Ok so I tried the remaining Doujin shooters you recommended:
Samidare:
You can only unlock Extra mode by 1ccing the game?!
That’s one demanding task indeed!
Not sure if I’ll manage it…
Ether Vapor:
I reached up the stage 3 city that looks identical to Albion DU from RayStorm and fought the end level Bosses.
What I liked:
Very impressive and vividly animated backgrounds, cool lens flares, reach explosions, detailed and varied enemies & Bosses.
Music albeit nice, was not as catchy as the rest of the Doujin shooters; I would say it is on par with the Thunder Force VI sound track, but it does its job nicely.
What I did not like:
The bulky looking 2nd level Mech Boss with the huge gun turret and the drill on its head. It looks quite silly and unconvincing when it starts “walking” in mid air and charges at you, similarly to the huge surfing Mech in Contra Shattered soldier on the PS-2.
Weapons did not feel that powerful enough. Specifically, the fact that you can’t choose which target to shoot with the lock-on RayStom lasers, renders them inadequate & unreliable to deal with a lot of situations.
The missile barrage in Level one was just a graphical show-case for the Macross fans and has not impact to the game play. Even if you don’t shoot down the approaching missiles, they’ll completely miss you!
Hellsinker:
I did not like the game play in this game and seems that it’s aimed for acquired tastes. Some enemies just take too many shots to kill, switching between weapons was troublesome and those circular borders surrounding those seal powerups , I don’t understand their purpose in a manic shooter like this? Again background graphics consisted of 1-2 endlessly scrolling 3D sprites.
Radio Zonde
This shooter probably has the most detailed and most nicely animated enemy sprites with excellent rotation; of all Doujin shooters I’ve tried (With Cho Ren Sha 68K a close 2nd) that can even rival a lot of commercial shooters.
I specifically liked the 6th level boss! Awesome animation, cool attack patterns and impressive weapons!
What I did not like, is that once you finish a level, you have to choose the next from the game menu, thus eliminating the element of “progression”.
Also the two “cute” boy/girl player sprites look silly and don’t fit well with the rest of the shooter oriented spaceship sprites.
Shoot the Bullet
Arrgh…
Sorry, taking photos of Bosses to eliminate their bullets and attacks is not my way of having fun.
This is definitely a very acquired taste!
Diadra Empty
At first my 1st go, I didn’t quite like the gameplay mechanics. I was never a fan of Fantasy Zone, “one large level” or multi directional / Arena shooters. (With an exception of Thunder Force II & Granada)
However, Graphics, weapons, music, backgrounds are very impressive indeed!
I’ll give it a 2nd go though
Ake-Bre
I was quite impressed by this games graphics. Over all it looks very impressive, probably the best looking of all the Doujin shooters I tried. The sprites remind me of The Mega Man series (1st level boss is wearing the infamous yellow construction workers helmet from Mega Man) and the music seems to be heavily inspired by the Mega Man X series, as I can easily isolate a few tunes that sound very similar.
I never managed to get the hang of that huge chained ball, so I relied on the primary weapons instead which were powerful enough and explosions quite impressive.
Background graphics were very well designed, animated and varied and the sprites looked as if they were cell-shaded, which is an interesting combination with 3D backgrounds.
I was also very impressed by Cho Ren Sha 68K. I see this was released in 1998, but was this a Doujin shooter or a fully commercial game? It sure looks, plays & sounds excellent! The animation, rotation of the enemies and bosses is awesome, fire power is very effective & pleasing and the cool techno/rave level & Boss music is exactly what I want to hear from this type of shooter.
My only gripe is the background, again
I reached quite far into the game, but I did not notice much change in the background. It looks like you’re flying over a futuristic military base, a mechanical city like in Matrix or inside a huge Bernal Sphere. What ever it is, its sure is the longest of its kind
Prizhm
This one Borrows quite a few elements from Cave shooters (as you all ready mentioned) and feels like a horizontal DoDonPachi. I would have much rather preferred if you were in control of a ship rather than a flying witch. I loved the 2nd level; the background sea animation with the sun set looked awesome! Weapons were very satisfying but the 2 Bosses I battled were not very impressive wit minimal animation, but they seemed to shake with music’s rhythm.
Also the trial version I tried has invisible enemies, o I can’t really comment on their design.
Cloud Phobia
The trial seems to conflict with my Sidewinder Game pad that is connected to my 2nd Sound Blaster 128 game port. When I start the game, I witness constant pauses and periodic frame drops like hick ups, rendering unplayable. This effect then remains for any other game I try to play after I quite Cloud Phobia and can only be fixed if I enable/disable the 2nd Sound Card.
Exactly the same thing happens with Kamui.
I could only play it with a PS-2 gamepad connected to the pc via an adapter.
Other than that the game looks incredible. Background level graphics, the Mechs, spaceships, everything is very carefully designed with a lot of detailed. The only thing missing, is an impressive sound track. The music sounded very lacking and didn’t quite fit for a Mech shooter. (Especially the Boss music in the 2 stages of the trial version, it sucked imo).
Alltynex2nd.
I tried a demo of this shooter last year and it lookd great, even though a bit more detail should be given in the textures of the sprites. I’m really looking forward to this.
LtC wrote:ST Dragon wrote:So, what else is there worth trying?
Meglilo. Definately worth playing. Warp system instead of bombs.
eXceed2nd- VR if you already haven't tried. Polarity system.
Blue Sabers games (Mainly OOH). Not exactly the best games ever but they have some unique gameplay elements making them pretty interesting.
Here's some more if you already haven't seen this (Download links included for trial versions).
I’ll be sure to try those. Thanks a lot!
To sum it up, I was mostly impressed by Kamui & Reflex.
They’re definitely the more solid shooters at the moment and look more like console/arcade games than PC.
Any more recommendations, please keep them coming
