Pro tip for Pocky & Rocky Reshrined (and by “pro” I mean tip from someone who is bad at video games): I feel like the game trains you to use – even rely on – the rapid-fire-press orb powers and the hold-down shield powers for the levels in which they are introduced. Don‘t even mess with them in Ikazuchi’s first level. Just get the fire orb powered up all the way and hold on to that for dear life
@tokucowboy Ikazuchi fire ability is so insane… No coincidence all the top scores on the free roam leaderboard are using that character, lol
@Funbil She‘s fun when you learn that, but so far her intro is my singular complaint with the game. I tried and tried to use her abilities to get through that stage, mashing ’Y’ till I was numb, going full-tilt weasel. Then it dawned on me that her abilities suck for that stage, which is a weird pivot for the game
Just finished Reshrined. Got a bit frustrated towards the end as my Always Be Attacking mindset was my undoing.
Fabulous game and going back to do weasel free mode.
Can‘t wait to talk about Layer Section with ya’ll, just picked it up – but it‘s today in America, so I’m gonna go melt into the cracks of my floorboards first
OK, so the Switch release – and probably the other consoles, too, unless they done goofed – of Layer Section (aka RayForce, aka Galactic Attack) seems pretty good to me. For context, I‘m not super sensitive to input lag, but noticed that the previous Saturn Tribute releases were way off immediately; I didn’t play Layer Section on Saturn, but it seems totally playable to me here.
As for the game, it's another reminder that '90s Taito shmups were really special. You've got a very self-assured Zuntata doin their thing (with just the right amount of vocal samples and tracks that are completely OK being meditative), and nobody -- nobody -- did transitions in STGs the way Taito did transitions in STGs in the 1990s. Some of these transitions make my brain feel like under-the-fig-tree enlightened for a few seconds. Even better when you're transitioning to stages named "THE FISSURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS" and such. Also, I have a specific soft spot for pixel-based games that use tons of layers to create the illusion of solid 3D objects, which this game does constantly.
As a mechanic, having a little reticule that locks on to a bunch of stuff before you release a quiver of missiles is always cool -- it's cool in Panzer Dragoon, it's cool in Star Fox 64, it's cool in Sin & Punishment, it's cool here. The tiny tweak of not having to hold down a button or otherwise take control of your reticule to lock on to objects goes much farther than it should in terms of making the whole experience feel frictionless. Differentiating between planes never really works in non-polygonal STGs and it doesn't work 100% of the time here, but it works significantly better than most others. I love the bullet patterns, which are happy to be more interesting than Cave-ishly bountiful, but my main gripe is that the hitbox for your ship -- which is pretty large considering the console screen real estate -- is too unforgiving. I wanted to feel good weaving through those interesting patterns, but very often a hit on the (v. long) nose of my ship wiped me out. It felt like maybe a center-of-body hitbox would feel better.
The package is expensive and, ya know, City Connection-ish in its plainness, but it's a solid improvement from what they've been offering (though sort of positioning Layer Section and Galactic Attack as two games is...c'mon, now). You won't find a ton of display options, but I was pleasantly surprised at the accessibility features -- very easy to tweak difficulty, crank up continues, rewind, configure your controls, prevent yourself from losing powerups, speed up the game and even toggle a slow-mo which (counter to a pet peeve of mine) _does not_ slow down the music or sound effects and does not feel stuttery, making it enjoyable as a learning tool.
I don't want to go crazy, but it feels pretty good that these Saturn releases might end up worthwhile.
The PC version, as far as what I've seen on twitter, is an abject disaster. Stuttering sound and video on top of bad lag. The PS4 and Switch versions seem fine though
@TracyDMcGrath well, they did done goof once again. I’ll take these tiny steps of progress, but that sucks for anyone who paid $30 on PC
@TracyDMcGrath That’s a weird turn of event. I wonder if the PC version is emulating the old Windows port rather than the Saturn version ? Not that it would make much sense since they already have the Saturn emulator wrapper but I am trying to make sense of why it would perform worse on PC.
Here is a review of ~~~~Hishō Same! Same! Same!**** which I ended up buying despite having zero connection to either game, 50% to support M2 and 50% FOMO on the physical version. I had the same reaction as him: I was surprised to find out I enjoy the older Flying Shark (Hishōzame) much more than Fire Shark (Same! Same! Same!).
Shmup Junkie is also preparing an in depth review of the game with an interview of an ex-Toaplan dev. Meanwhile, he has a nice video on Pocky & Rocky Reshrined.
(I am fond of all these passionate shmup nerds but I am always terrified I am three minutes away from a milkshake duck moment… Got doused off quite suddenly by the SRPG/tactics Youtubers community recently.)
Yeah lol YouTube makes me nervous and shmup fandom makes me nervous so the overlap makes me super nervous haha. But SJ and Mark seem like good enough eggs as far as I can tell.
Did I not post about Hisho Same Same Same since its release!?! I'm obsessed with it. Same! Same! Same! in particular was in dire need of training mode options for its brutal recovery routes and it shines like a fucking diamond now that it has them.
Release details at a glance:
Hishozame and Same! Same! Same!:
Arcade
Super Easy
Custom (auto bomber options and full control over extends, items, lives, etc. Make your own arrange mode basically)
Arcade Challange (Super in depth Training Mode you can play any part of any level in any loop with any load out)
Hishozame:
Sky Shark (US version)
Flying Shark (world version)
Sky Shark (NES port)
Same! Same! Same!:
2 Player Version
Fire Shark (US version)
Mega Drive Port
Genesis Port
Wadona no Mori:
Arcade version
Wardner (World version)
Pyros (US version)
Famicom Disk System port
Wardner and Console ports are DLC (¥2000 on top of ¥4000 for the base game.)
@TracyDMcGrath Lol, I‘ve been wondering what you thought of it! Good to know it’s typical M2, carefully done.
Like some other folks, I picked up Layer Section on Switch earlier in the week, and it’s quite a bit of fun. I missed out on the Saturn version years ago, and I’ve never found a copy for sale for anything approaching a normal amount, so it’s nice to finally play it.
Like I’ve said here before, I’m the last person to try and gauge input lag, but all I can say is that it feels normal and not unresponsive to me, so that’s good. I’m not sure if anyone has pointed this out so far, but there’s a demo for it available on Switch-- I guess they must have figured it was a good call after the janky emulation on the Cottons and Guardian Force.
Today was a “need to unwind after work by playing tate Layer Section while laying down” kind of day…
I didn’t even know a switch port was incoming until I happened to see it on sale on the eShop yesterday! I’m glad to hear it’s a decent enough port, but I probably can’t justify buying it as long as I have my Saturn ODE as an option.
Recently I realized I don‘t remember having ever played a bad Shoot ’em up, all of the ones I have played have been recommended to me, or I‘ve read people talking positively (some in this very thread) about them.
I want to start thinking more critically about the genre, other than thinking “these games make my brain feel good, I like the fast ones, I like dopamine!” and why that happens, I’ve never really thought critically about what makes a shoot 'em up in particular good.
I rarely see people talking about bad games in this genre, while I feel like it is very common to talk about bad games in any other genre. Right now only Trevor McFur comes to mind.
What are some of the bad and trashy STGs out there? I wanna play'em.
@穴 I‘m not sure how objectively “bad” it is, but I had a dreadful time with Red Death . That game is an interesting lesson in how crucial it is that shmups achieve a certain level of quick, immediate clarity when discerning the different objects on the screen. Red Death is a game that tries to get stylish and have everything be all the same red, white, and black colors; bullets, enemies, pickups, points, backgrounds, etc., they’re all colored and shaded in the exact same way as each other. Taught me a lot about how much I‘ve been using my peripheral vision during a shmup without ever really noticing it - because in that game it’s near impossible to play like that with any kind of accuracy!!
It‘s not a bad game per se though I didn’t get along with it at all but Raiden V was a horrible experience for me when I played it. I found it frustratingly difficult to parse bullets and what was going on without playing to the point of rote memorisation - I vaguely remember certain bullets blending in with a lot of scenery and I found myself actively having to pay attention to individual bullets rather than have an awareness of what‘s happening on the whole screen. Your milage may vary but that’s my experience.
I don't think many will argue that Sine Mora isn't particularly good either. It has a similar problem with parsing scenery due to the 3D nature of enemy movements and scenery placement, and I found it uncomfortable. I even decided to give it a second shake with the PS4 release and had the exact same feelings.
In terms of games that I _am_ enjoying. I've recently decided to revisit Shikhondo. I'd forgotten how beautiful this game is and how relaxing it is to play, despite its visual themes. The challenge is well balanced too and I'd say is pretty good for beginners - I've yet to 1cc it but I can feel myself getting close to it. Enjoyable stuff.
@穴 I suggest a kinda roundabout but very interesting way to go about it, do you have any emulators or platforms with a randomizing game option? One of my favorite things to do with romsets is that kind of unfiltered deep diving. Just select that option and see what happens, chances are you are going to find a great amount of jank, but also one or two surprises you didn’t expect.
This method has also the advantage of having the whole spectrum in front of you, not exclusively the bad games, and it will also help to see all the varying degrees of quality and the various ways each game is successful or not, and establishing connections, comparisons and parallelisms between them. Any finalburn, mame or even neogeo romset should do the trick, and if you are only specifically interested in STGs, just skip to the next game if it loads a beat em up or something else you are not interested in at the moment. Also, if you see any specific game that particularly catches your attention, I suggest making a note of it, that way you can look it up later on the internet and research it a bit. I have lost count of how many times a seemingly unknown and random game ended up having that composer or this designer or someone whose work I like one way or another on board.
“Euroshmup” is thrown around as a pejorative for a reason: there are loads of microcomputer-and-beyond STGs that are full of terrible design trends, including but not limited to: enemies with way too much HP, extremely repetitive and dull stage/wave design, RPG and/or shop systems that saddle players with deliberately underpowered weapons in order to encourage grinding, “realistic” systems like heavy inertia on ship movement, reliance on life bars to mitigate unavoidable damage, poor audiovisual feedback, etc.
These trends didn't die off at any point, either—there are still lots of games released in this vein that get very little critical coverage and that fans of arcade-style STG pay absolutely no attention to, but many of them sell very well, so there's clearly an audience for that particular strain of game, distasteful as they may seem.
I don‘t have a particular game in mind as a ’bad STG‘ per se, both because I think it’s really subjective to some extent, and I am personally extremely charitable with what I am willing to play. I‘ll note though that if you do something like a MAME deep dive of much older STGs you’ll inevitably encounter games you won‘t care for, mostly because they don’t click with you in terms of gameplay and/or aesthetics. For example– try looking at all of the Space Invaders knockoffs that emerged around 1978-1980. You‘ll see pretty quickly that not all ideas for innovation or variation are good ones. There are also a few games from the 90’s that while not exactly bad are obviously either rushed or poorly considered, or are repetitive, unimaginative, or too short. I'm not sure that really equals bad though!
I sure do have a few games that I don't care for (including well known and well liked games), although like I said, it's really just a matter of my taste versus anyone else.
At the same time, all STGs are precious little flowers that shouldn't be slandered in a public forum!