Can’t stand Cave games…

[Sloppy_J]

Am I only one find Cave games unappealing? I feel like their games are more like memory tests than tests of skill.
I’m not a fan of the jarring colour pallette. I’m sure some people will say it’s for bullet visibility but the neon coloured bullets always look out of place against the enemy sprites and backgrounds. I’m not expecting many people to agree with me, haha.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Try some other cave games. Your post lets on a somewhat vague idea of which ones you refer to, but go play esprade, guwange, dangun feveron, hell even progear (just read how it works first). You'll prolly have plenty of fun.

[Restart_Point]

I dont hate them, but I don't play them often. I respect them and understand why they are popular, and most of them are masterpieces of their art but it's not a style that I love, and that goes for most bullet hells too. I think I will always prefer the oldschool (pre-bullet hell) style. Psikyo and Raizing classics appeal to me more than Cave, as many of those stick more to oldschool style, although they do have varying amounts of bullet hell in them too depending on the game. At the moment im totally digging Exzeal and Trizeal on Naomi. Great examples of more modern(ish) shmups that are not bullet hells, and stuff like Under Defeat is my jam too, stuff that is oldscool gameplay with modern presentation and twists. Chuck Zero Gunner 2 in there too, that game is pure class.

[pablumatic]

Even though I know they're popular, the shooter genre mostly lost me with the bullet hell games.

I do have several of the Cave games now from recent releases, but they're merely a curiosity for me and not what I usually play.

[BryanM]

They're pretty much the dead opposite of memorizers. You can't Simon Says or trial n' error your way through a bullet grid, you can only get good at threading, and then thread the needle.

[shmuppy-puppy]

This is like logging on to a Heavy Metal Music forum stating you don‘t like Iron Maiden.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Am I only one find Cave games unappealing? I feel like their games are more like memory tests than tests of skill.

This isn't really accurate whatsoever - memorizing bullet patterns is certainly helpful regardless of what shmup you play, but they're far less memorization dependent than games with large hitboxes, no bombs, positioning based shields, etc. Your average Gradius or R-Type is far more memo heavy than going for a 1CC of Dodonpachi, Espgaluda, etc.

I’m not a fan of the jarring colour pallette.

Which games though? There's several different series they make with varying colour palettes in use. Espgaluda uses a very limited colour palette to denote when in Kakusei and Overmode, Dangun Feveron and Dodonpachi are much more colourful, Mushihimesama and Futari both use pink and purple, etc.

There's a reason grey bullets on grey backgrounds with grey enemies Battle Garegga style is not widely used in the genre.

I don't mind folks who don't like Cave's style of shmups because there's plenty of styles of shmups to enjoy out there other than dense bullet hell shmups, but the complaints here don't appear to be well articulated.

[Jonpachi]

Icy cold take. You'll find plenty of folks here that aren't big Cave fans. The good news is that the world is full others shmups to play.

[Steven]

Not big on CAVE in particular (Toaplan, Irem, Raizing, and that one dude who made Crimzon Clover are all far better than CAVE. Maybe also Siter Skain, M-Kai, and Taito) or bullet hell in general, but Dangun Feveron and Saidaioujou are good and cool. I seem to like the CAVE games that CAVE fans don't really like. I don't get it, but that's how it is.

Their games are okay or whatever, but there are a lot of things I'd rather play instead, so I do. If I had to choose whether I like or dislike CAVE, with no other options, it's definitely "like", but yeah. I think it's mostly the needlessly confounding scoring systems. I don't want to engage with them at all because I greatly prefer the old-fashioned "blow shit up and don't die" scoring systems of the 80s, but at the same time it seems like the player is required to do so to get the most out of these games in most cases, with Dangun Feveron being a notable exception due to its simple scoring system: kill shit (quickly), pick up the dudes, don't die. Perfect.

[Jeneki]

I thought memo criticism was more of an Irem thing.

May I suggest checking out more stuff from the mid 90s to early 2000s? That era was wild, with lots of different styles and plenty of games trying cool unique things.

[Steven]

Irem + mid-90s + cool unique things = Kaitei Daisensou. Holy shit that game is awesome.

[Sumez]

I'm not really nearly as fascinated by their games as I was 10-15 years ago, but I don't think I'd ever dislike them.
But disliking Cave games isn't really that hot of a take, you'll probably find quite a few people who share that perspective.

I feel like their games are more like memory tests than tests of skill.

If you can say that about Cave games, I think you'll be hard pressed to find any shooting game that can't be described that way.

Obviously, memorizing sections and patterns helps immensely to the point where you could argue you won't get far without it. But I don't think that's what carries their games at all, there are so many games that do that to a much larger extent.

[To Far Away Times]

Bullet hell isn't for everyone, but nobody does it better, imo.

You could also try the mushi games, which have a more manic "original" mode with faster bullet speeds and less dense patterns.

Aesthetics vary quite a bit in their games. Muchi Pork, Pink Sweets and Deathsmiles II look truly awful, but Progear, Mushi, DOJ, Ketsui, and others look really nice.

[mycophobia]

i am falling asleep from this take

[Sloppy_J]

To be a bit more specific, I find that Cave games generally don’t require much improvisation, it’s mostly just routing. Some of the comments here make valid points about games like R-Type and Gradius requiring memorisation, which I totally agree with, however there is a lot of improvisation involved too. I also feel that most Cave games push you towards one route, there’s only really one way to play their games. I bought into the hype on so many of their titles but for me it seems that the games hide behind intricate scoring mechanics and are fundamentally just boring routing affairs.
Of course, this is just my opinion and I’m open to being corrected.

As for the graphics / colours - it just seems like the bullets never match the sprites and background. If I look at Crimzon Clover, everything seems to “fit” visually. There’s a level of congruency with the visuals that Cave games rarely have.

I understand that this is pretty much a matter of taste. I’m just airing my opinion. Relieved to see I’m not the only one who isn’t a huge Cave fan.

[Steven]

I still say that IKD's best game is V-V.

Not entirely related, but is Takano no longer at the company? He isn't listed on their website. Retirement age in Japan is 60, and although I don't know his age, he was one of the founding members of Toaplan's game division, so he's almost certainly at least 60 by now. Maybe he retired.

[Lemnear]

This is like logging on to a Heavy Metal Music forum stating you don‘t like Iron Maiden.

Is legit, CAVE is not the only one who makes good SHMUPS

Am I only one find Cave games unappealing? I feel like their games are more like memory tests than tests of skill.
I’m not a fan of the jarring colour pallette. I’m sure some people will say it’s for bullet visibility but the neon coloured bullets always look out of place against the enemy sprites and backgrounds. I’m not expecting many people to agree with me, haha.

Depends, i love ProGear and DoDonPachi, but i totally dislike Ketsui for example.

For the gameplay part, i found it generally intuitive also during the most bullet-hellish sections. Is more or less always clear where are the safe screen portions, how to move between bullets etc.
I found Battle Garegga instead to be the total opposite of this. Patters are hard to read, and somewhat unusual...

The trick in CAVE's visuals is their "slighty inclined" view of the background.
Hope that nothings happen if i say that i don't like IREM games...nor Gradius (apart Gradius V)
I prefer an instinctive thrilling approach!

[Steven]

This is like logging on to a Heavy Metal Music forum stating you don‘t like Iron Maiden.

Is legit, CAVE is not the only one who makes good SHMUPS

You'd be surprised at how many people disagree with this. Maybe 10~15 years ago, before I started playing these games, there were a lot of people online that said stuff like that the only good STGs were CAVE games, that the only ones worth playing are CAVE games, that all pre-CAVE STGs are garbage, or some variation of this. This has largely died down, but on rare occasions it does still come up. The most recent variation that I've seen is "the only good M2 ShotTriggers games are the CAVE ones and Garegga".

[cfx]

Is legit, CAVE is not the only one who makes good SHMUPS

You'd be surprised at how many people disagree with this. Maybe 10~15 years ago, before I started playing these games, there were a lot of people online that said stuff like that the only good STGs were CAVE games, that the only ones worth playing are CAVE games, that all pre-CAVE STGs are garbage, or some variation of this. This has largely died down, but on rare occasions it does still come up. The most recent variation that I've seen is "the only good M2 ShotTriggers games are the CAVE ones and Garegga".

I remember it all too well. That sentiment combined with my own very strong dislike of DonPachi and DoDonPachi led to me disregarding Cave in general for many years, which was an overreaction of course. Now I have Deathsmiles and ESPra.de. Psi and will get Ibara and Pink Sweets if they're ever released.

Back in the Usenet days, I had some idiot tell me I was not a shooter fan if I didn't like the Cave games such as DoDonPachi or bullet hell in general.

I certainly get the comment about the color palette, though it's really just certain games. I think DoDonPachi in particular is incedibly ugly with its garish color palette, and the lack of shading or apparent depth in the backgrounds make them feel like just wallpaper that scrolls by with no real relevence to anything else.

[Lander]

Is OP that fella who walks around asking people hello, do you know where I can get into a street fight?

To be a bit more specific, I find that Cave games generally don’t require much improvisation, it’s mostly just routing.

Which ones, specifically? There's little useful discourse to be had over generalizations.

I’m just airing my opinion.

...With a megaphone. Which could be viewed as wilful pot-stirring by a less-generous individual.

[Lemnear]

Is legit, CAVE is not the only one who makes good SHMUPS

You'd be surprised at how many people disagree with this. Maybe 10~15 years ago, before I started playing these games, there were a lot of people online that said stuff like that the only good STGs were CAVE games, that the only ones worth playing are CAVE games, that all pre-CAVE STGs are garbage, or some variation of this. This has largely died down, but on rare occasions it does still come up. The most recent variation that I've seen is "the only good M2 ShotTriggers games are the CAVE ones and Garegga".

I remember it all too well. That sentiment combined with my own very strong dislike of DonPachi and DoDonPachi led to me disregarding Cave in general for many years, which was an overreaction of course. Now I have Deathsmiles and ESPra.de. Psi and will get Ibara and Pink Sweets if they're ever released.

Back in the Usenet days, I had some idiot tell me I was not a shooter fan if I didn't like the Cave games such as DoDonPachi or bullet hell in general.

I certainly get the comment about the color palette, though it's really just certain games. I think DoDonPachi in particular is incedibly ugly with its garish color palette, and the lack of shading or apparent depth in the backgrounds make them feel like just wallpaper that scrolls by with no real relevence to anything else.

I love that colorful palette in full contrast in a game about war and death...but yeh.. often looks like if it runs at 144p
But CAVE's games are always "top/side view slightly inclined", so they can draw the flank of tanks or the wall of a cliff etc., something that normally a SHMUPS doesn't do.
However, i hate when a developer monopolize a genre...always...except for From Software. They can.

Is OP that fella who walks around asking people hello, do you know where I can get into a street fight?

Is something that i've asked around from times to times

[Sumez]

I don't know, isn't that angle fairly common in topdown games?

[Steven]

Is legit, CAVE is not the only one who makes good SHMUPS

You'd be surprised at how many people disagree with this. Maybe 10~15 years ago, before I started playing these games, there were a lot of people online that said stuff like that the only good STGs were CAVE games, that the only ones worth playing are CAVE games, that all pre-CAVE STGs are garbage, or some variation of this. This has largely died down, but on rare occasions it does still come up. The most recent variation that I've seen is "the only good M2 ShotTriggers games are the CAVE ones and Garegga".

I remember it all too well. That sentiment combined with my own very strong dislike of DonPachi and DoDonPachi led to me disregarding Cave in general for many years, which was an overreaction of course. Now I have Deathsmiles and ESPra.de. Psi and will get Ibara and Pink Sweets if they're ever released.

Back in the Usenet days, I had some idiot tell me I was not a shooter fan if I didn't like the Cave games such as DoDonPachi or bullet hell in general.

Fortunately most of it is all over, and by the time I started seeing this type of crap I had already played R-Type (and Galaxian lol) and I knew better. Now hopefully people will eventually stop complaining about M2 "wasting their time on Toaplan garbage instead of good shit like CAVE", which, yes, I have tragically seen multiple times, but I doubt it will happen.

I somehow have a feeling that most of the types that say this shit will probably game over on stage 2 in any given CAVE game, which makes it even more hilarious. Even my dumb ass can make it to stage 3 in most of them!

I certainly get the comment about the color palette, though it's really just certain games. I think DoDonPachi in particular is incedibly ugly with its garish color palette, and the lack of shading or apparent depth in the backgrounds make them feel like just wallpaper that scrolls by with no real relevence to anything else.

DDP is a super beautiful game, though... you can tell it's Ogiwara Naoki because of how exquisite the artwork in that game is. The ones that use prerendered graphics are the ones that look supremely hideous, like almost all prerendered games do.

To be a bit more specific, I find that Cave games generally don’t require much improvisation, it’s mostly just routing.

Which ones, specifically? There's little useful discourse to be had over generalizations.

It's a really weird thing to say, as I'm trying to think of things that don't have routing. So far my list is comprised of exactly three things:

weird shit like Acceleration of Suguri
weird shit like Twinkle Star Sprites
shit with procedurally generated stages

Maybe also Space Invaders, but I, probably somewhat shamefully, have never played that game.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

To be a bit more specific, I find that Cave games generally don’t require much improvisation, it’s mostly just routing.

I bought into the hype on so many of their titles but for me it seems that the games hide behind intricate scoring mechanics and are fundamentally just boring routing affairs.

Are we talking for survival 1CCs? Or for scoring? I mean, in any score attack game, the general goal of scoring is to figure out the best route. The design is such that generally speaking, there's going to be an optimal way of scoring and it's figuring out that route. It's true of nearly any game. There may be some arena-based shmups where scoring is purely improvisation/performance based, but any game with fixed stages is going to feature routing in its scoring design.

But for survival play? No, absolutely not accurate, most CAVE games offer a tremendous amount of freedom and leeway in how you use your resources to figure out how to 1CC the game, and you can spend your resources where you find the game difficult and conserve during sections you've learned. Donpachi and Dodonpachi are bomb heavy, DOJ onwards introduce hypers, Espgaluda lets you use kakusei for safety purposes if you like with the two score extends being easily reachable with only modest scoring, Progear allows you to hold your shot in gunner mode to get Diamond cancels if you want to simply focus on cancelling bullets, Deathsmiles lets you decide how aggressively to score with the power up state as well as stage select to let you customize your path to your tastes...

The suggestion that there's no room for improvisation in Cave games is fundamentally incorrect.

I notice that in neither of your posts you mention which games specifically you're referring to (Ibara and Pink Sweets for instance are very different and much more rigorous than the aforementioned games), nor do you mention what your experience with Cave games are, what Cave games and what other shmups you've 1CC'd, what you play for score, etc.

[Lemnear]

Am I only one find Cave games unappealing? I feel like their games are more like memory tests than tests of skill.
I’m not a fan of the jarring colour pallette. I’m sure some people will say it’s for bullet visibility but the neon coloured bullets always look out of place against the enemy sprites and backgrounds. I’m not expecting many people to agree with me, haha.

and by the way... there are more "hateable" things than CAVE games. For example that cheese bullets in Battle Garegga...why go for realism in a genre that is about a single Plane/Ship/Flying Persons that beat an entire army? ..or enemies that came from behind...

[Sloppy_J]

Some great responses and plenty of food for thought. I’m willing to be educated.

Top tier shooters for me:
Gradius Gaiden
Gradius V
Raiden Fighters 2
Raiden Fighters Jet
R-Type Delta
Einhander
Radiant Silvergun
Battle Garegga

1CCd all except Radiant Silvergun.
I don’t suck at games, Cave games just never sit right with me, both in terms of visuals and mechanics.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Gradius V was one of my gateway drugs into modern shmups. Reading about the cockpit hitbox size in the manual was the first time I really realized the importance of hitbox vs sprite and developed a further appreciation when I found many more modern shmups that made use of small hitboxes. It's definitely not a game I'd say is forgiving about improvisation though; there's no bombs to make use of, and dying causes a steep reduction in power, especially if you fail to recollect your multiples. It's more that you have to figure out a route or die trying. Your route may adjust based on your weapon loadout (especially with the more exotic and specialized tools under Weapon Edit) but it's going to be very strict with limited room for error.

I'm also quite fond of the Raiden Fighters games, though I'm only decent at the first one and iffy at the other two. Because they have very specific scoring bonuses you have to execute at specific stage segments (where to trigger double kills, finding Micluses, Fairies) it feels much more rigorous to learn to score than a Cave game does I think. That's just feel though; at high level scoring play, Cave games have just as specifically demanding routing (JP Donpachi players have names for some of the high scoring chains in specific stages), but at a moderate level scoring is more linear over the course of the game and failing to score well at one part of the stage isn't necessarily going to tank your entire score in a relative sense or cost you resources such as additional bombs in the way the Raiden Fighters games reward you for their tricks. There's a few such tricks in Donpachi, Espgaluda, and Deathsmiles that will allow you to squeeze out more items, but are generally less difficult to learn or pull off IMO.

My fave R-Type game is Leo I think (blasphemy I know) and even though its homing launcher weapon allows for a degree of freedom and flexibility, it still requires a fair bit of routing, especially in the JP version with checkpoints. The last two stages, especially the hopping enemies before the final boss, are a memorize or die kind of wall. I don't have much Radiant Silvergun experience, but I do know Ikaruga, and that functions much the same way. You learn a section or you spend lives dying your way through it.

[Steven]

I like R-Type Leo...

Anyway, play Dangun Feveron, but you should know that the game is very difficult and extremely fast.

As for the visuals, they are that way for a reason: playability. They probably learned from the mistake of Tatsujin Ou, especially given that Ogiwara, the lead art dude on Tatsujin Ou, was a founding member of CAVE. Tatsujin Ou's art is still practically unsurpassed in terms of how beautiful it is, but it's literally impossible to see the enemy bullets in some places. Easy solution to invisible bullets is to make them huge, glowing neon things that there is no way in hell you can miss, provided you are actually looking at the screen. People will say that Garegga's bullets are invisible (they are actually WAY worse on an arcade monitor, as they get obscured by the aperture grille), but Tatsujin Ou's are even harder to see than Garegga's are, at least to me.

[Some-Mist]

Dangun Feveron and Saidaioujou are good and cool. I seem to like the CAVE games that CAVE fans don't really like. I don't get it, but that's how it is.

idk... I love cave games and dangun is a top 5 for me and saidaioujou is my favorite in the series following dodonpachi
progear and muchi muchi pork are tied for my fav tho

[cfx]

I certainly get the comment about the color palette, though it's really just certain games. I think DoDonPachi in particular is incedibly ugly with its garish color palette, and the lack of shading or apparent depth in the backgrounds make them feel like just wallpaper that scrolls by with no real relevence to anything else.

DDP is a super beautiful game, though... you can tell it's Ogiwara Naoki because of how exquisite the artwork in that game is. The ones that use prerendered graphics are the ones that look supremely hideous, like almost all prerendered games do.

That art pretty much goes to waste though, because you can't see it for the huge flashing weapons of your own ship, the huge bullets, the huge big stars left behind by enemies and whatever other shit they throw on screen at every moment. Also, a nicely detailed pixel art mech tank think loses much of its beauty when it's in some shades of baby blue. I understand having subdued background colors--I hate how that aspect of 2d game design is largely forgotten for example in most modern 2D fighters where the backgrounds are so bright that you can't follow the action--but some more natural looking colors would go a long way.

People will say that Garegga's bullets are invisible (they are actually WAY worse on an arcade monitor, as they get obscured by the aperture grille), but Tatsujin Ou's are even harder to see than Garegga's are, at least to me.

The funny thing is I've never understood that comment. I die often in Garegga, but never because of not seeing a bullet. They're perfectly clear and distinct to me.

I don't mind brighter bullets. I do strongly dislike the ones that are huge; I think they are ugly and they're unnecessary (given that I see the ones in Garegga just fine), and I do not think bullets should be significantly larger than their hitbox, period. For your ship, fine, but I can't wrap my brain about the size of the bullets not at least approximately matching what actually kills you.