The shmup thread

[Soundwave]

LOL that's old school cool right there

[Decider-VT]

I wanna get a PC Engine for some caravan shooting!

You should try the Soldier Collection for PSP. The Caravan modes are absolutely ideal for portable gaming, as you're plugging away for only two to five minutes at a time.

[speedlolita]

Well, yeah that's true. Still, I just love the experience with a stick..

[Jay]

I find the PSP a little too fiddly for proper shmupping.

[chopemon]

I didn't really play shmups until I scored Mushihime for review back at Christmas 2009 for review. I think it is fair to say that it changed my gaming life.

I was blown away and just fell in love with it.

This is a total starry eyed newby comment but I just love the purity and simplicity of the genre. I love simple but elegant design so I'm slowly picking more and more up for the 360.

I haven't had much time to get into them but I have Ketsui, Raiden and Espgaluda 2 that need my attention.

Actually, someone here might be able to answer a question I have about Espgaluda. I can tend to be a lazy player sometimes and if I have infinite credits I will just sit and burn through the game, get the achievements and lose interest. What I want is a 1 credit mode. I have only had a quick look but I couldn't seem to find a mode or option for it. In Mushihime I played a lot of the 1 credit score attack and I want to play the same in other games so I can hone my sick skillz better. Anyone know if I can do this and just haven't seen the option yet?

[Decider-VT]

I find the PSP a little too fiddly for proper shmupping.

The d-pad on the 2000 is good enough, really. I couldn't turn my nose up at the selection of games on the Soldier Collection for the price. My PSP is also doing something more than slowly losing its charge on my shelf.

What were you playing, incidentally? I'm interested in picking up a few more shmups for it as I already have the Gradius collection, Gaia Seed, R-Type Delta and R-Types too. I've been considering the Super Star Soldier and the Twinbee and Parodius packs but I'm not sure if there's much else.

[Strider]

I've always loved the shoot-em-up genre as I feel it's gaming in its purest form. It's just you and your reflexes against the computer. I invested around £650 quid on a Saturn and 28 shmups including Radiant (at the time it was worth nearly 3 times that, and I've never regretted the decision. There's a host of superb shooters on the Saturn and the only reason I haven't bothered with the PSone is because I really missed the boat (stuff like Harmful Park is ridiculously expensive).

There's a satisfaction from 1CCing a shooter that you just don't get in other games (for me anyway).

[SharkSkin-Man]

Actually, someone here might be able to answer a question I have about Espgaluda. I can tend to be a lazy player sometimes and if I have infinite credits I will just sit and burn through the game, get the achievements and lose interest. What I want is a 1 credit mode. I have only had a quick look but I couldn't seem to find a mode or option for it. In Mushihime I played a lot of the 1 credit score attack and I want to play the same in other games so I can hone my sick skillz better. Anyone know if I can do this and just haven't seen the option yet?

You can just turn continue off in the options or set credits to 0 in most games.

Constantly sticking to 1 credit probably isn't the best way to learn a game though, most decent players credit feed a certain amount to learn the patterns quicker.

[ShadowDancer]

You can just turn continue off in the options or set credits to 0 in most games.

Constantly sticking to 1 credit probably isn't the best way to learn a game though, most decent players credit feed a certain amount to learn the patterns quicker.

How I play them Aiming for a one credit run, and maybe feed a couple to get to the next progression. Same with all Arcade games I play. I always aim for 1CC. If I'm not good enough (which tbh honest happens a lot) I accept that.

Don't mean you can't enjoy games without having that in mind and I'm no elitist...what ever works for you

[dvdx2]

i doubt that there are that many shooters that can be completed though, in 1 credit on a normal difficulty setting.

Stuff like einhander, gradius V and raystorm would be nigh on impossible

gaiaseed and zanac vs zanac are pretty easy though

[Jay]

What were you playing, incidentally?

Got CFW on my slim, so have played tons of stuff emulated. I'm not saying it's unuseable, it just feels substandard to playing on a home system, so I usually end up slightly frustrated and play something that isn't a shmup instead. It's nice having shooters on there for a quick blast though. PS1 Souky looks lovely on the PSP screen.

I have Star Soldier which is nice, but a little clumsy what with rotating the screen and whatnot.

[Anpanman]

Shooters are my favourite genre. Play loads of the CPS EMU stuff on the PSP, would really like to get hold of a CPS2 at some point.

Star Soldier is ace, I just play it as a side scroller and it works fine for me - as does the EMU stuff too.

[SharkSkin-Man]

i doubt that there are that many shooters that can be completed though, in 1 credit on a normal difficulty setting.

Stuff like einhander, gradius V and raystorm would be nigh on impossible

gaiaseed and zanac vs zanac are pretty easy though

I would say most can, surely? The first loop on Gradius V isn't considered that hard afaik (although, I'm terrible at it personally).

[Super Monkey Balls]

I just find it so strange that Cave can go from something so amazing to something so terrible.
I feel there was no reason to change the style it worked well originally.

I suggest you read a strategy guide and play DS2 again. If you can get past the 3D there's a deep scorer under there. I hated it at first too, now I have the arcade version It's super-fun!

Cave experimented with new hardware and failed miserably, don't worry, it doesn't look like it's coming back.

Oh and they haven't been drawing sprites for a decade either unfortunately. Still, the X360 version of DS looks good with the high res pre-renders.

[Silvergun X]

*Stands up*

Hello everybody, i'm Matt, and i'm addicted to shmups.

It's a genre that's stuck with me since I was a little boy playing R-Type on my dad's ZX Spectrum. I think the first shmup I properly, PROPERLY got into was Nemesis II on the Game Boy. I remember taking that to school and playing it on the bus, getting up to the 5th level and never having enough time to complete it.

Then I think it was Transbot on the Master System that I played very heavily.

Mega Drive came, and I started getting into the Thunderforce series. It was by this time (I think I was 4?) that I started getting into arcade gaming in general. I always used to beg mum whenever we were in Clacton, and we'd go play arcade games where they had an Afterburner II cabinet. Mum had to hold me up while I played it, awesome memories

I honestly can't remember where it goes from there but there were so many arcade shmups I had the opportunity to play. I think Tyrian on the PC made me sink tons of my time into it.

I remember the first time playing G-Darius on the PS1 and loving it.

The game that got me seriously into actually playing shmups for score was Dodonpachi when I was 16, playing it in college, then going through the entirety of MAME playing as many shoot-em-ups as I possibly could, going back through the years etc and finding all these games that I had no idea existed. By this time shmups had pretty much become my favourite genre of game and they still are to this day.

Got introduced quite late to a lot of legendary games like Darius, a lot of Taito shmups like Gun Frontier and Metal Black, and after years of practicing and obscure shmup hunting i'll never tire of it all.

I'm not a massive expert and I don't think I ever will be, but **** me I love shmups.

...

Ketsui is still overrated though.