Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[O. Van Bruce]

After spending a couple of weeks beating my head into the brick wall that is DOJ BL, I'm going back to Mushihimesama Original.

So far, I'm amazingly inconsistent. One credit will make it past the stage 5 midboss, the next one will end in stage 2. WTF.

Stage 3 is still something of a bombfest. I also have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do about those dragons in stage 4.

My 3 steps to clear Mushi Original:

- Allways pick S-power, you'll rape everything in front of you, including the bosses + that extra speed will do wonders in some parts of the game.

- Pick spread formation and keep it for the whole game. bomb if you have to in order to pick the option item when it is in spread formation.

- practice a lot and try to stay on non-focus during most of the stage time. the S-power will kill quickly destroy any big enemy in front of you while the spread formation will protect you from popcorn on your sides.

[SuperSoaker360]

Starting to juggle Gundemonium Recollection with some Jamestown in there so that I don't get bored and burn out constantly playing Recollection all the time.

Jamestown is something different, definitely. But in a good way I suppose. Playing it certainly does make me miss the awesome firepower from games like the later Dodonpachi series' hypers or even Crimzon Clover's Break Mode. Vaunt just feels like a re-colour of your shot with some extra damage.
Every time I get vaunt, I activate it thinking some amazingly flashy laser will fly out of my ship and decimate whatever is in front of me. Haha, I guess DOJ and CC have spoiled me this way.

Edit: Also what the hell, Judgement difficulty is insane. Is it meant to be tackled via co-op or something because I'll be impressed if someone can manage to Gauntlet 1CC that.

[Obscura]

After spending a couple of weeks beating my head into the brick wall that is DOJ BL, I'm going back to Mushihimesama Original.

So far, I'm amazingly inconsistent. One credit will make it past the stage 5 midboss, the next one will end in stage 2. WTF.

Stage 3 is still something of a bombfest. I also have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do about those dragons in stage 4.

My 3 steps to clear Mushi Original:

- Allways pick S-power, you'll rape everything in front of you, including the bosses + that extra speed will do wonders in some parts of the game.

- Pick spread formation and keep it for the whole game. bomb if you have to in order to pick the option item when it is in spread formation.

- practice a lot and try to stay on non-focus during most of the stage time. the S-power will kill quickly destroy any big enemy in front of you while the spread formation will protect you from popcorn on your sides.

Do you know of a consistent way of keeping spread formation at the stage 4 midboss? That random bounce + a pattern that makes you move a lot frequently forces me into picking up trace.

[O. Van Bruce]

After spending a couple of weeks beating my head into the brick wall that is DOJ BL, I'm going back to Mushihimesama Original.

So far, I'm amazingly inconsistent. One credit will make it past the stage 5 midboss, the next one will end in stage 2. WTF.

Stage 3 is still something of a bombfest. I also have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do about those dragons in stage 4.

My 3 steps to clear Mushi Original:

- Allways pick S-power, you'll rape everything in front of you, including the bosses + that extra speed will do wonders in some parts of the game.

- Pick spread formation and keep it for the whole game. bomb if you have to in order to pick the option item when it is in spread formation.

- practice a lot and try to stay on non-focus during most of the stage time. the S-power will kill quickly destroy any big enemy in front of you while the spread formation will protect you from popcorn on your sides.

Do you know of a consistent way of keeping spread formation at the stage 4 midboss? That random bounce + a pattern that makes you move a lot frequently forces me into picking up trace.

lol, just bomb and get it while you have the invincibility

[Obscura]

My 3 steps to clear Mushi Original:

- Allways pick S-power, you'll rape everything in front of you, including the bosses + that extra speed will do wonders in some parts of the game.

- Pick spread formation and keep it for the whole game. bomb if you have to in order to pick the option item when it is in spread formation.

- practice a lot and try to stay on non-focus during most of the stage time. the S-power will kill quickly destroy any big enemy in front of you while the spread formation will protect you from popcorn on your sides.

Do you know of a consistent way of keeping spread formation at the stage 4 midboss? That random bounce + a pattern that makes you move a lot frequently forces me into picking up trace.

lol, just bomb and get it while you have the invincibility

Hmm... usually I end up needing a bomb on the second form of that boss, and I frequently get there with only 1 bomb; I really don't like the idea of dying just to keep formation.

[O. Van Bruce]

then, do what you consider best. If you need to stay on tracking formation to keep being alive it's better than not diying. Anyway, pratice the patterns so that you have to use less bombs.

I recomended you to bomb because it's problematic to keep tracck of the pattern + the item... that's atually more difficult for me than learning how to dodge.

[Xeno]

Decided to give Daioujou white label a go since I was bored and didn´t really have anything else to play. Played few credits and made it to the last boss on one run. I wasted one life on 3rd stage and one on 4th, partly due experimenting to see if some parts of the stages can be cleared easier. On stage 5 cleared bee hive nicely, but missed one hyper just by inch which resulted in death and I reached the last boss with only one life and bomb left. Panic bombed the 2nd phase, and in the end it resulted in boss having 50% of it´s life still left, I really did not have much hope in clearing it so it didn´t matter. However I am quite confident I could be able to clear this mode also, will have to keep on playing and not get distracted by other games.

[BIL]

Elemental Master. Got a decent Mania ALL (by decent I mean I didn't slum through on the game's overly-generous hitpoints and shields) recorded for muh youtoob. I completely forgot about using the Earth weapon's charge shot on the pokey spikes bridge + popcorn snipers in st6 and took a couple unnecessary hits, but oh well.

I wish they'd included an optional Gun.Smoke-style instant death+shields & checkpoints mode (they could've called it "REAL ARCADE FEEL" difficulty). As it is, it's obviously an easier shooter but also a potently manic one with Tecno Soft's customarily beautiful 90s MD production. "EZ BUT FUN (JUST LIKE UR MUM ;]]] )" should've been Tecno Soft's advertising tagline. "World of Technology" never stood a chance in their XTREEM 90s heydey. Better death threats than obscurity.

Also, Toshiharu Yamanishi 3:16. MANLY TEARS @ ENDING BGM ;-; DAMN BRO WHY IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY

[SuperSoaker360]

Okay, so Jamestown didn't really click with me. Back to Gundemonium Recollection I go, but I may start juggling it with eXceed 3rd - Jade Penetrate BP instead.

[null1024]

Mars Matrix [Arcade/MAME].

I'm massively out of practice, but I think I'll be able to keep my attention on this one game. Maybe.

[O. Van Bruce]

Mushi original. Since I know I can at least do a no miss run, may as well try to "score" a little. 1st place I go!

[CloudyMusic]

Still going on Futari BL. Really close to placing on the Original Reco scoreboard, which was the first goal I set for myself when I started practicing seriously. There's also lots of scoring opportunities that I know I can improve on pretty easily, so hopefully I can further surpass that goal without too much difficulty. I'm starting to work on Maniac too, but I've got quite a lot of familiarization to do there before I can get down to the nitty-gritty.

[Obscura]

Played a few credits of Mushihimesama.

After that, played some Garegga, since it's been forever since I last played it. Holy fuck, skills decay faster in that game than in like anything else, ever. Coming back to it after not having played it in a couple months was infinitely frustrating; exactly one credit even made it to stage 4, and I didn't see a single 10k point medal over a few hours worth of runs.

[Zaarock]

Still playing some HellSinker.

Going to just play one or two credits a day now instead of trying to grind it, was getting pretty burned out and annoyed at the game trying to do so. Just need a playthrough with few deaths to get a solid score (80-90k) so it's just a matter of time and patience. The scoring system is fun and fairly forgiving as long as you don't get hit a lot.

[Softdrink 117]

First full credit of DOJ White in a month. I've been flying around playing all kinds of things-- recently got two Raizing 1CCs (Bakraid Normal and Batrider Training, found the latter harder), was challenged on Youtube to clear Akai Katana Zetsu (still working on it, made it to stage 6's bosses on one credit), started competing with Frenetic and n0rtygames for score in Muchi Muchi Pork, and spent a week trying to loop Ketsui and 1-ALLing it five times.

Long story short, I dropped a couple chains and made some silly mistakes, but I also made it to the stage 4 boss' last form while hyper-milking him. Had a lot of fun with it. Makes me remember why I love this game so much-- I'll come back to it again when I'm playing fewer other shmups, without doubt.

[Obscura]

More Garegga, and some Bakraid Normal.

Bakraid Normal, I had a credit make it to Gigamanta, who proceeded to rape me.

Garegga was a disaster until I decided "screw rank control, I'm going to suicide once before the flamingos and that's it"; that credit, for some reason, I barely died until stage 5.

[Marc]

Fucking Millipede on 360. The controls are useless. It's weird though, on Centipede they've implemented a trackball effect so that the player kind of accelerates upon holding a direction, feels like Gridrunner on I Phone. For some reason it hasn't been implemented at all on Millipede, the controls feel completely digital and are way too twitchy. The updated versions are shit as well, I expected extra weapons and stuff but it's just the same games with shitty graphics.

[Kollision]

Almost feeling confident enough to finally go for the clear on Mushi maniac 360.
I still need to work out some sections in stage 5 (dat music! absolutely love it WOO HOOO) and not bomb in the bug overwhelming attacks prior to the stage 4 midboss.

[Tetsuo]

Kitana
Deathsmiles
Raiden 4

[Obscura]

Just played Karous for the first time.

Uh, can anyone explain WTF is going on in this game (there literally doesn't seem to be a "wtf is going on here" guide anywhere on the internet)? I get that I have to level up my weapons, presumably by using them relatively evenly, but then I get to the second boss, and his second form throws an impenetrable wave of bullets that my shield won't block.

[Crafty+Mech]

Strikers 1945+ on the Neo Geo (100-in-1 cart). I really wasn't sure about the horizontal format on the Neo, but the game plays better than I expected, and set at max difficulty is pretty challenging.

[Kiken]

The recent thread about Gradius V actually got me back into playing the game. I've never managed to no-miss the first loop of the game, so that has become my project for the time being. After about a week of practice, I finally got back to clearing loop 1 in a single credit last night (I've been using Type 3). Lost 3 lives total during the run: a brainless mistake during the stage 4 boss battle, running into one of the retractable walls towards the end of the high-speed section in stage 7 and finally, getting nailed during the gravity walls section of the Keepers Core battle. I definitely know that I can clean things up.

[NeoStrayCat]

A random Kong game that was "Badge of the Day", and yes, also a shmup, Pixelvader.

Was fun with the upgrade system and stuff, even the bonus stage being a Boss Rush, lol.

[O. Van Bruce]

Trying to get a Crimzon Clover no bombs, no break mode original 1cc using type-I ship.

Everything is relatively easy until the stage 5 mid-boss. That's where the game really starts.

[Kinir0]

This month i'm playing Muchi Muchi Pork (360), Deathsmiles (360), Aero fighters (MAME) 2 and R-type (MAME)

[Obscura]

A few days ago, I finally played Border Down.

I haven't been able to stop. The game is amazing, even if it hates my guts (friggin' second boss ends probably about 80% of my credits, aaauuurrrrgh). The way it ties together scoring and survival is great, and the way it does boss milking is really cool.

Also been playing Battle Garegga.

[O. Van Bruce]

A few days ago, I finally played Border Down.

I haven't been able to stop. The game is amazing, even if it hates my guts (friggin' second boss ends probably about 80% of my credits, aaauuurrrrgh). The way it ties together scoring and survival is great, and the way it does boss milking is really cool.

Also been playing Battle Garegga.

Did you get that mushi original 1cc?

[DocHauser]

Was playing Espgaluda in the Namco Tower in Kyoto earlier. Haven't played Esp much, so I wasn't expecting to do too well, but at some point I realised that I still had three lives left, despite having died twice already. It was only when I game-overed and saw the title screen that I noticed that extends had been set at 2 million and 6 million!

Is it normal for Japanese arcade games to have the settings changed? It seems a bit weird to do that, especially since any scores achieved would be invalid compared to proper default settings.

(The 3rd Strike cabinet was set at best-of-5 as well, though I wasn't complaining about that )

[Obscura]

A few days ago, I finally played Border Down.

I haven't been able to stop. The game is amazing, even if it hates my guts (friggin' second boss ends probably about 80% of my credits, aaauuurrrrgh). The way it ties together scoring and survival is great, and the way it does boss milking is really cool.

Also been playing Battle Garegga.

Did you get that mushi original 1cc?

No; I was able to get pretty deep in, but soured on the game pretty fast.

[Aquas]

Dangun Feveron and slowly revising my route in Guwange. I'm almost ready for runs in Guwange again. Pretty sure I can bust 40 or 45M once my route up to the Catspider is ready.