The BIG thread of Shmup grievances.

[O. Van Bruce]

The more I ram my head into the brick wall that is Crimzon Clover, the more I start to sympathize with DTP. I don't think that it's impossible at all, but I am starting to think that there's a major factor of natural ability involved, and if you don't have it, then there's not much you can do.

Forty hours with the game, and still the 1CC remains totally out-of-sight.

Try to memorize when you have to start streaming and when you have to start using the break mode. That's what made me 1cc it.

Which parts are the hardest for you?

[Obscura]

Problem sections:

Second half of Stage 3, when it returns to vertical scrolling. I've got a route, but if I fuck up and die, then it's going to be like 5 more deaths.

My normal route for it is: Enter with enough meter saved up for a break. Move to the left side. Kill the UFOs, stream right. When the blue spiders enter, break. Sweep across, killing everything, focusing on the dragon as top priority, then the flowers. I should hit a double break during this; I take it. After the giant red flower, I move to near the center to quickly kill the dragon that spawns there, then move to bottom-center to kill the one that enters from the bottom by burying an option in his head while firing. Then, I quickly move top-right to take down the ship that appears, followed by top left to kill that one. Then, center to get a few hits in on the first dragon, move to the bottom to point blank the last dragon's head, then take down the dragon in the top when he re-appears. Then, take down the UFOs, tap-dodging to the right. I'll probably get cornered at some point, but I should be able to hold out until I get break mode; hit break mode, kill the flowers on the left, move right and kill the large ship that appears there, then move to the left, kill the flowers and the large ship. Move back left, as soon as I have the meter for it I bomb (I could save and enter break, but if I bomb instead of break here, I can enter the boss with 1.5 meters, which is enough to enter double break on the first form), bomb again on the next red flower, point-blank the two giant ships. The boss isn't really a problem for me any more.

Stage 4, from midboss onwards. My route here isn't nearly as tight, and the boss (especially the first form) makes me its bitch. Seriously, random movements and random patterns, wtf.

Stage 5: I've never gotten here with more than a couple of lives. When I've run the stage in Stage Select, it hasn't gone that badly aside from Gorgoneir, who rapes me first with his "super fast pink strings" attack on his second form, and then the "bouncing metal ball of fuck you" in his last form.

[O. Van Bruce]

Use this Video to get some ideas if you want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Y1ZEXPesA

Also, don't be that afraid of the "dragons" cause they sometimes help you to get hgh multipliers and charge your Hyper.

[BIL]

You're not saying anything new. I don't think I've seen you disparage other players quite as directly before, but that's hardly an addition of substance.

Enjoy being miserable, I guess. Some people do enjoy moaning about things, maybe you're one of them.

edit: owned by ninja edit.

[DrTrouserPlank]

yeah, I deleted that because I know all I ever get is abuse and "hilarious" one-liners from the usual suspects.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

DTP: shmups are only about memorization, etc

I think you're seriously overstating the amount of memorization that goes into 1ccing a shmup. There's a whole lot to be said for learning to improvise and dodge on the fly (in Futari, knowing how to sweep horizontally along the bottom of the screen through waves of aimed bullets is basically this). Memorization certainly helps, and is indeed key for many sections, but the assertion that to do well requires basically "a point by point sequence of moves for the entire game without making a single mistake" is simply incorrect.

"So much of the eventual result comes down to things that cannot be controlled"

is also false. Improvised dodging is controlling the situation.

Edit: lol, too slow on the post delete there, DTP

[BIL]

yeah, I deleted that because I know all I ever get is abuse and "hilarious" one-liners from the usual suspects.

Here's some genuine advice: It sounds like you're putting way too much emphasis on memorising level layouts and not enough on mastering each game's particular mechanics. I've found this is why Metal Black has such a mean reputation. Newbies don't really understand how to deal with the levels even if they've technically memorised them - because they're not paying attention to the game mechanics. The ship's basic properties and quirks, those of the enemies, how to best play them off against one another, etc etc...

So not only is their devised routine sub-optimal, but when something goes wrong or not quite to plan, they're unable to maintain control. They never really had it to begin with. And even if they were to copy a superplayer by rote, the tiniest error on their end would promptly demolish that house of cards. I'm guessing you're having a similar problem with UD.

[Icarus]

This thread makes me chuckle. Seriously.

[Obscura]

This thread makes me chuckle. Seriously.

Well, since I know you're reading this thread, and I don't want to spam strategy with MORE Crimzon Clover boss questions...

I've watched your vid for stage 4, and on the boss's first form, second attack (the spinning patterns out of each wing), I notice that you're staying nearly directly under the boss just moving up and down and fitting within the diamond that the bullet patterns create. How are you reading where that diamond is going to be? Every time I try to do this, I get trashed since the shape of those bullet panels changes as it comes in, and when I do it the way that (mostly) works for me (which is to slide through the gap in the wave from side when it's far away from the center, then move back to the center sliding through the gap from the other side's wave), I end up doing enough damage to open up that damn "ring shooter" on the end of the wing, which makes things *really* go to hell.

[Icarus]

Well, since I know you're reading this thread, and I don't want to spam strategy with MORE Crimzon Clover boss questions...

You should be spamming Strategy with this stuff, that's what Strategy is there for. ^_-

But anyway, a sensible question.
The behavior of the attack is a very structured rotary spray from the two wing turrets, so the attack pattern itself comes in from the "sides" of the screen. This rest is just a process of simplification.

There are two ways of dealing with the pattern itself, the first is to stay lined up with the center of the boss, and then go out to the side and back in through the gaps in the pattern, since conveniently they make a diagonal path through the attack:



The second way, and the more difficult, is to keep yourself always lined up with the center of the boss, and back off to about 2-3 ship lengths away form the boss into the gap the pattern creates. It's tricky, but with practice you get a feel for timing and positioning - the most important thing here is to always stay lined up with the boss itself. I personally prefer this method, as it allows me to keep the attack pressure up and destroy the first form faster.



Watch this replay to get an idea of how both methods are done. For beginners and intermediates, I'd say it's safer to use the first "diagonal path" method. The only turrets that you should be destroying are the two at the front, the wing turrets should be avoided at all costs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Wlg#t=291s

[Illyrian]

I actually disagree.

It's just a simpler way of dealing with it. The diagonal path sends you up infront of those big turrets and if you're over on one side right as they open fire you risk getting point blanked by one. You can also dodge that pattern on the way up with option 2, so you infact have more ways of doing the dodge and it's a simpler movement.

Edit: I also reckon that way you have more chance of just happening to be in a safe spot when the pattern starts. Also is the pattern static or does it always fire dependant on where the player is? Cause if it's static then you can just learn 2 safe spots and move up and down between them.

[O. Van Bruce]

I use both ways depending on the circunstances:

- When the boss is just in front of me it fires on both sides perfectly so I move down a little.

- When the boss is on one of my sides I use the second method because it usually mean that one side of the attack wasn't fired completely. When you are doing this, focus first on one side of the attack (preferably the dificult one and try to not get "trapped" bettwen then. Deal with one of the sides and then the other.

Anyway, this is just an ideal, you should use any of the methods Icarus mentioned whenever you feel it would be easier using it. Use your instinct.

And you can't really get point blankeed, as the next pattern are the 2 laser cannons with some random bullets. You have plenty of time to prepare for that attack

As an extra, I allways destroy one or both of the random bullet spraying parts just at the side of the center.

[ancestral-knowledge]

I don't know if that will help you DTP but for my Futari 1.5 Original 1CC the following things have helped me.

- NEVER, absolutely NEVER restart. Not even on Level 1. Restarting is a thing for good players who fuck up 1/100th time. It's not a tool for people that lack general skills (that is you if you fuck up on stage 1.... even by accident). The more you play the better. You need to learn the flow of the game and constant restarting destroys that.

- NEVER, absolutely NEVER continue. It doesn't matter if you want to play just a bit of stage 4 now that you died on the last pattern of the 3rd boss. If you want you should go into practise mode and do it there. The max powerup item makes it impossible to train the level appropriately.

- Mostly do FULL RUNS! Use practice mode on some tough bosses and if you have to learn a stage in the beginning but always keep in mind: It doesn't fucking matter that you can no miss the whole game in training mode. Noone cares. The full run where your heart beats fast and you get the chills when you are in stage 5 with 4 lives ("the possible 1CC") is where it counts. You will fuck up at the beginning. I remember that the first time i had 4 lives in stage 5 i died 3 fucking times in FIRST 30 seconds. Yes. A lot of psychological aspects will influence your game on a full run and you ABSOLUTELY need this experience to get better.
I can no miss/no bomb the 3rd boss in training mode about 1/3rd of the time. In a real run i will die 100%. Sounds illogical but it isn't. You need full run experience which includes the flow of the game.

- Fuck replays for now: Replays are for good players who understand why the player positions himself at a certain spot at a certain time and are mostly for scorers. They are for chess players that are at a level that they can watch a combination of moves and know why and how it's done and they can do the same after having watched it. You are clearly not at this level. Watching a replay doesn't help at this point. You may even understand aspects of the replay but you won't be able to play like that. It's wasted time you should spend playing. Doing a quick lookup for a pattern or a boss may help a little bit though. But remember: Your skill is not at the point that you can learn from a replay. The more you play the better.

- Discipline: Play regularly and concentrated! Do your 3-5 Full run credits every day. Even if you are tired, angry or scared (because you don't seem to improve or larsa is just impossible) do your 3 credits with full concentration. EVERY DAY WITHOUT QUESTION! Through repetition comes greatness.

- Attitude: Be positve and don't whine about the game. It won't help. No excuses since you are the one screwing up. Take it like a man. It wasn't the game or the mechanics or Reco being not as strong as palm or whatever. You fucked up and that's alright but don't make up some bullshit why the world has hindered you to beat this game. It's what women do. Do you honestly think that you are the only one having problems at a certain boss? Do you honestly think that you are the only one who doesn't seem to grasp Stage 3? No, i'm sorry. You are not special. Get your shit together like everyone else and keep focus.

[O. Van Bruce]

I wonder what will be everyone's reaction when DTP gets his first Futari Original 1cc...

[ancestral-knowledge]

As usual.
Some will congrat him and some guys will shit him in the face for even posting that he has cleared it with such a bad score.

[Erppo]

I agree with some of those tips, but disagree with some too.

- NEVER, absolutely NEVER restart. Not even on Level 1. Restarting is a thing for good players who fuck up 1/100th time. It's not a tool for people that lack general skills (that is you if you fuck up on stage 1.... even by accident). The more you play the better. You need to learn the flow of the game and constant restarting destroys that.

Mostly agreed. Only restart, if the screw up has made it impossible to beat your current record AND you are sure you don't need any practice on the later parts anymore. I make an exception for restarting on the first stage though since you're not going to lose much time with that.

- NEVER, absolutely NEVER continue. It doesn't matter if you want to play just a bit of stage 4 now that you died on the last pattern of the 3rd boss. If you want you should go into practise mode and do it there. The max powerup item makes it impossible to train the level appropriately.

This is mostly a Futari exclusive, due to the max power item messing things up in that game. Normally there is nothing bad in continuing in order to practice. In Under Defeat, that is actually what you should be doing since the rank settings of the practice mode don't seem to be working properly.

Full runs vs. practice mode is mostly up to a personal preference. I don't enjoy grinding single stages that much so I usually try to practice with full runs, but again, this is only a preference.

- Fuck replays for now: Replays are for good players who understand why the player positions himself at a certain spot at a certain time and are mostly for scorers. They are for chess players that are at a level that they can watch a combination of moves and know why and how it's done and they can do the same after having watched it. You are clearly not at this level. Watching a replay doesn't help at this point. You may even understand aspects of the replay but you won't be able to play like that. It's wasted time you should spend playing. Doing a quick lookup for a pattern or a boss may help a little bit though. But remember: Your skill is not at the point that you can learn from a replay. The more you play the better.

I disagree. You need to understand if you are lacking in skill to effectively copy the better replays yet, but you should still be able to pick up general strategies and good methods for dealing with hard parts. It's always good to watch many replays and if everyone does some thing in the same way, there is most likely a reason for that. Picking up essential things from replays is a skill in itself and it's good to get some practice in that too.

- Attitude: Be positve and don't whine about the game. It won't help. No excuses since you are the one screwing up. Take it like a man. It wasn't the game or the mechanics or Reco being not as strong as palm or whatever. You fucked up and that's alright but don't make up some bullshit why the world has hindered you to beat this game. It's what women do. Do you honestly think that you are the only one having problems at a certain boss? Do you honestly think that you are the only one who doesn't seem to grasp Stage 3? No, i'm sorry. You are not special. Get your shit together like everyone else and keep focus.

Truth. It is always your own fault. No exceptions.

[O. Van Bruce]

As usual.
Some will congrat him and some guys will shit him in the face for even posting that he has cleared it with such a bad score.

But that would be boring

I'm expecting a thread in which he manipulates everyone to get 5 or 6 pages of whining about how hard it was or something like that...

[DrTrouserPlank]

I won't be getting a Futari 1cc. I gave up on that game a while back and it would take ages to get back to where I was. I got 200M and that'll have to be good enough.

[Gus]

I don't know if that will help you DTP but for my Futari 1.5 Original 1CC the following things have helped me.

- NEVER, absolutely NEVER restart. Not even on Level 1. Restarting is a thing for good players who fuck up 1/100th time. It's not a tool for people that lack general skills (that is you if you fuck up on stage 1.... even by accident). The more you play the better. You need to learn the flow of the game and constant restarting destroys that.

You can get away with this if you're just going for a cheesy 1cc on something like 1.5 Original but restarting was actually VERY common for me when I was going for decent scores in Futari. I wouldn't restart if I just missed a small amount of points but there's definitely places where dying in the wrong place can fuck up your score to the point where it's not worth it to keep trying. This is especially true in 1.5 Orignal/Ultra with the whole stage counter system and BL Original where it's all about getting your overall counter to 100k and keeping it there.

- Mostly do FULL RUNS! Use practice mode on some tough bosses and if you have to learn a stage in the beginning but always keep in mind: It doesn't fucking matter that you can no miss the whole game in training mode. Noone cares. The full run where your heart beats fast and you get the chills when you are in stage 5 with 4 lives ("the possible 1CC") is where it counts. You will fuck up at the beginning. I remember that the first time i had 4 lives in stage 5 i died 3 fucking times in FIRST 30 seconds. Yes. A lot of psychological aspects will influence your game on a full run and you ABSOLUTELY need this experience to get better.
I can no miss/no bomb the 3rd boss in training mode about 1/3rd of the time. In a real run i will die 100%. Sounds illogical but it isn't. You need full run experience which includes the flow of the game.

This is dumb. Yes, it does matter if you can no-miss the game in training because you're never going to have a shot at no-missing in a full run until you can do that. The thing about nerves is true to an extent but that goes away once you've gotten to that section a few times and practicing until you know exactly what you need to do to handle that situation and can do it consistently can definitely help. Just remember all that matters is what happens in that 1 great run. Nobody cares about all those hours you spent playing like shit and botching left and right.

- Discipline: Play regularly and concentrated! Do your 3-5 Full run credits every day. Even if you are tired, angry or scared (because you don't seem to improve or larsa is just impossible) do your 3 credits with full concentration. EVERY DAY WITHOUT QUESTION! Through repetition comes greatness.

It's a good idea to play hard and play often but it doesn't have to be full runs. I spend most of my time just doing stage practice.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Looking at two runs I just did back to back on UD (both ended on 1-4 because it's fucking ridiculous and the rank is a shithole) I don't think I ever have a single run that doesn't make me rage. It's definitely a result of the difficulty though, or what I believe is wholly unreasonable difficulty combined with rank just in case you are doing too well; can't have that now can we (as if these games aren't stupid enough on default).

I almost always turn the machine off feeling pretty pissed off.

Are people seriously telling me they don't experience this on the majority of attempts?

[Thjodbjorn]

I don't think I've ever gotten angry at a shmup. I'm also not any good, but I'm okay with that. I HAVE, however, had my mood dampened by Mega Man on multiple occasions.

[Erppo]

I don't think I've ever gotten angry at a shmup.

Pretty much this. Why would I play games that make me angry? I play shmups because I enjoy playing shmups.

[Gus]

I don't think I've ever gotten angry at a shmup.

Pretty much this. Why would I play games that make me angry? I play shmups because I enjoy playing shmups.

I actually have a completely different view. I get frustrated/angry as much as anyone and have loads of shitruns. To me it's what happens after that, whether you just quit or keep going regardless of how long it takes to get a decent run that really separates the dreamers from the achievers.

[iconoclast]

I don't necessarily get angry at shooters, but I am quick to drop some expletives whenever I die in an otherwise good run. Especially if it means you'll have no chance at hitting the score you're aiming for. (But if people define rage as controller-smashing anger, then yeah, I don't rage either.)

DTP, it does suck that the rank offset does absolutely nothing in UD's training mode (on a side note, I think the rank setting works on the second loop stages), but you can try using a replay to memorize where the extra enemies comes in from. A lot of the adds aren't much of a threat, so find the problem areas and see how they're dealt with.

[O. Van Bruce]

The only shmup that have made me rage in desperation is Ketsui... besides that I allways go, "Oh Well", put another credit and start again...

[Deca]

I've found that over the years of playing I get less and less angry at games. I think anger mostly comes from being hit and not understanding why. Lately when I get hit I'm mostly thinking about how I can not get hit next time.

No lie though I was getting pretty furious at DDP back before I had the 1-all.

[DrTrouserPlank]

I think I'm going to have to accept that I'm not gonna clear it and stop playing because it's pissing me off no end. Every single time I end up turning the machine off in annoyance.

It's just too fucking difficult and there's no escaping that. I've tried everything and I've already wasted so much time on it and Christ knows how much more it could take to clear it. I could be here 'til fucking Christmas and still not have managed it.

[Obscura]

I've found that over the years of playing I get less and less angry at games. I think anger mostly comes from being hit and not understanding why. Lately when I get hit I'm mostly thinking about how I can not get hit next time.

No lie though I was getting pretty furious at DDP back before I had the 1-all.

This is like the exact opposite of my experience in life; the better I am at a task, the more pissed off I am when I fuck it up.

Which really scares me as to what my blood pressure would be like if I was actually any good at shmups, since I definitely rage a ton.

[Sapz]

I've found that as I improve, mistakes become both more prominent (i.e. easier to understand why it happened/feeling like more of a moron for letting it happen) and less annoying. I imagine the lower irritation as people play more is due to a feeling of greater control over the errors.

[Eaglet]

Sapz: Well spoken, as always.

I also represent the "not angry" club.
Chances are i'll probably be laughing at the absurdity of some stupid mistake if anything.