December Together Retro: Shmuptacular

[MrPopo]

That's interesting; I find it to be harder than MUSHA because your weapons are so anemic until they really get powered up. And yeah, there are some super cheap deaths to bosses because they are both huge and have wonky hit boxes.

[Nemoide]

Thoughts on Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom:
Okay, this game is WAY easier than the previous Touhou game. I started playing as the new playable character, Sakuya, and set the difficulty to hard so I could just get a feel for the game and practice with something more challenging than normal mode... and I beat it on my first try!
I thought this meant I could breeze through with a 1CC on Easy (apparently playing on Easy can yield a good ending in this game) but... I've made two attempts and haven't succeeded. I think I'll have to give it a go this weekend and try earlier in the night so it isn't after midnight when I go for it; I just got right up to the final life-bar of the final regular boss before dying and I'm definitely not feeling at my peak.
But I don't care that much about the good ending or minimal bragging rights, so I might only try once more before moving on. I've got a lot of shmups in my backlog and don't want to waste too much time replaying the mediocre ones!

The game is pretty similar to Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but with a few nice new features: now your hitbox is clearly visible, there's an indication on the bottom of the screen showing where bosses are (because when you're concentrating on dodging bullet patterns, it's easy to lose track otherwise). The scoring system is more complicated, featuring some sort of "cherry" mechanic that I don't really understand but which could add to the game's replayability if you're all about the high score.

[pierrot]

I finally sat down with Robo Aleste for a bit. I was doin' fine up until stage 3, where I kept dying like a punk to the boss. When I finally killed him, I took my hand off the controller to take a drink, only to die to his death explosion, which I was not expecting at all.

Basically every time I've gone back to play Robo Aleste, I forget about that desperation attack, and probably 75% of the time I get taken out by it. I've only ever really played up to the fourth or fifth stage in it. Have never really bothered to use any continues. It's a really interesting game, but it just feels like kind of a slow, plodding game, to me. A lot of Compile's games kind of feel like that, though. I can sort of see why someone like Dunpeel, and-- maybe just dunpeel-- don't really like Compile's shooters. I think Robo Aleste has something like 12 levels, too, so it's a pretty long game for a shooter.

[alienjesus]

I played through UN Squadron today. Just so people know, I'm no shmup savant - i'll put my hands up to cheating on this one! I made save states at the start of each level and just before each boss, and in all honesty I would never have even seen stage 3 (of 10) if I hadn't because the game is brutally difficult.

There's a lot to like about this game, bur for me the high difficulty level would kill it. Luckily, it's much more bearable with save states.

[Markies]

I played through UN Squadron today. Just so people know, I'm no shmup savant - i'll put my hands up to cheating on this one! I made save states at the start of each level and just before each boss, and in all honesty I would never have even seen stage 3 (of 10) if I hadn't because the game is brutally difficult.

There's a lot to like about this game, bur for me the high difficulty level would kill it. Luckily, it's much more bearable with save states.

*Winces*

This does not bode well for me.

I have gotten to Mission 9 before and I don't consider myself a Shmup person as well. Thankfully, the game gives a generous amount of continues and lives that you have several tries before they run out.

But, I am glad you were able to persevere and at least beat it. UN Squadron will be my Christmas game, so I will let you know if I manage to beat it as well.

[Tanooki]

Well I said I'd play along.

Fired up the PCE awhile ago, clearly lost track of time. Started out with 1943 Kai and that doesn't really do stages more than missions, and I never got it so far before. I looked it up on google really quick, some fan wiki placed the game at 10 stages, and I got my ass kicked repeatedly to a stop on the 9th mission boss.

After that i was like, next. Gradius. I forgot how damned hard the arcade version is, which the PCE game does and with no love of a difficulty or otherwise setting. I got finished off in the Moai stage 3, a few times by them, but got around it, the stopper is the small fleet of those annoying bullet absorbing circular things that spit off 4 smaller versions in a spread repeatedly. Once there were 4 of them it was over, so I called it, no need to have a Game Over rub it in when you're unpowered it's over in that game.

Then I ticked down to another one I own, Gunhed (aka Blazing Lazers.) This one is where time got lost. I've never been especially great at it, at least in more recent years, but I can't remember getting that deep into the US version back in the later 90s either. I found a good rhythm going I hope I can repeat later, but I had a nice wave laser going (III) along with homing missiles and a shield and it was pretty smooth flying most the trip. I didn't hit any real problems until Stage 8 and I got pounded a little but came back from it enough to finish the stage kind of diminished a bit. Stage 9 (last) though argh, that one sucks, giant fast moving bubbles. Some small, some large, some blow up, some puff up and down again and take a ton of hits. Needless to say, meat grinder, game was over there. I ended though with 2.202 million points which was fantastic.

[pierrot]

Gunhed [...] Stage 9 (last) though argh, that one sucks, giant fast moving bubbles.

Actually, there's a boss rush stage after that one. It's usually where I die, and don't feel much like playing any more.

[Tanooki]

Huh so basically a great game goes out with an annoying fizzle of bubbles and abuse on the tail end. Not in a realistic sense, but in a technical sense for quality I got through the best the game had to offer before a downhill slide. That's good, but also a shame.

[marurun]

I don't mind the boss rush. And the last boss is kind of interesting.

[Sload Soap]

Had a couple of attempts at Triggerheart Exelica on the xbox one. It's quite a basic looking game which is fair enough given that it's an indie and over a decade old but it's got a good cheesy soundtrack and the gameplay is solid. The grab mechanic takes some getting used to but is devastating when used effectively. I did a coin feed run and a couple of proper attempts but I suck at shmups so I get to about stage 3 before wiping out.

Downloaded Strania as well, need to spend some time with it.