Once you master CAVE STGs, there's no going back?

[trap15]

The engine was programmed by YGW, game design was Ichimura and IKD.

[MSZ]

Gradius V is a bullet hell shooter? lol

Not until the game reaches loop 10 in hard difficulty.

[nasty_wolverine]

The engine was programmed by YGW, game design was Ichimura and IKD.

Wasn't shin mode game mechanics completely overhauled by YGW?

[KAI]

really? but AKS kinda sux.

[trap15]

I don't think so. I couldn't say for sure, but I don't believe he did much of anything past the engine on any of Akai Katana.

[Jeneki]

Once you master CAVE STGs, there's no going back?

"Once you go CAVE, you never go ... " uh ... Grave? Rave? Shave? Wave? Slave?

I give up.

[PurpBullets]

then let Yagawa design the games.

What did trap15 do to you man?

JOIN US

[Mortificator]

I wondered the same thing as the OP back before I tried my first danmaku (ESP Ra.De.!), but I still like older shooters, so I was worried about nothing.

[ACSeraph]

I will never be able to understand you people's love for Pink Sweets... Are we talking the arrange mode or do you guys seriously like the arcade mode?

Also I like cave games but I find the bullet patterns and enemy attacks in general somewhat uninspired and unmemorable (with some exceptions of course). I think it would be hard to argue that artistically games like Touhou and Caladrius don't have much more visually inspired attacks than Cave stuff which is very unfortunate.

[KAI]

Arcade mode rulz dude, WFT is wrong whit you?

[AntiFritz]

I will never be able to understand you people's love for Pink Sweets... Are we talking the arrange mode or do you guys seriously like the arcade mode?

Also I like cave games but I find the bullet patterns and enemy attacks in general somewhat uninspired and unmemorable (with some exceptions of course). I think it would be hard to argue that artistically games like Touhou and Caladrius don't have much more visually inspired attacks than Cave stuff which is very unfortunate.

I seriously like pink sweets arcade. Even if personally think its bad. Wish it wasn't as random though.

[PurpBullets]

Yes, Pink Sweets 1.00 <3
I would say the focus of aesthetic is not on patterns, but on stage/enemy design/detail. At least that is what impresses me most often aesthetically with cave.
Anything Yagawa <3
Even what he did on msx.

[Despatche]

In DDP there aren't long parts where enemies basically do nothing and just wait for you to shoot them like in Ikaruga. If you don't play Ikaruga for score, there are many parts in the game that don't make any sense and aren't fun at all.

then play ikaruga for score like you're supposed to? you're not supposed to actively ignore score in games that focus on the concept (i.e. nearly every arcade game, which means dodonpachi), and the fact that people default to this mindset is kinda why we're in the rut we're in.

just learn to play these games, people. most of the "difficulty" comes from making (easily refutable) excuses and otherwise actively refusing to try a little.

[friedrich]

In DDP there aren't long parts where enemies basically do nothing and just wait for you to shoot them like in Ikaruga. If you don't play Ikaruga for score, there are many parts in the game that don't make any sense and aren't fun at all.

then play ikaruga for score like you're supposed to? you're not supposed to actively ignore score in games that focus on the concept (i.e. nearly every arcade game, which means dodonpachi), and the fact that people default to this mindset is kinda why we're in the rut we're in.

just learn to play these games, people. most of the "difficulty" comes from making (easily refutable) excuses and otherwise actively refusing to try a little.

I tried and it wasn't fun. And if I'm not supposed to play a game a certain way, it's the developers job to prevent me from playing it that way. So for example in Ikarugas case Treasure failed to make the chaining mandatory to be able to finish the game.

[ACSeraph]

And if I'm not supposed to play a game a certain way, it's the developers job to prevent me from playing it that way.

He's got a point here. Because I'm not really pro at STGs yet I still tend to focus on survival in my runs, yet there are still games that give you a good incentive to at least try to score for the sake of survival. In Caladrius for example, your special weapons are leveled up based on item collection which is also the main scoring element. As a result you have a great incentive to maximize your score because by doing so you are also maximizing your survival rate. More games should do things like this I think. You could argue that Cave gives you extends for scoring, but that isn't saying much considering you will end up getting those extends even with minimal scoring effort in most of their games.

[shmuppyLove]

I tried and it wasn't fun. And if I'm not supposed to play a game a certain way, it's the developers job to prevent me from playing it that way. So for example in Ikarugas case Treasure failed to make the chaining mandatory to be able to finish the game.

You can finish the game by credit feeding as well, does that mean they failed by allowing you to continue?

[ACSeraph]

I tried and it wasn't fun. And if I'm not supposed to play a game a certain way, it's the developers job to prevent me from playing it that way. So for example in Ikarugas case Treasure failed to make the chaining mandatory to be able to finish the game.

You can finish the game by credit feeding as well, does that mean they failed by allowing you to continue?

That's not a good example because continuing costs money in an actual arcade setting. They definitely give you an incentive not to continue. He's talking about the game making a good case for utilizing it's own scoring system, and I have to agree it's a valid complaint.

[friedrich]

I tried and it wasn't fun. And if I'm not supposed to play a game a certain way, it's the developers job to prevent me from playing it that way. So for example in Ikarugas case Treasure failed to make the chaining mandatory to be able to finish the game.

You can finish the game by credit feeding as well, does that mean they failed by allowing you to continue?

Ideally that's exactly what they should have done, since playing one credit at a time and never continuing is the best way to play.

And no, I don't mean that Treasure failed in this regard with the arcade version of Ikaruga. Unfortunately it's an arcade standard to be able to credit feed and it obviously wasn't in Treasures power to change that.

They could have eliminated credit feeding in the console ports though. Of course even for console ports it's standard to be able to credit feed, so there were certain expectations and they didn't want to not meet them. I would have greatly appreciated it tough, even if a lot of people would have complained about it.

[ACSeraph]

They could have eliminated credit feeding in the console ports though. Of course even for console ports it's standard to be able to credit feed, so there were certain expectations and they didn't want to not meet them. I would have greatly appreciated it tough, even if a lot of people would have complained about it.

There is an option to turn off continuing in the 360 version of Ikaruga actually. I don't feel like one credit limits should be forced upon players especially when many people use credit feed runs to practice. Since the option is there to impose the limit on yourself I think they have done their job. As for communicating goal of only using one credit, I think most modern games do a good job of that. After all, only single credit scores factor into the leaderboards.

[ciox]

And if I'm not supposed to play a game a certain way, it's the developers job to prevent me from playing it that way.

He's got a point here. Because I'm not really pro at STGs yet I still tend to focus on survival in my runs, yet there are still games that give you a good incentive to at least try to score for the sake of survival. In Caladrius for example, your special weapons are leveled up based on item collection which is also the main scoring element. As a result you have a great incentive to maximize your score because by doing so you are also maximizing your survival rate. More games should do things like this I think. You could argue that Cave gives you extends for scoring, but that isn't saying much considering you will end up getting those extends even with minimal scoring effort in most of their games.

Funny you mention leveling up weapons because Ikaruga's precursor Radiant Silvergun did that, and gets huge hate for it.
Anyway there is something they could have done, like a successful 3-chain giving a lot of extra suicide bullets to absorb, for some visual feedback and more ammo for the discharge weapon, then later on have sections where it's tougher to blow up everything on the screen unless you've got that extra ammo. It is weird that chaining does nothing but give rare extends for the average player.

[Special World]

The smart thing to do is obviously to slowly give players more credits as they keep playing for hours, so they learn that they shouldn't be relying on a ton of credits. See: Ikaruga and Mars Matrix.

[BIL]

In addition to time-unlocked credits forcing the player to attempt a learning process of some kind (or else waste a whole lot of their time while continues unlock - either way, this avoids "done in an afternoon" syndrome without artificially bloating the game), Gradius V did something else I think was clever. The announcer's Game Over messages get subtly less derogatory the longer you've survived. Finish the loop on a credit and upon Game Over you get a booming "YOU ARE A LIVING LEGEND." I was actually motivated back in 2004 to clear the game solely to see if that robotic douche would finally give me some respect after all those "You need some practice" and "What the hell?"s. I don't think I'd have cared to work on improving my first 5CC if it'd have simply meant a higher score. An actual arcade shooter that does something very similar is Rayforce with its operations map getting gradually closer to completion with each stage cleared, OutRun-style.

I was also playing the hell out of Shattered Soldier for the S-Rank at the time, and I'd barely even noticed that game kept score at all. It was all about maintaining that huge golden S long enough to see more of the advanced stages and bosses. So I do think directly acknowledging the player's improvements in a way separate from raw numbers is a good idea, and could bring in a few other borderliners like it did me. Not that I really care at this point... the last few posts just brought the anecdote to mind.

And of course this assumes there's at least some latent interest in this sort of gaming. I'm sure GV's announcer made a few other people swear the game off and put in something that didn't frequently tell them they needed more practice.

[ACSeraph]

Anyway there is something they could have done, like a successful 3-chain giving a lot of extra suicide bullets to absorb, for some visual feedback and more ammo for the discharge weapon, then later on have sections where it's tougher to blow up everything on the screen unless you've got that extra ammo. It is weird that chaining does nothing but give rare extends for the average player.

Exactly.

Obviously something like weapon leveling would only work if it was well designed (in Caladrius' case it was), but even something as simple as your example would give a major incentive to learn the "right" way to play the game. The scoring systems in these games need to be tied to the overall goal of the game (completing your mission/surviving) rather than just an overly complex method of putting a bigger number at the top of the screen. It says "Shoot the Core!" not "Shoot for Score!"

The numerical score should only be a numerical representation of how hard you are kicking the "core's" ass. In actual Ikaruga you are chaining because... well the number goes up. But in your example you would be chaining because it gives you that much more firepower to murder that many more ships. It's a big difference imo, and vastly superior.

[hail good sir]

I must be an out of touch hermit when it comes to gaming because I don't know how you pick up Ikaruga and not see the whole reason the game exists is to chain, and that chaining is the defining aspect of the game, if there has to be just 1, and not the polarity system. The only time I've really seen people make any "real" effort in learning the game who otherwise wouldn't was to get the A rank achievements on the xbox and then they considered the game beaten and never played again.

I don't really know what the answer is I'm just confused. In Ikaruga's case I think the mechanics all work perfect the way they are but I guess my point is I can see how a developer could not add enough incentive without even realizing it. 3 + 5 million extends with no cap (other than how many points are available in the game) should have gotten the point across pretty convincingly.

[Erppo]

I would think that that way being fun would be enough incentive to play a game the "right" way.

[hail good sir]

Then the question becomes why is this one, out of all shooters, the popular one? I guess the same reason I like DFK novice over the normal game and I should take my own advice and stop over-thinking it.

[trap15]

Because of bandwagoning and retarded Treasure fanatics and having a neat aesthetic?

[AntiFritz]

Also its availability outside of japan. Being on both gamecube and then xbla, unlike most cave games which were japan only until only a few years ago.

[nasty_wolverine]

How this thread go from yay-cave/no-cave into l2p?

[Captain]

back to the past!


once you go Cave....you realize there's another type of shmup out there, and you get your own goddamn personal opinion on it.

it's like telling a Taito fan that once he goes IREM, there's no going back.

It's all a matter of taste, some might find Cave games horribad, and some might start only playing them, it depends on the person entirely.

(I think bullet hell is for entirely reflex-testing fun and non-bullet hell is both strategy/reflex, and love both)