Shmup stinkers

[Despatche]

On that note, Earth Joker doesn't seem to be nearly as bad (they're probably just unrelated games with similar titles). It's Visco, it doesn't go wrong. (On that note, in before THE bitches about Andro Dunos...)

[ratikal]

Ether Vapor (This actually looks quite good? )

The first stage is promising for a doujin. But if you play it past the first stage, you'll end up dying to dumb bullshit moments in which you had NO time to react. The only way to do is it memorization. I just really don't like it.

[Skykid]

I don't know about other versions, but Xenon 2 on the Mega Drive is utter garbage.
Ai Cho Aniki (PCE-CD) is a pile of steaming shit as well. The others in the series are OK, at least they "resemble" real shmups.
And Planet Joker is probably the worst Saturn shmup.

Boy...

I can put Xenon 2 back in, marking it as Megadrive version (if it really sucks ass way worse than the other versions that everyone else disputed.)

[Shocky]

U MAD??!

I dispute the following:

Ether Vapor - Cool graphics, enough variation.. I don't think the memorizing is a game-breaker.
Philosoma (PSX) - Ok, it is kind of dodgy but the epic/cinematic feeling makes it interesting + it was fun to play.
Nanostray 2 - Probably the best original portable shooting game on any platform.
Darius Gaiden - Don't use the autofire and you have a great game. Or use it, it's still good.


I nominate the following:

Strike Force Hydra - There is not a single good bit within this clusterfuck of a GBA cart.
Andro Dunos - Hellish graphics, no style, boring level designs..

[Skykid]

Noted Shocky.

Those you disputed will need a little more support before I take em off the list tho.

[Blackbird]

It probably says something about the Raiden series that I find even the absolute worst version of it to still be enjoyable. I'll really have to get around to playing the original on MAME one of these days.

I do find the SNES version of the soundtrack to actually be a pretty interesting version of the original themes. The port gave the original music a tinge of electro/funkiness that sets it apart from other ports of the game. It's an interesting twist, although I still enjoy both versions.

[Ruldra]

Andro Dunos? That one is fun.

Stinkers are supposed to be real bad, horrible shmups, not games you simply don't like. Skykid will end up editing this list forever.

By the way, didn't Twiddle host a tournament consisting of nothing but stinkers at some point? I recall Gemini Wing (which I like, for the record) and Omega Fighter (which I also like) but I can't remember the rest.

EDIT: I personally think these two are shit, but I'll leave to your discretion to consider if they're stinkers or not.

Twin Eagle
Zing Zing Zip

[TrevHead (TVR)]

we could do with another (mini) tournament of some kind 1 a year just isnt enough imo

EDIT
Im with Ruldra about Andro Dunos judging from that video.

can anyone remeber a 16bit (possibly PCE) hori that was based in the ocean, you were a (quite large) fish that had to shoot at a shit ton of fish that all swam quickly towards you. Like Soldner X you only had a peashooter to defend yourself and moved way too slow both of these made the game too hard to play (in a bad way) allthough the devs tried compensating for this by letting you take multiple hits (i think your eye changed colour due to this)

One would think it was a euroshmup but im quite sure it was Japanese which makes it even worse. Anyone know what shmup im talking about or anyother Japanese Euroshmups?

[BIL]

[Ether Vapor's] first stage is promising for a doujin. But if you play it past the first stage, you'll end up dying to dumb bullshit moments in which you had NO time to react. The only way to do is it memorization. I just really don't like it.

I 1CCd this somewhat bland but inoffensive doujin years ago, and I'm struggling to remember any significant amount of "bullshit instant deaths" ala Psikyo instant lasers, Irem/Konami corridor deathtraps, etc. It certainly wasn't an overly strict game to clear compared to virtually any respected arcade shooter. Major problems would be the lack of an interesting scoring system or enough intensity to make up for that, the idiotic eye-candy lockon minigames required for high scores, and 99% of the difficulty being concentrated at the TLB.

It's ripped a new ass by the likes of Crimzon Clover, Kamui and Samidare, like a lot of other doujins (edit: like a lot of other shooters, period), but it's far from being a notably poor-quality game.

[Vexorg]

I'm kind of surprised Bio-Ship Paladin hasn't been mentioned yet. Haven't played it in a while, but I recall it being pretty rubbish (at least the Genesis version anyway.)

[drauch]

Darius Gaiden is life and it smells perfectly fine, if not splendid.

[ratikal]

[Ether Vapor's] first stage is promising for a doujin. But if you play it past the first stage, you'll end up dying to dumb bullshit moments in which you had NO time to react. The only way to do is it memorization. I just really don't like it.

I 1CCd this somewhat bland but inoffensive doujin years ago, and I'm struggling to remember any significant amount of "bullshit instant deaths" ala Psikyo instant lasers, Irem/Konami corridor deathtraps, etc. It certainly wasn't an overly strict game to clear compared to virtually any respected arcade shooter. Major problems would be the lack of an interesting scoring system or enough intensity to make up for that, the idiotic eye-candy lockon minigames required for high scores, and 99% of the difficulty being concentrated at the TLB.

It's ripped a new ass by the likes of Crimzon Clover, Kamui and Samidare, like a lot of other doujins (edit: like a lot of other shooters, period), but it's far from being a notably poor-quality game.

Stage 2 comes to mind with that mid boss where he just suddenly appears and if you were any where on the right side of the screen, you took a hit. No warnings or anything. To tell the truth, I haven't even seen all the stages but I didn't want to. I think I saw enough. Music is kind of bland too, you need awesome music in a shmup.

[BIL]

Hanging around on the right of the screen is a pretty bad idea in most horis. Having a deployable shield and frequently increased hitpoints (technically lives, but you never power-down after being hit and they're handed out like candy) makes it a pretty minor offender in the instant death stakes to begin with.

Also, it has Tecno Soft-caliber guitar cheese and some pretty nice electronica later on, which are at least more energetic. The later levels get a lot more interesting in general than the earlier "cloud," "ocean" and "city" ones and their snoozy music. Nowhere near what I'd call a great shooter, but it's too competent to be considered one of the genre's shittiest.

[moonwhistle]

Philosoma has gotta go in. Possibly the most excrutiatingly boring shooter I've ever played. It's ugly as sin too. Sony obviously had no fucking clue how to make an entertaining shooter.

I seem to remember a terrible shovelware PS1 shooter called retro force, PAL only I think.

Seconded on X Dazedly Ray for Megadrive. It looks sub 8-bit to me.

[Matsunaga]

Darius Gaiden dosen't suck. I have to nominate Eight Forces, it's amusing, but totally unplayable.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Space Invaders: Infinity Gene

Way too damn long, and that's not counting the ridiculous challenge mode. Way too many cheap deaths. Mostly boring. And the later stages changing the view and perspective causes some major issues.

And the bosses mostly aren't all that fun either. And don't get me started on the I think 5-1 boss or Progressive/Ultimate UFO bosses.


This game makes Touhou 12, which I've been bashing for a while look like a good game in comparison. Not even going to bother nominating any of the Touhous though because I know they would be knocked off the list in 2-5 posts.

Not going to bother anything else at the moment either as it'd pretty much get shot down within 2-5 posts as well since these are games that lots of you guys like but I can't stand.

[Observer]

You want something that stinks? Try Super Mate Mate Laser.

C75: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvcAAma_NNg

C79: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw12LDijXnY

See it going from a quite promising or at least mildly interesting horizontal game to a shitty disaster with a flying magical maid onegai onegai onegaishimasu and a fucking giant metal banana (probably a symbolic representation of those sex toys the japanese seem to love?!?!?) as a boss. How can you fuck up things this bad is beyond my understanding. Probably because I'm missing something, it has to be a seriously awful joke and, like someone else said elsewhere, all the Amusement Makers talent went to RebRank.

Either that or Prötothea. A fairly unknown Xevious clone developed in my country and, sadly, not a good example at all:

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

Just look at that, I don't even know how I made it through all the stages. Inertia, enemies firing off screen most of the time, jerky control with the mouse and the keyboard (after a while it's not that bad and the weapon switching can be done like a FPS, using mousewheel or the numbers) combined with bullet time to at least make things easier. Oh, health bar too and a pointless score counter because there is pretty much no real scoring system at all.

Oh, did I forget to mention most weapons overheat quite fast so you have to stop firing after a while?

There are also moments where nothing happens and the scrolling is horribly slow. Last one, most of the flying enemies you don't kill might come back from another direction later on to bite off your ass (hence why you have a radar), besides sometimes trying to dodge your shots as well. Dunno if that's bad though, perhaps it's actually quite interesting

I had to disable the music by that stage because it only has 3 midish tunes of quite terrible quality. They really drive you crazy after a while.

edit: and the Wii version is 10x times worse than the original PC one. That's what they get for signing with Ubisoft.

So, yeah, before you nominate a true work of art and beauty and Visionnerz like Darius Gaiden (which is a wonderful on-LSD festival of surreal "hueg" battleships approaching fast despite the auto-fire deal and some other annoyances) check those things.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Why did you have to remind me of that?

Yes, that should most definitely be on the list.

[Kollision]

can anyone remeber a 16bit (possibly PCE) hori that was based in the ocean, you were a (quite large) fish that had to shoot at a shit ton of fish that all swam quickly towards you.

That, my friend, is classic Deep Blue.
And yes, it's BAD.

I'm kind of surprised Bio-Ship Paladin hasn't been mentioned yet. Haven't played it in a while, but I recall it being pretty rubbish (at least the Genesis version anyway.)

Well, I had the same opinion as you, but once I got fully powered up and had, like, 2 speed-ups, the game became a lot more enjoyable. Nonetheless, it does pale when compared to the awesome arcade version.

[Drum]

Andro Dunos? That one is fun.

Stinkers are supposed to be real bad, horrible shmups, not games you simply don't like. Skykid will end up editing this list forever.

By the way, didn't Twiddle host a tournament consisting of nothing but stinkers at some point? I recall Gemini Wing (which I like, for the record) and Omega Fighter (which I also like) but I can't remember the rest.

EDIT: I personally think these two are shit, but I'll leave to your discretion to consider if they're stinkers or not.

Twin Eagle
Zing Zing Zip

How the fuck could Omega Fighter ever be considered a stinker? By what possible metric? That game is glorious - top-tier even.

I dispute the arcade version of Bio-Ship Paladin - I honestly think it's a great game, albeit too easy. Misunderstood.

[TVG]

Dodonpachi
Ikaruga
R-type
Super Aleste

[mortified_penguin]

Twin Eagle 2 has no business being on this list.

[Skykid]

Stinkers are supposed to be real bad, horrible shmups, not games you simply don't like. Skykid will end up editing this list forever.

God, this is getting ridiculous. Ruldra is right, this list idea started as a bit of fun for a silly weekend gawking at god awful shmups, and then a cute video list for people to look at - but if everyone keeps chucking in stuff 'they don't like much' rather than severely broken, barely playable crap, I am going to be editing it forever.

Dodonpachi
Ikaruga
R-type
Super Aleste

This is just pure dumb man, sorry, none of those are stinkers and I won't even entertain listing them. PLEASE DON'T BOTHER POSTING STUFF LIKE THIS ANYMORE FOLKS, JUST THE NASTY ONES - Lots of good examples on the front page (and some are really bad. Alien Gate is shocking! )

[originalz]

Why is Touhou on the list? You mean the whole series? Maybe they're not for everyone but you're bloody insane if you see no value in any of the games. I'll also vouch for for Darius Gaiden.

Galg for the Famicon is really bad and a total chore to play through, absolutely no redeeming features. Definitely deserves to be on the list.

Most of the older early-PC shooters are pretty damn bad, god knows I played countless ones back in the day. If I had the time to research them, I'd try to remember and find some of them.

Heh, maybe we should have a "top-30 worst shooting games" contest for fun one of these days!

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Yeah, I didn't even nominate that. And if I was going to, it'd just be PCB and UFO.

Also, to the one who nominated DDP and Ikaruga, I don't find either of those games to be fun either and those were 2 of the ones I was going to do if I was going to post the list.

Oh hell, I'm doing it anyway

Battle Garegga.

[TVG]

Dodonpachi
Ikaruga
R-type
Super Aleste

This is just pure dumb man, sorry, none of those are stinkers and I won't even entertain listing them. PLEASE DON'T BOTHER POSTING STUFF LIKE THIS ANYMORE FOLKS, JUST THE NASTY ONES - Lots of good examples on the front page (and some are really bad. Alien Gate is shocking! )

Duh.

I just illustrated how these topics always end up. Putting darius gaiden, among others, on a worst shmup list is insane. The topic is fun but people always post good games they don't like.

[ratikal]

NES 1942. Just watching a video of it hurts.

[captpain]

This is fucking stupid.

[Skykid]

Duh.

I just illustrated how these topics always end up. Putting darius gaiden, among others, on a worst shmup list is insane. The topic is fun but people always post good games they don't like.

I know and it's a bit frustrating. That said it's difficult to pinpoint the sarcasm in a straight up post outlining several decent games when it's surrounded by a bunch of non-sarcastic similar posts, so you'll need to forgive me if I didn't immediately twig on the humour.

No more jokes plz.

EDIT: You American dudes, chuck stuff on, I'm going to sleep and I'll sort the wheat from the chaff tomorrow. And I'll remove Touhou, it is stupid to generalise a series. And they're not even that bad.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Dodonpachi
Ikaruga
R-type
Super Aleste

This is just pure dumb man, sorry, none of those are stinkers and I won't even entertain listing them. PLEASE DON'T BOTHER POSTING STUFF LIKE THIS ANYMORE FOLKS, JUST THE NASTY ONES - Lots of good examples on the front page (and some are really bad. Alien Gate is shocking! )

Duh.

I just illustrated how these topics always end up. Putting darius gaiden, among others, on a worst shmup list is insane. The topic is fun but people always post good games they don't like.

At least most of the stuff that was wrong with DDP got fixed in Daioujou. I can't even stand to play Donpachi or DoDonPachi anymore after getting the chance to play Daioujou Black Label which is pretty good.

I liked Ikaruga until I actually tried it, then I saw how bad it it was.