The noobiest noob.

[R176]

So, I have no idea what i'm doing or what i'm actually looking for, but I randomly came across this game called Satazius on Steam a couple days ago. I guess that's a Shmup right? xD I haven't actually played a game like that in many a year, since the days of dos games. ANYWHO, I was wondering if anyone could suggest me some good, nooby games like Satazius? I've beaten the Satazius demo like 4 times now (I'm buy the full game in a week or so) before I even bothered to look up more similar games and I have NO IDEA where to look or what to look for or -anything at all-. Maybe you guys can direct me to some good lists or directories or even suggest a few titles?
Thanks in advance <3

[Ghegs]

Welcome to the boards! And congratulations on finding the genre.

If Satazius is to your liking (that is to say, the horizontal gameplay with environmental hazards and such) you might be interested in the games that inspired it. Those would include Konami's Gradius series, Taito's Darius series and Tecnosoft's Thunder Force series and a bit from Irem's R-Type series.

You might find this beginner's guide written by our very own BulletMagnet to be an interesting read. The main site also has plenty of shmups categorized by system that might prove useful, but the lists are old and especially with newer systems (from PS2 onwards) there are plenty of titles not mentioned there.

There's also this thread with a similar question so you can find some good suggestions there.

[R176]

Wow thanks Ghegs ! I'll definitely look into the series' that you mentioned.
I'm taking a look at what you've suggested right now.
Again, thanks for the suggestions and useful stuff, I really appreciate it. <3

[rancor]

I have plenty of free PC games on my site - just click the link in my sig and go to the "downloads" section. It's in the left window, second-to-last link.

[R176]

Oh that's awesome, thank you!
Are there any games similar to Satazius in there? Like sidescrolling and 2d as opposed to virtical?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Hydorah and G-Type are both freeware PC games that are the closest matches on PC I can come with atm

It depends on what type of sidescrollers you like as you might be better off emulating older titles especially on the NES, MD and PCE. Many modern versions like Trouble Witches and those from Rockin Android are bullet hell shooters

Also give the Gradius series a whirl. I recommend Gradius 1 NES to ease yourself into the series. (Although many gradius fans recommend a later game for been noob friendly, Gradius Gaiden might be the one.)

[BPzeBanshee]

Hydorah and G-Type are both freeware PC games that are the closest matches on PC I can come with atm

It depends on what type of sidescrollers you like as you might be better off emulating older titles especially on the NES, MD and PCE. Many modern versions like Trouble Witches and those from Rockin Android are bullet hell shooters

Also give the Gradius series a whirl. I recommend Gradius 1 NES to ease yourself into the series. (Although many gradius fans recommend a later game for been noob friendly, Gradius Gaiden might be the one.)

Very much this.

If you like horis with action the Thunder Force games are definitely the way to go. Note that Thunder Force II has top-view stages where you go multidirectional which is actually how the series began, switching back and forth between those and the now-standard horiztonal stages. I recommend III or IV as III is very friendly with beginners and IV is the best in the series.

[rancor]

For a free Satazius/Gradius clone, try out Shot 03:



You can get the demo here.

[R176]

I've been trying out basically all the games you guys have been suggesting and so far I really like Hydorah, Thunder Force III and Darius!
These games are SO hard though what the fffffffffffff

[cools]

Impossible, perhaps?

[R176]

xD Nah, just annoyingly hard. Fun though!
I'm currently on the third stage of Thunder Force III D:

[Herr Schatten]

I've been trying out basically all the games you guys have been suggesting and so far I really like Hydorah, Thunder Force III and Darius!
These games are SO hard though what the fffffffffffff

Keep at it. You'll be getting better with practice fast.

Thunderforce III is definitely one of the most beginner-friendly games, and Hydorah has a (restricted) save function that makes practicing the later stages a lot easier.

[guigui]

If you have access to an XBOX, maybe you can jump in time and try that Deathsmiles game from an obscure japanese company.

Those are pretty fun, not that hard actually, and also beginner friendly if you know how to read a manual. Plus, they have good soundtracks (and some bullets on screen).

[louisg]

Thunderforce III is definitely one of the most beginner-friendly games, and Hydorah has a (restricted) save function that makes practicing the later stages a lot easier.

Yeah, that's one of my favorites too. I don't want to ruin it for you, but the claw + hunter combo is pretty unstoppable. If you can manage to grab those two powerups, you'll be pretty set. You might also want to try Hyper Duel on MAME. It's from the same company, and it's excellent, yet not too hard. I'd also recommend Gate of Thunder-- it's kind of a Thunderforce rip off, but it's different enough. It's got a great metal soundtrack too. That one is on Wii Virtual Console if you're not up for emulating CD-ROM games (as is its follow-up, Lords of Thunder, which is a good bit more difficult but also a tight game).

Salamander 2 is another good one if you're looking for fun horizontal games that aren't punishingly difficult. It does get pretty hard near the end, but for the most part, it's not too crazy. It's another one that'll run on MAME.

[xbl0x180]

Get thee a PSP-3000 and buy the Gradius and Parodius collections. Ideally, I want to suggest Gate Of Thunder, but, realistically, where are you gonna get a TurboDuo console

[Obiwanshinobi]

Hyper Duel (MAME) and Eliminate Down (Mega Drive, recommended emulator - Kega Fusion). You should totally play those games on a CRT display, which is my opinion on the subject. No bilinear filtering, just rough upscaling and possibly scanlines.
Also, Gun Hohki/Mystic Riders (MAME), Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams (MAME)...

[Blackbird]

Welcome, R176! Always good to see some more people interested in the genre.

I would like to recommend Gley Lancer for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It's a hori somewhat like Thunder Force, but I have heard that the difficulty is more on the lenient side.

Should be pretty easy to emulate if you don't have a copy of the game available to you.

DeathSmiles has also been seen as cheaply as 15$ on NewEgg if you have an X360 console available to you. Most people seem to like the gameplay (although I personally don't care for the aesthetics).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Get thee a PSP-3000 and buy the Gradius and Parodius collections. Ideally, I want to suggest Gate Of Thunder, but, realistically, where are you gonna get a TurboDuo console

Welcome R176,

If you do decide to go down the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 console route, there're some cool yoko (horizontal) based shmups worth checking out:

Magical Chase -- MC Factoid time:

The USA region Turbo Technologies Incorporated version of MC commands serious $$$ nowdays - upwards of $1,400 - $1,500 USD in super mint & pristine condition as a complete set & remains the holy grail of TG-16 Hu-Card collecting (due to it being the very last official Hu-card release for the TG-16 gaming platform from TTI). Had an December 31, 1993 release date & was distributed in limited quanities across at Toys-R-Us stateside for a mere $19.99 MSRP in early 1994.

Pro Tip: Scour your local pawn shops for loose copies of the TTI MC Hu-Card as you can pick it up for mere pennies on the dollar. One fellow shmupper managed to score not one but two loose copies of TTI's MC Hu-Card for chmup change at a pawn shop!

Only once have I seen the TTI MC for sale in complete condition at a used video game shop back in May of 1995. Had a asking price of $12.95 & did not pass up the golden opportunity to buy it at that cheap-ass price. Here's the ironic twist/clincher, I passed up on the chance to buy the TTI MC game brand new at my local TRU thinking that it was just a little kid's shmup game. My mistake... & so when the second chance came up in 1995, I jumped on it. It's a better shmup than I expected it to be.

The Japanese PC Engine version of MC goes for $140 -$150 nowdays on the secondary gamer's collector market -- so that's another alternative & cheaper avenue worth exploring if you want play it properly on a PCE or a TG-16 (with an Hu-Card convertor or Kisado convertor setup).

Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams
Gate of Thunder
Winds of Thunder (aka Lords of Thunder in the USA)
R-Type
Ordyne
Sidearms
Air Zonk (is a beautiful 2D sprite-based shmup with plenty of background parallax scrolling galore! -- is an ol' TG-16 favorite of mine)

If you go down the Neo-Geo MVS or AES route, try out Pulstar & Blazing Star. Both shmup titles have awesome rendered 2D sprites with some cool BGM tunes to chill out to.

The Game Boy Advance (GBA) shmup game of "Steel Empire" is another cool yoko based one with a silky-smooth 60 frames-per-second arcade-spec framerate (the original Mega Drive/Genesis version of Steel Empire ran at 30fps at best though).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[DrTrouserPlank]

Impossible, perhaps?

Statistically unlikely

[mjclark]

If you go down the Neo-Geo MVS or AES route, try out Pulstar & Blazing Star.
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Yes yes yes and Last Resort too!

[dieKatze88]

On the subject of Gradius:

Yeah the more noob friendly Gradius games came much later. NES Gradius is the easiest of those ports, it's also the furthest from the original. Gradius V has varying difficulty settings and is a pretty good starting point if you're not too manly to select Very Easy from the options menu.

If you're not afraid of girls (I only say this because it seems a lot of people are) both of the Otomedius Xbox 360 games have varying difficulty and are pretty simple on their lowest difficulty settings. You just need to be able to overlook or enjoy the game's other aspects. Be aware that in Otomedius Excellent, collisions with surfaces do not kill you (With 3 or 4 minor exceptions)

Gradius Gaiden is probably not the BEST choice for the easiest game, mainly because near the end the game gets pretty rough. The first 2 or 3 levels will kinda let you win and then the game ramps up. Not that friendly.

Life Force (NES) Supports Konami Code on the title screen. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start will give you 30 extra lives, combined with the 3 continues you get for starting the game, it might be a good jumping off point.

Salamander 2 (Arcade) is rather easy to credit feed, only the last boss is true insanity compared to the rest of the game.

The Parodius games can start off easy and get quickly brutal, but the Arcade versions have VERY effective difficulty modifiers in their operator menus. They're also light hearted and colorful, which makes the experience that much more interesting.

Gradius Rebirth came off as a great game with some frustratingly difficult sections, you might want to avoid it at least for now if you're going to look at Gradius closer.

Strictly speaking arcade: 1 or 2 is probably the easiest arcade game, With 4 coming in 3rd, and the 3rd game being an exercise in controller snapping frustration.

Most of all: Don't get discouraged. I know a person who practically plays Deathsmiles for a Living who claims that Gradius is way too hard for him.

[louisg]

Most of all: Don't get discouraged. I know a person who practically plays Deathsmiles for a Living who claims that Gradius is way too hard for him.

Definitely! Progression through a shmup is way different than a lot of other genres. Expect to get just a little farther each play, with walls to break through every now and then.

[mugicha]

Hello Everyone, I'm also quite nooby here, and I wanted to say there are some great recommendations in this thread, I do like horizontal, but I prefer the verts, I love Soldier Blade, and Zero Gunner 2 is probly my favorite all time, I just really enjoy the rotate mechanic. I appreciate all the advice in here, thx

[Blackbird]

Most of all: Don't get discouraged. I know a person who practically plays Deathsmiles for a Living who claims that Gradius is way too hard for him.

Personally, I find Gradius (in all forms) to be extremely difficult, because it penalizes you extremely heavily for death. Losing all power ups = screwed. It's probably the strictest penalty for death (at least from a continued survival standpoint) in any shmup that I have played.

[dieKatze88]

Most of all: Don't get discouraged. I know a person who practically plays Deathsmiles for a Living who claims that Gradius is way too hard for him.

Personally, I find Gradius (in all forms) to be extremely difficult, because it penalizes you extremely heavily for death. Losing all power ups = screwed. It's probably the strictest penalty for death (at least from a continued survival standpoint) in any shmup that I have played.

I have practiced heavily, There are only a few spots I have problems with in the first and 4th Gradius, those just happen to be the ones I play the most. Yeah it's hard, but it's certainly not impossible. The big thing is knowing which powerups to take after a restart. For Example, The biggest mistake I see people make on Stage 3 of Gradius is to take an Option during the late restart. Wrong. You'll make it basically impossible to kill the large things that come at you right before the bigcore, and you'll end up run off the left side of the screen. The only problem with being run off the left side of the screen is Vic Viper can't leave. Oops. Take Laser instead. You'll have piercing instead of an extra peashooter, and you'll destroy many of those things, and then with laser, you can do heavy damage to the bigcore. Get an option before Stage 4 instead.