Hardest shmup?

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Radiant Silvergun for the sheer amount of memorization.
Dangun Feveron has lots of bullets and they move FAST wtf.
Pulstar is just ridiculous after stage 4.
Undeadline is impossible for me, I seriously can not even pass the first stage.
Gradius III arcade is also impossible.

I did the invincibility cheat once to see the second loop in Dodonpachi. What the fuck...

[Diabollokus]

I actually find shienryu on the saturn quite hard with 5 credits when playing in normal still haven't been able to beat stage 8.

Gaiares Hard bastid, has zzbadnasty ever stole your t-braster on you! lets see you dodge her now!

Border Down isn't that hard really guys I can pretty much one life it to stage 6 although I admit 6A, B, C and mr D in remix mode are some seriously nasty bosses I die a hell of a lot of times when ''they fly like the birds in red rain'' cool as hell though.

Any of the earlier r-types. Fukk it couldn't get past the 3rd level in any of em bar 3 on the snes.

Grindstormer: the true 1st manic before batsugunn.

I haven't played any pc engine shmups bar lords of thunder which was rather easy.

[Endymion]

Rayxanber II

[captain ahar]

fuckin Gradius III arcade. mark III core sucks. i've gotten to the moai stage once on Normal difficulty. i present... my crowning shmup achievement.

image fight. only played PC engine version, but still, complete balls difficulty.

battle garegga. the pain is oh so sweet.

many others... my average-ness makes games difficult

[ST Dragon]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Blazing Star for the NEOGEO yet...

The difficulty up to level 4 is pretty reasonable, but beyond that it's a nightmare. It probably has the cheapest Bosses one could encounter in a Shmup. Some of their laser blasts literally fill-up the whole screen, leaving no breathing space for dodging… Dead simple.

Some of the quotes when you get killed, are very characteristic "Poor Player"

[Crunch]

Battle Garegga
Nexzr
Star Soldier
Rayxanber 2
Radiant Silvergun
Eliminate Down
Gleylancer
Majority of Mega Drive shmups actually.

[chtimi-CLA]

I find R-Type 2 more difficult, especially the midlevel checkpoints in the later levels. In any case, Image Fight is tough, no question. The Penalty Zone is stil possibly the hardest stage I've played in any shmup, ever.

do you know if anybody here beat Image Fight? (at least the first loop)

[Bydobasher]

Sure, I have. I was pretty sure there was a handful of forum members that had done so actually (DEL for instance).

I only ever play the first loop though. I've had enough at that point!

[Super Glob]

Ketsui?No personal experience, but the videos i've seen look completely insane.

The second loop of DOJ looks harder to me.
I know there are some Japan players who have cleared both normal and special loops of Ketsui, but have failed to 2loop clear DOJ.
The rank increase in DOJ in really strong and was toned down somewhat for the Black Label release.

[Randorama]

Ah well, If not Ketsui, DOJ, i agree, both are extremely hard, Ketsui hasn't rank though, it's just insane...

[Icarus]

do you know if anybody here beat Image Fight? (at least the first loop)

Image Fight is quite simple, it's all about weapon selection and ship positioning. 1-ALL'ing is easy once you get the stages down, the second loop is a lot harder due to extra enemies and much faster bullets.

If anything, I find R-Type 2 much much harder.

[chtimi-CLA]

Image Fight is quite simple, it's all about weapon selection and ship positioning. 1-ALL'ing is easy once you get the stages down, the second loop is a lot harder due to extra enemies and much faster bullets.

If anything, I find R-Type 2 much much harder.

maybe, i have to admit i didn't try too hard at image fight.
still, congrats to you and bydobasher.

for the record, a player on french shmup.com 1CCed it to stage 12 of r-type2
with hard practice

[marzzmatrix]

just about any sidescrolling shmup is hard for me to play. I have a vertical mind, which makes it hard to play sidescrollers.

[Bydobasher]

for the record, a player on french shmup.com 1CCed it to stage 12 of r-type2
with hard practice

Yikes! That's awesome. I've never even explored stages 7-12 of R-Type 2. I always just turn it off once I've beaten it the first time around.

[DEL]

For what its worth, my friend ARM alled both loops of R-Type 2 when it was in our arcades.

(FraGmaRe did both loops of Image Fight).

[Klatrymadon]

My choice will probably stick out like a sore thumb here, because although I own or have played all of the games listed thus far (to a fair level of skill in most cases ), Gunbird 2 kicks my arse after about the 4th or 5th level.

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's something to do with the PS2 conversion I play, but I just can't seem to weave through those blankets of fire like I can on other games...

Do most of you find it as easy as pie, or is this all fully understandable?

[ST Dragon]

I think that's completely understandable.
Psikyo shooters are not the friendliest of shmups, so I don't see any reason why Gunbird 2 will be any different.

I too had trouble with it.

Where as I could 1'cc 1945 Strikers II at my local arcades with my mate back in 1997!

[Icarus]

(FraGmaRe did both loops of Image Fight).

Yeah, I remember that. It was close during the #shmups Image Fight compo, until he 2-ALL'ed. I couldn't even get off 2-3 >_<#

Still got to get you back for that, FraGMarE ^_-

[kidneythief]

Urk, psikyo games.... Well, the only one I've 1CCd is the first Strikers game. It took me a few tries to pass the final levels in one shot, after that it was a piece of cake. Of course, it's less focused on coin chaining than gunbird is, so you can sort of focus more on staying alive. ^^; I've also gotten pretty far in Zero Gunner 2, even on higher difficulty settings, though I can never beat the final sky fortress level in that on anything above level easy :X =[. All in all though, I wouldn't say psikyo is "unfriendly" as there are much harder games.

[Valgar]

Ketsui?No personal experience, but the videos i've seen look completely insane.

The second loop of DOJ looks harder to me.
I know there are some Japan players who have cleared both normal and special loops of Ketsui, but have failed to 2loop clear DOJ.
The rank increase in DOJ in really strong and was toned down somewhat for the Black Label release.

What players have even beaten both? Also I think the rank was toned down in Black Label because you get a lot more hypers.