19th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - Discussion Thread*

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Some food for thought on what's really necessary in this game.

It sounds like perhaps a lot of the "you gotta manage the rank" stuff was overstated then?

[Rastan78]

Yeah I think people obsess over Garegga having a rank system way too much. Unless you're an advanced player you don't have to consider it too much. Even then the actual methods used to control it are pretty simple in practice. It's something in the back of your mind as you execute a planned route, but people act like the rank system is the #1 focus of the game at all times or something.

Look at something like Raiden Fighters/RF2 where optimized players will suicide early to get more bombs/reduce rank. These games have absolutely no extends so suiciding once or twice means now any mistake on the run is an instant game over, in a game where a major point source is constant bullet grazing. And we're talking grazing fast bullets with a chunky chode of a hitbox. Pretty unforgiving, yet I can't recall seeing anyone ever complain about this even one time. As soon as Garegga comes up it's like eye roll, oh brother that one game with a rank system? Here we go again.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

There's a few reasons for it. From Garegga's genuine quality all-around, to the Yagawa wank (which has died down recently it seems. nice), to people finding this game first due to its reputation. Kind-of a feedback loop situation there.

[Sengoku Strider]

Now that the results thread has been stickied, I'll bring my responses from that thread down to this one.

For what it's worth, the Japanese wiki puts that route at the same rank as Dodonpachi (1-all) and Vasara 2 (all).

*without autofire

with auto, that same list knocks its difficulty down 10 points to the following level:

1-10 "Low difficulty: A title that even beginners can recommend with confidence. On average, it can be cleared within a few months"

Difficulty is relative of course, but using the 30hz auto that you see in the game's demo attract mode means you'll probably clear the game in about a week or two of practice. The larger point is that pacing, balance, and player engagement offset an easy game. If you have an 'easier' shooter but are moving around frantically and switching weapons (like in Thunder Force III on normal) you don't feel like it's easy.

Just to summarize what we're saying here. Darius Gaiden can be considered at the easy end of things if:

1. One takes the easiest route. (And happens to know exactly what that is. Isn't that kinda cheesing the game a little, like looking up a Mega Man boss order before you play?)

2. Following on that, we disregard the rest of the game in the assessment.

3. One uses a literal cheat code that halves the length of the boss encounters, the game's main challenge.

4. We're considering it within the context of other arcade shooters, which exist in an economy baselined to game over the player within 3 minutes.

I mean, ok. I still think it's pretty hard all things considered.

Here you go:
https://youtu.be/J2pu5nygOPA

Do not let that boy near any suspicious senators who know the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise.

I genuinely think Aka & Blue Type-R would make the list if more people were able to play it. I'd say "ask your local arcade to get it" but the reality for most people I guess now is that the local arcade is a 2 hour drive and all they have is a couple of bland driving games and a Time Crisis 4 with broken recoil if you're lucky.

EXA breaking into the barcade scene is the best hope. Because heck knows it's better than ancient cabs with washed out CRTs running mame off a raspberry pi.

[Sengoku Strider]

And very cool - looking forward to the A/B analysis. Will the old wisdom of Soldier Blade being the apogee of Blazing Lazers' design principles crash and burn in a pile of rubble and bubbles? The world finds out tonight.

...or a few nights later, anyway.

So first off, let me say I think both games are great, both made my list (Soldier Blade was an Honourable Mention). Playing them together it's also clear they're both Star Soldier games, one just had an utterly meaningless movie license slapped on at the last minute. But Blazing Lazers is obviously also bringing forward the numbered weapon system that was becoming a Compile trademark with Zanac and Aleste/Power Strike immediately before this.

The first thing that strikes me between the two are the zako explosions. BL has a great crunch, SB's are barely there. This being the most frequent sound/action response you have in a game like this, it forms a baseline of the game's feel.

Second are the stages. Blazing Lazers starts off with some Star Soldier homages, then moves through a varied assortment of colourful levels. Egypt (with Moai heads for some reason), a bio horror cavern, a maze of ice crystals in space, and of course the aforementioned bubbles.

Solider Blade is decidedly uninspired in this department:

Level 1: Sky that turns into typical Star Soldier first space level.
Level 2: Sky again for some reason.
Level 3: A paved road.
Level 4: Brown.

None of it looks bad, there's just nothing memorable in the backgrounds.

Third are the weapons. Soldier Blade has 3 weapon types:

A three pronged laser
A three pronged wave shot
A three pronged machine gun (that can get two bonus prongs behind it).

These can each be powered up twice. The laser does the most damage, and since all three cover the same angles and you almost never get attacked from behind (and typically get a warning when you do), the other two weapons are completely superfluous. This makes the game's bomb mechanic attempting to complicate things by being tied to colour also a non-factor.

BL by contrast has 4 main weapons, each with 5 levels. Each weapon also has an alternate form if the F powerup is collected, with its own 5 levels. There are also additional sub-pickups: option drone, homing missiles or shields. Plus, that right-angled laser is still one of the coolest and most distinctuve weapons in a shooter ever.

While I might say that some would prefer the simpler Soldier Blade system given that contemporary shmups have largely done away multi-weapon power up mechanics, it's hard to praise it over BL's given its flawed nature.

That lack of weapon balance speaks to the biggest strike against Soldier Blade - by its designer's own admission, it was a rushed game he wasn't allowed to focus on full time, and shipped with design errors:

My regrets about Soldier Blade… well, there’s too many to count. I really wanted to have more variety and diversity in the enemy sprites, but the memory banks were crammed full of data for the player ship and enemy weapons, so that got dropped. We had no time to develop compression routines for all that.

Midway through stage 6, there are missile pods that appear and explode, spraying out bullets and causing the screen to flash white. Those were actually supposed to be homing bullets, but I wasn’t clear enough in the design documents about that detail, so they ended up far lamer than I had intended.

As for the “Bay Wolf” enemies which first appear in stage 1… they may big, but they’re total pushovers, which was due to another miscommunication on my part.

I’m also embarassed by the reinforcement enemies, which are pretty much the saddest “reinforcements” you could imagine… then there’s also just the general lack of cohesion in the design… in any case, writing all this only serves to remind me of my many shortcomings as a developer, and now I just want to go in a hole somewhere and hang my head in shame. In that sense, I can only imagine how disappointed Tatsuya Doe must have felt, given the excellence of his mecha design work.

https://shmuplations.com/soldierblade/

Given the decades-long enduring respect for the game, it's clear he's being overly humble in his self-flagellation there. But overall the fact that the game was rushed out the door in 6 months, made by a first-time designer who was working on other projects at the same time, and put together by a team who didn't even have regular planning meetings (another revelation in that article) does show through in various undercooked elements of the game.

Fortunately, Soldier Blade does have fantastic art and music. But do I think it's noticeably above Blazing Lazers in those departments? I personally wouldn't say so, no.

[Rastan78]

Just to summarize what we're saying here. Darius Gaiden can be considered at the easy end of things if:

1. One takes the easiest route. (And happens to know exactly what that is. Isn't that kinda cheesing the game a little, like looking up a Mega Man boss order before you play?)

2. Following on that, we disregard the rest of the game in the assessment.

3. One uses a literal cheat code that halves the length of the boss encounters, the game's main challenge.

4. We're considering it within the context of other arcade shooters, which exist in an economy baselined to game over the player within 3 minutes.

I mean, ok. I still think it's pretty hard all things considered.

One reason Darius Gaiden is a relatively easy clear even without auto is the Black Hole Bomber. It's clearly designed to give beginners a leg up and reduce some of the brutality found in Darius II. It gives instant invulnerability, lasts forever and allows you to point blank with missiles while it lasts. It's pretty unusual for a classic style hori to have such a nasty bomber let alone while also giving you a shield.

You have the typical 3 bombs per life. There are 2 extra hidden extends that are easy to pick up (hidden in terrain and not scoring dependent) and 2-4 extra bombs, depending on the route, that are also tough to miss. So if you don't die with bombs in stock you can let rip between 17 to 19 of these bad boys in a run.

But if you want a basic level of decent score you have to no miss no bomb, so that goes out the window completely. If you choose to see the bombs as a generous way to ease the learning curve towards consistently being able to NMNB or a means to a quick and dirty clear is totally up to the player.

While the wikis that rank shmup difficulty are useful, it's also a limited and one dimensional way to look at it. Some games might say ok here's the 1cc right at the beginning of the learning curve, but that's only scratching the surface (ie Bakraid normal), and others making the clear is almost the entire learning curve ( ie tough Toaplan first loops). When you try to compare those games, 1cc is just sort of a lowest common denominator that doesn't explain much.

[DMC]

A bit late to the Garegga rank discussion but yes, it has always been a bit overstated here. My two cents:

One big factor to make Garegga, and other Raizing-games, more manageable is to know which parts of bosses to destroy and which ones to leave intact. For example, if you destroy the central turrets on Nose Lavvghin (stage 1 and 5) he will throw a mad bullet hell pattern towards you regardless of rank. My guess is that novice players see this crazy pattern and assume it must be due to rank, at least on stage 5.

Second. Suciding is not just rank management either. It's a strategic re-allocation of resources, because you sacrifice 1 life for ~2 bombs, which in many Raizing games are used for creative scoring. For example, suciding on Nose Lavvghin on stage 1 is done to have more bombs to use on the flamingoes on stage 2. Suiciding on Madball (stage 2 boss) is done to be able to kill the central layer and to have more bombs for destroying the bridge on stage 3.

This is one thing Yagawa did very well, encouraging you to actually use bombs for scoring in creative ways, and giving you the quite tough dilemma of 1 life vs 2 bombs. Not just storing them for lame end-of-stage bonuses. You need to make strategic choices early on.
Weighting the number of lives in stock vs. rank vs. bombs vs. 1M extend is a pretty complex choice, which gives the game depth. In most shooters using bombs is associated with failure or survival, but in Garegga and the sequels it's associated with scoring and creative/strategic choices.

In other words, the execution is outdated - no modern game should enforce player death. But the core idea is great - managing rank like a resource using careful play.

Suiciding in Garegga is not that different from chess.
In Garegga you sacrifice 1 life in stock to get ~2 bombs and a greater chance of getting the next 1M extend and easier rank. It's a risky choice but with long term rewards.
In Chess, you often sacrifice a piece, such as a bishop, to have greater chance of taking out a more important piece, such as a queen. It's the same type of risky choice but with great long term rewards.

Chess seems to have aged well despite this mechanic, and Garegga also seems to age fine. I don't think the execution is outdated at all.

[LenDar]

A bit late to the Garegga rank discussion but yes, it has always been a bit overstated here. My two cents:

One big factor to make Garegga, and other Raizing-games, more manageable is to know which parts of bosses to destroy and which ones to leave intact. For example, if you destroy the central turrets on Nose Lavvghin (stage 1 and 5) he will throw a mad bullet hell pattern towards you regardless of rank. My guess is that novice players see this crazy pattern and assume it must be due to rank, at least on stage 5.

Second. Suciding is not just rank management either. It's a strategic re-allocation of resources, because you sacrifice 1 life for ~2 bombs, which in many Raizing games are used for creative scoring. For example, suciding on Nose Lavvghin on stage 1 is done to have more bombs to use on the flamingoes on stage 2. Suiciding on Madball (stage 2 boss) is done to be able to kill the central layer and to have more bombs for destroying the bridge on stage 3.

This is one thing Yagawa did very well, encouraging you to actually use bombs for scoring in creative ways, and giving you the quite tough dilemma of 1 life vs 2 bombs. Not just storing them for lame end-of-stage bonuses. You need to make strategic choices early on.
Weighting the number of lives in stock vs. rank vs. bombs vs. 1M extend is a pretty complex choice, which gives the game depth. In most shooters using bombs is associated with failure or survival, but in Garegga and the sequels it's associated with scoring and creative/strategic choices.

In other words, the execution is outdated - no modern game should enforce player death. But the core idea is great - managing rank like a resource using careful play.

Suiciding in Garegga is not that different from chess.
In Garegga you sacrifice 1 life in stock to get ~2 bombs and a greater chance of getting the next 1M extend and easier rank. It's a risky choice but with long term rewards.
In Chess, you often sacrifice a piece, such as a bishop, to have greater chance of taking out a more important piece, such as a queen. It's the same type of risky choice but with great long term rewards.

Chess seems to have aged well despite this mechanic, and Garegga also seems to age fine. I don't think the execution is outdated at all.

If suiciding is so strategic for particular advantages, then why should it decrease your rank?

The ranking system is very much sold as the game getting more challenging the better you play. So if you're actually playing better by suiciding at certain points, then on that premise your rank should not decrease from doing so.

[LenDar]

I see your point, LenDar. I have to be more careful about not making it sound like I'm dumping on console STGs. If I had contributed a top 25, you can bet a handful of them would be there. But they wouldn't be at the tippy-top where I'd enshrine all the games I find renewing, the ones as sacred as bundles of code and pixels get.

The difficulty curves are features, not bugs - I argue. Speaking generally, of course - there are outliers, which I'm sure we'd agree ramp up clumsily, inorganically. But the cream of the crop - the 'forever games' - on-ramp you with manageable first levels, and give you something truly worthy of your time and sustained effort by the end. The genre thrives on its brevity, and you don't want a game that begins to pose a challenge to the experienced only in the last 8 minutes on the last stage. And if they are 'forever-and-ever' games, they'll have a mechanism - tied to scoring, most likely - that'll give veterans something compelling to do in tandem with 'survival' on repeat plays. A lot of the discussion around arcade-oriented design is so focused on 'difficulty = profit' that it loses sight of the fact that excessive difficulty is really not a way to make a game profitable. Machines will earn a lot more money if they feel 'fair,' give the player a sense that it's their skill (not the 'unfair' difficulty) that is gating progress, and make repetition as rewarding as possible. Console STGs do not have the same economic incentive to promote long-term rewarding repetition in the same way, though plenty manage to be replayable. But again, the economic incentive structure behind the design isn't the same, and console shmups, thankfully, borrow a lot of their design language from the arcade.

Also, when a player is just sampling an unfamiliar game, it's difficult to judge whether a perceived difficulty spike is really uneven. The true difficulty of these games only reveals itself when you have a handle on the game's mechanics, the enemy layouts, the way it expects you to expend your resources etc. etc. The games are balanced by developers who have a particular playstyle that they're designed around, and - if the game isn't a simple move-and-shoot - it's up to the player to figure out how to actually play before difficulty can be properly assessed.

Anyway LenDar, this is meant to be more of a comment in defense of the arcade design language and not so much an argument directed against you or your specific arguments. It seems I framed my last comment with a bit of excess combativeness - no hard feelings, wasn't meant to be so prickly.

No probs as I did not feel "combativeness." Cheers.

Indeed, with your comment on "brevity," I think today's audiences MASSIVELY undervalue short experiences where every moment is thoroughly designed. As I'm always saying, this is what wows me about Ketsui so much (even as I'm getting obliterated by its worthy challenge of course): there is SO much to be said about a short game where every actual second in it is so carefully made, while today's audiences want more content in Fallout 4 a lot more. There is definitely a massive lack of appreciation of the richness of a well-designed shorter experience -- which ultimately has a pretty substantial time commitment for actually mastering anyway.

[DMC]

If suiciding is so strategic for particular advantages, then why should it decrease your rank?

Rank does nevertheless make the game easier for beginners that die a lot, and this mechanic was present already in earlier games like Zanac.
So my guess is that Raizing wanted to preserve that dynamic while making it a bit more interesting to the skilled players. So they added other incentives to suiciding, like adding bomb trade-offs and including frequent score-based extends.

Yagawa and friends did not stop there. They added more effects to suiciding in subsequent games, like team edit advantages in Batrider and extending chains in Bakraid.

[Lethe]

The score = rank approach is pretty commonplace these days and is much closer to Batrider than Garegga (they're mirror images of each other, really). I'm not convinced Yagawa et al had much idea what they were doing with Garegga. Like the perennial Darius Gaiden autofire discussion, we're probably putting way more thought into it than the developers did, but that doesn't make it bad design - self-correcting systems are a platonic ideal. It's like the point that was made about DG's stages in the overrated shmups thread: yeah it may just be a lot of random arbitrary shit everywhere but as long as it's sufficiently interactive who cares? If a game needs to choreograph absolutely every element to be engaging then that probably just means it's not designed robustly enough.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Imo suicide as a game mechanic would be way more acceptable if you just consumed your lives directly instead of actually ramming into enemies or eating bullets.

A lot of it is psychological, and that's why it's outdated. Even if it gives you tactical advantage and is functionally a resource exchange, dying on purpose feels jank inhenretly.

Example of modern use: Represent lives as shield stock. You can divert shield power which effectively eats a life and gives you stuff (be it bombs for a direct example, a firepower boost or something more creative). Now add bonuses for no-miss and make sure there are no bonuses for life stock, and there you have it.

[DMC]

I agree it felt a bit weird ramming into enemies at first, but it actually requires a bit of timing and effort (such as suiciding while not losing a medal chain) so it is part of the fun (or frustration).

Kamikaze piloting > Shields.

But a self-destruct button could be a fun variant as well. Maybe adding a delay from button press to actual self-destruction so you have 2-3 seconds to do a last move. Could be interesting.

[Lethe]

I've thought about the self-destruct idea too. You could activate it by trying to bomb with no bombs in stock, and the advantage to doing it is that your ship doesn't release shrapnel on death (which doesn't give points if it kills something). It rewards you from correctly anticipating when you're going to die even if you're out of bombs.

In StellaVanity you can convert lives into bombs. It also has autobomb, but autobombs count as misses, and several parts of the game have miss requirements in order to be accessed.

[Jeneki]

For suicide'em'ups, there's always Hitogata Happa. "Hmm, why is this game letting me buy 90 ships before the next stage?" ... (sees the mega-explosion when contacting an enemy) "oh."

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

But a self-destruct button could be a fun variant as well. Maybe adding a delay from button press to actual self-destruction so you have 2-3 seconds to do a last move. Could be interesting.

Not a self-destruct, but Acrobat Mission literally lets you do this. When you get hit it gives you 3 seconds to do a kamikaze attack as your ship swaps to tank controls. It's pretty metal.

[SPM]

Suiciding in Garegga is not that different from chess.
In Garegga you sacrifice 1 life in stock to get ~2 bombs and a greater chance of getting the next 1M extend and easier rank. It's a risky choice but with long term rewards.
In Chess, you often sacrifice a piece, such as a bishop, to have greater chance of taking out a more important piece, such as a queen. It's the same type of risky choice but with great long term rewards.

Well put together DMC, consider me interested again, but it still feels wrong to me. As I see it, in Garegga you don't get rid of strategic resources (the pieces), but yourself (the king). It's you, the ship. Not bombs, options, upgrades... You. (I know I know, ships are really a resource themselves here, but it feels kinda weird).

I love chess and it doesn't feel the same to me. It would be like losing a match (your king, your ship) to decrease your level and face easier opponents later on to reach a certain goal/1cc.

[LenDar]

If suiciding is so strategic for particular advantages, then why should it decrease your rank?

Rank does nevertheless make the game easier for beginners that die a lot, and this mechanic was present already in earlier games like Zanac.

I'm thinking that the point still stands, though, that the advanced (i.e. not "beginners") will use their perfectly deliberate/advanced strategy and find themselves with an easier game that's closer to the "beginner" level, then.

The alternative would be for advanced players deliberately forgoing this strategy of methodically suiciding, which they would do for other reasons, in order to increase the rank for the more advanced challenge.

I don't think this really works.

[Rastan78]

Imo suicide as a game mechanic would be way more acceptable if you just consumed your lives directly instead of actually ramming into enemies or eating bullets.

A lot of it is psychological, and that's why it's outdated. Even if it gives you tactical advantage and is functionally a resource exchange, dying on purpose feels jank inhenretly.

I love the feeling of tactical suicides when you get a full level chain in Bakraid. It really turns the idea of dodging on its head as in certain cases your frantically hoping for a stray bullet or zako you can ram at the last possible second.

Another satisfying one is doing a well placed suicide on Mad Ball in Garegga to get the shrapnel damage to every little destructible part.

As far as how much thought devs gave to balance I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Players have maybe overanalyzed these games at times to a point the devs never would've expected. At the same time it's not like they were just randomly throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. They were definitely already thinking about the relationship between score and rank, even if the initial purpose of rank was simple adaptive difficulty.

For example the head Darius Gaiden dev "Kurabar" said that to score better in DG you would have to boost rank. Yagawa said he played a lot of DG back at that time and went for a lot of the advanced tactics even without having autofire at his arcade. Garegga's basics of rank are practically copy pasted from Gaiden. So in what world does a designer of Yagawa's talents play a ton of Darius Gaiden for score, work on a game that uses a very similar rank system to DG and then remain blissfully unaware of the delicate balance between rank increase and scoring? Then Garegga's unique balance is just some sort of happy accident? Sounds like a stretch.

I'm thinking that the point still stands, though, that the advanced (i.e. not "beginners") will use their perfectly deliberate/advanced strategy and find themselves with an easier game that's closer to the "beginner" level, then.

The alternative would be for advanced players deliberately forgoing this strategy of methodically suiciding, which they would do for other reasons, in order to increase the rank for the more advanced challenge.

I don't think this really works.

You're just looking at the suicide rank reduction in isolation without thinking about the whole system. There are so many other factors that increase rank in a high scoring run that without the reduction from suiciding the game would be almost impossible even for a pro. (In an aggressive scoring run)

Also the relationship of high rank = high score is not completely linear. Without suiciding the rank could go so high that certain enemies HP is to the point where there aren't enough bomb chips to score effectively.

Regarding the idea of pros being able to score well and keep the rank all the way down to a beginner level, this is a top player vs. Glow Squid at the end of a high scoring Gain run: https://youtu.be/HBVnXV_xIbY

[DMC]

Not a self-destruct, but Acrobat Mission literally lets you do this. When you get hit it gives you 3 seconds to do a kamikaze attack as your ship swaps to tank controls. It's pretty metal.

Sounds awesome. Never played that one actually, but UPL had some interesting ideas, so I defintely need to check it out.

As I see it, in Garegga you don't get rid of strategic resources (the pieces), but yourself (the king). It's you, the ship. Not bombs, options, upgrades... You. (I know I know, ships are really a resource themselves here, but it feels kinda weird).

I love chess and it doesn't feel the same to me. It would be like losing a match (your king, your ship) to decrease your level and face easier opponents later on to reach a certain goal/1cc.

Yeah, I think you nailed the issue. Garegga is a bit acquired taste because you need to change the perception of your ship from something invaluable to something expendable.
But the best players get something like 15-20 extends during the game, so at least for them, ships are more like pawns than kings.

[LenDar]

I'm thinking that the point still stands, though, that the advanced (i.e. not "beginners") will use their perfectly deliberate/advanced strategy and find themselves with an easier game that's closer to the "beginner" level, then.

The alternative would be for advanced players deliberately forgoing this strategy of methodically suiciding, which they would do for other reasons, in order to increase the rank for the more advanced challenge.

I don't think this really works.

You're just looking at the suicide rank reduction in isolation without thinking about the whole system. There are so many other factors that increase rank in a high scoring run that without the reduction from suiciding the game would be almost impossible even for a pro. (In an aggressive scoring run)

Also the relationship of high rank = high score is not completely linear. Without suiciding the rank could go so high that certain enemies HP is to the point where there aren't enough bomb chips to score effectively.

Regarding the idea of pros being able to score well and keep the rank all the way down to a beginner level, this is a top player vs. Glow Squid at the end of a high scoring Gain run: https://youtu.be/HBVnXV_xIbY

I'm not "just" looking at suiciding being the only factor of rank.

I'm just saying that it's contradictory to acknowledge that BG's rank system is outright stated as something put in place for beginner players, therefore dying reduces it, and then simultaneously say that suiciding isn't necessarily the mark of a beginner/failure as it has its own merits as a deliberate tactic besides rank anyway (a claim I'm not even disputing in itself here).

IOW: in BG's mind, dying by mistake or suicide are equally treated like indicators of more of a beginner as the intentions of its rank system implies.

I think I understand that you can essentially say that the two goals happen to coincide anyway, I guess; like you can argue that you're suiciding BOTH to reduce rank AND for other strategic purposes. I think we could agree that it's purely against the player's interests NOT to do the suiciding strategy in either case, though, so you're pretty much forced into the approach of suiciding methodically.

[Rastan78]

IOW: in BG's mind, dying by mistake or suicide are equally treated like indicators of more of a beginner as the intentions of its rank system implies.

I think I understand that you can essentially say that the two goals happen to coincide anyway, I guess; like you can argue that you're suiciding BOTH to reduce rank AND for other strategic purposes. I think we could agree that it's purely against the player's interests NOT to do the suiciding strategy in either case, though, so you're pretty much forced into the approach of suiciding methodically.

Yeah I think that's the gist of it. An unplanned death can still be bad compared to a suicide when playing for score. Maybe it means you won't be able to suicide and use more bombs/ shrapnel damage/ respawn invincibility etc at the right time.

The contradiction you mention does sort of exist for survival play. Like barring any attempt at score a knowledgeable player can make the game easier to beat than a noob ever could. In that sense though dropping powerups or medals is similarly counterintuitive to suciding and are also things that would probably only occur to knowledgeable players.

Darius Gaiden has that type of contradiction going on in a sense too. If you use autofire or mash rapidly the rank is meant to go up quickly. Another major factor though is the passage of time. This is why pros will drag out every boss fight on some routes even if there isn't a great point source. They want the rank to be higher for a later boss and letting time pass (up to 4 mins per boss which is a long ass time) plus holding auto will max it out quickly.

The catch is, with the right strategies, you can kill the bosses so quickly with auto when playing only for survival that you'll offset that large natural rank increase that would've happened over the course of time while fighting the boss normally. So if you don't use auto much during the levels and just use it to quick kill the bosses you can actually make the rank be lower than it would be without auto.

In the bigger sense though good players will always be playing an easier game than beginners in shmups. Whether they're point blanking enemies before they get to shoot, camping in safe spots or intentionally dropping rank etc.

[chum]

I'm thinking that the point still stands, though, that the advanced (i.e. not "beginners") will use their perfectly deliberate/advanced strategy and find themselves with an easier game that's closer to the "beginner" level, then.

Advanced players do increase rank in Raizing games to gain more score.
This idea that advanced players play closer to beginners ranks is not true. Losing lives is not the only thing that affects your rank. There are many things that raises your rank, and to get a high score you must get high rank and a difficult game. You can observe this in replays.

IOW: in BG's mind, dying by mistake or suicide are equally treated like indicators of more of a beginner as the intentions of its rank system implies.

Tactical suicide have to be done in a particular fashion. Dying on accident can happen anywhere.
If a beginner dies on accident, they may enjoy the reduced rank. Meanwhile the pro can enjoy a reset because now their route is wrong, or have to adapt to the circumstance.