what are the best ps2 shmups?

[Jonathan Ingram]

Psyvariar 2 Ultimate Final. Can`t believe it hasn`t been mentioned yet.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Psyvariar -Complete Edition- is a more substantial title, being simply the everest original Psyvariar edition. That said, 2 Ultimate Final is the only version of 2 rich in the roll button.

[louisg]

I liked the first Psyvariar more. It's ugly, but it plays so well.

What about Homura? I haven't tried it but I hear good things about it.

[Acid King]

What about Homura? I haven't tried it but I hear good things about it.

Homura is great. The gameplay is a unique twist on the Giga Wing reflect mechanic and it's got Skonec's patented colorful bullet patterns. It's a shame we'll never see a followup.

[ciox]

Definitely get Psyvariar Complete first.

What about Homura? I haven't tried it but I hear good things about it.

Homura is great. The gameplay is a unique twist on the Giga Wing reflect mechanic and it's got Skonec's patented colorful bullet patterns. It's a shame we'll never see a followup.

It's a decent game but has very little info/buzz out there. A sequel for Homura was actually announced but got canceled later, dunno if that helps. (http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7393)

[Acid King]

It's a decent game but has very little info/buzz out there. A sequel for Homura was actually announced but got canceled later, dunno if that helps. (http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7393)

There's a few people on here who have put a lot of time in to it if you're looking for info. I haven't checked up on it to see if Arcadia has a newer score, but it wasn't all that long ago when Abschussig unofficially held the world record. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqxgbO9 ... FA6TLQGFma

[louisg]

What about Homura? I haven't tried it but I hear good things about it.

Homura is great. The gameplay is a unique twist on the Giga Wing reflect mechanic and it's got Skonec's patented colorful bullet patterns. It's a shame we'll never see a followup.

Whaaaat I thought it was more like Psyvariar! I love GigaWing/Mars Matrix. Now I *need* to check it out.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Homura didn't feel like a Takumi shmup to me. It was less manic. Spiritually more akin to Shikigami no Shiro, mechanically - to Vasara.

[Acid King]

Ehh? It's more like Giga Wing. The melee mechanic is nothing like Vasara's since Homura's melee attack rebuilds overtime like the reflect force in GW, as opposed to Vasara's hold fire to charge. And additionally, unlike Vasara, melee's destroy every enemy on screen when you activate it and you can speed up the movement of your character by tapping attack so you can recover faster. It has the same emphasis of timing reflections to maximize score as Giga Wing does, with the added depth of picking and choosing where the best spots are you build your multiplier by clearing out popcorn enemies. Wait for a shit load of popcorn enemies on screen, slash, build the multiplier, then ride out the multiplier by looking for fat bullet spreads to reflect, and a new set of popcorn enemies to slash and rebuild the multiplier.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Something (Slow bullets? Small hitbox?) made it feel like Shikigami no Shiro II rather than anything Takumi. Relatively easy to survive early stages. I liked Vasara better, admittedly.

[louisg]

Something (Slow bullets? Small hitbox?) made it feel like Shikigami no Shiro II rather than anything Takumi. Relatively easy to survive early stages. I liked Vasara better, admittedly.

Probably cuz Vasara is awesome

Hmm, if it's like Shikigami, I'm less interested. That one never clicked with me.

[Obiwanshinobi]

To be fair, I found Homura pretty solid, its score system self-explanatory (the way I like my arcade games, much like Takumi shmups in fact), but it had this je-ne-sais-quoi typical of this century's first decade, that isn't really my thing.
I think Raiden III is so good not least because it's like shmups from nineteen-nineties (Trizeal seemed this way too, but I've barely played it).

[Acid King]

I don't know if you emulate stuff, Louis, but I believe the arcade version is working in the Type X emulator. You can also check out Bananamatic's run on youtube to see what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikyjsA_59AQ

Something (Slow bullets? Small hitbox?) made it feel like Shikigami no Shiro II rather than anything Takumi. Relatively easy to survive early stages. I liked Vasara better, admittedly.

Well, it does have a flying protagonist and a tiny hitbox. There are a lot of slow moving bullet clouds but the game plays a bit faster than the Shikigamis (atleast the first two, I never played the third) and the game is built around the slash/reflect mechanic. The playfield rarely gets as crowded as Shikigami because constantly swatting clouds away from you. Bullets in the second half get faster and without proper reflect timing you can get pinned down easily.

[Koa Zo]

any thought s from the OP? ...CellProcessor what games appeal to you?

[Sinful]

Now that I finally got a PS2, there is only one game I'd really love to finally track down. Gradius III & IV collection (even though I own PSP collection). Once you get into Graidus III, difficulty is just right for maximum fun... except the cube rush if not using the trick... and loop 2 does look pretty nuts. Gradius IV is the best designed classic Gradius, just wish level one was not so throwaway feeling & empty...

I already have Graidus V & R-Type Final. I think Final is must own too still if you a fan of hori.

Raiden III I bought over PS3 PSN, but has horrible gamepad input lag (doesn't seem near as bad via analog). Not that I wasn't planing on buying it in physical form for PS2 as well. ... Meh, I think Raiden III is still must own, even if it's supposed the weakest link (part IV seems much harder, so good warm up).

These games and other are no brainers to me.

Ask ten different people here and you'll get ten different answers (maybe more), but I might suggest starting here for a mostly-complete system genre overview compiled with the help of this forum a little ways back.

Hey, thanks a lot for them really great articles there. I check em out from time to time all the time. So yeah, more please (even do some HG101 coverage too).

[Sinful]

He could be emulating ISOs for all it says.[

Emulating PS2 from my personal experience is very bad for the precise shooter genre because of serious gamepad input delay. And I even see this issue for PSN emulated PS2 games. As when I downloaded Raiden III when I seen the sale a few days ago, I was very disapointed that even Sony themselved can't fix this issue (playing on analog does makes it feel way less noticeable, so it's what I do for Raiden III, cause it's that bad otherwise). So yeah, if you're a shooter fan, buying PS2 games is the only way to go, unless you're just testing things out (or in my case, until I find them all... "got to catch em all!" crap or not).