Easier = Better

[MathU]

One of the things I've always thought was a big improvement in Raiden DX is the difficulty pacing. Raiden II has a big difficulty spike in the second and third stages and DX flattens the curve better.

[DMC]

If you want the games to be easier, MathU, I recommend 30hz autofire.

[MathU]

Bad idea when games aren't balanced around it. In fact one of the games in my opening post is a great example. If people find the Japan version of Image Fight too intense, they should give the World release a try first rather than jump straight to turbo rapidfire which sucks a massive amount of depth out of both games. The World release is a much more balanced and fair game. Image Fight is actually a rather unique game in the way that it asks the player to master all of its mechanics in order to win, but if you play it with impossibly fast rapidfire you can simply ignore a lot of them. For example, you'll never need to ram your ship into an enemy for massive damage while sacrificing your power-up with the huge firepower you have with turbo rapidfire, but it's a very useful tactic in several areas of the game without it.

[DMC]

I agree to some extent about the impossible part.
Maybe 12hz would be a better standard, and if one wants to fire faster than that one has to develop Master Takahashi skills (example A & B).

Game design aside, it feels good though in some games using 30hz to blow up enemies like flies. Maybe in more casual sessions.

On topic, I think Pink Sweets arrange was a nice easy introduction to regular Pink sweets. And the Saturn mode of Radiant Silvergun was a nice introduction to the arcade mode (weapon levels carrying over across credits).

[copy-paster]

Recently I tried out Raiden II Easy version on MAME and I find the difficulty is somehow more organic than the original. Changes from this version afaik are:

- Bosses have slightly less health, making it faster speedkill
- Enemies have different spawn locations across all stages
- More powerup carrier spawn

I would not mind clearing it if I feel ready. This should be the real version of Raiden II (not counting DX because it's a different game), original is too hard even the first stage mid-type enemies are thrown too early in this. I also wonder whether this version is official build or not, given it got Japan, US, Korea set.

[DDDP]

All I care about -- and maybe there's already a different term for this aspect of shmups -- is a high skill ceiling. The default mode, the Normal mode, etc can be "easy" as long as a player still has extremely skillful maneuvers they call pull off in a meaningful way. Commonplace example I've seen mentioned is Esp trilogy, where each game offers a powerful soaking / cancelling / slowdown ability of some sort that allows the player to immediately deal with bullets. Yet in my time with each of these games, these same mechanics can be milked for high score and extra-difficult bullet patterns.

If a game is easy for the sake of accessibility, that kinda defeats the purpose of the genre, which is to provide a compact, challenging auto-scaling experience that takes a lot of effort to beat in one try. I mean, the game could have cool bullet cancels or cool art style but if there's no challenge to use these skills then what's the point?

[xxx1993]

I've been considering playing R-Type Final 2 on either Practice or Kids mode when I get it because I think the difficulty is just too much. I have a friend who was playing it on Normal mode but he struggled through Stage 4.0 and lasted until Stage 7.1 where he finally lost it all. Took him like 30 credits.

[MJR]

Some people often seem to confuse badly tuned gameplay balance as "hard = bad". Challenge is not bad. Unfairness and stupid difficulty spikes are. In any case, player should be blaming himself for failing, when the game is well made.

Ps. See you in the hiscore section..

[MJR]

I try to think if there is anything useful I can contribute for the OP; I got one

After I installed an switchable autofire circuit to my jamma cab, some of the games have become much less pain to play at;
Namely Star Force, Truxton, Saint Dragon and Blazing Star (Playing with Hellhound is a real joy now!)

I don't see it as a change to game's difficulty though, more like a quality-of-life improvement.

[copy-paster]

All I care about -- and maybe there's already a different term for this aspect of shmups -- is a high skill ceiling. The default mode, the Normal mode, etc can be "easy" as long as a player still has extremely skillful maneuvers they call pull off in a meaningful way. Commonplace example I've seen mentioned is Esp trilogy, where each game offers a powerful soaking / cancelling / slowdown ability of some sort that allows the player to immediately deal with bullets. Yet in my time with each of these games, these same mechanics can be milked for high score and extra-difficult bullet patterns.

If a game is easy for the sake of accessibility, that kinda defeats the purpose of the genre, which is to provide a compact, challenging auto-scaling experience that takes a lot of effort to beat in one try. I mean, the game could have cool bullet cancels or cool art style but if there's no challenge to use these skills then what's the point?

I don't think shmups have to be hard as fuck like you said, and Esp series are "casual-oriented" by design with the bullet cancel and slow mechanic. IMO there are two types of hard games: one because it's genuinely challenging and one because it's filled with cheap stuff for the wrong reason. It could be either bad controls, piss poor AI, unresponsive mechanic, wrong difficulty spike placement, etc.

[gray117]

Fun or not fun.

It's a thin line with difficulty, but these days I think the main thing is to provide some form of option/config.

I've had a all the fun with many shmups I can't 1cc... But after bashing my head against a controller for a few hours it'd be cool to have fun with the rest of the game.

Similarly I'm sure the better players appreciate any 'quality of life improvements' when they're trying to refine their play no matter the 'difficulty' in survival terms of any game.

I was always put off buying something I thought I was unlikely to ever be able to play through... And I think some short sightedness there during the rise of the home console did contribute to the perception of shmups being seen as either impossible or very short games...

[Rastan78]

I try to think if there is anything useful I can contribute for the OP; I got one

After I installed an switchable autofire circuit to my jamma cab, some of the games have become much less pain to play at;
Namely Star Force, Truxton, Saint Dragon and Blazing Star (Playing with Hellhound is a real joy now!)

I don't see it as a change to game's difficulty though, more like a quality-of-life improvement.

If ever there was a game that's more playable and fun with auto it's Blazing Star. With the Dino 135 ship you need to mash rapidly to simply lock your options at the desired angle. Recommended to use a speed less than 30hz as the slowdown in this game will cause 30hz to drop out intermittently.

As far as easy vs. hard gameplay I like games like Blazing Star, Battle Bakraid, Darius Gaiden etc where the basic survival clear is fairly accessible and then the scoring layer tends to be much more unforgiving or complex. Sort of leaves it up to the player how deep they want to dig into it.