List of "slow" bullet hells?

[Synnae]

By "slow" I mean something in the level of Twilight Refrain or something like that. I generally prefer shmups with a lot of bullets but while they are slow at the same time. I'm not so good with shmups like Raiden for example, that have few bullets but they're so fast that it makes it hard for me to dodge them. I also tried Cho Ren Sha 68K earlier and had the same issues: Few bullets, but too fast as compensation.

So... can someone point me out to some bullet hells with relatively slow action? It doesn't need to be a huge list or anything like that, but just a few recommendations would still be appreciated.

[ACSeraph]

Pretty much every Touhou
Mushihimesama and Mushihimesama Futari in Maniac Mode
Shikigami no Shiro
Homura

Those are the ones that come to mind immediately

[Giest118]

Mushihimesama and Mushihimesama Futari in Maniac Mode

lol

eXceed 3rd: Jade Penetrate Black Package counts.
At the risk of sounding like a self-plugging douche-bag, Trigonometry Wars 4 (linked in my sig) is another one.

[rancor]

Blue Wish Resurrection+

[ACSeraph]

Mushihimesama and Mushihimesama Futari in Maniac Mode

lol

Well its slower...

[Obscura]

Espgaluda and Espgaluda 2
Eden's Aegis
Ikaruga (as much as I dislike the game, it qualifies)
Possibly Deathsmiles? I haven't played it in forever, but I remember most of its patterns being pretty damn slow.

Also, I'd say that the Maniac modes are pretty damn slow. Especially Futari's, with the slowdown.

[SuperSoaker360]

Pretty much every Touhou

Might want to scratch Fairy Wars from there. That game has some pretty quick albeit fun patterns.

Definitely seconding Eden's Aegis.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

XOP Ultra generally favours lots of slow, dense bullet patterns over fast aimed shots.

Deathsmiles on its lower ranks generally isn't too hectic in terms of bullet speed.

Espgaluda is pretty nice in that you can save up your special ability to slow down and navigate any pattern you want, and in normal mode the bullet patterns aren't particularly speedy for a bullet hell compared to other Cave titles. Most of the patterns are about complexity/density rather than pure speed.

Futari Black Label has lots and lots of slowdown, especially if you use Reco. This makes Maniac a slower but very dense experience, and it's a lot of fun. Black Label Original is fairly dense too, but it's all about scoring well and bumping up the rank, which massively increases bullet speed. It's a fun game mode to learn/get used to increasing bullet speeds as the sheer amount of slowdown makes it quite forgiving. Bosses have sped-up attacks, but it's balanced out by them being killed quicker, and highly affected by slowdown.

I'd stay away from anything Psikyo, they tend to love speedy bullets.

[KAI]

Ibara Arrange/Kuro and Trigger Heart Exelica.

[BulletMagnet]

"Slow Mode" in Geki-Oh Shooting King for the PS1 sounds up your alley.

[Synnae]

@ACSeraph:
I just tested Mushihimesama Futari on Maniac and the speed was pretty nice for me. It gets faster on the Final Boss, tho. But it's nothing extremely bad. And seems like the rank feature isn't present on this mode, which helps me a lot since the difficulty keeps stable.

@BareknuckleRoo:
Yeah... I've played some Psikyo games. Last one I tried was Tengai, and found the bullets to be pretty fast as well, so seems like it wasn't just my impression.

@BulletMagnet:
Woah. Is there a slow mode in Gekioh Shooting King? I didn't know about that... (should have checked that one Bonus stuff)

As for the other games, I still have to play most of them, but gonna do that soon. If there are other games of this nature, please tell me people.

[ACSeraph]

Ibara Arrange/Kuro and Trigger Heart Exelica.

The only reason I didn't mention THE is because it usually isn't that dense outside of bosses if you use the anchor system a lot. It's definitely on the slower side though.

In that same spirit Caladrius is also slower but not so dense if you are aggressively using your Elemental Attacks.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

@ACSeraph:
I just tested Mushihimesama Futari on Maniac and the speed was pretty nice for me. It gets faster on the Final Boss, tho. But it's nothing extremely bad. And seems like the rank feature isn't present on this mode, which helps me a lot since the difficulty keeps stable.

I think the only rank in Maniac and God/Ultra is survival rank (you can select it in training mode as far as I recall) and it doesn't have nearly the impact how high you push the counter has on rank in Original, particularly in Black Label where Original has a huge rank jump when the stage counter maxes at 9999 (which is where you get big gems for pointblanking). Maniac and God/Ultra are tough, but yeah, the difficulty is very stable. Larsa is always the most difficult part of any run.

[kathy]

@ACSeraph:
I just tested Mushihimesama Futari on Maniac and the speed was pretty nice for me.

The Black Label version has far more slowdown and is alot of fun to play imho

[Synnae]

Does anyone know of a MAME version that supports save states on Mushihimesama Futari BL?

I saved state on Larsa and was praticing it happily, then the save state suddenly got corrupted and now I can no longer use it.

I want save states to study the boss' patterns, otherwise it will be much harder for me to get an 1cc on this game.

[Obscura]

There is none.

[trap15]

DoDonPachi II: Bee Storm.

[Synnae]

Also, I can see Trigger Heart Exelica as quite a bit of ports.

Which version should I get? I'd like to get the ps2 one, but dunno if it's lame compared to the original from arcade or something. What are the changes?

[DrTrouserPlank]

Espgaluda 2 is what I would call slow bullet hell. It's dense bullets at a slower pace

Mushi Futari as "slow bullet hell"... personally I don't think so. IMO it's the speed in combination with the density in that game that screws you and makes it *impossibru* but the density itself isn't that bad in the realms of stupidity that we deal with. In fact the density of the bullets is totally fine, so it's the speed X density factor that make it hard.

There's no such thing as fast Vs slow bullet hell though.

If anything was slow bullet hell purely, it would be easy to clear. There is a density tradeoff against speed and that alters the difficulty for each person individually. What will invariably tend to fuck you is the semi-dense patterns in an ultra-dense game that move faster that you think they should... same as any dense pattern that appears to move faster than it should in a game where previous sections have seemed fair.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Also, I can see Trigger Heart Exelica as quite a bit of ports.

Which version should I get? I'd like to get the ps2 one, but dunno if it's lame compared to the original from arcade or something. What are the changes?

Someone help this guy.

I quite like the DC version... think it's a nice port from the Naomi.

Is the PS2 version worth getting for the extra content? Don't know, haven't played it, don't know how the emulation is Vs. the DC.

(although he didn't specify what platforms he has to choose from)

[Synnae]

Yeah... I got a bit deeper into Mushihimesama Futari and gonna take back what I said earlier. The speed isn't so nice for me at all, even on Maniac.

Stage 3 boss's bullets for example are really fast. I barely have enough reaction time to dodge them. Larsa is even worse, but stage 4 boss is fine overall.

Stage 5 is also really long, with lots of extremely fast bullets, giving the impression that I'm playing the game on above 60fps. However, at least on Black Label the enemies are destroyed really quickly, which helps me keeping the screen free from bullets from the most part. The bosses also dies quickly, but despite how fast it is to beat them, I still have trouble to survive the little amount of time they're still around.

At least on Black Label version, I can do finely for the most part (on original mode). But what really screws me up are the stage 3 Boss and Larsa. The rest is okay with me.

Someone help this guy.

I quite like the DC version... think it's a nice port from the Naomi.

Is the PS2 version worth getting for the extra content? Don't know, haven't played it, don't know how the emulation is Vs. the DC.

(although he didn't specify what platforms he has to choose from)

Female gamer here. No guy. :T

And I can get any version except for the XBLA (since I don't own the system, sadly...) nor the i-mode one (don't even know exactly what is that) ...

[trap15]

i-mode was a service for Japanese featurephones that was pretty amazing. There's an article about it on Wikipedia I believe. It was extremely popular, and there are tons of ports of STG to it. Unfortunately, I can't find any dumps of the games (they're pretty standard Java archives), so you're unlikely to play them unless you live in Japan, have an NTT DoCoMo phone, and really want to play them.

[BIL]

PS2 Triggerheart apparently has really bad slowdown not seen in the Naomi, DC or 360 versions. I've always avoided it for that reason.

[Erppo]

The God mode of Futari BL is almost in a permanent state of slowdown which should make it count.

[kathy]

I swear it seems you can get away with more in BL God mode. Does it have smaller hit box(s) or something?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I swear it seems you can get away with more in BL God mode. Does it have smaller hit box(s) or something?

Yes. I'm not sure about Maniac (it seems to have comparable hitbox sizes to Original), but Ultra and God mode definitely have reduced hit box size vs Maniac. You can sneak through stuff that would almost certainly hit you in Original.

[ACSeraph]

And I can get any version except for the XBLA (since I don't own the system, sadly...) nor the i-mode one (don't even know exactly what is that) ...

Right, well I have every version (THE is actually my favorite Shmup evar) so I'll give you the low down.

Basically the 360 version is a remake of the DC game that looks and plays very very similarly. It's not actually the same though, I know because in certain patterns the methods I use to dodge don't work in both versions. Slowdown occurs in different places making some patterns more difficult and some patterns easier. Overall the difficulty is about the same. Of the three the 360 version has the least features, so aside from the leaderboard support you aren't missing much by not having a 360.

The PS2 game is an upgrade to the 360 game, but it has a ton of slowdown. I wouldn't say its super easy as a shmup, but its definitely much easier than the 360 or DC versions. It has an extra (broken) character though and it's fun for what it is. Actually since you prefer slower games the PS2 one might be better for you. It's definitely not a bad game, just different.

The original DC game is basically arcade perfect and is the best version imo. Though it doesn't have the extra character that the PS2 version has, it has a ridiculously awesome super hardcore arrange mode. The arrange mode has way more complex bullet patterns and is extremely intense. For some reason the PS2 and 360 version don't include it so as far as content goes the DC version is king to me.

So basically DC is faster, harder, and has a hardcore arrange mode, while PS2 is slower but has an extra character and a much more fleshed out story mode. The rest just preference.

[Bananamatic]

pink sweets

[PC Engine Fan X!]

@BareknuckleRoo:
Yeah... I've played some Psikyo games. Last one I tried was Tengai, and found the bullets to be pretty fast as well, so seems like it wasn't just my impression.

Yep, those Psikyo games like Gunbird 1 & 2 and the Strikers 1945 I, II & III series (S-1945 III is known as Strikers 1999 in Japan) are quite notorious for super quick bullet patterns.

Even the American Sammy version of Daioh with it's 6-button scheme from the get-go gets crazy-fast by stage 4 & 5 on just the 1st loop & on the 2nd & final loop, all bullets thrown at the player are sped up even quicker (making for some heated verbal outbursts easily) -- not to mention the difficulty factor ramps up rather quickly on the 1st loop (making it a true quarter muncher when it debuted in the American arcades).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[ciox]

I wonder, isn't Ketsui slow enough to qualify?