Cave games ranked by difficulty

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BIL
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by BIL »

dunpeal2064 wrote:Just seemed silly in the first place to tell someone what they can and cant call easy in comparison


I can say without a doubt that deathsmiles (rank 1) is easier than futari original. I have not 1ccd either of them.
Sure, I agree it's reasonable to compare games provided you've got decent experience in both, not necessarily 1CCs. I think most Gradius players will back me up on II being a lot less impenetrable than III, from my attempts at clearing both.

@Hair, I wish I'd typed "Dangun Feveron" instead of "the game" in my first post. It's that specific "welcome to stage 4, now die!" difficulty curve that I was thinking of, regarding survival (seen also in Dragon Blaze, another short, deceptively brutal shooter). I really don't have an opinion on Galuda, having not played it much.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Blackbird »

You know, rather than debate subjective opinion, we could always determine what the hardest shooting games are with provable statistical figures.

It seems reasonable to assume that the hardest game will be the one that the fewest number of players were able to complete on one credit. We could set up a statistical database of win percentages for each game, and then compare them. For example, lets say that we have surveyed a number of gamers. Of 140 people surveyed, 100 of them have played DoDonPachi. Of those 100, 18 of them have completed the game's first loop, and only 2 have completed both the first and second loop.

Therefore, we could say that DoDonPachi's winning percentage is 20% for the first loop and 2% for total completion.

Next, we could repeat the process for a different game, deriving it's win percentage. Finally, with several games surveyed, we could compare the amount/percentage of people who were able to complete each game to objectively determine which game is "hardest".

Of course, this has a several flaws:

- People have already mentioned that some games are repetitive or boring, decreasing player desire to complete the game. Fair enough. We can include overcoming tedium as part of the intended difficulty of the game.

- Not everyone plays specifically for raw completion, i.e. survival. This skews the statistics a bit, but let us assume that people playing for score are also trying to get as far as possible in the game. After all, the further you get, the more opportunity you have to accumulate points.

- Not everyone will play a game "seriously". Some people surveyed might not have actually tried to complete the game, or may have played the game for only a short time, such that they had little chance of succeeding. We can control this bias by only accounting for players that have played the game for at least (X) hours with the intention of completing it. This prevents a game from appearing artifically hard due to players casually browsing the game.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Paradigm »

dunpeal2064 wrote:I agree, i was addressing the "you cant call it easy unless" statement

Just seemed silly in the first place to tell someone what they can and cant call easy in comparison
If you cannot comprehend basic written English, please don't respond to my posts.

Did I say "you cannot call a game easy unless you have 1CC'ed it"?

No, I did not. I think we can all agree that Futari Original Novice mode is an easy clear whether or not we've actually done it ourselves. Congratulations on completely missing my point.

I said "if you can't 1CC a game, you can't call it easy".

I.e if you're playing for a clear but it's too hard for you, then evidently it's NOT easy and saying it is just makes you look like a moron. Don't even bother coming back with "anybody can 1CC any game if they put enough time and effort in". Don't even bother.

And before you go off on a rant about how nobody was calling anything easy, only easier, here's a quote from the Futari thread:
moozooh wrote:
Hair wrote:Original mode is too easy. The hard parts *are* hard, but 90% of it is so easy that it is boring.
Have you cleared it yet? Have you hit 70k on the overall counter to have enemy bullets travel at nearly twice the normal speed? Do you kill enemies at close range to get twice more gems?

If the answers to those are "no", and I expect them to be, I don't even understand how to take your "boring; too easy" rant remotely seriously. If the game is reportedly too easy and still manages to kick your ass, it's hard to make a case in your favor.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Skykid »

dunpeal2064 wrote: I cant 1cc a lot of easy shmups, because thats boring. Like aegis wing, or 360 arrange guwange

Still easy, just not worth the time
Sure, but that's a matter of choice. I took it in the context that if you've played the game to such a degree that you're aiming for a clear, but haven't managed to achieve it, you can't realistically call it easy. I'd go with that.
mjclark wrote:Hard: All of them :D
Lol, yeah, that pretty much sums this thread up. :)
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Hair »

paradigm wrote:Hair - you're a tool. Don't ever have children. As a matter of fact, next time you see your mother give her a slap from me for not having an abortion.
My Mom's dead.

I only have fun with a shmup if it is challenging, and Futari *Original* is not challenging enough to be fun for me. Why would I waste my time trying to 1cc it when only a couple parts of level 3, and the entire level 5 plus boss are fun? It's not a good ratio. It is often called one of the easier Cave games (in original mode only), so I'm not sure why my opinion is so strange to you. Cave's easiest stuff is still challenging, but not much fun (Futari Original, Deathsmiles lvl 1) I prefer Cave's harder games and modes (Futari Maniac, Deathsmiles lvl 3). I am not claiming to be good at them. I play shmups to be challenged. Do you have a problem with that? Or do you have a problem with Futari Original being too easy for me to have fun with? I haven't mastered Original mode, but sorry man, when I fired Futari up for the first time and no missed the first 2 stages with no bombs, and then no missed stage 3 using 2 bombs, I'm yawning. Level 4 more yawning. Only lvl 5 was fun. So I moved on to Maniac.

That quote you requoted was taken out of context. Right after saying original was too easy and boring I said that I enjoy maniac and find it challenging.

You said "if you can't 1cc a shmup, you can't call it easy". As in, if one lacks the ability to 1cc a game, they can't call it easy. That's wrong on many levels.

First of all, no one has ever said otherwise so your post was pointless. I never said Dangun Feveron was easy, I specifically said it wasn't. I said there are aspect of its gameplay that as easier than other Cave games for me. It's easy to pick up and play. It's not easy. I just put it below the "hardest" group of Cave games.

Second of all, while a 1cc is a important step for scoring, does it really mean you can call a game easy when you 1cc it? Why not say "if you can't no miss a game without using any bombs, you can't call it easy"? Hell, for real scoring a 1cc is the minimum. I think to call a game easy you have to be able to no miss it several times a day, for weeks, never dying once. But that doesn't matter in this thread because...

Thirdly, the games being classified as "easy" in this thread are only being compared to other hard games. If a Cave fan enjoys the games but currently lacks the ability to 1cc any of them, they can still classify one as being in the "easy" group, while others are harder. It is not like one needs to be good enough at shmups to 1cc any game to be able to tell the difference between DDP and DDP DOJ.

As for Futari Original, yeah I said it was easy, and yeah I could 1cc with very little practice. But instead of that boring chore I play maniac.
Skykid wrote:Sure, but that's a matter of choice. I took it in the context that if you've played the game to such a degree that you're aiming for a clear, but haven't managed to achieve it, you can't realistically call it easy. I'd go with that.
I think we can all go with that... problem is this is a thread about ranking Cave games based on difficulty. No one has said a game that they cannot clear is easy, so paradigms original post, which you said was a good one, made no sense whatsoever.

Obviously if you try and fail at something, it isn't easy for you. How does that have anything to do with what anyone has said in this thread?

He quoted me saying Futari Original was easy from another thread, and I could absolutely 1cc that no problem. I just don't understand what is point is supposed to be.

I'm pretty sure something I said was just totally misunderstood. I haven't tried to 1cc Dangun Feveron. I think it would be pretty hard for me to get through the game without making any mistakes. But I never said it was easy. I was simply using it as an example of a hard game with aspects that are easier than other hard shmups. My point being that games can be hard in many different ways, so it can be hard to compare sometimes when there isn't a huge gap between the challenge of the two games (like Deathsmiles lvl 1 and DOJ)
Last edited by Hair on Mon Mar 14, 2011 9:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Skykid »

Hair wrote:
moozooh wrote:Hair - you're a tool. Don't ever have children. As a matter of fact, next time you see your mother give her a slap from me for not having an abortion.
My Mom's dead.
Yeah, you know what I did consider that unnecessarily cold, now even more so. Paradigm, you need to reign it in, sometimes you can be real aggressive. Quite like Psychogun, who was recently banned for the same kind of aggression, incidentally.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Hair »

Skykid wrote:Yeah, you know what I did consider that unnecessarily cold, now even more so. Paradigm, you need to reign it in, sometimes you can be real aggressive. Quite like Psychogun, who was recently banned for the same kind of aggression, incidentally.
I would have been more hurt by his comment if he wasn't floundering so comically in this thread.

I forgive him. I know that in real life he would show me more respect.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by captpain »

The point of this entire thing is to rank games by relative difficulty, you bunch of weirdos. Stop arguing over what constitutes "easy", because it doesn't matter in the first place.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Skykid »

captpain wrote:The point of this entire thing is to rank games by relative difficulty, you bunch of weirdos. Stop arguing over what constitutes "easy", because it doesn't matter in the first place.
I'm standing by the failure of this thread, and I'd be surprised if a few others haven't now joined me in that opinion.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Sapz »

I feel like trying to make a list (purely for survival), so here it is. Obviously I haven't actually 1cc'd a lot of these, but it's just from my experiences with them. I left out the ones I haven't really played much.

Easiest
Deathsmiles (4 or less Level 3 stages, no EX)
DFK 1.5 1-ALL (Strong/Bomb)
Deathsmiles II
DFK 1.5 1-ALL (Power)
Futari BL Original
ESPGaluda
Dodonpachi 1-ALL
Donpachi 1-ALL
MMP 1-ALL
Futari 1.5 Original
Futari BL Maniac
DOJBL 1-ALL
Mushi Original
Guwange
Futari 1.5 Maniac
ESP Ra. De.
Progear (JP) 1-ALL
Dangun Feveron
Mushi Maniac
Ketsui 1-ALL
DOJWL 1-ALL
ESPGaluda II
DFK 1.5 Tsuujou 2-ALL (Strong)
Futari BL God
DFK 1.5 Tsuujou 2-ALL (Bomb)
DFK 1.5 Ura 2-ALL (Bomb/Strong)
Donpachi 2-ALL
DFK 1.5 Tsuujou 2-ALL (Power)
Dodonpachi 2-ALL
DOJBL 2-ALL
Ketsui Tsuujou 2-ALL
DFK 1.5 Ura 2-ALL (Power)
DOJWL 2-ALL
Ketsui Ura 2-ALL
Futari 1.5 Ultra
Hardest

For the record, I think Futari 1.01 Ultra is probably the hardest Cave 1cc, considering you do less damage versus harder patterns (and maybe a global bullet speedup?) compared with 1.5. I've never heard of anyone clearing it on defaults - there are no clears on the leaderboard, at any rate.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by moozooh »

Can I ask you guys to fix the quote tags above? Thanks.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by captpain »

moozooh wrote:Can I ask you guys to fix the quote tags above? Thanks.
I was looking at that stuff and thinking "you know, that's out-of-character for moozooh to say".
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Deca »

So I just tried Dangun Feveron again last night, it's probably my least played Cave game and I decided I'd have another go at it after seeing it fall in the mid to low difficulty range on most peoples lists.

Just as I remembered, this game is brutally difficult for me. The bullets are so fast, the ships movement feels imprecise, and I have a very hard time judging my hitbox...Does anyone else find this game hard? I know I'm not great but I think I'm at least above average on shooters, and in an hour to maybe an hour and a half I didn't see the second boss once. I have similar issues with Guwange, but not quite as bad. It just strikes me as odd that I can put one credit in Ketsui after not playing for 6 or more months and get most of the way through stage 4 and then grind on Feveron without so much as seeing stage 3.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by moozooh »

The key to Feveron is destroying enemies before they even have a chance to shoot. This is generally applicable to many games (DDP series, for instance), but in Feveron you can actually keep the screen devoid of bullets, at least those aimed at you, most of the time, if you use the cat.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by zlk »

Dangun Feveron is one of the few cave games that requires fast reflexes to play. For some people the game is going to be easy and for others it will be a nightmare. For me the game seems hard to control and I always end up dying at the most random places.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Hair »

Sorry about that Moozooh.

Dangun Feveron feels great to me because I like the relatively high ship speed. I can easily dart around the screen and kill stuff quickly, and the secondary weapons tend to help keep the screen clear as well.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by 1up »

now that CAVE's arcade devision as gone belly up, and we've had more time with the "newer" games, it would be interesting to see if people have changes to their rankings? I've tried to combine all of the posted lists into one, but only 1 person mentioned Akai Katana and since this was last discussed, SDOJ had not been released.

//EASY//
Akai Katana
Deathsmiles
Deathsmiles MBL
Deathsmiles 2
Mushihimesama Futari BL (Original)
Dodonpachi DFK 1.5

//EASY-MEDIUM//
Dodonpachi 1-ALL
ESP Galuda
Muchi Muchi Pork 1-ALL
Mushihimesama (Original)
Mushihimesama Futari (Original)

//MEDIUM//
Donpachi 1-ALL
Dodonpachi DOJ BL 1-ALL
Dodonpachi DFK BL 1-ALL
ESP Ra.De.
Guwange
Mushihimesama (Maniac)
Mushihimesama Futari BL (Maniac)
Progear 1-ALL

//MEDIUM-HARD//
Dodonpachi DOJ WL 1-ALL
Ibara
Pink Sweets

//HARD//
ESP Galuda II
Ketsui 1-ALL
Dangun Feveron
Donpachi 2-ALL
Dodonpachi 2-ALL
Progear 2-ALL

//HARD-INSANE//
Dodonpachi DOJ BL 2-ALL
Dodonpachi DFK Tsuujou 2-ALL
Ketsui Tsuujou 2-ALL
Mushihimesama (Ultra)
Mushihimesama Futari BL (God)

//INSANE//
Dodonpachi DOJ WL 2-ALL
Dodonpachi DFK Ura 2-ALL
Ketsui Ura 2-ALL
Mushihimesama Futari (Ultra)
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Bananamatic »

ketsui 1-all is way easier, medium at best, 2-all omote isn't all that hard either
futari BL god is medium-hard
DFK depends on shot type, with strong an omote 2-all is medium and ura medium-hard, with power an ura clear is in the insane tier
DOJBL 2-all is definitely easier than DDP and progear 2-alls
i'd say ketsui ura isn't extremely hard either, it's a very hard clear but not as strict as DOJWL 2-all or dfk ura with power
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Erppo »

Easier:
Everything with only one loop that doesn't say "Ultra" or "Expert", DFK Omote with the bomb carrying ships.

Harder:
The rest. Maybe not DFK Strong Ura.

Some games in the easy tier have extra bosses with special conditions that might bump them into the hard tier but I'm not counting those.

---
1up wrote: //HARD//
Ketsui 1-ALL
Dodonpachi 2-ALL
What?
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Aleksei »

Ibara BL is easier than Ibara.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by trap15 »

That entire order is pretty "what" imo...
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Jonst »

This thread pisses me off a bit.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by chum »

let's fight

let's fucking go i'll cryo freeze you together with some english beef
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Chaos Phoenixma »

I'm not going to comment on stuff between hardest and easiest because it would be wrong, but

Insane

DOJ WL 2-All
DFK Power Ura 2-All
Ketsui Ura
Futari Ultra
SDOJ with Inbachi
MMP Arcade(1.00) 2-All
Pink Sweets without infinite lives
Progear 2-All


Easy

Futari Black Label Original
Deathsmiles No Ex, 4 or less level 3 stages
Deathsmiles Mega Black Label, No Ex, 4 or less level 3/999 stages.
DDP 1-All
DDP DOJ BL 1-All
DDP DFK 1-All with Bomb/Strong
MMP 1-All


Maybe DDP or DOJ BL shouldn't necessary be on the Easy list even for 1-All(it wouldn't be much higher though). There is some hard stuff in those, but they're generally considered easy even if I'd completely suck at doing it as I don't really play those games much. But it's interesting that DFK and MMP, both of which people do say are easy games can actually be in the hardest category as well due to their second loops and shottype choices.

Now when you start including 2-Alls, True Last Bosses, different categories for ships/characters, is when things can get quite varied. Deathsmiles MBL is a ridiculously easy clear if you pick the low difficulties and avoid suicide bullets, but if you pick 999 every stage and go for the TLB it goes straight up to somewhere between Hard/Insane. Futari BL God Mode is probably Medium, but add the TLB and it goes up to Hard.

It'd be interesting to see an accurate list ranked with the easiest clears of each game and the varying harder clears based on shottypes or TLBs. Obviously ignoring scoring since that makes pretty much anything hard.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by chempop »

I don’t know if it’s just a lousy port or I’m not playing it particularly properly, but I find Muchi Pork 1.00 1-all more difficult than a lot of the other first loops and even stuff like Ibara and ESPrade.
It’s probably because I can’t stand the sound effects :mrgreen:
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by pokemon123 »

How hard would saidaioujou novice mode be? Maybe compared to dodonpachi daioujou white label 1 all. Because daioujou is kicking my ass. Would it be comparable to a touhou easy mode?
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Bonus! »

pokemon123 wrote:How hard would saidaioujou novice mode be? Maybe compared to dodonpachi daioujou white label 1 all. Because daioujou is kicking my ass. Would it be comparable to a touhou easy mode?
SDOJ Novice is clearly more difficult than Touhou on easy.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by Chaos Phoenixma »

SDOJ Novice is actually kind of tough for a Novice mode. Novice Expert might be a little under the difficulty of Arcade Laser/Shot. It's definitely harder than any of the Touhous on Lunatic even on Novice Shot/Laser.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by pokemon123 »

welp that's lame. I guess i'll stick with mushihimesama for now.
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Re: Cave games ranked by difficulty

Post by 1up »

pokemon123 wrote:How hard would saidaioujou novice mode be? Maybe compared to dodonpachi daioujou white label 1 all. Because daioujou is kicking my ass. Would it be comparable to a touhou easy mode?
I think SDOJ novice mode is pretty tough for a novice mode. I would compare it to slightly easier than Galuda
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