looking for very specific shmup title suggestions

[court]

Can anyone recommend some shmups for me?

What I want less of:
3D environments (Raystorm, Ikaruga)

What I want more of:
Anime'esque - especially das Anime girls/witches!
Really awesome music - but think more Zanac than Lord of Thunder
Something that will help build my skill level from 0 to hero.

So far I've only played two games: Cho Ren Sha on the PC and I like it but the backgrounds are very stale and during level 3 I am very butt hurt - I just can't do it but I'm not giving up. It's just painful from never playing these types of games and then tossed into the fire.

The other which is Sol Divide. I suck at it but I can't help but love the artwork - some of the most beautiful game art I've ever seen.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Cagar]

Just get shmupmame (if 3.0b doesn't work, get 2.2) and play dodonpachi dai ou jou black label.
You won't regret it.

[Hagane]

Yeah Terada's artwork is great, but... the game itself isn't as good sadly.

Sengoku Blade has the girls, not really good music but is a quality horizontal shooter also by Psikyo. It isn't such a hard game either so it may be a good pick if you are a beginner.

Shippu Mahou Daisakusen / Kingdom Grandprix I think covers all the spots. Has nice art and music, and it's pretty accessible too.

[renardqueenston]

echoing Hagane's suggestions. if you ignore the racing in Kingdom Grandprix (honestly hard for me to do because it's so fun ) and just focus on it as a regular shooter it's a solid skill builder with crazy presentation and a kickass soundtrack. Sorcer Striker / Mahou Daisakusen (the game before Shippu / Kingdom Grandprix) is no slouch either, albeit a bit dated.

i'd also add the first Espgaluda to the "try it" pile - it's not for everybody, but it has the elements you're looking for and isn't all that tough.

[Obscura]

DeathSmiles is dead easy, and has an anime-girl approach to its art.
Imperishable Night is another good choice for beginners (its normal difficulty was my first 1CC), and it's got (bad) 2D art. It does have 3D backgrounds, although they're so unpronounced that I didn't even realize it until stage 5.
I'll second the Espgaluda recommendation. Just be sure to go into service mode and turn auto-fire on.
If you've got a 360, or are willing to find an old version of MAME and download a hack for it (Slowpoke MAME), perhaps give Mushihime-Sama Futari 1.5 Original a try. It's definitely harder than what I've listed above, but it's got everything you've asked for, and will certainly build your shmup skills.

[Deca]

As far as skill building goes you just can't go wrong with DoDonPachi. I'd avoid DOJ until you're a bit more confident though, you're probably going to hit a wall at the first boss if you're not comfortable with hitbox awareness. Once you can get through the first two stages without any issues though that game will really boost your skills fast.

Esp.ra.de is worth looking into but has kind of a weird difficulty curve...I personally adore Raizing so I'll suggest checking some of them out, as mentioned Kingdom Grandprix is a fairly mild game that's still a lot of fun. The all out Raizing experience definitely lies in Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider. The abbreviated 5 stage Normal course in Batrider is actually great for skill building and very doable for a beginner, it was my first 1CC. Battle Bakraid has a similar Normal course that might actually be a little easier. I got it very quickly after clearing Batrider's.

[BeruBeru]

I you really dig anime style and want an easier game you have two option:
The obvious one would be Deathsmiles.
Another, less obvious is Trouble Witches.

Other than that, play Dodonpachi and Espgaluda.

[R79]

Gunbird 2 on Dreamcast, total classic, with full tate and PAL 60hz mode, plus bonus console-only characters.

http://youtu.be/rKo2BbmbMDo

[Aguraki]

cotton !! (check the whole serie)
magical chase

[Ed Oscuro]

A classic Mega Drive game with das animes frauchens (er something like that) would be the Battle Mania games. Unfortunately only the Japanese releases have acceptable cover art, but that's no big deal if you're emulatin'. The second is pretty awesome but is one of those rare Japan-only releases, unfortunately.

And if you have a Game Gear, you can hit two categories at once with GG Aleste titles (girl on the game pak!) and it's made by Compile.

[Bananamatic]

Touhou

shoot me

[Moniker]

+1 to Esp.Ra.De - I think out of all the shmups I've played, it does the human-as-spaceship thing best.

Also check out Sengoku Ace/Samurai Aces. The soundtrack is really dark and chiptuney - very awesome. And the artwork is great too. There's a little anime story you can skip through, as well. The Gunbird games are worth looking into as well, although I can't really recall their music.

Judging by your criteria, I'm guessing you've already experienced Touhou. A lotta people like the Shikigami series, which is similar, although Shikigami 3 has 3D backgrounds. I haven't tried the first two.

[ebarrett]

for the love of god someone make a sticky for suggestions, the recommend me shmups threadspam is driving me insane

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Touhou

shoot me

bang

Seriously, grab a good PC 98 emulator like T98 Next (not that Anex shit) and try out Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square. I actually think ZUN's best music was from the PC98 era, and the games are not unreasonably hard. I suck and even I've managed Lunatic and Extra clears.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

T98 is a laggy mess. Anex is the only way to go if you want a legitimate PC98 Touhou run.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

T98 is a laggy mess. Anex is the only way to go if you want a legitimate PC98 Touhou run.

Are you sure you've not got the two backwards? I've tried both emus on a number of computers, and Anex was always the one with slightly inconsistent framerate, not to mention lower music and sound quality. T98-Next 131e does require a better machine for it to run at full speed though, whereas on an older computer Anex at least manages a playable framerate (I've only had issues with T98-Next on some old handmedown machines we had in a lab).

Edit: I tried both Anex86 v2.77 and T98-Next 13.1b to make sure I wasn't misremembering from here, sound quality is abysmal and framerate is jumpy as hell in Anex86, T98-Next v13.1b still works perfectly.

I found a 2010 update of T98-Next here that ran games appallingly slow, although because it's all in Japanese I can't tweak the settings, so I'm thinking the speed issue is due to needing configuration changes, not the emulator itself. Even with messing about with the settings, the clock speed option of 'auto' seems to be missing from the previous version and I can't figure it out. I'm guessing this might be the version you had problems with, because I sure think it's crap too.

[RNGmaster]

DRAGON BLAZE

Music is mediocre though.

for the love of god someone make a sticky for suggestions, the recommend me shmups threadspam is driving me insane

[Chaos Phoenixma]

When I used to play them, T-98 next would always give me ridiculous slowdown percentages while Anex would give me in the acceptable range.


I guess you should try both and see which works best for you.

[Moniker]

for the love of god someone make a sticky for suggestions, the recommend me shmups threadspam is driving me insane

I think that's the aim of the top 25 shmups of all time list. Clearly it's not working. I think we ought to also sticky top 20s for shmups for beginners, doujins and the already done top 10 console shmups.

--

I also just tried some of the first 5 Touhous. Better and more fully featured than I was expecting! I'm not sure I'd recommend them over the windows titles, but certainly worth checking out.

[AntiFritz]

for the love of god someone make a sticky for suggestions, the recommend me shmups threadspam is driving me insane

I think that's the aim of the top 25 shmups of all time list. Clearly it's not working. I think we ought to also sticky top 20s for shmups for beginners, doujins and the already done top 10 console shmups.

--

I also just tried some of the first 5 Touhous. Better and more fully featured than I was expecting! I'm not sure I'd recommend them over the windows titles, but certainly worth checking out.

Highly Responsive to Prayers is still the best touhou game.

[court]

thank you for the fine suggestions! It is very intimidating as a noob - so many shooters; I suppose with time I could have researched everything on my own - the thing is a lot of these games are getting super rare and expensive. I'm sorry I created another noob thread - just panic that I won't be able to afford some of these.

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

I can recommend Sengoku Blaede for the Sega Saturn. It will be VERY pricey though...
Its a horizontal by Psikyo, and its very much "anime-ish".

[Moniker]

thank you for the fine suggestions! It is very intimidating as a noob - so many shooters; I suppose with time I could have researched everything on my own - the thing is a lot of these games are getting super rare and expensive. I'm sorry I created another noob thread - just panic that I won't be able to afford some of these.

If you're worried about cost (and are piracy-adverse), start with the doujins. Lots of great ones out there, many are free. Get them at rancor's site: http://www.sk8tokyo.com/shmup/

You've probably noticed Nyu Media's localizations - once the eXceed series comes out on steam next week, you should check that out.

If you have a 360, Futari & ESPGaluda2 have platinum editions that are reasonably priced (even as imports), as well. Also: Deathsmiles 1&2 have NA releases.

[Deca]

If you're looking to start building a library, Futari is the absolute best starting point as far as bang for your buck. It was a great deal at full price and ever since it got the platinum edition it's just ridiculous. You can't go wrong, it's a fantastically solid game with a lot of drastically different modes and will work perfectly for building readily transferable skills.

[renardqueenston]

DRAGON BLAZE

Music is mediocre though.

dragon blaze is the last game i reach to when i'm feeling like "man, i'm not in the zone today, time to warm up!" - a fun damn game, but a scary one!

and yeah, as per psikyo, pretty boring soundtrack, unfortunately :[

[R79]

I can see the PS2 Sengoku pack on eBay UK for 30 quid all in. Excellent side-scroller, plus the older vert one on the pack is a pretty rugged shooter as well.

[Deca]

Wasn't there some weird issue with the PS2 psikyo collections? Or maybe just one of them? I can't remember anything specific, it just feels like I may have read something about it at some point.

And yeah Psikyo music isn't exactly cream of the crop, though some of it started growing on me over time. The Gunbird soundtrack is fairly solid despite being pretty samey throughout.

[Hagane]

As far as I've checked there's nothing wrong with Sengoku Blade on the PS2. I'd say it's better than the original due to level select, but I don't play it that much since I don't have a proper controler for it (Dual Shock sucks).

Also seconding Battle Mania 2! The first one feels a bit slow for my tastes but the second is great.

[Moniker]

According to racketboy the ps2 psikyo ports are all at least good, with issues limited to less-than-perfect sound & graphics and some level fudging with Gunbird 2. It's the PSX ports of Gunbird (no tate, and Mobile Light Force!) and Strikers 1 that are to be avoided.

[court]

I've taken everyones thoughts and balanced them with my budget: I am going to hold off to see what the system requirements will be like for Nyu Medias Exceed games. I currently run a Pentium 4 w/ embedded video (yeah yeah.. laugh it up buddy) Not the latest thing but it has been perfect acceptable for emulating R-Type on a "Sega Master."

For whatever reason my mind seems more drawn to the fan made stuff than the commercial - not sure why. I will definitely check out DoDonPachi - it seems to be the "lose your virginity" title of the shmup genre

BTW: This is going to sound a bit odd - but playing Cho Ren Sha has some what cleared my mind - I am really a bad bad player - still working hard on getting past level 3; but have noticed since I've been playing it that I don't get so stressed out at work as much as I have been - also I seem to solve problems a bit quicker than usual.

Have shmups ever been known to help exercise neural pathways?