Incline Shoot'em up goodness (review and discuss)

[Lutte]

Also IMO Ikeda and Cave gave up around 1999 and just started milking. I mean look at the variety prior and compare it with afterwards where everything is just cheaply made quickly churned out variant on DDPDOJ. I mean it's clear he just stopped caring.

Everyone gave up. Some really cool series have had such troubled ends, like Raiden 5 which is both ugly as sin and commits the gameplay destroying mistake of not having decent bullet visibility at key moments. Dariusburst has a few interesting mechanics but again the visuals are the least coherent and nastiest of the series. I don't even want to comment on that last Vasara game, I felt like I was playing a mobile phone game on my computer. Saidaioujou is a derivative game but it's not the worst note to end at as a developer by far, you could do a lot, lot worse than CAVE's last runs.
There's still fun games made these days but the genre isn't at its healthiest, unless you think of newer steam ports of old arcade games as new games. I'm having fun with a lot of the indie stuff but I'm under no illusion of them being equal to the pillars of the arcade era. The three most memorable indies for me have been Blue Revolver, Crimzon Clover and ZeroRanger. They're all well made and pleasant to play in terms of mechanics, but if you think CAVE went cheap in prod values then something like ZeroRanger isn't going to impress either.

 

[Nutmeg]

ZeroRanger isn't going to impress either

I like the 8 color palette and what they managed to do with it.

I think cave is still making gacha shmups for mobile lol.

Behold:

 

[Great Deceiver]

As a segue from my last post about Mahou Daisakusen, I've been playing a little bit of Seirei Senshi Spriggan, a Compile game that came out for the PC Engine that's an interesting transition point between Musha and the later Raizing games.

Even if it looks very much like a Musha game (especially the player mech), and it was designed by the same guy (Kazuyuki Nakashima) you can see some clear, if embryonary Mahou elements here (the fantasy theme - it even has an early version of the forest level with the sorcerer enemies - the style of soundtrack, etc.) and it has a pretty interesting powerup system - you have different coloured orbs that do different things and you can stack 3 of them; different colour combinations yield different types of shots. You can also use the orbs as bombs, so the game incentivizes you for bombing and trying various combinations, which I think is cool, even if there are some combinations that are clearly better than others.

I don't think the soundtrack is the best (Mahou's is one of my favourite soundtracks ever), but some tracks are pretty cool. This is definitely an interesting game that I didn't play back when it came out and it's a curious piece of gaming history at the very tail end of classic Compile/early Raizing.

Some screenshots:

 

[Nutmeg]

Yeah Spriggan is a proto-Mahou for sure. Robo Aleste as well.

BTW at your resolution you shouldn't use a sub-pixel mask, you're emulating a 1500+ TVL screen which never existed.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've been trying out a new shader recently (crt-guest-dr-venom2), which is not what I normally use (gtu-v50 for consoles, crt-royale for arcade games), still playing around with the settings...

 

[Nutmeg]

I've been using the new guest-dr-venom too with Nesguy's presets for 240p. I just adjusted mask to suit my LCD resolution and turned interlacing off.

For 480p I have my own little preset made from my own knowledge of signal processing and CRTs. Basically just jinc + scan lines (before anyone says there are no scan-lines at 480p, please) + mask. No real phosphor simulation but on my 2560 by 1600 screen it doesn't matter cause you get 3 pixels vertically for every phosphor, which isn't enough to do anything interesting except attenuate the scanline, and it does that pretty accurately.

Royale is pretty poorly coded BTW. It does some *very* funky things with the mask (it recomputes it every frame for no reason and it leads to weird results like red-yellow-black-green-cyan-black or something) and there's a lot of dead code paths and god knows what happens when you configure it one way or another. Like its "anti-aliasing" literally does nothing.

I know this cause I spent like a month "porting" it to a pet shmup vaporware I'm working on.

Best coded shader is probably crt aperture. Very simple, gets all the fundamentals of CRTs right. Not a super advanced simulation, and favors simple / efficient techniques, but very solid.

 

[Valestein]

Here's a pretty novel shmup, a submarine one with metal slug type graphics.



Helicopter shmup.

 

[Great Deceiver]

In the Hunt is really cool, it predates Metal Slug by about 3 years and was made by basically the same team while they were at Irem. They also made a very good beat'em'up called Undercover Cops.

There was a home port for the PSX but it was unbearable back then.

Under Defeat is pretty good but I prefer Zero Gunner 2 (a Psikyo game, also a heli shmup).

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've been using the new guest-dr-venom too with Nesguy's presets for 240p. I just adjusted mask to suit my LCD resolution and turned interlacing off.

For 480p I have my own little preset made from my own knowledge of signal processing and CRTs. Basically just jinc + scan lines (before anyone says there are no scan-lines at 480p, please) + mask. No real phosphor simulation but on my 2560 by 1600 screen it doesn't matter cause you get 3 pixels vertically for every phosphor, which isn't enough to do anything interesting except attenuate the scanline, and it does that pretty accurately.

Royale is pretty poorly coded BTW. It does some *very* funky things with the mask (it recomputes it every frame for no reason and it leads to weird results like red-yellow-black-green-cyan-black or something) and there's a lot of dead code paths and god knows what happens when you configure it one way or another. Like its "anti-aliasing" literally does nothing.

I know this cause I spent like a month "porting" it to a pet shmup vaporware I'm working on.

Best coded shader is probably crt aperture. Very simple, gets all the fundamentals of CRTs right. Not a super advanced simulation, and favors simple / efficient techniques, but very solid.

I used crt-aperture for a long time and really like it, but I've been trying some different shit since I got a 4k monitor and heard that some shaders can replicate a pretty faithful mask at this resolution. There are too many parameters to tweak, though.

I used crt-hylian for awhile, too, as it has a vertical scanlines parameter, but the in the latest repo this functionality seems to be bugged.

 

[Haba]

X-Out (C-64, ported to Amiga)


The unique things about this one is the fact that it happens underwater and the shopping/weapon design. I was so buttpained about the last boss. And the ending screen is not much reward for the effort, lol.

Z-Out


Never cared too much for this one. The Giger influences are a bit obvious...

 

[Nutmeg]

I used crt-hylian for awhile, too, as it has a vertical scanlines parameter, but the in the latest repo this functionality seems to be bugged.

I bought a monitor arm so I can easily rotate my monitor into portrait. Trick is to emulate it so when your monitor is landscape, the game is rotated 90 degrees and the scanlines run correctly, horizontally. Then when you rotate your physical monitor, everything is fine.

You get more screen this way. This is for vert shmups.

It's the same as people used to do with Arcade vertical ports on consoles. You'd set the game to "tate" in the game options (assuming it was provided), and then flip the actual TV on its side.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I used crt-hylian for awhile, too, as it has a vertical scanlines parameter, but the in the latest repo this functionality seems to be bugged.

I bought a monitor arm so I can easily rotate my monitor into portrait. Trick is to emulate it so when your monitor is landscape, the game is rotated 90 degrees and the scanlines run correctly, horizontally. Then when you rotate your physical monitor, everything is fine.

You get more screen this way. This is for vert shmups.

It's the same as people used to do with Arcade vertical ports on consoles. You'd set the game to "tate" in the game options (assuming it was provided), and then flip the actual TV on its side.

Well yes, I used to play in TATE all the time when I had a CRT, but flipping my 55" screen is a not practical atm.

 

[Nutmeg]

Helicopter shmup.

Under defeat is in my top 10.

One of the rare 3D shmups to try capture what I call the "tactical" vert sub-genre. It has background layer enemies which you can hit with the main shot, and even the horizontal camera panning (infamous for creating "sniper tanks").

Actually the shot is even more interesting than that. It also functions a bit like the Xevious system in that it's split between the part that hits ground enemies and the part that hits air targets. But when it's not locked on to a ground enemy, the former is also anti-air. Something you end up paying a bit more attention to the more you play.

Level 3 is a huge jump in difficulty, but it's one of my favorite levels in any shmup. I'm a scrub, so I still lose 1 life there minimum. Usually at the mid-boss. Or keep the life but lost my bomb stock if I had a good level 2 run (you can cheese speed kill the boss there).

I haven't played HD+ but DC version is better than HD. I love the graphics the DC produces. This game really shows it off.

 

[Nutmeg]

55"

I guess if it's 55 inches you don't really need to flip it, because even in aspect ratio preserving fit you probably get more than the arcade standard 30 inches.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Under Defeat has a really great soundtrack. I didn't play too much of it, maybe I should go back and give it another go, but I remember I felt the pod controls a little wonky and not as smooth as ZG2's directional button.

edit: I have a 29" CRT TATE cabinet, but it's still JAMMA and I haven't gotten around to building an emulation box inside it. I have Dimahoo and Galaga '88 boards rotating atm, but don't really play them that much. Controls are not great (bat stick and stiff buttons)...

 

[Nutmeg]

Nice. I just park a sofa in front of my computer desk and play with a fight stick in my lap. It's a Mayflash F300 modded with a Seimitsu LS-40 and buttons. Kinda wish I got a more modern stick as I had to remove two screws to get it to not stick to a certain switch. It's a very strangely designed stick. Still waiting for my new screen to arrive for that delicious gsync and 4K.

I'm not too familiar with fixed shooters. I 1CC'd one called Repulse from Crux, the company that would later become Toaplan. It's one of thoses shmups I 1CC'd cause whatever I was playing was too difficult so I found something below it in one of the difficulty lists. It put a lot of bullets on the screen for 1985. You also moved fairly slowly, like when focus firing in Dodonpachi. You had a huge hitbox and to compensate were given a shield button which would drain whenever you used it and especially if you got hit.

It also had some Konami aesthetics with an arctic level and Moai statues.

 

[Great Deceiver]

While we're on the subject, I've taken so long to work out a JAMMA emulation solution that I might just go straight to the MiSTer FPGA + their addon JAMMA board. Not a lot of stuff supported so far, but it can only grow and most people who actually play shmups and who have a prerelease unit say the thing is legit. If I can get the whole combo for less than 500USD I'm seriously considering it.

MiSTer Addons FPGA Parts and Accessories | MiSTER FPGA

 

[Falksi]

Great Deceiver Licorice & co, what would you say you're top 5/10/howevermany you can be arse to post SMUPS are so far?

I'd like to give them a blast at various points over the next year or so.

 

[Valestein]

No shmup thread can go without the mention of this classic snes shmup with both horizon and vertical stages.



Special note has to be made about one of the greatest tracks in any game(that chorus that begins at 1:17 is orgasmic)

 

[Great Deceiver]

Great Deceiver Licorice & co, what would you say you're top 5/10/howevermany you can be arse to post SMUPS are so far?

I'd like to give them a blast at various points over the next year or so.

It's very hard to make a list, because I feel like playing different types of shmups at different points, but here are a few:

- Gradius V is the best Gradius game ever (came out on the PS2, Treasure game and it's brilliant) / Gradius Gaiden 2nd
- Mahou Daisakusen/Sorcer Striker
- Armed Police Batrider
- Raiden DX
- Darius Gaiden

No shmup thread can go without the mention of this classic snes shmup with both horizon and vertical stages.



Special note has to be made about one of the greatest tracks in any game(that chorus that begins at 1:17 is orgasmic)

I really wanted to like Axelay. I've tried to play it so many times over the years, ever since it came out, and it just never clicked for me.

 

[Falksi]

Great Deceiver Licorice & co, what would you say you're top 5/10/howevermany you can be arse to post SMUPS are so far?

I'd like to give them a blast at various points over the next year or so.

It's very hard to make a list, because I feel like playing different types of shmups at different points, but here are a few:

- Gradius V is the best Gradius game ever (came out on the PS2, Treasure game and it's brilliant) / Gradius Gaiden 2nd
- Mahou Daisakusen/Sorcer Striker
- Armed Police Batrider
- Raiden DX
- Darius Gaiden

No shmup thread can go without the mention of this classic snes shmup with both horizon and vertical stages.



Special note has to be made about one of the greatest tracks in any game(that chorus that begins at 1:17 is orgasmic)

I really wanted to like Axelay. I've tried to play it so many times over the years, ever since it came out, and it just never clicked for me.

Nice one, ta muchly. Crazy that I've not played one of those yet. Gonna have to get some tucked in!

Also, I'm the same with Axelay. Been around 5 years since I last tried to play it, but I just remember it playing like shit, the weapons feeling crap, and the whole overhead sections looking like an awful mode 7 gimmick tbh. Another game I'll return to soon enough.

 

[Nutmeg]

Seconding Batrider, which is probably my favorite. The million ways to interact with every level make it feel like a pinball machine. Very well structured for having fun while learning, with different courses (including a Boss rush to practice bosses), and the fact that you'll be discovering something new every credit.

I've also mentioned Raiden Fighters 2 and Batsugun Special. The former for it's amazing mega bosses (i.e. stages 3 and 6), the latter for it's immensely satisfying take on the Toaplan cruise'em'up formula without devolving into streaming.

Speaking of Toaplan cruise'em'ups, I love Kyukyoku Tiger and Same! Same! Same!. Both have great Mega Drive ports, with the latter being highly recommended over the Arcade original unless you are a shmup prodigy.

Both games maintain a constant scroll speed with every screen's length or two being like a little puzzle to solve. You don't notice when powered up, but when you die you're taken back to a checkpoint so you'll be forced to really learn and understand the situation to recover. It's never impossible, and always the solution feels so good like "aha!". Then next time when you come through at full power it feels great clinically cutting through everything. Also it's not like when you know it, it's easy. The "solutions" require a lot of controlled movement - tapping, cut backs - mostly the former at full power, but you won't be at full power very often.

Level 6 of Same! Same! Same! is one of my favorite stages in any game:



I made a save state on this level at 0 power and would just play it again and again, initially to practice, but then just because it's so fucking fun.

Kyukyoku Tiger is less intense, and has a far more friendly power up system. But IMO Same! Same! Same!'s power up system is one of those happy accidents in gaming, where even though yes it is annoying to collect the wrong power up, it's also very intense and fun juggling the power up and playing ping pong with it while maintaining focus on dodging bullets and eliminating threats.

Speaking of Toaplan on Mega Drive, Slap Fight MD (the Mega Drive mode, not the port, although the port is good too) is also up there for me. Very much in the same mould as the above except it plays very different depending on your chosen power up strategy. Very fun to experiment with different styles.

Under Defeat is a very different, very modern but just as enjoyable take on the serious salaryman tactical shooter that Same!^3 and Kyukyoku Tiger epitomize. In addition to the difficulty setting and rank, the other difficulty choice you have is which pod you use. Vulcan is the least risky, but scores the least, rocket is super risky, but scores the most, and cannon is in between. Also, the game takes risk vs reward seriously. For highest end stage bonus, you need to complete it with no lives remaining i.e. you're rewarded for living on the edge.

With all these games my advice is, aim for the 1CC, and use your resources!

 

[Valestein]

One of my fave arcade shmups.

 

[Great Deceiver]

One of my fave arcade shmups.

Nice, I didn't know this one. Will give it a go. The aesthetics kind of remind me of Layer Section/Gunlock.

Played Armed Police Batrider for a bit, what an amazing game. This really jostles with Mahou as my favourite Raizing shmup. It has several features that aren't usually found in arcade shmups - custom modes and a huge selection of ships (18 in total), with choices (depending on how the dip switches on the board are set) for single ship play (3 lives) or tag-team, KoF-style, where you pick 3 different ships and each gets 1 life. There are 3 original teams and 3 teams from other Raizing games (Mahou team, Garegga team, etc.)

This game is super fast, there's a lot of gameplay variety with the different ships, the music is amazing, and it's very hard. Super recommended.

However, if you can, play it on Retroarch on the Final Burn Neo core, with run-ahead enabled. The original Batrider board has 4 frames of input delay (this is also how it's emulated with Mame), and you can shave it down to 1 through RA. This is truly a revelation and the game is just that much snappier with just a single frame of input delay before video out. I can honestly say this is a better than PCB experience.

Some screenies:

 

[Hag]

Thank you guys for the recommendations, tried a few and sucked to all. But since I'm new to shmups, I think it was to be expected. I played many a different game, but always felt those shooters were a world apart, made for a certain kind of players, the hardcore ones, the crazy fast ones, those who play Q3defrag to relax after a long run of dodging a few dozen thousands of bullets.
Trying to get into it and enjoying my pain so far, mostly on Darius Gaiden. If you have any tips for newcomers to hell please do tell.