Bullet Heaven (an interesting shmup-review show on YouTube).

[Adigun A. Polack]

I have just now found an interesting shmup-review program on YouTube that I believe would be of such wonderful interest to this whole entire shmup community at large. The title of this program created by a YouTuber named Serraxor is entitled Bullet Heaven, and with over 10 episodes under its belt and growing, it is definitely my new favorite program that is done in the style of Roger Post’s “Shoot-The-Core” video reviews on YouTube, but with some higher production values indeed.

So far, the episodes of Bullet Heaven contain reviews of the following shmups (including some *very* rare ones as well!!):

• • Episode 1: 1943 (NES)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_5rfnF9ICA)
  
  • Episode 2: Castle Shikigami (PS2)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2hen9MEoQ)
  
  • Episode 3: Side Arms (TG-16)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCtKp7RyXvc)
  
  • Episode 4: Battle Garegga (Saturn; import)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4G82HpeW3g)
  
  • Episode 5: Batsugun (Saturn; import)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAHhwBcTdzs)
  
  • Episode 6: DoDonPachi (Saturn; import)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzQXCEXBNUo)
  
  • Episode 7: Iridion II (GBA)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzbMErVarF4)
  
  • Episode 8: Sol-Feace (Sega-CD)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sglNLEEavwA)
  
  • Episode 9: Thunder Spirits (SNES)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFR2gdPIb1k)
  
  • Episode 10 (Special): Clash of the Titans — Einhänder (PSX) vs. Radiant Silvergun (Saturn; import)
  (Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-IYayykyaI)
  (Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQLdrtumdio)
  
  • Episode 11: Axelay (SNES)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1inERMWJ8vc)
  
  • Episode 12: Gate of Thunder (TG-16 Super CD-Rom²)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb9CHhalYy8)
  
  • Episode 13: Gaiares (Genesis)
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9caZqW7YG0)

...with even more episodes on its way in the coming days, so watch for them soon!!

I personally recommend this show most highly, as the creator does a fantastic job in telling ‘em like it really damn is when it comes to shmups; upon hearing his voice and listing to his honest, no-holds-barred reviews, you can tell for certain that he is an AVID shmup fan indeed... one after our very own hearts, I will bet!!! =b !!

And with HARDLY as many views of his episodes of Bullet Heaven at all on YouTube (before I even wrote this topic in these Shmups forums, of course!), this show deserves a lot, lot more attention from us in general, for these reasons that I have just mentioned here in this post.

[neorichieb1971]

Its quite a good job. I enjoyed 3 of them so far.

[Ghegs]

Definitely not a bad job. You can tell he likes the genre and likes doing the videos. Looking forward to seeing what game he'll do next.

However...he could do with a bit more research. He seems to be under the impression that Radiant Silvergun was an original game for Saturn instead of an arcade port, and in his review he focused almost entirely on the game's production values, basically doing the often-seen "RS is the best shmup evar, graphics, deep story, OMG THE MUSIC"-thing. He didn't talk much about the gameplay and didn't mention the scoring system at all. Leaving out the scoring system also took place in his DDP vid. A bit odd, considering he talked about Shikigami No Shiro 2's scoring system.

Speaking of, he also thinks Shiki2 had some awesome story which made perfect sense that was just butchered for the US release, which we know isn't quite the case, but that's a much smaller research error.

I guess he isn't a member here, wonder why that is.

[neorichieb1971]

He also stated that the Saturn version of DDP was the best version.

I liked the style of the reviews though, I thought the intro takes too long at 1 minute, its a nice intro and all, but watching reviews back to back it gets kind of repetitive. Obviously we just found out about him so thats why, its not going to be a problem watching it again in say 3 weeks time when we see the next one come up.

Shikigami 2 he used PS2 as the review copy, but there lies a DC version and he obviously doesn't TATE his games as the reviews all suggest shooters have massive borders on the sides

[Adigun A. Polack]

Definitely not a bad job. You can tell he likes the genre and likes doing the videos. Looking forward to seeing what game he'll do next.

However...he could do with a bit more research. He seems to be under the impression that Radiant Silvergun was an original game for Saturn instead of an arcade port, and in his review he focused almost entirely on the game's production values, basically doing the often-seen "RS is the best shmup evar, graphics, deep story, OMG THE MUSIC"-thing. He didn't talk much about the gameplay and didn't mention the scoring system at all. Leaving out the scoring system also took place in his DDP vid. A bit odd, considering he talked about Shikigami No Shiro 2's scoring system.

Speaking of, he also thinks Shiki2 had some awesome story which made perfect sense that was just butchered for the US release, which we know isn't quite the case, but that's a much smaller research error.

I guess he isn't a member here, wonder why that is.

As for what you just noted regarding his review of Radiant Silvergun, Ghegs, you are truly quite correct in saying that the Saturn port was based originally on the 1998 arcade game that was also developed by Treasure. And you are also right about the scoring mechanics, too, which these days is VERY damn essentially vital in a shmup-review program as well... if a scoring system is well-balanced and even much more intuitive to at least the novice player without being so frustratingly complicated, then it will help add to the game’s final review score in a significant way. See, the key here is a little simplicity and perhaps some creativity at that, without the need to spell everything out. You get what I am trying to say here?

That reminds me of what I always say personally: “Keep it simple, keep it real”. All there is to it where these scoring systems are concerned, I believe.

And like you, I cannot wait for the next show to see what shmup the reviewer plans to do next!

[kid aphex]

And like you, I cannot wait for the next show to see what shmup the reviewer plans to do next!

just wondering, are you him/his brother/his mother?

[the2bears]

AAP, where the heck have you been? Thanks for posting the links to these.

Bill

[DJ Incompetent]

And like you, I cannot wait for the next show to see what shmup the reviewer plans to do next!

just wondering, are you him/his brother/his mother?

Strangely, he's always like this. Wait till he goes overdrive with the emotes.

He's a good guy tho.






This serraxor guy's worth watching for the amusement. The presentation is very good, but all that A/V talent is just wasted with his meh knowledge base. Like an 11 year old girl winning 12 tickets to the super bowl.

Somebody needs to hit him up with some nerdrage subculture education. If he claims to have beaten Ikaruga again without knowing about the shikigami attacks in SnS, he might need to be decked.

1up blog. That explains things...

[NakedBoB]

Hey Shmuppers! Long time reader, first time posting.

What brought me to finally post something was youse guys holier-than-thou attitude on Bullet Heaven. Serraxor spends a ton of his free time making these and they've been a lot of fun. Sooo...what do you guys do? You tear the videos apart and make fun of the guy. Nice. The shmup community doesn't need this. I'd expect this on a CoD:MW2 forum but not on shmups. Why make fun out of one of our own?

The Twitter post was exceptionally evil:
"Bullet Heaven: decent review show by Serraxor. Lack of research amusing, but great production value. Entertaining watch http://bit.ly/bXz682"

That was uncalled for. Shame on youse!

Love,
Naked BoB

[drunkninja24]

Hey Shmuppers! Long time reader, first time posting.

What brought me to finally post something was youse guys holier-than-thou attitude on Bullet Heaven. Serraxor spends a ton of his free time making these and they've been a lot of fun. Sooo...what do you guys do? You tear the videos apart and make fun of the guy. Nice. The shmup community doesn't need this. I'd expect this on a CoD:MW2 forum but not on shmups. Why make fun out of one of our own?

The Twitter post was exceptionally evil:
"Bullet Heaven: decent review show by Serraxor. Lack of research amusing, but great production value. Entertaining watch http://bit.ly/bXz682"

That was uncalled for. Shame on youse!

Love,
Naked BoB

I don't really think people here are making fun of him so much as, well, making valid criticisms of the videos.

[AraraSPAMWitch]

Lack of research amusing

Who boy is that some nasty criticism, if my teacher told me I didn't do enough research for a paper I think I might just cry...

[Pirate1019]

Read up a bit more and spend less time on the cute intros.

[NakedBoB]

I don't really think people here are making fun of him so much as, well, making valid criticisms of the videos.

Umm...

This serraxor guy's worth watching for the amusement. The presentation is very good, but all that A/V talent is just wasted with his meh knowledge base. Like an 11 year old girl winning 12 tickets to the super bowl.

Somebody needs to hit him up with some nerdrage subculture education. If he claims to have beaten Ikaruga again without knowing about the shikigami attacks in SnS, he might need to be decked.

1up blog. That explains things...

Read up a bit more and spend less time on the cute intros.

Do youse guys do this kinda stuff to all shmup players who don't hang out around here?


Love,
Naked BoB

[Pirate1019]

Only to the ones that don't research their material enough and open themselves to public criticism by posting reviews on Youtube.

Loving the joke account, btw.

[Acid King]

The Twitter post was exceptionally evil:
"Bullet Heaven: decent review show by Serraxor. Lack of research amusing, but great production value. Entertaining watch http://bit.ly/bXz682"

That was uncalled for. Shame on youse!

You're being sarcastic, right?

[Kollision]

The videos are amusing, yes. Editing is very good. I'm not really fond of the star ratings though (I never was). He should go through the game itself, playing it decently and extending the duration to 10 minutes with nice gameplay footage.

Anyway, subbed. Watched 2 so far, gonna see the other ones tomorrow.

[Adigun A. Polack]

AAP, where the heck have you been? Thanks for posting the links to these.

Bill

Why thanks quite so much, my most awesome man Bill (aka the2bears), and you are as TRULY welcome as ever, too!!!

Regarding the shmup-review show of Bullet Heaven that we are covering, think you can hit us up with a new blog post on the2bears.com regarding this current series indeed, showing what it is about as well as your input and opinions on the program, hmmm? That way, more and more shmup fans would be in the know about this interesting show by Serraxor and would get a sure shot at enjoying it more, since this piece would be some shmup-related news that your viewers really oughta know about!!

[njiska]

Do youse guys do this kinda stuff to all shmup players who don't hang out around here?


Love,
Naked BoB

Wander into and den of vipers and you should expect to get bitten. I'm sure he does work very hard on these, but the fact is this board is comprised of people who really know the subject matter and that means we're going to have harsher criticisms when he gets something wrong. I write reviews myself and I'm used to getting criticized all the time. It's just the nature of the beast. When they're fair, I listen because they help me produce better content. When they're absurd I don't care and ignore them. Either way I don't go complaining about being picked on.

If he truly cares about improving the quality of his reviews than he should take this advice, do some more research before penning the script. Wikipedia isn't enough on it's own.

And more to the point if Serraxor has a problem with our critiques he should come here and address them himself.

[DJ Incompetent]

The Twitter post was exceptionally evil:
"Bullet Heaven: decent review show by Serraxor. Lack of research amusing, but great production value. Entertaining watch http://bit.ly/bXz682"

That was uncalled for. Shame on youse!

oh! oh! I thought of an exceptionally evil twitter post:
"Bullet Heaven: credit feeder reviews games based on cheating his way through, which wouldn't distort the review at all. No link go find it yourself."


'Naw man, NakedBoB in all seriousness, yes the Serraxor guy is cool for putting his work out there. He does a pretty good job. I hope his pageviews double from all the recent linkings. But it's pretty obvious he hits start a few times and talks about what he sees with some added wikipedia research. People who are in the know can smell that shit out. It's worrysome he can take all that time to edit some great presentation but not appear to spend longer than three hours learning the old games he's reviewing. These aren't super deep games, ya know? We got reviewers everywhere-yonder writing 4-page essays on what the art value timeline on some particular set of graphics means to a 100+ hour franchise, but we're hard pressed to find consistent reviewers that still haven't figured out all the controls, don't attempt a 1CC to reflect on how the game experience changes, and ignore the scoring system.

Anyway,
I'm not a fan of telling people how to play their videogames. Credit feed or 1 credit in private, that's their business. But when you're tryin' to play the game reviewer, to be a good one you DO have to be aware of your audience, competitive and cheater alike. You say the shmups community doesn't need this criticism. Dude, this is shmups.com, we ARE a significant chunk of the community. Gotta know all yer audience if you wanna talk to it.

Either way, he's gonna get his pageviews. He seems open to criticism, so let's hope people give him the message. I should practice what I preach and head over there. But laziness is awesome. I'm going back to my front porch.

GET OFF MY LAWN!!

[NakedBoB]

After having slept on this a bit, I do feel I may have overreacted a tad. Serraxor is just a fellow 1up.com/internet buddy of mine and was disappointed to see the Shmups Forum being so harsh on 'im, since I've always had so much respect for this place.

I think what made me the most upset was DJ Incompetent's first comment, then the Twitter post (which he did? Since he sent me a Twitter reply this morning?) Anyone who follows the link from that Twitter post is gonna come here with the impression that Serraxor doesn't know what he's talking about. A better/more professional Twitter post woulda just been "Bullet Heaven: decent review show by Serraxor." then let others form their own opinions here before putting them in the mindset that he's just plagiarizing Wikipedia (which I'm pretty sure he doesn't. He might not be all shmup knowing like youse guys, though, I dunno.) When you do a Twitter post like ya did all that's gonna follow is negative comments. That's just how the internets work.

I've always held this place in high regard and was disheartening to see youse guys talk about my pal this way. It was almost as bad as when George Lucas released the Star Wars prequels and had to get rid of all my SW collectibles just to get over the fact that things just weren't gonna be the same. ALMOST. Doubt I'm gonna put my shmups on eBay or whatnot. Though, I probably could get a lot more moneys than I did for the Star Wars stuff...hmm...

Also, for some reason, when reading all the posts after the first one, everyone's voice sounded like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons to me. Maybe that's what made me so irritable. "That Bullet Heaven was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever! RS.WAS.AN.ARCADE.PORT! Rest assured I was on the Shmups Forum within minutes voicing my disgust throughout the world."

Anyhoo, sorry to mess up your party. I think I'm done with my postings on this Bullet Heaven Shumps Forum. Remember kids, try and be nice on the internets. Already way too many jerkwads out there.

Love,
Naked BoB

[Kollision]

Never retreat, never surrender.
Why give up the fight so soon?

It's just like njiska said: "Wander into and den of vipers and you should expect to get bitten."

[NakedBoB]

Never retreat, never surrender.
Why give up the fight so soon?

It's just like njiska said: "Wander into and den of vipers and you should expect to get bitten."

Yeah...my dumbness. I just thought they were nice vipers.

Love,
Naked BoB

[DJ Incompetent]

Tell homeboy not to sweat it. All press is good press nowadays. Bad press actually gets people a better spotlight. Also, it's pretty easy to "restore credibility" on the internet. Like, really easy. No really our long term memories are like, two days, man.

If he takes in the criticism and does his part in upcoming episodes, people will see it favorably. Tha Twitter-z will shine positive on him with future posts. I promise.

He's close to being a great reviewer anyway. Like I said, I've subscribed him 'n such. He's doing it alright.

Telling him to record and put out a 1CC of anything wouldn't hurt either. Sheeeit I'll even rewrite a professional shout out to him if he does Ikaruga...since...you know...he claims hes beat it. :)

[neorichieb1971]

I believe in constructive criticism, not personal attacks. The guy did alright in his reviews, its only a few niggly things that give us the impression he didn't do so much research on the background of the games. He did deliver on the game mechanics which even taught me a thing or two. I believe his videos will go some way to bring newcomers to the realm of shmups and thats a good thing all round.

[Ghegs]

Anyhoo, sorry to mess up your party. I think I'm done with my postings on this Bullet Heaven Shumps Forum.

I think you're still overreacting a bit. Nobody here attacked the guy (aside from tongue-in-cheek ribbing, maybe), in fact, the reception has been quite positive. Those are some very good videos. But of course we, being fans of the genre, would like to see the facts correct as well.

Since you know him, why don't you tell him to come on over? We'd love to have him here.

[Rob]

Once more: they're pretty good, but a little light on content/instruction manual-y. They would be better if that was worked on.

The footage for the Shikigami review was especially off since the grazing and shikigami attack were never utilized properly for score. What won me over was the Thunder Spirits review, where the sound was noted as rightly inferior to TF3.

Also, for some reason, when reading all the posts after the first one, everyone's voice sounded like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons to me. Maybe that's what made me so irritable. "That Bullet Heaven was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever! RS.WAS.AN.ARCADE.PORT! Rest assured I was on the Shmups Forum within minutes voicing my disgust throughout the world."

[NakedBoB]

Anyhoo, sorry to mess up your party. I think I'm done with my postings on this Bullet Heaven Shumps Forum.

I think you're still overreacting a bit. Nobody here attacked the guy (aside from tongue-in-cheek ribbing, maybe), in fact, the reception has been quite positive. Those are some very good videos. But of course we, being fans of the genre, would like to see the facts correct as well.

Since you know him, why don't you tell him to come on over? We'd love to have him here.

I pointed Serraxor to this forum post yesterday, but haven't heard back from 'im yet. Maybe he hates me now after I embarrassed him. I dunno. Heh. I've forwarded stuff from here to him before, so I'm sure he knows of this place.

He is a super busy guy. He's been releasing two videos a week, taking requests from peoples. I think there'll be a new one tomorrow. My request of my personal favorite shmup is coming on Monday. No it's not a Cho Aniki game.

Love,
Naked BoB

[clp]

hey serraxor no one is saying they suck , they are pretty good but need refining which is where the forum comes in , research and post questions here on any title and we will give you the depths of the game to ensure your videos are filled with the appropriate information regarding the games system , you could even do the first half of vids aimed more towards casual players and focus more on the ins n outs of scoring in the second half or whatever .This forum is a resource use it.

[DJ Incompetent]

!!wh-a--ba-=aw*0)%^#%*^u)_RRAAAAAaaaaaab!



Dear Serraxor,
We, the internet, like your show. You have set out to create a halfway decent show for people to enjoy watching. We can confirm it is a halfway decent show for people to enjoy watching. Some would say it is above halfway decent. Others think it is great, like the thread starter and all your youtube comments. Enclosed in this internet thread are considerations to take for future episodes, which are fairly easy to add since you have already accomplished the hardest parts of creating a review show. We are patiently awaiting to watch your future episodes. Actually, we would not wish for your show to end, because we do not think your show sucks. We do not think it sucks at all. You can go nowhere but up. Please do so.
Sincerely,
The Internet.

[Kollision]

Wow, this was definitely not the kind of response I was looking for. Nerd rage makes me sad.

Hmm, so we potential viewers of your show are nerds. I could maybe agree with that...
But enraged? Why?

It sucks to know that the majority of the people out there that have watched my stuff think it sucks. Ah well.

I had the exact opposite impression, really.