Incline Shoot'em up goodness (review and discuss)

[Lutte]

DOJ chaining is extremely brutal and restrictive ultimately in terms of player creativity. It's a very memorization heavy game, more than the average even for CAVE, and while I find the music and visuals attractive, I don't consider it a great game. You will notice that all the good runs of DOJ out there look even more samey across the player base than for other shmups, because there is such a thing as singular way of playing it that dictates every moment you will use shots, every moments you will use laser and every pixel you're moving your ship to from beginning to end.

 

[Nutmeg]

What would you say are Cave's most open games? IMO probably Dangun, Progear and Ketsui, with HM to Guwange (chaining necessitates certain strats lest you drop it in some areas)

 

[Lutte]

I don't necessarily hate chaining as a mechanism, but DOJ is particularly restrictive by design, some of the games can be very lenient, like DFK, which its timings, enemy spawns and the amount of screen your shot types cover. On the other hand, DFK can get really meh in its vanilla state, the 360 addition of the 'ketsuipatchi' mode turned the turd into a gem.

'DDP' is probably the best DDP-style game and the most accessible too.

 

[Nutmeg]

Also reminder to play Nexzr, faggots. I mean look at that cover art, listen to that music. Pure late 80s Japanese mecha anime pleasure.

 

[Morenatsu.]

You know, you don't have to play like an autist if you don't want to.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Does anyone actually like practice modes, save states, etc? Practising the same stages over and over makes me want to shoot the developers and bomb their families. Full runs are better.

 

[Nutmeg]

Does anyone actually like practice modes, save states, etc? Practising the same stages over and over makes me want to shoot the developers and bomb their families. Full runs are better.

I love it. Some of the most fun I've had is practicing checkpoints in Same! Same! Same!

 

[Morenatsu.]

I can't really find the motivation for it. If I'm not risking my imaginary credits, why am I playing? Actually, I think I just suck at learning like a normal person. No idea how they're supposed to do it.

Same is kewl. Awsum gaem, the green lazor is my fav!!!!11 xDDDDD

 

[fork]

Does anyone actually like practice modes, save states, etc? Practising the same stages over and over makes me want to shoot the developers and bomb their families. Full runs are better.

Starting from Stage1 over and over again makes progress in later stages and thus that 1CC or new Highscore so much more tedious and difficult to obtain, that save states are required to practice certain sections at some point. I agree though, full runs are more fun.

 

[Lutte]

Starting from Stage1 over and over again makes progress in later stages and thus that 1CC or new Highscore so much more tedious and difficult to obtain

I disagree. Restarting rather than using continues or repeating a single later stage is a better teacher - it pushes you into perfecting what is the most important bits of many shmups, the early stage routes, so that you gain enough resources to deal with later stages.

I believe most players out there are not autistic enough to be "great" at the harder parts of shmup late stages. The real strategy is to accumulate enough resources, like bombs when they exist, lives etc and knowing where to spend them properly. You need to repeat the early parts until you've truly perfected and maximized your gains there. Then what you need to do is identify the spots most likely to kill you in the later parts and act accordingly. I often bomb preemptively, on parts I feel are likely to kill me, rather than reflexively.

People who use things like stage practice tend to focus on the wrong things, or not fully understand how many resources they could really afford to spend there on a real run etc. Also causes people to spend too much time on the same stage because it's too easy to repeat it and gives delusions like "maybe I could perfect this stage" which are thoroughly destroyed once you actually get there on a real run a little more tired after fully concentrating on the first half of the game.

Normal people don't 1cc games by repeating late stages in stage practice, because normal people will never be consistent at dodging the more insane patterns. It is, however, possible for normal people to 1cc most games still, by utilizing the tools they give you and not trying to do the impossible, like stubborningly no-bombing acting like it's cheating to use something the game gives you.

 

[fork]

Normal people don't play shmups.

If I would've had to replay stages 1 and 2 every time in order to finally 1CC Mushi Futari, I would've given up, because they're boring as fuck after a dozen times or so. And that is true for most if not all shmups in one form or another.

 

[Lutte]

By normal, I mean most people here in this thread, for example, not in the "4chan normie" sense.

Here's what it means to not be normal in the shmup sense :


Anyone who can clear Ketsui's second loop is a superhuman.

If I would've had to replay stages 1 and 2 every time in order to finally 1CC Mushi Futari, I would've given up, because they're boring as fuck after a dozen times or so. And that is true for most if not all shmups in one form or another.

To each their own. I feel a certain level of being in the zone when perfecting early stages and getting to midgame with no faults.

 

[fork]

I don't get your point.
So unless you Ura 2-All Ketsui, save states are detrimental?

 

[Lutte]

I don't get your point.
So unless you Ura 2-All Ketsui, save states are detrimental?

More like I don't believe they help you get a 1CC.

 

[fork]

You're wrong then imo. As I wrote, I would've given up on Futari BL, arguably one of the easiest 1CCs out there. Shame on me, but I was so sick of stages 1 & 2 I welcomed the stage training menu.
And there's obviously a huge skill gap between an easy 1CC (which yes, you can accomplish without save states) and competing for record highscores (where you absolutely need them).
Save states and training stages and sections you're having trouble with help getting better, both at the particular game as well as shmups in general.

 

[Morenatsu.]

My best runs are always the ones where I fuck up everything in a way I would have never practised. Maybe I'm practising wrong then, I don't know.

 

[Nutmeg]

Same is kewl. Awsum gaem, the green lazor is my fav!!!!11 xDDDDD

Blue weapon is the most popular. Red weapon is very strong, maybe even stronger, but it makes bullets hard to see. Surprised there's no hack that just turns it purple or something.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Come on, Jasede, how have you not posted here at all?

‘Because you'd rant at me again’

 

[Valestein]

Whacky WW1 sci-fi shmup on steam.

 

[Morenatsu.]

slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow bullets. disgusting.

LOL at the ‘only five stages too short’. too short too short too short too short stfu man

 

[Morenatsu.]

anyone here played cho ren sha 68k? its way way way more infinitely so much better than crimzon clover

 

[Nutmeg]

anyone here played cho ren sha 68k?

Yes. One of the best - sci-fi toaplan minus the ground assault and screen edge cover shooting. Sublime game and not really iterated upon.

 

[Morenatsu.]

After wasting weeks of my life playing Garegga, I have come to the conclusion that actually it sucks and CAVE-Yagawa is superior to Raizing-Yagawa. Let me tell you the reasons.

Spoiler

BATTLE GAREGGA:
+mah boi miyamoto yooo lets goooo
+shiny medals
+realistic bullets
+gun frontier-style bombs
+scoring for survival, extending forever
+sky stage
-default ships are shit, only miyamoto and gain are worth playing (fuck slowshit)
-stage 2 is boring
-stage 3 midboss
-all the difficulty is at the end
-half the option formations are retarded, even homing. especially homing.
-patterns are less patterns and more just shit spewing all over the place
-items going straight off the screen and into the trash whenever you die
-lolrandom rng
-no anime
Overall: exists in a weird spot between classic and bullet-hell, difficulty is backloaded and probably more than a little unfair, both ways

BATRIDER:
+very cool
+anime
+here comes miyamotoooo oh yea babbyy
-actually his bomb sucks
-rank on extend, harder extends, no life hoarding
-teams? why would i want to play other characters i dont like
-sky stage
-highway stage midboss
-feels more bulletspongy
-not enough medals
-charge attack
-simplified options
Overall: nerfed garegga

BAKRAID:
+kamikaze bombspam
+chaining
+100k medals
-wants to copy cave, but instead is just broken
-main shot, side shot, 6 options, all useless
-lolrandom stage order that makes no sense
-medals are actually for rank not score
Overall: counterstop/10

IBARA:
+anime girls
+hadou gun
+train stage
+epic soundtrack
+danmaku that's fun and playable even at max speed
+exploding powerups
+bombing for score in stage 1
+every stage is fun
+it's raining medals
+black label
-rotate options, why, just why
-default ships are still shit
-default autofire is also shit
Overall: friendship ended with garegga, now ibara is my best friend

PINK SWEETS:
+anime girls
-super gay
-infinite lives
-no score extends by default
-all items are just free rank
-horribly unbalanced characters wtf
-punishes you for using any mechanic
-no recovery on death, traps you in patterns until they time-out
-memorizer bullshit gimmicks on every frame
-train stage
Overall: rapes you until you like it, s-tier game omfg holy shit unironically awesome as fuck and way better than shitty recca (more liek REKT!!1)

MUCHI MUCHI PORK:
+pig girls
+over 9000 medals on screen at all times!!!!
-i cant think of anything bad
Overall: best game ever

tldr: nobody should play this retard's shitty games. they are concentrated autism and will give you assburgers.

Anyway Gayregga would probably be better if it had Toaplan patterns or something idk

 

[Morenatsu.]

noooooo you can't butthurt rate me what are you doing!! no U!!!!

 

[Falksi]

Thoughts on R-Type 3 for the SNES chaps?

It's highly praised but, whilst I do like a lot about it and I'm having a decent enough time playing it, I also don't think it's as great as a lot claim. After a few hours with it, it seems wonkey as fuck with it's stage difficulty, and the pinch points are almost PURE memorization. It makes it somewhat dull.