@whatsarobot I‘ve been patiently waiting. ESP Rade and the Aleste collection both came out on the ShotTriggers label so I think it just wasn’t on their to do list yet. It is on the Astro Tate Mini cabinet that's coming out, but weirdly only some of them (other models have Batsugun but not Batrider) and I think M2 might be involved with that port? GSK would know better than me on that front.
At any rate MAME's kinda the only way to play it for now, hopefully that changes.
AFAIK they haven‘t disclosed who’s doing the emulation for Astro City Mini V, but I believe it‘ll probably be the same Sega Toys-produced team that did the previous version. I’m pretty sure there‘s only one version, too—you might be mixing that up with the fact that there’s only one specific ROM version of each of those particular games on the Mini.
re: M2STG Batrider, they did touch on that possibility years ago, in response to the fan survey that led to them porting ESPrade: they mentioned that Batrider would be tricky for two broad reasons; one, all the different combinations of modes, ships, etc would make it difficult to debug and/or to add gadgets, custom modes, etc and two, because the later games on that PCB are more advanced in terms of software, they require more overhead to emulate to their satisfaction, and properly emulating the game in terms of accurate slowdown, lag reduction, etc might not be possible on PS4.
They also talked about Bakraid, just to mention that overseas people had been requesting a "Yagawa Trilogy" and so on.
@whatsarobot on most matters definitely go with tracy’s advice over mine, and especially on this one, since i bought a vita on ebay with the intention of hacking it, and it arrived already hacked, and with armed police batrider already loaded onto it
@tapevulture you… won the lottery, in other words! wow.
@tapevulture lol that’s amazing!
If you want to play STGs on PC there is an option that I like more than MAME:
It’s easier to set up as well (to me at least), you only need a Final burn neo romset. Downside is that you won’t be able to play games that are not supported on that core but it’s a small price to pay for playing most of the great shooters with only 1 frame of input lag and all those cool Retroarch shaders that make games look decent on modern displays in case you don’t have the means to play on a CRT!
@whatsarobot if you put in the work to get batrider up and running you get to hear this
@TracyDMcGrath City Connection though… So probably yet another half-assed emulation of the Saturn discs. Too bad we dont get a M2Shottriggers or even just plain and cheap ACA version of the game.
Slightly disappointed that nobody's pointed out that Pistol Daimyo no Bouken Arcade Archives came out at the end of last month!
Seriously though, I'm a little bit happy that Hamster isn't shying away from ridiculous kusoge releases.
@Karasu ah shoot! I mentioned it in the bunker but forgot to mention it here. It’s quite something
How do ya‘ll feel about Dogyuun? It seems to get talked about less than a lot of Toaplan’s stuff, but I just did a credit-feeding clear and I think it resonates with me more than anything in their catalog (not to diminish anything else of theirs) – the art direction is absolutely absurd for its time, the soundtrack goes ridiculously hard, and (aside from the two-player ship combo thing) I found the focus on pure shooting and weaving refreshing, as I feel that even by the early ‘90s we’d gotten to a place where shmups/STGs felt obligated to put a hook or a differentiating factor front and center. And lord || taking control of a mech || at the end might be a gimmick, but I‘ll be damned if it’s not a total joy. I‘ll admit that Junya Inoue’s art, Tatsuya Uemura‘s score (a taste of both below) and its overall easier difficulty compared to most Toaplan games do a lot of the heavy lifting for me, but it’s shot its way up my own personal shmup list real quick.
More updates from a luxurious weekend: On recs from people in this thread, I took a second look at some MileStone stuff (I’ve enjoyed Karous on 3DS even though I don’t think it’s “good,” and kinda found myself waffling on whether or not I enjoy their signature art direction). Shortly, Chaos Field is pretty cool and Illmatic Envelope totally turned my opinion on their house style around, for the better.
Also, I was very mildly let down by Giga Wing 2 compared to my experience with the first game. But I still had fun and I’ve heard it’s a grower, so I’m not sweating it.
@tokucowboy I love Dogyuun. The title track is one of my favorite video game songs ever and the art is so good. Top 5 Toaplan in my book
@TracyDMcGrath Truth: the soundtrack has not stopped looping in my head since Sunday
I‘m officially considering myself wrapped up with the Aleste Collection which I finally got around to playing on PS4 earlier this year. I got the platinum trophy, considering myself satisfied with my leaderboard position. I have to say the collection’s really great!
GG Aleste 3 in particular is an amazing showcase of what the Game Gear could pull off; I dream of a company like Limited Run Games making physical cartridges. Even though the emulation is great and the number of quality-of-life improvements (especially in the original SMS Aleste/Power Strike) make it much more approachable than it would be if I was to shell out for cartridges of everything, there‘s still a part of me that’s kind of curious to try them on real hardware.
huge noob entering the thread, i‘m still trying to beat thunder force IV two years later. i came into this thread looking for some specific advice i thought @TracyDMcGrath posted in here for me about how she approaches learning new STGs but i can’t find it. do you all use save states? i‘m sure there are hardcore people out there who don’t but i don't practice enough to ever get to that point.
i've been playing tons of old games over the past year and am really struggling with the save state issue. like when playing rondo of blood i want to meet the devs halfway since they were kind enough to include unlimited continues and play it on the terms they originally set out. but it's so hard lol. i know the correct answer is "who cares" but i'm neurotic/a freak
@tapevulture Do a savestate at the start of each level, and maybe also at the start of each boss, and only practice the parts you are bad at. A lot of people get into the make it or break it mentality of playing only 1 credit and the only thing that’s good for is getting incredibly good on the first two stages then immediately die on the third one.
Prometheus’s guide on practicing is great
The TL;DR:
(The guide also goes over dodging techniques and what not that are also really helpful.)
As far as developer intentions and what not, that’s basically how the devs expect players to interact with their STGs nowadays and has been for decades. Cave has put their own practice modes and level selects into their ports back to the Xbox 360. Heck Armed Police Batrider had level selects and a boss only mode in the arcade release. In 1998.
Also worth noting that while I love shmups I’m fairly mediocre at them. Many of my favorites I can’t 1cc and may never be able to (the Yagawa ones especially). There are times I love grinding a boss to try to learn how to no miss no bomb it, and other times I love just credit feeding past it to have a more breezy experience. Make sure you’re having fun with it no matter how you approach it
@TracyDMcGrath thank you tracy, i really appreciate it. you have come to my STG aid yet again. i do forget to have fun sometimes honestly
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