Shmups

[MagicalDrop]

17 hours ago, Gloomy Andy said:

So I've decided to actually play some of the Cave shmups I've got on Switch. 

I've never really played any Cave games before but have the following:

 

Dodonpachi Resurrection 

Espgaluda II

Mushihimesama

ESP Ra De Psi

 

I had a quick blast of Dodonpachi earlier and was totally baffled by novice, normal, arrange, various black labels. 

 

So what should I start with?

@ImmaculateClump

 

This is me all over so I'm grateful to @Gloomy Andy for the post and to those who answered. I'm up for a bit of high score progression comparison if you let me know which one you decided on.

 

And sorry ImmaulateClump, I'm on mobile and try as I might, I couldn't untag you. 

 

[Sureshot]

Couple more additional pickups for me in the sale, which are ZeroRanger and Raiden Legacy. Finding ZeroRanger good but quite tough actually!

 

Also still playing Sky Force Reloaded, RagingBlasters and Crisis Wing probably the most at the moment. Crisis Wing feels like a nice retro Truxton-esque jaunt until it smashes you in the face around about level 3. Incredibly tough from then on, which is mirrored by the extremely low achievement stats it has on Steam! It also has a Caravan mode which I always enjoy.

 

Possibly not done with sales just yet, but we will see…

[Gloomy Andy]

3 hours ago, MagicalDrop said:

 

This is me all over so I'm grateful to @Gloomy Andy for the post and to those who answered. I'm up for a bit of high score progression comparison if you let me know which one you decided on.

 

And sorry ImmaulateClump, I'm on mobile and try as I might, I couldn't untag you. 

 

 

Ok having tried a Mushihimesama earlier I think I prefer Dodonpachi. 

I prefer the look but also if I'm being honest I like the beginner friendly auto bomb (not sure if that's just one ship type that does that).

 

I've just had a quick go on ver 1.5 (normal?) and posted the following score:

197,540,927

 

Might try and stick it out on normal rather than Novice. (Also no continues obv!)

I was stubborn when I used to play Ikaruga on the DC (the only shmup I've ever really played) and never got beyond the second level. 

[ImmaculateClump]

 

[Benny]

5 hours ago, Benny said:

I might have to pick my top 5 shmup visuals. I'll come back...

 

Anyway I warned you:

 

 

 

5. MUSHA - bags of character

 

 

 

 

 

4. Warning Forever - the cleanest of lines

 

 

 

 

 

3. ZeroRanger - intricate pixel art

 

 

 

 

 

2. Cho Ren Sha 68k - chunky and colourful simplicity

 

 

 

 

1. R-Type - I mean do I even need to say anything?

 

 

 

Coincidentally I think these are also my top 5 shmups.

[Sureshot]

Baby steps on Eschatos (it was not 1CC):

[strawdonkey]

On 29/12/2022 at 22:10, Gloomy Andy said:

So I've decided to actually play some of the Cave shmups I've got on Switch. 

I've never really played any Cave games before but have the following:

 

Dodonpachi Resurrection 

Espgaluda II

Mushihimesama

ESP Ra De Psi

 

I had a quick blast of Dodonpachi earlier and was totally baffled by novice, normal, arrange, various black labels. 

Had a lovely time blasting stuff, collecting shinys and watching numbers get bigger - even with playing with joycons and coping with the dreaded drift. 

 

So what should I start with?

Either what mode for Dodonpachi or what game? I kinda want to stick to just one game to begin with, I don't get much gaming time so would rather find the time to learn one of the above rather than flit across lots. 

I've got a basic arcade stick so will try to play with that when I can.

I've not played many shmups and definitely am not an expert so please keep that in mind. 

 

Help me @ImmaculateClump, @strawdonkey and others, you're my only hope. 

Oh no I didn't check RLLMUK for a couple of days! Sorry. 

Would definitely echo recommendations to start with Dodonpachi or Mushihimesama out of these - the ESP games are great but slightly less straightforward.

 

I also personally prefer Dodonpachi out of the two but realistically, just pick the one you like the most and then play it a load! You'll find that you improve as you learn and while not 100% of the skills are transferrable to the next game, the more you play the more you get used to the kind of unique language of shmups.

 

Good luck! Can't wait to see the "oh fuck I did it" post

[Quest]

I don't understand why ZeroRanger isn't on Switch. It seems like such an obvious port.

 

Grabbed Missile Dancer, Z-Warp and Hazelnut Hex in the eShop sales, though, so should be busy for a while. How's the Switch version of G-Darius?

[geldra]

Are Moon Dancer and Raging Blasters by the same devs?  They look pretty similar to each other. 

[Quest]

Terarin: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/terarin

[ImmaculateClump]

Congrats, Sureshot! You're inching closer.

 

3 hours ago, Quest said:

I don't understand why ZeroRanger isn't on Switch. It seems like such an obvious port.

 

I read in an interview around release that they were waiting until they'd finished the game before considering any console ports. They've still got "Black Onion", the hard mode to patch in yet.

This was their latest word on console ports, from 2020

 

 

Their last mention of hard mode was in the latest steam patch this september - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/809020/view/3306229070203357866

 

[MagicalDrop]

22 hours ago, Gloomy Andy said:

Dodonpachi. 

I've just had a quick go on ver 1.5 (normal?) and posted the following score:

197,540,927

 

Might try and stick it out on normal rather than Novice. (Also no continues obv!)

 

I had already played this a bit. 

V1.5, Normal, Bomb Style, no continues. 

400,714,192.

Area 3.

 

Time for an hour or so now. Don't think my skills can get me much further but I'm certain I could score a lot higher on the first 2 areas, especially if I resorted to YouTube rather than working stuff out for myself. 

 

Edit. Had a light bulb moment. It's probably explained somewhere and I've ignored the scoring significance. 

888,714,211. 

Blimey. 

 

 

[geldra]

Re Eschatos, I’ve whinged about this before but the devs have fucked up royal with the Switch port in terms of rotating the screen and having the controls rotate too. 
 

Renders the Switch lite version not unplayable but a massive missed opportunity considering Judgement Silversword was a handheld/Wonderswan game. So if you rotate the screen, left/right become up/down without any way to change it. Gash. 

[ImmaculateClump]

Blimey. That's not good. Can you not change the controls at a system level?

What about this? Changing the orientation of the stick? It says it's not "optimal" if the joycons are attached, but it might still work.

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-Switch/Usage/Controllers/How-to-Change-the-Control-Stick-Orientation-on-the-Joy-Con-1766028.html

 

Or maybe you could calibrate the joystick and trick it into thinking left is up or whatever? Pain in the arse to keep changing it every time you want to play one game, but it might work.

[Gloomy Andy]

2 hours ago, MagicalDrop said:

 

I had already played this a bit. 

V1.5, Normal, Bomb Style, no continues. 

400,714,192.

Area 3.

 

Time for an hour or so now. Don't think my skills can get me much further but I'm certain I could score a lot higher on the first 2 areas, especially if I resorted to YouTube rather than working stuff out for myself. 

 

Edit. Had a light bulb moment. It's probably explained somewhere and I've ignored the scoring significance. 

888,714,211. 

Blimey. 

 

 

Pray tell what witchcraft allowed you to double your score.

 

I've managed to see area 3 and have increased my score a smidge. 

Now at 229,594,866 so better but not much of a jump. 

I'm trying to remember to use my hyper when the bar is full. 

I'm just struggling to avoid all those bullets. 

[MagicalDrop]

1 hour ago, Gloomy Andy said:

Pray tell what witchcraft allowed you to double your score.

 

Well, 

Spoiler

I realised that going into hyper means hammering the fire button now cancels some bullets and turns some into stars which seemed a good way to get more points. It also helped me keep my chain (or maybe I just got lucky with timing) and I survived a larger enemy encounter that normally took me down, enabling a chain of 1100 plus). 

With my new knowledge my next game 'only' yielded 586M but still miles ahead. 

 

Area 3 seems unsurvivable at the moment though. Need to work out how to survive the busiest parts, but that really seems to be the whole damn level 😂 not seen the boss there yet. 

[ImmaculateClump]

Yes! cancel those bullets with your rapid shot, and if you see a laser coming, use your own laser to counter it.
This strategy will come in very handy during the dreaded laser wheels in stage 5 when you get there.

Contrary to popular belief, that bit can be ad-libbed very easily. Just use your hypers, shoot to cancel bullets to make the game crawl, make sure you switch to laser when you see a laser coming at you.

 

https://streamable.com/d87mbl

[Gloomy Andy]

Yep, I'd worked out using the hyper and the rapid shot to turn bullets to points.

I think my biggest issue is getting hit. My counter keeps getting reset and I think I'm losing points there. 

At the moment I can't get through area 1 without losing a life. I need to work on that. 

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, I never worried too much about keeping my chain up. I've played the game for a few friendly score competitions and at our skill level, it was always the guy who survived the longest who took home the trophy. Lots of points can be had by just staying alive a stage or more than the other guys. Just concentrate on staying alive!

 

This is great.

 

 

[strawdonkey]

My best score on Dodonpachi Resurrection 1.5 is 1,687,079,663 but as a piece of full disclosure I don't really know how it happened. Haven't played it since 2018 so am going to dive in for a few blind rounds now and see how we get on.

[strawdonkey]

So! I got about 250mil after three runs and my main issue is that I'm really not very good at this any more. A few things:

 

- Seriously consider starting with Novice mode, rather than Normal mode! It's the same game, only with fewer enemy bullets; it's still far from easy but will allow you to get on board with learning some of the quirks of the game and get a rough idea of what's coming where. I just went in blind and hit the end of stage 4 with 4.4bil which included a major pad malfunction that took three of my lives, so it feels weighted pretty well as a starting point.

- As an addition to the above - games developed by Cave are difficult. Many of us will never be good enough to 1CC most of them. Novice Mode is there to help you learn and improve, and shouldn't be seen as an inferior choice.

- Hypering for score is a good way of increasing your points, but consider saving your hypers as a bit of an "oh fuck" button to begin with - it doesn't build up that quickly and if you're finding that you die a lot then it is a good way to help you not do that

- Similarly, Not Dying is one of the best ways of coming out of a stage with a bigger end-of-level bonus

 

At the end of the day, the enjoyment you get out of these games is entirely yours to decide. Some of us are focused on scores; others on getting a 1CC; I'm generally in the latter camp but you never truly know how it will grab you. Generally, Playing To Not Die is a great way to familiarise yourself with a game, and then if you find that the numbers are the thing that gets you going back for another play, at least you won't be in a situation where you're exceptional at stage 1 and toilet at the rest of the game.

[Sel Feena]

I always play on the easiest difficulty then work my way up when I feel comfortable. I don’t usually credit feed though

[Quest]

Played a bit of Z-Warp earlier. Real crunchy garish pixels and a boss called Acid Reflux, which works for me.

 

Just tucking into easy mode for now and will see how I get on. Think the only shmup I put any time into last year was MUSHA (again), so I'm a bit rusty at these things.

[Gloomy Andy]

On 31/12/2022 at 17:44, Gloomy Andy said:

Pray tell what witchcraft allowed you to double your score.

 

I've managed to see area 3 and have increased my score a smidge. 

Now at 229,594,866 so better but not much of a jump. 

I'm trying to remember to use my hyper when the bar is full. 

I'm just struggling to avoid all those bullets. 

 

Managed to increase me score a little again, now at

267,151,011

 

Still someway away from your 888m @MagicalDrop

Still have no idea how to more than triple my score!!

 

I did have a go on novice mode and managed to get to level 5 with a score of 3,447,180,706

That was a bit of a confidence boost!

[Benny]

I'm quite glad that at the end of ZeroRanger I looked up

 

Spoiler

What happens if you choose to sacrifice. Fuck. That.

 

I'm only a casual player, and knowing what that would have done considering how I only beat the previous boss with a lot of trial and error through the skin of my teeth, that's just a complete dick move. Even Souls games are never that harsh. Even the last boss of Sekiro isn't that harsh.

 

The rest of the game was fantastic, but that? Fuck off. Don't disrespect my fucking time with that nonsense just to see the conclusion to a story. Difficult gameplay? Yes, great. Time wasting and progress destroying? No.

 

It's pissed me off and that's even with catching it before I made the massive mistake of picking yes! (Especially considering I had no continues left)

 

I honestly can't remember the last time I've gone from adoring a game to being incensed by it so bloody quickly.

 

[hazeredmist]

Happy new year shmuppers!

 

Tried G-Darius again, not for me I reckon, too bloody hard! I have it physically if anyone fancies a trade

 

Meanwhile played Deathsmiles 2 for the first time and I LOVE it! Weird boss designs mind

[hazeredmist]

Does anyone have any idea when Akai Katana might make it to the UK eshop? Or best case scenario we get a Clear River published physical like Deathsmiles got… 

[hazeredmist]

On 31/12/2022 at 08:41, Quest said:

I don't understand why ZeroRanger isn't on Switch. It seems like such an obvious port.

 

Grabbed Missile Dancer, Z-Warp and Hazelnut Hex in the eShop sales, though, so should be busy for a while. How's the Switch version of G-Darius?

G-Darius port is superb, it’s M2 so standard really. It’s been patched to include a ton more content since release. The game is not for me though 

[hazeredmist]

On 19/12/2022 at 14:23, ImmaculateClump said:

 

Not much info there, but better than silence.

Ah excellent I’ll wait then. Def want that physical! Good to know it’s coming 

[Sel Feena]

How are Clear River? I’ve used LRG before and they’ve always been good, but if those guys are EU based I’d hope delivery for me would be quicker