Appreciation of 8ing/Raizing

[RSmith]

Since I got hooked on shmups about two years ago, the only games I've bought/played (aside from the Raiden series) have been from Cave. I fell in love with Cave since I played Donpachi and Dodonpachi on MAME and I'm still playing them to this day. Just a few days ago I ordered DDP Resurrection but I wanted to play something "new" until it gets here. So I went and tried out Battle Garegga, Battle Bakraid, and Armed Police Batrider which I had heard about them here in the forums, and all I can say is...WOW. I instantly fell in love with these games even though I'm still figuring them out.The only one that I found a tad frustrating was Battle Garegga because it's hard to see incoming bullets. I don't want to piss off anybody here but, I found these games better than most of what Cave has made (at least the ones that I have played). It's such a damn shame that I can only play them emulated on my laptop. I would love these three games in a compilation, a la Raiden Fighter Aces. I know I'm just dreaming about the almost certainly impossible but, it would be great to have all these excellent games in which only one of them got a home conversion.

[AntiFritz]

8ing is probably too busy making fighting games with capcom.

[Zeron]

Well actually when it come to Raizing games. Soukygurentai,Kingdom Grandprix,Mahou Daisakusen and Battle Garegga all got home ports.
1944 The Loopmaster and Dimahoo rights belong to CAPCOM so you can kiss them good bye for all means
Not to mention Armed Police Batrider lacking a official soundtrack brace for Kernow comment.

[MathU]

Raizing was easily a better developer than CAVE. The only people you might piss off are the obnoxious fanboys.

[Vamos]

Raizing was easily a better developer than CAVE. The only people you might piss off are the obnoxious fanboys.

I agree .

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

Hope no one minds me asking, but how does Kingdom Grand Prix fare without the racing aspect? I'd like to try a Raizing title one day, but there's hardly any console ports for their games and I absolutely cannot use MAME.

[Zaarock]

I absolutely cannot use MAME.

Maybe you should put time into that as you would to learning to play a shmup lol, it would definitely pay back. Or just use some super simple frontend or have someone set stuff up for you. If you don't have access to a PC then I guess you can't though.

[BPzeBanshee]

Raizing was easily a better developer than CAVE. The only people you might piss off are the obnoxious fanboys.

I agree .

This!

[shmuppyLove]

Bakraid and Batrider are both God Tier.

However I prefer Ibara Kuro over Ibara

[RSmith]

Well actually when it come to Raizing games. Soukygurentai,Kingdom GrandpMahou Daisakusen rix,and Battle Garegga all got home ports.
1944 The Loopmaster and Dimahoo rights belong to CAPCOM so you can kiss them good bye for all means
Not to mention Armed Police Batrider lacking a official soundtrack brace for Kernow comment.

I had totally forgotten about Dimahoo, which I had played a long time ago in the arcades. But like you said, the chances of that getting ported are none, the same as Progears. I hadn't heard about Soukygurentai,Kingdom Grandprix and Mahou Daisakusen but thanks to you now I have to try them out .

[KennyMan666]

While I have no love for the Mahou Daisakusen series or Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider and Battle Bakraid are both excellent. Brave Blade is fun, too.

♪ Let's Ass Kick Together!

[Special World]

I like Cave a little better, but man, Bakraid and Batrider are some damned fine games. I really wish they'd release some kind of "Battle Trilogy" compilation for 360. That would make my life.

[captpain]

I absolutely cannot use MAME.

you might want to reconsider that attitude. loads of the very best players use MAME.

the physical experience of playing matters a lot, but at a certain point it's just about the game!

[Korszca]

Hope no one minds me asking, but how does Kingdom Grand Prix fare without the racing aspect? I'd like to try a Raizing title one day, but there's hardly any console ports for their games and I absolutely cannot use MAME.

The shooting version only is not very good; the difficulty of KGP is in winning the race.
(Full disclosure: I own the PCB and love it )

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I think forced suiciding to get a 1CC is a bad design idea. Do any of you guys like it? It's fun to kill yourself? I still like the games, but only about as much as Pink Sweets for the same reason. Suiciding sucks really bad. And I'm talking about the arcade Pink Sweets, I haven't played the port where the ranking was supposedly changed. Aside from even that though, I enjoy the IKD style gameplay more than anything else.

[chum]

My favorite aspects of the best Raizing games are their visuals, soundtracks and general atmosphere.

CAVE games may be enjoyable to play, but they aren't impressive on those points.

[Gus]

I think forced suiciding to get a 1CC is a bad design idea. Do any of you guys like it? It's fun to kill yourself? I still like the games, but only about as much as Pink Sweets for the same reason. Suiciding sucks really bad. And I'm talking about the arcade Pink Sweets, I haven't played the port where the ranking was supposedly changed. Aside from even that though, I enjoy the IKD style gameplay more than anything else.

I don't see a problem with forced suiciding. Really just another strategy to survive/score. No worse than having to hoarding bombs in Cave games.

[cools]

At least in terms of Ibara/Batrider/Garegga - you only need to suicide if you're playing for score. The 1CC should be achievable without it.

[Bananamatic]

Raizing is all about the music and boss design IMO, the rest is pretty crap

[dunpeal2064]

Yes, its very fun to kill yourself. I love that Raizing makes you use everything you have. Its one of the few styles that promotes you using what they give you.

I would rather kill myself than, say, have to no miss no bomb an entire first loop just to see the real 2nd half of the game.

Plus, who cares about a 1cc? Its all about score. Muchi Pork probably has as much, if not more, suiciding when played for score, and that shits fun

[Vamos]

I think forced suiciding to get a 1CC is a bad design idea. Do any of you guys like it? It's fun to kill yourself?

God this opinion is really stupid and equally annoying . A game is a game and its creators can create any rules they like on the side of the player is just preference and that's fine but people need to stop talking about shmups like there's one proper way to do it and every shmup should follow standard templates to be a good shmup . Personally i love raizing and there strategy heavy approach and thats all suiciding is an element in the bigger picture of game strategy ,if thats to much to grasp then fine but calling it bad design is ridiculous I mean can anyone really argue that its less nonsensical than bullet cancelling? or anything else for that matter .

[mjclark]

I think forced suiciding to get a 1CC is a bad design idea.

Then clearly these games are not for you. End of conversation.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

I bet the tactical suicide aspect of Raizing wouldn't be so hot if they were checkpoint based shooters. TBH, I would actually prefer them a bit more like that since scoring would be a lot simpler.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

At least in terms of Ibara/Batrider/Garegga - you only need to suicide if you're playing for score. The 1CC should be achievable without it.

I didn't know that. There was a video recently where a guy was using an invincibility cheat and it looked like the later levels weren't possible at the rank level they got up to.

Yes, its very fun to kill yourself. I love that Raizing makes you use everything you have. Its one of the few styles that promotes you using what they give you.

I would rather kill myself than, say, have to no miss no bomb an entire first loop just to see the real 2nd half of the game.

Plus, who cares about a 1cc? Its all about score. Muchi Pork probably has as much, if not more, suiciding when played for score, and that shits fun

I enjoy the 1CC, gives a way to feel like you beat the game. Also you can get a higher potential score by playing through the final boss. I do play against my own high scores after I have gotten to the point of being able to beat/1CC a game but it's not as satisfying as getting the first 1CC. Maybe if I could get the world record or something but that will never happen.

I think forced suiciding to get a 1CC is a bad design idea. Do any of you guys like it? It's fun to kill yourself?

God this opinion is really stupid and equally annoying . A game is a game and its creators can create any rules they like on the side of the player is just preference and that's fine but people need to stop talking about shmups like there's one proper way to do it and every shmup should follow standard templates to be a good shmup . Personally i love raizing and there strategy heavy approach and thats all suiciding is an element in the bigger picture of game strategy ,if thats to much to grasp then fine but calling it bad design is ridiculous I mean can anyone really argue that its less nonsensical than bullet cancelling? or anything else for that matter .

I agree with you actually for the most part that having a variety of rules is good, just that this one gets on my nerves and it's annoying because at the same time there are so many things about the games that I do like.

I think forced suiciding to get a 1CC is a bad design idea.

Then clearly these games are not for you. End of conversation.

No thanks, I'll talk all I want.

[Eaglet]

Yes, its very fun to kill yourself. I love that Raizing makes you use everything you have.

This.
What gives Battle Garegga it's amazing appeal and longevity to me is the fact that the gameplay can change dramatically based on a few different inputs.
The fact that death also generally is something good (unless it's your last!) keeps a lot of frustration away.
I can't even imagine what it would feel like to play high level DDP; no miss no bombing the first loop and dying on 2-2.
Away goes the awesome bomb bonus and your run is ruined. Just because of one tiny mistake.
Battle Garegga doesn't have anything close to that. If you aren't going for a WR missing a medal ain't too bad. Especially in the later stages you have a lot of opportunities to build up the chain again. And dying (generally) makes the game easier.
The worst thing that can happen in Garegga is really running out of your credit when you're close to an extend (which - coincidently - happens a lot ).

But what primarily makes it feel fresh is that it's so different from everything else that i play.
Having played a lot of CAVE games during the last months sitting down with Garegga feels completely fresh and different.

I just hope Yagawa will be given the freedom to program similar (that is; different from the usual CAVE formula) games at CAVE in the future.

[BIL]

I bet the tactical suicide aspect of Raizing wouldn't be so hot if they were checkpoint based shooters.

It'd obviously just be boring old checkpoint milking. What's your point?

[dunpeal2064]

If you put on invincibiluty and grabbed everything and shot constantly, you could make the games improbable to beat. However, you can play conservatively and avoid raizing rank as much, which would make a suicideless 1cc possible.

However, your score would be very little, as you would be avoiding medal chaining.

Kinda off the wall question, who designed the arrange modes in Ibara and Pink Sweets? Was it Yagawa still?

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

I bet the tactical suicide aspect of Raizing wouldn't be so hot if they were checkpoint based shooters.

It'd obviously just be boring old checkpoint milking. What's your point?

Since when did checkpoint milking become boring?! I think it's pretty much the most badass way to score since your starting ship is usually super weak in those type of shooters. And yeah, that... that kinda was my point. :I

[BIL]

Well, boring in the sense that it's a common feature of checkpoint shooters. Of course making Yagawa's suiciding work exactly like it does in Irem or Toaplan shooters would take away its appeal as an interesting quirk. Whether Garegga etc would be as interesting for recovery as Image Fight or Tatsujin Oh is irrelevant since they're not designed around checkpoints to begin with.

[Gus]

stuff

I still don't see exactly what makes suiciding an inherently bad thing. You find it annoying. OK. What makes it annoying and how is it worse than Cave things like having to NMNB most of the game for a decent score or not being allowed into the 2nd loop without fulfilling the right requirements?