trap15 Shooting Game Tournament '17 (TRP-STGT 2017)

[EmperorIng]

I'm starting to wonder if this year's "theme" is "Loving Tributes", or less charitably "Ripoffs" (at least in some cases). But what would Bakuretsu Breaker be paying homage to?

[BIL]

MSPaint

[Zerst]

I'm starting to wonder if this year's "theme" is "Loving Tributes", or less charitably "Ripoffs" (at least in some cases). But what would Bakuretsu Breaker be paying homage to?

Theme is asteroid rush.

[Tigershark]

Shmupmame 2.2 was not working for me on this game as it didn't recognise the game. 4.2 works.

[Mantrox]

F!
I missed the third week game. Late December is not great for these.
Sorry team >.<

[Vanguard]

I'm starting to wonder if this year's "theme" is "Loving Tributes", or less charitably "Ripoffs" (at least in some cases). But what would Bakuretsu Breaker be paying homage to?

The primary theme is asteroid milking and the secondary theme is space helicopters.

[EmperorIng]

Another tournament theme: bad powerups that will absolutely murder you if you pick them up, bouncing around the screen for ages. Last Resort actually does the sensible thing and just make them stay put and alternate colors/modes. So even if you got the lethally-bad blue pod, you don't have to chase a red one.

[copy-paster]

I can see those aliens from Space Bomber gonna invade this week, quick prepare save states and superplays as much as possible.

[trap15]

WEEK 5 HAS BEGUN


Macross II (Medium Course)

Score submission is now available.

[Vanguard]

This can't be right. The beginner course is the one with the asteroids!

Also I'm not quite sure I understand this round's rules about autofire. This option in MAME is banned?

[Shepardus]

That option should be fine, but avoid any autofire provided through MAME cheat files. Yes, stock MAME for some reason hides autofire settings in the cheat menu, but that's different. One modifies the input device to the game, the other modifies the game itself. This came about because there's a MAME cheat for Gekirindan that removes the shot timer from the game, allowing you to fire faster than what you can normally achieve, with or without autofire.

[trap15]

^ precisely what Shepardus said.

[Vanguard]

That option should be fine, but avoid any autofire provided through MAME cheat files. Yes, stock MAME for some reason hides autofire settings in the cheat menu, but that's different. One modifies the input device to the game, the other modifies the game itself. This came about because there's a MAME cheat for Gekirindan that removes the shot timer from the game, allowing you to fire faster than what you can normally achieve, with or without autofire.

Gotcha, thanks!

[mikejmoffitt]

Hopefully this weekend I can sit down and try to place a score on the final game.

[Ikazu-san]

I blame myself for not reading the fine print.

[EmperorIng]

As the tournament draws to a close, I think we can now start to reflect on some of the finer aspects of the competition. For example, here is the undisputed truth we've uncovered over the last 5 weeks:

[Square_Air]

The elf kids and necks are definitely undisputedly GOAT tier, but Hanse is like the third best character in breaker.

Jean/Mifune > Lizard boi

[KAI]

Shit, this tourney got me in the middle of a moving and I missed the best games

turtlenecks best macross heroine.

[Perikles]

The elf kids and necks are definitely undisputedly GOAT tier, but Hanse is like the third best character in breaker.

Jean/Mifune > Lizard boi

That might depend on your priorities: I haven't done serious research, but I would imagine that getting a 2-ALL is easier with Hanse than it is with the other two. You're definitely going to miss out on points, yes, sheer survival should be simpler on the other hand.

[trap15]

TRP-STGT 2017 IS OVER!
WINNER IS Quantum Radiation Therapy
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER IS Kyper

Thank you all for playing.

FINAL TEAM RESULTS (see website for detailed information)

Code: Select all

   # |                           Name |  Pts.  | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  1. |      Quantum Radiation Therapy |    705 |    143 |    140 |    137 |    141 |    144 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  2. |               Polish Schnitzel |    673 |    140 |    139 |    138 |    132 |    124 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  3. |              High House Shadow |    668 |    128 |    137 |    131 |    138 |    134 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  4. |              GANBATTE GUNBIRDO |    625 |    121 |    120 |    127 |    132 |    125 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  5. |             Public Elimination |    598 |    112 |    117 |    113 |    128 |    128 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  6. |                  Birdland Bois |    580 |    127 |    108 |    108 |    110 |    127 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  7. |                  Luxury Glider |    529 |     67 |    103 |    125 |    117 |    117 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  8. |                       MILLWALL |    525 |    111 |     97 |    113 |    103 |    101 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
  9. |               Regional Warning |    517 |     80 |    114 |     97 |    114 |    112 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 10. |               Beawtiful Waifus |    490 |    106 |    114 |    108 |     99 |     63 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 11. |                       No Bonus |    478 |    113 |    106 |    112 |    107 |     40 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 12. |               Triple Eh Scores |    456 |     66 |    107 |     97 |     98 |     88 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 13. |          Touhou Unreal Mahjong |    388 |     63 |     91 |     67 |     83 |     84 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 14. |                         Tussie |    370 |     65 |     68 |     79 |     81 |     77 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 15. |                 Ephemeral Pipe |    339 |     83 |     74 |     94 |     38 |     50 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 16. |                     Baja Blast |    337 |     83 |     28 |     80 |     40 |    106 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 17. |                     Rock Skull |    315 |     91 |     97 |     38 |     47 |     42 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 18. |            Looking for Sailors |    295 |     86 |     59 |     52 |     42 |     56 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 19. |               Chromosome Crabs |    189 |     95 |     27 |     32 |     35 |      0 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 20. |   The YGW Chode Chum Coalition |    161 |     48 |     62 |     51 |      0 |      0 |
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 21. |                        sadboys |    101 |     58 |     43 |      0 |      0 |      0 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 22. |             Type Schmups 4ever |     98 |     63 |     35 |      0 |      0 |      0 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 23. |                         Kosmos |     53 |     23 |      0 |     30 |      0 |      0 | 
-----|--------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
 24. |                    Poddophiles |     52 |     52 |      0 |      0 |      0 |      0 |

[Vanguard]

Thanks for hosting this tournament! Mad Shark aside, it was fun!

[Heavy Viper]

Man, can't believe it was over so quickly!

Good games, all. Until the next one!

[Square_Air]

That might depend on your priorities: I haven't done serious research, but I would imagine that getting a 2-ALL is easier with Hanse than it is with the other two. You're definitely going to miss out on points, yes, sheer survival should be simpler on the other hand.

Yeah, Mifune definitely seems like a poor choice for pure survival when compared to the other two. I think Jean would compare pretty similarly to Hanse in terms of survival, making him the best all around character, or at least a solid mid ground between scoring with Mifune and surviving with Hanse.

I'm actually a little sad that TRP-STGT is finished. I've gotten used to waking up thinking about how i'm going to schedule my time around whatever charming/janky game of the week comes next. It's been a privilege to participate in the most prestigious video game tournament ever conceived. Hopefully I have enough time on my hands next time around to participate so I can exact my revenge on those that posted higher scores than I did.

Alright, no more screwing around, it's POWER RANKINGS TIME.

1. Chou-Jikuu Yousai Macross II - An easy pick for me. With its similarities to Feveron and and the way it maximizes the potential of caravan STGs, there really isn't a game here that could compete with this in my books. This sits next to Thunder Dragon 2 on my list of favourite NMK titles, and might even make my honourable mentions list. I look forward to going after the other two courses! It seems like the score thread for this game has seen almost no love over the last 10 years, s̶o̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶f̶i̶x̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶!̶ so let's all drop in to the newly combined Macross thread ran by Perikles and leave a few scores!

2. Bakuretsu Breaker - The only crime this game committed was being very silly, but besides that (and a few graphical MAME glitches) it was a pretty cool package. I for one was pretty charmed by the shoddy JPEGS floating through space. Survival is fun, and the rock milking is even kinda neat. Not bad at all.

3. Mad Shark - A bit of a controversial pick, but after some time to ruminate, I think i kinda like this game. Don't get me wrong, the random scoring, the irritating slow to change power ups, and the plethora of enemies that slide into your sides very low on the screen frustrated me. The game is pretty obnoxious, and while playing it I would hate it, but I was still drawn back in for some other reason besides competition. I can 100% understand why this would be a game some people would despise, but I guess there's a bit of a masochist in me that kept wanting to come back for the punishment.

4. Gekirindan - Even while assessing this game right now i'm having second thoughts about whether I enjoyed this or Mad Shark more. This game had the distinct Taito style that really drew me in, but I just didn't find there to be quite enough substance going on here. I think I would have enjoyed this much more than Mad Shark had I had stopped at the No Miss No Bomb, but I still feel worn out from looping around that third boss for an eternity. While certain parts really shine, other parts feel absolutely glacial. Maybe This really should be at least tied with mad shark, but i've been uncertain for a while now, so i'll just leave this as is.

5. Last Resort - If this was just a single loop game I would look at it much differently. The second loop murders this game by being the most blatant padding i've seen in a while. The game is fine and all, but having a nearly identical 2nd loop just makes me not want to touch this one again. It makes the first loop a complete chore. Beyond that there's some interesting mechanics going on here with the force that rides along the floor/ceiling and some nice sprite work, but it's just too little butter spread over too much toast for this guy. It's just "OK" in my books.


Don't leave me in suspense, I'd love to hear what you guys thought of the games in retrospect.

[BIL]

As boss milking goes, I actually kinda liked Gekirindan's st3 tank wank. Prolonged survival (yours and his) is just tricky enough, I liked the macro-dodging, and picking off the regenerating turrets with Napalm is exactly the sort of tactile "whisker" mechanic I enjoy (see also Metal Black's main shot edge grinding, and Gun.Smoke's strafe-pasts). st4 and st5's precise, destruction-packed openings were a pleasure every time; particularly killing those platform-mounted turrets without sending them tumbling to an early doom, and mowing through multiple sets of "desk drawer" cannons before obliterating the enclosure itself.

Those pacing lulls in stages 1 and 2, though - Jesus Fuck! Were they trying to capture the CD-ROM zeitgeist with simulated load times? Normally I'm covetous of real hardware, but I don't think I'd have held on very long without MAME's fast-forward button. I actually moved it from its usual Select button place to adjacent Shot & Bomb, ready to go whenever the narcolepsy hit. Plug 'em with some basic Sniper Tank Parades and zako rushes (like st3 suddenly remembers to do), and I'd consider this a lovely easier Toaplanesque. I just remembered while typing this that I technically have the game via Taito Memories (PS2)... certainly not the worst feeling, but even if the Saturn port weren't technically dog-eared I'd still be put off by the lulls.

[EmperorIng]

Man, this was so much fun, all my usual bitching aside!* This is probably the best I have ever done in all three of the trap-stgt's I've participated in: I played the hell out of these games for five weeks, sometimes on holidays ( ) and ground out clears and 1ALLs despite my relative lack of skill in the genre. It was a great way to really push myself to be better, learn new games quickly, and hone my overall technique on older shooters. I am glad that despite the relative lack of 1CC accomplishments over the past year, I cleared 4 games over 5 weeks! It helps that I had an extra-cool ultra-rad team at my back putting in the time and effort to beat just every game not named Mad Shark!

It was great watching everyone try and figure out some of these games, and watch the scores accumulate. I hope players who had less active teams don't feel down, because the act of playing itself was the most important thing! Just think of all the new knowledge, in English, that now exists for players who took seriously games like Mad Shark, Gekirindan, Last Resort, Macross II, or Bakuretsu Breaker? That's one of the coolest aspects of the tournament for me - giving a whole new lease of life on forgotten games (though some are rightly forgotten, right?).

Thanks for putting this together, trap!

The elf kids and necks are definitely undisputedly GOAT tier, but Hanse is like the third best character in breaker.

You can't just factor in sheer scoring/death-dealing potential when you make these calculations... Sometimes you gotta go for something more intangible. Hanse has got the stuff, man. That je n'ais se quoi. How many shooters let you play as a rad lizard?

*I firmly maintain to all nay-sayers that bitching about the games is half the fun!

[maximo310]

I have pretty mixed feelings on this tournament. On one hand, its organized well, with no issues in submitting posts, and keeping the scoreboard/teams updated. The game choices on the other hand, left me scratching my head. A large amount of time was spent thinking " man I could be playing the series it was inspired by" or just bored by the dead zones that plagued a few of those games. I think Macross II is the only game that gets around those issues, even though I didn't get to spend nearly enough time on it as I'd like.

Hopefully next time has some better game choices, since there quite a number of games that have large scoreboards on here, but very little activity in the last 3-4 years. This post may sound jaded to some people, but that's just my honest opinion and I felt that I needed to get it out there.

[copy-paster]

This year tournament is more fun than last year, 4 of 5 games are actually good! Our teams ranked #10 and mine #10.

Biggest screwups for me was not submit my 510k pts on Bakuretsu Breaker because I forgot that the score rank are ordered by score over stage (I died on stage 5). I also made a highscore thread of BB, because there was no HS thread of this game for 13 years! Here's my rank of 5 games:

Gekirindan > Last Resort > Macross II > Bakuretsu Breaker >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mad Shark

[Frenetic]

trap15 even though I don’t get to hang out with you as much it was a joy to play in your tournament. Thank you so much for putting another one on.

Best wishes,
F

[Perikles]

My thoughts:

1. Tremendously enjoyed the interaction with my team, just like last time (I even confabulated a little with my former colleagues about this round, 'twas a pleasant experience) - it was a veritable merriment playing with you gentlemen. Also a big thank you to trap15 for his customarily excellent organization, of course!

2. My available free time/time management was a bit suboptimal, unfortunately. Didn't have much time during the first two weeks (was all the more glad I got a properly leeched Last Resort score!), I had time for Mad Shark, but no interest in spamming runs until the RNG was just right (see below) and got side-tracked during the Macross round, finally laying Argus to rest. Shan't earnestly complain all in all, however.

3. The game selection was definitely interesting, not meant as a polite euphemism for terrible. My one point of critique would have to be regarding the conditions: playing Bakuretsu Breaker and Mad Shark for one loop only was a bad mistake in my opinion. Considering that we did play the second loop of Strikers 1945 last time (which is obviously a massive jump in difficulty compared to the first) and that we also embraced both loops of Last Resort (which results in long credits, especially when you do apply checkpoint milking), I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be allowed to do that in these games. I understand that you wouldn't want players to loop something like Ashura Blaster or Vimana for several hours, that's indeed horrendous for a tournament setting like this. But Bakuretsu Breaker is extremely short and Mad Shark's second loop is hard enough to where I'm absolutely sure we would've seen two 2-ALLs at the maximum, probably none at all. This was particularly aggravating because a) both games have quite a bit of RNG that influences your score unduly and b) since we are playing these forgotten titles, we might as well see how far we can get. Arbitrary rules like that really rub me the wrong way.

I personally got more enjoyment out of Bakuretsu Breaker this time (I had played this for ~90 minutes prior to this tournament and got an extremely quick & shoddy 1-ALL with abysmal strategies and sloppy play since I immediately applied savestates and calculated how much resources I would need for such a stunt; turns out a lot of the stages and bosses are quite a bit better than I gave it credit for at first glance), I've no idea why there was so much hyperbolic whining about Last Resort and Mad Shark which are both (very) good (albeit not excellent) games, Gekirindan bored me to tears after a while due to the excessive lulls (I don't have a beef with the game otherwise), Macross is splendid, of course. I'd say this was a very balanced selection, I'm likewise going to repeat what I said prior and thank trap15 for picking not one, but two horizontals! That's definitely something to aim for henceforth.

[Vanguard]

Here's my ranking of the games:

1st: Macross 2

Lots of cool and unusual mechanics and it's all executed very well. I haven't seen the scoring-as-survival premise before but I love it. The way new waves spawn as soon as you destroy the old wave means aggressive play is the only way to go. The constant stream of point items and bonus opportunities forces multitasking and greatly improves both routing and reactive play.. It constantly keeps you working and it feels like there's always an opportunity to push harder for a better score. Macross has the best powerup design in the competition too. Both the fighter and the gerwalk are useful and it's worth switching frequently even if it does cost 3,000 points. Using the wrong powerup for a given segment might cost some points or force you to work harder, but it isn't a death sentence like it can be in Gekirindan, Last Resort, or (especially!) Mad Shark. This might sound odd but I even think the unbalanced characters are a good thing too. Playing as my man Necks feels like I'm in on a secret and that I've got the upper hand before the game even begins. If the game gets too easy then Serbee should work as a makeshift hard mode. Overall this is thoroughly excellent. None of the other games come close. If only it had an option to go through every stage in a single playthrough!

A+


2nd: Gekirindan

Solid if you overlook the horrible dead air at the end of the first two stages. That's a lot to overlook though. It's on the easy side, but that's not always a bad thing and you can avoid the almighty elves if you want more difficulty. The milking is unfortunate, though I think milking the stage 3 boss is fairly enjoyable for what it is. There are a lot of interesting strategies that can be used to approach that part. Like, the conventional method is to clip the turrets with the edge of your napalm so you don't kill him prematurely. The solution I settled on for that was to suicide to power down my shot so it only shoots forward. It cost points from losing my bombs and made stage 4 much harder, but it worked. Kyper used P2 Type A in his video, and I suspect that was primarily if not entirely for the sake of milking that boss. I'm sure that made for a harder run overall, but you can't argue with the result. Fitting with the tournament's theme, there was only one good weapon loadout for P2 Type C. The C powerup in particular is nothing but a hazard. Anyway, it's a good game but not a great one.

B+


3rd: Bakuretsu Breaker

Those JPEGs give the impression that the game is going to be a phoned-in mess, but it's surprisingly competent. The asteroid-based scoring works pretty well too - if you no miss no bomb, you get a big reward for your effort, and if you used Mifune the payoff is even better. Summoning your stand to punch through an asteroid belt is also a wonderful climax for the game's silliness. The RNG influence is unfortunate, but it's hard to get too mad at that still photograph of a sailboat in space. The ship options are pretty good too. Hanse is easy to survive with, Mifune is the scoring monster, and Jean strikes a nice balance between the two. The fireworks seem to be the best subweapon but you're not crippled without them. It's pretty enjoyable, and the boss fights against helicopter.jpg make it memorable too.

B


4th: Last Resort

The first half is incredibly boring and the second half is really nice. I want to say that overall I enjoyed this game, but I also remember dreading every credit because it meant playing that abysmal first stage again. Stage two's turret walls are the first obstacle of any real significance. Stages 4 and 5 are great - suddenly the game starts throwing out a new idea every minute and it's almost all threatening. If the first three stages matched the quality of the last two, it'd be a shoo-in for the second best game of the tournament. As is, it's two fifths of a good game.

B-


5th: Mad Shark

I've complained about dead air in the other games, but I actually like intro to stage 5 where you go into space. Maybe because it's a nice breather after that terrible stage 4 boss. Maybe because visually it's a pretty cool sequence. Maybe it's because staring at a screen doing nothing is more fun than playing Mad Shark.

The early stages are almost as boring as Last Resort's, but thanks to sniper tanks, RNG-based scoring, and the worst powerup items of all time, they're also very frustrating. The last three stages, while still frustrating, are challenging, engaging, and overall a big improvement. Not even close to enough of an improvement to save the game, though.

The powerups are perfectly engineered to troll the player. The way the cycles are timed so that one of the three weapons will only be available on the top half of the screen. The way the unbearably slow ship (it's seriously like half the speed of the other four games' ships) can hardly keep up with them. The way two out of three weapons are jokes. The way the powerups are randomized, with massively better scores possible for good RNG. They put an admirable level of craftsmanship into making their powerups as much of an obstacle as bullets are.

Mad Shark is shit.

D+