What is the best Toaplan game?

[Steven]

Steven, thanks for the additional info on Uemura and Yuge.

Yeah sure, no problem.

It does feel like someone thought of this playstyle during development. With realistic item luck you can charge straight through almost the whole of loop 1; the only place you're forced to slow down on is a few of the stage 5 platforms. (At Least It's Not Fixeight: ALINOF)

Uemura-san should have been the most senior guy on the dev team, and enemy placement is his greatest ability as a game designer. I am almost certain that this was him, and I have a reason for this. You know why Hishouzame and Kyuukyoku Tiger have such good enemy placement? Yeah, that's all him, although I think I saw an interview somewhere where he said that for Hishouzame he didn't do the placement for the bosses, but he did do everything else. Not sure about if he did the bosses for Kyuukyoku Tiger, but going back to 1944 The Loop Master, knowing that he did the Hishouzame and Kyuukyoku Tiger enemy placement, compare Hishouzame and Kyuukyoku Tiger to The Loop Master and it's very obvious that he did the enemy placement on that as well.

Although I don't know the specifics of exactly what he did on Out Zone, that sort of super tight stage design is his skill, so I would be surprised if he didn't intentionally make it so you can rush through Out Zone at high speeds.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

18 people won't survive when the super space sniper comes

[Sumez]

All those shots are aimed, so wiggling around them isn't that tough as long as you watch the fire rate

[Steven]

18 people won't survive when the super space sniper comes

The super space sniper is coming soon since the Steam and GOG releases seem to be close to completion!

[Bydobasher]

OutZone for sure. So unique, beautifully drawn, really fun and memorable.

[MarioNintendo]

I'm surprised how the comments in this thread suggest OutZone as the top game, while the poll has Batsugun as the leading game. I've been paying Batsugun a lot on MiSTer's Saturn core, so that would be my vote. I do crave a game of OutZone now, though!

[Steven]

The coolest thing about Batsugun is the fact that the Saturn version is technically an illegal bootleg. Same with Toaplan Shooting Battle 1.

[To Far Away Times]

I'm surprised how the comments in this thread suggest OutZone as the top game, while the poll has Batsugun as the leading game. I've been paying Batsugun a lot on MiSTer's Saturn core, so that would be my vote. I do crave a game of OutZone now, though!

I noticed that as well. While I'm a big fan of Batsugun, I guess this really means I need to sink some time into Outzone. Where's our "You really need to play thread" for Outzone anyway?

[Steven]

Where's our "You really need to play thread" for Outzone anyway?

Right here, and yes, you really need to play Out Zone!

[Lethe]

I told him he got the title wrong...

[Steven]

BTW does anyone actually know how to make the planes on Out Zone stage 2 appear? If not I'll ask Uemura-san when I see him next month because I REALLY WANT TO KNOW BUT I DON'T!

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

No clue. It's the one secret that I never figured out.

[Steven]

Yeah, I've tried a bunch of different things and I have no idea how to make it happen. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. I am relatively certain it has something to do with shooting the trees, though.

[Lethe]

The shmups.wiki page has the solution:

The player can uncover a helpful Easter Egg in the early part of this stage. In the section with some trees, if you destroy the trees corresponding to your last 4 score digits excluding the final one (ex. 286,950- destroy tree 6, then 9, then 5), then a squadron of Hishouzame planes (same behavior as the helper bomb in Daisenpuu) will appear on screen and provide additional firepower until all planes have been destroyed or until you die. If the last 4 digits of your score contain duplicates, then the second of third occurence can be ignored. For example, if the digits are 2320, you only have to shoot 2 then 3. It also doesn't matter if you destroy trees that don't correspond to your digits: for example, if you have 2320, you can destroy tree 4 at any point (before or after shooting one of the relevant trees). The score taken into account is the one the player has when passing the first set of tracks right before the area with the trees.

[Steven]

That was one of the things that I tried. I might have fucked it up when I tried though lol

Alright, I just tried it like 5 times and it only occurred once. I don't get it. I will try it a few more times, though.

BTW how does one recover against the stage 6 boss without autofire?

[OmegaFlareX]

The coolest thing about Batsugun is the fact that the Saturn version is technically an illegal bootleg. Same with Toaplan Shooting Battle 1.

Why's that? Did Gazelle not actually have the rights to port them? I think Banpresto published both, not sure.

[Steven]

Basically they thought they had the rights, but then after they shipped the games they realized that there was no actual paperwork or anything, so Gazelle was like "yeah no, we didn't actually have the rights to make those so that was really bad." I forget the exact details, but it's basically like that. Then Gazelle stopped existing under apparently appallingly bad circumstances that nobody wants to talk about. I wonder what Toaplan Shooting Battle 2 would have been.

[Fingolfin]

Voted for other. Was thinking of Daisenpuu/Twin Hawk for being unique (vs other Toaplan STGs) with respect to options/bomb/super power up being a squadron that positions itself around your bomber.

The combination of field/area of bullet spread, how that dwindles/is reduced over time (with squadron casualties) and how your squadron can be used as a traditional bomb or the squadron can be forced to charge/attack enemies makes for a great and fairly unique arcade STG experience.

Working w/ the squadron options takes some getting used to but once that happens…badda bing badda boom.

Many STGs show affinity for and draw inspiration from Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli films including many by Toaplan; Daisenpuu is perhaps tops in Miyazaki aesthetic w/ it’s Great Whirlwind name and the music being in many sections more movie score than traditional STG music (which is typically tied to stage & enemy/boss aesthetics).

Also Daisenpuu is one continuous level/stage; this also makes it more movie like.

Hishouzame is the best of Toaplan Garage games released thus far.

Voting was tough: there’s a world of difference between early Toaplan like Tiger-Heli & Slap Fight, mid Toaplan like Hishozame and Kyukyoku Tiger, mid late Toaplan like Zero Wing and Out Zone and late Toaplan like V-V and Batsugun.

Only 8 human years between Tiger Heli and Batsugun is literally several generations of arcade development/development cycles.

Out Zone is great; not sure how but missed out on this BITD. It’s become a favorite run n gun in the past several years. More like Terminator than Rambo-in-country of arcade favorites Commando and Ikari Warriors but also more vibrant and fluid and quasi-psychedelic (and on arcade hardware 3+ year advanced over Commando & Ikari Warriors).