Stay in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
Everything in TF4 is avoidable, even on Maniac setting. Back in high school when I had time x 1000000 I could beat TF4 Maniac mode in one credit. Now of course I’m an old man and would have to train hard to beat it like that again.
Of course of course. Its just after playing so many top down shooters its been a while since I’ve had wtf moments like when I’m playing this game.
The top down shooter is usually a decisively different animal from side scrollers. Most verts have no boundaries, usually do not have very many enemies come from behind and nowadays tend to flood the screen with bullets.
Zontal shooters have lots and lots of walls. Navigating “death star” runs in Gradius V is a bitch and a half. Zontals tend to require a bit more memorization, as many party of R-type can attest. Zontals usually don’t have so many pre-planned bullet spreads with boss exceptions.
They just wind up different a lot, if you are super into one you usually have a tough time going to the other.
I remember that game. heh. it was dirty as hell too. I had challenged a friend of mine to beat. I told him that if he could beat it at anytime before I left the Navy, I’d buy him one of whater system he wanted. drop it in and beat it. that’s all. I never heard back from him before I got out and I had that thing nearly my entire navy career. so far, I was only ever able to beat it on one credit once. but like you said, I had to remember EVERYTHING to do that. today, I’d have no hope.
-Starhammer-
My Star Soldier Review:
Shooting Lucky Charms!
Graphics: Clean but boring. This game is a port of the Gamecube remake of the original on the PC Engine. The enemies are all boring as fuck and have very little detail. To best describe how I feel…
“This must be what it feels like to shoot up some Lucky Charms.”
Slowdown is almost non-existent too.
The best details about the game are the brains powering some of the mini-bosses and bosses. Just something about shooting brains.
Stage design, luckily, isn’t a complete bore. While they all have a plain look, there are little details here and there. Also, each stage has some kind of a gimmick. Like the rising towers in stage 8, or the asteroids in 3, or the boss only stage 10. However, the stages could all be longer (especially stage 10. Damn thing is over SO quickly).
Gameplay: 3 ships + a secrect ship. You got a main bullet based attack and a secondary shield/attack. Power-ups are found to boost your ship up to level 3, where you fly around with a shield (3-5 hits). At first I thought the game was well balanced between the three ships: One has two 45 degree angle back shots and a 3 way shot in the front with a shotgun/shield secondary attack.
The next ship is about firing forward with 4 shots dedicated to the front and one stream of bullets to the back. Its secondary attack is this really lame flame thrower that works better as a shield than a attack.
The third ship has a 4 way back shot (spread) and a single front shot with the BEST secondary attack in the form of a straight firing laser beam.
Now see here’s where things get funky. While the first ship is covered on all sides, it takes a second for it to reload. Not so bad. The second ship’s flame thrower is great because it lasts a little loner and moves around the ship. Pretty neat. But that third ship? Man that laser beam freaking rapes. See, all second attacks cancel bullets and the third ship’s laser beam last long enough to clear pathways out, unlike the other two which still have to dodge n’ shit.
Not a major gripe but just something I noticed. Haven’t unlocked the fourth ship so who knows how that thing works.
As I mentioned before, the game forces you to rotate your PSP (d-pad at the bottom) to play the game. Honestly this is just pure awesomeness. It’s a thousand times more fun to play the game like this than it would be on a shrunken window in the middle of your screen. Luckily, the buttons are all completely customizable and you get auto-fire!
Stages go by at a decent rate and the challenge is pretty basic. No DoDonPachi or Ikaruga bullet waves here. Just simple enemy and bullet patterns (although some suicide enemies are devilish!). Also many of the enemies drop bonus point triangles. You can change your set number of lives (1, 3, and 5) and there are the ever present infinite continues (game should have had limited continues).
In addition to the arcade mode, there is a neat timed mode, for 2min and 5min bursts of seeing how high you can score. The game automatically saves the replay of your high score on each timed mode with each ship. That’s pretty cool.
Overall, there is much fun to be found in just shooting shit up. The game handles it pretty well and it never feels cheap or too easy (I still have to unlock God mode and play through it on Hard but I don’t see it kicking my ass).
Sound: Typical space shooter stuff. I haven’t given it a serious listen but it’s alright from what I paid attention to. Same for the sound effects.
Replay Value: 4 difficulties, 4 ships, the special timed modes, watching replays, listening to the music (once unlocked), rushing through all the bosses (once unlocked). All it needed was an art gallery and it would have had the entire shmup checklist cleared!
Sadly, this game won’t take long to master so it won’t have the same sort of replay that other shmups have.
P.S. The credits at the end kick ass! I would love it if more end game credits had something like this.
/* stars
Stage Cleared!
Did anyone pick up that GC shooter that just came out not too long ago (or is coming out)? Radio Allergy? If so how is it?
nice little write up. now I wanna go get it. :tup:
-Starhammer-
lords of thunder is cool!!
I STILL havne’t played that game yet. How can I?
Oh and thanks Star. I wonder if that other shmup thread will stay dead now.
Here’s hoping that one has no more credits.
Anyway, I’ve been going through the link that I believe you posted, and damn, those games are fun and original. Clean Asia in particular kicks so much ass…
I found the ISO on emule back when that thing actually worked… good luck finding it now a days.
So I’m still interested in that Ketsui game… What makes it different from Dodonpachi? Because they look pretty much the same.
OH SHIT SONS!
Summer Carnival 92 - Recca
I haven’t played something this bad ass in awhile (awhile being since all those ABA games and Clean Asia but I think this is possibly even more badass than those. Like one giant butt the size of deleware). The review on hardcoregaming101 did not lie. This is the sort of shooter where you expect the console to start smoking from it being pushed so hard.
It’s the Famicom/NES shooter to play. I mean this game is balls stretched around the building. Fuck just a wall. It’s so blazingly fast it would make any non-shmup head sick. And the music is straight up pulse pounding techno n’ shit! ON THE NES!!! Shit even in the first stage you can see battles going on in the background. So fucking inspired…
I played it once so far and it’s intense. Enemies pour the fuck on to the screen and shit is just thumpin…
Here’s a youtube video. [media=youtube]-8_wtFQDU1w[/media]
You have to watch this vid and then play the game. It’s just straight up shoot shit up as fast as fucking possible. And the shield/super shot attack is genius. Man… this game. I wanted a remake of this game before I even heard of it.
~SHMUP!
P.S. Could everyone please hunt down mp3s of the soundtrack. The actual cd is on ebay for a decent $30 and some change after shipping from Japan.
meh. maybe it will now that I’m back. being sick sucks worse than getting shot on your last man. if I should run across that ISO, I’ll hook ya up.
-Starhammer-
A friend and I finally got all the story arcs in Castle Shikigami 2 (Shikigami No Shiro 2). Hilarious.
which system? I might be able to go grab it soon. Yeah, I know. I’ve asked before, but I’m still partly sick and you know how lazy I am, even in my own thread. throw me some names please?
-Starhammer-
I saw that shit at a gamestop… If only I liked character based bullet hell games.
Hey guys I just came up with a great idea! (like literally 15secs ago).
Let’s come up with 10 must play shooters that we can play on MAME/PC. Rar them up, and host them on the SRK file sharing thingy.
We should call it “SRK’s 10 Must Play Shooters That Everyone Can Enjoy”
Or something like that.
I’d like to put up rRootage, Clean Asia, and 19XX.
not a bad idea. just for this list, I’d like to eliminate FPS like house of the dead/time crisis/ etc. and limit it to scrollers. maybe later we can make one for the othe types, or make a list for ALL types of shooters. I don’t know about such computer games like rRootage and PCB because even though they are great, they aren’t that well known (or even that accessible) to people who aren’t into computer games. mainly, lets just keep this list centered on consoles and arcade/mame stuff. :tup:
NOTE: Such games as the metal slug series has been eliminated from my list, but since they ARE arcade and ARE side-scrollers, you can include them.
My list: (in no particular order…)
R-type final (PS2)
Einhander (PS1)
E.S.P. Ra De (Arcade/MAME)
Progear (Arcade/MAME)
Lifeforce(Arcade/MAME)
Thunder Force 4 (Genesis)
Gradius 5 (PS1)
Dimahoo (Arcade/MAME)
Dodonpachi(arcade/MAME)
1943 mk III(Arcade/MAME)
-yeah, there are other games I like more than some of these (blazing star and master of shooting for instance) but they are not the ones that would get the nod if someone said,“So Starhammer. which games do you recommend for someone who wants to get shot?” still, search out your own lists and post them up.
…Oh yeah. E.S.P. Ra De is still handing me my bullet-blasted ass. finally can finish the first stage consistently without taking a hit.
-Starhammer-
Radio Allergy’s been pushed back to June, though if it’s anything like the Dreamcast version, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
I don’t have a Gamecube or Wii to play it so it’s even more alright.
This thread is going to be bumpin once Sendo De Ronde comes out. Too bad I won’t be getting it (lack of 360).