Most-Overrated Shmups of All Time Discussion

[WeedyRainfall]

I personally don't like zero ranger, the weapon swapping and level design is just not my style, but the music and art design is awesome and i can see why so many people would like it

I thought that there was some depth to the game that i just wasn't seeing that was justifying the high votes, but as time goes by, it seems like zero ranger was maybe just a flash in the pan? People were saying GOAT modern shmup, but now no one seems to talk about it anymore, no one plays it for score, and i expect to see it drop out of the top 25 pretty quick

[XoPachi]

Everything starring copy/pasted waifus.

I personally don't like zero ranger, the weapon swapping and level design is just not my style, but the music and art design is awesome and i can see why so many people would like it

I thought that there was some depth to the game that i just wasn't seeing that was justifying the high votes, but as time goes by, it seems like zero ranger was maybe just a flash in the pan? People were saying GOAT modern shmup, but now no one seems to talk about it anymore, no one plays it for score, and i expect to see it drop out of the top 25 pretty quick

I've been playing this a lot lately. Personally, I like its attempt at a narrative through gripping gameplay twists. I dont think scoring was the point rather just the one time, memorable experience of a unique adventure.

[velo]

Games in the current top 25 yet to be mentioned here:

Should have the entire list covered here pretty soon, guess that was inevitable

[Stevens]

Most definitely. I played it on a whim, not knowing about its reputation at all and I was blown away in a "Holy shit, this random game is amazing" kinda way. I think it is the very best of the Blazing Lazers/Super Star Solider/Final Soldier Compile-like PC Engine games.

This was my experience with it as well. A year or so back I installed RA and the other required bits to play SSS, FSS, and SB.

And while I agree that SB is the best of the three I think all three are easily worth anyone's time.

Good, solid, no bullshit shooters. Shoot and dodge. Nothing to pick up or collect. Sometimes that is what I want.

Everything starring copy/pasted waifus.

I personally don't like zero ranger, the weapon swapping and level design is just not my style, but the music and art design is awesome and i can see why so many people would like it

I thought that there was some depth to the game that i just wasn't seeing that was justifying the high votes, but as time goes by, it seems like zero ranger was maybe just a flash in the pan? People were saying GOAT modern shmup, but now no one seems to talk about it anymore, no one plays it for score, and i expect to see it drop out of the top 25 pretty quick

I've been playing this a lot lately. Personally, I like its attempt at a narrative through gripping gameplay twists. I dont think scoring was the point rather just the one time, memorable experience of a unique adventure.

Love ZR.

Mind I'll never be good enough to legit score it. But the presentation, weapons, music, enemy placement, and constant surprises are awesome. White Vanilla is a dlc up there with Bloodborne's in terms of quality.

Perfect caravan style training mode.

[jehu]

Do you all like, or just tolerate, the sword/drill melee elements of ZR? It's a deal breaker for me - I'll stick to the trad move-n'-shoots.

[To Far Away Times]

Do you all like, or just tolerate, the sword/drill melee elements of ZR? It's a deal breaker for me - I'll stick to the trad move-n'-shoots.

Was a deal breaker fo me, but I'm open to giving it another shot some time in the future. Sometimes I just want a simple blaster and other times I'm up for something more unorthodox

[XoPachi]

Do you all like, or just tolerate, the sword/drill melee elements of ZR? It's a deal breaker for me - I'll stick to the trad move-n'-shoots.

I like the drill a lot honestly. Didn't use the sword.
But the drill is extremely powerful and has some nice defensive uses. It reminds me of the shield in Eschatos with an offensive element to it.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Melee in shmups was always something i really enjoyed when it was an option. That and flamethrowers (no, not fire shark's absurd weapon).
Really enjoyed both but balance was questionable. Still, if you saw any of my posts you know that I'll put fun before balance, so it was great fun.

[Nugs]

Let's keep going. Eschatos. Overrated to the extreme. People liked it because it was 3D, didn't look like shit (only kinda), and gave you extends every 15 seconds so you didn't have to worry about dodging.

I agree, graphics and enemy design looks terrible and the shifting perspective throws me and makes most of my deaths feel unfair rather than deserved.
Don't love the music either.

[EmperorIng]

I thought that there was some depth to the game that i just wasn't seeing that was justifying the high votes, but as time goes by, it seems like zero ranger was maybe just a flash in the pan? People were saying GOAT modern shmup, but now no one seems to talk about it anymore, no one plays it for score, and i expect to see it drop out of the top 25 pretty quick

I wouldn't say quickly, most people never change their votes from year to year (because they never play more shooters to broaden their perspective), so that initial WOW first impression will hold for some time.

I think it's a good game (and I voted for it, in the past) but a lot of its fans seem to be folks that just credit-feed to see the story cutscenes. The amount of people who don't put the time into doing the 2ALL on various shmup discords is distressingly high, going so far as a few developing "cheat" tools to let them savestate or brute force the TLB. Instead of, you know, learning the game.

Re:Eschatos: Qute seems to have gotten much better with each game they made (a lot of people say Natsuki is far and away their best), but Eschatos gets most of the attention despite being paper-thin and the EPIC yasui soundtrack.

Even Ginga Force, a game I ultimately don't like because it is Euroshmup Overload: the Game, has more interesting things going for it imo.

[Rastan78]

Melee in shmups was always something i really enjoyed when it was an option. That and flamethrowers (no, not fire shark's absurd weapon).
Really enjoyed both but balance was questionable. Still, if you saw any of my posts you know that I'll put fun before balance, so it was great fun.

I really like how melee was handled in Gunbird 2. You have to pick your spots and it's satisfyingly powerful. Each charcter has a unique little animation for it. Wasn't as big on the approach like Strania used where you can just spam melee constantly, accompanied by a semi-grating sound effect.

For flame throwers, I think Bakraid's Flame Viper has one of the best and most satisfying to use.

BTW I would almost say Strania is overrated, but it doesn't have a huge fan club really either. Maybe it's more that it was disappointing to me in comparison to Border Down. The scoring system just seems to arbitrarily force you to use all the weapons. Graphics looked ok but fairly bland and didn't show a marked upgrade from Border Down on DC. Even something like Omega Five on 360 was much prettier and made better use of the hardware. Some boss designs were just unremarkable mechs.

It's still a solid game and one I wouldn't mind replaying some day, just a bit mediocre given the G Rev pedigree. The addition of the Side Vower route via DLC did give the game a nice boost tho.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Strania's melee's also iffy because you compromise your ranged abilities to use it. Single sword limits you to two ranged attacks, and double sword limits you to only one ranged weapon. Double sword is rarely worth it despite having a minor bullet cancelling slash in its 3 hit combo.

I think if Strania had made sword available at all times as a secondary, always available weapon to complement whatever 3 guns you have on its own button, that might've made for a better system.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't know anything about Grev shmups and I've never seen anyone (outside of maybe one dude) shilling for the games. So I don't think they're overrated. I barely even know they exist.

[Rastan78]

There's not a ton of hype around G Rev these days for sure, but they're games are generally held in high regard. And with good reason.

A long time shmup fan would have to be living under a rock to not be aware of Border Down or Under Defeat. Then again maybe I'm the one who's been living under a rock lol.

Actually, a quick glance at past top 25 rankings here shows that BD and UD have consistently shown up in honorable mentions over the years with UD having landed squarely in the top 25.

[XoPachi]

I never got a chance to play Border Down. I always wanted to. I know one of my favorite composers does the music for it.

[To Far Away Times]

What I never got about Border Down is why it punishes you for dying by throwing you into a harder level. If you aren't good enough to do it on the green level, you're not going to be good enough to do it on the yellow level or red level. If anything, its backwards, when you die you should go to the easier level. Its almost like rank increasing because you died. It makes memorization harder too with 3 different concurrent levels. Its mean as hell. Gotta kick you off the machine as fast as possible I guess. I think its G Rev's best game, but it really needed a black label version to balance things a bit and rethink the border system. It would have worked better with Darius style with branching paths, I think.

It looks and sounds nice though.

[EmperorIng]

It's a bit of a misconception that dying always makes the game harder. The only thing that's "hard" about some of the red stages is that if you die the credit is over.
E.G. as I recall, 4A (green) is harder than the Yellow or Red variants, and is also more lucrative to score in.

The difficulty scaling is not consistent throughout the stages, some green stages are harder than the others, others it's the red that is the hardest, etc.

The game is a memorizer anyhow, like all of G.Rev's games. You basically use the practice mode to grind out a good route and then execute on that because there aren't really any random elements in the game.

[WarpZone]

I think if Strania had made sword available at all times as a secondary, always available weapon to complement whatever 3 guns you have on its own button, that might've made for a better system.

Agreed. Although I'd also probably streamline to 2 weapon slots (that you could maybe swap around). Juggling the third slot is responsible for much of the fiddliness and accidents in weapon selection and pick-up.

I don't think of the game as overrated, though; it's pretty unique and notable in some ways and never even seemed to get the barely-there traction of BD and UD. Probably would have if it came out on Dreamcast in 2002.

[Rastan78]

It would have worked better with Darius style with branching paths, I think.

That would've been cool, but I wonder if it was beyond G Rev's capabilities? They were a small team compromised mostly of former Taito devs that worked on G Darius. Although G Darius had a massive staff and probably budget, at least by shmup standards.

Maybe the border system was conceived as a way to bring in some of that branching path feel without needing to create enough assets for 3 or 4 normal games.

Kinda surprising that in 97, with shmups long since having taken a back seat to FGs, that Taito would make that kind of investment in a STG. Of course that be the end of that after it wasn't a huge success for arcade ops.