Talking about shoot 'em ups, shmups, STGs, scrolling shooters, etc.

[Cynicaster]

Tonight it’s R-Type Final on PS2.  
 

Not super crazy about it.  You pretty much have to memorize exactly where to be on the screen at all times or some hazard or enemy will just materialize and kill you.  In that sense, not so different from the original game.  
 

[Wayler]

Inspired by this thread, I hooked up the Gamecube to play a game I have had for years but never tried: Ikaruga. I believe it is lauded as one of the greatest shooters to ever shoot but I was not feeling it at all. The polarization gimmickry was very annoying. I played through some trial mode and gave up, not for me. I'll also add that the plot was pretty ridiculous and extremely tacked on, they could have at least tried. 

[+jgkspsx]

1 hour ago, Wayler said:

Inspired by this thread, I hooked up the Gamecube to play a game I have had for years but never tried: Ikaruga. I believe it is lauded as one of the greatest shooters to ever shoot but I was not feeling it at all. The polarization gimmickry was very annoying. I played through some trial mode and gave up, not for me. I'll also add that the plot was pretty ridiculous and extremely tacked on, they could have at least tried. 

Ikaruga is a Treasure game and thus extremely complex and imposing if you are not already a genre aficionado. It's a good game but it is not a good introductory bullet hell game.

[Austin]

Ikaruga is something you have to keep working at. The polarity mechanic does a number on your brain and without repeat attempts you'll never get the hang of it. It's a super satisfying game when you get into the flow of it however, and the epic soundtrack and visual set pieces helps makes it feel like something on a totally other level.

 

Quick tip for anyone jumping into it for the first time: You do added damage if you are shooting something of the opposite color, and you absorb bullets if they are the same color as you. Confusing at first, sure, but it eventually becomes second nature.

 

Also, come on guys.. very few shmups have "good" stories, or ones that don't feel tacked on. Most of us back in the day had no idea what it was anyway, since we were importing the Japanese versions. 

  

On 1/17/2024 at 11:54 PM, Cynicaster said:

Tonight it’s R-Type Final on PS2.  

Not super crazy about it.  You pretty much have to memorize exactly where to be on the screen at all times or some hazard or enemy will just materialize and kill you.  In that sense, not so different from the original game.  

That's basically the R-Type series in a nutshell--they are hardcore memorization-based games for the most part. Final is easier to learn than R-Type 1 or 2 (arcade versions), but tougher than most of R-Type Delta or R-Type III. Just make sure you're staying closer to the middle of the screen, as objects are constantly popping in from both sides. Also, your pod can be insanely useful for crowd control. Release it and throw it behind you in some instances.

 

Final does have pacing issues which makes a full run of the game not as fun as other titles in the series. I do dig the atmosphere of the first stage a lot, but it ultimately drags on. The battleship stage is cool, but slows down like crazy. The space level has a warp effect based on your speed, and is disorienting as hell. Some of the levels in between are admittedly actually pretty sweet with better paced level layouts and some cool fanservice, but you still have to deal with the trial-and-error nature of the gameplay.

 

The best part of the game is how certain levels will change as you play through them again and again (there are ways to trigger various alterations, like with the water in stage 2 rising or lowering). Also, the ship unlocking mechanic is fun, and experimenting with new unlocks adds to the replay value. Basically, the more you play, the more you get to see and that brings about an addictive nature all in itself.

Edited January 25 by Austin

[Cynicaster]

2 hours ago, Wayler said:

Inspired by this thread, I hooked up the Gamecube to play a game I have had for years but never tried: Ikaruga. I believe it is lauded as one of the greatest shooters to ever shoot but I was not feeling it at all. The polarization gimmickry was very annoying. I played through some trial mode and gave up, not for me. I'll also add that the plot was pretty ridiculous and extremely tacked on, they could have at least tried. 

 

I'm a latecomer to Ikaruga as well.  I had heard about it or read about it a million times through the years but never played it until last year when I finally upgraded my crusty old MAME cabinet PC to a unit capable of running NAOMI at full speed.  I was very excited to finally try this game to see what all the fuss is about.  In the time since then, I've also picked up a Dreamcast and have played it on there as well (on CRT with arcade controls = lag-free win).     

 

I'm not one of those crazy 1CC shoot-em-up jedi types, but I think I'm half decent relative to most, and I really enjoy the genre as a whole.  As someone who has tried literally hundreds of shoot-em-ups in the last 10 years, from big-name titles to long-forgotten curiosities buried deep within the MAME and 8- and 16-bit console archives, here is my take on Ikaruga. 

 

First of all, I absolutely love the visuals and music.  I normally find the more modern 3D type visuals to be an impediment to 2D shooter games, but Ikaruga looks and sounds awesome. 

 

As for the things that actually matter - i.e., gameplay and fun-factor - the game is an acquired taste for sure.  The mistake I made was, I went in with a short-attention-span mindset of wanting "just another shooter game" with immediately-obvious rules and controls.  Going into Ikaruga with that mindset will only lead to disappointment... I played a few games and moved on.  At some point a few months later, I was participating in a little score competition on Twitter and Ikaruga was the selected game, so I tried it again.  Since I was actually trying to score as high as possible, I took the time to really figure out how the game works, and watched some expert runs on Youtube (wow, by the way).  Trying the game again after this, I started to genuinely enjoy it.  Getting the big bonuses from chains and the like provides that usual arcade-style rush that is addictive for me.  Ikaruga will never surpass my favorite CAVE games, but it's something a little bit different from the rest and I like it a lot. 

 

My main "problem" with it is that, due to the game's nature, it doesn't shine under the conditions of casual, sporadic play.  Meaning, I play a bunch of times in row and get in a groove and set my personal best score, and that's super fun.  But if I go any time at all without playing the game, then when I finally go back to it for another go, it feels like I'm starting from ground zero again which is daunting and sort of deters me from playing it as much as I otherwise would. 

 

  

 

      

[Wayler]

Well I confess to not being a shoot 'em up player at all and there's only one that I simply adore (Axelay, if you somehow didn't know). Perhaps I should give Ikaruga a second chance and not approach it with a casual outlook. 

 

1 hour ago, Austin said:

Also, come on guys.. very few shmups have "good" stories, or ones that don't feel tacked on. Most of us back in the day had no idea what it was anyway, since we were importing the Japanese versions. 

I wasn't expecting anything mind melting but this plot was just silly. A village that has a capability of producing military grade fighter ships? And all this goofy plot is just in the manual, there's no intro in the game at all. I like to at least have some reason for the shooty bang bang. 

 

But the most surprising thing was seeing the Atari logo on the box. I think this is my only game related to that company....

[SlidellMan]

Wayler, if you thought Ikaruga's plot was too absurd and goofy to be taken seriously, try playing the Saturn game Treasure made that preceeded it: Radiant Silvergun.

[Wayler]

Funny you should mention goofy and absurd @SlidellMan. Immediately after the Ikaruga disappointment, I fired up my Super NT and tried a different shooter: Gokujou Parodius.

Nothing fancy mechanically, just so very very strange visually. I set the difficulty to easy and lives to 9 and picked a flying pig as my "ship". This was just the kind of casual affair I was looking for.

 

 

[Cynicaster]

Yeah, I've never been able to get into the "cute-em-ups." I guess Fantasy Zone is pretty fun, and Harmful Park is decent... but most of them are uninteresting to me.    

 

I mean, logically, I know it's just a different skin for the exact same type of gameplay seen in the usual "space ships" or "pseudo WW2 planes" fare that I enjoy.  I guess it just demonstrates that these details are important to the overall experience.  Music and SFX too... for me at least, these things can make or break a shooter.  

 

 

 

  

 

  

Edited January 25 by Cynicaster

[DragonGrafx-16]

Now this thread is for me... heh

[Austin]

I am generally not a huge fan of the sub genre either, but Magical Chase on the Turbo Grafx is pretty good when it comes to “cute ‘em ups”. Music’s pretty decent, there’s a lot going on and the gameplay mechanics are fun. It’s not too bad of a 1CC, but I also wouldn’t say it’s a walk in the park either.

[DragonGrafx-16]

33 minutes ago, Austin said:

I am generally not a huge fan of the sub genre either, but Magical Chase on the Turbo Grafx is pretty good when it comes to “cute ‘em ups”. Music’s pretty decent, there’s a lot going on and the gameplay mechanics are fun. It’s not too bad of a 1CC, but I also wouldn’t say it’s a walk in the park either.

For me it's the Twinbee games and Star Parodier. I've played Magical Chase using my Turbo Everdrive and I'm not quite used to how it plays yet.

[roots.genoa]

I just got Submarine Attack for the Master System yesterday. It was discussed in another thread (not sure which one), and I was impressed with the graphics. People said it was too easy though, but it is a plus for me since I suck at shmups. And I didn't find that easy, since items are given by boats that are quite hard to hit; you have to use your upwards missiles but it often requires to get just under them, where they lay bombs.

[Tanooki]

Star Parodier and Twinbee are fantastic, both are I believe on my PCE Mini, Parodier is at least.  Magical Chase is a gem, a costly gem, even the very very well done and faithful gbc release price sucks by proxy of that console title sadly.  Not in the same wheel house of pain at all, but it's not attainable under $100 either.

[Cynicaster]

11 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I just got Submarine Attack for the Master System yesterday. It was discussed in another thread (not sure which one), and I was impressed with the graphics. People said it was too easy though, but it is a plus for me since I suck at shmups. And I didn't find that easy, since items are given by boats that are quite hard to hit; you have to use your upwards missiles but it often requires to get just under them, where they lay bombs.

 

I was playing that game recently on my Anbernic handheld.  I remember thinking it seemed like a dollar-store "In the Hunt."    Not very fair I guess, since it came before In the Hunt by at least a few years.  

 

On the cute-'em-up topic, one I played recently and actually rather enjoyed was Mamorukun Curse! on PS3.  When I saw the cartoony aesthetic I had low expectations but I ended up playing for 45 minutes or so, and will happily do so again.  

 

 

 

[roots.genoa]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Magical Chase is a gem, a costly gem,

Which reminds me that among the HuCard games I'm looking for, on top of my (alphabetical) list is Coryoon. The other games of my list are already above $100 but this one... Ouch. 😰

[DragonGrafx-16]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Which reminds me that among the HuCard games I'm looking for, on top of my (alphabetical) list is Coryoon. The other games of my list are already above $100 but this one... Ouch. 😰

 

Yeah it was $500 last time I looked... a Turbo Everdrive is so worth it to be able to play these expensive games on real hardware.

[Tanooki]

That's 50% of why I have everdrives at all.  The other is largely for the mixture of emulation(on GBA of older hardware) and for other peoples pet projects from improvement hacks like Castlevania II got (re-translated and MMC1 expansion to add a map) to translations and more.

[Cynicaster]

A little bit of Gaiares on Genesis this fine winter evening. Cool game, not easy.  
 

[Austin]

That's a Genesis shmup I need to buckle down and finish. I know it's a fan favorite for the console, but it's one that's always felt "off" to me.

[Cynicaster]

20 hours ago, Austin said:

That's a Genesis shmup I need to buckle down and finish. I know it's a fan favorite for the console, but it's one that's always felt "off" to me.

 

Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that.  I do like the game, but for all the love it gets, and how much I enjoy the genre in general, it seems I should like it more than I do.  

 

For a long time after I first got into retro games in 2010 or so, I played strictly arcade/MAME shoot em ups and mostly ignored the console stuff.  Overall I'd say that the arcade is still where my heart is with this genre, but I can see now that there is a ton to explore on the consoles too, and I've been doing a lot of poking around on that front for the last 1-2 years.  Primarily on Genesis, TG16/PCE, and the CD systems related to those two.  

 

A recurring gripe I have with 8- and 16-bit console shooters is that so many of them have you zipping around the screen really fast, which makes it hard to control the ship with precision, and that leads to frustration.  To make matters worse, lots of the games that are affected by that are plenty fast to begin with, then start dropping "speed up" powerups every 30 seconds that I pick up by accident, which makes the ship even faster and harder to control.  As a result, I find some of those games basically unplayable.  I haven't maintained a list of every game where I've experienced this, it's just something that I feel like I see over and over again on the consoles but I don't remember noticing in the hundreds of arcade shoot em ups I've played through the years.  

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

Gaiares is a game with many secrets and strategies beyond just memorization. Having the right weapon at the right time is crucial. It's worth sticking with and maybe even watching some real longplays (not the savestate ones where they clearly don't understand the game).

[Tanooki]

Well maybe that's the key to it then.  Gaiares I got in a trade a year or two back, and I'm in the I really like it but feel I should love it club as something just feels off.  Graylancer is another, had a boot of that one, and I tossed it as it just wasn't worth the shelf space yet people lose their minds over it too and buy those expensive re-releases (of both) of the game.

[Cynicaster]

Digging deeper into the Mega Everdrive archives, playing Arrow Flash on Genesis.  Never heard of it.  Pretty basic horizontal shooter but I’m having fun with it somehow.  

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

4 minutes ago, Cynicaster said:

Digging deeper into the Mega Everdrive archives, playing Arrow Flash on Genesis.  Never heard of it.  Pretty basic horizontal shooter but I’m having fun with it somehow.  

 

I have a physical copy of this... it's almost too easy most of the time. Especially when you can just spam the flash skill as the mech.