What's the best Strikers 1945 game?

[louisg]

Wait, who's saying ZG2 is a close-proximity shmup? It's totally not.

[Domino]

Strikers 1945 II. It had the perfect balance of harder enemy bullet patterns and accessibly. My personal favorite Psikyo game. Strikers 1945 was on the easy side while Strikers 1999 was too hard with its crazy patters. I put S1999 on the same level as ultra-hardness as Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze.

[trap15]

Strikers 1945 is nowhere near easy

And I'd certainly not put S1999 on the same level of difficulty as Gunbird 2.

Personally, my preferences are:

S1999 = S1945II > S1945

[Obiwanshinobi]

Is Cannon Spike/Gunspike officially about point-blanking yet?

[Pretas]

Strikers 1945 is nowhere near easy

The first five stages are largely a walk in the park, particularly if you start off with the nastier bosses. It ramps up quite a bit afterwards, but it doesn't compare to 1999, which waits only one or two stages to really put the pressure on.

[lilmanjs]

I haven't spent enough time with Strikers 1945 II to judge it, but I do love me some Strikers 1945 Plus. Strikers 1945 is darn easy, and by the time it ramps up I'm bored with it. S1999 would be awesome if they decided not to make it so darn hard, but at least its not as crazy hard as Gunbird 2. After playing the correct region, I know that is the hardest thing they ever made. So for me I go with Strikers 1945 Plus as the best.

[Hagane]

I'd say Dragon Blaze is harder than Gunbird 2. While GB2 starts very hard, DB's second loop is insane. S1999 is not that hard (the first loop, at least). Nowhere near the level of difficulty of the other two.

[IseeThings]

Strikers II is Psikyo's only 'transitional' game between their early and late phases and, as such, it's peerless. It's also balanced almost perfectly. Shame it looks so ugly, though.

Strikers II > Strikers 1999 > Strikers I

I agree with the order, but Strikers 2, ugly? To my eyes it's one of the most refined, good looking games in the genre, making decent use of the hardware in a way where things just end up looking gorgeous. The cloud blending on one of the first stages for example is done perfectly and shows how the blending / colour definition on the Psikyo board is vastly superior to that found even on the Cave CV boards.

If you'd said S1945+ was ugly I'd agree, because it loses almost all the finesse in order to be squeezed onto the MVS.

[TLB]

I think you guys should include, for proper reference, the displays you're judging with. These games (Psikyo, especially) look unbelievably good on a decent arcade monitor. In some cases (e.g. Psikyo) they can look very different; it's shocking how much crispness and depth are added with the right display.

[Hagane]

I agree with S1945 II looking pretty bad. Just like Daraku Tenshi and Sol Divide, it looks muddy and dull. A huge step down from the gorgeous spritework of their older games, and GB2, S1999 and Dragon Blaze do renders much better than it.