M2 ShotTriggers DDP Daioujou Rinne Tensei

[DMC]

This game just claimed a casualty: the d-pad on my Retro-Bit Saturn controller stopped registering down inputs immediately after I destroyed the stage 2 miniboss. Opened the controller to find the d-pad's down thingy cracked. Great.

Retrobit's d-pad break all the time. Switch to 8BitDo M30 maybe?

[Steven]

This game just claimed a casualty: the d-pad on my Retro-Bit Saturn controller stopped registering down inputs immediately after I destroyed the stage 2 miniboss. Opened the controller to find the d-pad's down thingy cracked. Great.

Retrobit's d-pad break all the time. Switch to 8BitDo M30 maybe?

I might do that. What I like about the Retro-Bit is the Bluetooth one that broke on me has the old games mode or whatever it's called that automatically reassigns the Saturn ABC to Switch YBA so you don't have to mess around with the settings and stuff, which is nice because then you don't have to remap when going between handheld and docked.

I wonder if original Saturn parts will fit in it; they might, considering that Retro-Bit used the original molds for some of the parts, and there are plenty of Saturn controllers around here. It might be cheaper to go buy an old Saturn controller just to get the d-pad than to buy a new controller. I have a few here with me, but I would rather not sacrifice the d-pads on my main Saturn controllers.

[DMC]

Someone has done something similar on the joy-cons: https://medium.com/@NanoGameReviews/seg ... 0d2425da90
The M30 is great though, really feels like a Saturn pad, and seems to have minimal lag.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Trouser, I feel your pain. There is a bit more memorisation in here than other cave games, but I will say that just as I was about to give in, I got the black label clear. I was starting to feel a little frustrated with it, but didn't realise how close I was.

Push on! Have you tried B-exy? The extra bombs you get with the other loadouts feel like a decoy, the extra fire power with exy is a much better deal.

I'm king of the flailing shitters. I never do any practise, always full runs, but playing the arranges will definitely have prepared me. The final stage felt so intuitive once I got there. If I can do it, anyone can.

Stick with it. Maybe you just need a break to play something else and recharge your batteries, or play some more of the arrange modes. Perseverance will get you through!

I think it would take at least 50-100 hours to learn stage 3. and probably as much or more to learn 4 and 5 each as well. Then it would be hundreds of hours of runs to finally hit that one in ten-thousand fluke where I don't piss all my lives away on nothing.

I haven't got 300 hours or the patience to play this for that long. In likelihood I probably wouldn't even manage stage 3. Trying to copy other people doesn't work (tried it years ago on other games) so I've got to make my own route pretty much from scratch, and that is just trial and error in the extreme.

When you start taking these stages apart and looking at them and the way the bullets flood the screen and the angles that shit comes in at, you realise that it's not only that these games are designed to be impossible to clear for cheap (as is the necessity of an arcade game) but they are designed to be impossible to 1cc even for the most dedicated players, and that difficulty is way over-tuned. I think it's largely an exercise in futility since a lot of "easy" strategies require you to score very heavily in order to have hypers on tap to blast through difficult segments. Something that is not viable for me.

[clippa]

I haven't got 300 hours or the patience to play this for that long.

Nah, it shouldn't take that long. I'm exactly the same, I figure things out for myself.
I've got 25 hours in shmupmame and then I'd guess around 20 hours more on the ps4.
Play the arranges a bit more, they really help getting you ready for the main mode.
I can understand if you're just not feeling the game though, but I will say that I was feeling frustrated like you and that was like one or two runs before I got my first clear. I didn't realise how close I was to getting a handle on it.

[DrTrouserPlank]

I do need to get a ps5 compatible stick too if I'm actually gonna start playing these again on this console. Whilst it's not the magic answer to clearing them, I'm getting more and more frustrated with this donkey dick D-pad.

I was looking at getting a Victrix. None of the "premium" options really suit me entirely for different reasons, but you can still end up paying quite a lot of money for real rubbish if you pay a bit less. I assume using things like brook converters on my existing sticks will add input lag? I even considered refitting one of my sticks with a brook board since I assume that might mitigate input lag issues; but when I consider the work, money and the fact that the stick would only be half functional for PS5 it seemed like throwing money down a dead end.

[Jonpachi]

I do need to get a ps5 compatible stick too if I'm actually gonna start playing these again on this console. Whilst it's not the magic answer to clearing them, I'm getting more and more frustrated with this donkey dick D-pad.

I was looking at getting a Victrix. None of the "premium" options really suit me entirely for different reasons, but you can still end up paying quite a lot of money for real rubbish if you pay a bit less. I assume using things like brook converters on my existing sticks will add input lag? I even considered refitting one of my sticks with a brook board since I assume that might mitigate input lag issues; but when I consider the work, money and the fact that the stick would only be half functional for PS5 it seemed like throwing money down a dead end.

The good news is that since this is a PS4 game, you can use anything compatible with that system (unlike a full PS5 version which would require a PS5-dedicated stick) so your options are quite broad. I personally swear by Hori, and use a HRAP IV Kai on my PS5. No need for adaptors or anything like that.

[kuze]

Any tips on handling the TLB specifically on Arrange L?

I make it into the encounter with around six lives in stock then just get wrecked.

When you die Hibachi puts up a temp shield and just spams the same patterns which are very difficult to dodge. It’s hard to survive long enough for the shield to go down and not auto bomb (thus bringing back the shield). At least there’s no health regen on the boss from bombing on this one.

[jehu]

Any tips on handling the TLB specifically on Arrange L?

I make it into the encounter with around six lives in stock then just get wrecked.

When you die Hibachi puts up a temp shield and just spams the same patterns which are very difficult to dodge. It’s hard to survive long enough for the shield to go down and not auto bomb (thus bringing back the shield). At least there’s no health regen on the boss from bombing on this one.

Your best bet is using the invincibility frames of your hyper to get in Hibachi's face and hit him with the laser aura. It's counterintuitive, but you have to be almost right on top of him. Does a ton of damage and, with six lives, you'll have more than enough hypers to take him out.

[kuze]

Thanks I’ll give it a shot. Something tells me the next time I need to create a save state lol

[TransatlanticFoe]

Yeah I'd been struggling with that in Arrange L, it's an odd mode - largely easy up to that point. My brain totally seizes up at the TLB though, will see if that strat helps!

[DrTrouserPlank]

Yeah this game isn't possible to 1cc. Even if you have it totally planned out, the patterns and barrages of shit you need to avoid would be a one in a million run to 1cc it. Even relatively innocuous patterns are going to drain lives from you. Stage 3 onwards you need to be on the right pixel all the time and if you are a fraction late your plan is ruined, causing you to have to bomb/hyper and screwing up your route later on. I ran some of stages 3-5 in the arcade challenge mode, and even living in the fantasy land where I might be able to brute-force some sort of route through them ... it would be like 5% for a no miss on any given stage. You need to be at least 80-85% no-miss on all stages to even be worth your time with runs otherwise it's just a massive game of probabilities.

The game is not designed in any reasonable sense to be highly challenging like it might have been if it wasn't an arcade game. It's specifically designed to be impossible. Wave after wave of screen flood and walling so you can't even find a pixel to dodge onto.

[Rastan78]

Yeah this game isn't possible to 1cc.

That's a whole lot of salt

[DrTrouserPlank]

Yeah this game isn't possible to 1cc.

That's a whole lot of salt

Explains why my blood pressure is off the charts then.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Dude, you aren't just going to walk in a 1CC with a little repeat play. If you're not ready to bomb/hyper when you get into a tight spot (yeah the hyper/bomb on the same button... if you must, just hyper and make sure you bomb before it expires to keep the rank down), it's going to be a slog. Stage 3 onwards is bloody tough, but progress is doable - pick shot style for more bombs and just see how you can go with survival. Add some scoring to the early stages. Keep chipping away. But if you're not enjoying it... maybe walk away. It's okay for something to be not for you.

I have long since come to terms with my reflexes being past their prime, brain seizing up under the weight of everything on screen. It's fine if I don't 1CC something, as long as it's fun - but if the fun stops, stop.

[Steven]

WTF hyper has i-frames? That's... interesting. I've been completely ignoring hyper to keep rank down. Perhaps I should rethink that. Made it to Black Label stage 4 yesterday but game overed at the start by accident when I tried to adjust my air conditioning without bothering to pause the game. Should 1-ALL eventually.

[beer gas canister]

Yeah this game isn't possible to 1cc. Even if you have it totally planned out, the patterns and barrages of shit you need to avoid would be a one in a million run to 1cc it. Even relatively innocuous patterns are going to drain lives from you. Stage 3 onwards you need to be on the right pixel all the time and if you are a fraction late your plan is ruined, causing you to have to bomb/hyper and screwing up your route later on. I ran some of stages 3-5 in the arcade challenge mode, and even living in the fantasy land where I might be able to brute-force some sort of route through them ... it would be like 5% for a no miss on any given stage. You need to be at least 80-85% no-miss on all stages to even be worth your time with runs otherwise it's just a massive game of probabilities.

The game is not designed in any reasonable sense to be highly challenging like it might have been if it wasn't an arcade game. It's specifically designed to be impossible. Wave after wave of screen flood and walling so you can't even find a pixel to dodge onto.

Hell Mark MSX did a 2 loop 1CC. He said it took him something like a year of stage-by-stage practice: https://youtu.be/16yD84DZJto?si=UWEr-KaRaUJ4lD5T

It's not at all impossible, but it does take a great deal of dedicated practice time that is only achievable over the span of months.

[Steven]

Lack of a training mode for Black Label is really stupid and disappointing. At least save states are here.

[Triple Lei]

This game just claimed a casualty: the d-pad on my Retro-Bit Saturn controller stopped registering down inputs immediately after I destroyed the stage 2 miniboss. Opened the controller to find the d-pad's down thingy cracked. Great. Looks like I'm not playing this game, or anything else on Switch, for a while.

Is it this part? https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5172882

In my case I've been using stock Joy-cons ever since I got a Pintendo grip on Etsy. Managed to reach stage 5 for the first time in a while with that setup.

I also decided to splurge for those d-pad-style Joy-cons also on Etsy and the seller I bought from sure is taking his sweet time... so I'm tempted to try this neat 3D-printed d-pad mod while I wait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx8ziW64xo4

[BrianC]

The skull n co stick on d-pad with pivot worked for me.

[Warp_Rattler]

This game just claimed a casualty: the d-pad on my Retro-Bit Saturn controller stopped registering down inputs immediately after I destroyed the stage 2 miniboss. Opened the controller to find the d-pad's down thingy cracked. Great. Looks like I'm not playing this game, or anything else on Switch, for a while.

I had this happen to me about a year ago, with a Retro-bit Saturn pad from one of their initial runs. The plastic used in the d-pad actuator was flimsy and this was a common problem with that run. I reached out to Retro-bit and was surprised that they sent me a replacement actuator, free of charge, some years after I bought it! They obviously may be less willing to ship one to you in Japan, but if you have any regular package exchanges with family/friends back home it may be worth looking into. I haven't had any issues with my controller since replacing the actuator; I also have another one from a later run where the issue was supposedly fixed, and there are no problems with that either.

The 3d-printed part Triple Lei mentioned above may also work, though that one looks a bit different from what's inside the Retro-bit controller--I'm not 100% sure but I recall there being a single screw securing the actuator to the d-pad itself. I took a quick skim through Thingiverse and this piece looks a lot more like the replacement. Is 3d-printed plastic generally tough/dense enough to use for high-stress applications like this?

Whatever it takes to stop the butchery of a poor, innocent OG Saturn controller!

[Warp_Rattler]

Sorry for double-posting but I thought it would be better to break it up into two.

Some observations/questions:

I recently fired up Ketsui Deathtiny for a change of pace from DOJ and really noticed how differently the bullets behave between these two "masterpiece" games. I'm sure it's absolutely not a revelation to say that bullet patterns/behavior vary among Cave's games, but I've never spent enough focused time to be able to say how they may differ. Speaking strictly from first-loop experience, DOJ seems like the bullets are denser but more straightforward, whereas Ketsui seems to have relatively less dense patterns that aren't as fast as DOJ. However, Ketsui has more "trick" bullets that change up speed/trajectory (examples: the stage 5 midboss and Evaccaneer Doom) whereas in DOJ the bullets tend to a strictly linear trajectory--the shots in Kouryu's final pattern that "ricochet" from the sides of the screen are the most dynamic thing that's stood out to me. I don't know that there's a point to these observations, but it was just interesting to me. I've also noticed that moving laterally in front of larger enemies is a much more successful dodging tactic to get those 5 chips in Ketsui that absolutely does not work predictably in DOJ.

Since rank came up in this thread earlier: how the hell does rank in DOJ work? I'm used to Battle Garegga's "the only way not to increase rank is not to play" approach but I also appreciate how the rank graph in the ShotTriggers version gives you clear feedback on how your actions affect it. One of my few complaints of Rinne Tensei is that the rank indicator is a bit tough to make out--I wouldn't mind something a little larger/easier to understand at a glance while the action is hot.

So there's hyper rank, and then connected (right?) to that is bullet speed and density. Is hyper rank controlled by the use of hypers, or stocking hypers? What governs the increase in bullet speed/density? Does it drop when you die? By how much?

I thought I had seen people in this thread mention a time duration connected to hyper use and rank increase--how does that work? Are hypers the only thing that govern rank, or does it increase in connection to scoring, power-ups, bombs, etc.?

Hypering a boss gets them angry and draws out some really asshole patterns. In a handful of videos I've watched, the players often choose not to use a hyper at all on some bosses, which strikes me as a bit counter-intuitive. For the first boss, as an example, if I'm lucky I can get a hit count of 1000+ with a hyper, which (if I am also lucky) translates into a good bonus at the end of the level. Is choosing not to use a hyper at a boss mainly a matter of survival (making the patterns more manageable)?

It seems like every run I take, there's a moment where the level or boss battle just feels a little different, in terms of where bullets are coming from, how fast, etc. I'm just not at the point where it's clear how my actions through a run affect these variables (or how much may be random). It's hard to put my attention on the rank gadget for long enough to get a sense of how it's affected by what I'm doing.

[Ms. Tea]

Thanks for the tips, kezu. Helped me push a little further - got Hibachi down to about 4% health before a death. Going to keep going; this arrange-L 1-ALL feels like it's in reach!

[DrTrouserPlank]

Having been off playing other shmups and then having a go at this again it becomes clear just how unreasonable the game is. What it expects you to do and the gaps it wants you to squeeze through for half an hour are so high risk that it's never getting cleared or anywhere close.

Bullets too fast when combined with multi-directional patterns of medium density make it impossible. I'd rather have the patterns 2-3x denser but with full slowdown. There isn't any amount of practice that would make this possible in 1 credit. It's just so far past being reasonable for so many different reasons.

[pegboy]

I'd kind of agree with you when discussing the second loop of white label but I don't think that's what is going on here.

First loop really isnt that bad if you aren't trying to score, certainly nowhere close to the difficulty of what you are describing

[jehu]

Game good.

I put it in my 'best of' list for two reasons:

1. The first loop of WL is, in my opinion, a lesson in well-balanced, progressive difficulty increases. The last three stages in particular are all very doable with practice, and each is appropriately more difficult than the last without getting crazy by the end. Even stage 5 is quite consistent with practice and a route. Now that I have a well-articulated gameplan through the first loop, every credit I've played since has been fun.

2. The second loop is the kind of genre-Everest capable of supporting the culture of the genre through events like Kemonomichi. It's healthy for the genre as a whole to have a proving ground for the best players, and second loop WL has proven to be nothing if not that. I'll likely never achieve it, but it's good that it exists.

[DrTrouserPlank]

I feel as though I must be playing a different game to other people in this thread.

[Jonpachi]

I feel as though I must be playing a different game to other people in this thread.

Legit curious what games you like. Are there shmups you regard as well balanced and fair? What are some examples of games you’ve enjoyed learning?

[DrTrouserPlank]

I feel as though I must be playing a different game to other people in this thread.

Legit curious what games you like. Are there shmups you regard as well balanced and fair? What are some examples of games you’ve enjoyed learning?

I only really play Cave's games. I've tried other shmups but I wouldn't bother devoting a lot of time to any of the one's I've played.

I don't think any of Cave's games are well balanced and fair. I think on the whole (given the arcade roots of the genre) the games are designed to be the exact opposite of this. Certainly if the "idea" of these games is to clear them in 1 credit then they nowhere close to being fair or well balanced.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I only really play Cave's games.

I don't think any of Cave's games are well balanced and fair.

Is there a reason you're engaging in masochism? Is it something you enjoy? I would suggest that engaging in an activity you find upsetting is not healthy.