Frustrating shmup deaths

[EddyMRA]

Hey again shmuppers! Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm not dead, just been exceptionally busy since reporting to my ship, and it's internet system does not allow me to access the SHMUP forums (I have to use an internet cafe to get on the forums).

I compiled a list of frustrating shmup deaths, which either a) piss me off or b) completely screw up my game and cause me to die several more deaths quickly in succession.

• *In Raiden II/DX, dying after collecting a Fairy. You spit out several powerups upon death, and along comes the Fairy to drop off even more powerups of different colors. I have to collect them at the same color, since I absolutely hate accidentally grabbing several at once and coming away with a Level 1 weapon. I usually end up dying again in the process! ARRRGH!!
  *Dying by sniper and striker enemies in any Seibu Kaihatsu shmup. Lots of cabinet-banging ensue.
  *Death due to the joystick sticking. I want to go diagonally, but I move horizontally...
  *Dying in any Gradius game when fully powered up.
  *Selecting OH! on the Parodius roulette to strip all your powerups, Options, and speed in a later stage when the game's at maximum rank. Most...infuriating...death...ever...
  *Dying because you accidentally pick up a crap weapon that leaves you vulnerable (i.e. 80% of the weapons in Gaiares).
  *Dying by colliding with the last bullet in a intense manic shmup bullet pattern. A spiteful kill by the enemy.
  *Dying by crashing into a boss. How frustrating is it when you blindly run into the largest freaking thing on the screen?

[Damocles]

[quote="Alluro"]*In Raiden II/DX, dying after collecting a Fairy. You spit out several powerups upon death, and along comes the Fairy to drop off even more powerups of different colors. I have to collect them at the same color, since I absolutely hate accidentally grabbing several at once and coming away with a Level 1 weapon. I usually end up dying again in the process! ARRRGH!!

*Dying by sniper and striker enemies in any Seibu Kaihatsu shmup. Lots of cabinet-banging ensue.

Aye....good to see you back Alluro

Amen on both of these issues. God forbid the powerups are *gasp* easy to grab. I swear somewhere in the code is an algorithm for those things to dodge your ship.

[BulletMagnet]

I still say that the "bastard bullet" is the worst way to go...an enemy makes a beeline right for you, not shooting anything, so you focus at first on dodging/shooting other stuff first...suddenly the thing is in point-blank range, so you shoot it down...the SECOND he goes down he releases an impossible-to-dodge point-blank bullet, and down you go. No matter what game I play, that's almost certain to be my most common form of death.

[landshark]

Similar to one you already listed: picking up the blue laser in Raiden (any of them) means death for me.

Dying in the 1st phase of the level 5 Strikers 1999 boss means my game is probably over because the bullets become so slow on that boss that I keep running into them.

I hate that f'ing "Oh!" powerup in Parodius.

Dying because I couldn't see a bullet in a large clump of explosions.

[WarpZone]

*dying due to attacks/obstacles that are essentially inconceivable to avoid your first time through. What I mean is if even a person existed with 'perfect' intelligence and reactionary abilities, they still couldn't do it. A good example is the lava maze in R-Type III's fourth stage, where the direction the lava turns is arbitrary.

*dying because I can't see the bullets, often because something in the foreground is blocking them. Also flickering bullets.

[AOTD3025]

-In Einhander (US version), it's dying and then losing that stockpile of Cannon rounds and/or Wasps that you've been saving for the previous three levels.

-Of course, don't forget about the "My-fighter's-too-fraggin'-slow-to-dodge-those-lightning-fast-bullets" problem, something Raiden/Raiden II seems to suffer from.

-I don't know why, but Supernova (SNES) seems to suffer from stupid-death syndrome more than most other shmups out there.

As for R-Type III, assuming that we're talking about the SNES version, I could have sworn that the lava had specific paths that they always followed. I guess I'll have to look again.

-AOTD3025

[WarpZone]

Oh, the lava flows are always the same. It's just that the pattern inherently doesn't have any logic.

[MJR]

Getting sniped in Raiden DX is definitely the most frustrating way to die. But I wouldn't say that blue laser means automatically death, in fact it is very useful against lvl3 boss, though you should get homing missiles to wipe any loose enemies from sniping you.

I also hate when I get a stupid point-blank deaths in dodonpachi in seemingly dead easy places: how it can be that I can play through level 5 without getting a hit while having dozens of stupid deaths in first two levels??

Getting killed in organic wall in lvl4 without even understanding what hit you in the first place in gradius V is also one of my most hated deaths.

Getting crashed in blazing star by quickly moving fleet that zooms from behind (and which existence you just had forgotten) is also annoying.

[sjewkestheloon]

another one for raiden (as it's what i'm playing a lot of at the mo) in the fairy dude powerup section. got to stage 3 in a perfect run yesterday with fully powered red and missiles, the bastards sniped me and then i subsequently lost ALL my lives due to a pea shooter weapon and an inherent desire to make my red gun instantly destroy everything again. i was gutted.

[MJR]

That's true.. At one point I figured that Raiden is designed exclusively to punish players who hurry up towards items.. only way to stay alive is to stay calm and simply wait for the powerup/bomb to pass you by on a safe moment.
Once I started doing this, I didn't lose lives when collecting powerups. It is better to lose powerup than lose life. Or if you are outnumbered by enemies then simply drop scatterbombs to shield you up while picking.

But now I sidetracked from the actual topic..

Another death I also hate happens if I start to play Parodius Da! after a long absence - lvl2 boss (dancer) manages to kill me almost every time. Only after 4-5 wasted lives I get used to it.

[rjpageuk]

Not quite long the lines of the thread but I saved two specific examples of frustrating deaths for me in Ikaruga. Have a look at the chain counters in both vids:

http://www.ikaruga.co.uk/files/rjpageuk ... othing.avi

http://www.ikaruga.co.uk/files/rjpageuk/%3b_%3b.avi

[dementia]

As for R-Type III, assuming that we're talking about the SNES version...

Whoa, R-Type III came out on something other than the SNES?

[Ghegs]

As for R-Type III, assuming that we're talking about the SNES version...

Whoa, R-Type III came out on something other than the SNES?

There's a GBA port, but it's a horribly butchered one. Apparently the people responsible for the port didn't get the original source code or even sprites so they basically they had to rip the sprites themselves using an emulator and built the game from ground up to resemble the original R-Type III the best they could. Avoid.

[Guardians Knight]

dying early on in any game is damn annoying altho the raidens do tend to try and fuck you over when ever possible, dying at a boss aint quite so bad as dying cos you couldnt see a bullet thru an explosion which happens often or you get sniped, makes me want to break the computer.

btw what is thanksgiving all about, being a Brit i dont have the foggiest what it is other than a holiday occasion?

[Shatterhand]

So everyone prefers the red weapon in Raiden ?

I use the blue laser most of the time, with homing missiles. In certain parts the red weapon is very useful, but I find the laser to be more useful in more parts of the game.

Last time I played Raiden I died at level 3. I used to be a lot better at it - I remember I reached level 6 in my 1st day playing the game (MD version)), with advices of 2 buddies who had already played the game for 2 weeks. THey said they could never beat the level 5 boss, and while I was playing, they were giving me lots of advices of where to bomb, what weapon to use, etc... the oldest guy was very shocked with my dodged skills, and when I beat level 5 boss (SOmething they were trying for 2 weeks), their jaw dropped. The oldest guy was calling me "Luke Skywalker" because of that for months

But, going back to topic... for me, my most annoying dead is when I see a pattern of bullets come, I have like 10 bombs on stock... I see I wont be able to dodge, but I still go "OH hell, I won't waste my bomb... I'll dodge everything", and then I die, and get back to just 2 bombs or whatever. This happens a LOT in Strikers 1945, Armed Police Batrider, Shienryu, Battle Garegga, Batsugun......

In Strikers 1945 II dying always screw up everything for me, as the rank goes down and all bullets get slower, fucking up the pace of the game for me, and I usually end up screwing up everything. I know it's stupid, but it happens.

[SAM]

When you ran into a bullet you had supposely doged.

Situation like, you see a slow bullet coming, you doged and forget about it.

And later you move to the direction where the bullet goes, and catching up with it and go down in flame...

It happened to me all the time...

[incognoscente]

Guardians Knight:
Thanksgiving is an annual holiday on the fourth Thursday in November. What we're taught in school is something about the Pilgrims came over from England, didn't have much food, and so partied with the Native Americans/Indians. It's a day where we're supposed to be thankful for all that we've received, but it's mostly celebrated by people eating too much (especially roast turkey and sweet pies) and watching too much television.
:)

[AOTD3025]

Here's another annoying shmup death: dying because the bomb you dropped to cancel all those bullets coming your way has a delay between when you hit the button and when it explodes. Example: Plasma bombs in Raiden II (and of course, the Raiden Mk. II in Raiden Fighters Jet)

-AOTD3025

[gs68]

The classic dodge-a-massive-cloud-of-bullets-only-to-then-run-into-a-lonely-and-easy-to-dodge-bullet death. I hate that.

[Bloodreign]

Another Raiden post by me (yes I gave it a nice run before work today), it seems as though I do quite well for a short time on either 1 or 2, but for some reason a bullet always seems to tag me, any power-ups I have I try to wait out the next ship for the powerups to be the same color. That way I can start with a stronger fire than what I would have had I just nabbed both powerups at once (seemingly after I blow one ship up and it's power-up is floating about, or if I'm powered up more and get blasted).

[Kewing Darksun]

The "dodge a bullet, move around, and then going back to that bullet's direction line, and get hit" thing some people have alreay mentioned, is probably my "favorite" one. Although the "bastard bullet" some enemies fire you at point blank just hte moment they die, is in a close second =X

[D]

The kind of firing that goes down through you own fire and that you can't see that good. Offcourse after playing a while you'll know to look out for these.

And in (old school) shmups, planes that come from behind......
that's just so stupid.

[Marc]

I hate the fucking lurkers. Slow bullets that kinda hang about the bottom of the screen waiting for you to run into one of them. Which I do, frequently.

[Shatterhand]

And in (old school) shmups, planes that come from behind......
that's just so stupid.

I've died a lot of times because of this in Gradius and in Parodius (MSX version). A LOT. I think in Parodius is even more annoying... I had to learn to keep my ship away from the left of the screen all the time.

Metal Black also has some annoying enemies coming from behind.

[The n00b]

I've always loved the 19xx series by capcom but damn do I hate 1943's cheapness. You've got huge ass planes coming from behind who's only purpose is to sap your health and a hugeass hitbox. The cheapest deaths I've had from this game come from moving up and to the side to avoid being fudgepacked and then getting sniped to death...

[Ramus]

I've been practicing Strikers III stage 6. I hate playing it over and over and dying over and over for hours on end (stupid Cross Blade and Geo Bite). I think it's time to put it away for a little while. I need to agrevate myself with another game.

[CIT]

- Backing up into a bullet, that you actually already managed to sucessfully dodge a second ago, in a Touhou game.

- Trying to dodge one of about seven useless green powerups that are floating around the screen in a later stage of Fire Shark, as not to loose the fire spread shot, and dying precicely as a result of it.

- Generally, all point blankers in Toaplan games (Kyuukyoku Tiger, Tatsujin & Tatsujin-Oh, I'm looking at you!)

- Pretty much ANY death in any Sonic Wings game.

*Selecting OH! on the Parodius roulette to strip all your powerups, Options, and speed in a later stage when the game's at maximum rank. Most...infuriating...death...ever...

So true!

[zlk]

I love it when you practice a game 100s of times and find a safe spot to avoid some difficult attack. Then when you are having your best run, the safe spot decides to no longer be safe, you die, and you have no idea what happened.

[LUNardei]

I love it when you practice a game 100s of times and find a safe spot to avoid some difficult attack. Then when you are having your best run, the safe spot decides to no longer be safe, you die, and you have no idea what happened.

Mushihimesama, Maniac, stage 5...

[SAM]

... I hate 1943's cheapness. You've got huge ass planes coming from behind who's only purpose is to sap your health and a hugeass hitbox. The cheapest deaths I've had from this game come from moving up and to the side to avoid being fudgepacked and then getting sniped to death...

I tends to love 1943, if not because of this. But I found, windwheels which fill up all your fuel would appear after these tough spot. It seems that, if you could stands 2 to 3 hits, you could ram you way through the enemy planes formation coming from behind and later recover all your fuel from the windwheels item.

Even through, it is not an excause for the bad design.