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*Salute!*

NP, retrosportsgamer - i had thought of writing a more complete review, but i think my non-shmup elite status would render my points invalid, since i just call it like i see it from an 'average joe gamer' perspective, which is that there's a fun game in there for those who just want to play for enjoyment.

I played quite a bit more over the weekend, and am still pretty pleased with the purchase - i got the complete pack for 12.99 EUR, which includes the DLC Last Chapter, but have only thus far gotten to stage 6 (i generally haven't been using continues, and have been starting from the first stage over each time.) I've also dabbled in the challenge modes, but haven't cleared any yet. The 'simplest' one which i saw was to survive on the game's stage 8 for two and a half minutes, but out of a few failed attempts thus far, i've literally gotten as far as 2m25s before biting the dust.

Of course, i'd really like to be playing stuff like R-Type Delta and Einhander on my vita too (not that having either of those would have stopped me from buying SX2), but since i'm in Euroland, it's sadly not to be

dust_hound wrote: i had thought of writing a more complete review, but i think my non-shmup elite status would render my points invalid, since i just call it like i see it from an 'average joe gamer' perspective, which is that there's a fun game in there for those who just want to play for enjoyment.

Fwiw, I also quite enjoyed your review, and found your points perfectly valid. It actually made me want to try the game out!

Keep em comin, any shmup love is good shmup love.

I've only ever played one credit in Soldner-X2, in two-player co-op. Cleared the game at the first attempt.

(To be fair, I think the person I was playing with had cleared it in one player, so that made things easier.)

Enjoying Jamestown+ a good bit. Love the learning curve. I'm up to the final boss on Legendary and have cleared the Mars side missions on the same difficulty.

Had a question though - what are the "shots" you purchase used for? I get the different ships but don't see anywhere to enable or equip those shots. Are they automatic for all ships once you unlock them?

Played Super EDF. I had no idea you get new shield units with each new stage. That alone makes it awesome. Homing shot at Level 3 is nice.

retrosportsgamer wrote:Had a question though - what are the "shots" you purchase used for? I get the different ships but don't see anywhere to enable or equip those shots. Are they automatic for all ships once you unlock them?

You don't purchase shots, you purchase ships that can use those special shots. Each ship is only able to use these shots. The Beam ship has lasers, the Gunner ship is different, etc.

Working my way through some Genesis shmups. Currently playing Eliminate Down. Has to be one of the hardest shmups I've ever played. Just random giant enemies flying at you from all directions. There was one part where these two ships move vertically across the screen which reminded me of Ikaruga.

I've been playing Mushihime-Sama Futari Black Label with MAME for the last couple of weeks. I'm quite new to shmups, although I've tried them out few times over the years, usually I've just become frustrated after a while. Now this time when I found this game in question I thought it's so damn good I really wanted to give a decent try to "conquer" it. I also got this idea of keeping track of my points for EVERY SINGLE run for it to boost to my motivation by giving some more insight how am I doing. And that has actually been true. Even then when at some point it seemed my progress was going backwards it helped me to realise I was pushing it too hard.

Anyone else tried this or something similar?

And this is a special day because for the first time I was able to made it to the stage 4 That's the reason for the big leap in points.

That's cool. I've never tracked that way - but certainly any time I get a new high, i'll post it in the appropriate thread (if one exists)...most good shmups do have a hi-score thread here on racket (or elsewhere).

In the last month I have been playing two versions of Scramble which are the arcade version and a new C64 homebrew which is actually very good. Sticking with arcade Astro Fighter and Nostrodamus,
I have been exploring the Vic20 game library and there are a few shooters of interest such as Cosmic Firebirds and the excellent Cloudburst.
Cloudburst Vic20 on youtube
C64 Scramble 2015 download

Super Star Soldier. Great game, probably the best in the series. They all (apart from Gunhed) seem to follow the pattern of being easy until stage 5-6, and then ramping up beyond belief. Still possible to 1'CC I'm sure, but I'm a little rusty.