December Together Retro Poll

[noiseredux]

I'm now leaning towards Galaga next month. Sure, it's a favorite of mine and I've played it many times. Buttt... last year or so I beat my 99,000 high score and cracked 100,000 for the first time. So I'm wondering if it might just be fun for me to set a new goal. Like 150,000 or something?

[BoneSnapDeez]

I'm contemplating playing Galaxian (2600) and Galaga (7800). They both play on the same system which is kinda cool.

Oh, and maybe some Galaga '90 (aka Galaga '88 aka Galaga '91 aka Galaga 2 lol). Fantastic game.

[pierrot]

If I were looking to play an early example of a bullet hell shooter, which of the following titles would be a good one to start with?

Batsugun
DonPachi
Radiant Silvergun

And secondly, of the titles listed above, what are the preferred home ports?

Last night I spent some time getting Donpachi set up for next month. After a bit of research, I decided on the Playstation port.

I seem to be a bit late in responding, but Batsugun is absolutely the most inviting of those three games. It's almost not even really a bullet hell, and more like a bullet hell adjacent, by virtue of laying a lot of the groundwork for DonPachi, which itself is almost not even bullet hell until the ura loop (when you get suicide bullets from everything). I wouldn't really call Radiant Silvergun a bullet hell game, either. I don't even really like hearing Ikaruga called a bullet hell game, since that kind of misses the point of the game, in my opinion.

In any event, if you don't care about maintaining devilishly tight, full stage combos including hidden hornet medallions, then DonPachi is a fairly gentle entry point, but I'd probably recommend something like Mushihimesama over it. Batsugun is really easy to get into, and even though there is a chaining system to the scoring, as I recall (that's even tighter timing than DonPachi, if memory serves), it's at least not nearly as central to the gameplay as in Donpachi. I feel Mushihimesama is the Cave game with the least going on with it, scoring-wise, though. It's more just about avoiding bullets, and making it through, like Batsugun.

For console versions, I don't remember all the details with DonPachi, but I think a lot of the knocks against the Saturn version were cosmetic, and the lower quality audio. I don't think either console version was exactly arcade perfect, though I don't remember exactly why in either case. Batsugun is Saturn only, and pretty much flawless (with Special Ver* included, as well), so that one's easy. I know Radiant Silvergun was essentially rebuilt for modern platforms, but I don't really know how the modern versions exactly compare to the Saturn or ST-V versions. It sounds kind of like you're mostly looking at emulation, so if you were interested in Mushihimesama at all, then there's a PS2 port, but it's not as accurate as the XBOX 360 port. I have no idea how the iOS and Steam releases of Cave games have been turning out.

*Special Ver is an even more gentle entry point, since it provides a one-hit shield whenever your ship's weapon increases in level. (Doesn't stack, though.)

IMO finishing a shmup via 1CC is mastering it, not simply beating it.

I agree 100%. I was genuinely curious, not judging. If it was your intention to 1CC five of them, I thought that was pretty ambitious (crazy) actually. I *think* I've only 1CC'd one shmup ever. At least without turning down the difficulty.

Personally, I tend to call some shmups "beaten" in order to tacitly communicate some idea of playing through all the stages, when I credit feed them to the end, but I wouldn't call most shmups "completed" without a 1cc (or ura 1cc, where applicable). "Mastering" a shmup, to me, would mean a no-miss/no-bomb, superplay (depending on the scoring system), if one can every truly master a shmup. I have seen some crazy people in Japanese arcades on loop 12 and crap of Xevious, and no end in sight, though. I think that would constitute "mastering," too. It's semantics, granted, but I feel like it's somewhat meaningful semantics. I think ultimately we're in agreement that a shmup can be beaten without a 1cc.