Horizontal and Vertical Scrolling Shooters!

Hiroshi Iuchi was on acid when he made this game

Ikaruga has some crazy insights as well, some that I actually prefer.

I can't believe he did the music for Ikaruga as well. He praises Sakimoto's work on RS but dosen't realize there are a few people that prefer his own work

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, lately I've been playing these two games on the PC called BlueWish and GreenWind (Link). The screens are a bit small but the games are good; I like BlueWish the best.

And I know this is old but check out this video of this guy playing Ikaruga with two ships by himself. It's sick.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Hey I just watched that video with the guy playing Ikaruga with the 2 ships! That is....amazing! How on earth do you have coordination? It scares me that people can dedicate so much to one game! It's a shame he loses a life on the boss eh?

I was speaking idiomatically.

I like shmups, but I've never really got into much of the more recent ones. Ikaruga is tempting though. My olders favorites include:

Raiden
Darius Gaiden
Gradius III
Strikers 1942
...and this one other one in the arcade, I think was called Twin Eagles 2. You flew in a chopper and could do stuff like spin moves as you shoot. That game rocked.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I've seen that Ikaruga video before, but I just noticed something. Early on in the video, when one of the ships is being blasted by the huge laser, it presses him up against the wall, but he doesn't die.

Now that I look closer, yeah, at around 0:46, he takes his hand off the 2P controller, leaving his ship being blasted by the laser. He should have died there.


Anyways, I might have missed something in this thread, but how could no one have mentioned Gigawing or Mars Matrix. I've only played them through MAME, but they're both tons of fun.

Gigawing was pretty interesting with the four different ships, and how the level progression changes depending on the ship you choose. Also, the reflecting shield was an awesome game mechanic in single player, but became pretty broken in two player, since each player could shield the other.

Mars Matrix, on the other hand, was one hell of a hard game (at least to me). Very cool how you had 3 different shots all available from one button (tapping quickly, tap every 2 seconds or so, and hold down).

I usually suck at shoot 'em ups, but I really love them. For a genre that changes so little with every game, I have a lot more fun playing them than most other games.

Most amazing jew boots

You don't die from running into the edge of the screen in Ikaruga. Give it a try.

And Mars Matrix is great, but the arcade version isn't even playable as far as I'm concerned. One button for three attacks is a horrible idea. Get yourself a copy of the Dreamcast version for a much better experience. Plus, you can't max out the score in the Dreamcast version either (not that it's easy to max out the arcade version or anything).

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by NES Oldskooler

I've seen that Ikaruga video before, but I just noticed something. Early on in the video, when one of the ships is being blasted by the huge laser, it presses him up against the wall, but he doesn't die.

You can't die by touching the farthest wall. Try it. At the start of stage 3, move straight left or right into the wall. You won't die.

Originally Posted by PKO

Yeah, lately I've been playing these two games on the PC called BlueWish and GreenWind (Link). The screens are a bit small but the games are good; I like BlueWish the best.

Yeah, those games are great. Mostly Cave clones, but always a good thing.

OKAY TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY FAVORITE PC SHMUP OF ALL TIME:

Galax



Galax is a fantastic shooter with a very unique gameplay, and level design that compliments the gameplay perfect, for the most part. The game has 6 levels with some very dynamic level design, all unique situations that will require clever planning if you are to score for points.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Controls(From Caiman free games site):

- From inside game
Arrow Keys = Movement (Game Pad)
C = Radar use/cancellation (A button)
X = Bomb selected object and Attack (Dual functions)(B Button)
Z = Shoot (C Button)
Esc = Pause/START button
F12 = Screen shot
Game pad users: the keys for game pad/joystick are redefinable.

- From inside menu
Arrow Keys = Item selection
Z = Activaste selction
Esc = Start

Using the bomb (keyboard keys)
While holding down the C key, push the X key then release both keys.
Selected targets will be hit if executed correctly.
------------------------------------------------------------------
First off, and this is likely to turn off many: You have a life bar AND lives. Now, you have a normal weapon which shoots a twin shot and two side shots that slightly home in on the enemy within the proximity. In short, it's basic.



But that's nothing compared to your secondary mechanic: A Lock-on device. Pressing the lock on button (C) activates a grid, it's dimensions the width of the ship to the top of the screen. If you hold it out for 2 seconds, it will literally expand to cover the whole screen. This allows you to lock on to enemies in order to do stuff with them.


Lock on device -------------------------------- Fully Expanded lock on screen

If you have enemies locked on for a while, their health (in numeric value) will be shown right above them.

If you let go of the (C) and you have enemies locked on, you will then stop moving. You have a short limited time to insert a command:

If you press (Z)-(X)-(C), then all enemies will be on freeze mode, and will stop all action. Frozen enemies will be indicated with a yellow crosshair. Any bullet touching a Frozen enemy will give you 10 points.

If you press (Z)-(Z)-(X)-(C), then all enemies will be on crush mode. Any enemy in this mode (large even!) will be marked with a purple crosshair, and once the diamond within it makes a full rotation, that enemy is destroyed! This does not work for all enemies, however.

Now comes the fun stuff:

If you press (up)-(down)-(Z)-(X)-(C), then all enemies will be on capture mode. Any enemies in this mode will BECOME YOUR ALLIES FOR A LIMITED TIME! A blue crosshair is the marker. Mines that home in on you suddenly home in on the other (non captured) enemies. Enemies that shoot toward you will shoot the enemy with blue bullets (the ally color). This is where the gameplay really opens up.


If you were to play just for beating it, you might as well freeze and crush everything to death, but that's no fun. If you want to play for points, you will NEED to us crush FAR LESS OFTEN. Freeze can give you a nice source of points, and Capture; well, any enemy bullet that hits an ally or any ally bullet that hits an enemy is worth 100 points. If a LARGE enemy is destroyed by allies, a TECHNICAL BONUS of 5000 points is rewarded. Finding out the methods of getting the Technical bonuses aren't hard, but pulling them off are certainly rewarding. The ultimate target is 1 million points ALL CLEAR.

Level design uses different situations that you will have to adapt to. For instance:



If you were on the RIGHT side of the screen at this point, you would have to freeze the middle section to open it up. Some of the later bosses have EXTREMELY COMPLICATED attack patterns, making them difficult to defeat.

The man responsible for this game, MasaHG, also did the music, which I think is great. It has a very heroic retro feel that suits the game perfectly.

The game can be downloaded here:
http://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/masaHG/glxmain.htm
the very last link before the break. It's a ZIP file, use WinRAR or WinZIP to open.

Once you unloaded all the files, go download the updated music here:
http://www.caimen.us/ZZZ/oggalax%20resampled.zip
It will come with a new music folder (Replace the old folder with the new one)
and a new EXE file to play the new music (replace this one with the original game). The music is just resampled OggVorbis with higher quality than the original General Midi files.

Have fun!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by NES Oldskooler

I've seen that Ikaruga video before, but I just noticed something. Early on in the video, when one of the ships is being blasted by the huge laser, it presses him up against the wall, but he doesn't die.

You might be getting confused with chapter 3 of Shikigami no Shiro II. The walls in Shikigami will kill you, but not in Ikaruga.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by MrMonkeyMan

You don't die from running into the edge of the screen in Ikaruga. Give it a try.

Whoa, you're right. I've always avoided them since I thought they were treated the same way as any wall. I doubt it'll help me out too much, but maybe it'll come in handy at some point. Thanks. Likewise to DarkComet and Elixir. You guys can get a thumbs up as well.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

So.

I imported ESP Galuda on the 20th of Feb.

It still hasn't arrived.

Not only does this make me want the game about 800 times more, but it's forcing me to watch MMM's videos over and over which just can't be healthy; until it arives.

I hope I made the right purchase. The only other PS2 shooting game I own is Raiden III, and well, that's pretty dull.

How ya doing, buddy?

ESPGALUDA is still wonderful.

It's a superbly balanced system that caters to more inexperienced players who use Kakusei to survive and get out of tight spots, and for the experienced, who use Kakusei to rack up massive points multipliers.

Movement in the levels isn't anywhere near as twitchy as in many Cave shooters and because of the pace and the implementation of Kakusei modes, it feels like a graceful dance rather than the typical tap-tap-tap-tap-tap feel of most shooters.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I've been playing a bunch of shooters on MAME lately. Most recently I've gotten stuck on DoDonPachi. Normally shmups that throw a million billion bullets at you piss me off, since it's usually just a cheap trap to kill you and take your money, but the Pachi games actually feel like it would be possible to survive with enough practice. I dig that there's visible safe paths through (most of) the attack patterns, even if it would require inhuman reflexes to squeeze your ship through there.

I'm cheesy and prefer the blue ship with the spread weapon, but I haven't really decided whether I like the laser or shot configuration better. Going with shot lets me just unconsciously mash the fire button and kill stuff incidentally while I focus on evasion, but the other mode gives me a Big Fucking Laser to melt everything with. I'm wondering if there's any practical reason to pick the red ship, since its weapons really aren't much wider than the laser beam?

I really want to try Radiant Silvergun too, but I can't seem to get MAME to run it. I know it probably won't go at full speed, but after verifying all the ROMs (and yes, I remembered the ST-V bios) it pops up a window briefly and kicks me back out. This makes me sad.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The Red ship has speed, and the most powerful shot and laser. Actually all the ships have the same power laser when you choose laser type.

Mainly, the Type-A is useful for playing the game for score. It allows you to accurately kill the enemies so you can keep your chain going for as long as possible. That and it's crazy powerful. And I like fast ships.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Darkcomet72

I could never get into chaining in RS, because you can only chain 1 color for the majority of the levels, leaving enemies out. Sure, it's unconventional, but I wasn't too fond of it. And the fact that you HAD to score to level up your weapons made it very unforgiving. It's still a fantastic game, with some cool bosses as well.

Concentrating on only one color will leave you utterly hopeless in some situations, the trick comes from finding the best combinations on the level on when to chain reds, when to concentrate on blues, or to abuse the fuck out of the red -> 1 blue -> yellow for 10 000 pts and up combinations, so you can score the biggest amount of points on each level.

and Megalith Beast, you should read up the translated script on that emuxhaven site that someone already linked to in this topic. It clears up quite a lot of the game.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I really liked Ikaruga and Gradius Gaiden.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Megalith Beast

Xenon 2 (megadrive) - This one is probably below average I think! First of all, it featured one pretty lame music track that repeated over and over, which was incredibly annoying. Secondly, the rate at which you fire is just, horribly slow, you end up missing half the enemys. It was just a pretty dull game! But...there were some cool powerups, you could get bullets and lasers firing everywhere!

You're an idiot.

Sorry, but you are.

Fair enough the Megadrive version of Xenon 2 was pretty wanky. It was a poor copy of the awesome Amiga version which was one of the finest scrolling shooters ever made. The "Lame music track" was called Metablast by Bomb the Bass and was possibly the first piece of computer game music produced by "serious" musicians and represented a huge leap forward in the mainstream acceptability of computer games. Also, it's an incredible tune.

The game itself borrowed from R-Type and so on but was graphically very impressive on it's first release and never suffered from any slow down. It's a seminal piece of gaming history and you're an idiot.

Other scrolling shooters I've enjoyed over the years were Apogee's "Raptor, Call of the Shadows" which while a little repetitive after a while was certainly frantic enough to keep you interested.

SWIV was another awesome Amiga game, especially two player (Sucked to be the jeep though).

Anyone who owned an Acorn Archimedes computer will surely agree that Nevryon was one of the finest games ever made for any computer.

More recently, Alien Hominid is the only scrolling shooter worth playing on modern consoles but it is fucking awesome. ^_^

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Shin

More recently, Alien Hominid is the only scrolling shooter worth playing on modern consoles but it is fucking awesome. ^_^

I thought Alien Hominid was kinda dull, actually. It wasn't boring (some of the bosses were awesome), but it felt too loose. And the normal enemies point blanking you from straight behind is never fun, just cheap. The final boss just flat out sucked, because it completely immobolizes your freedom (the machine just before it was fantastic, though)

Gradius Gaiden is a WINNER of a game, though. One of the best Horizontal scrolling shooters period. IMO even better than Gradius V (though that one is fantastic as well)

Cue MrMonkeyMan with a long, dull, and boring rant on how long, dull, and boring Gradius V is.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I guess I just get bored with normal scrolling games. AH had a sense of humour about it which keeps it interesting, I found. Also, it's super fun with two players.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

U.N. Squadron (Area 88)



Nice graphics, cool soundtrack, pretty though (the "gamer" difficulty was hell) and a lot of customizable airplaines. Finally a shooting game where beating enemies has some utility (gives you money to buy and upgrade your airplane).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Oh god, Alien Hominid is terrible.

I mean, worst-games-of-all-time terrible. It's a flash game, and somehow it's on PS2 and xbox now. It's all to promote some artist. I bought this and returned it the next day.

It would be better if the bullets were slower(say, Metal Slug speed) and you didn't go through 20 odd credits per level. I really didn't find that game to be positive in any shape or form.

And much like Metal Slug, it isn't considered a horizontal shooter. But oh well.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Shin

You're an idiot.

Sorry, but you are.

Fair enough the Megadrive version of Xenon 2 was pretty wanky. It was a poor copy of the awesome Amiga version which was one of the finest scrolling shooters ever made. The "Lame music track" was called Metablast by Bomb the Bass and was possibly the first piece of computer game music produced by "serious" musicians and represented a huge leap forward in the mainstream acceptability of computer games. Also, it's an incredible tune.

The game itself borrowed from R-Type and so on but was graphically very impressive on it's first release and never suffered from any slow down. It's a seminal piece of gaming history and you're an idiot.

Other scrolling shooters I've enjoyed over the years were Apogee's "Raptor, Call of the Shadows" which while a little repetitive after a while was certainly frantic enough to keep you interested.

SWIV was another awesome Amiga game, especially two player (Sucked to be the jeep though).

Anyone who owned an Acorn Archimedes computer will surely agree that Nevryon was one of the finest games ever made for any computer.

More recently, Alien Hominid is the only scrolling shooter worth playing on modern consoles but it is fucking awesome. ^_^

I know that track was supposed to be something special, but I just thought it sucked. I'm entitled to an opinion right?

Oh and I did use to have an Acorn Archimedes! And I did use to have Nevryon, and you're right, its utterly brilliant! I've been recently trying to get it to work on an archimedes emulator, without any success (I still own the original disc!). Oh, and Nevryon had WAY better music than Xenon 2 and that wasn't composed by a 'serious' musician .

Originally Posted by evilboris

and Megalith Beast, you should read up the translated script on that emuxhaven site that someone already linked to in this topic. It clears up quite a lot of the game.

Yeah I had a look at it, it was very interesting! It's really nice when these kinds of games have a deep and intrigueing plot. It adds a nice depth to the game which I think makes it far more satisfying to play since there is more purpose.

FELIPE NO

Looks like the Raizing style Cave games continue as both Ibara Kuro: Black Label (above) and Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara (below) are on their way and looking sexy.





The Pink Sweets poster looks a bit disturbing though



What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Do shooters-on-rails also count? Then the Panzer Dragoon series is missing here. ^^

Most amazing jew boots

Recently I've been playing the Super Famicom ROM of Parodius. It is weird beyond words! That said, whoever drew the pixel art for this game was clearly very talented, and it poses way more challenge than other Gradius-style shooters, if only because there's a lot of distractingly bizarre things coming at you, along with equally strange music and sound effects.

Screencap of the moment:


There's nowhere I can't reach.

Parodius is very awesome, the only MAJOR gripe I have are the pickups that start a roulette on the bar. I usually lose everything, then die, then instant game over.

How ya doing, buddy?