Looking for advice! NEWB!

gemini · Post by **gemini** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:23 pm

Hi folks,

I'm pretty new to shumps, i've played Ikaruga for the GC and Ketsui death Label for the DS (Currently trying to get anywhere (!) on death label mode) but i need more. I have a wii which obviously isn't cutting it (although i did d/l Lords of Thunder which is awesome).

I don't have loads of money at my disposal but i'd like to get a system that i could get a few decent shumps and bullet hell games for without breaking the bank. I know i can play r-type and gradius on emulators and i have played these games, but i'm really more into the bullet hell (but not toooo hellish!) super colourful psychedelic shooters like dodonpachi (although i've only seen videos). Should i get a japanese saturn and start building up a collection slowly or should i consider a 360 and get downloadable content or what? Dreamcast? NeoGeo? If I get a Japanese Saturn what should I look out for? Basically I'm looking for a starter package!

Thanks in advance. All advice is appreciated. Cheers.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:28 pm

For Bullet Hell you should go with a japanese or chipped PS2.
Dreamcast has a lot of shooters, but most are not considered bullet hell.
If you dont want to spend much money you can go for Castle of Shikigami III for the Wii, it's about 30$

gemini · Post by **gemini** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:30 pm

problem is i dont think Castle of Shikigami III has been released in Europe

Chacranajxy · Post by **Chacranajxy** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:40 pm

Get a Saturn. I never owned one until the end of last year, but it's become one of the best systems I ever bought. Stuff like Soukyugurentai is pure gold and not available anywhere else (well, except for the ghetto PS1 rendition, but you don't want that!), and there are gobs of other awesome games on there, as well.

The PS2 is probably the cheapest way to get your bullet hell fix, since there's like... four Cave shooters on there (only two of which had good ports, though), but there's not much else as far as shooters go (Psyvariar II being the only good exception I can think of right now.)

There's 3 good shmups on the Dreamcast: Mars Matrix, Under Defeat, and Border Down (all of which are the subject of endless debate, so let's avoid that if possible, guys), but I don't feel like any of these quite stack up to the best that the Saturn has to offer.

Neo Geo's shmups are kinda ghetto. Pulstar is pretty good, but kinda slow.

grovsnus · Post by **grovsnus** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:40 pm

I recommend a japanese saturn, a joystick and all the shooters you can afford.

Particularly great and psychedelic is Batsugun. Get that.

Casey120 · Post by **Casey120** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:42 pm

If you buy a modded to all regio PS2 it opens up the large library of PS1 Shmups also for you !

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:45 pm

gemini wrote:problem is i dont think Castle of Shikigami III has been released in Europe

Do you have a homebrew channel installed? If not, get it.
And then you can play imports (or even a pirated copy if you want

)

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:01 pm

DC - can buy some US releases cheap, or just download some/all (including self-booting imports). They're long out of print, so who cares. Mars Matrix (DDP but better), Giga Wings, Psyvariar 2, Shiki 2, etc.

Saturn has more of an old school selection and the best games are expensive.

P_HAT · Post by **P_HAT** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:08 pm

Rob wrote:Mars Matrix (DDP but better)

I love you Rob, but this is just stupid.

Casey120 · Post by **Casey120** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:09 pm

DC has some really nice games , all Shmups on DC i think :

Bangai O
Border Down
Castle of Shikigami 2
Chaos Field
Drill
GigaWing
GigaWing 2
Guardian Wing
Gunbird 2
Ikaruga
Karous
Last Hope
Mars Matrix
Psyvariar II
Radilgy (aka Radirgy/Rajirugi)
REZ
Shikigami no shiro 2
Trigger Heart Exelica
Trizeal
Twinkle Star Sprites
Under Defeat
Zero Gunner 2

Ps2 has over 40 Shmups , over 110 if you count the PS1 games in !

ave · Post by **ave** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:14 pm

As for bullet hell I'd definitely choose the PS2 - or a japanese Xbox 360. The biggest selection of all kinds of shooters (from the very early days in 1980-85 untill modern arcade ports) is provided by the PS2 in combination with its predecessor, so buying a PS2 and some PS1 and PS2 bullet hell games would be the best option for a start I guess.

Later on you can dig into Saturn gaming (which is still my favourite shooting game console) because bullet hell-wise, Batsugun is simply such an amazing game. Other exclusive shooters of extraordinary quality like Garegga, Silvergun, Soukyuugurentai (as said, bad psx port) or Hyper Duel make this console a must-have.

fumanchu · Post by **fumanchu** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:49 pm

mod your wii via a softmod hack and also now i hear you can mod your wii without even using a gamehack.once you do this you can then play backups or games from other regions but also you can run emulators.
including
pc engine
ps1(you can play dodonpachi with this emu)
snes
genesis/megadrive
gameboy advance
mame(arcade games emulator)
and loads more...
oh and there is also a saturn emulator for the wii but it does run slow.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:59 pm

If you've been playing r-type and gradius on an emulator, odds are you can also play the emulatable Cave games on an emulator. MAME will play Dodonpachi, ESP.Ra.De., Progear, Dangun Feveron, and others just fine. There's also most of Psikyo and Raizing's games available via emulation.

Aside from that, playing imports on a PS2 (modded, boot disc, or jap region) is probably your best bet for bullet hell. All of Cave's PS2 ports are (imo) great games.

escadrille · Post by **escadrille** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 10:38 pm

If you really are looking for a simple starter package I recommend a 360 with access to xbox live. Along with downloadable games there are both the Raiden Fighters Aces and Raiden IV coming out on disc. That's a lot of shooting to get started with right there.

To play older stuff I say just MAME it. If you just want to play the games and aren't a collector I don't see why you'd want to shell out for obsolete or import consoles. With MAME you've got the whole Psikyo catalogue, the first half of the Cave catalogue, and the Takumi catalogue to play with right out of the gate.

ncp · Post by **ncp** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:02 am

just use mame and play DDP (Mars Matrix but better)

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:08 am

The systems I always recommend first for shmuppage are the (Japanese-ready) PS2 and Saturn, though the Dreamcast is also a good choice, and the 360 is steadily building steam.

gemini · Post by **gemini** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:58 am

Thanks for all the replies. Still not sure what to do but I've downloaded MAME and am looking into using homebrew with the wii (although I‘m not sure my patience levels are quite adequate to get the hang of it right now).

Apart from that the easiest way to go console wise sounds like the mod. PS2, not sure how much they go for these days but it cant be that much. If I was gonna get 5 or 6 PS1/PS2 shump/bullet hell games what should I consider?? (I’ve never owned a sony console so I'm not familiar with what games are available). Although when alls said and done I could probably get a Saturn with Soukyugurent & dodonpachi for the same price. Maybe. Dunno. It requires more thought I guess. I wish there was a really lazy way to do this. Like a CAVE & TREASURE Compilation disk for wii... yeh...i know, its not gonna happen.

Again, many thanks.

clp · Post by **clp** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:20 am

mame on pc and a dreamcast + download all games for free . I have a japanese ps2 with all the cave ports also and nowadays its become backseat to dreamcast and emulators .

bucklemyshoe · Post by **bucklemyshoe** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:47 am

PS2

DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou
ESPGaluda
Psyvariar II

pretty much the best.

Still enjoyable although people complain about.

Ibara
Mushihimesam

Other okay shooters.

Homura
Shikigami no Shiro I+II
Raiden III
XII Stag
Trizeal
Gigawing Generations
Strikers 1945 I+II

a bunch of others that escape me at the moment.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:26 am

fumanchu wrote:mod your wii via a softmod hack and also now i hear you can mod your wii without even using a gamehack.once you do this you can then play backups or games from other regions but also you can run emulators.
including
pc engine
ps1(you can play dodonpachi with this emu)
snes
genesis/megadrive
gameboy advance
mame(arcade games emulator)
and loads more...
oh and there is also a saturn emulator for the wii but it does run slow.

Yeah it's called bannerbomb exploit. Really simple to do, a blindfolded monkey with down syndrome could do it.
Oh btw i wouldnt recommend the GBA emu as it does not run fullspeed at a very good framerate. mame is also a pain in the ass.
and did you test DDP with the PSX emu? How about Harmful Park?
Do they run at fullspeed? I doubt it :/
But to cover classic shooting the Wii should do the trick.

gemini · Post by **gemini** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:50 pm

yeh. mames sorted my fix until i decide what console to spend my money on. I'm playing Guwange at the moment which is cool, donpachi and trying in vain to find the ketsui rom.

One thing that bothers me is that i kinda don't try so hard when I'm playing the original Arcade versions in Mame coz I'm never really sure if there are parts where its more or less expected of you to just dump in a load of 'coins'. Like the last boss in Guwange ate up loads of my credits but i just took it in my stride whereas if it'd happened in the ikaruga port on GC i would have immediately restarted and tried again. Maybe i just suck but I'm much more comfortable playing actual ports of the arcade games where i know i have to/am suppose to be able to get to the end on a set number of lives. Never played the arcades much as kid though so dunno.

I'm living in spain at the moment and in a local store here where i got the R4 for my DS they also have some similar package for the wii but im not sure exactly what it does and if i should try it out. (my Spanish aint great). Any speculations on what exactly it does?

Anyway thanks for the help. If I'm still around I'll let yall know what i decide console wise.

gemini · Post by **gemini** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:01 pm

oh yeh. anyone know why mame only seems to be willing to recognise Guwange (jap) and not any of the other roms ive downloaded?

cheers.

Ravid · Post by **Ravid** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:24 pm

gemini wrote:'the' ketsui rom

Guess again. (Unless you mean death label for the DS, but the emulation is poor so you'll get low framerates there.)

gemini wrote:I'm never really sure if there are parts where its more or less expected of you to just dump in a load of 'coins'.

There aren't.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:26 pm

Don't bother searching for a Ketsui ROM right now; it hasn't been dumped yet, and MAME wouldn't support it anyway.

Pretty much any respected arcade title (Cave, Raizing, Psikyo, Seibu, etc...) is intended to be finished on a credit once mastered. Home ports of games like DoDonPachi DOJ are just as punishing as their arcade counterparts.

As for the ROM issue, it sounds like you may be missing parent ROMs for some games.

null1024 · Post by **null1024** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:33 pm

Bill wrote:Don't bother searching for a Ketsui ROM right now; it hasn't been dumped yet, and MAME wouldn't support it anyway.

Doesn't Ketsui run on PGM hardware [which MAME sort of supports]?

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:42 pm

iirc the developers removed support for DOJ on Arika's instruction. I have to admit I don't know the MAME developers' policy on Ketsui support. There's still no ROM at any rate.

gemini · Post by **gemini** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:47 pm

Ravid wrote:There aren't.

hahaha! yeh. i kinda figured that. I guess i need a LOT more practice!

playboycougar · Post by **playboycougar** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:34 pm

Some of my best SHMUPing experiences have been on the Dreamcast. If you can pick up a DC and Under Defeat you'll have hours of enjoyment. You might be looking for a game that looks like a DDP or esprade with all the bullets, but trust me, go out on a limb and give Under Defeat a try for a solid hour. I guarantee you'll love it.

Also, if you can pick up a VGA box (usually cheap, ~$20) for the DC, and rotate an old CRT you might have around, you'll love it even more.

Another DC shmup I like it Radirgy.

FRO · Post by **FRO** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 7:56 pm

Chacranajxy wrote:There's 3 good shmups on the Dreamcast

Disagree. All the Western releases were good, IMO. Gunbird 2 is a must, even if you're a love/hate Psykio guy like me

Raizen1984 · Post by **Raizen1984** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:37 pm

null1024 wrote: Doesn't Ketsui run on PGM hardware [which MAME sort of supports]?

Yes, but PGM emulation is vastly incomplete in MAME. I'm pretty sure only two or three games are playable, and they all have issues.

Plus, I'm pretty sure there's some lawsuit in place blocking MAME from adding the drivers. Arika didn't want these games coming out in MAME while they were still releasing ports on PS2.