December Together Retro Poll

[marurun]

Lords of Thunder is the bomb on TG16. It is colorful, well-animated, has good sound effects, and a rockin’ soundtrack. It is pretty hard, but not cruel. The only flaw is that the soundtrack has some equalization issues. The dynamics are super compressed, so any time the music has a loud bass drum hit the rest of the instruments get quiet to keep level volume. Most music does some of that, but this is a bit abrupt and really obvious. The SEGA CD version has better equalization, but all the tracks were re-recorded and sound less raw/more artificial, for some reason. The SEGA CD version is worse in every way. The graphics have lower color counts and your character is immobile longer when hit. No attempts were made to add extra content or enhance the game using any of the capabilities of the Sega CD.

If you have the choice, play it on Turbo or PC Engine Super CD. I have played both versions and Sega CD doesn’t show off any of its power.

[CFFJR]

I honestly prefer the music in the Sega CD version, but there's no arguing with anything else there.

It's also significantly easier. Like clear it on your first attempt easy.

[Nemoide]

Trouble Witches Origin, the game on Steam, is a port of a 2007 game? Anyone know? It's one of the few "modern" shmups I own but haven't sunk much time into.

I don't know about Origin, but I thought Trouble Witches Neo is a great game with some of the worst English voice acting I've ever heard.

[Exhuminator]

I've put together a good pile of retro shmups I'd like to play, across a wide variety of classic platforms. I plan to beat five games for this TR. Looking forward to next month.

[noiseredux]

I've put together a good pile of retro shmups I'd like to play, across a wide variety of classic platforms. I plan to beat five games for this TR. Looking forward to next month.

Are you gonna go for five 1CC's?

[MrPopo]

I've put together a good pile of retro shmups I'd like to play, across a wide variety of classic platforms. I plan to beat five games for this TR. Looking forward to next month.

Are you gonna go for five 1CC's?

Obviously he is. I'm just trying to do two because I'm not as hardcore as him.

[Exhuminator]

Oh lawdy I forgot how divisive a subject "beating" shmups is on this forum.

Are you gonna go for five 1CC's?

The shmups I plan to play are all console or handheld exclusives. These aren't ports of arcade games that used coin credits. As such I plan to beat my shmup picks given the lives and continues made available by the developers on the default difficulty. I will reach the credits without using cheat codes or Game Genie style hacks.

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

*runs away*

[noiseredux]

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.

[MrPopo]

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.

I was 100% judging.

[nullPointer]

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.

I was 100% judging.

Last night I spent some time getting Donpachi set up for next month. After a bit of research, I decided on the Playstation port. It was trickier than I expected getting it setup to work in tate mode through an emulator. I wound up going with ePSXe + a Pete's custom 'shader' plugin which is what enables the screen rotation. It would have been a whole lot easier if I simply had my monitor on a swivel. #LifeGoals

Any hoo. I thought it was interesting that the Playstation port has you pumping in 'credits' just as you would in MAME. I plan on using all of them. Like as many as the game will possibly allow. Not even ashamed. (I make no bones about the fact that shmups are not and likely never will be 'my genre', so in this case I'm perfectly fine with playing the game as a form of 'content tourism').