STGT'12 Week 1 & 2 discussion (Strikers '99 & V-V)

[VgameT]

I also don't enjoy V-V because it's really slow and long and really boring for a while and then if you die anywhere your credit is basically over because a) you lose all your powerups and b) you have to nomiss the entire game or your score is trash garbage. The YouTube playthrough was like an hour long and that's just a bummer. Also there's essentially no scoring, you just shoot guys to not die. Lame.

I like some Touhou games so go ahead and fuck my gay asshole now, I love it

[Drake]

In any case, do you actually have any answer to Zengeku's complaints, or are you just trying to wail on him because he said ~the magic word~? I figure you dislike people putting in a few credits and going "this game sucks" simply because they haven't played enough to understand it, and I can somewhat agree with that. But the first four stages "taking too long and being uninteresting" is an opinion that won't really change even if he plays more and gets any further, and I'm sure many people that don't play Touhou would still agree with those complaints, so I wonder why exactly you're jumping on that post in particular. Shit on his opinion if you want, but falling back to "you only like Touhou so you're wrong and can't appreciate shmups" is a pretty terrible argument by itself.

[dan76]

Why does the rank jump up so much just from getting Max power? Max power isn't that much stronger and it seems like it's just punishing people who don't know about staying away from maxed out power.

It's an arcade game - it's designed to make money.

[Bananamatic]

Why does the rank jump up so much just from getting Max power? Max power isn't that much stronger and it seems like it's just punishing people who don't know about staying away from maxed out power.

It's an arcade game - it's designed to make money.

unlike Touhou

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Why does the rank jump up so much just from getting Max power? Max power isn't that much stronger and it seems like it's just punishing people who don't know about staying away from maxed out power.

It's an arcade game - it's designed to make money.

I was hoping there was a less obvious answer. You'd think arcade games were hard enough as it is to make money without that kind of added sillyness. Probably why Cave games are popular, they don't seem to do that sort of thing as much?

[Paradigm]

You say "Touhou fags" and here they all come crawling out of the woodwork...

In any case, do you actually have any answer to Zengeku's complaints

Ok.

The stages feel like they're deliberately trying to waste the players time by being hopelessly prolonged. They feel like they are never ending and stretched out to make sure that you fuck up somewhere or fall asleep on your keyboard and fly into stuff.

The stages might seem long but they're split up into various sections with a lot of variety. The entire game lasts roughly an hour, not excessive by any means.

The bosses. Take forever to kill

No they don't.

Is that it?

I like Touhou myself, I just think most of the people who play it are dicks.

[Naut]

touhoufag reporting in, i hear somebody said the magic word, touhoufag orgy time now is it

[BareKnuckleRoo]

as long as it's an orgy filled with delicious armpits

[Thanuris]

TLB of V-V

[SuperSoaker360]

TLB of V-V

Brofists.

[shmuppyLove]

trap15 we need rank display hack naoplsthx

[Zengeku3]

Don't taint Ichirin with this game please.

The stages might seem long but they're split up into various sections with a lot of variety. The entire game lasts roughly an hour, not excessive by any means.

I prefer my shmups not much longer than 20-25 minutes. Especially if it's a shmup that doesn't the fuck pace itself. An hour is a long time doing something you don't like. Stages don't have that variety in my eyes. For the most time it's just piss easy waiting zones with a few spots of dangerous sections that I imagine become less difficult once you learn the stages.

I don't know what the rest of the stages will bring but my general opinion on that matter is that if your first stages aren't interesting then you shouldn't include them in the game. I'll have to go through these stages again everytime i die somewhere so these stages not only being long but also disinteresting is a serious problem for me. You might enjoy that, I don't.

No they don't.

I can't really say much to that can I? Well, here is my reply.

Yes they do.

as long as it's an orgy filled with delicious armpits

Damn straight. You know how it is.

[Paradigm]

I don't know what the rest of the stages will bring but my general opinion on that matter is that if your first stages aren't interesting then you shouldn't include them in the game. I'll have to go through these stages again everytime i die somewhere so these stages not only being long but also disinteresting is a serious problem for me.

You mean uninteresting, and it's a shame you feel that way just because there aren't a hundred multi-coloured bullets slowly drifting aimlessly down the screen.

Yes they do.

The boss fights are no longer than your average CAVE game, shorter if anything. Besides, a Touhou lover complaining about the boss fights being too long

[chum]

You aren't even in STGT, It's time to shut up and let the participants discuss things.

[Op Intensify]

Also there's essentially no scoring, you just shoot guys to not die. Lame.

Were you raised by ZUN? Or are you just ignorant of any shmup made before the mid-nineties (and many after)?

Does it still count as "scoring" if your score is supposed to be a measure of how long you stayed alive and how thorough you were at clearing the screen? Apparently not!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Does it still count as "scoring" if your score is supposed to be a measure of how long you stayed alive and how thorough you were at clearing the screen? Apparently not!

Not to mention they're also the medals on the ground that shift between point values (similar to how you have to nab medals at the right time in S1999), later stages increase in points value. And the enemies in stage 3 that don't die, but rather spew medals per hit (fastest it seems with missiles + all streams hitting). It's not just pure survival & killing that factors in score, grabbing all the crystals (or choosing not to in order to keep the cursor on shields, risk vs reward element) factors into end of level bonuses too.

It's one thing to have legit complaints with a game, but to say there's 'no scoring' in V-V is a bit of a stretch. Not that simple scoring systems always makes for bad games for that matter.

[Op Intensify]

Yeah, I was speaking generally of older shmups, but V-V does have more special scoring mechanics than was common for the time, with the medals and powering items. So it's totally wrong to accuse it of being "just shoot things and don't die."

There's also a No Miss bonus to be had at the end of every stage, possibly the first (or one of the first) examples of such in a shmup.

[Dave_K.]

I don't see if anyone asked this yet, but is Bomber Version code allowed?

[Despatche]

no, and neither is grind stormer. you don't want to play that game anyway

[Despatche]

please for god's sake stop repping that useless thundermame

I figure you dislike people putting in a few credits and going "this game sucks" simply because they haven't played enough to understand it, and I can somewhat agree with that. But the first four stages "taking too long and being uninteresting" is an opinion that won't really change even if he plays more and gets any further, and I'm sure many people that don't play Touhou would still agree with those complaints, so I wonder why exactly you're jumping on that post in particular.

Maybe, but I don't understand why someone would say "these early stages are uninteresting" when they're comparing it to a game that's commonly made fun of for having similarly "uninteresting" stages. Seriously, all of his complaints were always directed at Touhou, which brings me to my next point... he could simply be denying what is there. My next target is a great example of this:

Strikers 1999 was a great game with a simple, yet enjoyable scoring system, solid controls and an extremely rewarding Technical Bonus system. The same cannot be saide for V-V.

I can see shades of greatness here, but V-V is definitely not a shmup for me. The stage design and enemies are good, but it plays way too much like a Konami shmup for me to enjoy. Namely that the base speed of the ship is beyond useless (dead children handle better) and that if you die once it feels like you're basically fucked because you'll be under power for what lies ahead. It's a game that encourages restarting after every little fuck up and I hate that.

Right off the bat, I find it funny that you point out "solid controls" as a plus for Strikers, as if this is something V V somehow lacks. Waiting for "No, I didn't mean that bit, even though there's only one reason I could have put that there!"

The thing is that V V goes out of its way to avoid those issues (and succeeds obviously), yet people still call the game out for them. I'm pretty sure that it is 100% because the game contains a Gradius-like powerup bar and that no further thought on it is "allowed". The base speed of the ship is beyond useless because speedups exist at all, as every game with a speed system does this. V V is also a rare example of an older game that gives you a lot to work with at the beginning, and expects you to actually use it if you get into trouble. Let's not even mention how the free speedup at the start of nearly every life ties into both of these things.

You are lying about all of this. It's really easy to defend these games when I've got some of the worst opposition in the world.

[Dave_K.]

I understand why Grind Stormer wouldn't be allowed since its a different region, difficultly, and points. But why would V-V bomber mode not be allowed? Dips are all set to default, difficulty and points are the same, only difference is the powerup system. The game even puts bomber mode scores on the same high score board as normal game.

Dangun cat code was allowed last year, I don't see why this wouldn't be allowed. Unless you are saying its more difficult, so people won't use it anyway?

[shadowbringer]

haven't played bomber mode but I think that the cat code in Feveron is just a secret ship, akin to Garegga and RFJ/RF2. A different powerup system would be like playing Daioh on a different region, for comparison (you wouldn't have access to all weapons, which would instead be acquired through powerups). I haven't played said Daioh version to be honest, though.

[VgameT]

Were you raised by ZUN? Or are you just ignorant of any shmup made before the mid-nineties (and many after)?

Does it still count as "scoring" if your score is supposed to be a measure of how long you stayed alive and how thorough you were at clearing the screen? Apparently not!

If you're not thorough at clearing the screen you die, and you have to not die to get a score that matters, so that's pretty much what I mean. There are some point medals that cycle into 10,000 point icons occasionally, and you have to collect all the crystals (not difficult) otherwise it's pure survival. And the 10k point medals are only important if you can no-miss the entire game, because the amount of points you get for them is absolutely nothing compared to the bonus you get for 2-ALLing perfectly. That isn't interesting to me. The fact that this game's first loop is as long at a Strikers 1999 2-ALL doesn't help either. Going to this from Strikers is painful.

[Despatche]

I understand why Grind Stormer wouldn't be allowed since its a different region, difficultly, and points. But why would V-V bomber mode not be allowed? Dips are all set to default, difficulty and points are the same, only difference is the powerup system. The game even puts bomber mode scores on the same high score board as normal game.

v v bomber ver seems to be exactly the same as grind stormer older set (i'm convinced grind stormer was a prototype they decided to distribute, and v v is a "black label" of sorts). it is a different game; you're going to get more or less points in grind stormer for particular things (plus iirc the end of game bonus is far larger than anything v v could give you), and powerup distribution + bombs change a bit more than they probably should. i don't know how you could possibly compare this to the cat, even if you don't know

[sikraiken]

I understand why Grind Stormer wouldn't be allowed since its a different region, difficultly, and points. But why would V-V bomber mode not be allowed? Dips are all set to default, difficulty and points are the same, only difference is the powerup system. The game even puts bomber mode scores on the same high score board as normal game.

Dangun cat code was allowed last year, I don't see why this wouldn't be allowed. Unless you are saying its more difficult, so people won't use it anyway?

Arcadia lists "bomber" scores separately it seems. The record is much higher on bomber partly due to a different end game bonus. The game shows if you've played bomber mode by changing the % to red.

[Despatche]

I don't get it... how can you understand the point, but fail to at the same time? The only correct complaint up there is that the game is twice as long, and that's not much of a complaint. The real "issue" is that Strikers 1999 gives you more to do; it's supposed to.

[VgameT]

I dunno what The Point is. I don't enjoy playing the game, though, and that's my point.

[Zengeku3]

You mean uninteresting, and it's a shame you feel that way just because there aren't a hundred multi-coloured bullets slowly drifting aimlessly down the screen.

Oh like in Ketsui for example? Multiple colors can of course aid the aesthetic aspect of the game but it doesn't make things too much more interesting. Enemies doing different things, requiring you to actively move around the screen and random bullets though. That's more interesting.

Not saying that Touhou's stages are too exciting for the most part since they often aren't but they are worth the while to sit through in order to get to the boss which is real meat of the gameplay. That is strictly speaking for survival too. Score players will have a lot to do in the stages in Touhou just like in a Cave game and just unlike V-V

The boss fights are no longer than your average CAVE game, shorter if anything. Besides, a Touhou lover complaining about the boss fights being too long

As I said, in the case of Touhou, the bosses are the meat of the gameplay. Where the game is the most fun. That's why long bosses isn't a problem as they generally also have a lot of unique and varied patterns for you to deal with (aside from the occasional stupid card). Cave bosses feature a different style of patterns but a style of patterns that are infinitely more interesting read and dodge.

To give an example. Cave's stage 2 bosses are rarely very difficult but I don't think i've seen one where the strategy is to just casually move up and down whenever a slow, easy to see coming laser gets near them.

[Thanuris]

how are the bosses long at all, anyway? the only one that lasts more than 30 seconds for me is the 1-6 boss

[Zengeku3]

Maybe it's got something to do with me facing all of them with the Search shot.