Annual Top 25 Pre-Discussion Thread (?)

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

All Raizing games are the same as Gun Frontier but with blander art and music.

I'm probably taking this a bit too far, but it's still fun IMO.

[Hagane]

It was stupid and unfunny enough the first time around, no need to keep going further down.

[DMC]

If someone would like to do the effort, it would be interesting to break it down into sections. Such as separate votes for Best visuals, audio, and gameplay.

...or best stage with trains.

[KAI]

Please no!
We should leave music and visuals out of this.

[Vyxx]

...or best stage with trains.

Ibara wins

[trap15]

...or best stage with trains.

Raiden Fighters 2 wins

Fixed that for you

[Vyxx]

...or best stage with trains.

Raiden Fighters 2 wins

Fixed that for you

Haha that would be in my honorable mentions list for sure

[Hagane]

Strikers 1945 of course, with the Gunbird train trick.

[KAI]

Espbugalooda

[Nifty]

Let people vote for a certain version to be counted separately (Gradius III SNES for example), and if no version is specified it should be counted as a vote for the primary release. This allows people to show the love for their favorite version if necessary, without giving a less-beloved primary title a vote the user would not otherwise give.

This is basically the way it works already, with the addition that users are allowed to include as many different versions as they want.

& listing top 20 or 10 separately for console, 80's, traditional, modern etc. should also be considered.

If someone would like to do the effort, it would be interesting to break it down into sections. Such as separate votes for Best visuals, audio, and gameplay.

...or best stage with trains.

One list at a time will be plenty, methinks. Whether or not it's a better idea to have all lists at once rather than spread out over the year would be an interesting discussion, but for now I should make sure I can handle running the usual list first.


I did a scan of the last couple of overall results to (try and) find all the game versions that currently count as separate:

Code: Select all

Futari 1.5/Black Label
DeathSmiles/Mega Black Label/iOS
EspGaluda II/Black Label/iOS
Ibara/Black Label
DFK 1.5/Black Label
Gradius II ARC/NES/Home computer ports
Gradius III SNES/ARC
Zanac NES/MSX
Salamander NES/ARC/MSX
Gyruss NES/ARC
UN Squadron SNES/ARC
Undead Line X68K/MD/MSX

Ones I'm not sure about:
Xevious/Arrangement
Blue Wish Resurrection/Plus

Would there be any objections to merging any or all of these?

[Vyxx]

Objection for Ibara and kuro.

Night and day between those two games.

[Sapz]

For me the most sketchy one is DFK1.5 vs BL - 2 loops vs 1 loop, chaining scoring system vs bullet cancelling/item collecting/rank manipulation scoring system, different OSTs, seperate PCB and console releases, BL has the game change with the ship styles, the list goes on for a while... pretty much the only similarity is that it reuses graphical assets and stage layouts (and has DDPDFK in the name).

[trap15]

Yeah, keep these different:
* DFK 1.5 / BL
* Ibara / Kuro

[Mortificator]

It's OK to merge the arcade and NES versions of Gradius II, but the home computer Gradius 2 isn't a port, but a unique game with a very similar title.

Similarly, MSX Salamander is a unique game and should definitely not be merged with the others. The NES Salamander, though... well, it's more more different from the arcade than the NES Gradius II is from its parent, but maybe just close enough that merging wouldn't hurt.

We're getting into fuzzier and fuzzier territory with SNES Gradius III. Some parts are just simplified versions of what was in arcade Gradius III, but others are exported from arcade Gradius II. I guess a 7/3 split would be too convoluted. SNES III certainly isn't an original game, though.

The NES and MSX flavors of Zanac are close enough to count as one. And as remakes go, Xevious Arrangement plays very much like the original.

The arcade and SNES versions of UN Squadron share many stage elements, but the map system in the SNES game totally changes how it's approached. I wouldn't merge those games.

[Nifty]

I'm re-acquainting myself with some of the differences myself now too, and here's what I'm thinking:
-Merge Gradius II ARC/NES (were merged last time anyway, but not the time before), Futari, DeathSmiles, ESPGaluda II and Blue Wish Resurrection
-Keep Ibara, DFK, Gradius III, Salamander, UN Squadron, Undead Line (the MSX and X68K versions look somewhat similar but unless someone other than Damocles cares I won't touch them) and Xevious apart
-Leaning toward separation on the last two as well; the level layout in Zanac MSX looks quite different, and Gyruss NES plays similarly but has a lot of different content

Based on what I've seen, I'm very tempted to keep all the old games separate on the basis that whoever split them originally knew what they were doing and that anyone voting for one version or another is doing it for a reason.

If anything I'm a little more skeptical of some of those old console ports being separated from their respective arcade counterparts.

So much for that then

[nimitz]

Once again, merge Gradius III. (see my previous post)

UN Squadron is more or less in the same category as Gradius III and should be merged if we don't want to dilute the few votes the game might have.

Merge all the versions of Salamander *except* msx

Undead Line should probably be split into (msx + X68k) and MD/genesis

As for Gradius II just make sure the vote is not for "Nemesis 2" aka Gradius 2 msx aka Nemesis '90 kai. The home ports (including computer) of Gradius II should be merged.

[Nifty]

I wasn't really convinced by your reasoning there, I'm afraid

Well, guess what, playing Gradius III arcade will improve your Gradius III snes skills and vice-versa

Stretch it a little further and you could say the same about Gradius II, or IV, etc

and as far as visuals/audio go the games are pretty much the same. The main difference is that one is brutally hard and the other very easy, but surely a difficulty setting shouldn't warrant another entry.

I also see entirely different stages, different enemies and different weapon options, which is no small deal in a game where weapon selection can completely change a player's approach

Now some people might say that they do not want to vote for Gradius III (all versions) since that would be giving credit to a version they might not consider worthy of their top 25. Well, I'd argue what you get in return is worth it, that is the version you like will still be represented in the poll and it will fare better since it will not have the handicap of having split votes.

But the votes aren't being split, in the sense that neither version is losing votes to the other. The way I see it, this grants the freedom for someone to choose where they want their points to go. I went and looked over the last six polls and couldn't locate a single double GIII vote, while Futari had about ten last time alone. I could see Zanac and Gyruss potentially 'losing' votes this way, but I'm doubtful about the rest, especially Salamander.

Either way, it should be safe to leave the option open to combine all these ports further down the road, while for now I need to make definite rulings regarding those Cave games. If I can get that out of the way, I should be able to start the poll tomorrow (I'm thinking 0400 GMT, or "STGT time").

[Illyrian]

Can we gdt on with this so I can fill my list with every CAVE and Touhou game already!?!?

If Garegga wins again there is clearly something wrong with the forum.

[chempop]

Merge everything with the same primary title.

Some will vote for DFK1.5, others for DFK-BL... but at the end of the day it's still DFK in my rather unpopular opinion. Plus it might encourage lists to NOT look like this:

DDP
DDPDOJ
DDPDOJ-BL
DDPDFK1.5
DDPDFK-BL
Futari1.5
Futari-BL
Futari1.01
etc...etc...

[Bee Cool]

I'd say merge all of the Cave stuff except Ibara and Ibara Kuro.

Also, if people really want to see representation of other developers feel free to make a separate poll that has requirements like "Top 25 Pre-<Year> shmups" or "Top 10 with limit of 2 per developer".

[Erppo]

I'd say merge all of the Cave stuff except Ibara and Ibara Kuro.

I can't see any argument for separating those that wouldn't also be an argument for splitting the DFKs. Both are cases of two versions that play almost completely oppositely.

Everything else by Cave I'd merge too, while those two seem better separate.

[Bee Cool]

Forgot about DFK BL, yeah that's different enough for me.

[DMC]

Let people vote for a certain version to be counted separately (Gradius III SNES for example), and if no version is specified it should be counted as a vote for the primary release. This allows people to show the love for their favorite version if necessary, without giving a less-beloved primary title a vote the user would not otherwise give.

This is basically the way it works already, with the addition that users are allowed to include as many different versions as they want.

& listing top 20 or 10 separately for console, 80's, traditional, modern etc. should also be considered.

If someone would like to do the effort, it would be interesting to break it down into sections. Such as separate votes for Best visuals, audio, and gameplay.

...or best stage with trains.

One list at a time will be plenty, methinks. Whether or not it's a better idea to have all lists at once rather than spread out over the year would be an interesting discussion, but for now I should make sure I can handle running the usual list first.

I get the impression that few people here plays that many 80's shooters so I'm not sure it will be as reliable. On the other hand it might encourage more of us to get to know more of them which might prove fun.

I am afraid with quite few new releases besides Cave, the list will not change that much from year to year (perhaps that is why there has been a few years break). Expanding it to more specific lists might make the whole thing more exciting (but also greater burden, I admit).

[Mortificator]

Yeah, there's not much I'd change from the list I made last year. I suppose I could kick off the Space Invaders and Defender clones and make it exclusively forward-scrolling games...

On breaking the vote down into sub-lists, the most meaningful distinction might be between horis and verts; they're practically two separate (but related) genres.

[soupbones]

Can't wait for this to get started.

I'm not sure where I fall on what games get merged and what don't - but it does need to happen ...this is not helping AT ALL.

[DMC]

On breaking the vote down into sub-lists, the most meaningful distinction might be between horis and verts; they're practically two separate (but related) genres.

Yes, that could be interesting. That can simply be done at the results stage (by simply putting verts in one table and horis in another). Same thing could be done with a manic vs old school definition although those concepts aren't as well-defined as horis vs verts. Anyone could just look at the results and pick these categories out, so that will be easy and require little effort.

The statistics nerd in me would be interested in separate lists of visuals/audio/gameplay (or what have you) for another reason: To compare how much each list converges with the overall list. That is, in a semi-serious way look at how much importance shmups.com players attribute to visuals, audio, and gameplay. The stereotypical answer would be that it's all about gameplay, level design or scoring system and much less on aesthetics. the problem is that there might be a big so-called halo effect, that is, the game you like is high on every sublist so all lists turns pretty much the same.

[Nifty]

I want to get this started too; I'll see if I can get it up on the next hour. An aesthetics comparison could turn up some interesting results (or not), but there'd need to be some serious discussion about how to run it first.

[Ghegs]

There might be some exceptions where some version really is a totally different game with different graphics/music/scoring system/bosses/stages etc... But I cannot think of any right now.

Section Z arcade vs. Section Z NES comes to mind.

[BIL]

Same would go for Gun.Smoke arcade vs NES. The latter adds new weapons, a shop, an inventory/pause menu, a hidden item in each stage that needs to be collected before the boss will appear, otherwise the stage will loop, and it has only three firing modes spread over two buttons, rather than six over three (with no dedicated forward shot button). Stage layouts and enemies are different. And it's also completely de-fanged of the arcade version's murderously aggressive, persistent AI ("wahh! these bloodthirty bandits will shoot you in the back?!")* which obviates its mortal emphasis on strafing and outflanking baddies. Not the same game.

NES version also has different and better tunes!

*LOL, that asshole didn't know the AC ver has three buttons! Case in point.