Rank consoles by shmups

[Temia Eszteri]

Disbelief to see people ranking the 360 above the Saturn. Get an education.

I ranked by ease of acquisition as well as quality of games - you can in fact put a PC together from scrap parts and still get a functional system, and the Dreamcast is cheap used while not having a dangerously fragile copy protection mechanism like the Saturn. The 360 is, as a current system for the time being, obviously pretty easy to pick up, but if it helps you sleep at night, you'll be happy to know it will likely drop off my list entirely as soon as it gets phased out, since I expect that Microsoft's likely shutting down LIVE support for it right away.

[Skykid]

I really don't understand this thread. Is it about ranking consoles by shmups or ranking consoles by how easily you can rip shmups off?

The OP's list was woeful, and just because you can easily burn DC games doesn't mean its library comes close to much of the competition.
If it's about emulation, then yeah PC's, because PC's are classed as consoles these days (must have missed the memo), and harbour an entire arcade shmup history you don't need to pay for.



Confuse.

[Temia Eszteri]

I really don't understand this thread. Is it about ranking consoles by shmups or ranking consoles by how easily you can rip shmups off? :|

The OP's list was woeful, and just because you can easily burn DC games doesn't mean its library comes close to much of the competition.
If it's about emulation, then yeah PC's, because PC's are classed as consoles these days (must have missed the memo), and harbour an entire arcade shmup history you don't need to pay for.



Confuse.

Dangerously fragile copy protection mechanisms make it hard to play the shmups, not rip them. :P Is that what you're so confused about?

[Skykid]

I really don't understand this thread. Is it about ranking consoles by shmups or ranking consoles by how easily you can rip shmups off?

The OP's list was woeful, and just because you can easily burn DC games doesn't mean its library comes close to much of the competition.
If it's about emulation, then yeah PC's, because PC's are classed as consoles these days (must have missed the memo), and harbour an entire arcade shmup history you don't need to pay for.



Confuse.

Dangerously fragile copy protection mechanisms make it hard to play the shmups, not rip them. Is that what you're so confused about?

More that 6 people have ranked a PC as their top shmup 'console' because it emulates things for free. Makes no sense considering the thread title, but I guess it's just me :shrugs :

[Rex Cavalier]

Except only PC has Hellsinker, Akashicverse and Radio Zonde, which are three of my fav shmups, and there are as well has many other fun shmups that are PC-only, sooooo.

[Giest118]

Code: Select all

Crimzon Clover
Akashicverse
Hellsinker
Radio Zonde
Blue Wish Resurrection/+
Eden's Aegis
The other x.x shmups
All of Gustav's games
Some of the games made on this very forum's Development section
Touhou 6
Touhou 7
Touhou 8
The other Touhou games
Any Danmakufu game
eXceed series
Jamestown
Gundemonium Collection

Yeah, PC only has emulation, I see your point broseph. :V

[trap15]

All much better games than on the Saturn :V

Sorry, but I think I'd rather have just DonPachi and Garegga than almost all those combined.

[Giest118]

Well clearly it is a matter of taste, but my point was that saying "PC only has emulation" is just kind of silly. :V

[Temia Eszteri]

Code: Select all

Crimzon Clover
Akashicverse
Hellsinker
Radio Zonde
Blue Wish Resurrection/+
Eden's Aegis
The other x.x shmups
All of Gustav's games
Some of the games made on this very forum's Development section
Touhou 6
Touhou 7
Touhou 8
The other Touhou games
Any Danmakufu game
eXceed series
Jamestown
Gundemonium Collection

Yeah, PC only has emulation, I see your point broseph. :V

You forgot "Everything by Siter Skain". Heresy!

Man, this thread's gone to shit because I just had to feed a troll. I'm sorry.

[LSU]

The mighty Saturn remains the king of shmup consoles for me. I do appreciate modern shmups but I think my taste has always leaned a little more toward the old school and it just has such great ports of so many classic shooters. Then the PS2 / PS1 for sheer quantity and variety. Then the 360 for the modern games. (I also wouldn't include a PC in my list as I don't really consider it a console.)

1. Saturn
2. PlayStation2
3. PlayStation
4. Xbox 360
5. Dreamcast
6. PC Engine
7. Neo Geo

[louisg]

Please tell me more about how the 360 is nothing but a Cave box without any variety. I'm not saying that every game on this list is good (or even decent... fuck you Sine Mora), but you can't deny that there is enough variety for anyone to find something they enjoy.

It's a really good argument. That's even more than I could've thought of off the top of my head. What I noticed about the 360 is that it *wasn't* just a Cave box. Cave is excellent, but I'm just not that into their games for the most part.

You forgot "Everything by Siter Skain". Heresy!

I've played some really nice Windows shmups. It definitely has a selection big enough-- not counting emulation-- where I could see someone preferring it over a console. Smaller dev teams do have a charm to their games, even if the slickness of a full-blown arcade release isn't there. I'm even tempted to put together a Windows box for playing stuff like Kamui. Would I be best off with Windows 9x for that? (assuming I'm using old Pentium hardware)

[TransatlanticFoe]

Never owned a PlayStation iteration and opted for gaming PC over 360. So it's a top 3 for me:

Saturn
Dreamcast
Mega Drive

Saturn has a variety of shmups surely unmatched by anything else.

Jesus not a single mention of the SNES but a few for the Megadrive!?. With the likes of, Axelay, UN Squadron, R-Type 3, Space MegaForce, Gradius 3 to name a few what does the MD have to trump those 5?

Air Buster, Fire Shark, Hellfire, Zero Wing, Twin Cobra, MUSHA Aleste, Truxton, a better Raiden port, Thunder Force II, III and IV, Gleylancer, Eliminate Down.

[Paradigm]

Well clearly it is a matter of taste, but my point was that saying "PC only has emulation" is just kind of silly. :V

Right, but as far as I can tell nobody actually said that. So what the fuck are you waffling on about?

And anyway, that list of doujins wasn't the reason you picked PC in the first place, this was:

PC - has most things and will go on to have everything

Which quite clearly means emulation, proving Skykid's point that people are voting for PC based on what it can emulate rather than what games are actually released for it.

[Temia Eszteri]

You forgot "Everything by Siter Skain". Heresy!

I've played some really nice Windows shmups. It definitely has a selection big enough-- not counting emulation-- where I could see someone preferring it over a console. Smaller dev teams do have a charm to their games, even if the slickness of a full-blown arcade release isn't there. I'm even tempted to put together a Windows box for playing stuff like Kamui. Would I be best off with Windows 9x for that? (assuming I'm using old Pentium hardware)

If anything, I'd say Kamui's actually better off on an XP system or better, due to the combination of necessary tools (AppLocale, easier changing of non-unicode locale in NT than 9x), gaming functionality (as it's the first post-9x NT system) and Kamui's own generally good compatibility making it plenty easy to run with only a little work. Sure, there's a little more overhead, but it's not hard to salvage a P3 or better system, since all the capacitor plague boards have already gone out of circulation at this point, I'd imagine.

[Ganelon]

Disbelief to see people ranking the 360 above the Saturn.

These are the times we live in now, where most active Shmupsforum folks seem to want bullet hell and complex scoring systems. There's nothing wrong with that but it's certainly a change from years past.

I've become more and more a PC Engine CD fan since it has a lot of original classic shooters whereas by the 32-bit era, most console shooters were simply arcade ports. I do have a fondness for the Sega Saturn shooter library though.

[Rex Cavalier]

PC - has most things and will go on to have everything

Which quite clearly means emulation, proving Skykid's point that people are voting for PC based on what it can emulate rather than what games are actually released for it.

Since when /everything /was only emulation, it includes it yes, but it's not the /only/ thing.

[Kollision]

Jesus not a single mention of the SNES but a few for the Megadrive!?

You're quite right.
There should've been many more for the Mega Drive.

[Giest118]

PC - has most things and will go on to have everything

Which quite clearly means emulation, proving Skykid's point that people are voting for PC based on what it can emulate rather than what games are actually released for it.

Yes. "Everything" means "only emulation."

Right, but as far as I can tell nobody actually said that. So what the fuck are you waffling on about?

You did, when you confused "everything" with "only emulation." As did anyone else who mixed those two up.

[BIL]

I don't rank my consoles by shooting capability. Too many essential favourites scattered over the top five. Here's my list bitches, eat it. Fuck!

Tier 1 PS1/Saturn/PS2/DC/360: my core shooter platform. Wouldn't be without any of these systems, ever. Dozens if not hundreds of quality arcade conversions from all of the genre's key players along with more obscure favourites and, in the case of Sega's machines, direct ports from arcade hardware. A small but first-rate selection of original titles, mainly found on the PS1, rounds out a lifetime's worth of shooting excellence.

Tier 2 FC/MD/SFC/PCE+CD: despite the lack of arcade perfection, quite a few of these systems' home conversions are great fun in their own right, particularly the better Toaplan MD releases. Of course there are many solid original efforts here too, and even if they're generally not as finely-designed as the best AC shooters, they can still be a hell of a lot of fun on a more relaxed level. More a luxury shooting library than an essential one (other genres are a different story, all four have godly action games of varying stripes).

Tier 3 PS3 / Mega CD: http://i.imgur.com/COy6hhf.gif

Tier 4 N64/GC/Wii RANK OUT

edited for clarity, I typed this while reading OT!

[DMC]

That's a good list, BIL! Where would you place the various handheld systems?

[BIL]

Unfortunately I don't own any and lack experience with the various portables But if Judgment Silversword is any indication I'd go with a WonderSwan in tier 2. If for some reason I could never play JSS on 360 again I'd definitely consider picking up its original platform for it alone.

[Hagane]

More that 6 people have ranked a PC as their top shmup 'console' because it emulates things for free. Makes no sense considering the thread title, but I guess it's just me :shrugs :

Free or not, it has the most extensive library of STGs of any platform. MAME has nearly everything arcade, and I'd say it also has the best selection of exclusives too. Whereas something like the Saturn as far as I know only has ports, sometimes rather bad (for example, Sengoku Blade).

But even leaving emulation out my list would be

1. PC (for PC native/only games such as the Touhou series, Crimzon Clover, Hellsinker, ChoRenSha, etc).
2. J-X360 (Newer games which you can play only if you live close to an arcade otherwise, hard to do these days but much easier back then)
3. PS1 (Exclusives like Gradius Gaiden, R-Type Delta, Harmful Park)

[Ed Oscuro]

BIL's second tier is the one I tend to spend the most attention on, because arcade PCBs (and MAME of course) have largely satisfied calls for ports, with some exceptions (many ports are nice in ways the originals aren't, of course). I tend to disregard DreamCast in particular; I don't hate that generation of consoles but they did represent a paradigm shift away from shooters and towards systems which fail more often than older systems. With the 360 and modern consoles, however, it's not just straight ports anymore; online services (achievements, leaderboards, and replay saving) are now much more common.

If there is just one system that I could have for shooters, which is a question I usually regard as silly, it'd have to be the PC-Engine. Hudson's Soldier series and other caravans offer up a lot of enjoyment for the play, and although I don't really like most Toaplan ports on the system (although where else will you go for Horror Story? - not a shmup of course) it at least has some of the main ones.

[zeroroute]

1.PS2
2.PS1
3.360
4.nes

[Uzumakijl]

1. PS2
2. Saturn
3. Dreamcast
4. Genesis
5. NES (Recca is just godly)

Jesus not a single mention of the SNES but a few for the Megadrive!?

You're quite right.
There should've been many more for the Mega Drive.

made my day.

[casualcoder]

Guess I can only go with what ive played the most shmups on. If PC counts its,

1. X360
2. PC
3. DREAMCAST
4. PS2

[null1024]

My list [with games as reasons]:
PS2 - Cave ports, Gradius 5, a couple other things, PS1 support
Genesis - MUSHA, Bio-Hazard Battle, the Toaplan ports
Dreamcast - Mars Matrix, Ikaruga.

I'd put the Saturn in there if I had anything other than Galactic Attack for the thing.
man, I wish my Saturn worked

I'd put the PC up there but all I use it for shmupwise is emulation and Cho Ren Sha. God, do I love Cho Ren Sha though, especially thanks to the godly soundtrack it has.

[Skykid]

Man, this thread's gone to shit because I just had to feed a troll. I'm sorry.

Hold on, who's a troll? I'll be a troll when you can identify the point that PC's became consoles.

Yeah, PC only has emulation, I see your point broseph. :V

I never said that.

Also, it's not a console.

Free or not, it has the most extensive library of STGs of any platform. MAME has nearly everything arcade, and I'd say it also has the best selection of exclusives too. Whereas something like the Saturn as far as I know only has ports, sometimes rather bad (for example, Sengoku Blade).

But even leaving emulation out my list would be

1. PC (for PC native/only games such as the Touhou series, Crimzon Clover, Hellsinker, ChoRenSha, etc).

Not a console.

Guess I can only go with what ive played the most shmups on. If PC counts its,

It doesn't.

[Ed Oscuro]

why does it matter if PC is a console you can play fucking games on it man
although for that matter my original point is valid too

[Giest118]

Not a console.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/console?s=t

Code: Select all

console   [kon-sohl] 
noun
1. a television, phonograph, or radio cabinet designed to stand on the floor rather than on a table or shelf.
2. the control or monitoring unit of a computer, containing the keyboard or keys, switches, etc.
3. a desklike structure containing the keyboards, pedals, etc., by means of which an organ is played.
4. a small cabinet standing on the floor and having doors.
5. console table.

You will note that "a device on which video games are played" is not among these. This means that everyone in this thread is in fact using a colloquial definition of the word "console," which is not recognized by the English dictionary. This means that the definition of what a "console" is is muddled and highly debatable, and you have no basis on which to classify a given device as a console or not a console.