Shmup of the Month Club 2014 (Completed)

[ExedExes]

First arcade score -

ExedExes - 61,950 - Chapter 2 - MAME



Died at the same point, the ring of clay pots. That is one diabolical setup they had going there.

With all the scaling and rotation going on, I thought I was playing it on the SNES But then I remembered that Namco's arcade game Assault which had a lot of the same effects also ran on the same System 2 hardware this game did.

But the biggest shmup trope of the 80s is inherently clear in this game, you die and not only do you get a checkpoint but good luck getting back to where you previously ended up because you lost everything.

The mythological theme is cool, but I know things will get better once I figure out those pots.

I'll see if I can do any better on the Genesis, as well as seeing a good place for a screen capture.

[DocHauser]

The clay pots section isn't too hard; it's the next part, with the cave tunnels, where the real checkpoint frustration begins. Lots of tight corridors, so not much room to manoeuvre your massive hitbox through...

[mjmjr25]

I didn't want to rag on this until I tried it again. I've bought it and played it in the past only to sell it immediately. Maybe it gets much better after stage 3, but I doubt it. The music seems to be an afterthought. The sound effects are all too similar. I realize this is an older game and can appreciate some aspects - the power up shooting being the only way to kill certain enemies, etc.

I put in 2 runs and while I didn't get as far as i've gotten before, I don't think i'll be playing again. It feels more like work than fun :/

mjmjr25 - 67,800 - Stage 2 (boss) - GEN

(I also dislike the lack of scoreboard on this)

[dsheinem]

(I also dislike the lack of scoreboard on this)

Yeah, I am not sure how we can use it even for "friendly" competition purposes given how difficult it would be to quickly jot down/snap a picture of your score in the same second you lose your last life. I need to try the MAME version at some point, but between the lack of a board and the milking glitch, the Genesis version just doesn't work for score competition...

And o.p vamoosed, so he won't be here to play his own nominee.

I plan to try and just get through it with the stock number of credits (I quite like ports where the developers decided to put a particular limit on credits) a bit and, if that proves too much, probably move on to something else.

Also, I assume the only way to score points is just killing things? There's no proximity/combo/rank/multiplier or anything else interesting score-wise going on from what I can tell...

[BoneSnapDeez]

Maybe I'll just ignore the scoring aspect and try to play the Gen version from start to finish. This a tough game?

[mjmjr25]

It's tough like any checkpoint game - you die in certain areas and you can't recover. Good runs end in a hurry. One of those games where you just need to know every oncoming enemy and every tight path.

@dsh - outside of more points for larger enemies, and using power ups to kill some of the ground enemies, etc - I don't see any scoring mechanic other than killing as much stuff as possible. Not a great game for a score competition.

Think i'll focus on DnD this month.

[foxhound1022]

Put 2 runs into this. First impression: not bad; nothing groundbreaking, but ok.

I got to the Stage 2 boss w/ a little over 92,000. I'll chip away at it. This one seems like it's only gonna be good in small doses before I get irritated.

[TSTR]

Is this game pronounced "felly-ohss" or "feely-ohss"?

[DocHauser]

ARCADE
DocHauser - 115,970 - Chapter 3 - ShmupMAME 4.2

Chapter 2 boss fight is kinda cool (a lot better than the weak Medusa head fight on Chapter 1) but I'm still not a huge fan of this game. It's not too bad, but the checkpoint system is a bit of a drag. Might try out the Megadrive version now for comparison.

[DocHauser]

MEGADRIVE
DocHauser - 144,080 - Chapter 3 - MD

Are we doing two tables? I'll throw a score in for each anyway. This version seems to be a bit easier than the arcade version. I played one credit and made it to roughly the same place on Chapter 3, where you start getting a lot of enemies coming from the bottom of the screen. It's somewhat annoying.