Useless ships in shmups with selectable ships

[EddyMRA]

Endeavor (the first Raiden Fighters): Its main shot is very weak, and its normal subweapons are quite weak. The missile charged shot takes forever to charge, even though it's the only special that destroys enemy bullets.

Mosquito 01 (Mars Matrix): Wide fire doesn't make up for its slow speed and weaker firepower, in my opinion.

These are all I can think of right now.

[ForteMP3]

The XII Stag (In Trizeal, not the original game, which I haven't played yet) doesn't seem very helpful. I mean, the Trizeal ship gets three weapons that can be combined for insane firepower, the XII Stag gets...A short range...Side...Shotgun...Uh...Thing. It's powerful, but its lack of range makes it too difficult to use.

Oh yeah, the first couple Pile Bunker ships in R-Type Final are also crap. Their crappy range doesn't offset their power, which is also sub par compared to other ships. I admit the last in the Pile Bunker series seems alright, but the others suck.

Oh yeah, the AWACS type R-Type Final ships (The ones with cameras?) also pretty useless. Crappy Cannon, Crappy Force, Crappy Bits. So crappy it ain't funny.

[Dandy J]

Ship C in Dangun. It's good for hitting ships just when they leave off the side of the screen, and that's about it.

[Cthulhu]

Most people tend to agree that the green ship (the second one) in Dodonpachi is weaker than the other two. It's not so bad as to be useless, but it is easier to clear the game with the other two.

R-Type Final: Too many damn ships. Period. Yeah, it's kinda neat to have so many ships to choose from, but there's not enough differences to make all that many of them interesting.

Touhou series: The girl with the direct-only, non-homing fire (sorry, I forget her name). Normally homing weapons have weaker damage to make up for the fact that they home in, but the difference here is way too minimal for it to matter. Use the homing weapons, you'll be glad you did.

I seem to recall there being at least one pretty poor character in the first Giga Wing, but it's been too long.

[AWJ]

Most people tend to agree that the green ship (the second one) in Dodonpachi is weaker than the other two. It's not so bad as to be useless, but it is easier to clear the game with the other two.

I must be in the minority as usual, because the green helicopter is my ship of choice in both Donpachi and Dodonpachi. I'm not a fan of frontal-only ships, but on the other hand I find the blue ship way too slow.

The trick to controlling the green ship's options is to move diagonally down when you want to aim at something to the side--this makes the options rotate much faster than moving straight horizontally does. Of course when doing this you have to be doubly careful to avoid the trap of getting stuck at the bottom edge of the screen.

[The Bullet Dodger]

Mosquito 01 (Mars Matrix): Wide fire doesn't make up for its slow speed and weaker firepower, in my opinion.

Yup. I never, ever, use this ship when I play 'Mars Matrix'. Not only is it too slow, but it's wide shot is pretty weak compared to the blue ship's straight shot.

[FatCobra]

R-Type Final is the Gran Turismo of Shmups. You have lots of ships, but what is the point of having them all if most of them are either useless, or simply the previous ship but with 1 loop added to the wave cannon and a better Force? Not all the ships are useless, but here are some that never recieve much flight time:

The R-9B's or the Barrier Wave ships. The Defensive Force sucks ass and the wave cannon is useless, unless you get up real close and shoot it in their faces.

All of the Radome ships, for the same reasons as someone previous mentioned.

The R-13 Prototype (It's called Enchina I believe). Granted, it's not as bad as some other ships, but it's a teaser for the R-13 Ceberus

The Pile Bunker ships - Pretty much the same reasons I hate the R-9Bs.

Misty Ladys - All of the weapons shoot DOWNWARDS. WTF?

OF-1 "Daedulus" - ONE FREAKIN' LOOP FOR IT'S WAVE CANNON! And what you do get with this sucktacular package? Some weakass red or blue pods, a weak Force, and a ship with the speed transformation gimmick. Whoopie-de-doo.

And before anyone says it, I'm going to defend the Kiwi Berry, only because it has a pretty good Force and it's a flying tank! You can't beat that. (Well, Paltonic Love is also pretty goofy as well.....)

[df0notfound]

R-Type Final: Too many damn ships. Period. Yeah, it's kinda neat to have so many ships to choose from, but there's not enough differences to make all that many of them interesting.
.

strange, only 2 so far have come across as a bit pointless to me because they're just "a better charge cannon, no other changes) but you still see a nice evolution of a design, every other ship so far (about 40 ships in) has had something nice and unique about it

[FatCobra]

R-Type Final: Too many damn ships. Period. Yeah, it's kinda neat to have so many ships to choose from, but there's not enough differences to make all that many of them interesting.
.

strange, only 2 so far have come across as a bit pointless to me because they're just "a better charge cannon, no other changes) but you still see a nice evolution of a design, every other ship so far (about 40 ships in) has had something nice and unique about it

I like using my Pink R-9A3 Lady Love.

It's pretty funny saving the world in a PINK ship!

[LoneSage]

The Strikers series has so many badass planes, but like with Ryu in any Street Fighter, using anything except the Flying Pancake and that Hanzo (? forgot its name, starts with an 'h') is something people do if they don't care about score.

[Elixir]

Type C in Dodonpachi. I've seen the professional videos, and nobody uses this. Mainly because the hitbox is the biggest of the three, and rapid fire on 'shot' mode is still annoying as hell to bother with.

[GaijinPunch]

Can't believe nobody has mentioned anything from Shikigami no Shiro (either of them). The witch is my least favorite.

[WarpZone]

Ship C in Dangun. It's good for hitting ships just when they leave off the side of the screen, and that's about it.

I find it pretty useful if you know where the enemies are, and can kill them from both sides of the screen as they appear. Roll can make up for its weak frontal attack. Really, it's the A ship in Dangun that I have a hard time using, because you have to be right below anything to kill it.

[zakk]

Type C in Dodonpachi. I've seen the professional videos, and nobody uses this. Mainly because the hitbox is the biggest of the three, and rapid fire on 'shot' mode is still annoying as hell to bother with.

Gamest Video Vol. 39.

[AWJ]

The Strikers series has so many badass planes, but like with Ryu in any Street Fighter, using anything except the Flying Pancake and that Hanzo (? forgot its name, starts with an 'h') is something people do if they don't care about score.

You obviously aren't a serious Street Fighter player. Ryu hasn't been top tier in any SF game since... SFA2, I think. Ryu is the "blue ship" of Street Fighter :D

Agree with you on the Flying Pancake, though. The spread-shot ship with homing secondary fire is also the fastest ship in the game and the smallest? What the fuck? Psikyo might as well have hung a sign on it saying "pretend every other ship doesn't exist".

[TGK]

The big ship that has a big phallic-shaped (it really is, I'm just being honest) laser as the charged shot in the Raiden Fighter games, especially the first.

I don't remember the name since it isn't in the arcades anywhere around here, but that must be the slowest ship I've ever seen in a vertical shmup (slower than most bullets!), plus it is exactly like the first ship in Dangun, you can't kill anything unless you are right below it.

[IlMrm]

Hei-Cob in Gunbird 2.

P-38 in Strikers 1945 Plus - Huge sprite, and the homing missiles are weak. The charge shot is cool and powerful, but you have to get real close to an enemy. The speed sucks. Overall just a crappy plane to use. The Pancake's lasers put the homing missiles to shame. Also the Pancake's lasers go through multiple drones.

[zlk]

Type C in Dodonpachi. I've seen the professional videos, and nobody uses this. Mainly because the hitbox is the biggest of the three, and rapid fire on 'shot' mode is still annoying as hell to bother with.

Gamest Video Vol. 39.

SOF's Ddp Professional Volume 1:

http://www.cablenet.ne.jp/~works-k/product.htm

This video has 2 700M+ runs with the C-S ship. It also shows a 900+ hit combo.

[EddyMRA]

The big ship that has a big phallic-shaped (it really is, I'm just being honest) laser as the charged shot in the Raiden Fighter games, especially the first.

I don't remember the name since it isn't in the arcades anywhere around here, but that must be the slowest ship I've ever seen in a vertical shmup (slower than most bullets!), plus it is exactly like the first ship in Dangun, you can't kill anything unless you are right below it.

That's the Beast Arrow in the first Raiden Fighters game. It became the Beast Wing in RF2 and RFJ, where it was given a flamethrower. The charged laser shot was given to the Eraser.

If you want a slow ship, try the Raiden mk-II in the Raiden Fighters games. It's even slower in the RF series than it was in the original Raiden games!

[BulletMagnet]

Touhou series: The girl with the direct-only, non-homing fire (sorry, I forget her name).

You mean the witch, Marisa? She can be trickier to use than Reimu or Sakuya, but I wouldn't call her "useless." IIRC she might have less of a penalty score-wise for dying or using a bomb, but I'd hafta check that.

I seem to recall there being at least one pretty poor character in the first Giga Wing, but it's been too long.

I don't recall any hugely useless character in GW, though I'd imagine most players don't like Stuck (Shutock, or whatever), since you need to manually adjust the aim of his secondary weapon.

...using anything except the Flying Pancake and that Hanzo (? forgot its name, starts with an 'h') is something people do if they don't care about score.

I think it's the Hayato, something like that. I'm weird on the Strikers games though...IIRC, as of now my best score (I think) on the first one is the plane with the short-range bombs, I don't think ANYone uses that thing.

[Minzoku]

Can't believe nobody has mentioned anything from Shikigami no Shiro (either of them). The witch is my least favorite.

Fumiko, who freezes in place to do her charge shot? Oh, yeah. She's not really a "ship", though

[Elixir]

Type C in Dodonpachi. I've seen the professional videos, and nobody uses this. Mainly because the hitbox is the biggest of the three, and rapid fire on 'shot' mode is still annoying as hell to bother with.

Gamest Video Vol. 39.

SOF's Ddp Professional Volume 1:

http://www.cablenet.ne.jp/~works-k/product.htm

This video has 2 700M+ runs with the C-S ship. It also shows a 900+ hit combo.

Excellent, I can totally extend my abilities and magically read japanese.

The "Type C" in Dodonpachi is still the hardest to use. Anybody who bothered with the rapid fire and "shot" type can tell you this.

[landshark]

The character that shoots out the axe in Dimahoo. I know there are some sick scores that have been performed with that character, but I can't do anything with him. And he's SO DAMNED SLOW.

[Kiken]

I seem to recall there being at least one pretty poor character in the first Giga Wing, but it's been too long.

I don't recall any hugely useless character in GW, though I'd imagine most players don't like Stuck (Shutock, or whatever), since you need to manually adjust the aim of his secondary weapon.

And yet Japan's top scorer used Shtuck.

...using anything except the Flying Pancake and that Hanzo (? forgot its name, starts with an 'h') is something people do if they don't care about score.

I think it's the Hayato, something like that. I'm weird on the Strikers games though...IIRC, as of now my best score (I think) on the first one is the plane with the short-range bombs, I don't think ANYone uses that thing.

You mean the "Ki84 Hayate"? It is certainly very close to the Pancake in terms of usefulness (its sub-weapon being VERY useful as you can place the Syusui down and then go off somewhere else on the screen) and is used by a fair number of players.

[Metal Gear Okt]

The witch in Castle Shikagami II immediately springs to mind.

[freddiebamboo]

The "Type C" in Dodonpachi is still the hardest to use.

Judging by the hi score table, I'd say it's the easiest of the three

Definitely friendlier than B type, and a lot of people seem to encounter problems later in the game with the A ship and it's limited spread.

[Tomtom]

Ship C in Dangun. It's good for hitting ships just when they leave off the side of the screen, and that's about it.

Funny, that's the only ship I ever use. Maybe I should branch out.

[Elixir]

The "Type C" in Dodonpachi is still the hardest to use.

Judging by the hi score table, I'd say it's the easiest of the three

Definitely friendlier than B type, and a lot of people seem to encounter problems later in the game with the A ship and it's limited spread.

Yes, easiest to use if you're using rapid fire and love to squint at your television set trying to decrypt the mass of blue bullets between the enemies and your own.

[BulletMagnet]

Yes, easiest to use if you're using rapid fire and love to squint at your television set trying to decrypt the mass of blue bullets between the enemies and your own.

I dunno, none of the planes in DDP (or most any Cave game I've played thus far, really, though Ibara may change that, heh) ever gave me trouble when it came to distinguishing my shots from theirs.

[AWJ]

I don't recall any hugely useless character in GW, though I'd imagine most players don't like Stuck (Shutock, or whatever), since you need to manually adjust the aim of his secondary weapon.

And yet Japan's top scorer used Shtuck.

Isn't the record DDP score held by a ship B, as well? Hmm...

Oddly enough, while I favor ship B in DDP as I said above, I can't use Stuck worth beans (nor can I use Grimlen in Dimahoo, whose controllable shot works like Stuck's)