]

you know the one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotZMGkR_0M

Yeah for that. And stage 7 & 8 of Siter Skain's RefleX

[GrimoreLibrarian]

The Blue Ninja in Armed Police Batrider.

[nash87]

you know the one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotZMGkR_0M

yeah that's the one, it just hurts to see that

[dieKatze88]

Now I love Gradius, and Honestly, some of those restarts scare me, but there is one thing worse than all of them:

The roulette powerups in Parodius Da!

I swear to god to you, nothing is more annoying than picking one of those up on level 3 and getting Oh my God right before you head into the colored dots, as its hard to survive the dot munchers when you don't have an option to hit them with.

Although that doesn't apply to Twinbee as much. Rocket Punch is just not fair