Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[endoKarb]

Playing when excessively tired is a recipe for disaster. I am occasionally guilty of it myself.

I have a hard time recalling the last time I played *not* exhausted

[horaceappleton]

I think I now have the Western record in Phantasmagoria Trues Advanced.

It's not a clear.

[Shepardus]

I'm getting 10-11 mil from Axebeak a lot more consistently now

...yeah no.

Every time I think I've got a consistent way of timing and positioning my bombs my plan stops working for me. In the past hour I don't think I've gotten it a single time without using savestates.

[trap15]

Axebeak's a bit random so you need to come up with a general strategy and play it by ear on each credit. If you are using savestates, the randomness is fixed, so your strat may not work outside of that specific RNG seed.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^ tfw you spend a billion hours practicing a route on a late game boss only to find out he has a random seed decided prior to the stage.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Well, since Gradius V's out on PSN, I've started playing that some. I'll eventually make it past stage 2... Eventually. Hell, I might even beat the first boss without running into its lasers! Just maybe! Directional options + Laser seems to work out pretty well (maybe a little TOO well for some spots), but I suppose I should try out the other options as well.

[Jonst]

A bit more under defeat. Made it into stage 5 again, also beat my previous high score and made it to the first plane/boss, so pretty pleased! But realized it was virtually blind. I don't know the stage that well so didn't know the correct technique to take it out quickly, I almost did it... Sure makes a difference playing when not tired, still, a stupid mistake on stage 3 took s life which would have come in handy, I reckon I could have at least made it to the flying tanks. Still, it was the encourgement needed to carry on playing the game...

[Shepardus]

I'm getting 10-11 mil from Axebeak a lot more consistently now

...yeah no.

Every time I think I've got a consistent way of timing and positioning my bombs my plan stops working for me. In the past hour I don't think I've gotten it a single time without using savestates.

So it turns out I was consistently dropping my first bomb on Axebeak way too early, and forcing myself to drop it a little later is getting me a greater success rate. When I was streaming Bakraid on Tuesday I was dropping the bomb too late, and it seems that in correcting that over time I pushed the timing back too early without noticing until I compared my attempts to the stream footage. Funny how things like that can happen.

[trap15]

That definitely sounds like learning Axebeak to me

[Ghegs]

Only halfway a shmup, but still...I just finished The Guardian Legend on the NES. It's entertaining at first, but then it became a bit boring because there's very little challenge except for very few specific situations. There's no point to having 12 different weapons if I don't even need to use them 90% of the time, I did quite fine using just the normal weapon except for maybe four boss fights. The shooter sections are poorly designed - thanks to the large hitbox you're bound to take hits every now and then (constantly in the late game), but enemies drop health and ammo pick-ups at a steady rate, even during boss fights, so it's quite easy most of the time. The graphics are nice, but the enemies and bosses are re-used many, many times, up until the very end.

The concept is fun, and I guess it's the concept what people are thinking of when they praise the game, but the execution needs to be a lot tighter before I'd consider this a classic. Seems like many people on the Interwebs think this is the greatest game on the system. Boggles the mind. A solid remake of the game could be pretty dang sweet, though.

[BIL]

A solid remake of the game could be pretty dang sweet, though.

Armchair dev corner: I've always thought a shooter/adventure hybrid that gave reasonable assistance for base survival, but acknowledged superior players with cooler gear, higher accolades and nails-hard optional courses (awarding even better gear and plaudits, natch - gotta catch 'em all!) might wake up a few latent STG fans. I'm long past the point of caring but I'd still be interested to see the mainstream reaction to a reasonably well-produced attempt. Assuming it's not happened and failed horribly already, haha.

TGL's high repute among NES enthusiasts both back at release and now reminds me a lot of River City Ransom's. Memorably novel and quite competent arcade/home genre fusion that's by no means bad, but is nowhere near the best shooter (or brawler) on the machine or even from its developer, and consequently a little oversung today.

[Squire Grooktook]

Only halfway a shmup, but still...I just finished The Guardian Legend on the NES.

^^^I didn't have most of those problems. I found myself using all the weapons frequently to maximize survival and completely avoid damage (ie use the big fire ball as cover, switch to laser to speedkill things, switch back when bullet erasure is needed again, etc.). It's true that you tank a lot of damage late game, but it always felt at least theoretically avoidable to me. I wouldn't call it quite repetitive either, since things do ramp up later IMO. My biggest complaint about the game, I guess, is that it doesn't nail that arcade style tension. Maybe Demon's Souls-esque checkpoint length would go a long way to getting the best of both worlds.

But yeah, it really comes down to the concept. As far as shmup adventure hybrids go, its pretty fun and I don't think anybody else has done the concept as well. A proper remake or sequel/spiritual successor could be pretty damn rad, I always felt it was a shame that nobody ever seemed to want to explore the concept more. You'd think the euroshmup peeps would go nuts for making something like that, but I guess it proves how bad their taste is that they'd rather make a Tyrian clone then a TLG clone :/

Aesthetically, the game is also pretty nice too: Great music, cool setting, nice pixel art, cute robot girl, etc.

[BIL]

A year or so ago, I read at GameFAQs that for the majority of your lifebar you actually have a much bigger hitbox than when you're in the red - the typical shieldbox/hitbox dynamic, in other words. I've not played since and of course a grain of salt is in order, but I thought that sounded interesting. It's definitely a big bugger the vast majority of the time.

[LordHypnos]

Against my better judgement, I've mostly been playing Mars Matrix this week. I gotta say, in spite of 95+% of the game being totally static, and the fact that I have the entire thing memorized backward and forward, It still takes like a hundred tries to actually get in a clear. Feel like I should be posting in the triumphs thread every time .

Also, I never get tired of facing the final boss.

EDIT: MM keeps track of the total number of points you've scored on a save file (though I don't think it saves restarted scores). Mine's 87,779,974,910,075 lol.

[endoKarb]

I'm still playing DaiOuJou and I feel the same exact way.
It's incredible how hard it is to get everything down consistently, despite having memorized and practiced every single section dozens and dozens of times.

[LordHypnos]

Went back to Under Defeat for the first time in a few days, and after a few bad credits managed to actually no miss the first two stages! Finally! I had a decent number of bombs left, too. maybe four...?

[Jonst]

^ nice one LH! You can do it! As much as I'm loving ud at the moment, I'm finding it really frustrating as I'd suspected requiring a no miss run at least until late into stage 4, which I've managed once or twice... But, damn i've got no consistency at it!

[Stevens]

Nice work guys. Keep at it!

My runs to 2-5 are almost becoming a regular thing. I'm pretty sure I haven't no missed to 2-5 yet, but I have a bunch of no miss runs to the control tower.

EDIT - Amazing what 30 minutes in practice will get you. I just had around 10 runs where I nmnb the 2-3 boss. Thanks Kiken! Your 2 ALL video was what did it. This will go a long way to helping me clear the 2nd loop:D

Went back to Under Defeat for the first time in a few days, and after a few bad credits managed to actually no miss the first two stages! Finally! I had a decent number of bombs left, too. maybe four...?

That is great! Those no miss runs will start to become more frequent and before you know it you'll know 1-1 and 1-2 like Mars Matrix.

^ nice one LH! You can do it! As much as I'm loving ud at the moment, I'm finding it really frustrating as I'd suspected requiring a no miss run at least until late into stage 4, which I've managed once or twice... But, damn i've got no consistency at it!

Keep at it Jonst. In my opinion stage 3 is the hardest overall. You'll get it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

A year or so ago, I read at GameFAQs that for the majority of your lifebar you actually have a much bigger hitbox than when you're in the red - the typical shieldbox/hitbox dynamic, in other words.

This is actually true when your shield is completely empty and is easily testable in the first corridor shmup segment. I don't know if it holds true for the walking segments, but you can easily see this against the floating blue orbs that soak up shots and do massive damage on contact. Let one drift next to you so that it's touching the upper left or upper right portion of the shield. As soon as your shield hits 0 (and you always seem to drop to 0 shields before your next hit kills you), you will notice that as long as it doesn't touch the body of the ship it doesn't damage you. Essentially, your 'lifebar' is actually a meter for your shield, and then when empty, you're a one hit kill. Your hitbox for the body of the ship is still fairly large though.

Ghegs - have you played the TGL Mode bonus game? It's very fun, and the lack of resources compared to the main game makes it trickier to succeed. I think the reason I find it so much fun compared to other lifebar shmups is that you can very quickly swing between near death and full health (more health items seem to appear when you are low on health). The large hitbox is compensated by the dizzying array of weapons, many of which can be used to cancel enemy attacks (the Enemy Eraser is best for recovering health by spamming it repeatedly - enemy death explosions can be 'killed' again by firing it repeatedly, quickly producing a large number of items).

It is of course quite easy by shmup standards, but it's more interesting and enjoyable to play than something like Tyrian, which is either too easy in the standard difficulty modes, or simply unbalanced to the point of unplayability in the harder modes (particularly the secret ones, popcorn enemies are bullet sponges, your hitbox is too big for the sheer curtain fire, etc). You could easily make some small adjustments like having only 3 to 5 shield 'segments' instead of a long meter and turn it into a nice challenge. A modernized remake of Guardic Gaiden with some of its weaker elements polished would be nice to see.

[BIL]

Oh yeah, forgot all about TGL (or ALG / Another Legend of Guardic, as the FC ver calls it). It's why I have the game in my collection, and on reflection it's why comparing it to RCR isn't quite fair. You really couldn't make a very compelling "arcade mode" out of that one, where TGL's a surprisingly involving trip.

Thanks for the detailed confirmation on the shield, I was hoping I hadn't misread/misremembered!

(and you always seem to drop to 0 shields before your next hit kills you)

I definitely noticed this. Alien Soldier does the same thing, incidentally - no matter how massive the attack that put you into flashing red HP is, it can't bypass that last hitpoint. You're dead meat after that. Smart use of player assist, I think. Makes it less likely you'll get obliterated something you've not seen before, and can lead to some riveting comebacks.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I finally got a chance to try out Futari BL Another Ver.

colour_thief's kitten was helping


On the whole my runs were embarrassingly entertaining and consisted of me dying constantly with bombs in stock in Original, only to miss the 1UP and fail at Larsa with literally like two pixels left on her lifebar. I had an even sadder Maniac run where I went into Stage 5 with no deaths and only a couple bombs used only to literally die five times between the midboss and Larsa. Gawwwd.

It's still Black Label fun in the stages, even if the bosses are cut short a tad...

[Squire Grooktook]

Just to make one more comment on the TLG discussion: Though the adventure mode might have some flaws, I still find it way more fun to play through every now and then today then the majority of nes and super nes adventure games and action rpg's.

Anyway finally got around to giving Spriggan a try. I immediately started off setting the difficulty to "unbelievable" and was not disappointed that it's as compelling as Musha Aleste's lunatic mode. Quite liking the power up system too. Each of the three "colors" brings something different to the table, and being able to mix and match them as you please means that you can get some very different weapons and also some very finely tweaked set ups to suit your routing needs. Looking forward to spending more time with this one.

[BIL]

OT, but aren't Engrishy difficulty names great? Gunhed's "Normal Dog" is a favourite of mine, while Phalanx's "Funny" and Hellfire's "Yeah Right" vaguely offend me!

I wonder if, given JP shooters' known tendency to indulge in a little profanity, there's a "DODGE THIS YOU MOTHERFUCKER" out there.

[Stevens]

I wonder if, given JP shooters' known tendency to indulge in a little profanity, there's a "DODGE THIS YOU MOTHERFUCKER" out there.

If there isn't already I am sure an indie developer would be happy to oblige!

[Kiken]

Sticking with Mushi Futari ver 1.5 Maniac... I had a surprisingly solid run last night and despite several mistakes, got a really respectable score.

[Stevens]

Great day today - In general and as far as Under Defeat goes.

Made 2-5 several times and can now make 2-4 bombing 3 - 4 times. It helps SO MUCH not having to bomb on 2-3's boss.

I beat my old high 3 times over today topping out at 2,100,100. I could very realistically see myself starting on 1-1 and breaking 4,000,000 once I get the clear. I managed to make the final boss.

Now the wife is out (she is awesome) and there is playoff hockey to be watched. Life is good.

I

[pokemon123]

just played a bit of ibara. Really good but doesn't feel like garegga at all to me. Personally feels more like a mix of raizing and cave which makes sense.

The game is brutal but not pink sweets brutal.

[Lobinden]

^ nice one LH! You can do it! As much as I'm loving ud at the moment, I'm finding it really frustrating as I'd suspected requiring a no miss run at least until late into stage 4, which I've managed once or twice... But, damn i've got no consistency at it!

I'm in a similar situation. I have managed to get to stage 5 now, but it seems like I need to build consistency for stages 3 and 4 since stage 5 is just such a massive step up.

[Jonst]

I really need to memorise the last half of stage 4 and all of 5. Practice or training modes don't help me a great deal in terms of consistent play as it doesn't reflect how I play on a proper run. As much as I'm (mostly) enjoying ud, I don't feel the same drive that I had for progear, ketsui or mmp... Feels weird not to obsessed with clearing it!

[Lobinden]

Yeah, those turrets at the end of stage 4 will trap you in seconds if you're not ready for them. At least the stage 4 boss isn't too bad though.