Japanese STG Difficulty Wiki

[Steven]

I just realized I derped out and posted Kyūkyoku Tiger's ranking when the ask was originally about Tiger Heli. Is it just me, or is it not ranked?

It's at 15 on the Perikles list.

I wasn’t doing much lurking when all the Perikles drama went down. Are his resources generally reliable?

lol I am in the same position, but most of the other comments about this list even after the Perikles cheating thing suggest that it's generally of better quality than the Japanese list and mostly pretty decent.

[ZPScissors]

Can confirm that even with the cheating drama the Perikles list is still generally viewed as more accurate than the Wikihouse list.

[Steven]

I might have to check out that second loop of Xexex if it's really that difficult. I definitely suck at the first loop and it took me a decent amount of credits to feed my way through it some months ago when I played it for the first time, but I quit when I got to loop 2. If loop 2 is really that hard, I definitely want to see it. Xexex is a great game anyway, and I really should play it more.

[Sengoku Strider]

I just realized I derped out and posted Kyūkyoku Tiger's ranking when the ask was originally about Tiger Heli. Is it just me, or is it not ranked?

It's at 15 on the Perikles list.

I was referring to the JP STG wiki list.

[Sumez]

What different people perceive as difficult is quite subjective, and even though I've only cleared a small subset of Perikles's entire list, there are already multiple points I can't agree with completely.
But I'm also pretty confident that has absolutely nothing to do with cheating, and is just a question of different skillsets and perceptions. And even if I'd never place, say, Parodius Da so close to Tatsujin, the list is overall still quite a reliable estimate of which end of the spectrum most shooters belong. And certainly a whole deal more than the Japanese meme list.

Perikles' resources on this forum overall are generally extremely valuable, and he's been pretty on point with most of his takes on shmups. No matter what your take is on the cheating "scandal", there can be no doubt he's very familiar with a large variety of games, and most of his takes have been well researched.

[Steven]

I was referring to the JP STG wiki list.

Oh. Oops. lol sorry. Yeah, it's not there.

What different people perceive as difficult is quite subjective, and even though I've only cleared a small subset of Perikles's entire list, there are already multiple points I can't agree with completely.
But I'm also pretty confident that has absolutely nothing to do with cheating, and is just a question of different skillsets and perceptions. And even if I'd never place, say, Parodius Da so close to Tatsujin, the list is overall still quite a reliable estimate of which end of the spectrum most shooters belong. And certainly a whole deal more than the Japanese meme list.

Perikles' resources on this forum overall are generally extremely valuable, and he's been pretty on point with most of his takes on shmups. No matter what your take is on the cheating "scandal", there can be no doubt he's very familiar with a large variety of games, and most of his takes have been well researched.

Yeah, from what I have seen/read Perikles has great knowledge of these games and despite apparently being a cheater, that knowledge is still applicable, as whether he cheated or not, it doesn't make that knowledge meaningless or not useful to someone.

As for the Japanese list... seeing Thunder Force AC without autofire so close to Xexex makes me want to try Thunder Force AC without autofire now. The game is almost a completely brain dead no miss on normal with autofire, something that the game was probably not balanced for. I find Thunder Force AC with autofire on to be far easier than Thunder Force III with autofire, although I think it's mostly because they removed the stage with the falling rocks.

[Angry Hina]

But its mostly learnable the same way as you have to do with stage 2 (lava). The temple stage of AC is a bit of another challenge with the sometimes little room to fly around. But I think III is on the harder settings aharder than AC. Even the jungle level with the stronger gargoyle is kinda hard ti fight against.

But Iam really glad, the switch version has more difficulty settings. You can enjoy the full potential of this game with the higher ones.

[Steven]

I sometimes sacrifice my shield to fly through those tight spaces in the temple stage so I don't have to worry about smashing into anything and dying. That stage has one of the game's few obvious displays of a rank system that I have seen, though; if you play the entire stage with a (full?) shield, a few more enemies will show up, including at least one more of that... um, big thing that you fight at basically the very beginning of the stage, although this time it shows up while you're in a narrow tunnel with basically no room to move at all.

[Angry Hina]

Isnt it just the harder difficulty setting that lets him show up? Never "cheated" through this section. I liked it, to get fly through this narrow part^^

[Steven]

I've definitely seen him on normal, but I'm pretty sure I played the entire level with a full shield. I'd have to check again. Normally I don't mind being a bit sloppy because of the shield, but maybe I'll try it again and see about never getting hit. I am mostly playing on the Saturn, though I do have both the Astro City Mini and the Switch release. I'm pretty sure the only major difference between arcade and Saturn is the stage 4 boss missiles giving points on Saturn, but maybe they changed something else.

[pegboy]

Thunder Force AC "rank" is tied to whether you have a blue shield or red/no shield. That's it. Sometimes certain power ups will only appear in one state or another, same with enemies. Getting high scores requires knowing which state you need to be in during certain parts of the stage to maximize the enemies and powerups that appear.

The Saturn version has a bunch of mind boggling and idiotic changes from the arcade version and scores cannot be compared between the two. You get way more points in the Saturn version without even trying, and they've also added the ability to milk the stage 4 boss for points, possibly endlessly (may be counterstoppable). Other enemies in the Saturn version give much larger bonuses than in the arcade version as well, so it's not just the boss milk that gives you inflated scores.

TL:DR - The Saturn port of TF AC is shit, dont play it.

[To Far Away Times]

But its mostly learnable the same way as you have to do with stage 2 (lava). The temple stage of AC is a bit of another challenge with the sometimes little room to fly around. But I think III is on the harder settings aharder than AC. Even the jungle level with the stronger gargoyle is kinda hard ti fight against.

But Iam really glad, the switch version has more difficulty settings. You can enjoy the full potential of this game with the higher ones.

Thunder Force III on defaults is a good bit harder than AC imo, due to volcano level being the toughest challenge in either game. Its the only memorizer element in an otherwise fairly breezy game by shmup standards. Never cranked up the difficulty on either though.

[Angry Hina]

Firelevel is a memorizer too. I would say, that both are kinda compareable.

[bcass]

Did anyone decide where Pink Sweets should be placed in this list (without infinite lives)? Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that it should be in the 30s, in which case that would make it the most difficult Cave 1-ALL (excluding TLB clears). Is that right?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

That sounds right to me. 2-All Ura of Ketsui, 2-All of DOJ, etc would be harder, but I can't think of a single loop clear or single loop CAVE game that's as hard as it is (unless you count Uo Poko or Mushi Tama? dunno, lol). The patterns in the last stage are brutally hard.

[bcass]

What happened to the table in the first post? It's gone!

[BurlyHeart]

Oh, I swear it was there a few days after the update.
Wasn't formatted properly but I rmember searching for Strato Fighter among the weird symbols.

[bcass]

If you quote the OP you can see that the table is still there, but it seems there's an issue with the new forum software displaying it?

[davyK]

It's implemented as a piece of Javascript code that builds the html/table- maybe it isn't being executed? Or maybe the new theme doesn't allow embedded html?

[bcass]

The issue has been acknowledged here:

viewtopic.php?t=71609&start=30

Hopefully a fix will be forthcoming at some point.

[system11]

It's implemented as a piece of Javascript code that builds the html/table- maybe it isn't being executed? Or maybe the new theme doesn't allow embedded html?

The new bbcode parser no longer processes newlines into html equivalents before storing in the database leading to newlines in the javascript which breaks the syntax.

[LookingForPants]

I realize this is a very old post but I reference it often so I thought I would clarify for the curious that the note for Armed Police Batrider is a specific custom team setup.

In English: With Shorty S, Tag-T S, and Strawman C

S is referring to the Type D ship, which is the one you choose by pressing "start" when the character is selected. I don't know why this note is so specific compared to the ones on most of the other games and I'm not sure if that team composition is supposed to be related to the rank in that it makes it easier or harder. Maybe someone with more APB knowledge can fill us in.

Also, for Dariusburst AC at number 10 and EX at 6, I think the note is just saying that it's that rank if you're playing on a machine with an autofire button installed. So really, it's a 10 with autofire

[UD2]

I realize this is a very old post but I reference it often so I thought I would clarify for the curious that the note for Armed Police Batrider is a specific custom team setup.

In English: With Shorty S, Tag-T S, and Strawman C

S is referring to the Type D ship, which is the one you choose by pressing "start" when the character is selected. I don't know why this note is so specific compared to the ones on most of the other games and I'm not sure if that team composition is supposed to be related to the rank in that it makes it easier or harder. Maybe someone with more APB knowledge can fill us in.

By no means a Batrider expert, but I'm pretty sure they're just indicating that team is well balanced and will lead to an easier clear than other characters, not anything specific to rank.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

By no means a Batrider expert, but I'm pretty sure they're just indicating that team is well balanced and will lead to an easier clear than other characters, not anything specific to rank.

Yeah, Shorty and Tag-T both have potent homing shots and Strawman has a potent wide shot with lock-on subshots. It may also not be recommending that specific team, but rather suggesting to use any of them solo as well, or may be what team the person ranking the difficulty has used. Maria, Car-Pet, and Miyamoto are also well regarded characters due to strong shots and bombs. If you're playing with a custom team, you can actually make it harder by using a combination that includes Mahou Daisakusen and Battle Garegga characters as you can trigger extra bosses that wouldn't show up with only Batrider exclusive characters.

There's also some much weaker characters worth avoiding such as Jyuji and Golden; using them will make things tougher.

[NuclearPotato]

Also, for Dariusburst AC at number 10 and EX at 6, I think the note is just saying that it's that rank if you're playing on a machine with an autofire button installed. So really, it's a 10 with autofire

Dariusburst AC has autofire by default; I have no idea what you're trying to get at here. The EX stages are completely separate from the original stages anyhow, that 6 is for the top, easiest route on the EXs, while the 10 is for the hardest route on the original set of stages (incidentally, the most current version of the JPN chart has the bottom route of the EX stages.

(also, I'm not sure why we're all suddenly ganging up on a three month old post lmao)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Also, for Dariusburst AC at number 10 and EX at 6, I think the note is just saying that it's that rank if you're playing on a machine with an autofire button installed. So really, it's a 10 with autofire

Dariusburst AC has autofire by default; I have no idea what you're trying to get at here.

The "note" I believe he's referring to isn't in the English translated list on the first page, but rather on the Japanese wiki page:

DB:AC - 設置バースト機體
DB:AC EX -※連付き

Google Translate isn't translating the first note in a way I understand, but the second one I think I've seen before referred to in other games to mean autofire. I don't know much about Dariusburst but it's possible external autofire hardware makes the game easier than without, similar to Darius Gaiden?

[John4300]

Also, for Dariusburst AC at number 10 and EX at 6, I think the note is just saying that it's that rank if you're playing on a machine with an autofire button installed. So really, it's a 10 with autofire

Dariusburst AC has autofire by default; I have no idea what you're trying to get at here.

The "note" I believe he's referring to isn't in the English translated list on the first page, but rather on the Japanese wiki page:

DB:AC - 設置バースト機體
DB:AC EX -※連付き

Google Translate isn't translating the first note in a way I understand, but the second one I think I've seen before referred to in other games to mean autofire. I don't know much about Dariusburst but it's possible external autofire hardware makes the game easier than without, similar to Darius Gaiden?

Dariusburst AC has an autofire by default even on arcades, and I don't think you can fire faster even by tapping, and my quick testing on switch version with a controller that has autofire and on PC with joytokey doesn't make your ship shoot any faster with autofire. I'm not sure is this different on the arcade, but it seems to be programmed delay so you shoot as fast as it's programmed whenever the button is held.

This was however somewhat quick test, and I'm not sure about the PSP version, but this topic is about arcade games anyhow I think.

[DrTrouserPlank]

whoever put ESP.ra.de as a 20 there has got to be taking the piss. Game is ludicrously difficult.

Akai katana at 13 as well just blows my fucking mind. The stage 3 and especially the stage 4 (I think, it's been years) bullshit is crazy, and especially the twin dolls fight (stage 4 boss?) is absolutely stupid beyond belief. That alone is the reason I stopped even considering playing it any further. I'd have that shit at 45 or 50 just because of that.

[Steven]

I was under the impression that ESP Ra.De. is (almost universally?) considered to be one of the easiest games CAVE ever made, assuming you're doing survival and not scoring, but this list is not very good and sometimes just plain wrong. I wouldn't really bother using it unless what you are looking for isn't on the much, MUCH better Perikles list. Both lists are missing at least some things that the other has, but in general the Perikles one is way better. Obligatory "difficulty is subjective", of course.

[bcass]

Having 1CCd 9 Cave games, I personally wouldn't place ESP Ra.De. anywhere near being the easiest Cave game.