Frustrating shmup deaths

[SAM]

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...

The bullet partern changes a bit due to rank difference. The rank during pratice is not the same as that during your actual run.

[gameoverDude]

One frustrating death is the "Toaplan Trap". Simply, this is when you chase a moving powerup into a clusterfuck of enemy fire and consequently die. All Toaplan shooters from Sky Shark onward and Raiden (itself paying some homage to Toaplan) have this.

Another is in Dragon Spirit and Saber when you're trying to run from a powerup you DON'T want. Problem is that many of the items home in on you.

The cake taker: Hitting walls in a Gradius Speed Zone is maddening.

[SAM]

One frustrating death is the "Toaplan Trap". Simply, this is when you chase a moving powerup into a clusterfuck of enemy fire and consequently die. All Toaplan shooters from Sky Shark onward and Raiden (itself paying some homage to Toaplan) have this.

No, in Toaplan's games the power up did come down to the bottom of the screen (Except Twin Tigar), you don't need to move up risking you life to grup one. You just wait patiently til the moment the power come down.

Another is in Dragon Spirit and Saber when you're trying to run from a powerup you DON'T want. Problem is that many of the items home in on you.

Well, I found somtimes you better bite the bullet and take those power up instead of trying to run away from them. At least they don't kill you instantly.

The cake taker: Hitting walls in a Gradius Speed Zone is maddening.

Speed zone just required a lots of pretice. But the problem is it usually appears at one of the later stages of the game.

[EddyMRA]

More frustrating shmup deaths:

*Dying in a poorly-designed shmup because you can't tell what is a power-up, enemy or a bullet! I experienced this in an early arcade vert shmup (I forgot its name) made in 1986. You have two buttons, one for Air-Air weaponry, and the other for Air-Ground (looks like a laser). Scrolling loops infinitely when you move horizontally. Bullets look too much like powerups (like floating spherical crystals which scream "pick me up!") and even some enemies look like bonus collectibles.

*Dying in Raiden II/DX, but instead of spawning power-ups, you get BOMBS. A few times, I got nothing but bombs, both from my wake and from the Fairy! Trying to play through the latter half of Stage 5 in Raiden II with just a level 1 red just plain sucks!

Many people mentioned the point-blank deaths in Toaplan shmups. I hate dying in Tiger-Heli to those tanks. They shoot even if you're overlapping them!

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.

Yeah, I hate that in the Raiden Fighters series. Especially in RF Jet, where some bosses spew loads of slow lurker bullets which makes for a dangerous obstacle course for fast ships like the Judge Spear.

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

I hated that in Xevious, where those rotating saw-blade enemies start to appear from behind in later areas. They make instant hairpin turns in ANY direction, usually right into you! Other than the 5-way shot-releasing mines, the worst Xevious enemy are those damned swooping saucers. They sometimes dive right below your ship then make their return, which is blazingly fast, impossible for your slow ship to dodge!

On another note, we should submit two new terms that I've seen used in this thread to the shmups glossary:

Point-blanker: A shmup enemy that fires at the player, irrelevant to the distance from the player. Usually results in a frustrating and cheap death.

Lurker: A shmup bullet fired by an enemy which is so slow that it actually poses a great threat to the player since it remains on the playfield for such an unusually long period of time, especially to faster ships.

[SAM]

Lurker: A shmup bullet fired by an enemy which is so slow that it actually poses a great threat to the player since it remains on the playfield for such an unusually long period of time, especially to faster ships.

I suggest call it "Mine Bullet" instead. The bullet is flying so slow that it more lise a Floating Mine than a bullet.

Most frustrating shmup death, that I recently encounter:

That is to going down in flame with your last life while there is a 1-up floating on the screen.

The only more frustrating situation I can think of is going down in flame with your last life while there is a 2-ups floating on the screen.

Yes, that happened to me, when I palying Fire Shark, I one lost my last plane at Stage 5 with the 2-ups floating around the screen.

[BulletMagnet]

Point-blanker: A shmup enemy that fires at the player, irrelevant to the distance from the player. Usually results in a frustrating and cheap death.

Lurker: A shmup bullet fired by an enemy which is so slow that it actually poses a great threat to the player since it remains on the playfield for such an unusually long period of time, especially to faster ships.

Hee hee, I've been chipping away at a new revision of the Glossary, I'll hang onto these for the next update.

[EddyMRA]

I suggest call it "Mine Bullet" instead. The bullet is flying so slow that it more lise a Floating Mine than a bullet.

Lurker is a better term for it. Mines, as I've seen them in shmups through the years, almost always applies to enemies that release a bullet aimed at the player or explode into a large damaging area of effect when they are somehow destroyed. A "Mine Bullet" can be the term for those bullets released by mine enemies.

[superhitachi4]

Deaths don't generally bother me, as they can be avoided with practice. I just don't like the death that wrecks a perfect game.

[gameoverDude]

If you want a good example of "Lurkers", look at the part of Last Resort's stage 2 with the gun turrets. If these are left alone, the bullets that they shoot float very slowly. Because they take so long to go offscreen, it doesn't take much time for a fuckton of them to accumulate. Your pod clears them up nicely though.

[neorichieb1971]

If you want a good example of "Lurkers", look at the part of Last Resort's stage 2 with the gun turrets. If these are left alone, the bullets that they shoot float very slowly. Because they take so long to go offscreen, it doesn't take much time for a fuckton of them to accumulate. Your pod clears them up nicely though.

I'm sure that in this game when some of the bullets go off screen, the framerate gets a bit faster meaning if you don't comphensate they speed up and kill you.



The agrevating deaths for me are the ones where during a load time or end of level sequence, I go to light a cigerette or sip my tea and not realize the damn game has started again. I usually either A) Set of a smart bomb by mistake when I attack the pad B) Just die straight away or C) spill my tea or pause it whilst I waste another cigerette burning away in the ashtay.

Anyways, its all good fun!

[Shatterhand]

*Dying in a poorly-designed shmup because you can't tell what is a power-up, enemy or a bullet! I experienced this in an early arcade vert shmup (I forgot its name) made in 1986. You have two buttons, one for Air-Air weaponry, and the other for Air-Ground (looks like a laser). Scrolling loops infinitely when you move horizontally. Bullets look too much like powerups (like floating spherical crystals which scream "pick me up!") and even some enemies look like bonus collectibles.

This sounds like Argus. I dig this game a lot, but I agree with you, many times when I play it, I wonder "Should I pick up this thing, or dodge it?"

[Marc]

Lurker: A shmup bullet fired by an enemy which is so slow that it actually poses a great threat to the player since it remains on the playfield for such an unusually long period of time, especially to faster ships.

I prefer the term Bastard Bullet

I'm sure that in this game when some of the bullets go off screen, the framerate gets a bit faster meaning if you don't comphensate they speed up and kill you.

The game is plagued with slow down, but it's the really shitty sort that as soon as the screen clears a bit kicks the speed straight back up without warning, so it's sometimes hard to know exactly how much time you have to avoid something.