Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[EmperorIng]

My Saturn copy of Sonic Wings Special came in a little while ago.

I'm pretty stoked. I've played it quite a bit and I must say this game is really, really fun. Each character is fun to play (though I should put in the caveat that I haven't played them all!), and the game has a great sense of style, and the soundtrack is excellent!

I also like the lack of complicated scoring system. While getting extra points from those gold medals have caused me a fair share of deaths, I don't think it's too shabby an idea.

I played a little bit of the game in ghetto TATE, on my large 36" CRT TV... It looked sooooo good and I'm tempted to attempt actually flipping my TV to experience the glory of a TATE'd Sonic Wings Special.

Even in YOKO mode, everything looks crisp, inviting, and fun. Definitely glad for the purchase (and I'm glad I got it at a cheap price as well).

[null1024]

Lords of Thunder [Sega CD].

That soundtrack is the sex. That parallax is the sex. The whole presentation is amazing.
Also, I get hit way more than I feel like I have any right doing so. Just started playing for the first time, but still.

[hwl]

EspGaluda. Working on that last boss pattern.

For some reason I always stop playing a game just before I manage to 1CC/1ALL it. Kinda strange.

[Illyrian]

EspGaluda. Working on that last boss pattern.

For some reason I always stop playing a game just before I manage to 1CC/1ALL it. Kinda strange.

This might sound kinda silly but this is the way I dodge that pattern, and it really works rather well in my experience.

You basically (this is going to sound stupid) try and slam into the bullets vertically above you. By that I mean the following:

When a line of bullets is above you, pick one that is moving across the screen and move vertically up when it is directly above you, as if you actually want to ram into it. However, because of the bullet speed you'll automatically go between that bullet and the next one. Basically repeat that, having to do it more and more often as the pattern goes on.

I'll be the first to admit it sounds counter intuitive but it really does work like a charm.

[Marc]

Alpha Mission on Vita. I love shooters of this age. Not sure what the various letters do though, nothing as far as I can tell.

[onilogan87]

finally i have 1cc deathsmiles with rose after an year(i've played other game obviously)
so to celebrate i have to stay 2 more hour in office to repair a pc ,indispensable and functioning, that the luser have decided to f@@k up with an hardware update.

[noiseredux]

finally i have 1cc deathsmiles with rose after an year(i've played other game obviously)

congrats! I really want to 1CC Deathsmiles. I had spent like a good month focusing on it, and was consistently making it to the last level, but couldn't get that 1CC. Then I got distracted a bit when a box of new shmups I bought came in. But I'll get back to DS soon enough. I definitely love that game.

As for what I'm playing now: Mushihimesama Futari. Can't beat the 3rd level yet.

[Hagane]

Went back to Sengoku Blade. Took a lot of effort, but now I can use my new stick almost at the level I was at with my old pad. With a few tweaks to my strategy I can NMNB second loop forest almost 100% of the time. After I get my execution up to speed in 2-5 and 2-6 I'll try to finally 2 ALL this damn game.

[RNGmaster]

Good luck, bro. Good to know the forest of death isn't a problem anymore.

Man, now that I think about it, STGT is going to be hell on my 2-ALL progress, too.

[beatsgo]

Gradius III......... X_X

[EmperorIng]

Tonight was pretty awesome, as my friends came over for dinner, and then afterward, we went to the TV room to play some Sega Saturn.

And it was a shmup marathon.

first playing Darius Gaiden (a fav for all of us), followed by Galactic Attack (getting to the Area 6 boss), followed by Soukyugurentai (my pal didn't like it all that much), followed by In the Hunt (lol we sucked), proceeded by Die Hard Arcade (yeah baby), and finishing things off with Darius II, which remains as fuck-tardedly frustrating as ever.

Shmups are always extra fun to play with a pal, so we had some good fun tearing into some of my old stand-bys.

[null1024]

Touhou 5: Mystic Square [PC-98]. Quite a bit of fun, although I'm not sure it's supposed to slow down that much at times [using T98-Next because my netbook hates Anex86]. I was playing some of the other PC-98 Touhou games for the hell of it, and none of them showed any visible slowdown at any point. Had the CPU frequency on Auto, as setting it manually meant the game ran like dogshit [even at 66MHz, the highest it would let me set].


Also, apparently Touhou 3 was the first one of 'em to support joypad controls. Too lazy to mess with Xpadder to play 1 and 2 with a controller.
Playing with this Saturn pad [Japanese/US Model 2, not the Model 1 pad] feels great.

[BIL]

My brain is too scattered ATM for serious STG play (or serious arcade play, period), but I played a bit of Gun.Smoke tonight and made sure to kill that sneaky prick Ninja before packing it in.

I never appreciated until now how goddamn satisfying it is to watch his lifeless body flop gracelessly to the dirt after all of his leaping and teleporting about. Thanks sadistic AI programmer(s). Now I'm a sadistic prick too. >_>

Went back to Sengoku Blade. Took a lot of effort, but now I can use my new stick almost at the level I was at with my old pad. With a few tweaks to my strategy I can NMNB second loop forest almost 100% of the time. After I get my execution up to speed in 2-5 and 2-6 I'll try to finally 2 ALL this damn game.

Great work on the ST, by the way! We didn't have a quality SB resource when I was playing it a few years back, I'm glad that's changed.

[null1024]

R-Type [SMS].

Got up to stage 3 on one life, and then proceeded to repeatedly die as the level starts. Fuck.

[Nate]

R-Type Delta here at home. Pulstar at the arcade.

I'd been playing RTD for 3 days and i finally got to the "meat-blimp" section of stage 6 late last night; finally just turned it off and went to bed at around 3am.

Going now to hit Pulstar to make up for my usual Tuesday visit that I am scheduled to miss...

[RNGmaster]

I'm doing so poorly at the first loop of Dragon Blaze that I may have to watch one of my own replays to know what to do in a few sections

It is so hard to maintain consistency on every part of a game. The biggest obstacle to a 2-ALL for me is probably that by the time I've gotten the next loop stage down consistently I've forgotten the last 3.

Have any of you guys had this problem, and how can I get past it? As it goes I'm stuck in an endless loop of forgetting stages and that's no fun.

[Nate]

RNGmaster:

I'm doing so poorly at the first loop of Dragon Blaze that I may have to watch one of my own replays to know what to do in a few sections

Maybe that's it? Maybe you need to "tape" yourself playing (make another replay) in order to give you that extra incentive to "perform" at a higher level!

[RNGmaster]

You have no idea how hard it is to record savestate practice. An actual camcorder could work, yes, but setting it up so the picture is clear, not to mention cutting out the bad parts, would be annoying.

[Mordecai Walfish]

Playing now:

G-Darius (emulated properly on PC for the first time via PCSX2: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42521)

[PaulEMoz]

The Reap.

Entertaining PC Zaxxon-esque shmup from the 90s, which amuses me because when you destroy an enemy vehicle or craft, every occupant of it comes flying out! Big explosions scatter little men all over the place, which is quite satisfying in a slightly sick way.

[Eaglet]

Finally moved into my own place with ma cabzorgz. That and getting humane working hours will enable me to get some GAREGGA going.
Shit's goin' down fo sho yo

[Plasmo]

See you soon at the highscore topic!

[Hagane]

Have any of you guys had this problem, and how can I get past it? As it goes I'm stuck in an endless loop of forgetting stages and that's no fun.

Haha yeah, I've been playing Sengoku Blade starting at the first stage of the second loop for a while and I've gotten hella rusty at some key parts of the first loop. So after practicing second loop I do a few credits of the first loop to get my muscle memory back.

[RBT]

Phalanx GBA port
Easier then the SNES port put still lots of fun, perfect to kill time on the train etc.

[trap15]

Kyuukyoku Tiger a ton. Such a good game. Inspired by my recent download of the TOAPLAN Co.,Ltd. SHOOTING CHRONICLE. Ahh, how I wish Same! Same! Same! had sound in MAME...

[Lord Satori]

well I'm into X.X's games right now. I tried to play Hydorah, but its a little difficult for now.

I've also downloaded a multitude of other free games, such as Space Chunks II.

[zendor118]

Progear on the supergun. Waiting for my LCD mount for tate support before I can start in on my vertical shmups (dimahoo, batrider, 19xx)

[chempop]

Obliterated the first loop of Daioh, got to stage 12 shy of 5mil.
Back in goes Dimahoo, set extends to every 2mil I can clear it...
I need to reduce the miss factor by 4-5 before thinking about a default 1CC.

Progear on the supergun. Waiting for my LCorD mount for tate support before I can start in on my vertical shmups (dimahoo, batrider, 19xx)

Wow, great selection of games there! Good luck, those are all tuff ones too. No CRT?

[EmperorIng]

I've been playing a bit of Toaplan recently, mainly because I finally found some working roms for MAMEUIFX32.

Tiger Heli:
You can sort of see the beginnings of what makes Toaplan games so fun, but it's pretty bog standard, the ship is way too slow, and a bit too archaic for me.

Twin Cobra:
Lots of fun, and a really solid shooter. Some cheap deaths from bottom-firing tanks, but on the whole it's an improvement in every way shape and form. The music kicks ass, too.

Twin Cobra 2:
Interesting to see this series at 3 different points in shmup history. The game still has a lot of Toaplan feel to it, but the bullet-hell influences are now very prevalent, and the game sort of feels like Batsugun with slightly less bullets. It's a neat fun game, and a bit more of what I'm used to in a shmup.

Of the three I've played, I'd say I like Twin Cobra the most, but I've only played all three slightly (and in the case of Tiger Heli, it will probably stay that way, hah hah).

[Moniker]

Twin Cobra 2 is post-Toaplan, no? I thought it was by Taito or something.