13th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - Results

[KAI]

Spoiler

[chempop]

Changing the subject a little, why is Strikers1945pt2 considered the best in the series and the best overall Psikyo game?
Not saying it isn't, just wondering why people tend to vote for it over the rest of the Psikyo library.

[qmish]

is it? would never thought that

[Hagane]

Because most people don't play the rest of their games much. It being one of the least Psikyo games Psikyo did probably has something to do with that; it has very little in the way of proximity mechanics.

To me it's one of their weakest games, well below gems like Dragon Blaze (definitely the best), Sengoku Blade, Zero Gunner 2, etc.

[Stevens]

Changing the subject a little, why is Strikers1945pt2 considered the best in the series and the best overall Psikyo game?
Not saying it isn't, just wondering why people tend to vote for it over the rest of the Psikyo library.

Psikyo needs more love in general. Zero Gunner 2 is a wonderfully unique experience compared to the rest of their library. If it has a flaw it is that you can get behind 3 of the first 4 bosses and kill them with minimal risk to yourself.

Wish more people played it.

[Plasmo]

I get the feeling that people want to have some variety in their voting to make it look more reasonable and Strikers II is the obligatory Psikyo game you randomly name? Just a wild guess.

Besides this, Strikers II really is a good game. The whole Psikyo library needs to get a lot more attention. I never understood the bad reputation of it.

[pestro87]

Changing the subject a little, why is Strikers1945pt2 considered the best in the series and the best overall Psikyo game?
Not saying it isn't, just wondering why people tend to vote for it over the rest of the Psikyo library.

Psikyo needs more love in general. Zero Gunner 2 is a wonderfully unique experience compared to the rest of their library. If it has a flaw it is that you can get behind 3 of the first 4 bosses and kill them with minimal risk to yourself.

Wish more people played it.

Ok now I'm getting pumped, I currently have a copy of Zero Gunner 2 on its way Kinda bought it on a whim tbh.

Speaking of Psikyo, I was also a bit surprised to see Gunbird 2 drop from Top 25 into HM.

[qmish]

Sengoku Ace* needs more love (Sengoku Blade already gets a bit more)!

*and Video System's Sonic Wings 2

[Lyv]

Strikers 1945 II is a good game, but clearly not Psikyo's best. I'd say it's the best of the Strikers series: first loop is quite accessible, nice graphics with some variety, interesting bullet patterns. It even has *gasp* some actually decent music.

No way in hell it's better than Dragon Blaze or Gunbird 2 though.

[chum]

I think Batrider is way more difficult and unforgiving, like two totally different worlds, than Garegga if you use a team. On the other hand if you are playing a solo character then they are pretty similar

Try scoring high with a team in Batrider you will cry because it is about as hardcore as it gets. It's long as shit, there's little room for errors and you can game over at any moment, tricks and difficulties everywhere, rank goes through the roof and you are in dire need of luck in several places. I think if Batrider is not seen as hardcore then there aren't any hardcore STG period.

And by high I mean high, great players reach into the high 20s, noone around here is anywhere near that.

[chempop]

Chum, I hear what you're saying, no one is saying Batrider isn't zomghardcore. I respect your opinion because you are speaking from experience, something that doesn't happen a lot around here
There is an abundance of variety that comes into play with Batrider for sure, especially when taking into account how you need certain players alive during parts of the game to unlock the special bosses. It has probably has the most depth compared to any other shmup, that's pretty incredible.

I tend to think about more than just the depth when comparing it to Garegga. For instance, it came out 2 years later and is a bit of a mash-up/all stars for Raizing, which means that a good chunk of it is borrowed from it's predecessor, namely Garegga and Mahou. When I ask, "What are the most iconic zomghardcore icons in shooting games?", two things come to mind instantly, the Hibachi fights from DDP series and the Blackheart/Glowsquid double whammy at the end of Garegga.

Regarding Strikers1945pt2 popularity, it's interesting to think that it's just the most commonly go-to Psikyo game, maybe because of the style and simplicity compared to GB2 and DragonBlaze. Personally, one of my favorite things about Strikers1945pt1 (and GB1 for that matter) is the pixel art of the bosses, it is quite nice and obviously lacking (non-existant) in the sequels. I also prefer how the charge shot doesn't require meter, but I can see how most people might feel differently about that.

[Rob]

Changing the subject a little, why is Strikers1945pt2 considered the best in the series and the best overall Psikyo game?
Not saying it isn't, just wondering why people tend to vote for it over the rest of the Psikyo library.

No fruity theme. War, planes. Not pretty in the real world, but classic for shumps.
Charge bars so there is more ship variety and minimal waiting to unleash a secondary attack. A Psikyo game should not have a man waiting for anything.
Doesn't stop being a shooter for close-range walloping (Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze are awesome, but...).
Patterns that evolved from the waves of dotted arcs of early games, but never turns into anything resembling the slow drifting sludge of a Cave game.
Minimal scoring system, but still satisfying grabbing flashing gold bars. Greed is good - to an extent.

The Psikyo game for moderates and connoisseurs.

[Strikers1945guy]

Changing the subject a little, why is Strikers1945pt2 considered the best in the series and the best overall Psikyo game?
Not saying it isn't, just wondering why people tend to vote for it over the rest of the Psikyo library.

No fruity theme. War, planes. Not pretty in the real world, but classic for shumps.
Charge bars so there is more ship variety and minimal waiting to unleash a secondary attack. A Psikyo game should not have a man waiting for anything.
Doesn't stop being a shooter for close-range walloping (Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze are awesome, but...).
Patterns that evolved from the waves of dotted arcs of early games, but never turns into anything resembling the slow drifting sludge of a Cave game.
Minimal scoring system, but still satisfying grabbing flashing gold bars. Greed is good - to an extent.

The Psikyo game for moderates and connoisseurs.

All of this. My favorite in the series by far. Lots of people seem to enjoy the Strikers series but the Gunbird series is just as good, needs way more love. Gunbird 2 > most cave games any day.

[Eaglet]

chum, I disagree with them being similar in difficulty when using a solo character.
As I said before; the margin for error when it comes to high scoring in Garegga is much tighter as the tricks in and of themselves are a lot harder.
Batrider is more lenient in the execution part of scoring but RNG may play an even bigger factor. At least it feels like that to me.
I would say that they're overall pretty similar in difficulty when high level play is considered, just that more stuff is left up to pure luck in Batrider.

[Stevens]

The other thing I dig about Psikyo is that while some of their games share minor differences the mechanics across many of them are similar. Gunbird 2 has melee and Dragon Blaze has dragon shot, but they share the charge/bomb mechanics from Strikers.

Makes it relatively easy to go from game to game. Also Gunbird 2's theme is awesome. Makes me want another Skies of Arcadia.

Ok now I'm getting pumped, I currently have a copy of Zero Gunner 2 on its way Kinda bought it on a whim tbh.

You won't be disappoint, it's excellent. Particularly the last three stages - Stage 5 is aces.

A heads up though - It seems to be unplayable on NTSC Dreamcasts if you're booting the game with a gameshark CDX. The game boots initially, but after a stage or so it will either freeze or hard reset the system. I've tested it with two different DC consoles.

I don't know if it is a CDX thing, or if it is just unplayable on NTSC consoles. Can't speak for a mod chipped NTSC DC.

[chempop]

I've use DC-X with Zerogunner 2 just fine. Also, I just looked at mine and saw the 'electronics boutique' sticker and it made me sad.

[Plasmo]

chum, I disagree with them being similar in difficulty when using a solo character.
As I said before; the margin for error when it comes to high scoring in Garegga is much tighter as the tricks in and of themselves are a lot harder.
Batrider is more lenient in the execution part of scoring but RNG may play an even bigger factor. At least it feels like that to me.
I would say that they're overall pretty similar in difficulty when high level play is considered, just that more stuff is left up to pure luck in Batrider.

I find Batrider Advanced with a team to be much more difficult than Garegga. But the last I have played more. Maybe it evens out?

I'd still agree with chum more or less.

[Stevens]

I've use DC-X with Zerogunner 2 just fine. Also, I just looked at mine and saw the 'electronics boutique' sticker and it made me sad.

Why do they all have similar names? Jeez..

I meant this one:

https://www.google.com/search?q=dc+x+dr ... +dreamcast

Must be an issue with the Gameshark.

[Eaglet]

Sure, Batrider Advanced is harder to see through an entire run of since rank needs to be more tightly controlled = higher risk of game overing early on a stupid mistake or bullshit. More bosses with more luckshit RNG also means that getting a great scoring run together is harder to predict than in Garegga.
But considering really high play; the perfection that you have to achieve in the gameplay itself is much stricter in Garegga. Dropping your bombs on the birds/bosses with your timing off by a couple of frames or pixels or failing to destroy tiny specific boss parts with the right shot type will make a huge difference in the end score.

I think what my point is that what you actually have to do, given the opportunity (RNG) is easier in Batrider than in Garegga.

[chum]

chum, I disagree with them being similar in difficulty when using a solo character.
As I said before; the margin for error when it comes to high scoring in Garegga is much tighter as the tricks in and of themselves are a lot harder.
Batrider is more lenient in the execution part of scoring but RNG may play an even bigger factor. At least it feels like that to me.
I would say that they're overall pretty similar in difficulty when high level play is considered, just that more stuff is left up to pure luck in Batrider.

mm I don't care to debate solo characters, it may be as you said, I don't know. Basic things like hitbox difference of your fighter and medals, batriders bomb invulnerability, it does make it friendlier too. I think scoring with Car-Pet in Batrider was easier than Gain in Garegga at least, sure, but maybe It's cause I didn't play Garegga very much. My point is just about team play, it is pretty much near the top of the ladder as far as I'm concerned, definitely don't underestimate the tricks/optimizations/milking difficulties or how tight it is to meet quotas! In a full team run (which is over an hour long) there is no time to rest, everything depends on everything you do in every section of the game, it's all made up of things you cannot afford to lose many points in or make a bigger mistake like dying is obviously just prohibited. Luck is just the cream of shitcake, It's HARD as balls to do things well and not fuck up at all even if luck goes your way. I can't even think of following a WR tier route in Batrider it would absolutely drive me insane to even try and it would be a life commitment to ever finish a run

[Eaglet]

I know exactly what you're saying! And i agree. But i honestly think doing the same thing in Garegga (following a WR tier route) is just as, if not harder, since Garegga WR-players in general are "better" (which is only logical considering they've been playing it for two more years than would've been possible for Batrider players).
What you say is true and also the reason I've been putting off Batrider for so long. What with meeting all of the point quotas and sticking to your "extend plan" rigidly. There's a lot more room for frustration in Batrider. I think the biggest difference is that there's more planning stretching over the course of the entire game in Bat than in Garegga.

[qmish]

what questions me, how Garegga managed to be #1 when not-so-few people completely disqualify it because of "bad visual design" aka "i dont see any bullets here help"

[chum]

In the end It's hard to actively compared the two on these points because nobody is good enough at Batrider in my opinion, I developed a decent understanding of it, but since I mainly played Carpet, there's a lot I have almost no experience with (Like the WR version of BH2 milking, very finnicky when I tried, but not enough experience to tell how hard it is when you've sunk in the hours) and I don't know how many people understand Garegga to the degree that you do, I have a pretty cursory experience of Garegga unfortunately, and this is anecdotal but it might be intersting:

Car-Pet Solo in Batrider: I found it pretty easy to use what I've learned to make progress. It went pretty fast to learn the strats and, although I never perfected the optimization game at all, I could play at an acceptable level, relatively quickly, after learning it all. It's a pretty twitchy game compared to most of Garegga though (which gets twitchy near the end mostly) and that's a playstyle I'm used to.

Gain in Garegga: I gave up way sooner. At first I wanted to learn to get 16 or even 17 million but it turned out to be harder than expected. Realistically, I thought that the difficulty of reaching between 16 and 17 million, was more like what it is in reality to get maybe 15 million. To some that might not seem like a big difference but I really did underestimate the amount of care you need to put in to learn Garegga at this level. And considering a very optimized run is more than 20 million that still wouldn't be closed to a world class run.

So I can see what you are saying too but my experience is way too lacking to have any faith in any of what I'm saying about Garegga XD

BUT: In Garegga, I could make it further more often, without losing too many points on the way or game overing. As long as those fucking birds didn't go terribly I could often make it pretty far. Not so in Batrider, Game overs or resets happened anywhere for any reason. And that's with Solo Car-Pet. Turn the reset-dial up to 11 for Team runs!

[chum]

what questions me, how Garegga managed to be #1 when not-so-few people completely disqualify it because of "bad visual design" aka "i dont see any bullets here help"

On the contrary it has some of the best visual design in this whole genre. Sure, visual obstructions you don't get in most other "well liked" games (Cave games) can be hard to get used to, but get over that and just look at the game and it is absolutely immense teh amount of details in it.

[d0s]

A heads up though - It seems to be unplayable on NTSC Dreamcasts if you're booting the game with a gameshark CDX. The game boots initially, but after a stage or so it will either freeze or hard reset the system. I've tested it with two different DC consoles.

I don't know if it is a CDX thing, or if it is just unplayable on NTSC consoles. Can't speak for a mod chipped NTSC DC.

It's just a CDX thing, my JP copy works with DC-X and Utopia fine.

edit:

On the contrary it has some of the best visual design in this whole genre. Sure, visual obstructions you don't get in most other "well liked" games (Cave games) can be hard to get used to, but get over that and just look at the game and it is absolutely immense teh amount of details in it.

Word, another reason it was on my list, it's a fucking gorgeous game with great atmosphere and to me that counts for something

[chempop]

Turn the reset-dial up to 11 for Team runs!

Haha seriously! I'm getting stressed out just thinking about it, maybe 75% of my runs ended on stage 2

[qmish]

On the contrary it has some of the best visual design in this whole genre. Sure, visual obstructions you don't get in most other "well liked" games (Cave games) can be hard to get used to, but get over that and just look at the game and it is absolutely immense teh amount of details in it.

Yeah, sorry i needed some other words to what i was referring to. Like "infographics" maybe

p.s.
Though i still consider Batrider being one of pinnacles of graphics in shmups Especially those bosses with several "legs"

[Eaglet]

I agree and would say the same thing about Garegga honestly. I feel like my understanding and playing of it has "leveled up" considerably the last couple of months (since i started playing other ships) but the WR level of playing is still pretty much unfathomable for me. The amount of effort you have to put in improving from a 15 to a 16 million score (Gain) is pretty great and only increases exponentially the higher up you go.

I'd say your anecdote is pretty relevant though and illustrates a great point. Batrider is without a doubt the more approachable game. Most tricks in it are honestly not that obtuse and hard to figure out on your own after a couple of credits since i think what you need to do to score on bosses (because Batrider has no Birds equivalent) is better communicated visually than in Garegga.

Batrider seems to me (limited experience with the game mind you) like krav maga or some other form of direct and aggressive martial art where Garegga is more like a swordmaker tempering a sword to utter perfection where the tiniest of details and care makes all of the difference. The games seem to play very differently to me if you go a bit deeper than what's presented on the surface.

Last part i know and agree with! Whenever I've played Batrider I've always tried to score well, milk bosses etc. and i don't know how many runs have game overed on stage 2...
Garegga is too easy on survival for that to happen to the same extent. At least pre stage 6.


Also; Garegga is without a doubt the best looking shooter ever made.

edit: sorry if i'm not making much sense. My brain is pretty mush atm.

[LordHypnos]

If it has a flaw it is that you can get behind 3 of the first 4 bosses and kill them with minimal risk to yourself.

FWIW, I find this to be immensely satisfying for some reason. It's not like you can just camp or something, you have to follow the boss' sometimes erratic movements around the screen. Not that it's especially risky to, but you know, you gotta keep moving, at least.

[Stevens]

Haha. I would be lying if I said I didn't abuse the shit out of it myself.