Shmups you love/respect, but never play?

[sumdumgoy]

x

[Tokyo-J]

All the Toaplan stuff previous to Batsugun as I hate restarting a stage when I die. Same applies to Gun Frontier.

[pegboy]

A lot of them. Most just because I haven't played them yet. But i plan on it.

[To Far Away Times]

Ikaruga is special. Awesome, awesome, awesome game.

For me I always thought Einhander was really cool, but for a game that essentially amounts to a horizontal memorizer - it has way too many ways to lose the weapon you need, combined with the random and sometimes overlapping boss attacks and fairly long run time - it’s quite an intimidating game to go for a 1CC in.

[pieslice]

Just by reading the title I instantly thought that this is going to be another Ikaruga thread.

[Tokyo-J]

Ikaruga is special. Awesome, awesome, awesome game.

For me I always thought Einhander was really cool, but for a game that essentially amounts to a horizontal memorizer - it has way too many ways to lose the weapon you need, combined with the random and sometimes overlapping boss attacks and fairly long run time - it’s quite an intimidating game to go for a 1CC in.

I used be so good at Einhander back in the 90's Tried playing again recently and got my Ass handed to me. Such a good title though.

[Jonpachi]

Espgaluda II (vanilla). From a game design perspective it’s such a deep and layered system, but in practice I find it so tedious to play. The arrange and Omake modes are fun alternatives, but both are way too easy to spend more than a weekend with. Every few years I go back to it, ready to dedicate myself to truly mastering it, and bounce back off.

[sumdumgoy]

x

[Tokyo-J]

Espgaluda II (vanilla). From a game design perspective it’s such a deep and layered system, but in practice I find it so tedious to play. The arrange and Omake modes are fun alternatives, but both are way too easy to spend more than a weekend with. Every few years I go back to it, ready to dedicate myself to truly mastering it, and bounce back off.

I haven't played that in years since the Xbox 360 one came out. Will have to give it a go again. I remember getting my kit for $300 the good old days.

[BulletMagnet]

A lot of them.

This kind of sums it up, honestly, but one that comes especially quickly to mind for me is Hellsinker; I tend to gravitate towards "offbeat" shmups, and there's definitely a lot of stuff in there that I'd like to delve into, but just the time it would take to wrap my head around it coupled with the backlog I have makes me hesitate to give it an honest go.

[Tokyo-J]

I don't respect and hate the Otomedius games.

[mycophobia]

any given psikyo game i reckon. seems like they'd be exactly my thing i just haven't given any the time they deserve

[BIL]

Never play, none tbh. Win or lose, the pleasure is to play. \(´・ω・)/

Don't play as much or as well as I'd like, legions. The Great Majority. That's life though. Not bothered, I'll be doing this until I fall off my chair.



On that note, if I don't like something I better be getting paid or that motherfucker is going first class into freeway traffic. (*'ω' *)

[Creamy Goodness]

I absolutely want to do a serious run on Battle Garegga, but probably never will. For me on the surface it is in the very upper echelon of shmups, but when I start thinking about what is needed to be successful in that game I get very turned off.

[To Far Away Times]

I absolutely want to do a serious run on Battle Garegga, but probably never will. For me on the surface it is in the very upper echelon of shmups, but when I start thinking about what is needed to be successful in that game I get very turned off.

For me, Garegga seems like it's a "diamond in the rough" game, mostly driven by its fantastic production values, but held back by some questionable or accidental design, and some kusoge tier bullet visibility issues that are not found elsewhere among the "greats". I just don't think a game like that represents the very top spot of the genre. There are games like Ketsui, DOJ, and Futari that are pretty much perfectly executed in everything they do, and I really struggle to see how Garegga is a better game than any of those.

If Garegga wasn't the defacto #1 around these parts, I feel like it would quickly drop in the charts. It's like a Kardashian, famous for being famous, and it just keeps that momentum.

[sumdumgoy]

x

[BIL]

If Garegga wasn't the defacto #1 around these parts, I feel like it would quickly drop in the charts. It's like a Kardashian, famous for being famous, and it just keeps that momentum.

Nah, Garegga's niche in the West predates the very first iteration of this forum. Whatever one thinks of the game itself - I lean towards Miracle Car Crash - it's enjoyed a cult following since the late 90s, and will continue doing so wherever these games are discussed. Blame the Saturn port, it was a hot ticket young fuckboys creamed over ardently. Not unlike the sex tape bird du jour I suppose!

If anything's helped it, it's probably the immensely clearer picture of what's going on under the hood via diehards like KET @ garelab and T3 Kamui, our own Icarus Plasmo & Eaglet et al, and ofc M2's Rev 2016. Those magazine starlets' popularity tends to not grow but fade, the older they get and the closer people look at them. (a little SEXISMS humour right there )

Call me a heretic, but I think Batrider is peak Raizing; I enjoy it much more than Garegga. And I don't even like anime aesthetics!

Not at all uncommon, a lot of Raizing diehards would bust you out of Shumps Jail after the trial on that one.

I never thought of APB as any more animu than Garegga tbh. The machine designs are still the focus, and they're brutal as ever. Laser beamz cutting off jumbo jet heads and tank treads crushing the entire used car lot. It's just relocated from Hell Evropa 194X to Neo NYC 200X. Similar progression of Mahou Daisakusen+Shippu Mahou to Great Mahou.

WAR HAS NO LIMITS

^^^ aww yeee (｀w´メ)

Recently, scientists have discovered you can backport APB's Wayne Bros portraits to BG no prob!

Spoiler

[sumdumgoy]

x

[Jonpachi]

Garegga has issues, but it represents God-tier systems design. The Rank system's incredible flexibility is still a marvel, and I've taught several lessons based on it to my game design teams over the years. While most games settled for a handful of hard-coded, hand-crafted difficulty settings (literally just making several variants of the full campaign) Garegga succeeded at creating a truly emergent experience that bends and flows based on the player's actions. It's not perfect, and I doubt Yagawa intended the Score>Extend>Suicide core loop to be quite so harsh, something evidenced in the multiple revisions we'd see to smooth out the system in his later titles. There's a damn good reason Cave snatched him away from Raizing and gave him the keys to the kingdom. I still can't finish a meal without exclaiming "WEAPONS BELLY UP!"

[copy-paster]

Same with OP. I respect Ikaruga for it's unique atmosphere and way of storytelling but I know it may take my whole lifetime to 1CC the game on Normal, much better to play casually with 99 credits in stock and enjoy the game.

[Starfighter]

Oh, happy to see my picks being brought up already. We're not so different, are we?

[Rastan78]

Garegga has issues, but it represents God-tier systems design. The Rank system's incredible flexibility is still a marvel, and I've taught several lessons based on it to my game design teams over the years. While most games settled for a handful of hard-coded, hand-crafted difficulty settings (literally just making several variants of the full campaign) Garegga succeeded at creating a truly emergent experience that bends and flows based on the player's actions. It's not perfect, and I doubt Yagawa intended the Score>Extend>Suicide core loop to be quite so harsh, something evidenced in the multiple revisions we'd see to smooth out the system in his later titles. There's a damn good reason Cave snatched him away from Raizing and gave him the keys to the kingdom. I still can't finish a meal without exclaiming "WEAPONS BELLY UP!"

Worth pointing out that Taito could be considered the innovator of the Garegga style rank system. We know Yagawa played both Gun Frontier and Darius Gaiden extensively before working on Garegga.

[sumdumgoy]

x

[Jonpachi]

Worth pointing out that Taito could be considered the innovator of the Garegga style rank system. We know Yagawa played both Gun Frontier and Darius Gaiden extensively before working on Garegga.

Yes, fair to mention that Garegga didn't invent Rank, but rather expanded its depth and flexibility in a way previous titles hadn't managed. Much like Street Fighter II, it didn't invent anything new, but refined and elevated existing concepts.

[Rastan78]

Well of course rank is probably about as old as the genre itself. But I think Taito was innovating and making unique rank systems that hadn't been done before. Garegga has a rank system which is like 95% similar to Darius Gaiden from 2 years earlier.

The way the system interacts with the overall difficulty and scoring balance is where they differ.

[BIL]

In an oblique sense, Taito were nearly as influential in the 90s/00s as they were the 70s. Nothing can really compare to Space Invaders, ofc. And one of their most signal 90s works, Rayforce, is arguably as indebted to Xevious as Galaxian was to SI. But Gun Frontier's influence is writ large on Battle Garegga (Yagawa: "I’ve pretty much fully exhausted it now, but it's the game I played the most"), which Ikeda says fired up CAVE to go balls-out with DoDonPachi's danmaku.

All credit to GaijinPunch @ Gamengai

https://www.gamengai.com/#/cmnt-info?id=1299&p=2

Kouyama: Within the company, "Dodonpachi" was overwhelmingly popular (laughs).

-Were there any conscious influences from other shooters?

IKD: I think a lot of Battle Garegga popped up. That was kind of shocking.

Kouyama: When I first saw it in the arcades, looking at the 2nd stage bosses attack patterns I honestly thought to myself, "is it okay to have gone this far?"

IKD: To an extent at first, thinking from a players point of view, even with all the bullets we used, and even with the difficulty we chose, I thought "we'll start it off easy". However, when I saw Battle Garegga, that feeling suddenly crumbled (laughs). Then It was more like "we gotta throw some action in here". I thought there was no way we could surpass it.

-But in the end you chose a different direction than Garegga.

IKD: From the beginning I always told myself "I can't make a game like Garegga even if I wanted to" so figured either way they would turn out different. However, it was a great opportunity for me to experience the fun of dodging bullets. Before Garegga came out, I was gradually becoming disinterested in bullet-dodging... rather the fun was concentrated on special weapons like what you'd find in Darius Gaiden. However, when Garegga came around, I once again felt the joy of "just dodging plain old, straight-shooting bullets". From that came the inspiration to make a game with even hotter bullet-dodging.

And Maruyama has always credited Metal Black with jumpstarting his considerable ambition, G.Rev going on to assist Iuchi on Ikaruga. No small thing, from the sounds of pro label STG development in the twilight years of the early 00s. (or the ongoing travails of Ubusuna)

Those are some huge names to have in the ripples of a couple cult favourites from the dawn of the decade. You might even chuck in the G.Rev-assisted Gradius V, the last mainstream hurrah of perhaps the most iconic STG series there ever was.

And don't forget erstwhile Project Gun Frontier 3 / DinoRex surely inspiring the landmark Beating STG Sol Divide, both being love letters to Ray Harryhausen.

[Jonpachi]

I love the humility on display in that interview. Truly a remarkable era in game development. It seemed like everything coming out of Japanese arcades at that time was absolute fire. Living in the rural western US, looking outward, spending money I really shouldn't be spending on Saturn imports, is still one of the most special times in gaming I can remember.

[BIL]

I love the humility on display in that interview. Truly a remarkable era in game development. It seemed like everything coming out of Japanese arcades at that time was absolute fire. Living in the rural western US, looking outward, spending money I really shouldn't be spending on Saturn imports, is still one of the most special times in gaming I can remember.

Same same. Revisiting GP's translations always feel like discovering this niche all over again.

[mycophobia]

any given psikyo game i reckon. seems like they'd be exactly my thing i just haven't given any the time they deserve

no more! i will play strikers 2

[mycophobia]

yknow. one thing i really like about psikyo games. no horizontal panning. i can see everything thats happening, all the time