The worst shooter you've ever played.

[Udderdude]

Espgaluda.

Fight me irl bitch :3

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Hellbent on the Amiga

Deserves mentioning again

[Jonst]

Early Touhou games, or Espgaluda.

Espgaluda is one of the worst shmups you've played? Really? I'd love to hear more...

[Herr Schatten]

Hellbent on the Amiga

Deserves mentioning again

That one's so bad, it's hardly a game, though.

[trap15]

Early Touhou games, or Espgaluda.

The early ones (aside from the second) are better than most of the Windows games; Espgaluda is piss-easy, but it's far from bad. Play more games.

[Squire Grooktook]

Rated from most easy to fall asleep during to least.

#1: Soldner X2
#2: Sine Mora
#3: Zero Wing (might be off on this, I thought the game was extremely slow and repetitive when I first played it)
#4: eXceed: Gun Bullet Children

[evil_ash_xero]

Early Touhou games, or Espgaluda.

The early ones (aside from the second) are better than most of the Windows games; Espgaluda is piss-easy, but it's far from bad. Play more games.

I may lack the skills, but I don't think the game is piss easy at all. And I still can't beat that last boss.
It's definitely more "newbie friendly", but it's harder than all their games from DeathSmiles, up to Akai Katana.

Oh, but as for the guy saying it's one of the worst shmups he's played....SAY WHAT?! But I approve of his handle.

I actually try to avoid bad games, so I wouldn't feel comfortable contributing to the thread. That porn shmup was pretty bad. Can't remember the name(I think it was on PC Engine CD and Mega Drive).
And yeah, I hate Sine Mora, but I'm sure there TONS of games that are a million times worse.

Anyone recommend a laughably bad shmup(and not Planet Joker, as I do not have the means to emulate it)? That Cho Aniki game on PS2 looks horrendous. I know Toilet Kids is supposed to not be a bad game, but what an awful subject matter.

[VHS-porn]

Well sorry, but even if I admit the game does have some good elements in my opinion it looks like shit, the controls are atrocious, I don't like having to use a third button, especially for something like slowing down time, and yeah... It may be good technically, not saying it sucks in the sense that its poorly made or whatever, but it sucks (to me) because I think its no fun at all and I'm really bored with it.

For the Touhou games I kinda have the same thing going, some of the late game I think are wonderful to look at but I just suck at all of them, and for some reason a lot of games in the series (mainly the first ones) I happens to hate.
Now for what I dislike in them, once again the controls, I don't know how you guys do it, hate the music (sorry), also the general design of the serie is really not to my liking, and a lot of patterns almost impredictable the first time just kills it for me. Not a big fan of that.

[Jonst]

^ well I guess I can't argue it,if its just a matter of personal taste...which is ok!

[Squire Grooktook]

and a lot of patterns almost impredictable the first time just kills it for me. Not a big fan of that.

I'd honestly say that kind of stuff is less present in Touhou and Cave shooters than any most other games, but that's just me.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

and a lot of patterns almost impredictable the first time just kills it for me. Not a big fan of that.

I'd honestly say that kind of stuff is less present in Touhou and Cave shooters than any most other games, but that's just me.

Yeah, a lot of older games kill you with enemies suddenly popping out from unexpected places without warning, so you have to memorize enemy appearances, or cases where a stage hazard suddenly can kill you... Cave games are a lot less nasty about stuff like this. There's the odd case where knowing what's coming up makes a huge difference, but it's not necessarily unavoidable whatsover.

[pixeljunkie]

Trevor McFur [Jag]
Legion [PCE]

[FRO]

Well Philosoma on the PS1 is pretty bad it's got an awful colour palette and boring repetitive gameplay.

I quite enjoyed Philosoma, despite its flaws. I think the game had good atmosphere, and considering the cheese factor, I liked the 'chatter' going on between the different pilots. I thought it was reasonably immersive, and at least tried to give some story to a shmup. Sure, it's been eclipsed by nearly every other PSX shmup, but it was still an enjoyable game to run through. One of these days I should pull it out again and see if I can 1CC it...

Sol Divide makes me want to puke. It amazes me how low Psikyo could sink >.>

THIS. I own the PSX version because I found it dirt cheap (less than $5, if memory serves), but this hunk of dog crap is hardly worth spending any time on. Psykio games often feel cheap because of the randomness of the stage order, fast targeted bullets, etc. but when your character (and subsequent hitbox) is the size of Canada, and the cheapness factor is ramped up to 11, it's hard to have a lot of fun playing the game. Ugh.

[dunpeal2064]

I don't like having to use a third button

Its worth putting yourself out of your comfort zone to get used to. You will miss out on a lot of great games if having 3 buttons qualifies them for this list.

[VHS-porn]

Its worth putting yourself out of your comfort zone to get used to. You will miss out on a lot of great games if having 3 buttons qualifies them for this list.

Yeah, you're right, and it's something I'm thinking about but when I'm holding my stick (and this is going to sound somewhat stupid but I don't care) I use the bottom of my hand (don't know what it's called in english, its uh, between the center of the hand and the arm... ) to push my stick really hard onto my legs so it doesn't move. Now I'm used to it and it makes using all the fingers (or more than two) really hard... So yeah..

[Squire Grooktook]

and a lot of patterns almost impredictable the first time just kills it for me. Not a big fan of that.

I'd honestly say that kind of stuff is less present in Touhou and Cave shooters than any most other games, but that's just me.

Yeah, a lot of older games kill you with enemies suddenly popping out from unexpected places without warning, so you have to memorize enemy appearances, or cases where a stage hazard suddenly can kill you... Cave games are a lot less nasty about stuff like this. There's the odd case where knowing what's coming up makes a huge difference, but it's not necessarily unavoidable whatsover.

Yeah, although I should note that of course not all old shooters were like that. I really despise when people use the term "memorizer" as shorthand for any pre-Cave shooter. I mean, I can't think of a single hazard that isn't telegraphed properly in Rayforce.

Cave telegraphing is really good. It's still annoyingly easy to get walled on most Cave fifth stages if you screw up your positioning, but it's still theoretically possible to get out of those situations, and just having good fundamentals in leading bullets and dodging can help a lot in not getting screwed like that.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I don't like having to use a third button

Its worth putting yourself out of your comfort zone to get used to. You will miss out on a lot of great games if having 3 buttons qualifies them for this list.

Also, both Galuda games play a lot better when you're using 4 buttons (Autofire + the standard 3). Same with DFK.

[Ed Oscuro]

Ughhhh

I just tried out Volguard II.

+/- Cute but very minimalist graphics and sound
- energy bar that controls how much you can fire - apparently to discourage autofire
- but you have to mash the fire button repeatedly anyway to clear waves of enemies, and the game definitely can handle you firing tons of bullets. Apparently the game expects you to play with autofire, but it's not sure about whether it LIKES that.
- super fast bullet barf that only travels according to compass directions
- and the bullets don't seem to kill you; I'm not sure what they do. First boss couldn't touch me, even with my energy meter very low. I even flew over the top of it in a hail of bullets.
- got my first death, resulting in a happy Game Over (YEAH), when I tried to fly the ship over a staggered series of force-field barriers, and apparently it clipped the hitbox of my ship. I was strangely untouchable up to that point. POOF!

Overall score: Ugh.