SHMUPs and Bullet Hells

Tsurubami Senri said:
I don't get how people are able to Play Sapphire Panlogism , the fucking screen resolution is so fucking bad.
The fullscreen does nothing and you can't even change the resolution in the settings like the average touhou game.

also gl with your 1cc in SP.
Click to expand...
I usually have it (and other 2hu schmups like BPoHC) in a smaller resolution since it's what I'm used to, but I understand how people would feel about fullscreen. Thanks a lot, although the most I'm having trouble with is the fucking 5th boss Padma Raksasa.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tsurubami Senri
Yukari Yakumo said:
I usually have it (and other 2hu schmups like BPoHC) in a smaller resolution since it's what I'm used to, but I understand how people would feel about fullscreen. Thanks a lot, although the most I'm having trouble with is the fucking 5th boss Padma Raksasa.
Click to expand...
yeah fuck padma
 
  • Like
Reactions: Yukari Yakumo
ALSO
Yukari Yakumo said:
I usually have it (and other 2hu schmups like BPoHC) in a smaller resolution since it's what I'm used to, but I understand how people would feel about fullscreen. Thanks a lot, although the most I'm having trouble with is the fucking 5th boss Padma Raksasa.
Click to expand...
how the FUCK do you play BPoHC in an smaller resolution , what??? I'm impressed .
 
Not sure if necroing this thread is ok to do, as I wanted to talk about some of the shoot'em'ups that I've found on Steam, and wanted to share my finds if anyone would find them of interest too.

So far I there's couple of games that got my interest, and both of them seem to also have multiplayer in mind.
First up, CounterAttack Uprising, or just CounterAttack as they've slapped on the "Uprising" after some update. It is lacking in visuals, sounds, music, but its weapon customization is quite extensive, even if a bunch of attachments that affect your stats or weapons in the advertised "over 500 attachments" are just same thing but with +5% more damage. Some of the attachments also can change your weapons into something else, like turning basic shot into a flamethrower, add homing onto missiles and etc, and some of those upgrades can be mixed, like combining MIRV missiles with homing ones to spam up the screen with them, or making the spiral flamethrower shot.

So, with all the customization, player power can get ridiculous during gameplay, but one would have to get to that point in the first place by upgrading weapons through Gradius like system, where you have to pick up a select number of upgrade powerups and then press a button to claim the highlighted upgrade. All upgrades have a cap depending on the ship you've chosen, but the "add-on" upgrade, which costs quite a bunch of powerups, ups the cap by 1 each time it is bought... Although I feel like I may be rambling too much, but I hope this gets the point across that I may be too autistic about making builds to destroy things with.

CounterAttack also has coop online multiplayer for up to 8 people, though lobbies there are mostly dead, and it seems like to play with someone you gotta get on their Discord. Typical.

As for another one, Eternal Reverie is some upcoming game that's in development, and devs have put out quite a solid demo. So far there's local 4 player coop (+ Steam remote play), but the online play is promised to be added eventually. Game itself is going to be a roguelike with a "procedurally generated map", though demo so far only has 2 levels with the same layout. There's several playable ships, and all of them have 3 abilities with cooldowns and status effects (or even friendly fire, so you can kill yourself or some other players!), which makes it quite unusual to handle.

As the usual fare for roguelikes, there's upgrades that you get once you beat the level, and another after defeating a boss, first 2 upgrades you get are the ones that change some of your abilities in quite big way, like adding explosions to the basic shot on the rocket ship, or having rocket explosions from that ship emit basic shot bullets in all directions. Oh, and the ships have health system - shield that regens after some time + usual health that gets restored after beating a level or dying + from 3 to 1 life if you actually die (and you will). It does look promising, I hope that the release version of this game won't let up.

I am not great with writing texts of these sizes, so I could use some tips on whether there's something I could improve, or pay attention to something specific when writing, or if I just should kill myself.
 
On topic to the OP, if its still relevant. Honestly I can't think of a serious tip that doesn't boil down to "just keep doing the stage until you learn the patterns" lol. I'm not really the most dexterous person so I usually just muscle through schmups with sheer memory.

I used to play a bit of 2hu, favorite being LoLk and ikaruga. LoLK gets a bit of a bad rep because its normally the favorite of difficulty autists, but the real reason I like it is that it's just the most satisfying game for grazing.

Shifting the topic a bit, if anyone wants to be shilled a different-ish schmup:

Right now I've been playing Heaven Seeker and honestly it's brutal. It's "technically" classified as a twin stick shooter but Success corp does not care in the slightest about what is considered normal for that genre and decided to go all out with making a schmup. If for some reason you thought dodging bullets wasn't spicy enough, then this is the game for you.

I've been playing this game since the beta and it was already hard enough then, and I was actually expecting them to tone it down, but they decided to make it even harder for the full release by making MP management something you can't just half-ass anymore. This game is truly cruel in that it forces you to unlearn a lot of schmup habits in the first half, and then suddenly demand you to pick them back up ASAP at the latter half.
 
Last edited:
I'm yet to try playing through LOLK, so far I was playing Touhou games in Windows "era" chronological order on normal, pointdevice mode should make grinding levels for a clear in there easier for sure. Ikaruga is sure a brainmelter, as it does seem to require to keep track of 2 bullet patterns on the same screen and then switch between which one you're going to absorb and which one not... I'm yet to 1cc it, as I've mostly credit fed through it once and decided to put it away until I will feel more confident to take it on.

Heaven Seeker does seem to be curious in the sense of having different modifiers for the shot, and it kind of reminds me of Enter the Gungeon, though I've found Gungeon to be mostly entertaining when going for unlocking things in it, but just playing through it just doesn't feel great. However, player character designs in HS seem rather offputting to me, so I don't think I'll pick it up.
 
Touhou Hater Fan said:
I'm yet to try playing through LOLK, so far I was playing Touhou games in Windows "era" chronological order on normal, pointdevice mode should make grinding levels for a clear in there easier for sure.
Click to expand...
LOLK just feels like the peak of ZUN's creativity when making stages, hence why I felt fine replaying the game so much. I don't think I was even actively trying to 1CC the game lol. Beyond the memes, clownpiece's boss fight was just a cool spectacle, and the mobs on her stage being a hyped up version of fairies from past games was a neat touch.

That being said, I think I'd put LOLK in that category of "unfair" when trying to 1CC, especially on your 1st try. Most bosses have at least 1 spell card that's basically a knowledge check that is hard to figure out by yourself. It's kinda like the idea behind Utsuho in SA, but applied to everyone.

Touhou Hater Fan said:
Ikaruga is sure a brainmelter, as it does seem to require to keep track of 2 bullet patterns on the same screen and then switch between which one you're going to absorb and which one not... I'm yet to 1cc it, as I've mostly credit fed through it once and decided to put it away until I will feel more confident to take it on.
Click to expand...
I haven't 1cc Ikaruga myself actually, but it's still one of my favorites cuz it's simply fun and the aesthetic is just super stylish. My one gripe about it is probably that it does feel like they rely on the two bullet types gimmick a bit too much, making the individual stages don't feel especially memorable (though the low variety of shot types aren't helping). Kind of a stark contrast to LoLK.

Touhou Hater Fan said:
Heaven Seeker does seem to be curious in the sense of having different modifiers for the shot, and it kind of reminds me of Enter the Gungeon, though I've found Gungeon to be mostly entertaining when going for unlocking things in it, but just playing through it just doesn't feel great. However, player character designs in HS seem rather offputting to me, so I don't think I'll pick it up.
Click to expand...
Understandable, even I'd agree the characters are kinda off-putting, especially the robot girl. It's actually even worse once you're actually in the game and you realize the game is actually targeted towards ryona fans. I wouldn't have given the game a shot myself if I hadn't known it was by the Cotton devs.
 
instant said:
LOLK just feels like the peak of ZUN's creativity when making stages, hence why I felt fine replaying the game so much. I don't think I was even actively trying to 1CC the game lol. Beyond the memes, clownpiece's boss fight was just a cool spectacle, and the mobs on her stage being a hyped up version of fairies from past games was a neat touch.

That being said, I think I'd put LOLK in that category of "unfair" when trying to 1CC, especially on your 1st try. Most bosses have at least 1 spell card that's basically a knowledge check that is hard to figure out by yourself. It's kinda like the idea behind Utsuho in SA, but applied to everyone.
Click to expand...
Well, I'll surely be looking forward to trying out that one. 1CC on first try sounds quite wild, I generally just credit feed to get the feel for the game, and then if I like it I grind for the 1CC clear, though I generally play on normals so far and on more or less simple shmups. Stuff like Raiden 4/5 had quite the fast and dense patterns on bosses which I couldn't quite wrap my head around, but perhaps someday I could get back to those and try to beat them. (I think I should just bomb spam them lol)

instant said:
Understandable, even I'd agree the characters are kinda off-putting, especially the robot girl. It's actually even worse once you're actually in the game and you realize the game is actually targeted towards ryona fans. I wouldn't have given the game a shot myself if I hadn't known it was by the Cotton devs.
Click to expand...
Huh. I guess not too surprising, considering the bloodied character portraits on the defeat screens as I've seen from browing screenshots in community hub. Can't be asian game without some weird shit in it, although so far ZUN is looking quite alright.

If you'd like some more bullet hell top-down shooters, there's Starward Rogue, graphics may be rather sucky, but I did like some of the bullet patterns in the game. Highest difficulty level on it does outright just say that it wants it to be Touhou-like, (rather amusing that anything related to hard bullet hells would be called Touhou, when stuff like CAVE games exist, but it's probably a popularity thing) and there's gameplay setting to enable/disable player inertia, disabling which would help with some of the tight patterns. I also like that clearing bosses without taking damage and using consumable items/rockets will unlock specific secondary weapons in the drop pool, which fire bullet pattern that is a copy of one of the boss' own patterns, which I think is neat.

Though, now that I think about it, should a new thread be made for this, or it's ok to hijack this one? Though I have some doubts about that.
 
Str8Bustah said:
go and play devil blade reboot and ginga force.
Click to expand...
Might try Ginga Force if I ever get done with the devs' older game Eschatos, which I think is pretty great. I like the melding of 2D+3D and it strikes a comfortable balance between the classic shmup feel and bullet hell.
 
Qute also did make Natsuki Chronicles, it takes place in Ginga Force's universe and crosses over with some events in it (woah, story in a shmup). It is tougher than Ginga Force though, and is horizontal rather than vertical. Some stages also feature flying through "corridors" like in Gradius (and you will die if your hitbox bumps into terrain, of course), so it is quite different from Eschatos and Ginga.

They also have the oldie Judgement Silversword on Steam, it is fun even if it is a port from a weak handheld. Quite nice to see things that were taken from JSS to Eschatos, like some of the enemy formations and the mirror shields being repurposed as minibosses rather than bosses. Oh and there's also a technique to fire both shots at once in JSS, but it will hurt your fingers after prolonged use. Could use some macro programs for it instead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back