Shmups

[ImmaculateClump]

Made 13th on the leaderboard today!

 

 

Been trying to experiment with different things. There must be something I'm missing because the guy at the top has like my score with a 1 at the beginning!

 

Oh, here we go! I might sit and watch this tonight and see if they're doing anything different.

Woah, 45 minutes! Game usually takes half an hour. I hope there's not a load of boss milking going on because that's never fun!

 

 

[Triple A]

i skipped to the first boss - yeah there's boss milking alright

[Spoonman]

I'm so far behind the backlog I haven't yet opened my Cotton Reboot! Enjoying the vicarious nature of it all. And hell, it's lovely to have an STG back log.

[ImmaculateClump]

Just tried a run there with some light milking. Yup, that's how he's doing it

Got sixth place on the leaderboard.

 

 

When the fun stops, stop, as they say. I can't imagine having the patience to go for it properly and rinse every last point out of the bosses like that. Fair play to the people that can, i admire their dedication.

Will still try and beat my score, but I'm not gonna go daft.

Just realised the arrange has a hard mode so I might move on to that now!

 

[ImmaculateClump]

Got 4th on the hard leaderboard just there. Doesn't look like yer man NaruNaruNep has managed to milk that mode too much, so I'll stick with that for now.

Takes the ps4 leaderboards ages to update sometimes, doesn't it?

 

 

Sorry, I'll stop spamming the thread with stoopid cotton pictures now, I imagine it's getting annoying

Game is great fun!

 

edit: Last one, I managed to get the secret bonus on the last tea bag thing before, man, that gets really fast at the end there!

 

[Spoonman]

It's not that annoying, really, and I'm also a bit of a perv so it's all good

Seriously though, that's impressive. Top 5 leaderboard is good stuff!! 

 

I am really looking forward to playing this, but actually having way too much fun with Psyvariar Delta, which arrived just the other day.

[ImmaculateClump]

@Marlew loves that!

It's probably time I gave it another chance as I bounced off it pretty hard when I tried it. I couldn't quite get my head around the all grazing and no shooting mechanics.

[Spoonman]

TBH the music has me hooked as much as anything else. Music and sound effects really are quite something (I think you either love it or hate it). I do prefer danmaku and alllll the other stuff I play, generally, but... something about this right now just has me paying it some attention. 

[Klatrymadon]

YES! The excellent and much-needed G-Darius port is going to get better - they're adding Ver. 2, which has previously never been ported, and which makes some noticeable changes to certain stages, boss patterns and scoring, etc, including new Captains in stages that didn't have them.

 

https://twitter.com/NinEverything/status/1372600224598822916

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL04gwIlCq4&ab_channel=SquareEnix

[Triple A]

isn't Ver.2 not as good as the original, from some commentary I seem to remember (perhaps falsely)?

[Klatrymadon]

It's basically "hard mode" - there's nothing wrong with it but some people seem to dislike it for that reason alone, hehe.

 

(Some tough spots can be mitigated by another change - floating power-ups block shots!)

[Dig Dug]

Someone point me in the direction of an article or video or something that helps me "get" Astebreed. I've played it, it looks nice, it's had an impressive amount of production put into it and I can see in the gallery how much the devs care but I just don't "get" it.
I like to give games their fair shake if I think there's something there so it'd be a shame if I gave up on it.

[centurion]

LG monitors come recommended. Some of these were sold at a massive loss like x10, and we don't even know where this company came from. It just showed up one day with no reputation or history? Nobody bought this stuff for ages. Some rumour about a failed civil war in Japan? Lots of x-files gossip at the time.

[PikaStu]

LG?

 

I remember them from their unlucky days of the 3DO. Didn’t work with Space Hulk properly so I was pretty pissed off...

[ImmaculateClump]

14 hours ago, Dig Dug said:

Someone point me in the direction of an article or video or something that helps me "get" Astebreed.

 

STGweekly is always a good way of getting a handle on the mechanics if you're unsure, but they do tend to be a bit long-winded and rambling (you can fucking talk).

Strategy guide on system11 - https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=50480

 

I bounced off it pretty hard myself. I think you have to play with a pad for one thing, and I found the constant perspective shifts to be annoying. I didn't want to play afterburner!

I didn't go in with an open mind, to be fair, I wanted to play space invaders and I was like "dis isn't muh space invaders!" and fucked it off pretty sharpish, didn't give it much of a chance to be honest. I'll have to try again one day.

 

 

Don't know why boobs, but it's out now and it's really good fun!

[Dig Dug]

Whoever made assault shell would do well to commission a new art.

[ImmaculateClump]

Aw man, TLB got me.

 

https://streamable.com/d9pdvp

 

Damn sneaky sideways bullet bullshit!

 

Sleep well, prick, because I'm coming to get you tomorrow.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yes! He had me beat tonight and I was tired, but I might be away from my pc for a while from tomorrow so I thought "sod it, I'll roll up my sleeves and give it another stab".

 

Beat the bugger. The place where I kept dying, there was another load of patterns after that! I was like "whaaaa?!"

Heart proper banging, proper in the zone, 2001 space odyssey stargate shit near the end, felt like I was being sucked into the screen!

 

Siiiidoooooooon!

Really fun game, highly recommended. There's a mode which has a second loop which I'm imagining will be hell on skates!

 

 

Star Hunter DX steam page is up - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1451030/Star_Hunter_DX/ (Planned Release Date: 22 June)

Coming to ps4, switch and xbone too.

 

Still no new footage, but just in case some folk haven't seen it.

 

 

[Zero9X]

Love the cotton reboot, picked it up on ps4. So easy to learn, I love giant numbers on the playfield! Preordered the physical switch limited edition now.

 

Also picked up ESP Ra.De. PSI on switch, one of my favourite cave shooters, that Drive Waves 2019 mix is fantastic. Found it available on Apple Music to download.

 

I also picked up Ikaruga on switch too physical recently too. Another I never knew was released. I tried Tate mode on this by using the switch in handheld mode but the controls were still in the horizontal mode. :/

[Spoonman]

2 hours ago, Zero9X said:

Love the cotton reboot, picked it up on ps4. So easy to learn, I love giant numbers on the playfield! Preordered the physical switch limited edition now.

 

Also picked up ESP Ra.De. PSI on switch, one of my favourite cave shooters, that Drive Waves 2019 mix is fantastic. Found it available on Apple Music to download

 

I also picked up Ikaruga on switch too physical recently too. Another I never knew was released. I tried Tate mode on this by using the switch in handheld mode but the controls were still in the horizontal mode. :/

 

Where did you get the physical? Do you have the HUD rotated too? It works for me...

 

[ImmaculateClump]

Crisis averted. I have got access to a pc after all!
I'll be able to get my shmup fix. Woohoo!

 

I'm sat playing on a 1680x1050 monitor. Remember those?!

Only thing is is that I'm having to sit on the horriblest rickety chair I've ever seen in my life.
My beautiful buttocks are gonna be square before the weeks out.

 

The "Void" Arrange of "Assault Shell" is really good fun, loads of scoring potential there. I only just started to twig towards the end what I was meant to be doing, you're supposed to use your special weapon a lot during hypers to build up your uber hypers, will know for next time.

 

 

Thank god for that. I thought I was gonna have to read a book or something! Phew!

 

3 hours ago, Zero9X said:

Love the cotton reboot

 

Yes, mate! Really good fun. Love the vibrant cartoony look of the world, really cheerful.

[Zero9X]

15 hours ago, Spoonman said:

 

Where did you get the physical? Do you have the HUD rotated too? It works for me...

 

Yeah I rotated it, tried playing with the joycons attached. Will try it with a controller pro instead.

 

It was released by Nicalis - https://store.nicalis.com/products/ikaruga?variant=35737241452709

 

Appears to be sold out now, I picked up mine off eBay.

[Spoonman]

Very weird, works fine for my copy with joycons and a flip grip!

 

I played some DDP SDOJ last night for a couple of hours, xbox 360 mode, and bloody loved it. I forgot how good that game is.

 

 

Not that anyone in their right mind would watch, but I might stream some gameplay as I wasn't doing too shit last night and if I can keep that up I feel a 1cc is in reach.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, watching other people playing games, you can feel your life slipping away, but it can be fun if you feel invested. Always happy to watch a 1cc from one of you lot, or if it's like a big scoring run for a game I'm really into.

Never really played sdoj. It was one of the games I never bought on 360 as everyone was complaining about the port at launch and then I just forgot about it.

I've got a version of xenia that runs it alright but it's not optimized at all, it really hammers your cpu!

 

You know how sometimes there are like weird arbitrary requirements for entering the second loop in a game?

I was playing the 2 loop mode of Assault Shell last night and just couldn't get the second loop to trigger.

I was like "reet, just gonna have to try different things".

 

First thing I thought was that I had to hit a billion points, but I couldn't do that. Then I thought maybe I had to no-miss the first loop.

 

Just saw this in the latest patch notes
 

Quote

 

Loops

+ Fixed a bug where the player wasn't able to access the 2nd loop in Original Full mode.

 

 

Ah well, it's helped me improve my score game, anyway. Looking forward to hopefully seeing the second loop tonight!

[Spoonman]

I love kicking into the Ura loop in DFK. I think it's:

kill all tanks before they destroy silos

or destroy all silos before tanks do

either way, kill tanks

get bees

have a full RANK

 

something like that. Basically, you just have to go balls-to-the-wall nuts and can't back off for a second. The animation and sound effects getting into the loop are just brilliant, to boot.

 

I also love the 1-up extend sound, and EXTENDO SHIMASHITA notification.

 

I unlocked a couple of achievements last night as well, things were going that well:

 

[ImmaculateClump]

I could never consistently get into the ura loop on DFK, like you say, there's conflicting info about how to do it.

Thankfully it's right near the start so I could just restart until I managed it. Yeah, the transitions are really cool!

 

That google thing you linked isn't showing up.

[Crhis]

I've been thinking of picking up an XBox Series S to relive the 360/Cave port glory day but after a quick scan of the XBox store... were none of those ever available digitally?

[Count Buffalos]

They haven't been included in the BC program and I'm not holding my breath that they ever will be. I'm almost certain that they were never released outside of Japan either. 

[spatular]

yeah there's only a few shmups on the BC list, like guwange and triggerheart.

[Klatrymadon]

Thankfully, some PAL physical versions are still cheap - I'd recommend grabbing Akai Katana, DoDonPachi Resurrection (DFK), Deathsmiles and Under Defeat HD before they arbitrarily start shooting up.

 

All the region-free imports are usually £100+ now, alas, but you might get a slightly scuffed copy of Espgaluda II, SDOJ or MMP/Pink Sweets for a decent price if you're patient on ebay...

 

Edit: I don't have a Series S/X - no BC for Silvergun? 

 

Also, I've just realised nothing I've recommended would be playable anyway, since we're talking about compatibility rather than just online availability. Sorry!