Interesting shmup where you can rotate the screen to dodge projectiles and with branching paths.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Incline Shoot'em up goodness (review and discuss)
- Thread starter Darth Canoli
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 1943 90's arcade shmup shoot 'em up
Hungarian shmup with a time slowing mechanic.
Nutmeg
Arcane
Ass game IMO.
Best Hungarian game was Ecco the Dolphin. Someone once described it as survival horror lol and I agree.
Falksi
Arcane
From t'other thread..........
Need a break from shooters at the mo now. Gonna run some beat em ups, JRPGs, and oddball games for a few days, prob do a few more shooters over the weekend.
Smash TV - SNES/Arcade
^I'd buy that for a dollar!
"Let's Go! *sings tune* Go! Go! Go!" - That's what the missus & the dog hear when I want them to get their arse in gear. Smash TV's pop-culture tie-ins to films, such as Robocop and The Running Man, stuck with me so much over the years that I still regularly quote them. There are only smatterings of them throughout the game, but it sets a wonderful stage for the total carnage which is about to ensue. I mean, the 80's & 90's were mint weren't they? The music & movies absolutely drowned us in rich, timeless quality. And here we have a shooter which draws heavily from said era, and goes balls to the wall as you can get with pure brain-off action. Whilst a lot of the games I'm writing about are ones which I've not played for years before recently, Smash TV is a game I regularly play, so this isn't so much revisiting it, as breaking everything down which I'm already pretty familiar with.
And for the most part, it plays like a wet dream, so simple, yet so effective. The 8-way directional move & fire combo still works great, and the arena battleground really lends itself to that setup too. All combined together you have something which feels nice & fresh compared to your typical shooter, and supported by that underlayer of pop culture you're not only getting something good, you're getting something pretty original & fun all round too.
The game also absolutely nails risk vs reward, luring you out with constant promises of weapons & prizes, but every step is fraught with danger. The amount of times you seem to get backed into a corner, only to work your way out of a seemingly impossible situation is countless, yet never grows old. It does start to get a bit unfair from around halfway through though, where impossible situations seem to start occurring, and taking the hit & using the invincibility seconds in the right way on resurrection becomes an employable tactic. It may sour things for some, but you get enough lives & credits to compensate, and around that point in the game extra lives seem to appear more regularly too (it feels as if the Devs spotted the difficulty spike, and threw in extra lives rather than rebalancing the gameplay). So to me, overall it feels more like a switch up in tactics rather than a skank, but others it may annoy.
Bosses - whilst few - are great, coming drenched in a ton of WWF style character, and having a real imposing presence about them. Each feels like a really powerful opposing force, and are both bizarre yet well fitting in the context of the game. But what does let the game down though is the slight over-reliance on power ups. Your main weapon is often just too weak to do any significant damage (or any damage at all with some bosses), and it can just get a bit boring/annoying having to wait around for weapons to appear so that you can actually go on the offensive again. Especially against the likes of Scarface, who you need to push back with heavy fire in order to survive.
The normal game serves as a great introduction, but may be a bit to slow for some. However Turbo mode (activated after completing the game on normal, or inputting a cheat) is spot on, and really ups the intensity. Both are fun, it's just really a case of which you prefer. and I'll play both speeds depending if I'm feeling ploddy, or jacked up.
Also the game's simplicity does come back to bite it in the arse after you've been playing a while. It's cracking fun, and a total blast, but there's not much depth to it either, and some of the rooms feel like they can take an age to clear the further in you get. Repetition does start to drag the experience down on longer plays, and they really could have done with introducing a few new elements here & there as the game went on.
Smash TV is a truly joyous game, which captures the vibe & thrive of that late 80's, early 90's era perfectly, and is an absolute blast to boot. It can be tough, it can get repetitive, but to this day it remains one of the best switch your brain off & destroy games out there, with a simplicity & originality which still make it thoroughly thrivable. But the candle which burns twice as bright burns half as long too, and whilst it'll get you high for a short time, it can wear you down too.
Need a break from shooters at the mo now. Gonna run some beat em ups, JRPGs, and oddball games for a few days, prob do a few more shooters over the weekend.
Almost one month I am playing shmups on a xbox 360 controller, and only today have I decided to use the d-pad instead of the stick. Compared to my previous and chaotic positioning that was giving me lots of troubles, it feels like easy-mode. Made two high-scores in a row. It really is a game changer on Darius Gaiden for example where the ship's large hitbox made any slight error very punishing. I can now decide where the hell I want to go exactly. Feels good.
Well, I still suck, but I am slowly getting my bearings. I mostly play Batsogun Special and Sorcer Striker, finished both with unlimited credits. Tested many others, I for one am not a big fan of Cave ones. They feel... blurry, and somehow bland visually (even Guwange). Maybe good old 2D sprites are where's the beauty at.
Well, I still suck, but I am slowly getting my bearings. I mostly play Batsogun Special and Sorcer Striker, finished both with unlimited credits. Tested many others, I for one am not a big fan of Cave ones. They feel... blurry, and somehow bland visually (even Guwange). Maybe good old 2D sprites are where's the beauty at.
Nutmeg
Arcane
My own preference is:
1. Arcade stick. Sanwa or Seimtsu. They're microswitched digital sticks, completely different to an analog stick on a gamepad. I use a Seimitsu LS-40, which is the one that used to be used in neogeo cabs, but want to try out others.
2. Keyboard
3. Saturn style pad (currently an 8-bit do m30). Good for less challenging console shmups cause you can recline on your sofa and enjoy.
Also I set up auto fire at different frequencies e.g. 10 HZ 30 HZ etc. using joy2key.
Arcade stick makes shmups at least twice as fun.
I can only guess, I have seldom played arcade in my younger years. But if I stick with emulation for some time, I may build myself some basic arcade controller. You also make me realize I haven't tried keyboard.
I will try joy2key.
And btw thanks for the head-up in the screenshot thread about the scanlines. Should be fixed now.
Among viable options (Licorice cited them) there's no true superior scheme, but there's one that's non viable and dramatically inferior : the analog stick. They are way too prone to accidental movements when you play games that are limited to 8 directions - left right up down and diagonals. Say you want to go left, and the stick was very slightly pressed down while you were going left. Now you've just registered a diagonal down and you get hit by whatever was behind you, congratulation! A real stick made for this, ahem, an arcade stick, will require being fully pressed down before anything registers as a diagonal. There's no ' I accidentally a diagonal ' time with a proper input.
One of the greatest Dodonpachi player ever is a keyboard player :
Top 5 Ketsui guy plays on a saturn pad :
The only thing you won't see a champion video of is the analog stick because it's complete garbage.
Pick whatever you like the most in your hand. Arcade sticks are fun and the historical device but keyboards and good pads are just as fine (try to get something better than a 360 dpad, that one is really too floaty)
Btw shmups aren't the only thing analog sticks are bad for. You really shouldn't play any SNES era game types, or say, metroidvanias, with analog sticks. It's just miserable. I think modern games made in those genres should literally make the analog stick disabled and reject its inputs so that newcomers are forced to learn the right way of doing things instead of abandoning the game because 'it's too hard' 'it sucks' not realizing what they had in their hand was crippling the experience.
Last edited:
Found this Cave shmup in my steam library.
The title translates to "Bug Princess" btw.
The title translates to "Bug Princess" btw.
The weird theme is all due to CAVE being inspired by this classic of anime when they developed this game.
Recently reinstalled this shmup to go after some left over chievos. it's a 3D rendered remake of a '96 game and has
The original for reference.
The original for reference.
Falksi
Arcane
Like the look of that.
Although, one thing revisting all these shooters has made me realize, and that's that I much prefer side scrollers to on rails vertical shooters.
Nutmeg
Arcane
Do you mean you prefer horizontal shmups or just don't like autoscrolling at all so you prefer things like Castlevania?
Falksi
Arcane
I prefer horizontal shooters, like Thunderforce 3, Biometal etc.
I still enjoy vertical ones, but I find myself more open to horizontal ones for some reason.
Nutmeg
Arcane
I've been playing Radiant Silvergun. Only put about 6 hours into it so far. It has a lot of content. A full run of Saturn mode seems to take anywhere between an hour to an hour and a half depending on if you go for the boss bonuses or milk the A+B weapon. My runs currently end about 40 minutes in somewhere in Stage 5. I'm playing on the easiest difficulty, 9 lives in stock (hey if Ben Shinobi (current Western record holder AFAIK) plays Saturn mode with 9 lives in stock, then it would be crazy for me to play with less). I will be upping the difficulty with time but I don't know if I'll ever reduce total lives (i.e. including the 3 (?) continues you get) for Saturn mode below 9. I imagine by the time I'm clearing it on normal difficulty with 3 lives stocked or 1CC'ing it with 9 live stocked, I'll have moved on to arcade mode.
If you like the basic dungeon crawler game loop, you'll love Saturn mode. It's basically delving into the dungeon (game), leveling up your dudes (weapons) until you can't go further then returning to town (menu). The only missing ingredient is the shortcuts.
You get XP for whatever weapon you're using by just destroying things. You can get an XP multiplier by chaining enemies of the same color, and you get swaths of XP distributed evenly among all weapons from maximally dismantling bosses prior to finishing them off. Another source of XP is hidden items you uncover using the B + C scanner weapon, so there's a bit of "exploration" (at risk) here as well.
In arcade mode weapon leveling is still there, but obviously it doesn't save your levels between runs. It's also much abridged as you're given branching paths as opposed to having to play all the stages in Saturn mode. To compensate weapons require less XP to max out. Still, knowing at least some chains becomes necessary to clear, otherwise you'll be very under powered by later stages. Luckily, from an arcade lens, this system is very sound, as weapon XP is also score. In fact, it is primarily score, I just introduced it as XP cause this is an RPG forum.
From this same arcade lens, Saturn mode looks a bit like a training mode, and it is. It allows players to repeat later content even if they haven't yet mastered earlier content (although they still have to repeat that earlier content too, which is also fine). However, you can play it the same way you play arcade mode, i.e. starting from level 0 and going for a single expedition clear. Played this way, it's a marathon, because in addition to playing all the stages, there's extra bosses too, and you'll want to milk all the bosses for all they're worth to get that precious precious XP (remember, weapons need more XP to level in Saturn mode than in arcade mode).
I've also seen Saturn mode played at max difficulty (suicide bullets), starting from max weapon level. Played this way, survival and scoring are completely separated, and it feels a bit like a traditional console shmup, where you're balancing the added risk when going for score with your need to survive, as opposed to having to score to survive.
Anyway, I'm very impressed at how much game variety they managed to squeeze out of the content, and I also like how there's a clear natural progression path (although I am concerned the contradictions between Saturn mode's max level trad play with arcade mode's required puzzle play might force a fall back to good ol' fashioned save state practice when taking the latter seriously, not that there's anything wrong with that), aiming for the eventual arcade mode 1CC.
If you like the basic dungeon crawler game loop, you'll love Saturn mode. It's basically delving into the dungeon (game), leveling up your dudes (weapons) until you can't go further then returning to town (menu). The only missing ingredient is the shortcuts.
You get XP for whatever weapon you're using by just destroying things. You can get an XP multiplier by chaining enemies of the same color, and you get swaths of XP distributed evenly among all weapons from maximally dismantling bosses prior to finishing them off. Another source of XP is hidden items you uncover using the B + C scanner weapon, so there's a bit of "exploration" (at risk) here as well.
In arcade mode weapon leveling is still there, but obviously it doesn't save your levels between runs. It's also much abridged as you're given branching paths as opposed to having to play all the stages in Saturn mode. To compensate weapons require less XP to max out. Still, knowing at least some chains becomes necessary to clear, otherwise you'll be very under powered by later stages. Luckily, from an arcade lens, this system is very sound, as weapon XP is also score. In fact, it is primarily score, I just introduced it as XP cause this is an RPG forum.
From this same arcade lens, Saturn mode looks a bit like a training mode, and it is. It allows players to repeat later content even if they haven't yet mastered earlier content (although they still have to repeat that earlier content too, which is also fine). However, you can play it the same way you play arcade mode, i.e. starting from level 0 and going for a single expedition clear. Played this way, it's a marathon, because in addition to playing all the stages, there's extra bosses too, and you'll want to milk all the bosses for all they're worth to get that precious precious XP (remember, weapons need more XP to level in Saturn mode than in arcade mode).
I've also seen Saturn mode played at max difficulty (suicide bullets), starting from max weapon level. Played this way, survival and scoring are completely separated, and it feels a bit like a traditional console shmup, where you're balancing the added risk when going for score with your need to survive, as opposed to having to score to survive.
Anyway, I'm very impressed at how much game variety they managed to squeeze out of the content, and I also like how there's a clear natural progression path (although I am concerned the contradictions between Saturn mode's max level trad play with arcade mode's required puzzle play might force a fall back to good ol' fashioned save state practice when taking the latter seriously, not that there's anything wrong with that), aiming for the eventual arcade mode 1CC.
Last edited:
orcinator
Liturgist
Has anyone been keeping up with what Housemarque's been doing? I think they recently released a new TPS or something.
Silentstorm
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2019
- Messages
- 885
Housemarque is now Sony exclusive and no longer doing arcade style games, they enjoy them, but the latest Stardust games didn't sell that well and their last game, Nex Machina, really failed when it comes to sales, it was so bad they gave up on twin-stick shooters forever and went for something more mainstream.
It is a niche genre and few big figures talk about these kind of shooters sadly, the only one that comes to mind is Yoko Taro, the director of the Nier games who has admitted to loving Gradius a lot and playing shumps and twin-stick shooters, he actually did talk about Nex Machina randomly in an interview and recommended it as not just a great game, but possibly one of the very best games of the year it was released.
Anyways, got offered a Xbox Series X, never had a Xbox before, but hey, took the chance to buy Radiant Silvergun and can't wait to finally try this game out, hope it's a good game!
Oh, and playing a bit of ZeroRanger, i played it back when it was released and loved it, but that was before any update, and yep, ZeroRanger is still really good.
And...man, the Xbox was a really nice gift that i wasn't expecting, probably going to get Triggerhear too, just a shame that shmups aren't this console's thing, looking around, when it comes to consoles, they all come out to Switch and then PS4/5 instead.
It is a niche genre and few big figures talk about these kind of shooters sadly, the only one that comes to mind is Yoko Taro, the director of the Nier games who has admitted to loving Gradius a lot and playing shumps and twin-stick shooters, he actually did talk about Nex Machina randomly in an interview and recommended it as not just a great game, but possibly one of the very best games of the year it was released.
Anyways, got offered a Xbox Series X, never had a Xbox before, but hey, took the chance to buy Radiant Silvergun and can't wait to finally try this game out, hope it's a good game!
Oh, and playing a bit of ZeroRanger, i played it back when it was released and loved it, but that was before any update, and yep, ZeroRanger is still really good.
And...man, the Xbox was a really nice gift that i wasn't expecting, probably going to get Triggerhear too, just a shame that shmups aren't this console's thing, looking around, when it comes to consoles, they all come out to Switch and then PS4/5 instead.
There's hardly anything you're missing as someone who owns a PC - any pc for that matter because it's not like shmups have high hardware requirements. Most of those switch/ps releases are just ports of classics you can emulate. Some of those ports are fucking ghastly. Psikyo games on switch are reported to have 7 frames of input lag.
http://electricunderground.io/shmup-input-lag-database/
On the other hand games that can be emulated on retroarch with runahead can have input lag lower than on the original hardware at times. Now that's enhancements worth taking.
Nutmeg
Arcane
8 hours in Saturn mode alone now. I still don't have a clear of any kind but after getting to the final boss on very easy and to the final stage on my first run of easy I upped the difficulty to normal so I passively learn some new patterns while I grind out the last 3 levels of weapons B and C.
Will start noting every death in the next 2 or 3 runs. Then I'll create save states at the top 5 spots or whatever and iron those out. Rinse and repeat till I get the clear.
Goal is 1CC, normal difficulty, Saturn Mode, 9 life starting stock, max weapon levels. Which is probably one of the easier clears you can configure.
Will start noting every death in the next 2 or 3 runs. Then I'll create save states at the top 5 spots or whatever and iron those out. Rinse and repeat till I get the clear.
Goal is 1CC, normal difficulty, Saturn Mode, 9 life starting stock, max weapon levels. Which is probably one of the easier clears you can configure.
It's great so far IMO. Top 10 material easily for me. Don't know how appropriate it is for someone completely new to the genre. If you get confused or feel you're playing it wrong just ask here I'll do my best to answer / provide guidance.
Last edited:
Silentstorm
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2019
- Messages
- 885
Still have to try it, life gets in the way and when it comes to games, kinda playing Yakuza:Like A Dragon at the moment.
But Radiant Silvergun should serve for something fast paced and more fun than Yakuza's combat which is a bit too easy at the moment.
But Radiant Silvergun should serve for something fast paced and more fun than Yakuza's combat which is a bit too easy at the moment.
Nutmeg
Arcane
So, I got a Saturn mode clear on normal. 6CC or something ridiculous like that. Felt bad man. Apparently the game gives you an extra credit every hour for Saturn mode, but I never got that extra credit because it's given to you next time you power on your Saturn. But since I'm emulating I just save state the menu every game over to skip the 4 or 5 second boot up. Anyway for whatever reason yesterday I didn't press load state and as I was playing I noticed it said "9 credits remaining" when I got my first one wiped.
Kinda lame, tbh. I wish they just kept it to 1 credit + the 2 (?) you can earn by perfecting bosses. Seeing the staff roll any which way on Saturn mode would feel more like an accomplishment that way, especially given that it already adopts the dungeon crawler loop where the game gets easier the more you play it.
Anyway I lost basically 4 of those credits on the final boss rush. 1. cause I was seeing almost every pattern for the first time 2. because they're not easy patterns.
On the plus side I did unlock a stage select feature, so I can practice that boss rush more naturally than save state practice, which I will still avoid for the time being.
Funnily enough when I was new to the genre, I got filtered more easily by coarse grained challenges than danmaku type stuff. Like I could 1L up to stage 3 in Dodonpachi well before I could 1L past stage 1 in Gradius. Now after getting filtered so hard by that boss rush it feels like the opposite. Might finally go for that DDP clear or play some Touhou or something to fill the gap.
Kinda lame, tbh. I wish they just kept it to 1 credit + the 2 (?) you can earn by perfecting bosses. Seeing the staff roll any which way on Saturn mode would feel more like an accomplishment that way, especially given that it already adopts the dungeon crawler loop where the game gets easier the more you play it.
Anyway I lost basically 4 of those credits on the final boss rush. 1. cause I was seeing almost every pattern for the first time 2. because they're not easy patterns.
On the plus side I did unlock a stage select feature, so I can practice that boss rush more naturally than save state practice, which I will still avoid for the time being.
Funnily enough when I was new to the genre, I got filtered more easily by coarse grained challenges than danmaku type stuff. Like I could 1L up to stage 3 in Dodonpachi well before I could 1L past stage 1 in Gradius. Now after getting filtered so hard by that boss rush it feels like the opposite. Might finally go for that DDP clear or play some Touhou or something to fill the gap.
Last edited:
AFAIK, Radiant Silvergun isn't on PC, but its successor Ikaruga is.
Nutmeg
Arcane
Ugh imgur is down.
Anyway I got a 1CC on Touhou EOSD on easy. Pretty easy clear, got it on my 7th attempt. Perhaps these are the key to incrementally becoming a better shmupper? I know a lot of the best Western arcade game players started on or still play a lot of Touhou.
IMO at least EOSD and Perfect Cherry Blossom on easy/normal aren't nearly as fun as the better arcade shmups. But they are probably as fun as the better 16-bit shmups, and better shmups all round than almost every 16-bit game based on objective qualities (non broken scoring, pacing etc.).
Also I think Radiant Silvergun really rewired my definition of "long" shmup lol. EOSD felt massively short.
Anyway I got a 1CC on Touhou EOSD on easy. Pretty easy clear, got it on my 7th attempt. Perhaps these are the key to incrementally becoming a better shmupper? I know a lot of the best Western arcade game players started on or still play a lot of Touhou.
IMO at least EOSD and Perfect Cherry Blossom on easy/normal aren't nearly as fun as the better arcade shmups. But they are probably as fun as the better 16-bit shmups, and better shmups all round than almost every 16-bit game based on objective qualities (non broken scoring, pacing etc.).
Also I think Radiant Silvergun really rewired my definition of "long" shmup lol. EOSD felt massively short.
Nutmeg
Arcane
I actually prefer emulation to PC releases. Especially for 5th gen and down, but also Naomi etc.
A big part of it is input lag reduction.
Another big part of it is CRT shaders and generally better handling of scaling.
Machocruz
Arcane
Watched someone fight the last boss in Radiant recently. The bullet patterns seemed insane to me as a spectator, even compared to some bullet hell shmups I've viewed. Maybe it was because the player wasn't good at the game. But where does the game sit in the difficulty heirarchy of shmups?
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.