Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[BIL]

I really hope Trigon's second loop is a Sunset Riders "Loop 1 with the difficulty maxed" and not a Detana Twinbee nuclear nightmare, because its first's rank is already balls-out by the penultimate stage.

Proto-Nose Laughin mkII is a mean and nasty fucker. Currently dropping three bombs on the bastard, though with the game's generosity it's not such a big deal. Could've easily had seven there, if not for an accidental discharge and panic fuckup in the previous stage. I think I could get him down to two with another loop around. Can no-bomb him in practice, but it doesn't feel realistic for a real run (unless I can GIT GUD). Even 2-bomb regularly sees hilarity ensue.

Rank-lowering suicide makes him easily handled, but I'm trying to avoid that. This game rocks. More Raiden than Raiden. Which means it's slightly less Tiger than Tiger.

[EmperorIng]

Very awesome. Trigon I find is kicking my ass as early as stage 2, and rarely lets me see the stage 3 boss. I did see the gaggle of pentarous though! Great cameo.

Playing a lot of R-Type 2 at the moment, courtesy the Dimensions double-pack. This means it's the World ROM and not the harder JPN version - though still plenty tough! I think this game is better than the first. Better bosses, better graphics, better weapons, better stages. This morning I no-miss'd up to the stage 4 boss. Stupid mistake! I didn't recover there but spent some time afterward practicing the stage 5 box maze checkpoints. That level is a paragon of how shmups can achieve survival horror-levels of tension and dread.

Man, I've gotta say I am LOVING this Sega AGES version of Thunder Force AC.

I find myself inexplicably dying in this game at the asteroid stage. Really fun though! I'm glad you're enjoying it; I got the normal TF3 Genesis clear ages ago, but this one I think is mostly a better game.

[BIL]

Yeah the Pentarous are classic, I wonder if they were as much a nod to Same Same's dolphins (or soldiers!).

Stage 3's no joke, with the magnetic minefield followed immediately by the shotgunner tank fort + twin bomber pincer. I like to pointblank a bomber, then BOMBA the rest... DRAGONLAZOR will kill 'em all, in his own sweet time, but blocks bullets only incidentally; GODLAZOR is a sure killer and absolute defender, but its short lifespan demands a deft sweep. I find stages 4 (Arctic Adventure), 5 (BATTLES OF BATTLESHIP) and 6 (power plant guest-starring DISRUPTOR) slightly easier than st3's early gauntlet, provided I hold onto the Trigon. Familiar sense of hard-won, hard-driven early advantage. Like Raiden, like Gradius, like Tiger, this be formative hardcore.

Being a noob, I'm not sure if the titular buddy is more Rank than he's worth. I hope not - I love the balance of classic Fast Aimed Shots™ discipline and progressive convenience, tap-dodging away from bullets while Trigon PWNs the miscreants with Robocop headshots. At least the game's generous with bombs, at any rate. I only wonder if there's a massively lucrative max stock bonus, to create TRU Bomber's Remorse™. Again, I hope not - the Yagawa-esque treatment of bombs not as dire last resorts, but mighty SPECIAL WEAPONS to calculatedly cleave through flak and big fuckers alike is MARVEROUS

EDIT: made the loop. Just like director Hideyuki Tsujimoto's Super Contra and Sunset Riders, rank seems permanently maxed out, even after a death. st1's beachhead turrets spew fast, accurate flak just like their counterparts from st9's final defensive line. Unlike Super/Sunset, there's lots of added zako formations, but it doesn't seem like a credit killer just yet (st1 through 3). st1 boss is just like its st8 boss rush clone, ie MAD AS HELL, but falls to similar tactics. st2's the same. Game still provides ample bombs. This is nice.

Felt good hearing staff roll BGM "Nostalgic" in-game, twenty years after Napstering the Shooting Battle ASTs.

[XoPachi]

Darius 2 is so wildly beyond any sort of difficulty I've dealt with in a shooter. This game is really REALLY hard.

[pegboy]

Man, I've gotta say I am LOVING this Sega AGES version of Thunder Force AC. The Switch version has almost no input lag, which is rare on the system. I know some prefer the Mega Drive version of TF III, but I couldn't give up AC's kickass soundtrack. When I hit stage 7 I'm jacking my headphones all the way and rocking out to the YM3438 heart on fire blasting through me. I legit seem to like this game more than TF IV, another Sega AGES entry. Also, respect for what they did for the visuals in this version. Some of the later stages could absolutely pass for a Neo Geo game:

Heh, that looks familiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTqKvA092pA
Reminds me, now that I have the real PCB I need to get a new video up for it.

[versionfiv]

Star Soldier gamecube remake

[XoPachi]

I'm getting so close to this 1CC of Darius Gaiden. I no miss up to Storm Causer...and then I have to fight Storm Causer.

[To Far Away Times]

Took a break from playing shmups for a while and just recently took the plunge on Psyvariar Delta since it was on sale. Pretty cool little game. Everything is polished and works well, even if it doesn't reach the production value highs of something like Mushi Futari.

Lots of content here. Did some credit feding runs through medium unit, revision, and delta. I think I like revision the best so far but I think all of them are probably worth sinking some time into.

[BrianC]

The tune in the exclusive Asteroid stage of AC is especially rocking. I like how a version of it is an omake bonus in TFIV. I find it interesting that the high score screen still uses the names of the replaced stages instead of the actual names of the TF2 and new stages.

[Sengoku Strider]

I find myself inexplicably dying in this game at the asteroid stage. Really fun though! I'm glad you're enjoying it; I got the normal TF3 Genesis clear ages ago, but this one I think is mostly a better game.

Hunter will take care of the asteroids for you, sever will dispatch the mid-boss promptly, and then just cruise through with hunter or wave. The boss is an absolute pushover as long as you stay in the top left corner to dodge his initial attack. A couple of sever shots as soon as he backs off will put him down. The one tricky part of the stage is if you're diving into all those little crevices in the middle of it for the bonuses, but getting the habit of quickly shifting speeds can help a lot with that.

Heh, that looks familiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTqKvA092pA
Reminds me, now that I have the real PCB I need to get a new video up for it.

I think I just grabbed a random image off google img search for that, funny it turned out to be someone from this forum. I think your score in that shot matches my best, and you haven't even beat the last couple of bosses or cashed in on your mountain of lives yet. Incredible run now that I've watched the video.

The tune in the exclusive Asteroid stage of AC is especially rocking.

Stage 6 is excellent too, but it's stage 7 (Orn Base) that's the true banger from that game for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKPfS ... R&index=15

16-bit FM at its best.

[Gamer707b]

Played a bit of Thunder force 4. Got to stage 8 on a credit, but then everything went to shit. Great game but too many levels. Feels too long for a shmup.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Ever since PSO2 got it's nasty hooks in, shooters have been on the back-burner. That said, I've been squeezing in plays of Moose Life whenever I'm able and I've managed to clock a couple hours on it.

While it's a completely 'Minter-ized' re-do of Juno First (complete with it being impossible to tell what the hell's going on a little more often than I'd like...) I think it's his most satisfying overall since Tempest 2K. While I was one of the few that liked Space Giraffe, I'm the first to admit it may have tried to get a little too fancy with it's gimmicks. Whereas Moose Life is a 'meat and potatoes' affair, but is better for it.

Put it this way, when logging out of PSO2, I always see Moose Life and Mushihimesama sitting next to each other in my Steam library, and I always seems to be picking Moose Life... So obviously, some sort of voodoo has been worked.

[To Far Away Times]

The tune in the exclusive Asteroid stage of AC is especially rocking.

The two stages that didn't make the cut for Thunderforce AC had my two favorite songs in the game. I get why the cave stage was cut (it's a bullshit memorizer stage in an otherwise breezy game), but that level had some real personality to it.

I don't play piano but I did learn how to play the water stage melody on it.

[Rastan78]

I'm getting so close to this 1CC of Darius Gaiden. I no miss up to Storm Causer...and then I have to fight Storm Causer.

You're almost there! Storm Causer can be quick killed with autofire. But you need to have the white balls in your shot, so one less than max power. Part of the strat will be having consistent strategies to miss the red power ups you don't want so you don't max out.

Check out the boss kill on this vid:

https://youtu.be/CRg_2xClDHU

You barely get anything points wise for killing him the long and slow way.

[Marc]

Played Gemini Wing for a little while before realising I really don’t like, its randomness is massively off-putting to me both in enemy behaviour and weapon selection.
Went with a bit of Plus Alpha, and enjoyed that a lot more. It’s horribly choppy at times, though given the accuracy of the other AA titles I’m guessing this is an issue with the original? When the SR2 boss fires that crossover pattern for instance, I just bomb because I find it painful to track the bullets. ST3 is a bloody eyesore without the choppiness, with it, it’s borderline painful. Nothing at al outstanding about it, but it does have that ‘one more go’ itch.

[BIL]

All the footage I've been able to find of Plus Alpha's PCB and MAME alike feature that same distinctive choppy slowdown, yep. Seems like it's just how the game is.

[dmk1198]

Loving space giraffe
Best £3 I spent in ages

Enjoying psycviar delta on switch also but can't really tell the difference between the three versions? Got the PS2 version as well lol they feel like different game s

[BrianC]

The tune in the exclusive Asteroid stage of AC is especially rocking.

The two stages that didn't make the cut for Thunderforce AC had my two favorite songs in the game. I get why the cave stage was cut (it's a bullshit memorizer stage in an otherwise breezy game), but that level had some real personality to it.

I don't play piano but I did learn how to play the water stage melody on it.

I agree the cut stages had awesome music. I'm curious exactly why they were replaced, myself. I'm under the impression that it was a last minute thing since the high score list still uses the names of the original TFIII stages.

Actually, I'm under the impression that the music actually sounds better in TFIII on the better MD/Genesis models because of the bottlenecks with the system C-2 hardware.

[To Far Away Times]

Got some scrubby clears of Psyvariar Revision and Delta today via the X-A routes.

Its not the full list of levels, but I beat a boss and saw credits at the end so I'm counting it.

I've spent most of my time playing Revision but I played a few credits of Delta and I think I may actually like Delta better. Delta is more closely linked to Revision than Revision is linked to Medium Unit.

Delta ups the intensity and makes the stages on the A route much more threatening, while leaving the bosses mostly unchanged, except the last two bosses on the A route were easier. It's a good trade off to have more exciting levels and a smoother boss difficulty curve. It feels very much like a quality "Black Label" mode rather than a console arrange mode to me.

And the music... *chef's kiss.*

Now on to Medium Unit and then try to push to X-B in either Revision or Delta.

[Marc]

I went back to Raiden V last night and decided it's a bag of dicks. The pacing is awful, the way the weapon system works is shite (seriously, they fixed this in III - why go back!?), the background visuals frequently disguise bullets, and overall I'm just not feeling it. Oh well.

I've realised that I hate, HATE shooters which have backdrops flying past you at supersonic speeds, while bullets lazily meander their way into your general vicinity.

[dmk1198]

I went back to Raiden V last night and decided it's a bag of dicks. The pacing is awful, the way the weapon system works is shite (seriously, they fixed this is III - why go back!?), the background visuals frequently disguise bullets, and overall I'm just not feeling it. Oh well.

I've realised that I hate, HATE shooters which have backdrops flying past you at supersonic speeds, while bullets lazily meander their way in your general vicinity.

Agreed, bang average, almost willed game to finish early but it just goes on and on

Sent from my Redmi Note 8T using Tapatalk

[To Far Away Times]

I played a few hours of Gaiares last night.

I save state practiced through the end of stage five. Seems like a very doable game. Very memorizy, but gives you ample room for mistakes with a five hit shield. I haven't seen anything that requires a lot of dexterity so far, and with the seventh stage being a boss rush of mostly easy bosses this game really doesn't seem as hard as the internet would have you believe.

Like, you aren't going to beat it on a blind attempt, and you need to know whats coming, but this seems no harder than average so far, especially if you can practice sections with save states and try different strategies.

[dmk1198]

Playing soldner X2 on PS3 plays ok not sure why it gets hate , is it a euro thing lol

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[To Far Away Times]

So I played a little bit more of Gaiares today and I think I am done. Stage six is one of the laziest, sloppiest stages I have seen in a commercial game and stage seven doesn't look any better.

Stages three and five (the castle and the fire/ice world) were very good and the rest were still well done. Then stage six rolls around. What happened to pacing? Paralax scrolling? Why are there huge gaps of nothing going on now? Changing backgrounds? Introducing new elements? A sense of progression?

That stage wasn't ready for retail at all. Better to have a short but well made game at five levels than a sloppy one with filler at the end to stretch it to seven levels.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Finally looped SideLine on Hard mode. Took way more effort than it needed to because I kept dying repeatedly at the start of Stage 6, and when I finally cleared the 1st loop I had a ton of lives. Why'd it take so long to do this? Argh. Lost a bunch of lives on Loop 2, Stage 7, died on final boss of Loop 2. Ah well.

[Marc]

Not had much time this weekend, but added another bunch of games onto my Neo ASP, and I played a bit of Batsugun. Or at least, up until the second boss, which murdered me horribly. I'm sure I remember having more trouble with this than either the third or fourth bosses back in the Saturn days.

[copy-paster]

I don't have much shmupping time these days, but I've been binge R-Type FINAL recently.

Cleared it last week but only with custom ship and most OP weapon set though. I want to handicap myself cleared it again with R-9 ships, preferrably R-9 Delta and Strike Bomber because I want to get stage 6.0 which can only done by one-hit kill stage 5.0 boss.

[Dawn111]

I've played Otomedius Excellent on my Xbox 360, and I honestly think it's one of the easiest and most boring shmups I've played.
I played Diol Twee, who's such an OP character, along with the gravity weapon, and the bosses die so freakin' quick, it's not even
that funny. It doesn't help that her design is so ugly, as well as many other girls, and the stages and bosses are just forgettable.
Sadly, it's the only shmup I have on my Xbox 360. I really wanted to play Omega Five, a much better game, but it's been delisted.

EDIT: I've also played Xydonia, a fun, retro-looking shmup that is currently in alpha, & I am looking forward to more of its updates.

[Gamer707b]

Still working on Thunder Force 4 . I was out of town for a few days, but Im back home and looking forward to getting back to this. I can consistently get to stage 8 with no deaths but then it all goes to shit.

[StudioMudprints]

Been playing a lot of Ginga Force. Refreshingly different from Eschatos, but I'm wondering if a "normal" stage set with the option to switch weapons between each area might have still worked well... can't really 1CC this one the way it's set up.