Extremely popular shmups you don't "get"

[Zaarock]

Senko No Ronde: A great idea that plays terribly. It felt sluggish and unbalanced...

Whaat. The controls are pretty weird yeah but it's definitely not sluggish once you're playing properly. Just look up some videos on youtube or something. Special attacks are also simple to pull off because of the way they work(doesn't matter what direction you start the input in)

They patched the 360 version a couple times with a lot of balancing stuff and the arcade version had a couple revisions. Seems pretty balanced to me but I'm still fairly mediocre at the game. I still hate fighting ernulas boss, though you can kill it very quick if use the right technique.


On topic:

Ikaruga - Too much memorizing for me, though I do sort of suck at using the polarity mechanic which makes it necessary to memorize more.

Dodonpachi series scoring - Never gave the scoring a proper go but I don't see the appeal, I'm afraid I'd start hating it but kept playing if I did

Mushi Futari original mode - Maybe I need to give it some more time, but I usually just end up playing BL Maniac when trying to do so :p I don't like the restriction of having to use a shot type for such long periods.

[Erppo]

Dodonpachi series scoring - Never gave the scoring a proper go but I don't see the appeal, I'm afraid I'd start hating it but kept playing if I did

Perhaps, but at the moment you get all the chains right in one run you'll love it more than anything.

Still, I like the scoring but I can't think of any sensible reasons why. Except for Daifukkatsu, which is ingenious in letting you skip all the chain parts you want.

[Special World]

Oh, I don't know if Daiffukatsu is extremely popular, but I really can't stand it. One of the most frustrating scoring systems I've ever played, and I hate its style of bullet canceling.

Black Label is better, though I'm not 100% sold on that, either.

[Cuilan]

Ketsui
Ikaruga
Touhou EoSD
Gradius series
R-Type series
Raiden games older (and newer) than RFJ

[Demetori]

All of them.

[ebarrett]

Everything IREM, and the inevitable assorted imitators.

[Blackbird]

Feveron, Pork, and Ibara. I don't know how people can stand to play games that have constant irritating sound effects, particularly of the voiced variety. I can put up with some flaws in videogames, but that's one flaw that drives me nuts faster than almost any other I could think of.

[drunkninja24]

Mushi Futari original mode - Maybe I need to give it some more time, but I usually just end up playing BL Maniac when trying to do so :p I don't like the restriction of having to use a shot type for such long periods.

This is why I prefer 1.5 Original over BL Original. I enjoy the audio cues BL gives you, but I hate being stuck with one shot type for so long in BL, plus switching more often makes it more exciting for me.

[Subterranean Sun]

Seven pages. SEVEN pages in a thread like THAT and a flame war has yet to start.

...Yes, I think I'm crying.

[Sapz]

DeathSmiles, I guess. Not a fan of the scoring, not a fan of the emphasis on suicide bullets over fixed patterns for the really hard parts of the game, some of the boss patterns are pretty silly, not a fan of the huge difference in difficulty between the last regular stage and the EX/Castle stage when going for the highest difficulties. It's still fairly fun for me despite those, but it's pretty easily my least favourite Cave shmup.

[Bananamatic]

Seven pages. SEVEN pages in a thread like THAT and a flame war has yet to start.

...Yes, I think I'm crying.

I don't get Ketsui on MAME. It's not authentic.

[Deca]

DeathSmiles, I guess. Not a fan of the scoring, not a fan of the emphasis on suicide bullets over fixed patterns for the really hard parts of the game, some of the boss patterns are pretty silly, not a fan of the huge difference in difficulty between the last regular stage and the EX/Castle stage when going for the highest difficulties. It's still fairly fun for me despite those, but it's pretty easily my least favourite Cave shmup.

The suicide bullets sort of ruin DS for me. I wish death mode was just different/denser patterns, but I can at least give it credit for being different.

[Udderdude]

Seven pages. SEVEN pages in a thread like THAT and a flame war has yet to start.

...Yes, I think I'm crying.

Oh my gawd, you're right. Better fix that right up.

EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T GET (insert shmup here) JUST DOESN'T UNDERSTAND.

Also,

Code: Select all

>XOP
>Extremely popular

:3

[apple arcade]

Ketsui
Gradius series
R-Type series
Raiden games older (and newer) than RFJ

I do enjoy Ketsui, but can't get into it nearly enough for it to remotely live up to the hype.

The rest of the list pretty much verbatim.

Oddly enough I like Dux.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

Seven pages. SEVEN pages in a thread like THAT and a flame war has yet to start.

...Yes, I think I'm crying.

I won't lie, seeing R-Type on every single page is pretty frustrating. Honestly people, what is there not to get? it was crazy innovative at the time, the huge bosses are still impresive and memorable even today, and that claustrophobic level design makes it a more intense experience than any other bullet hell I've played.

EDIT: why even bother attempting to reason with this awful thread.

[Age of Kings]

DOJ, Treasure games, Touhou

DOJ is by far my least favorite of the DonPachi series (though I've never played Bee Storm but I don't really count it). I much prefer DFK's scoring system and DonPachi+DDP I find enjoyable for casual play runs. I've never gotten myself to like DOJ for anything at all. I find Treasure games to be bland and loltouhou

[Siren2011]

I wanted to jokingly post "filling a woman's hoo-ha with goof juice" (what takes place afterwards basically boils down to "shoot-the-core IRL!!1"), but I'm not helplessly nerdy enough to "not get it." It's nice.

Note: Patton Oswalt was the first person to coin that phrase, not me.

In other news, dumbest joke of the year award goes to Siren2011.

[Uzumakijl]

Let's see...

Dai Ou Jou White Label: I really like the game, It's cool, nice music, sprites, bosses and all of that, But the thing is just too hard for me but i don't really understand why, Black Label is a bit more enjoyable but it doesn't feels as cool as white label, It's just out of my league.

Battle Garegga: I don't get why the game is so popular while being THAT hard, It's like if the guys who play this competitively are much better than me in lots of aspects.

Any Touhou: Too easy on every difficulty except their extra modes, But these relly on learning the paths for avoiding raids of popcorn and learning how to avoid bosses spellcards in safe ways, Visible Hitbox makes them stupid since the game doesn't really needs them. And the music can get a bit annoying at times.

Radirgy: The game is cool and everything, but the system seems a bit too unfrendly for me either that or i just suck at it, I still play it from time to time but i never know what the hell i'm doing, the scoring makes no sense at all.

Raiden: Your ship is too slow and bullets are quite fast, How fun.

[MathU]

Radirgy: The game is cool and everything, but the system seems a bit too unfrendly for me either that or i just suck at it, I still play it from time to time but i never know what the hell i'm doing, the scoring makes no sense at all.

Dunno if this post of mine from another board will help you, but...

Scoring in Radirgy centers around keeping your multiplier up and constantly recharging your Abuzo network attack.

It's all about balancing the two. When you're in a dry spot of enemies and bullets, what you want to do is scratch an enemy with your shield to keep the multiplier meter from going down too much--while you wait for more enemies to come on screen again. Then you use your Abuzo network to bring the multiplier back up. Note that scratching things with your shield creates bigger pills than using your Abuzo network. Scratching multiple targets at once (the bigger enemies in every stage usually have multiple targets) fills your multiplier meter the fastest.

Swiping enemies and bullets with your sword builds your Abuzo network gauge back up the fastest. Using your sword a lot is very important in Radirgy.

Simplified, the process looks like this:
1. Build the multiplier meter up to 16x at first by scratching big enemies (multiple targets) with your shield.
2. Destroy things and pick up items at 16x for delicious points.
3. Use your Abuzo network to max the multiplier meter back out before it reverts to 8x.
4. Quickly swipe a lot of enemies and bullets to recharge the Abuzo network.
5. Cycle through 2 to 4 repeatedly.

The first time you beat the stage 1 boss at 16x without getting hit is extremely satisfying.

[Zengeku3]

I don't get Ketsui on MAME. It's not authentic.

Your possibly sarcastic comment reminds me of something I forgot to post last time.

I don't understand what's cool about Hellsinker - It looks like a game whose graphics engine isn't done yet that compensates with a huge load of different concepts you'll have to play around with. In addition, it looks like the bullets teleport when you move around too fast.

Also. Guwange. Don't get that either.

[Treasurance]

I don't get Ketsui on MAME. It's not authentic.

dat true

I don't understand what's cool about Hellsinker

how the hell could you if you haven't even reached the later stages

It looks like a game whose graphics engine isn't done

maybe for the first few stages

yet that compensates with a huge load of different concepts you'll have to play around with.

you hardly have to unless going for score
also music synced stages/bosses

In addition, it looks like the bullets teleport when you move around too fast.

no

[emphatic]

Any Thunderforce game and most Seibu games. Sure, the RF games have medals and fun bullet patterns, but that doesn't matter when you can't keep track on what ship is yours or see the bullets (on some stages).

[Zengeku3]

dat true

But still one of the best bullet hells ever made. Just sayin'.

how the hell could you if you haven't even reached the later stages

I've seen quite a lot of videos of it. Ketsui and DOJ had won me over even before I got to try them just because of their audial and visual styles. Deathsmiles didn't quite manage that but that had me like it immediately when I tried it. With Hellsinker every thing I learn about it just has me scratching my head wondering why that is so special. Most of the time there almost aren't any bullets which leads me to believe if that few bullets and the speed they move with are supposed to make a hard game then there must be something wrong with it.

It just doesn't seem to have that Cave feel that I am on the look for in a bullet hell game.

also music synced stages/bosses

Lol, like in Toohoo.

no

There is still something that looks strange about the way those bullets move. Cannot really explain it. It just looks like they suddenly jump a few pixels to the side.

[Observer]

I can't believe this thing reached 7 pages. To each their own!

Don't mess with my favourite shit and I'm not going to mess with yours.

/thread

[Treasurance]

But still one of the best bullet hells ever made. Just sayin'.

doesn't feel like anything after the far superior DS version

I've seen quite a lot of videos of it.

you shouldn't even be watching the videos

It just doesn't seem to have that Cave feel that I am on the look for in a bullet hell game.

now that's exactly what I thought when I played the game for the first time

...over a year ago

Lol, like in Toohoo.

What, toohoo has music sync? You ain't seen nothing

[Zengeku3]

now that's exactly what I thought when I played the game for the first time
...over a year ago

Then it will be interesting to see what I think of it. In a year. I made a video of myself playing the first two stages that I plan to put up cause' I have a bunch of questions that you might be able to help me with.

What, toohoo has music sync? You ain't seen nothing

I dunno. That's just what the diehards keep saying. As if it excuses dull and easy stages.

[Drum]

I don't think there are any shmups I don't get. They're not real complicated.

[BPzeBanshee]

Any Thunderforce game and most Seibu games. Sure, the RF games have medals and fun bullet patterns, but that doesn't matter when you can't keep track on what ship is yours or see the bullets (on some stages).

I normally agree with you on most of these things emph, but slagging the TF series and claiming bullet patterns are hard to see are as laughable as the the people who don't get Yagawa's Raizing games, or saying "touhou is harder" when watching THE HARDEST VIDEO GAME BOSS EVER where you can see all bullets and no background.

Extremely popular shmups I don't get (for the sake of being controversial): Deathsmiles II.

Gameplay may be as good as the original or better according to some people but the settings, shit minigame and poor attempt at being wow-pretty-3d-graphics ruins it for me. Not so much being 3D as it is having poor animation - Broken Thunder looked better and that game made it onto the stinkers list with no contest against it.

Of course people are going to disagree with me on these views and they're going to have great points - my point is that this thread is basically an excuse to slag off on games you don't like the taste of. This is going to be based on whatever game you've grown up playing with to some extent and your taste of what a shmup should look and play like. I think Seibu Kaihatsu's games are the penultimate standard of what a manic shmup should be like since I got into shmups via Raiden II for example, and some others think that if a bullet isn't pink it's invisible (Cave n00bs).

I don't think there are any shmups I don't get. They're not real complicated

What about Battle Garegga?

[Deca]

I don't think there are any shmups I don't get. They're not real complicated

What about Battle Garegga?

Why do people think Garegga is so complicated? It's really a lot more straightforward than a lot of Cave games. People seem to think rank control is some horrendously convoluted thing, but the actual practice of managing it is really not that difficult. Only grab medals and try not to keep more than one extra life in stock until stage 6 or so, don't power up excessively, you should be OK. There's no weird scoring system to deal with. Sure at very high level it can be complicated killing things with specific shot types to max scoring, but that's not something you need to worry about to just enjoy the game.

[BPzeBanshee]

I don't think there are any shmups I don't get. They're not real complicated

What about Battle Garegga?

Why do people think Garegga is so complicated? It's really a lot more straightforward than a lot of Cave games. People seem to think rank control is some horrendously convoluted thing, but the actual practice of managing it is really not that difficult. Only grab medals and try not to keep more than one extra life in stock until stage 6 or so, don't power up excessively, you should be OK. There's no weird scoring system to deal with. Sure at very high level it can be complicated killing things with specific shot types to max scoring, but that's not something you need to worry about to just enjoy the game.

This is part of what I was getting at with my previous rant, and I think you missed the reference with why I mentioned it to Drum anyway. It's the same with Batrider's Normal Course and to some extent it's Advanced Course as well (personally I find Batrider's not as hard with rank difficulty as Garegga is, I can get to Stage 6 in Batrider fine with some practice but cant consistently get to Stage 5 in Garegga for example).

Drum's been known to complain about Battle Garegga before you see (look up armchair developer thread in this subforum, its actually a good read though you'll see what I mean).