Talking 'bout Shmups

[YangusKhan]

I've been listenting to a lot of Zuntata music over the past couple weeks, and last night I finally played G Darius on Steam. I credit fed the whole thing, probably died close to 20 times, but still I had a good time. I've previously played Darius and Darius Gaiden and had much the same experience. Most of my problem was the ship moving too fast to dodge carefully. Guess I'm too used to CAVE games and their controllable slow movement (also I'm not using an arcade stick). I bet there's a way to set up Steam controller to mimic that feature somehow...

I also bought the Ray'z collection on sale; I've only played one of those games before so that'll be great to get around too

 

[Regulus]

RayForce is one of my favorite favorite shooters of all time. The interplay between between the scoring mechanics and the gameplay - trying to leave background targets alive long enough to lock onto as many of them as possible while also needing thin out the enemies to avoid getting overwhelmed on your own layer - is one of the most elegant implementations I've seen. The seamless level transitions and bits of environmental storytelling are cool as hell, tool. Can't recommend it enough if you haven't played it before.

 

[spines]

i tend to assume that's the one people are most likely to have played, and if you're just playing for the spectacle the others are no slouch (though i do think the first is the best one overall). though g-darius has a lot of the coolest stuff taito ever put together for the genre and i would recommend seeing more of it too

 

[YangusKhan]

So I had to look at my PSX games, and it was RayCrisis that I own and have played. Not that I really remember much of it.

(Sidenote: apparently that game sells pretty well on eBay; $250 for a sealed copy. Mine is slightly messed up because its jewel case is missing the front piece and thus the front artwork.)

 

[Regulus]

Yeah, I just kind of assumed it was probably Storm or Crisis, since they got ports to a console that had some actual market penetration outside of Japan. They’re pretty cool too, but RayForce tends to be a little better regarded.

 

[Yimothy]

Still pushing away at ZeroRanger, very tempted to just quit it, not sure why I don’t. I’ve reached the last phase of the TLB four times today (once with like five lives left) but just can’t thread the needle. I decided to quit three attempts ago but I’m still going. Surely next time I’ll get it. I’ve been using save backups, my gosh I’d like to have save states, just to spare me the despair and all the cutscenes.

 

[Peklo]

I've been sick as hell so I stumbled onto a coping mechanism in this fever-addled state that's worked for me, but no promises that it should work for others: Batsugun. When I was a baby this game was easy to overlook for newer things since CAVE worship was active and relevant in their heyday, and as Toaplan's swansong Batsugun of course represents the beginning of a great many things, as the company's employees spread far and wide in what I would probably consider the most impactful bankruptcy closure in the medium's history, given all that came out of it. It's considered the nascent bullet hell, but it straddles that line in chimeric manner; as much as the bullet curtains can come into play in certain configurations, the baseline of the game is still classic Toaplan where bullets are fast, targeted with precision at the player, and deaths to potshots from popcorn tanks rolling into frame from offscreen aren't that uncommon.

It's a game type I find personally harder than a now-codified curtain STG, so Batsugun in its initial release is a tough game, so much so that it doesn't really even matter that it doesn't loop... fortunately Batsugun Special Version exists and is included in the Saturn port and modern City Connection port derived from it, as the absolute latest Toaplan say on the genre and where they were pushing it. It's significantly more accommodating than the base game, adjusting bullet velocity, player hitbox size, enemy patterns, bomb strength, adds a shield, and all kinds of myriad tweaks that make that initial playthrough of it very doable, a not-too-troublesome 1CC after a few goes at it.

The proverbial gloves come off after that clear, as the subsequent three loops (all cutting one stage from the sequence, until loop 4 consists of just stages 4 to 5) significantly transform the game in introducing revenge bullets to the equation, and making it so the patterns now embody what the phrase "bullet hell" conjures images of in the brain now--you don't get anywhere without streaming shots actively and mindfully. The new loops are beyond my legitimate skill level, but I surveyed them through the rewind gadget in the port, and loop 2 seems like it might be doable with enough persistent practice... but loops 3 and 4 are beyond the realm of conception in how you're supposed to deal with them in my eyes, though I'm sure someone has. They were still extremely fun to sample through and witness what this breaking-apart team and company put together in their last moments together, before they spread out to chart the future of the genre. I'm still sick... but I'm not sick of Batsugun, especially with this new arranged soundtrack with composers like Yosuke Yasui and Shinji Hosoe on board.

 

[ShakeWell]

If I have easy access to the Saturn port, is the modern release from City Connection worth it? Aside from the obvious Flipgrip/portable aspect of having it on Switch, of course.

 

[Peklo]

If you like the features that a modern release like it brings, in things such as save states, a rewind (not a smooth one, granted), a slowdown toggle, and other opportunities to fiddle with the granular settings, like defaulting to the player 2 side ships even in single player; I assume at least some of these things are City Connection's additions on the emulation side. I'm not one to discern input lag should it exist in a significant capacity, but my understanding is that only the earliest S-Tribute releases--the Cottons, Guardian Force--are the ones to avoid for that reason and there aren't any notable issues in the other, newer ports; my play at least wasn't impacted by the game's performance. It's my first try with City Connection's ports and it seems solid to me. The new arranged soundtrack was worthwhile to me on its own.

 

[YangusKhan]

Unrelated to this conversation: I played Metal Black for the first time tonight. That was a cool game, but man I had a pretty hard time. Credit feeding the whole time and I wouldn't be surprised of I spent at least 30 credits. I was under the impression this was a relatively chill shmup in terms of difficulty, but not so much after all I guess. I was playing the Japanese version (Arcade Archives had a few other versions) and I dunno if other versions are easier, maybe?

EDIT: And oh my GOD is the story translation amazing

 

[spines]

big thing in a lot of old games (and especially taito ones, though in a different way the gradius/parodius style is similar) is that there's a lot of "momentum." when you die and lose all your resources the dynamic of the game changes a lot, so even though people who've learned a lot of games would consider them mostly to be games that don't take a lot of time to get decent at, they tend to snowball against you kind of hilariously when you're credit feeding. i do think that the lack of a shield does make it more intimidating than darius though

as always, i highly recommend reading this interview now that you've played it (if it's not what you're referring to in the edit)

 

[YangusKhan]

as always, i highly recommend reading this interview now that you've played it (if it's not what you're referring to in the edit)

That's a really neat interview. Crazy to hear from him that Taito didn't put much effort into its music until... he made his games. But no, my comment was just about the English in the attract mode and ending. It's the kind of J -> E translation that can only come from someone who isn't very fluent in English and I love it.

 

[Yimothy]

I’ve started playing Thunder Force IV, and so far it’s not clicking for me. I seem to die frequently without knowing what hit me, and I don’t have a sense of whether my weapons are doing any damage. I’ve only tried one stage so far though, maybe I should give one of the others a go. I think maybe it’s just got a lot of memorisation - I’ve died to a few attacks that came out way too quick to dodge but which on seeing a second or third time I realise there’s a warning animation first. Also it seems like the upgraded weapons are a lot more powerful than the default, so once I stop losing them by dying all the time to attacks I don’t even see it’ll probably get easier.

 

[balder the brave]

I’ve started playing Thunder Force IV, and so far it’s not clicking for me. I seem to die frequently without knowing what hit me, and I don’t have a sense of whether my weapons are doing any damage. I’ve only tried one stage so far though, maybe I should give one of the others a go. I think maybe it’s just got a lot of memorisation - I’ve died to a few attacks that came out way too quick to dodge but which on seeing a second or third time I realise there’s a warning animation first. Also it seems like the upgraded weapons are a lot more powerful than the default, so once I stop losing them by dying all the time to attacks I don’t even see it’ll probably get easier.

It's definitely a memorizer. The enemies and bullets come out too fast to react and improvise. It's definitely a good game, but I admit it's frustrating at first.

 

[Yimothy]

Yeah I’ve been playing some more and I’m getting better at it, though death still seems to come quickly and without warning fairly often. I’ve beaten three of the four stages you choose from at the start, haven’t managed the boss of the desert stage yet. Also I’m terrible at the air raid boss - not sure if it just takes a million shots or if I’m missing the weak points (which so far as I can tell are unmarked and don’t give any reaction when hit). I’ve been trying to focus my fire on the bits that break, but they still take ages to do so.

 

[muteKi]

I don't think it should take very long, though you may want to experiment with both the forward and rear shots over the course of the fight. Generally, ineffective hits produce blue smoke and effective hits produce orange smoke.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

That's a really neat interview. Crazy to hear from him that Taito didn't put much effort into its music until... he made his games.

It kinda tickles me when I think about stuff like Bubble Bobble and The Fairyland Story coming from this beforetime era.

Like, this was them not really trying, and they could put out those kind of earworms?

 

[Yimothy]

I’m still playing Thunder Force IV, getting much better at it - I beat three out of the four opening stages on my first credit tonight, and made it to the stage 8 boss before running out of continues. This was, admittedly, after increasing the number of lives in the options menu from 3 to 4. I still think the game has a bit of a feel problem for me - there’s something just off about it, mainly in terms of dying without knowing what hit me or from attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere, and in how some enemies weak points are difficult to identify or to hit once I know where they are. That said, as I get better at it it’s starting to feel better as well. I have some idea where attacks are coming from or at least where to not go to avoid dying from non-apparent causes. A couple of the bosses still take just about forever because I can only hit the weak points intermittently. I suspect if I were good enough at the game to keep the claw upgrade consistently I’d be having a much better time, but for now I am at least improving.

 

[Klatrymadon]

Angel at Dusk seems great so far. Like Steel Vampire before it, it encourages an aggressive, point-blanking playstyle - speedkilling enemies with your normal shot whilst using your charged shot as a defensive tool to slow down or cancel bullets, etc. The more up-front you are, the quicker you'll gather 'lipids' which level you up. Very Hard, the game's normal mode, is actually very gentle, and the tutorial is superb at explaining STG concepts to new players.

Ed: I should include a warning for grody sexualised imagery in addition to the more obvious "bio-horror" theming. Akiragoya has been neck deep in this stuff for years and isn't letting up here.

 

[balder the brave]

I’m still playing Thunder Force IV, getting much better at it - I beat three out of the four opening stages on my first credit tonight, and made it to the stage 8 boss before running out of continues. This was, admittedly, after increasing the number of lives in the options menu from 3 to 4. I still think the game has a bit of a feel problem for me - there’s something just off about it, mainly in terms of dying without knowing what hit me or from attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere, and in how some enemies weak points are difficult to identify or to hit once I know where they are. That said, as I get better at it it’s starting to feel better as well. I have some idea where attacks are coming from or at least where to not go to avoid dying from non-apparent causes. A couple of the bosses still take just about forever because I can only hit the weak points intermittently. I suspect if I were good enough at the game to keep the claw upgrade consistently I’d be having a much better time, but for now I am at least improving.

It’s a fair criticism. A lot of the appeal of Thunder Force is the graphics, music, and sense of mastery from learning the levels.

I think Konami really figured something out with Contra and Gradius that weren’t learned by other developers until later. The bullets are slow and you can improvise a route through them in a satisfying and engaging way.

Thunder Force is much less about improvising and reacting and more about executing a plan.

 

[Yimothy]

I got to the boss of stage nine (of ten) in thunder force iv, but didn’t beat it. Then I had a few days off and now I’m struggling with the early stages again.

 

[Fyonn]

Completing the post-game of the dungeon crawling RPG / danmaku-lite hybrid Touhou - Artificial Dream In Arcadia came with it's fair share of harder-than-usual patterns. It made me wonder if doing maybe 10? 15? hours of danmaku mini-games via the central Hijacking mechanic had made me any better at danmaku?

Sure enough, after a few refresher attempts of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, I was consistently performing better than average than I did in past years. Now, only one of my old scores is even in the high-score list, flanked by three of my worst runs this week. I've yet to see Sakuya, but assuming I get through Perfect Freeze (RNG can be rude) and Wind Chime of Colorful Rainbow (brain sometimes gives into astonishment trying to track the motion instead of Reimu) unscathed, I'm pretty much set to always make it to Stage 5 with Reimu A. I partially owe this, I think, to being more easily able to recognize when I no longer have control of a situation and need to panic bomb. Pretty sure I've even Death Bombed a few times.

Funny thing about running EoSD on Steam Deck - I can't get it to work with the VSync patch, but SteamOS simply doesn't replicate the issues Windows 10 has with the game. All the text is too big though.

I'll probably try to get thprac running alongside it at somepoint (others have accomplished it, so I know it's possible), but I want to see Remilia before I start grinding out specific bosses.

I also played some Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Not the world's biggest fan of *either* control scheme since I've been using Steam Input to set up a toggle button that just holds the fire button for me. I'm too old to hold/mash a button for like 25 minutes straight. Either way, I was surprised how far I got first try - made it all the way to the scythe girl whose name slides off my brain Komachi. I think I could do better if I had a firmer grasp of the mechanics. Like, I understand the core of earning meter and charging to deploy spell cards, but I've got only the vaguest idea what the Scope does. It stops Spirits, but like... why do I want to do that? Is that helpful? Seeing as no one has ever played this game before or recorded any information on it, humanity will likely never know.


So, uh. Sumireko's like six million games from EoSD, huh?

 

[Peklo]

Yes, but she debuts in a fighting game, which is not necessarily what you're looking for. You can play her danmaku pattern spinoff game, though.

On scopes and spirits in PoFV, here's a short primer; essentially you use the scope field to activate descending spirits, which then slowly start to ascend back up until they auto-destruct and punish you with bullets--unless you shoot them in time, which sends attacks to the opponent's field. They're a cool risk/reward mechanic. Phantasmagoria is actually pretty documented since it's the established leading game in the versus shooter branch of the series--TH3 and TH19 likely aren't going to dethrone it in that respect. I also absolutely live for its music; the sense of reverb-heavy melancholy is tremendous in pieces like the title screen theme and dialogue theme.

 

[Klatrymadon]

Got a no-miss on G-Darius' Mu route! I want to do it again ASAP, though, mainly because I didn't get the alpha beam finish against Heavy Arms Shell, despite nailing it in every practice session.

(HD video will be available in an hour or so...)

Edit: A slightly better run.

 

[Ludendorkk]

Got a no-miss on G-Darius' Mu route! I want to do it again ASAP, though, mainly because I didn't get the alpha beam finish against Heavy Arms Shell, despite nailing it in every practice session.

(HD video will be available in an hour or so...)

Congratulations!!

 

[Klatrymadon]

Thanks! It's a tough old route, but I think it's also one of the most fun. Theta and Mu are both very hairy even when you think you have everything planned, so there's always something new going on.

 

[Klatrymadon]

Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles are on sale for next to nothing.

Save 96% on The Seventia Collection on Steam

store.steampowered.com

 

[Ludendorkk]

Excellent

 

[ShakeWell]

Excellent

Spectacular.

 

[Peklo]

It's that time again: all-timer shmup developer Outside's latest is out, in the incredibly-titled REDNEG ALLSTARS SWING-BY EDITION. Unlike Cosmo and Like Dreamer, this one's a pure boss rush, and an evolution of the game's previous freeware incarnation, this time incorporating more patterns from those games among others that have been developed in the interim since its original release. Other than that change of format, it maintains the characteristics of all of Outside's work: heavy Cave and Touhou influence overall, a fantastic learning curve that accommodates all skill levels, whimsical and very uniquely distinct cute 'em up aesthetic, great use of royalty-free soundtrack curation from libraries like Dova-Syndrome and Audiostock, and frequently comically enormous breasts, which the aforementioned visual aesthetic does a lot to disarm from feeling skeevy and leans on the goofy.

I cleared both the original and new rushes (30+ opponents each) the first try without much issue on Normal, and I'm not that good at this stuff which speaks to the intuitiveness of the design to immediately get a handle on. Well, there was that Hibachi send-up true last boss, which was more of a mad scramble to make the most of stockpiled bombs and lives for the finish, but that's the barrier between unremarkably skilled enjoyers and the true savants of the genre; an appreciated quality of Outside's catalogue is that it always caters to everyone who is willing to give it a try.