Shmup Slump: In Search of My Perfect Game.

[ACSeraph]

I am in a shmup slump.

Combined with being somewhat busy lately, I seem to have lost all motivation for shmupping (and life in general really) and I need your help. I'm looking for the perfect game to attempt to 1cc in order to break my slump. Seeing as one of the symptoms of my slump is getting easily pissed off at things, rather than list what kind of things I like in shmups I'm going to list what I don't like. If you have any game that's close to what I'm looking for please recommend it and I'll give it a shot. Any help majorly appreciated. (BTW usually I'm willing to put up with a lot of this stuff, but right now I'm not in the mood is all)

1. Unusually slow ship speed can go straight to hell.

2. Similarly, speed powerups can suck my balls.

3. Difficult recovery and/or otherwise severe punishment for death can fuck off.

4. Games that limit your shots (like in Gradius how you can only have like 3 or 4 shots on screen at once) went out of style for a reason.

5. I wouldn't play a game that requires suicide to control the rank even if I were in a good mood. (Suck it Pink Sweets fans, get outa my thread )

6. No Moai.


Recommend away!

[Ghegs]

Thunder Force V, always a good time.

[trap15]

Thunder Dragon 2 is the shit. Play that.

4. Games that limit your shots (like in Gradius how you can only have like 3 or 4 shots on screen at once) went out of style for a reason.

Almost every STG still does this. All CAVE STG do this. It's just not as low of a limit as it used to be in the 80s.

5. I wouldn't play a game that requires suicide to control the rank even if I were in a good mood. (Suck it Pink Sweets fans, get outa my thread )

Again, almost every STG will let you suicide to control rank. It's just not always required.

6. No Moai.

How about

[dan76]

ESPgaluda. A fun game playing for survival, then adapting that survival for score.

[CStarFlare]

Harmful Park.

Perfect speed, no speed items.

You lose powerups at death but not all of them, and recovery isn't hard anyway.

Only time shots are limited is when you use jelly beans, which you never should.

No rank or moai.

[Acid King]

If you're going to ignore score, then I'd suggest Battle Bakraid's Normal course. Big ship selection (once you work the codes to unlock them) with lots of variety, no need to suicide for rank control, you can recover your power ups when you die, awesome bosses with lots of different bits and parts to blow up, and it's a fairly easy one credit clear.

ESPgaluda. A fun game playing for survival, then adapting that survival for score.

This is also a good choice.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I would also recommend ESPGaluda, but I'm not sure if it qualifies entirely:

3. Difficult recovery and/or otherwise severe punishment for death can fuck off.

You have a ton of survival tools at your disposal and both shot types are quite strong, but the penalty for dying is very steep (half your gem meter and more importantly, your overmode rank drops back down, forcing you to raise it again or deal with earning fewer green gems). It's very forgiving for survival play, but deaths carry a heavy cost when you're scoring.

Solid State Survivor fits the bill - there's no real penalty for dying (except a slight loss of end of game score, chain isn't affected unless it happens to drop which isn't going to happen unless you haven't built up any of the safety net Approach meter), you get a buttload of bombs and extends (7 extra extends total, you can get all 3 score ones in the first stage), there's no rank, and scoring is extremely intense (all about pointblanking as much as possible).

[Despatche]

just play doj, it is the perfect game. even fulfills all listed requirements

[trap15]

Not #4

[jepjepjep]

Batsugun Special!

[louisg]

Batsugun Special is a great pick. It's a bit easier than the usual Batsugun, and still entertaining as hell. A bunch of arcade ports also let you set them pretty easy while still putting up a good fight, such as the Psikyo ports or Soukyugurentai. Souky has the usual Raizing rank weirdness, but if you turn the difficulty down a bit, it's manageable and IIRC you can play it straight up. Psikyo ports go all the way down to a ridiculously easy level, with all kinds of gradations in-between.

I'd also really recommend TF3 on Manic, or TF4. I recently played the whole way through TF4 with a friend, and the later levels really pick up. There's also the magnificent Lords of Thunder which is challenging but not overly hard. Space Megaforce and Soldier Blade are also both great on the harder settings, with SB feeling surprisingly Psikyo-ish with all the crazy spam flying at you.

Speaking of Psikyo, IIRC Sengoku Blade is easier than their usual fare too.

Hope one of these suggestions clicks! And I dunno if you're like me, but if you are, playing "just for fun" will also make you do better in general cuz it takes the stress off. Don't restart if you screw up, it just adds to the rut.

Thunder Force V, always a good time.

I just ordered a copy of that I've never been a huge fan, but I've had a gaping TFV-sized hole in my Thunderforce collection (and I'm not counting the old and nearly unattainable TF1). I'm hoping it'll grow on me.

[Kollision]

Gradius V

direction laser is where it's at (is that the actual name? can't remember exactly)
it buries all previous weapon configurations and elevates the game to masterpiece level
also, it's epic

[KAI]

Radirgy

[Damocles]

Any of the Raiden Fighters games.

[ACSeraph]

Lots of good suggestions here, thanks guys. Some of these I've played and some I haven't, but I have access to most of them. I may just end up going through a lot of these one after the other to relax a bit.

I'll probably fire some more of these up when I get home tonight. I actually tried Thunder Dragon 2 for the first time last night before going to bed. That one is almost exactly what I was looking for. The game even says "goddamn you!" for me when I die, its like it was specifically designed for me

TF5 and ESPGaluda have both been on my "to learn" list for a while, and some of the others like Batsugun, and DoJ I've been planning to buy but don't have access to at the moment. Radirgy I actually bought about a month ago, but had not made the time to pop the disc in yet so I'll definitely be giving that a spin to.

More suggestions are welcome, it might help me find a whole huge pile of games that suit my taste to plow through this summer.

[BPzeBanshee]

Any of the Raiden Fighters games.

This, although there are some slow ships they're easily avoided (fast == better 9/10 anyway), and lives are a valued commodity that you don't get extras of (so no rank control by suiciding on anything less than top-tier play, no extends, no compulsory scoring bullshit).

If you have a joystick and like your frustration on it like I do, there's always XII Stag/XIIZeal.

[gabe]

And here I thought I was the only one harboring some of these thoughts... Simplicity was one of the traits that originally drew me to the genre, and while I believe more complex and unforgiving games certainly have their time and place, I still think STG's are best when the main focus is on shooting some things, and dodging other things. That in mind (and to add to your list of annoyances), I'm generally not a very big fan of shmups in which item collection takes a leading role (Dangun Feveron, Dimahoo, etc).

[RNGmaster]

I am in a shmup slump.

You know what I'm going to say. Yeah, play Dragon Blaze, you'll like it.

[ACSeraph]

I'm generally not a very big fan of shmups in which item collection takes a leading role (Dangun Feveron, Dimahoo, etc).

I'm kind of mixed on item collection. I like it if theres a way to vacuum them up like in Exelica or Muchi Muchi Pork, but if its just medals that you have to fly over and pick up I tend to ignore them.

It does't ruin the game for me or anything though, it just means I probably won't end up playing for score. I enjoy both score and survival play, but I'm much more picky about what I play for score.

It's kind of vague, but for scoring I like games that emphasize survival for scoring, and games that have multipliers to build. That's probably why I enjoyed Caladrius so much; it was basically all about building your multiplier and then for the love of god not dying because that would cause it to reset. What I don't like is chaining systems, or overly complex scoring systems that force you to use an unnatural feeling play style like Akai Katana. Basically if scoring doesn't feel natural to the way I want to play the game I wont play it for score.