Oh well, I remapped it on another controller and the new layout feels great!
Is there a preferred way to play shmups? Crosspad, analog, arcade stick? Or is it generally just personal preference?
Mostly personal preference. Dpads and arcade sticks and keyboards and leverless controllers all let you tap dodge pretty easily, but I‘d be lying if I said I didn’t use an analog stick for comfort's sake once in a while
This week‘s Arcade Archives release: War of Aero, another Allumer game that shamelessly borrows from another, more popular title (in this case, Image Fight). It ain’t bad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_JcXAkmlDc
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@“gsk”#p153019 Pixel Co. Ltd’s Famicom-style vertical STG Xelan Force is out now on Steam, and will be available on Switch on February 29: Pixel’s CEO bashed this out in a few months to sell at a certain retro con, and then fleshed it out a little more for commercial release.
Out now on Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/xelan-force-switch/
RS34 (the Milestone successor studio) announced their next game: Illvelo Swamp Happy Together, an Illvelo Swamp revision that promises a first-ever story mode and significant changes to structure and playability to make it more accessible, out on Switch later this year in Japan (both digitally and as a physical double-pack with the first Swamp)—more info here if you want it: https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/4712111-illvelo-swamp-happy Radirgy Swag and Illvelo Swamp are discounted on the JP eShop for the next few weeks, too. (ICYMI, Radirgy 2's out in Japan at the end of the month.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78mwyJEv_AU
I cleared Demon Throttle on tonight’s attempt (and first go with the remapped shoulder controls: L for Swap; R for Bomb). I even managed 3/4 chalices.
This game is >!horny!!< and a lot of fun. I especially love the music and the 16-bit art style for clarity. I said this in a previous post, but this is my first time settling into a Shmup and I definitely see the appeal! It’s so satisfying when you get into a flowstate, dodging and stringing together upgrades to keep ahead of the enemy count. The bosses in this were really satisfying to learn and navigate. I like how after your first clear >!they introduce the turn-based RPG vignettes with catching monsters as well. That was a fun surprise and makes for a nice little break in between levels.!<
Favorite character:
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/eVbccVx.jpeg]
[IMG width=600]https://i.imgur.com/eVbccVx.jpeg[/IMG][/URL]
Any other recs for others on Switch that are similar (in style or difficulty) or relatively cheap?
@“safety_lite”#p155489 the only game that‘s really like Demon Throttle is King’s Knight which isn‘t on the Switch (it also isn’t very good imo), but as far as top down people running around shooting projectiles games go Pocky and Rocky Reshrined is almost inarguably the best on the Switch.
As far as shmupy not too hard cute lil indie titles that surprise you with how fun they are to play I recommend Hazelnut Hex, one of the biggest pleasant surprises in the last couple years.
What‘s the genre of Shoot ’Em Ups called that include games like Deathsmiles and Mushihimesama? Tim mentioned it a few episodes ago and I'm interested reading about its history.
@“bwood”#p155843 danmaku or bullet hell will probably get you to some good explainers. But they’re also both made by Cave.
@“bwood”#p155843 Those games specifically were developed by CAVE, and their style is so distinct that some people repurpose their name to describe other games too. Imagine if we started calling certain kinds of JRPG “Enix RPs.” It‘s a bit of a misnomer but that may be what you’re thinking of; other nouns in similar categories include bullet hell, danmaku, or caravan
Macross Shooting Insight, the Bushiroad-published (ie extremely low-budget) Macross STG by Kaminari Games (satellite studio of Moss, the modern Raiden devs) came out in Japan today for PS/Switch—it was delayed multiple times for quality reasons, they screwed up their LEs and they had to postpone the PC version at the last second, and none of the reviews or hands-on reports have been especially positive, but who knows, maybe it‘s not awful. They’ve also stripped out the EN loc for the sake of the international publisher, it seems…
(also note: due to the licensing bullshit that forever hounds Macross, this game's Do You Know Love?-themed content is exclusively available in the Japanese build as DLC, and will not be translated or made available for the international release.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annFzZREgRM
[DEVIL BLADE REBOOT](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2882440/DEVIL_BLADE_REBOOT/)'s Steam page is up: icymi, this is a long-in-the-making Shooting Game Builder game by Vanillaware artist Shigatake and the latest in a long line of STG they've been making since the very first Dezaemon release in the early '90s. More info here, should you want it: https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/5069965-devil-blade-reboot
Mikado's bringing back their STG-dev-centric event Shooters Fes for 2024, and it's scheduled for the weekend of April 6; all the typical active JP STG devs are scheduled to be there (plus some folk from Bitwave, all the way from Sweden) and there are bound to be at least a few new game announcements (and there are some slots in their schedule that have yet to be revealed, too). Again, more info if you want it: https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/5051497-shooters-fes-2024-a
Radirgy 2's out in Japan today for PS5/PS4/Switch—ICYMI, this is a full-fat sequel to the original Radirgy, not a smaller game or excursion like Swag or DGJL, and it contains a port of the original Radirgy; that said, it does have plenty of experimental touches, including a second ship with twin-stick controls that carries forward some of the experimentation from the recent Ilvello Swamp.
It doesn't offer English text and has not been announced for worldwide release, and RS34's games are very hit-and-miss when it comes to localisations, so there's no guarantee it'll leave Japan at all, let alone soon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX8UqYTUIoE
https://store.playstation.com/ja-jp/product/JP5328-CUSA44193_00-0443075841392421
Missile Dancer 2 is out on Steam and Switch today—this is the latest game from the ever-productive Terarin and it adapts the lock-shot system and caravan feel from Missile Dancer to the pseudo-3D rail shooter format. There's a free demo available for both platforms, and the Switch version has been confirmed compatible with the USB Cyber Stick, if you happen to own one of those:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf9WYEC3tIg
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2566090/Missile_Dancer_2/
The final batch of Bitwave Toaplan arcade ports for PC (Daisenpuu/Twin Hawk, Dogyuun!!, Grind Stormer/V-V, Tatsujin-Ou/Truxton II) was recently announced, and will probably be dropping alongside their appearance at next week's Shooters Fes:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2023200/old_view/4124807130941226646
The Japanese con Game Pavilion is scheduled for this weekend and will feature a dedicated doujin STG section with a lot of current games and teases for a few reveals; known entities include the first public hands-on for Devil Blade Reboot, as well as the first purchasable trial version of Elemental Elexfalter, the WIP 16:9 vertizontal by the makers of Rolling Gunner (footage from ~ 1 yr ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAQMmI_R5Y0
I'm going to order a physical copy of Radirgy 2 this weekend. Thanks for reading.
Macross Shooting Insight‘s out on Steam (but it’s not translated, and it's missing the DLC for the characters Harmony Gold likes to fuck with): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2103230/MACROSS_Shooting_Insight/
A word of warning: all the vocal tunes are copyright landmines, so watch where and how you might upload footage.
on the first stg convo, Like others it was Galaga or Galaxian, but I'm a little younger than some here so I played it through the Namco classics collection on GBA. Not the best way to play these so I mostly stayed away from STGs because they were “hard / unfair” in my head. I vaguely understood that people liked Ikaruga but I had no idea why.
I mostly played RPGs and "story" based games. But as I entered college I mostly played the Vita and dived deeper into "indie" games and more arcade style games. I'm looking back and tracing the connection after the fact, but without knowing it I was getting into STGs by playing TxK, the Velocity games, Sine Mora, Super Stardust, Hotline Miami etc.
Post College, time for gaming decreased even more, but inversely proportionally my taste in games got more varied. I think this eventually culminated in playing Zero Ranger due to people recommending it in the Itch.io Ukraine Bundle, and Vampire Saviors due to hypeeee, and here I am now. Still haven't beat Zero Ranger but someday I will.
I'm not really good at these games, but I enjoy them, the history, the art, and the ethos. So glad to be here and learn from the extremely knowledgeable IC community.
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@“gsk”#p159866 Missile Dancer 2
This couldn't have come out at a better time for me, really. I've been emulating _After Burner: Climax_ a bunch at home and spending my lunch breaks at work playing M2's _OutRun_ Switch port. On a first impression, this game competes, with butter smooth gameplay and fantastic music. Only took me a couple of tries to 1CC Normal (it's pretty generous with extra lives), but I'll jump right into the higher difficulties when I next get the chance.
I’ve been messing around with Blue Revolver on Steam lately, it’s a nice little indie shmup with great music. I really like the colors. Has anyone else played it?
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I’ve not played it as much as I’d like, but I liked what I’ve played so far.
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I just saw Flightpath: Adventures in Venaris show up on the eShop from eastasiasoft, who sometimes publishes interesting things. It looks like it tries to hybridize an STG with a branching-story type of narrative, haven’t heard a peep about it but I might take one for the team at $7.99 and see what’s up. It got me thinking that STG-other genre hybrids seem so appealing, and yet it’s hard to think of many that have succeeded. I enjoyed Yurukill a lot (posted about it a bunch), but even that has readily apparent flaws and the shmup and visual novel elements are almost wholly separate. Anyone got an example of the STG mashup working out?
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I can’t think of a mashup, but related: I’ve been noodling a lot on this idea: Roguelite Shmup! Imagine Spelunky meets Batsugun. It could have themed stages (like Spelunky does), but there’d be some random generation for the way it’s composed to keep it fresh. Maybe this is against the whole idea of shmups with memorization and high score seeking, but it’s fun to think about.
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Star of Providence (formerly Monolith) is one of these and was one of my first entries to the genre. It’s room-based almost like a dungeon crawler, so not exactly a pure STG per your Batsugun comparison, but it’s got bullet characteristics and enemy patterns that fit right in next to the good real stuff. There’s a surprising lack of concessions made despite its slightly atypical structure for a game in this genre (games like The Binding of Isaac, for example, wind up being more adventure-style than STG, despite being inspired by Smash TV). I’m certain there are plenty others out there but this one really blew me away back when I didn’t play many shooters, and still stands out even after getting familiar with them. It would be cool to see more that maintain the traditional auto-scroll STG structure though, most of them do wind up taking this room-clear approach. Enter the Gungeon, Nuclear Throne, etc.
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Whoaaa I didn’t know monolith kept going!