Shmups where recovery after dying is annoying/too difficult

[heisenbergman]

There are some games where you start beasting your way through the levels and gradually power-up your ship/character, but then you die, and you start from scratch again, but at this point, time the enemies have already gotten so strong and numerous that it's so difficult to recover.

What do you think are games that "suffer" from this? Is it necessarily a bad thing?

[chempop]

I actually find the stress of recovering one of the enjoyable things about shmups. Scramble to get those powerups floating away and clear out the primary threats. Once you have breathing room again it's such a sigh of relief.

Happens to me in Fabtek ver Raiden a lot.

[Pretas]

I can't think of many examples like how you describe, outside of a handful of segments in Salamander and Gradius V with prolonged screen-filling hazards. In most shooting games without checkpoints, you're almost always given enough invincibility time after respawning to clear out the enemies in the vicinity and move to a safe position. Difficult recoveries most often result from games that dramatically power you down after death, leaving you practically helpless in tougher stages. The Gradius and Darius series are both infamous for this, at least in their early titles.

[ACSeraph]

Yep, Gradius and Darius come to mind instantly. Which sucks because they are two of my favorite series...

[jepjepjep]

Tatsujin and Fire Shark come to mind too. Fire Shark takes you 3 or 4 stages to get fully powered up! Both are awesome games though.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I can't think of many examples like how you describe, outside of a handful of segments in Salamander and Gradius V with prolonged screen-filling hazards.

And Gradius V's default movement speed and extremely tiny hitbox means that recovery is still way easier than in other games in the series, especially with several Multiples. Hard, but much easier compared to earlier games for sure.

I've heard a few complaints about Cho Ren Sha's recovery difficulty. Grab a couple powerups for damage and you're good to go though, and you can bomb while in the middle of three powerups to protect yourself while grabbing a shield + powerup. There's a bit of finesse involved in recovery, and you do get hit pretty hard with a power drop if you die during a boss, but you do lots of damage by bombing and ramming enemies so you can do that to speedily end fights that don't go well otherwise. It's tough, but certainly nowhere near other arcade games.

Darius takes forever to powerup and if you die... oh man, kiss your stuff goodbye.

Tarsujin and V-V both also give you a pretty steep death penalty thanks to the checkpoint system at work, but then any checkpoint game has a harder than average recovery. Parodius games are even worse for this - you get hugely powered up but when rank gets crazy and you die, you drop to pretty much nothing in terms of shots fired, which can really hurt depending on the checkpoint.

[Pretas]

I should have mentioned that for obvious reasons, dying in any Gradius/Parodius speed section and having to try from the beginning with no speed ups is usually instant murder.

[Squire Grooktook]

Darius is ironically way, way worse than Gradius in this regard imo.

Some of the more unbalanced games in Gradius might have a few unwinnable recoveries, but most of the time, you can still recover and be back on the top of your game in no time. Darius on the other hand permanently cripples you for the entire game by not letting you ever reach maximum power level. It's even worse because Darius often has things built into its level design (beefy bulky enemies with tons of hp, stuff you need the piercing effect of the maxed level weapon to shoot through) that can make each and every level into a complete clusterfuck if you fall behind in power.

Other than that, Cho Ren Sha 68k has a much lighter variation of this when you die. It's more of a scoring issue on normal mode, and doesn't really become a survival hazard unless you're playing on hard imo. It can be brutal, but I don't think it ever feels quite as sadistic as either of the above two examples.

Also I think a lot of people underestimate how much the recoveries play a role in Irem shmups like R-Type and Image Fight. It's hard to fight the urge to chalk everything up to memorization when you die in those games, but you'd be surprised how much of a difference having those Bit Options and missles can make in making things more manageable.

[Mero]

Yeah, if you die in Darius II it's all over. Also, Pulstar with manual fire is game over if you lose a life.

[AntiFritz]

Pink Sweets can be if you die at the wrong time. If you die when there's too many enemies on screen you won't be able to kill them all when you respawn with the basic weapon.

[Jeneki]

Psikyo: Oh, you want these powerups? To the very top of the screen they go! trollololololol!

Also I remember trying Thunder Cross last year, and commenting that it was essentially a 1-life game.

[Kollision]

some

darius 2
gradius 3
raiden 2
raiden fm towns version
r-type
hellfire
prehistoric isle in 1930
master of weapon
truxton

[royalfan84]

Gradius III.....so frustrating yet so addictive.

[emphatic]

Halley's Comet comes to mind. The toothpick laser.

[PedroMD]

Yeah, the Darius games I played seem to be easier to no-miss than to clear with one or two deaths.
Gradius is even worse. the recovery is so tough that it turned me off of the whole series except V, which has no checkpoints and lets you at least keep the multiples (that's 20 power-up items right there). Gaiden seems to be easier in this regard too, with the customizable power-up sequence that lets you get the important stuff back right away.
Truxton is another one, simply because it takes forever to power up, but it doesn't feel crippling like the two series above. Just annoying.

[saucykobold]

I think Irem checkpoints are generally well-designed. At their best, they're hard as nails and yet consistently doable with practice and the right approach.

On the flip side, Gradius III has a lot of checkpoints that are just uniquely aggravating, often due to unfortunate random elements. Take the end of the Moai level.

You need to survive the boss until it times out, and you can't shoot the little moai heads that spawn because they'll inflate and you'll die right away to criminally large hitboxes. So, you'll herd the little heads in circles and lead them on a merry chase, but the rub is that the occasional head will go rogue and fly wherever it pleases, and you can get blocked off through no fault of your own. Why, it's enough to make anyone put GIII in the nearest waste receptacle and play X-Multiply instead

[Ed Oscuro]

Recovery in the original GB Gradius is just the way I like it - a bit challenging but by no means impossible.

Really, I think it suffices to say that if recovery is annoying, the whole game is annoying. If I have to play the game with a one-life rule (as I do with Gradius Generations) the whole thing just feels off - long stretches of emptiness punctuated by moments of "oh shit"

[Squire Grooktook]

Recovery in the original GB Gradius is just the way I like it - a bit challenging but by no means impossible.

Really, I think it suffices to say that if recovery is annoying, the whole game is annoying. If I have to play the game with a one-life rule (as I do with Gradius Generations) the whole thing just feels off - long stretches of emptiness punctuated by moments of "oh shit"

You sure about that? I thought Gradius Generations had some of the most easy going recoveries in the series.

[MSZ]

Recovery in the original GB Gradius is just the way I like it - a bit challenging but by no means impossible.

Really, I think it suffices to say that if recovery is annoying, the whole game is annoying. If I have to play the game with a one-life rule (as I do with Gradius Generations) the whole thing just feels off - long stretches of emptiness punctuated by moments of "oh shit"

You sure about that? I thought Gradius Generations had some of the most easy going recoveries in the series.

Gradius Gaiden is even more easier than Generations when it comes to recoveries, shitloads of powerups at any checkpoints.

[Ed Oscuro]

You sure about that? I thought Gradius Generations had some of the most easy going recoveries in the series.

Yes, I'm sure I find it annoying. Difficult? I didn't say anything about its difficulty.

[Pteriforever]

Warblade has this issue. After you die once, you tend to fall into a death spiral, expecially if it's late in the loop.

Also, Chorensha, although it's the least of that game's problems.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Also, Chorensha, although it's the least of that game's problems.

Huh? You make it sound as if ChoRenSha is riddled with design issues.

[Bananamatic]

Recovering in chorensha isnt even that hard

[shmuppyLove]

Touhou

[NzzpNzzp]

I think Irem checkpoints are generally well-designed. At their best, they're hard as nails and yet consistently doable with practice and the right approach.

The middle checkpoint in R-Type stage 7 is the worst thing ever though.

[Vyxx]

I always thought Hishozame (Sky Shark) had a nice balance of difficulty and fun when trying to recover from a death, but I recall many people saying its a pretty big pain in the ass. Gotta use those bombs for recovery in the later levels I find.

[Sinful]

People say Gradius sufferes from this, but this game got rank based on how powerup you are, so it got it right. But Gradius III AC, unlike all the other which are very recoverable without a doubt, is kinda of a beast when it comes to recoveries even with this rank. Yes, still possible, but man, don't die while you're still a beginnner at this game, lol. I'm still super bad at recovering at this game, and I finally made it all the way to the cube rush (never though I'd figure a way how to pass the fire stage, but I did... Just got to be powerup up & not die, lol). But yeah, still my fave game, and I can't wait to get a better hang of this game to the point where I can beat it with no powerup like how tviks did one time (never seen that vid, is it still around?).

But yeah, the only game I can think of that really falls in this category is maybe Darius 2, depending on where you die? Otherwise, thanks to Gradius games, I know loves game with recoveries and checkpoints. Just got to be in the mood/proper mindframe for them. As part of some serious fun and rush is making a super awesome recovery, that makes you go "Wow, beat still my beating heart." Only too bad these type of games have fallen out of favour so much and are looked upon as a good thing to have been left behind (even Konamis did this with Gradius V somewhat by removing checkpoints on default. And not sure how balanced it is with checkpoints. ie. was it designed with it in mind, or without?).

[Ed Oscuro]

People say Gradius sufferes from this, but this game got rank based on how powerup you are, so it got it right.

Not if it's annoying, which Gradius Gaiden is. You just cruze along for an hour and then suddenly get hit with something.

I think the fact that they have you scramble around collecting shit to get back to par demonstrates that they weren't at the level of trying to figure out risk vs. reward. It gives the feeling of playing along to a movie - which is fine by some people, sure - rather than doing something compelling from a gameplay standpoint.

So for me the recovery isn't the big issue with Gradius, but it's a symptom of the game design not being compelling (to the level of games that are mostly considerably newer, admittedly, although Nichibutsu had amazing stuff out at roughly the same time which I'd play any day).

[Squire Grooktook]

People say Gradius sufferes from this, but this game got rank based on how powerup you are, so it got it right.

Not if it's annoying, which Gradius Gaiden is. You just cruze along for an hour and then suddenly get hit with something.

I think the fact that they have you scramble around collecting shit to get back to par demonstrates that they weren't at the level of trying to figure out risk vs. reward. It gives the feeling of playing along to a movie - which is fine by some people, sure - rather than doing something compelling from a gameplay standpoint.

So for me the recovery isn't the big issue with Gradius, but it's a symptom of the game design not being compelling (to the level of games that are mostly considerably newer, admittedly, although Nichibutsu had amazing stuff out at roughly the same time which I'd play any day).

It all depends on the Gradius game in question. Some of them have unwinnable recoveries, some don't. Some are pretty fun even when you're fully powered up, some aren't.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, I suppose that's true - I shouldn't generalize like that. Hell, I like Nemesis on GB (but I like too many of Konami's almost-kusoge-tier launch GB titles).