Psikyo > Cave

[Jamz]

With Psikyo, the only miss they've had is Sol Divide. Everything else I love; their games just have so much more character and diverse levels.

You cant be serious about this.. I refuse to believe a human can prefer psikyo with those arguments instead of Cave..

it IS ok to not like Cave but please, dont lie

[FIL]

I love Psikyo but Sol Divide makes me retch.

[PROMETHEUS]

With Psikyo, the only miss they've had is Sol Divide. Everything else I love; their games just have so much more character and diverse levels.

You cant be serious about this.. I refuse to believe a human can prefer psikyo with those arguments instead of Cave..

it IS ok to not like Cave but please, dont lie :)

+1 really :/
if there's something you can't say about Psikyo, it's that their games have special character and diverse levels. They clearly just didn't even try to do that.

[shinsage]

i'm psycho for psikyo

[shoe-sama]

psikyo has levels?

[elfhentaifan]

i just noticed this poll lacks of some sense.

[shinsage]

i just noticed this poll lacks of some sense.

i couldn't agree more, it appears someone switched up the vote tallies :?

[Skykid]

I'm a Cave fan, but I appreciate that Sengoku Ace 2 does have diversity in level design. That's one of my fave Psikyo games. It's just that the bullet patterns lack diversity, whereas cave seem to be inexhaustably inventive with each new game.

With Psikyo, the only miss they've had is Sol Divide. Everything else I love; their games just have so much more character and diverse levels.



You cant be serious about this.. I refuse to believe a human can prefer psikyo with those arguments instead of Cave..

it IS ok to not like Cave but please, dont lie

[gabrielesquaratti]

sol divide is not a real shmup,so don't play it like a strikers game,it's all about melee combo,and when you will understand that you will start to enjoy it (as i did),but again,it's not a shmup.

btw cave has some real good shooters,and psikyo too,but between them i prefer psikyo cause they have a distinct late 80's/90's arcade style,even the newest material,the years when i grew up in the milano arcades,so maybe is it a nostalgia attack?

who knows,who cares,i vote psikyo,even if they made frustrating games.

[trap15]

Holy shit dude stop bumping 6 year old threads what the fuck is wrong with you.

[casualcoder]

Holy shit dude stop bumping 6 year old threads what the fuck is wrong with you.

What's your problem? So what? It's not like the thread is about who will win the 2008 presidential election. Maybe it's relevant to him. Maybe it will get people talking about forgotten games again. I never use this term but for some reason it seems appropriate. Stop being such an ASS HAT.

[Kollision]

I don't mind resurrecting old threads
actually reading through them is kinda fun

[chum]

Old farm is pretty similar to current farm. Anyway, here are my thoughts.

Psikyo games are better on average (despite their simpler early output) but I would rather play nothing but Cave games for the rest of my lives than nothing but Psikyo, if I had to make a choice, simply due to the sheer quantity of them.

The only Cave game I've played that can compare to the big 3 of Psikyo (that would be S45II, GB2, & DB) is Guwange. Then again, lots of Cave games I never played. And for each bad Cave game, I think there is a good one.

Cave's stages are too densely packed and bloated for my taste, while Psikyo's are just right. Bosses are very different. Psikyo's fights go by quickly and are 99% memorizable. Later Psikyo bosses are excellent, with those fast and flashy patterns. Cave's usually aren't twitchy enough to warrant their length, and tend to not offer much to do in terms of scoring... Slow / predictable bullets and no / bad scoring isn't a good combination and as a result Cave bosses are sometimes boring. That is, "sometimes". In the looping games, the second loop bosses are often good, because the patterns are dangerous.

Psikyo offers a lot more variation in their games with the various characters/ships, weapons, charge, bombs, it gives an impression that the game is "different" depending on what character you play. Cave games give little variety with characters, the differences are often very minor, the bombs are always the same. Cave games have more varied score systems, but I prefer Psikyo's formula most of the time.

Stylistically, both are trumped by a variety of developers. Cave had it right early on with EspRade and Guwange, but most of their games are a bit ugly, and very messy. Later Psikyo games have some pretty patterns, and the Sengoku games are attractive, but still not particularly outstanding.

The Cave style can be downright detrimental to the players experience, there's too much shit on the screen and the sprites, even when big, have absurdly tiny hitboxes, this is annoying and needlessly difficult to get accustomed to. You may feel awesome for making some luck dodges, but that's just the game tricking you. I like Psikyo's smaller sprites. Everything is as big as it looks, and the bullets stand out but not "too much," when the screen is cluttered, you actually know what's going on.

[Pretas]

Cave's STG release history has higher highs (Dodonpachi, Deathsmiles) and lower lows (Akai Katana, DFK) than Psikyo's. Aside from the misfires of Sol Divide and possibly Pilot Kids, the quality of Psikyo's STG output was extremely consistent. Perhaps because their games were less experimental and score oriented, with almost no serious attempts at breaking away from the reliable formula established by Shin Nakamura in Sonic Wings.

[professor ganson]

so cool that these old threads are still available to revisit. nice bump!

[Squire Grooktook]

Psikyo offers a lot more variation in their games with the various characters/ships, weapons, charge, bombs, it gives an impression that the game is "different" depending on what character you play. Cave games give little variety with characters, the differences are often very minor, the bombs are always the same. Cave games have more varied score systems, but I prefer Psikyo's formula most of the time.

I feel like this is something that comes up with a lot of traditional bullet hell/danmaku games. The fact that you spend pretty much every boss battle (and most other situations where you actually have to dodge) directly in front of the boss /target while micro dodging in focus mode generally tends to make character differences like speed and weapon type feel somewhat irrelevant. Manic shooters like Psyikyo's output (and other unrelated manic shooters like Dimahoo, Mars Matrix, etc.) always felt to me more like the characters were actually characters who had to not only shoot but move differently as well, and could approach situations in very different ways.

Stylistically, both are trumped by a variety of developers. Cave had it right early on with EspRade and Guwange, but most of their games are a bit ugly, and very messy. Later Psikyo games have some pretty patterns, and the Sengoku games are attractive, but still not particularly outstanding.

One place I'll definitely have to disagree. Cave games have IMO the best aesthetics and worlds/settings in the genre. Piskyo has quirky characters, but I'd take the atmosphere in games like Doj, Mushi, Ketsui, EspRa.De and Galuda (particulary the second one) over just about any shmup.

[ACSeraph]

^Agreed, Sengoku Ace is the only one I'm particularly competent at, but it's clear in that game that the approach for both the stages and bosses varies drastically by character.

I pretty much agree totally with chum, Psikyo has genuinely better design in a lot of areas, but man cannot live on Psikyo alone.

Plus really they are totally different, it's not even fair to compare them, as they are different subgenres of shmups.

EDIT: Oh and since it's the glorious 2014 future now and both companies are basically dead, why don't we change the question a bit:

If you could only resurrect one company and have them producing new modern games, which one would you resurrect?

I'm gonna have to go Psikyo.

[LordHypnos]

Can I choose Takumi? Mostly b/c I want Mars Matrix 2... Haven't really played their other games, though Giga Wang is pretty cool (speaking of atmosphere, I love the atmosphere of that one)

[el chuddo]

Holy shit dude stop bumping 6 year old threads what the fuck is wrong with you.

What's your problem? So what? It's not like the thread is about who will win the 2008 presidential election. Maybe it's relevant to him. Maybe it will get people talking about forgotten games again. I never use this term but for some reason it seems appropriate. Stop being such an ASS HAT.

It is VERY hard to believe that YOU never use THAT term.
Either way,
DON'T TALK TO TRAP LIKE THAT!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I don't mind resurrecting old threads
actually reading through them is kinda fun

I thought one of the rules here was necrobumping was actually kinda okay if relevant because it's such a darn niche forum anyways (especially for strategy topics for old games).

Psikyo is one of those devs I want to like, but their games always feel a bit half-assed. No autofire (MAME fixes this), scoring systems are a bit crap, every game has that one character that's terribly balanced and basically unusable, bombs don't always have satisfying oomph or safety or damage... Cave always does a good job of making their games difficult, but because of the bullet patterns, and not because you feel like your ship is always a bit underpowered for what's thrown at you. They also do a better job of making games accessible by making them easier to clear just for survival, but having scoring mechanics that require skill or risk involved that changes the difficulty of playing seriously for score rather than just the 1CC.

Takumi is a much better shmup dev than Psikyo is IMO, and far more worthy of being considered a rival to Cave. Sorry Psikyo.

directly in front of the boss /target while micro dodging in focus mode generally tends to make character differences like speed and weapon type feel somewhat irrelevant.

You don't necessarily have to have characters play vastly differently for them to have noteworthy differences in strategy though, especially when even minor tweaks can make one shot type play quite differently from another. DoDonPachi games do tend to have a same-y feel because of how the laser is functionally the same between all ships, though (technically in DonPachi and DDP Shot type laser varies slightly in damage between types, but not by a huge amount). It's hard to balance characters and game difficulty if you make them play vastly different from each other, too.

[Squire Grooktook]

You don't necessarily have to have characters play vastly differently for them to have noteworthy differences in strategy though, especially when even minor tweaks can make one shot type play quite differently from another. DoDonPachi games do tend to have a same-y feel because of how the laser is functionally the same between all ships, though (technically in DonPachi and DDP Shot type laser varies slightly in damage between types, but not by a huge amount). It's hard to balance characters and game difficulty if you make them play vastly different from each other, too.

Oh, I know. There are definitely differences in routes, techniques, and other subtle elements of the game. But to me choosing between lets say the the two ships in Ketsui feels more like choosing between two different weapons, as opposed to something like Dimahoo where characters like Karte/Solo Bang/Grimlen have to move and dodge completely different for all patterns as well as make use of different weapons/bombs.

I don't think it's something I'd fault Cave in particular for, it's just a quirk of (most) games that prioritize focus modes for dodging IMO.

[Jonst]

Come back cave,no one means the horrible stuff they say about you!

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Seibu Kaihatsu>Psikyo>Cave

[Xyga]

Dooyong>Cave

[kathy]

Seibu Kaihatsu>Psikyo>Cave

All great companies for sure.

Sometimes I wonder what Seibu or Psikyo would be releasing today if they were still around in the shmup world.

At the end of the day I love Psikyo and Seibu but neither of them came close to Ketsui or DOJ - and both companies were around just prior to those two games coming out (well sort of!)

[Wombat]

Personally I would vote for Psikyo, with the reason being that I don't really like the whole bullet hell thing. I guess on a technical/mechanical standpoint Cave kicks Psikyo efforts out of the park, but from a players standpoint Psikyo games are more accessible and thus more fun for me as an casual shmupper.

[Eaglet]

The biggest problem for me with Psikyo is that most of their games (bar Gunbird 2) have this very plastic feel to them.
All of your shots feel halfassed, the way enemies die feels half assed. Everything is just pew pew pew. Meh.

While i will agree that some of CAVEs games are stylistically awful (just as corny as anything Psikyo's ever put out) and that alot of their scoring systems are convoluted, there at least fucking are scoring systems. Giving the earlier stages a lot more longevity (in terms of optimisation) before they grow tedious.
Psikyo games are just boring up until stage 4-5.

I don't know. I like some Psikyo games (GB2 in particular) for the way they encourage aggressive play, but some things (like memorizing retarded boss attacks) just put me off playing them seriously.
There's not enough return for what i'd have to put in basically.

[moh]

Coca Cola > Cave

[KAI]

Thanks for the new sign Moh, u awesome.

[Squire Grooktook]

Since we're going off topic about other devs: If Qute makes like 2 or 3 more games on par with Eschatos, they will be better than both IMO.