All purpose SHMUP thread

guwange looks great

you said you didn't like omega 5 or triggerheart exelica didn't you?

Triggerheart is okay. It has such a weird scoring mechanic though, where you kind of have to hook onto other ships, swing them around you and launch them into other ships instead of shooting. I just never got my head around it. Never felt compelled to more than dabble with it so far. I only barely played Omega 5, so I can't really say - I should probably give it another try. My snap judgement was that I didn't like the size of your guy and hitbox (which I think was your whole body?) and the slow crawl through corridor gameplay, R-Type style.

s1ocki - I don't know if you have a wii or gamecube, but if you do, good quality used copies of ikaruga are selling for around $30 US. Not a bad price. If you have a good computer, people are saying it runs okay in the Dolphin emulator (though I haven't tested it myself). REZ for ps2 can be found for around $20 US

Thank you all for your mail.
Here are the results of our Xbox Live Arcade survey.

1. Guwange
2. Esprade
3. Dodonpachi
4. Progear
5. Pink Sweets
6. Mushihime-sama
7. Dangun Feveron
8. Muchi Muchi Pork
9. Espgaluda
10. Ibara

We have received many requests from our overseas users for region-free versions of our games.

"Death Smiles" was released only for Asia, but the region for "Mushi-hime sama Futari" has not been decided yet. I believe it will be decided around the time of Tokyo Game Show 2009.

We are very happy to have received so many e-mails from overseas.

Thank you.

09/01/09
Cave
Makoto Asada

pls be region free, pls release guwange, esprade and dodonpachi on xbla

what are the best ps2 shmups besides gradius 5?

1. Mushihimesama
2. Dodonpachi Daioujou
3. Espgaluda
4. Castle of Shikigami 2
5. Psyvariar 2

Don't sleep on Castle of Shikigami - great game & can be found for around £8 used (on amazon.co.uk). The others stayed and in Japan though & are quite expensive to insanely expensive.

Not as good as the above, but if you can find them cheap (and you can)... Gunbird 2, and Strikers 1945 1 & 2 both got a UK release

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXEHXeBmS-s

jeff no luv for r type final!!!!! u have def played more ps2 shmups than me but thatd be in my TOP 5

I'm not much of an r-type fan, but yeah, I guess it should at least be mentioned

how do you not like r-type?!

I don't know exactly... I feel like it's kind of slow and cramped & I always feel a little awkward playing them? I like the atmosphere, especially in the early games, but the way you move vs the way enemies move, dealing with the shooty pick up thing (whatever it's called) and the way you restart back a section when you die are the main things, I guess. I own four of 'em(!) though!!! So it's not exactly hate...

2 additional DSi shmups, 200 points each
http://www.genterprise.jp/gg/index.html

To me those look less interesting then the Mihara designed one, but for a $2.00 game, I guess I wouldn't expect much. Aa Mujou Setsuna is 500 points, which is still pretty cheap & makes me think it's probably not a "great" game either. It seems like all three should make it out of Japan, but no news on that front, right?

The main problem with these DSi shmups is, why would I want to play them, when I could be playing this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf9IVoetZkk

no news, so far

I'm this close to pulling the trigger on castle of shikigami, 1941: 1&2, r-type: final and psyvariar but i. I don't have a PS2 arcade stick and ii. I have the DMC series winging its way to the back of my already unholy backlog

prices for shmups on ebay are ridiculous btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J9X-Fr5bKY

Harmful Park is a decent, Japan only, cute 'em up for PSX that runs fine in ePSXe. Worth checking out.

There should be more news on this game during the Tokyo Game Show, which starts in a couple of hours. I guess it's an XBLA exclusive?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jr8ejNqBY

woah, looks great

BIG NEWS today regarding Mushihime-Sama Futari... it's going region free
http://kotaku.com/5368190/bullet-hell-shooter-creators-cave-going-region+free-for-next-xbox-360-game

Still will be a quite pricey import, about $70 US via play-asia

Novemebr 26th is the release date! GOTY

bold claim!

More big (almost) news from Cave boss Makato Asada
http://kotaku.com/5370354/cave-wants-to-bring-its-manic-shooters-global

Notably..

" Cave is looking at global releases of its games, full-fledged Xbox Live Arcade titles of certain titles and Valve's Steam service as a means of distribution."

"But before Guwange or any other XBLA ports arrive—Asada hinted at the possibility of an Xbox Live Arcade remake of chubby shooter Muchi Muchi Pork with a revamped gameplay system—Cave has some more disc-based titles planned."

"Right now, we're working on a few titles for localization," Asada said. Again, take caution. "This is currently all in talks. With regards to Death Smiles, we can say that it's currently in progress and hopefully soon we'll be able to give overseas users news about its release."

I played some Blazing Lazers on my TG-16 over the weekend. Still a classic.

I don't like DLC but I'll take it

Blazing Lazers is also available on the Wii VC for 600 points (I'm not really a fan though).

why pay six bucks for something I've owned for 19 years?

Wasn't directed towards you bro, just making a general comment that it was available - not everybody here is lucky enough to own a working TG-16

got this in the post today - so awesome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws5ujH65hfg

199X tokyo city looks like the same city as that terrible nes tmnt game

Hey Zappi - I'd never heard of Crisis Force before, so I tried it out (via Nestopia). Not bad for a Famicom shmup! It does seem overly generous with the speed-up bonuses - I had to start avoiding 'em. It's pretty cool when your weapon gets completely powered up / I wish it lasted longer. How many levels are there? The first seemed awfully long, as did the first boss fight, but the second level seemed to go by much quiker. I only made it to level 3 though (97,300 points) in my two tries. Will play more.

yeh its not the hardest game, but great for that zoning out zenlike state that shmups are so good at providing. i think there are 7 stages, but i haven't got to the end yet. my famicom collecting has become a sickness.

Askys has announced they're releasing Cho Aniki Zero in the States in spring 2010, "Cho Aniki Zero will be oiled up and ready to thrust its way onto your PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system! Sold exclusively as a digital download through the PlayStation®Store." Very surprised this is getting a US release!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuDswjoGTPc

haha, that Muscle March game is getting localised as well apparently.

It looks really weird:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_s7iCOj9HU

New trailer for Ilvelo... looks like it has been pushed to 2010 :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srtflfP8DOc&fmt=18

huh it's like 20 flash shmups in one

ketsui death label: anyone know the difference between the 4 colors of ships u can choose? i did a summarily search but eh , + i am not that involved in the game yet . sure i could learn a few thing from the all-japanese specials.

on a related note: Nomltest FS ver.1.0.1http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/dl/win95/game/se345999.html
i probably got that reference from this board but it's worth reposting.
minimal but great playability; the way you can shift speed, shield and fire depending on the situation.
it's been a few months since i played but yeh you have 3 types of fire /speed/shield : let's say A for wide but thin rate of fire*/very fast/next to no shield, B for average and A+B for dense rate of fire / slowest speed and largest shield.

extra explanation screen : bullets going within the shield without hitting you are eaten for points, there is no powerups or bombs but you have an extra life over so many points. the bullet pattern is typical to each waves but the pattern changes significantly over each i forget , 100 000 points? - i briefly checked youtube and it is more likely about levels. i think i saw the pattern change 3 times and the last time must have been around level 100, the action was so fast, different and across the board i couldn't last long enough to learn much for the next game.

* not sure if i have the right military terminology it's +weird from a pacifist perspective

I thought Ketsui DL (the DS game?) just had two different ships? As good as I can remember they both had a different firing pattern. I don't recall any kind of consensus on one being better than the other. Or are you asking about the arcade game?

the ds game have 2 ships: type-a and type-b but you can unlock different colors for em. it looks like it's just for show but i thought it might make a little difference in speed or range. just unlocked death label yesterday and wow i will have to raise the bar or else this is were i'll stay. probably will watch a few videos.

Mind blown - I never noticed you could change the ships colors before! I also never got past the Death Label mode (can get to area 9, but that's it), though I didn't spend a ton of time working at it. As far as I know all that unlocks is the mode that you play in two players into one player, which is cool, but not breaking my heart too much that I've been unable to unlock it (since I did play it in two players). Correct me if I'm wrong again. I'm definitely planning to go back to this game after picking up a DS XL next year. The bigger screen should really help!

A 360 port of Senko no Ronde Duo has been announced for Spring 2010
G.Rev has some videos of the hybrid STG/Fighting game on their youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/GREVchannel

(the first Senko no Ronde was ported to the west as WarTech)

whoa, did not hear about mushihimesama going region free. awesome news. just placed my pre-order.

there's still so much out there for the j360 that I'm a little tempted to buy one. I suppose I can wait and see what happens.

The 360 port of Cave's Espgaluda II has been dated for February 25th 2010. No word on region encoding, but with the apparent success of Mushihimesama, I would expect it to be region free as well.

radilgy noa coming to wii
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/12/02/radilgy_noa_wii/

here's hopin for espgaluda 2. the first one might be the shmup I've logged the most time with on my ps2. that or gradius 5.

and have you actually gotten to play the xbox 360 mushihimesama, jeff? mine hasn't shipped yet.

been playing radiant silvergun for the the first time in years lately. I could never get fully behind ikaruga (too fussy) but I'm having a lot of fun with RS. they way your ship levels up as you log playtime is really satisfying.

Alan - bummer you copy of Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 hasn't shipped. I got mine last Friday and I'm REALLY loving it. Definitely my idea of a perfect game. So beautiful and satisfying and challenging.

Still getting my head around the different modes and scoring systems. Ultra 1.5 is absolutely insane (I've yet to make it to the first boss - LOL). Watching the leaderboard replays of perfect runs on those levels just blows my mind. Arrange Mode is also a lot of fun and a much easier way to work yourself through a version of the game - as if normal Arrange Mode wasn't easy enough, they've added in a "Novice" Arrange Mode that I was able to 1CC & no deaths on my very first try. Maybe that's too easy. Normal Mode 1.5 is probably the most balanced and satisfying. of course. I've yet to make it to the 4th level there, but I'm working on it.

Such a gorgeous game!

oh, man. I foolishly picked up some other stuff w/mushihimesama and it's holding my order back. :-/

glad to hear you're really into this game. I am PSYCHED for it.

guessing these new cave games will be region protected as well? argh.

Guwange is getting a worldwide release via xbla. The rest - we will see - probably region protected tho - yeah.

any other good shmups that are japan only?

There have been a handful of releases - Castle of Shikigami III (also available for wii in the US tho), Shooting Love, 200X (compilation), Otomedius Gorgeous (coming soon to the US, I think), Mamoru-kun, and Strike Witches. I've only played the Wii version of Shikigami III (which is great), the rest I've heard mixed things about and haven't seemed worth the cost of importing.

yeah, I was really hoping cave would stop locking games after mushihimesama futari and espgaluda 2. guess not. whadda draaaaaag.

and thanks for that import rundown. I thought of one more:
senko no ronde duo

not exactly a shmup but pretty close. doubt it will make it out of japan. I bought the localization of the first one for two bucks used.

weird that otomedius gorgeous is getting a US release. was interested when it came out due to the konami pedigree but digging around mainly revealed reviews by disappointed folks.

hmm. my link breaks in firefox for some reason. one more time:

http://www.vigigames.com/?p=1039

i sure wish i had an ipad :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIiG44LDThI

Radiant Silvergun HD port coming to XBLA in 2011

nice!

psyched for bangai-o HD and radiant silvergun

what with those and fire pro, there's finally some exciting xbla games on the horizon

Love bangai-o. Do not have these fancy systems.

Can you guys beat this?

http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/KILLGOD.rar

It only has three levels.

bangai-o rules. feel like designing for HD tv dimensions would work out well for the gameplay too.

kinda miss the goofy vibe of the first game tho.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/09/bangaio091207.jpg

Europe getting a Deathsmiles port...
http://www.eurogamer.se/articles/2010-09-17-varldsexklusivt-deathsmiles-kommer-till-europa

Mushihimesama Futari (I assume it will still be region free) goes greatest hits in November, for $34.90 US (over half off the original price)
http://www.play-asia.com/Mushihimesama_Futari_Ver_1.5_Platinum_Collection/paOS-13-71-br-49-en-70-3yu5.html

BREAKING NEWS! Latest version of MAME now supports Ketsui, DoDonPach Dai-Ou-Jou and DoDonPach Dai-Ou-Jou Black Label and good ROM dumps are out there if you look around. Apparently Espgaluda should also work now too, but there may not be a good ROM dump yet?

any update on the radiant silvergun xbla port?

ketsui!! (still bummed that the j-360 port was region encoded.)

and what did you think of espgaluda 2, jeff? I've only played for a few hours but... it didn't really do it for me for whatever reason. weird because I love espgaluda and esp ra.de.

I also haven't played a ton of Espgalua 2, but I do like it. I think I just got distracted by the purity of Ketsui, which came out at almost the same time and is much more to my liking. The thing about Esp2 is the mechanics of not only the two different shots, but the two different hyper modes for bullet cancelling & bullet swarms is a bit much to get one's head around. Ketsui is a "harder" game, but it's understandable, while Espgaluda is slightly easier, but more confusing and less straight-forward in a way that makes it slightly less fun to play.

Speaking of region free, in case you didn't know, CAVE has announced the the Pink Sweets and Muchi Muchi Pork double pack due out in February 2011 will be region free as well.

yeah, I didn't hate esp2 or anything. but after coming off of playing mushihimesama futari heavily... it seemed a bit lacking to me.

the mechanics of it did seem a bit clunky but I'll have to play more to really solidify my opinion on this one.

and I hadn't heard about pink sweets/muchi muchi. great news!

A couple notes on Ketsui MAME - you will want to change the default settings on the ROM that is floating around as it is set to easy and no continues. To change the settings just hit F2 which takes you to the test menu, go to 7. Game and in there you can set the difficulty to Normal (or Hard or Very Hard) and turn on the rapid shot (C button) so you don't have to tap button "a" to get the shot, just hold down "c" button for shot and hold down the "a" button for the lock on shot (B button is bomb) or however you configure your stick / pad / keyboard). 6. System is where you can turn on continues if you want to credit feed so you can at least see the whole game once. Also there are still some minor sound glitches to the emulation, but nothing to lose any sleep over - future revisions should be able to fix this (top men or working on it).

new dreamcast shmup!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxWTVuJqS-U

really impressive trailer.

and a new one from g-rev coming to xbla:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn9FQ5NjDdA

just stumbled on Score Rush on xbox indie. a lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAIhtPSrm-4

nice. that looks like a good time.

looks like there's a new mushihimesama port coming out soon:
http://www.shopncsx.com/mushihimesamahdlimitededition.aspx

doesn't seem like it will be region free. wish cave kept that trend up. :-/

whatever happened to Jeff LeVine

he retired from ilx :(

my understanding is that he has somewhat un-retired and has been posting here occasionally, but under a different, considerably shorter name...

lol who is that masked man
Grev have some new games, an HD version of the Dreamcast game Under Defeat juat came out for PS3/360, and there are games coming soonish for 3DS and Vita. these are all JP only at the moment though. picked up Senko no Ronde for £3(!) the other day, what a strange game.

yeah, would love to play HD under defeat...

lol jcl btw

lol!

Ahhhh Under Defeat. Is it Japan only?

actually, it seems like the ps3 one might not be?
http://digiex.net/general-discussions/gaming-hangout/10236-under-defeat-hd-released-xbox-360-region-locked-ps3-region-free.html
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/648086-under-defeat-hd/62040982

doesn't help me since I don't have a ps3. oh well!

Bodacious. I don't have an X360 and have missed out on all the amazing XBLA re-releases.

I just caught the "Under Defeat" pun, that is such a bad pun that is like rapper-from-Leeds level punning

I'd love to see a Shmups poll hey I'd love to see that

Personally I love 3D rails shmups like Starfox 64 more than anything in the world, sad it didn't become a genre, but my faves in this genre otherwise are Galaga, Radiant Silvergun, Gradius V, Einhander and Life Force.. no Olympic-style workouts for me