Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[BPzeBanshee]

Did a save state to practice for future reference. The pink ball phase on Garra is just brutal, and the HANDS, dear god the hands... I was chipping away at that lifebar for a minute, died, looked up, and saw that it was only half-gone. What the hell, CAVE?

I've seen videos of how to deal with those parts of Garra in action on YouTube, I highly recommend you take a look at it.

I'm amazed you could even GET that far to be honest, my personal consistent best is getting to the Stage 4 boss and sometimes not even that.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna play ESPRade right now.

I've 1cc'd up to the hands before, but this is save-states we're talking about here. I spent yesterday compiling savestates for every troublesome pattern in the game, and being able to retry made my performance better, to say the least. I won't try to pass save states off as a legit run, but they're really helpful for practice.

Of course. Savestates naturally are for practice and nothing else. Still doing well though, I've made a savestate at stage 3 (flying guy) and stage 4 where I have done a legit run prior to that just so I can retry those parts that keep killing me off.

Speaking of which I did a 1 credit run after posting that before and hit my personal best at 6 million points, and then at school (free time, honest!) I did a run that got me up to the Stage 5 house boss and just under 8 million points. I'm getting better!

[mesh control]

Giga Wing Generations.
So addictive. Wish I had more than a twenty minutes to play, though.

[chempop]

Just beat Mushi Original (PS2) for the first time (Finally set a button to A+ and it made ALL the difference)

Got some games yesterday from a member here

Gradius, Parodius, and Twinbee Deluxe packs for SAT. These games are awesome, so nice taking a break from Danmaku Verts. Only problem is I don't know which to start with haha.

[ChairTax]

Played Espgaluda II Black Label for a few hours today. After some lame runs with Ageha, I got all the way to the final pattern of the last boss, but couldn't keep it together. It was a hell of a lot of fun, though, and not that bad considering I've only put in about 12 hours total with the game.

[ShmupSamurai]

Still playin' a little Hyperduel, but my new main is Bari-Arm and hot DAMN is it awesome(I'm total a Thunderforce nut btw, can never get enough of that 'Technosoft Flavored Action'( Oh god that sounded like that cereal comercial form Yugi-Oh: the Abridged Series; Yami: "Seriously, how the hell does one go about testing something like that??"))

Now I can't decide which is the better knockoff, Gate of Thunder or Bari-Arm.....

On the otherhand, having played both of them has sparked me with inspiration......

On an off-note: has anyone noticed a strange connection between Arrow Flash, Thunderforce 3, and Hyperduel?

[RNGmaster]

HELLSINKER

[Anesthetize]

Checking out Trouble Witches Neo! Pretty fun for now, hopefully it lasts.

[duckman]

Undefined Fantastic Object.

Nothing is quite as heartbreaking as when a boss comes in and makes your UFO float away. It's twice as bad when it's when a red UFO and/or you die on the boss's opening attack.

[mesh control]

I've been grinding away Mars Matrix all day. The longest session I've taken on in a long, making little bits of progress along the way. I figure if I keep this routine up I should be able to get onto the leaderboards at the very bottom by the end of tomorrow.
I'm making way too many mistakes on stage 2, stage 3 is hit or miss and stage 4 feels manageable. I don't think I have the capacity to 1cc, yet.

Home run derby.

[Hagane]

Sengoku Blade / Tengai. Got really addicted to this game, kinda like an easier, horizontal Dragon Blaze if you use Katana heh.

The strange thing about it is that stage five is by far the hardest in the first loop. That's the make or break stage for me. After and before that the game is very manageable though since Katana can nuke pretty much anything away in a single charged shot, but stage five can get out of control FAST if you miss a single enemy.

Second loop is just as brutal as in any Psikyo game ever though.

[RNGmaster]

Ordered demos of Trouble Witches and Bangai-O (also Outland, natch). Really liking Trouble Witches, especially the awful voice acting. Seems like Progear with lolis.

[crackfox]

Have had a break from STG games but fired up the dreamcast today and played some border down.. that game does not play fair... but i love it!!!

[spadgy]

Pure and simple Raiden.

[null1024]

Ketsui, EspGaluda.
Doing terrible still, although I haven't been playing as much as I usually do.

[RNGmaster]

Bought the full version for Trouble Witches; really liking it so far. Can't seem to get a decent score though...

[chempop]

Ketsui, I'd like to keep at it until I clear it (can get to stage5), buy that beeping does drive me a bit mental after a while.

[Siren2011]

Fucking Battle Garegga. I ALMOST got the fourth extend during the beginning of stage 6 before dying. It was so humiliating, I stared at the score screen for a good minute or so. Keeping a chain during that stage is A BITCH!

[saucykobold]

Gradius III and FixEight. I'm surprised the latter isn't very well-regarded here. I think it's actually better than OutZone in almost every way that counts.

[RNGmaster]

Aaaaand back to Giga Wing. No-miss no-bombed to stage 5, but then everything went to hell.

[1up]

I've been playing a lot of 1942 and Galaga lately

[CptRansom]

Still chipping away at Raiden III. I've finally got stage 2 (pathetic, I know) down. I got bosses for stages 1-4 down completely and working on stage 5 boss. Learning stage 3. I've only had about 10-20 minutes to play every other day the last couple weeks, so at this rate I might beat stage 4 by Christmas.

[mjclark]

Strania!!!!!

[Drachenherz]

As I got a new iPhone 4 with my newly prolonged contract (yeah, I sold my soul)... I can finally play DoDonPachi Resurrection and EspGaluda II on the phone on the go. The iPad-Screen is suddenly soooooo big.

So mostly I'm playing DoDonPachi Res., arcade versin 1.5, on hard. Getting to the last boss of loop 1 on a regular basis now, but oh how I hate those fucking lasers in stage 5!!!! I HAAAATE THEM! With all my heart and soul! I HAAAAAAAAAAATE THEM!!!

But I'm still digging the game. Got something of 3.4 Billion, and there's so much potential for me to score higher. I guess, I'd manage to get in the hiscore table on thes boards soon. I just have to force myself to play it on "normal" on the phone...

Trouble Witches Neo also caught my attention, it's a nice game actually. Almost got the 1cc on the easiest setting, but haven't played much since then, as DoDonPachi resurrection takes most of my shmupping time until I 1-all it on hard...

[Deca]

Pretty much just Garegga since my copy arrived. I'd really like the 1cc here...I've been about halfway through stage 7, am I as close as I think or does difficulty skyrocket once you hit the 7th boss and onward?

[Observer]

It's Crimzon Clover all the way for me. 46:30 hours and counting... I just can't help it. I come back from work wasted, load up stage 5 on Unlimited Mode using Type Z and have the time of my life beating the shit out of everything. Call it de-stressing process by heavy and repeated abuse of lock-on systems. /engrish

Oh, wait, wait, I've been also playing other stuff. Might probably come back to Hellsinker or Diadra Empty.

[mesh control]

Shikigami no Shiro III on my new Wii.

I ordered the PC port several weeks ago, but I couldn't resist picking it up the dirt cheap Wii port.

Really liking it so far.

[chempop]

Zerogunner 2 arrived this week so I'm pretty hooked on that. Perhaps it'll be my first Psikyo 1-All...

Getting a bit better at Guluda 1 Arrange, it's so damn good, probably one of the best modes in any Cave game period.

[crackfox]

Playing some Psyvariar 2 on Dreamcast....
I am stating to quite enjoy it now...
In the past i have played it a little and didnt know what the fuss was about...
The bosses are shit heads though...

[AmidstStorm]

Eschatos. Loving the Advanced mode. 1CC'd Cardinal Sins recently too. Nice little extra on the disc.

Ketsui is back in the 360 after about a year of not playing it. It's still brutally hard.. don't know what I expected to happen to it. It's still sooo good.

[malcolm]

Under Defeat
Strania
Raiden IV