Games with the worst Gradius syndrome

[To Far Away Times]

I like Pulstar, but I can’t help but feel it missed the mark a little. It’s a bit too on the nose with its R-Type clone design (making it feel like “we have R-Type at home”), and then you’re looking at a 40 minute no miss memorizer.

Blazing Star fixes all that and is the bee’s knees though. Best shmup on the NeoGeo, for sure.

[Sumez]

Blazing Star is probably one of my favorite arcade shooters overall, really. I don't know, it doesn't seem that special, but it just hits a perfect spot for me.

[sunnshiner]

Yeah, Blazing Star is great fun. Pulstar looks ace but get right in the fucking sea, it's a proper fun sponge.

[Steven]

One of those is the Bone Ass game, right?

Tatsujin Ou

If there was ever a game that would benefit from no check points and slightly shorter stages.

It would. It would also benefit even more from actually being a good game lol

[Sima Tuna]

I like Pulstar, but I can’t help but feel it missed the mark a little. It’s a bit too on the nose with its R-Type clone design (making it feel like “we have R-Type at home”), and then you’re looking at a 40 minute no miss memorizer.

Blazing Star fixes all that and is the bee’s knees though. Best shmup on the NeoGeo, for sure.

Hard agree. Blazing Star is much better and probably the best neo-geo shmup. Pulstar is too much of a blatant clone. I kinda feel the same way about Last Resort. It's cool and all, and a beautiful game, but... The gameplay is very much R-Type.

Blazing Star is exactly the kind of shmup I like. One foot in the old-school shmup style and one in the new-school bullet hell. It's crazy how many ship types they give you and how all of them play differently.

[BrianC]

One of those is the Bone Ass game, right?

yes, Blazing Star. I like that there is lots of Engrish to go with that too.

[To Far Away Times]

I love the Engrish “bonus” voice over in Blazing Star.

It just sounds like an arcade game should. It’s hype.

[Steven]

I don't know, it reminds me of Las Vegas slot machines for some reason, which means it's needlessly loud and annoying and never ceases.

I guess maybe I should probably finally play some Neo Geo shooters. I've played almost every Neo Geo game except the shooting games unless you want to count Shock Troopers (awesome game BTW), which itself is weird because I have little to no interest in fighting games, which constitute about a third of all Neo Geo games. I mostly just wanted to check out the graphics.

[Sumez]

Hard agree. Blazing Star is much better and probably the best neo-geo shmup.

Not looking to argue, just curious what other Neo Geo shooters would even compete for being the best one on the platform? Strikers?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Honestly I'm not sure I'm aware of any other Neo-Geo shooters of Blazing Star's caliber. It's the one that always springs to mind, though others on the platform like Strikers aren't awful or anything.

[Jonpachi]

Strikers 1945+ is a fun little oddity for serious Psikyo fans, but I don't find it nearly as tight as the original two Strikers games.

It's essentially a remix of Strikers 1945 II (which confusingly came out in the U.S. as just Strikers 1945, since the first game never got released there).

Most of the content is pulled straight from Strikers II: Six stages are reused, though they’re trimmed down, and a bunch of enemies and bosses make a return. That said, their attack patterns and bullet spreads have been reworked to fit the new screen layout. The ship lineup is also a little different, with + even borrowing a plane or two from the original Strikers 1945.

[Mortificator]

A few people have mentioned R-Type but that's a disagree from me. Your default shot's better than Gradius, which has a strict bullet limit. You have your wave cannon for a powerful attack even in the nude. It takes six power-ups to reach full offense: three laser crystals, two bits, missile. In Gradius, it takes 31.

Of course, not every Gradius has cruel recoveries. Gaiden bucks the trend with power gauge edit. 4's better than 2 for getting you back in the fight, in exchange for the fight being tougher. Salamander 2 for having re-grabbable power-ups without being a BITCH about it like 1 & 3.

For other games, it's been said that Uemura's Toaplan work has good checkpoints. Pity he didn't have more influence on Zero Wing. Dogyuun has no power-ups and no traditional bombs, making death have little effect your state.

Darius II, oh yeah, that's bad. One life or go home. Darius Gaiden, if you die after getting your shield to at least level 2 you have a chance, before that and you might as well restart.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Strikers 1945+ is a fun little oddity for serious Psikyo fans, but I don't find it nearly as tight as the original two Strikers games.

It's essentially a remix of Strikers 1945 II (which confusingly came out in the U.S. as just Strikers 1945, since the first game never got released there).

Most of the content is pulled straight from Strikers II: Six stages are reused, though they’re trimmed down, and a bunch of enemies and bosses make a return. That said, their attack patterns and bullet spreads have been reworked to fit the new screen layout. The ship lineup is also a little different, with + even borrowing a plane or two from the original Strikers 1945.

Back in 1995, my local arcade hangout, Electric Underground, had the Psikyo "Strikers 1945" pcb inside an upright Dynamo cab -- it was a mere 10 cents per credit (as all games took nickels to "credit 'em up" -- this particular arcade/laser tag joint was based out of Modesto, CA). Eventually, I saw a Dynamo upright cab with Psikyo's "Strikers 1945 II" pcb along with another Dynamo cab with Psikyo pcb of "Sol Divide" at an indoor go-kart track facility back in January of 2000 in Stockton, CA.

So yes, all three Psikyo pcbs of Strikers 1945, Strikers 1945 II and Strikers 1945 III (aka Strikers 1999 in Japan) were distributed at the American arcades back in the mid-1990s indeed. It was the American arcade subsidiary, Jaleco USA, whom sold & distributed the Psikyo jamma conversion kits of Strikers 1945 & Gunbird (with a May 1995 debut) in the USA back in 1995. I was at the Fresno, CA, based Blackbeard's arcade/water amusement park in May of 1995 and they had an upright Dynamo cab with Gunbird up & running -- on top of the cab was a sign saying "New Game." It was quite cool for it's time.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Sengoku Strider]

I like Pulstar, but I can’t help but feel it missed the mark a little. It’s a bit too on the nose with its R-Type clone design (making it feel like “we have R-Type at home”), and then you’re looking at a 40 minute no miss memorizer.

All of that's true, but it can hang with any R-Type in terms of spectacle, and surpass any of them in terms of atmosphere imo. It fakes the player out a bit by giving you a force pod but no actual play mechanics around it, instead it uses trailing aimable options more like a horizontal Image Fight.

Blazing Star fixes all that and is the bee’s knees though. Best shmup on the NeoGeo, for sure.

You'll get no argument from me that Blazing is the more fun and creative game, I've put it on every top 25 I've ever submitted. That said, while it's perfectly fair to compare the two, to me Blazing Star is much more of its own parallel thing than an upgrade or replacement for Pulstar. The elaborate scoring system really makes it its own the game, the lack of respawn points, the multiple ships basically making it play like a different game with each one and most of all the goofy frenetic energy of the whole thing, it's really doing something different and complimentary rather than just iterating on Pulstar.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The very first time I saw Blazing Star up & running on a "Big Red" 4-slot MVS cab back in February of 1998 (that was the exact month that the MVS BS stg debuted in both Japan & the USA). The arcade owner was known to stock up on arcade stg titles like Toaplan's Outzone, Psikyo's Strikers 1945, Atlus/Cave's Donpachi, Seibu Kaihatsu's Viper Phase 1 U.S.A., the odd-ball South Korean based Dooyong's swan-song stg of R-Shark, Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden II, Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden Fighters and Yumekobo's Blazing Star MVS cart -- he'd carry arcade stg titles (that other local arcades wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole even if they wanted to). Unfortunately, the "Nickle Play" indie arcade that hosted all those arcade stg titles shut it's doors in May of 1998 (due to losing it's business lease) and there hasn't been an indie arcade hangout in Modesto, CA since then 28+ years later -- sad but true.

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The funny thing was I didn't have any money to try out this newfangled MVS stg of Blazing Star and could only watch the awesome & cool opening attract/demo scene at best. Eventually, I was able to try it out for the first time and was "blown away" by the beautiful and slick CG-rendered sprites overall presentation along with it's catchy BGM tunes to lure you in with it's very attractive and suave "hook/line/sinker" type of deal. I ended buying an MVS motherboard along with an MVS cart of BS which was selling for $44.00 used (which was the normal "going rate" for one) on eBay at that point in time in the mid-2000s era (where you could easily pick up an arcade pcb for mere "pennies on the dollar" back in those days of arcade lore). Of course, those days of buying your favorite arcade pcbs "on the cheap" are long gone never to be repeated ever again.
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PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Sengoku Strider]

I ended buying an MVS motherboard along with an MVS cart of BS which was selling for $44.00 used (which was the normal "going rate" for one) on eBay at that point in time in the mid-2000s era (where you could easily pick up an arcade pcb for mere "pennies on the dollar" back in those days of arcade lore).

That's insane, I paid hundreds for an MVS->AES Blazing Star transplant at one point. I ended up selling it on though, TBH no pause button and not having different buttons for rapid fire & charge shot made it a noticeably worse experience than just going ACA.

[Jonpachi]

I ended buying an MVS motherboard along with an MVS cart of BS which was selling for $44.00 used (which was the normal "going rate" for one) on eBay at that point in time in the mid-2000s era (where you could easily pick up an arcade pcb for mere "pennies on the dollar" back in those days of arcade lore).

That's insane, I paid hundreds for an MVS->AES Blazing Star transplant at one point. I ended up selling it on though, TBH no pause button and not having different buttons for rapid fire & charge shot made it a noticeably worse experience than just going ACA.

Same. I paid $600 for a really nice transplant cart with the hard clamshell box and even a printed manual. This was around 2002. I was in college and lied to my dad, saying my car had broken down so I had to drain my meager student bank account to fix it. I loved that cart, but eventually sold it for more than I paid for it and picked up an MVS cart for less than $100.

[Sumez]

Funny my "Blazing Star Story" is somewhat similar.
That game is one of the biggest reasons I eventually went the MVS route. At the time I bought my Blazing Star cartridge the going rate was about $25. Compare the AES one which cost - I don't know - a massive unsurmountable fortune. The game was considered a real collector's item. But here was the, identical in terms of hardware, MVS cartridge sitting at a budget price.
I sold my AES and got everything on MVS going forward, eventually leading to a pretty decent "collection" of arcade hardware.

I can't imagine ever preferring the ACA release over sitting down and playing the game in real 240p on a New Astro City, though. But it's great the option is there.

[dethcow]

Hard agree. Blazing Star is much better and probably the best neo-geo shmup.

Not looking to argue, just curious what other Neo Geo shooters would even compete for being the best one on the platform? Strikers?

Neo Geo has some really underrated shmups!

Zed Blade and Viewpoint are both great, Pulstar is my favorite R-type game (Xexex is R-type+X-Multiply so it "doesn't count" :^) ), Prehistoric Isle 2 is good too.
Sonic Wings 2 and 3 are phenomenal games that I would recommend to almost any shmup fan.
Now I still think Blazing Star is the best shmup on the Neo Geo, but I actually think it's one of the best shmups PERIOD. I've had more fun scoring in Blazing Star than just about any shmup I've ever played.

[BrianC]

I can't imagine ever preferring the ACA release over sitting down and playing the game in real 240p on a New Astro City, though. But it's great the option is there.

I like the MiSTer NeoGeo core. It supports analog video via component or RGB too. Isn't the video closer to 224p? Some PS2 NeoGeo ports support 240p but are still upscaled from 224p.

[Sumez]

I doubt it's upscaled. It's common for video game systems to output 224 lines vertically, but what's really happening is that the remaining 16 lines are blank.
Technically, a 15khz video signal is actually around 262 scanlines if all of them were visible. But that would leave no time for vblank

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Another MVS stg cart that I got in the mid-2000s era was Psikyo's "Strikers 1945 Plus" -- I only paid $47.50 for it as that was the going rate for one back in the day.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Bassa-Bassa]

Most non-M2 and non-Arika ports of 240p games for the PS2 were indeed upscaled, but not from 224 to 240, but to 448i or 480i.

According to a friend, this made devs' life easier when outputting for LCDs.

Mister's NG emulation these days is supposed to be one of the very few 1:1 replicas, indeed.

[Sumez]

Pretty sure MiSTER is designed to replicate every system's native output via its analog output, right?
It makes no sense for it to upscale anything vertically.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Nobody here said it does. (Though likely, it can if you force it)

[Steven]

MiSTer absolutely does upscale if you use the HDMI output. Its interpolation functionality is noticeably inferior to that on Analogue's systems, unfortunately, but it's not unacceptably bad or anything. Over analog output, yeah, that seems pretty pointless, but I've never tried it with analog output.

I'll also gladly take MiSTer or ACA Neo Geo games over playing them on my AES, though, whether on my consumer CRT that I never use or on my PC monitor through HDMI, and for a simple reason: no autofire on AES. I tried playing Andro Dunos without auto on my AES controller and it was completely miserable. The AES controller being terribly uncomfortable does not help. I wonder who the hell thought that such aggressively slanted buttons were a good idea, because they most certainly are not comfortable to me at all.

[Sumez]

Nobody here said it does. (Though likely, it can if you force it)

You said "one of the few" 1:1 replicas.

If you meant anything different by that, it bears elaborating

MiSTer absolutely does upscale if you use the HDMI output.

HDMI is not an analog output. Obviously the HDMI output is upscaled.
I do think MiSTER seems really cool. But my only potential reason for ever getting one, would be to pop it into a 15khz arcade cabinet.

[Steven]

I don't recall saying that HDMI is an analog output.

Anyway, MiSTer is cool, but its autofire and button mapping functionality are supremely disappointing compared to modern ACA, or to M2 ShotTriggers. It's actually even worse than Bitwave Toaplan's autofire and button mappings, sadly. Not unusable, but you can have exactly two of any given button and only one autofire rate. Its open source, to technically you could probably fix it if you wanted to, but...

There is also the matter that I think it has more input lag for some PCBs than the actual PCBs due to the MiSTer's hardware or something like that, which sucks. Tatsujin Ou I believe is one of those.

[Sumez]

I made the bold assumption that you were responding to the posts in here about Mister's analog output, rather than coincidentally making a separate, unrelated statement about Mister's video output

[Steven]

lol if there is a day which I stop being super pedantic about anything, it probably means I'm either dead or in space with no internet access. As I plan to live forever and am too lazy to become an astronaut, it will certainly never happen!

But yeah, MiSTer is cool, except for when it isn't, like the super undeveloped X68000 core that largely seemed to barely function with some games the last time I tried it. Dracula's mostly safe, though!