What shmup are you playing now?

[Soldier Blue]

Pocky and Rocky. Got to the stage 4 boss battle after a few tries. Really an awesome game I can't recommend it enough.

[ZeoDefender]

Is Zanac (NES) impossibly difficult, or am I just terrible? I'm really surprised by how much this game is kicking my ass.

It's got an "A.I." system which changes the frequency of enemies based on how well you're doing and how many shots you're firing, etc. Think of it as an early "rank" system mechanic, used in more modern shmups.

So shooting constantly and killing everything that I can probably isn't doing me any favours, huh?

[ExedExes]

So shooting constantly and killing everything that I can probably isn't doing me any favours, huh?

Not really. It is real important to be more accurate and not waste so many shots.

[DocHauser]

Got a 1cc in Mountain of Faith earlier on Normal. Got to the final boss with about 3 or 4 lives and almost screwed it up, but just about made it in the end.

In other Touhou news, the demo for Touhou 14 is out. I played through it (3 levels) on Normal. Actually pretty decent, though my main thought was, 'Hmm, good players are going to exploit the hell out of this bomb/life fragment collection system.' And it turns out they already have:



It's Yagawa-tastic!

[G-Darius]

Still playing Crisis Force on Nes
Crisis Force-Youtube

[ExedExes]

I played Gyruss today on a 60-in-1 cab, and got all the way to Round 20. That's "3 Warps to Earth" for those unfamiliar. If I made it through those last 3 rounds, I would have reached the end. There are no continues on this game either. That's easily the farthest I ever made it here. I have the Atari 2600 port and have beaten that one multiple times, even doing 2 loops of the game, but wow. I might need to return to it on the GBA to see if I can make it.

[DocHauser]

Back from a few days in Tokyo/Yokohama. Not much chance for shmupping, although I did pay a brief visit to the Hey arcade in Akihabara. Didn't have a lot of time, since the wife was with me, but I had a quick blast on one of the Crimzon Clover cabs with vertical monitor (nice) and a credit on Raiden Fighters Jet, where I managed to get to the boss in Real Battle Phase 1 (and for auto-fire lovers - yes, button C did have full-auto).

Also picked up a copy of Mars Matrix for the DC in a store that appeared to have quite a few copies of Sturmwind...has everyone received their copy yet?

In non-shmupping news, I spent the time on the trains playing the NES versions of Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2 on my PSP. Now starting NG3...

[dunpeal2064]

a credit on Raiden Fighters Jet, where I managed to get to the boss in Real Battle Phase 1 (and for auto-fire lovers - yes, button C did have full-auto).

Who needs auto fire when you can just pick the Fairy?

I've been playing Futari pretty much non-stop. Its driving me crazy.

[DocHauser]

I did pick the fairy!

I spotted a few games that I haven't seen in other places, like Dangun Feveron and DDPII: Bee Storm. Also stuff like Nebulas Ray, Pulstar and the Parodius games. Plus numerous full-size Darius and Darius Burst cabs. You can see one of them around the 1 minute mark here (not my video):



Pretty cool. Still no sign of Ibara, though...

[BoneSnapDeez]

Played Strike Gunner S.T.G last night.

Beat the game on the easiest setting. Probably should have left it on normal, as I finished with a couple of continues left over. Oh well.

What a weird game. It's competent enough and the controls are solid - but my god is it boring. The levels are way too long and all contain a few vast stretches of nothingness lasting 5-10 seconds or so - maybe this only happened because I was on easy mode though?

Weirdly inconsistent difficulty too. Level two seemed to be one of the hardest stages. Also, I have no idea what the final boss even was! I killed the thing before I even got a good look at it. I think I was shooting out the "core" of a ship like in the climax of Star Wars? Who knows.

Not a bad game, maybe I'll enjoy it more on a harder difficulty setting.

I also played the Commodore 64 version of R-Type the other night, via an emulator as a physical copy seems to pretty difficult to find. What an awesome port! There's also a clone called Katakis that I've been meaning to check out.