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dsheinem wrote:dun have you played many non-bullet hell horis? I can think of many I like better than any of the DC homebrew horis...

not homebrew. Indie Neo Geo & DC release. Though I still agree what you're saying here.

I just don't consider commercial releases (even if unlicensed) homebrew. I woudn't call Crimzon Clover homebrew for instance.

Well, I've played a few, but probably not as many as people would think. (which may now negate all the praise I just gave Last Hope )

I've played a few to the extend of getting at least close to halfway through (Not counting anything "manic"):

Metal Black (Awesome)
Gradius V
Zed Blade (Aww yeah, so awesome)
Sexy Parodius
Darius Gaiden
Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie
Gradius III (SNES port though)
Hellfire (This one is pretty sweet)
P47 Aces (Batsgun syndrome. A+ game ruined by a silly scoring trick)
Strahl

So yeah, not a single R-Type game on there It seems that most (if not all) of the non bullet hell horis I have played have had either no scoring, or scoring that I did not enjoy.

Edit: Oh yeah, I played Dux to level 3, which was utterly painful. It probably doesn't help that I enjoyed Last Hope so much, since Dux almost feels like a spiritual sister to Last Hope... well, at least until you start playing it.

Yeah, Batsugun is such a badass game; it just sucks that 1 cheap-ass trick ruins playing it for score.

@Chaz - Have you played Akai Katana?

dunpeal2064 wrote:Well, I've played a few, but probably not as many as people would think. (which may now negate all the praise I just gave Last Hope )

not really cuz I love Deathsmiles' scoring system and would rank that waaay above LH personally.

dunpeal2064 wrote:Well, I've played a few, but probably not as many as people would think. (which may now negate all the praise I just gave Last Hope )

I've played a few to the extend of getting at least close to halfway through (Not counting anything "manic"):

Metal Black (Awesome)
Gradius V
Zed Blade (Aww yeah, so awesome)
Sexy Parodius
Darius Gaiden
Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie
Gradius III (SNES port though)
Hellfire (This one is pretty sweet)
P47 Aces (Batsgun syndrome. A+ game ruined by a silly scoring trick)
Strahl

So yeah, not a single R-Type game on there It seems that most (if not all) of the non bullet hell horis I have played have had either no scoring, or scoring that I did not enjoy.

I'm much bigger on verts too, but you should play:

R-Type games (Final or Delta especially)
Thunder Force games (I am partial to III and IV)
Lords of Thunder - one of my favorite games in any genre ever
Gate of Thunder - also fun
Gaiares - one of the best 16 bit shmups, period.
Soldner-X II (a nice Euro shmup)

Oh yeah, I meant to put, underneath hat list, a lit of horis I have actually cleared:

Thunderforce III
Lords of Thunder

Thank you for reminding me to go play Gaiares, I tried that one once and told myself to come back to it. It was awesome from what I recall.

Soldner X-2 is on PC? I'll have to check that one out too. I don't think I've even seen game footage of that one.

I do enjoy the Thunder Force and ... of Thunder games, but they suffer a bit from what a lot of console shooters do: A poor difficulty-to-length ratio. Thunder Force IV does get hard, but it takes about 20 minutes to get there, where as if I managed to play most arcade shmups for 20 minutes on one credit, I'd be sweating, shaking, and probably done with the game

Edit: Oh, and I do definitely need to check out R-Type. I have played Final, but deiced that, while it was cool, it wasn't where I wanted to start my R-Type experience.l I've heard great things about Delta though.

noiseredux wrote:
not really cuz I love Deathsmiles' scoring system and would rank that waaay above LH personally.

Ha ha, check this out

1. You just admitted to only having played the first level of LH
2. Pink Bullets has the scoring, which you have never played.

Boom.

Agree on Lords of Thunder and Soldner.

R-Type is a love/hate, and i'm in the hate camp. I've not played Leo though and here it is the best in the series.

Thunder Force, the earlier games, 1-3 I can enjoy from a nostalgia perspective. I really hated the later SAT/PS2 releases.

I agree w/you, Chaz, on the way bullets track and the like on HORI, just a completely different fee. When I first got into Shmups (*prepares to lose shmup card*) it was because of Cotton and Parodius games, so I thought I really preferred HORI's.

Once I got more into the genre and understood it better, and really got into scoring, I went 180 degrees to VERTs.

That said, I absolutely love CAVE HORIs, Deathsmiles and Pro Gear are 2 of my top 10 favs.

See, I do enjoy playing Cave horis, but I just can't get into the scoring system the same way I do with most of their verts. I like the idea of collecting to cash in (Love Ketsui, Galuda is cool, etc), but I am not as big of a fan of "collect until you get..." (The black diamond in progear, the 10k counter in DS). It makes me feel more restricted as to where/when/how many times I can cash in, whereas in Ketsui/Galuda, I am building up to cash in, but can do so at my own discretion while still scoring well enough to be happy about it.

foxhound1022 wrote:Yeah, Batsugun is such a badass game; it just sucks that 1 cheap-ass trick ruins playing it for score.

@Chaz - Have you played Akai Katana?

Almost missed this.

I have played a bit of Akai Katana, and it is definitely my favorite Cave hori, followed by DS2 (Whoever is taking Mike's shmup card can now have mine too )

Its one that I really need to put some time into, I could see myself really enjoying it. Heck, I may even pop it in for a bit right now.

dunpeal2064 wrote:I have played a bit of Akai Katana, and it is definitely my favorite Cave hori, followed by DS2 (Whoever is taking Mike's shmup card can now have mine too )

lulz. I def *like* DS2, but the first game is way better in my opinion in pretty much every way.