Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Shepardus]

Mecha Ritz (10/10) - Helluva game, golly.

Mecha Ritz is surprisingly good for a freeware game that doesn't seem to have gotten much attention at all. I do wish there were some more info (in English) about its mechanics and unlockables, and maybe its plot.

[TotalCarnage]

I had to break out the Shooter System, AKA PC Engine. I play it on a modified DUO-R with S-Video output on a Sony Trinitron but also have a Supergrafx (1941 Counterstrike anyone?). Today it was:
-R-Type: excellent port but split on to two HuCards
-Salamander: simplistic power-up system but solid otherwise (Shoot the Core!)
-Paranoia: very original for a SHMUP. The whole game is supposed to be a projection of your mind and is surreal. There is gremlin telling you to f**k off when you complete a level!
-Kyukyoku Tiger (Twin Tiger): I play this game more than any other game on the PC Engine despite having about 100 titles. Rock solid gameplay, fantastic helicopter take off sound. I have this on the Famicom, Mega Drive and even the sequel on the Saturn but I prefer the original PC Engine version. Still waiting for that perfect play so I can finish it on a single credit.

Rock on,

Matt

[finisherr]

Went back to playing Futari a little yesterday. Forgot how good this game is.

[copy-paster]

Went back to playing Futari a little yesterday. Forgot how good this game is.

Especially Futari 1.5 when Cave fixes some issues in the game.

And I lately play Dragon Blaze, seems like Psikyo tried to flood the screen more with their fast pink and Cave-style bullet patterns onscreen, and I felt it was easier to dodge except stage 5-7.

[Kollision]

-Paranoia: very original for a SHMUP. The whole game is supposed to be a projection of your mind and is surreal. There is gremlin telling you to f**k off when you complete a level!

I played it a little last week, that creature made me giggle
Hopefully he appears as final boss or something? Need to confirm that!

[OmKol]

Finally no-missed every Soldier series game on PC Engine. Normal difficulty because it's unplayable on Expert. Gun-Nac on Expert + ricochet is enough for me (spent a week just for run with continues) -_-
My next goal - Pop 'n Twinbee, SNES. 1CC is easy on difficulty 4 so I will try difficulty 7 or something.

Kollision, any progress in Star Force?

[Kollision]

Kollision, any progress in Star Force?

Some, I guess.
I was practicing the waves before and after the bonus waves, but I had to stop because work is demanding too much of me this past week...

Besides memorizing the hard bits to survive them, the problem is getting through the worst swarms of vertical ships. On a good day I can dodge them fine, on a bad day those things eat away all my lives in a snap. One must get to the final swarm with a decent life reserve, or else it's nearly imposisble to get through.

Hopefully I'll resume the fight next weedend.

[Mischief Maker]

Cortex Command, the original indie preorder disaster.

Thought I'd give the recent build 31 a try and it's kinda growing on me. The trick was to stop thinking in terms of defeating the enemy robots directly, but think in terms of bleeding the enemy's money dry before launching my assault on the brain.

It also helps to just let the thing auto-build my bunkers for me.

It's a glitchy mess still, but in many ways a glorious mess. There's something very satisfying about hoisting a gun whose damage isn't registered in terms of abstract HP drops, but in terms of the actual holes it tears through the scenery.

[Ikazu-san]

I didn't knew Cortex Command was a shmup? Link to a mod.

[pokemon123]

raystorm, i know i'm going to get mauled for this but raystorm is a FAR better game than rayforce was. Did not like rayforce but raystorm is way more fun. I wonder how raycrisis is.

[Shepardus]

Your mistake is judging games by how much fun you have with them. That's not how we do things here. Here we rate games based on the number of tears shed per unit of time, on a scale of 1 to Dodonpachi.

[Squire Grooktook]

I do not judge games (solely) based on difficulty. Elemental Master is not too hard, but I like it quite a bit.

That being said, Rayforce is probably tied (possibly a three way) for me as the greatest shmup ever made. Raystorm is a decent game, but Rayforce is a radiant god sitting upon a towering throne made from the corpses of the inferior shmups (that is: all of them except for the other 2 it's tied with).

If you like Raystorm better, that's cool, but I hold a much different opinion. If you did not like Rayforce at all though, you probably played it wrong or not enough or something. There's no real reason to outright dislike it if you like other Taito shmups IMO.

[cave hermit]

Still chipping away at xiizeal.

This might be the first time I actually sat down with a single shmup for an extended period of time (My steam playtime of xiizeal has already exceeded that of world ignition by about 2 or 3 hours!), and hopefully I'll be able to get the 1cc soon.

I'm still practicing stage 6, which really pulls out all the stops with constant streams of popcorn enemies firing fast aimed bullets, in conjunction with waves of durable hard to kill tanks. I've been practicing this one stage for awhile now, but I'm getting much better at it, and curses (brain palace) has been hopping on via steam broadcasting to cheer me on

I can get through the entire stage fairly consistently now, but I'm working on avoiding getting hit altogether, plus I'm trying to get familar with the boss's bullet patterns in case I run out of bombs during an actual run.

It seems that stage 7 and 8 are much shorter and easier to deal with (outside of the bosses of course), so hopefully the 1CC is closer than I think!

[Stevens]

Been playing Fast Striker again along with that damn 2nd loop that I can't seem to pry myself away from OR clear again.

My last 15 runs or so have all ended on the final boss.

[pokemon123]

I think it's because raystorm feels way more frantic to me . Rayforce feels very tactical and i hate how you can only lock onto the enemies below you. I'm sure raystorm is very tactical when you score but rayforce feels tactical even for survival.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think it's because raystorm feels way more frantic to me . Rayforce feels very tactical and i hate how you can only lock onto the enemies below you. I'm sure raystorm is very tactical when you score but rayforce feels tactical even for survival.

Nope. Most of the stuff that kills you in Rayforce is extremely random (and extremely agressive), so it's more about intense reflex dodging and improvisation (ESPECIALLY in the late game) then tactics. It's by far one of the most visceral games I've ever played.

[pokemon123]

hmm maybe i should go play rayforce a bit more then. regarding the difficulty thing a few posts before, t i am TERRIBLE at rayforce while i am uh not total crap at raystorm? Weird thing is that i've heard raystorm is more difficult.

[cave hermit]

I was *THIS* close to 1cc'ing xiizeal, but I got nervous and slipped up on the last stage (which is fairly trivial as long as you pay attention to the exploding viruses that generate loose rings of bullets, and get 3 or so bombs before the final boss so you can bullet-cancel/wiggle-waggle it into oblivion without having to dodge anything).

At least I'm now #5 on the leaderboards (and this run was particularly poor score-wise, with me missing several score boosting secret routes)!

[ACSeraph]

#5 nice! I really like XII, but I've never put enough effort into it to get anywhere. I should really get back into it.

[S_Fang]

I'm playing RayStorm HD for PS3 since this week. I was really surprised that the game has english and italian's support: did they planned to release it outside japan or what?
Anyway, is really hard to kill enemies with lock-lasers, especially if they can point-blank you and too distant between them.

[Kiken]

-Paranoia: very original for a SHMUP. The whole game is supposed to be a projection of your mind and is surreal. There is gremlin telling you to f**k off when you complete a level!

I played it a little last week, that creature made me giggle
Hopefully he appears as final boss or something? Need to confirm that!

Unfortunately, there is no TLB... the game just ends after the loop 2 stage 5 boss.

Been getting back into playing DeathSmiles... although I'm screwing up royally on a bunch of basic recharges.

[Gamer707b]

Hey Stevens ,Skies Of Arcadia is an amazing RPG. I played it back in the day when the game came out. I have both the Cube and Dreamcast version ,but the Cube version does have less random battles . Enjoy.

[SMC]

I think I just got outsmarted by a boss in Samurai Aces. I swear it pretended to die just so it could get me when my guard was down. There was a big explosion and everything.

[Lobinden]

Shmups I played tonight, rated on how much fun I had (that is, how much fun I had tonight, not how much I like them in general)

G-Darius (6/10) - probably would have been a healthy 8/10 had I dug out my ps2 or ps1 copies, but I played on mame out of laziness and the input lag annoyed me a bit.
Gun Frontier (7/10) - tense, big hitbox dodging sends shivers down my spine
Suguri (6/10) - finally getting into this, though I'm dying a bit early to get really hype (see Undeadline below also)
Thunder Force IV (5/10) - Tried Maniac mode for the first time. Game overed due to enemies coming from behind me lol. Will have to memorize more.
Undeadline (6/10) - mostly played the first stage casually, enjoyed it but didn't feel like continuing after game over on the golem boss.
Elemental Master (8/10) - Mania difficulty, always a rocking time.
Darius Gaiden (7/10) - Same as above, ironically found it less intense than the above for once.
Armed Police Batrider (7/10) - Dropping medal chains when I really need an extend :'(
Mecha Ritz (10/10) - Helluva game, golly.

Playing lots of shmups on mame and comparing how much fun you had sounds like a good idea!

[Stevens]

Skies Of Arcadia

Sorry - OT.

Just got to Daccot's Island. It is incredible, and I'm asking myself (again) why I waited 15 years to experience it.

[Cee]

Just started laying einhander for the first time ever, good times.

[Ikazu-san]

Revisiting Touhou 11, the first game i went full shmup with. This time on hard.
Weird shottypes are ok. Slow movespeed is not helping. Graze powered magnet is awesome.

[pokemon123]

nevermind reversing my opinion rayforce>raystorm XD

way better looking game and man was I dumb when I said rayforce isn't frantic. It takes a while to pick up but when it does oh boy it does. I actually like being able to lock on to the enemies on the bottom better. Atmosphere is also another point to rayforce, far better and of course no weird drifting thing. Game is definitely more difficult than raystorm though. No idea how people thought that raystorm was harder. I still need to try raycrisis. From what I've heard i'll probably just play it casually. I'd rather play all the stages and even if special mode provides that I heard it is easy.

[Squire Grooktook]

You have seen the light

*cue hallelujah choir and blinding light*

[Kiken]

Currently playing Mushi Futari 1.5 on Twitch
Twitch.tv/SanshiroNaomi