Is a 4GB Xbox 360 enough to play most shmups on the system?

[Oniros]

I'm getting an Xbox this black friday and was thinking on getting the 4GB one because I'm on a budget after spending almost $100 on a big chunk of used games (Mushi Futari, Espgaluda II, Akai Katana, Deathsmiles, DDP Resurrection, Otomedius, Bullet Witch, and SamSho Sen as a bonus). Do any shmups have big install sizes that will prevent me from playing them? I'm thinking on saving up to get SDOJ, Raiden IV, and Eschatos along the way and maybe Radiant Silvergun if it doesn't come out on Steam after Ikaruga. Any feedback would be appreciated.

[mosey]

I survived with a 4 GB model for a few years, although to install everything I used a 16 GB flash drive. Last I remember MS upped the external drive size to 32 GB. Be sure to use a FAT32 model, for optimal transfer rates.

Also original XBox games are not backwards compatible with the 4 GB slim. Phantom Dust...

[Thjodbjorn]

You can always upgrade the drive later, if you like.

[ACSeraph]

...and SamSho Sen as a bonus

Off topic but just as a warning this game is epicly shitty. Unless you are a hardcore SNK fanboy (like me) don't buy it.

[Pretas]

...and SamSho Sen as a bonus

Off topic but just as a warning this game is epicly shitty. Unless you are a hardcore SNK fanboy (like me) don't buy it.

I disagree. It's no masterpiece, but it's a fun Soul Calibur clone that gets most things right and is reasonably faithful to the series.

[mosey]

Raiden Fighters Aces too! Giggidy!

[Pretas]

Also original XBox games are not backwards compatible with the 4 GB slim. Phantom Dust...

Is this a fixed limitation of the hardware, or can you begin playing original Xbox games after installing a hard drive?

Anyway, there aren't any 360 STGs with excessive file sizes. The largest I know of is SDOJ, which is around 3 gigs. You should be fine to have everything installed with a 4 GB unit + 16 GB flash drive.

[ACSeraph]

...and SamSho Sen as a bonus

Off topic but just as a warning this game is epicly shitty. Unless you are a hardcore SNK fanboy (like me) don't buy it.

I disagree. It's no masterpiece, but it's a fun Soul Calibur clone that gets most things right and is reasonably faithful to the series.

What!? Look I'll be honest that I scraped some single player fun out of it because I am easily entertained and I like decapitating people, but no way is it faithful to the series, and it feel like a PS1 era knock-off of Soul Calibur. Its about as close to modern SC as Kensei is to modern Tekken.

Point is, you gotta love mediocre/crappy fighting games to even remotely appreciate it.

[Pretas]

How much did you play Sen against human opponents?

I've sparred with Shinikakepink (one of the top ranked Japanese players) numerous times, and the game's depth really showed itself. There are plenty of advanced mechanics and strategies that aren't obvious. It has its share of nonsense, like Ukyo's 80%+ rage combos, but such things aren't really viable outside of training mode. My main characters to use are Hanzo, Charlotte and Claude.

[ACSeraph]

There aren't any people to play it with, even here with it being on Nesica.

I'm sure its possible to squeeze entertainment out of almost any non totally broken fighter, but there's nothing good about sen that would make anyone want to play it over the ocean of superior options.

More importantly it doesn't feel good. SF4 is smooth as butter compared to Sen, that's why I say it feels like a PS1 era 3D fighter. And if there is no one to play it against which forces you to play single, and it generally feels bad to play it's pretty hard to recommend it to anyone.

[Pretas]

I didn't know that Sen made it onto Nesica. That's pretty interesting. I assume it's still censored like the other Japanese releases.

SFIV is a bad example for your defense, because it's sluggish and disjointed when compared to better 2D fighters like KOF XIII. It was definitely a step back from SSFIIX. I can name plenty of fighters on the PS1 that are smoother, such as Street Fighter EX 2+ (which also has 3D graphics).

I will stand by my assertion that Sen is an unfairly maligned, above-average 3D fighter. I'd much rather play it than Soul Calibur V, which dumbed down everyone's movelists, restricted Guard Impact with a meter, and pointlessly introduced EX and Ultra move equivalents in a half-hearted attempt to cater to SFIV fans.

Moreover, Sen feels good once you adjust to the controls. The hits are crunchy, the slashes are meaty. The controls aren't as refined as other 3D fighters, but they get the job done.

[Oniros]

Also original XBox games are not backwards compatible with the 4 GB slim. Phantom Dust...

Is this a fixed limitation of the hardware, or can you begin playing original Xbox games after installing a hard drive?

Anyway, there aren't any 360 STGs with excessive file sizes. The largest I know of is SDOJ, which is around 3 gigs. You should be fine to have everything installed with a 4 GB unit + 16 GB flash drive.

Thanks for the heads up! Bummer about the backwards compatibility though, I wanted to check out Shenmue II.

[ACSeraph]

SFIV is a bad example for your defense, because it's sluggish and disjointed when compared to better 2D fighters like KOF XIII.

No, that's exactly my point. Sen feels sluggish even compared to the often criticized speed of SF4.

As for Sen versus SCV I choose neither I guess. They need to put SC3 Arcade on Nesica for gods sake.

And yeah it's unfortunately censored, but pretty much everything is these days in Japan.

I think your love for Sen is similar to my own love for the Gowcaizer fighting game, so I can understand where you are coming from. But there are definitely reasons it didn't catch on, I don't think it's just because people were against the idea of 3D Samsho or unfairly compared it to SC.

[HydrogLox]

Is this a fixed limitation of the hardware, or can you begin playing original Xbox games after installing a hard drive?
Anyway, there aren't any 360 STGs with excessive file sizes. The largest I know of is SDOJ, which is around 3 gigs. You should be fine to have everything installed with a 4 GB unit + 16 GB flash drive.

Backward compatibility is enabled once you add a hard drive - the emulation profiles date back before 2007 when all SKUs had a hard drive. Further support for BC pretty much stopped shortly after the first "Arcades" (with just 256 MB on board) went on sale October 2007. It was probably cheaper to constrain the emulation profiles to the hard drive rather than re-testing them on solid state storage devices (which were kind of sluggish back then).

If I remember correctly there are about 2.4 GB available on a fresh 4 GB console. Also since November 2012 up to 2 x 32 GB of USB storage is supported. My S-model 4 GB console (with a 250 GB hard drive) didn't complain when I attached two (slimmed down with a file for fit) Kingston DataTraveler G3 32 GB. Shame really that they "lost" one USB port on the E-model.

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

I got a Japanese 4GB slim and added a 320GB HD which cost £50. Since there is an empty hard drive bay you can get one later when you have the funds.
The benefit is that your 360 will be silent as you have installed all of the games, running them off the hard drive.

[alpachinko]

You can fit a Western Digital Scorpio Blue (cheap as chips on eBay etc) into the HD caddy and upgrade that way. You have to flash the drive on a PC, but its pretty simple to do and there a re plenty of tutorials on the interwebs for it. Nice to have all your games installed too for buttery smooth performance and to keep temps down. I did it with an NTSC-J Jasper Xbox 360 quite a few years ago.

[CRP]

Oniros
If you go the Usb route, you also use a 3.0 usb but it will only support 2.0 usb speeds on xbox. Make sure you use usb stick with good 2.0 read speed. I currently use ADATA S102 PRO http://www.amazon.com/ADATA-Superior-Se ... B005Y8C2IG .
Dont know how it is on slim models på on fat, i have read that the usb port on the back has is better usb 2.0 speed on xbox (something with direct port to the motherboard)

[Sinful]

I just swicthed from a 60 gig to a 180 or 280... or 320? (How can i not remember? Basically the Star Wars X-Box, they come in different sizes too?). But yeah, I don't just use it for shmups, but I downloaded just about all of them at least in demo form. Lots of crappy indy shmup games too. like 2-3 Gigs worth at least, and I still need to check for what I missed? As I went only by title and crappy, real crappy, indy covers (you know, like "oh, this one's got a ship one it? I think that's a ship?"). And I even sorted all indy shmups I had one day to get ride of the super obvious crap ones, lol (or ones that weren't what I call true shooters).

Here's is one other reason why it's not enough. Installing gmes & DLCs. By the end I was up to one game able to be instaled at all times (for much better load times and sometimes better graphics/performance). So when I had to switch games, I have to delete old ones and instal the new game. Only to find out that I wasn't in the mood for it and go back to the one deleted, lol. Not fun. And I only had one game with all DLC content installed by the end as I was looking for what else to delete for more space?

So no. NO FREAKIN WAY IS THAT ENOUGH!!!!! And what buddy above says. No original X-Box compatibility, which you may one day change you mind about? So yeah, always good to keep your options open. So wait for another X-Box deal with bigger hard drive. My used game store gets 'em all the time. Patience little grasshopper, then pounce!

[gameoverDude]

USA SamShoSen will work on a Japanese 360, but it will be censored like the Japanese arcade one in that case. The Sasebo slashing led to Japan going batshit with censorship, with SamSho Zero Special being an early instance.
It's likely best as a 2P game. I think so, since CPU opponents are a bit too perfect with their blocking. I burned maybe 20 credits, eventually got owned by Draco, and gave up.

Shame Microsoft doesn't consider emulating the older Xboxes with XBO. Given that XBO's 8-core Jaguar is X86-64 bit , I'd think it shouldn't be too TERRIBLY hard to support original XB games. I'm hoping Sony emulates at least PS1 & PS2 on the PS4 sometime. OTOH I'm not sure if there's enough processor power to do PS3 on PS4/360 on XBO however.

Shame about the state of original Xbox BC on the 360. There's some good stuff (Out Run 2 SP "Coast 2 Coast") but you'll miss Spikeout Battle Street and some other gems.

[nZero]

USA SamShoSen will work on a Japanese 360, but it will be censored like the Japanese arcade one in that case. The Sasebo slashing led to Japan going batshit with censorship, with SamSho Zero Special being an early instance.
It's likely best as a 2P game. I think so, since CPU opponents are a bit too perfect with their blocking. I burned maybe 20 credits, eventually got owned by Draco, and gave up.

Shame Microsoft doesn't consider emulating the older Xboxes with XBO. Given that XBO's 8-core Jaguar is X86-64 bit , I'd think it shouldn't be too TERRIBLY hard to support original XB games. I'm hoping Sony emulates at least PS1 & PS2 on the PS4 sometime. OTOH I'm not sure if there's enough processor power to do PS3 on PS4/360 on XBO however.

Shame about the state of original Xbox BC on the 360. There's some good stuff (Out Run 2 SP "Coast 2 Coast") but you'll miss Spikeout Battle Street and some other gems.

Even if they spend the resources on developing an emulator or virtual machine covering older systems, you'll probably see both companies go with a PS Classics/Xbox Games on Demand style system rather than offer disc-based backwards compatability. BC was never an advertised feature for this generation and there's just too much money to be made making you re-buy your favorite games digitally.