An arcade that has heavy respect for Shumps!

[bestcellar]

An update to all this:

I was at the arcade a couple of times over the weekend and can confirm some of the changes made.

I took a very short, very shaky video of Daioujou. You can see that the monitor "blue" issue has been fixed and that the difficulty has been taken back down to normal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuN_C4s-jPI

And I updated my "community" record of Donpachi on the new "normal" settings. I can confirm that it is not US, it is definitely another version, probably japanese, as Zerst has said. In any case, I played one game on Saturday and got to 1-5 with 7.1 million, and on Sunday I played one game as well and got a new high score of 8.3 million, reaching the final boss of the first loop for the first time.



Now that the machines have been restored to normal settings, we're hoping some members of this community can stop in and set new high scores for us to strive for.

I hope to see all of you at the arcade sometime soon. Thanks again for your feedback.

[Erppo]

It's pretty surely not the Hong Kong version then though. Reaching the last boss in that would already be quite a feat, stages 1-4 and 1-5 get really crazy.

The US version on the other hand is heavily toned down. It gives full bomb refills after each stage and I think the rank might also stay lower so neither of those is really comparable to the normal (Japanese) version.

[bestcellar]

It's pretty surely not the Hong Kong version then though. Reaching the last boss in that would already be quite a feat, stages 1-4 and 1-5 get really crazy.

The US version on the other hand is heavily toned down. It gives full bomb refills after each stage and I think the rank might also stay lower so neither of those is really comparable to the normal (Japanese) version.

No full bomb refills on this version, so definitely not US.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I can confirm that it is not US, it is definitely another version, probably japanese, as Zerst has said.

I guess you can ask them to check by rebooting it; the copyright warning label when the game starts up should tell you what version it is (if it says only for use in Japan then it's Japanese).

[hail good sir]

ruff

[bestcellar]

After clicking on that link I found one of ghostlords videos where it was a run on very hard. I now take back what I said about doing whatever you want, holy crap why would you do that to yourself!
Glad to hear you put it on normal and I hope it gets some renewed interest.

yeah, that was my aforementioned run.

For my own part, I didn't know any better

However, I will say after playing it on normal....since I know the game on very hard for the first three levels, the entire thing obviously becomes about knowing the chain now....which kinda makes it less fun for me.

[Nana]

Just read through this thread, and this sounds like a really cool place. I've been wanting to travel over the summer, and I'm seriously considering this place now. I really like how respectful and willing to help the staff in this thread have been, and think it's incredibly cool that you guys reset to defaults per suggestion of shmups forum.

I wish you guys the best, even if I can't be there directly to support it.

[Dave_K.]

The In The Hunt cabinet, we custom made the marquee for it. We made a water filled tank with the mini sub toy that was released in Japan. We added an air system so it bubbles and everything...pretty cool.

Am I reading this correctly? You modded your In the Hunt cabinet marquee to be a fishtank, complete with sub model and bubbles!? Please post pictures/video as this sounds awesome!!

BTW: great job supporting the shmups community!

[Ed Oscuro]

I'd like to see that ITH cabinet. What's this plastic toy being spoken of? Is it official ITH (Kaitei Daisensou, to be precise) merchandise? Would be funny to have fish in there but they might not like it (I doubt it'd be good for the toy either).

[bestcellar]

I'll get pics of the in the hunt cabinet by tomorrow night.

[Dave_K.]

Thanks bestcellar!

[bestcellar]

here's a photo of when they first put it together



I'll get an action shot/video of the game in action tomorrow night

[Ed Oscuro]

Nice

[bestcellar]

[Master O]

Hi everyone. I just joined the site/forums and hope to be able to contribute as I am a big shmup fan (and know many fellow). I am one of the owners of the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL. We have a growing collection of shooters, with most recently being Metal Black & Salamander 2 going on the floor this week. We have over 360+ games (all original arcade boards...no emulation) (Following will be a pretty complete list of our shooters), and really spend a lot of time making sure that all of them are playing great (replacing joysticks and buttons at the first sign of any issue). We are very focused with tracking high scores and use aurcade.com for score verification. I've seen us mentioned on here a time or two, so I just basically wanted to introduce myself, and ask for any of you who come to the Galloping Ghost Arcade from here, please let us know who you are and if there is anything we can do or get to better the Shmup scene...we always try to be accommodating. I'm very open to importing and trying rare and obscure games. I also look forward to furthering my shooter knowledge through what looks to be a great forum...Thanks - Doc Mack - Ghostlord - Galloping Ghost Arcade -
http://www.gallopingghostarcade.com


1942
1943
Aero Fighters
Aero Fighters 2
Air Buster
Alcon
Bermuda Triangle
Cobra Command
Dangar UFO Robo
Dodonpachi Daioujou
Donpachi
Dragon Saber
Dragon Spirit
Forgotten Worlds
Gradius II
Halley's Comet
Ikaruga
In The Hunt
Life Force
Mega Force
Metal Black
Mission Craft
P-47 Phantom Fighter
Raiden
R-Type
Silk Worm
Sky Shark
Sol Divide
Strikers 1945 Plus
Space Fortress Macross
Terra Cresta
Thunder Force AC
Tiger Heli
Truxton
Twin Cobra
Twin Eagle
Twin Eagle II
U.N. Squadron
Vulgus
Zed Blade

So you finally got your hands on Gradius II. That must've been quite a feat to pull off, because it definitely wouldn't go for cheap in any auction or sale.

Do you see a lot of foot traffic for Gradius II, out of curiosity?

Also, if you can, get Capcom's "Three Wonders." The shmup portion is particularly good.

[mdsfx]

Havent been here in a while, but today is the day! Looking forward to playing DOJ on normal for once. Very Hard is like a bad dream...

Maybe i can even take back the high score for Ikaruga!

[Ghostlord]

Gradius II still gets a lot of play. It got a LOT more when it was up front. I met a guy at the Midwest Gaming Classic last year, who had the PCBs or it and Thunder Force AC. He didn't want to part with either really, but I talked him into selling both. Surprisingly pretty reasonably too. Been looking at getting another Gradius game very soon...There is the original Gradius PCB on auction in Japan for like $930 which is a bit much so I may have to go with Gradius III or IV.

We had thought of putting fish in the In The Hunt marquee, but figured it would end in a "Cruelty Towards Fish" campaign so decided against it. The mini sub is from Yujin.

Also I just ordered Radiant Silvergun, so we should be adding that to the arcade floor soon.

[Arcatech]

You guys rock for taking constructive criticism. I would definitely visit your arcade if I was in the area.

One thing though. Why in the world does Alcon have a flight stick like throttle control? That would be so annoying to play like that.

Keep up the good work and hopefully your arcade will be around for a long time to come.

[PROMETHEUS]

Cool stuff :)
will definitely visit if I'm ever around the area.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

That's a cool ITH marquee. Irem never went out a limb to incorporate such a realistic ITH marquee with real water effects with the Japanese candy cabs though.

At a local movie theater, I did play an ITH jamma conversion kit on a generic Dynamo upright cab that had a backlit ITH marquee back in the mid-1990s. The actual Irem M-92 powered PCB of ITH is quite heavy laden eprom endowed beast indeed.

And any plans to upgrade the DDP-DOJ White Label PCB into a DOJ-Black Label variant? It can be done with a single eprom upgrade. Easy as pie.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ghostlord]

I'm open to upgrading Daioujou to Black Label, if our regulars wanted it...so far they seem to like White Label though.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm open to upgrading Daioujou to Black Label, if our regulars wanted it...so far they seem to like White Label though.

You realize that Black Label is actually both versions in one, right? When you boot up DOJ Black Label, it asks you to select Old Ver (White/Master version) or New Ver (Black Label), so you can essentially play both in one cab by simply rebooting the cab if someone requests a version swap. Most people seem to prefer the Black Label rebalance though; easier first loop due to lower rank per hyper, more hypers for both survival and scoring, hitboxes are a bit more forgiving I think too, second loop doesn't immediately take your lives away, but the max rank limit is apparently higher (probably only matters in second loop).

[Obscura]

I'm open to upgrading Daioujou to Black Label, if our regulars wanted it...so far they seem to like White Label though.

You realize that Black Label is actually both versions in one, right? When you boot up DOJ Black Label, it asks you to select Old Ver (White/Master version) or New Ver (Black Label), so you can essentially play both in one cab by simply rebooting the cab if someone requests a version swap. Most people seem to prefer the Black Label rebalance though; easier first loop due to lower rank per hyper, more hypers for both survival and scoring, hitboxes are a bit more forgiving I think too, second loop doesn't immediately take your lives away, but the max rank limit is apparently higher (probably only matters in second loop).

Also, the chain timing is slightly more lenient in BL and there's some minor tweaks to stage 3 to make it possible to full chain the stage (in WL, you can't chain into or out of the stage 3 midboss; in BL, it's possible, albeit very difficult).

[Ed Oscuro]

real water effects

Real water effects provided by Real Water, LLC!

Interesting it's right next to Alcon...and in the side-on view of the ITH marquee, I swear I had visions of smoke rising and rockers up there. All the fireworks are down below, though

[GGA_HAN]

Why does Salamander 2 get so much hate around here? I'm having a blast with, the most fun I've had with a shmup since gradius 2 made it tot he floor of the arcade!

[LastDancer]

Do all joysticks look like the one shown in the ITH cabinet picture, or could there be any cabinet with joystick like Hori stick (stick with a ball)?
I am planning to go there myself during spring break but I suck terribly at shmups when using those eggplant shape joysticks... Might reconsider my plan if only that kind of stick is available.

[beatsgo]

Do all joysticks look like the one shown in the ITH cabinet picture, or could there be any cabinet with joystick like Hori stick (stick with a ball)?
I am planning to go there myself during spring break but I suck terribly at shmups when using those eggplant shape joysticks... Might reconsider my plan if only that kind of stick is available.

I know that the DOj machine has a round ball stick, otherwise I don't recall the others too well.
Since DOJ was mentioned, I thought the push buttons were way too sensitive. There's time I barely touched the bomb button and a hyper was wasted.

...and man, I wish the Gradius II machine had a autofire feature on it

[Zerst]

Why does Salamander 2 get so much hate around here? I'm having a blast with, the most fun I've had with a shmup since gradius 2 made it tot he floor of the arcade!

This forum holds an annual shmup tournament using mame during the summer. We get a week to speedlearn and drill the hell out of each game for 40+ hours or until they drive us insane. Salamander 2 was in this year's tournament, so the hate is mostly fallout from that, I imagine.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Why does Salamander 2 get so much hate around here? I'm having a blast with, the most fun I've had with a shmup since gradius 2 made it tot he floor of the arcade!

This forum holds an annual shmup tournament using mame during the summer. We get a week to speedlearn and drill the hell out of each game for 40+ hours or until they drive us insane. Salamander 2 was in this year's tournament, so the hate is mostly fallout from that, I imagine.

Yeah, it's a game that's got mixed reception, partly due to the scoring being heavily reliant on very specific spots like stage 1, 3 and 4 techs. Also stuff like Speedups being picked up by accident (unlike manually picking them Gradius-style) or how the Shield item seems to come out seemingly at random, and seriously affects your survival if you can get one when you need it. It's fun to play just to try and beat, not so much for score. The rank is pretty much standard Konami fare; it'll be out to get you if you haven't died in a while, albeit still not as nasty as I find Parodius can get.

I still have no idea how I managed to loop the game, let alone get to 2-5, It's the only looping shmup where I've ever come that close to a 2-All.

[MommysBestGames]

Took my family recently to visit relatives in Chicago. Came to find out this place was only a few miles away! Took my young son to the arcade and was very impressed. I loved the selection of games, but I also loved that it didn't smell noticeably and was clean! Could have just been that it was in the winter, but it was a welcome part of it. Call me a snob, but I'd rather notice the games than the odoriferous 'charm' of a place.

Anyway, they had a staggering number of games, I think about 5 aisles, with cabinets back to back, lined up for a good ways. Like the site says, there's hundreds there. You pay $15 at the door and it's free play. This was nice for us since we didn't shy away from playing odd stuff we'd only heard of. I've actually never played the old 'Warlords' cabinet, and they had a nice on there! The cardboard/drawn background is pretty cool to see. Game was fun too with another player. Played some In the Hunt, Aliens, Rygar, Jr Pacman, Metal Black, beat some odd MegaMan fighting game, the Dodonpachi they had, Salamander 2, Centipede, Arctic Thunder and a bunch more.

We also played this incredibly odd Sonic arcade game with a trackball! It was weird, sorta fun, and very interesting (with a view like Sonic 3D Blast, but different).
Okay, found it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegaSonic_the_Hedgehog That alone was worth the trip for me. I love Sonic and it was great to see. Plenty of other great stuff as well though. I loved playing Salamander 2 with an actual stick (played in mame with a controller for the stg week a while back, not the same obviously). I was still terrible, but it was noticeable more fun, for me at least.

Anyway, basically the place is super, if you're in the area or visiting, it's worth a stop. Just make sure to block off several hours. We only figured on 2 but stayed about 5.