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Post by Sarge on Mar 1, 2019 0:05:50 GMT -5
I made it through Dragon Spirit not too long ago. If I can beat it, I suspect you can as well. I found it quite good, and it doesn't feel overly unfair.
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Post by toei on Mar 1, 2019 1:08:08 GMT -5
Sarge I know I can (as the children in the Nas song would say). I'm getting pretty good at judging a shmup's difficulty in relation to my skill level. Most of the times, the first and second level are easy, and you can get a good idea of the overall difficulty around the third or fourth. If those still seem reasonable at first attempt, the game will likely be pretty easy. And if the first level is already hard, then it's a real tough shmup. I've just made it to Level 7 on my second session; judging by the Gold Dragon mode, there are probably 9 (though I guess I wouldn't be surprised if there were a 10th level with the Blue Dragon). So I'm close already. If I didn't need to be up around 6am to start the training for my new job, I'd have finished it tonight. Also, seems I was wrong - despite the subtitle "A New Legend", the NES game is not a sequel, it's just a port, though the introduction stage and Gold Dragon mode are new. Apparently the TG-16 replaces two of the later stages with all-new ones, so I'll probably check it out, too. Since you liked the game, btw, you should really play Sylphia.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 1, 2019 11:19:02 GMT -5
I put that on the PS Classic because of your recommendation, actually, and played through a level last night. I didn't do as well as I'd like, so I'll start from scratch again when I go at it. Seemed pretty neat to me so far!
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Post by toei on Mar 1, 2019 13:18:03 GMT -5
Once you've got the weapon types and power-ups figured out, you should be able to blaze through it.
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 1, 2019 19:28:12 GMT -5
That Dragon Spirit music is amazing. Shinji Hosoe!
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Post by Ex on Mar 3, 2019 16:16:13 GMT -5
toei While parsing games I might play for the Master System theme, I was reminded of these two Game Gear releases: I know you're not much into portables, but I personally enjoyed beating Galvanic Gunner Aleste and Galvanic Gunner Aleste II on Game Gear. The latter was released as Power Strike II in Europe on Game Gear. Compile made both of these games btw. Interestingly the Power Strike and Power Strike II that Compile made on Master System are not the same games, despite having the same name as the Game Gear stuff. I am planning on checking out the Power Strike entries on Master System (I think Xeogred mentioned them as well).
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Post by toei on Mar 3, 2019 19:46:38 GMT -5
I'm planning on checking out most of the Aleste entries eventually. I'd already tried the GG Aleste games a few months ago and had been impressed by the speed and the amount of stuff going on for a 8-bit game. They're really intense.
- Finished Dragon Spirit NES. Pretty good, but 9 stages is more than I would have liked. 6 or 7 is a more comfortable number to me. That and the fact that it starts pretty slowly (largely because it's on the NES - the arcade original, as you'd expect, has a lot more enemies) made me less primed to start another game when I died. Good thing the difficulty isn't too high, because even after however many tries it took for me to beat it, I was already getting tired of the first few levels. IMO, a game that has Game Overs and no Save feature should keep things concise, precisely because it gets tiring to redo all those levels just to get back to where you died last time. The final boss sucked, too. I really have a thing against boss attacks that use that kind of bouncing ball pattern, they're just too unpredictable. Other than that, most of the other bosses went down very, very fast, even in the much harder arcade version (at least in 3 levels I've played or so). The levels I enjoyed the most were probably the ice level and the one immediately before, where you have to make your way through narrow spaces at high speed without crashing on the walls. Anyway, I'd probably give it a 7 or a 7.5.
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Post by toei on Apr 28, 2019 6:43:51 GMT -5
After almost two months of playing side-scrollers, it was about time I returned to this. For the last few days I've been playing Gate of Thunder, a PCE-CD shmup developed by the same team at RED that would later make the cult classic Lord of Thunder, before splitting off into a new company named CAProductions. This one has a more traditional - and I'd say boring - setting, with nearly the entire game taking place in space or inside some futuristic structure, shooting at other spaceships from within yours. The gameplay is quite typical too; power-ups grant access to three weapon types with two levels each and two satellites that add to your firepower. You can turn them around to fire behind you, which is rarely useful, and use them to damage enemies at close range just by making contact, which often is. They also act a shields, up to a point. You also have actual shield power-ups, which let you take up to three more hits; once it's gone, you die in one hit, losing most of your power-ups. Thankfully, speed is adjustable (having to collect power-ups just to move at a decent speed is no fun), and never really needs to be. While it does nothing new, it does things well. The levels are varied and action-packed, constantly throwing new things at you. They're also long, which I'm not normally a fan of, but the game is easy enough that it isn't a real problem. It's rare that gameplay can be intense without being hard, but this game somehow succeeds at it. The difficulty does pick up for the last three levels or so, though it never rises above an intermediate level. I did die a bunch of times during the next-to-last level especially, but then I'm still a beginner at this.
The bosses are usually simple and quick. To my surprise, I beat the final boss on my first attempt without taking a single hit, which may just be a first in my gaming career. Instinct just took over right in the beginning and I just kept away from its weapons, taking it down in little time. I was almost disappointed at it - it's just some kind of boring defense system - but I was also glad to beat the game on that try, so it washes out.
It's a fun game. I especially liked the green sound wave weapon; when fully powered-up, it covers most of the screen ahead of you, and feels satisfyingly powerful. For bosses I'd sometimes switch to the missiles, which deal a ton of damage. Nice music too, like most PCE-CD games. Another good shmup, especially for a newcomer to the genre, or someone who doesn't like them too spicy.
2018 1. Elemental Master 2. Trouble Shooter
2019 3. Insector X (GEN) 4. Sylphia (PCE-CD) 5. Aleste Gaiden (MSX2) 6. Dragon Spirit: A New Legend (NES) 7. Gate of Thunder (PCE-CD)
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Apr 29, 2019 17:45:15 GMT -5
Nice one! I also enjoyed Gates of Thunder. Its settings and scenarios are a little by-the-books, but its difficulty level and enemy placement and such were solid, and its OST is sweet. Kinda sits in the same realm as something like Thunder Force 3 for me, not a tough shooter compared to most, but also doesn't let you snooze through it like half of Compile's stuff, and its presentation is enough to keep you engaged.
What shmups are you thinking about trying next?
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Post by toei on Apr 29, 2019 19:20:12 GMT -5
dunpeal2064 I've got a list of about 20 titles yet to try, and I'm still adding more. These are some of the ones I've messed with since finishing Gate of Thunder: -Psycho Chaser (PCE) - This is one of the hardest games I've ever played. I was going to say the hardest, but then I remembered Undeadline. I like it, though. I'm just not sure whether I'll persevere now or put it away for the day I've built more shmup skills. I'm a big fan of shmups featuring humanoid characters, especially if they walk rather than fly (for some reason), and I'm also a fan of weapon systems where you have multiple weapons available at all times that are useful in different situations. This game is just merciless, though. I'd have liked more checkpoints, and I honestly think it might be a little too frantic to have one-hit deaths. But I had a lot of fun with it this morning. -Spriggan Powered (SFC) - This is one of the most boring games I've ever played. Extremely long levels with absolutely nothing going on but the same basic enemy waves. Just the laziest level design. Boring visually, too, with backgrounds that are mostly just uniform skies. And the second boss has an insane amount of health. I've heard the two mainline Spriggan games are good, though, and were made by a different developer (Compile), so I'll check them out at some point. -Dragon Saber (PCE) - Played it for a while. Made it to the 5th level. I like some aspects of it, and I liked the NES version of the prequel, but the dragon is too slow and too big in this one, leading to a lot of cheap deaths and forced memorization. I'd have probably stuck with it regardless if the beginning of Level 5 wasn't such a terrible roadblock. Also, the first game had 9 levels, which is at least two too many, so I don't think I'd have the patience to stick with it anyway. I tried a few more SNES shooters but all of them were sluggish and boring. R-Type 3 seemed better than the rest, but it had some awful slowdown. The exception is Super Aleste which is fast and responsive like every other Compile shooter, but I'm not a fan of the level design and overall vibe.
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