Easiest arcade shmups that noobs can 1cc or complete easily?

[NTSC-J]

This list has been posted before, but I'm not sure anyone has fully translated it. I'll do it here shortly, if people are interested, but it's not exactly the best list ever devised. Some very strange choices and omissions, particularly when it gets to the hardest games.

[Bonus!]

We don't have to take the collected wisdom of the Japanese players who created this list as gospel, so I'm sure this will spawn some interesting discussions. Before posting, I did search the forum for a bit, and only found a list of Cave games ranked by difficulty, which was apparently based on that list. I'm sure many would appreciate a translation of the entire list, though.

[AntiFritz]

Pink Sweets (with infinite lives bug) is at rank 15. (The easy games I listed were in ranks 1-3, btw).

No Ibara BL, though.

Oh, my mistake. I thought I searched the page for it but probably copied the japanese wrong.

[Pteriforever]

Oh, forgot one. If you can put up with its controls, Frantic 2 is almost stupidly easy. Seriously, the hardest difficulty is about on par with Touhou's Easy.

[heisenbergman]

Here's a very handy list of almost all notable STGs ranked by difficulty, as compiled by the Japanese STG community. Note the helpful links to ALL-clear videos next to most games.

Their top 10 easiest games:

10. Nemesis (1-ALL)
9. Captain Tomaday
8. Gekirindan
7. Batsugun Special Version (1-ALL)
6. Storm Blade (1-ALL)
5. Slap Fight (1-ALL/Area 100)
4. Asuka & Asuka
3. Fire Barrel (1-ALL)
2. Night Raid
1. Karous (Easy)

This list has been posted before, but I'm not sure anyone has fully translated it. I'll do it here shortly, if people are interested, but it's not exactly the best list ever devised. Some very strange choices and omissions, particularly when it gets to the hardest games.

Sorry, I'm a bit late for this - no idea how I overlooked your posts - but I'm definitely interested for a full translation of that list.

[NTSC-J]

Oh yea, I forgot about that...

I translated half of it, I'll try to finish it here soon.

[Ko.oS]

I did search the forum for a bit

here's a 7 year old thread with a similar list - although the list is mucho shorter (and really old)

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11373
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 60#p696160

will spawn some interesting discussion

interesting discussion? on this forum? where?
__________________________

[gs68]

1941: Counter Attack.
- Full life refill with every stage, and on select stages your life capacity increases, all the way up to 7 for the final stage. Plus there are several red enemy formations that drop full-health items.
- Hitting walls causes your ship to spin instead of taking damage, allowing you to execute multidirectional attacks.
- The game practically showers you in weapon upgrades. Each time you pick up an upgrade, weapon time is restored by a full minute.
- Least number of stages in the series (6), although the final stage is noticably longer than the others.

[Captain]

Thunder
Force
AC

[FRO]

Strikers 1945 II.

This isn't the shmups joke thread, man!

Seriously, Strikers 1945 II is not easy in the slightest.

LOL. agreed! I've owned that game for years now and haven't even come close! It would help if I put more time into it, but I get easily frustrated by how manic it can be.

I'm not sure about the arcade original specifically, but the NES port of Dragon Spirit is real easy. I played it a handful of times casually, then picked it up one day for a go and blew right threw it. Not a 1LC, but a 1CC where I maybe expended 4 lives total? So yeah, with a bit more practice, I'm sure I could 1LC it w/ no problems. I'd imagine the arcade port is a bit tougher, but comparatively, it should be a quick 1CC with some time invested.

[To Far Away Times]

Mushihimesama (Original)
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (Original)
Battle Bakraid (Normal Course)
Armed Police Batrider (Normal Course)
Deathsmiles
Thunderforce III
Espgaluda
Akai Katana Shin
Touhou 06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Touhou 07 - Perfect Cherry Blossom
Touhou 08 - Imperishable Night


Some of my favorite games, and all of them are pretty doable for newer players.

[Imhotep]

1941: Counter Attack.
- Full life refill with every stage, and on select stages your life capacity increases, all the way up to 7 for the final stage. Plus there are several red enemy formations that drop full-health items.
- Hitting walls causes your ship to spin instead of taking damage, allowing you to execute multidirectional attacks.
- The game practically showers you in weapon upgrades. Each time you pick up an upgrade, weapon time is restored by a full minute.
- Least number of stages in the series (6), although the final stage is noticably longer than the others.

-no real bomb makes things harder
-invincibility after a hit is short, taking multiple hits in a row is common
-weapons are not hugely powerful and can fuck you over if you pick the wrong one

still, it's an easy clear.

[gs68]

Also TH14 due to the fact that you can get a ridiculous amount of extends. Probably the only game in the series where I approached the last boss on Normal with a full life stock.

[nesrulz]

DoDonPachi Arrange. Great DDP mod. Very playable and fun.
Bee Storm - DoDonPachi II, first mode, the top is "training mode", also very playable.

[pablumatic]

Thunderforce AC gets my pick.

Non-arcade there are several, but my top pick for easiest is UN Squadron for SNES. Unlike the arcade you can just grind for money, get the ultimate fighter plane (the Efreet) and then breeze through the rest of the game even on the hardest difficulty setting.

[Nguyen VinhLOC]

Hishouzame or Flying Shark (watch the video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiGitvqnfi0

[Nguyen VinhLOC]

I've been currently working on Kyukyoku Tiger 2 as well because as far as i think that game has a buffed Bomb system and no second loop just like the first game

[BIL]

Thirding Roo and ilitirit, now I've played it: Terra Force. Freakishly easy by coinop standards. Even the amiable Thunder Cross seems a stern killer by comparison. I get the feeling this was by design, on Nichibutsu's part. Very attractive opening cinematic, and charming audiovisuals; could just imagine how thrilled I'd have been to encounter it as a young kid.

At any rate, anyone remotely used to arcade STGs, or tougher console ones, will likely 1LC it within an hour tops. Once you get the shield, it simply doesn't put out enough resistance to bring an adept down. EDIT: Not to say it's sleepy; it in fact puts quite a bit of enemy firepower onscreen. It's just that yours is even beefier!

Has just the one loop too, AFAIK. Per heisenbergman's request in the OP, I could genuinely see an absolute beginner - as in never played an STG in their life - knocking this one over in a couple days, likely picking up some basics along the way. They'd have to be warned not to expect anything so mild from most of the other cabs, though.

Very likeable game despite the lack of grit. Has some genuine creativity, and winningly massive BOMBAAAs. It's just entirely more in line with its FC/PCE contemporaries. Has a neat topdown overworld VS hori dungeon concept, and as mentioned, some Gradius II-good looks w/ crackin' BGM. Dungeon BGM was in my head for weeks after, despite the accidental 1LC landing within ~30min of buying the ACA port.

[MJR]

Lot of these things can be personal perception. For me, first Gradius has been the easiest arcade shmup, but not all may share that view.

Deathsmiles I was also able to 1CC pretty quickly, but that has selectable difficulty levels and the hidden stages and black label mode pretty much kick my ass.

Gradius V was mentioned, but I was never able to 1CC and I played the heck out of it. Then again, I can 1CC R-type while asleep, but the 2nd loop is unwinnable for 99% of players.

You could try this thread that has a list of shmups by difficulty. Many of the games suggested in this thread are on the bottom of the list.

[pieslice]

outzone has pretty relaxed difficulty

[MJR]

outzone has pretty relaxed difficulty

Took me one year to 1CC. And I was only able to do it on original PCB. Never on Mame or Bitwave version.

But yeah, it is one of the easier Toaplan games

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Thirding Roo and ilitirit, now I've played it: Terra Force. Freakishly easy by coinop standards.

Good way of putting it, haha. The giant bomb blasts you get at max power are very satisfying too, and the screen's busy enough that it's not a snoozefest, it's just your firepower is very overwhelming. I was rereading threads on it and apparently Velo said that getting a bomb item when at max bomb power gives a shield instead, which would certainly explain why you're so hard to kill.

Deathsmiles I was also able to 1CC pretty quickly, but that has selectable difficulty levels and the hidden stages and black label mode pretty much kick my ass.

I always found Deathsmiles tough as a beginner, but I think it's because I was used to playing arcade mode where you can't select level 1 or 2 for every level? Strange choice in the port but if you play the mode with the high res graphics it lets you do this, whereas the arcade graphics mode forces normal rules, where you can pick Level 3 as many times as you want, but only Level 1 and 2 once per top and bottom stage.

The last level's also quite aggressive about throwing enemies on both sides of the screen at you. When you know what you're doing you do get a lot of resources but it felt like it takes a while to get to that point.

[Arino]

Mushi Futari BL

[To Far Away Times]

Wow, 11 year bump.

Mushihimesama (Original)
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (Original)
Battle Bakraid (Normal Course)
Armed Police Batrider (Normal Course)
Deathsmiles
Thunderforce III
Espgaluda
Akai Katana Shin
Touhou 06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Touhou 07 - Perfect Cherry Blossom
Touhou 08 - Imperishable Night


Some of my favorite games, and all of them are pretty doable for newer players.

In addition to the games I picked last time, I've also played a few more that I would add:

Strato Fighter
Batsugun Special
DariusBurst AC
Cotton Rock 'N Roll / Fantasy
Blue Wish Resurrection
Elemental Master
MUSHA
Spriggan
Kingdom Grandprix
Gleylancer

[Shatterhand]

Some people are posting consoles games when the title clearly says *ARCADE* shmups.

Darius Gaiden with Autofire is very easy. But using autofire is... kinda of cheating, so I dunno

Deathsmiles in the easiest route is.... well, among the Cave games and bullet-hell games overall, pretty easy. Still I think most people who never played any shmup before would still be very overwhelmed by it. None of the Cave games are easy.

But, an honest answer here: Gradius. The 1st one.

Yeah, rank is a bitch on that game and all but, if you had zero contact with the genre before, I honestly think you won't feel overwhelmed by the game, and it's really not a hard game to master. It's a game that set a new bar for shmups when it was first released, it was probably the introduction to the genre to many people, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the 1st game ever to some, so it wasn't built considering what people already knew about games and shmups in general before.

All the other sequels are very hard games and even the home games (like Gaiden or V) are pretty tough.

But the first one, while its not a cakewalk, it's a game that I feel anyone can master and feel good about it. It also helps that it is a solid game that aged like wine (IMO at least). You won't beat it on your first try (unlike a lot of console games that were mentioned here that are REALLY every easy), but it's really a game that I find to be doable to anyone who persists just a little bit with it.

EDIT: Just noticed MJR also said Gradius. So, there it is, two votes for it.

[Arino]

Wow, 11 year bump.

Mushihimesama (Original)
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (Original)
Battle Bakraid (Normal Course)
Armed Police Batrider (Normal Course)
Deathsmiles
Thunderforce III
Espgaluda
Akai Katana Shin
Touhou 06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Touhou 07 - Perfect Cherry Blossom
Touhou 08 - Imperishable Night


Some of my favorite games, and all of them are pretty doable for newer players.

In addition to the games I picked last time, I've also played a few more that I would add:

Strato Fighter
Batsugun Special
DariusBurst AC
Cotton Rock 'N Roll / Fantasy
Blue Wish Resurrection
Elemental Master
MUSHA
Spriggan
Kingdom Grandprix
Gleylancer

Most of these aren't arcade games

[bobrocks95]

I saw multiple people mention Darius Gaiden in here but I can barely get through 4-5 levels on the Saturn port with all available credits (3? 5?) - am I just doing something horribly wrong or is it much harder than people here seem to think? Is autofire different than rapid fire?

[Arino]

I saw multiple people mention Darius Gaiden in here but I can barely get through 4-5 levels on the Saturn port with all available credits (3? 5?) - am I just doing something horribly wrong or is it much harder than people here seem to think? Is autofire different than rapid fire?

I guess it's just that opinions vary depending on your skill. I find a lot of the games not that easy that were mentioned here.

[Shatterhand]

I saw multiple people mention Darius Gaiden in here but I can barely get through 4-5 levels on the Saturn port with all available credits (3? 5?) - am I just doing something horribly wrong or is it much harder than people here seem to think? Is autofire different than rapid fire?

Rapid fire that the game *gives you*? Yes, it is.

If you have a controller with turbo that works at, I duno, 25mhz or something like that, the game gets stupidly easier. I was really surprised when I tried it out and it happened to be true.

I don't remember the Saturn Port giving you this type of autofire. I played it on Mame with a controller that has autofire and the game gets *a lot* easier, in a way that really surprised me.

[bobrocks95]

Ah, that makes sense, the default is low enough that you can tell mashing os faster. Though I believe people were saying even without that they found it quite easy. Like Arino said, opinions will definitely vary.

My vote would be for the Cave games from Mushi on that included a novice mode. Still not the easiest things to 1cc but you'll learn a lot, if danmaku is ever a future goal for you. Forget if Espgaluda has a novice mode but I'd say Mushi novice original is easier than whatever the Espgaluda defaults are for the PS2 port