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best consoles for shmups and must haves for those systems


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6 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

You can find bad shooters on any system. Not sure why the PCE gets picked on.

I wasn't "picking on it". I was pointing out some bad ones to avoid, especially since Legion, L-Dis, and Rock-On tend to be cheaper shooters somebody might snag based on PC-E shooter rep+price. People would better served to pony up a little more dough for a better game. "picking on it". Sheesh. C'mon.

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5 hours ago, GoldenWheels said:

I wasn't "picking on it". I was pointing out some bad ones to avoid, especially since Legion, L-Dis, and Rock-On tend to be cheaper shooters somebody might snag based on PC-E shooter rep+price. People would better served to pony up a little more dough for a better game. "picking on it". Sheesh. C'mon.

 

Sorry, I wasn't saying *you* were picking on it, just that some people do. Austin above mentioned quantity over quality, for example. I was just piggy backing off your comments defending some shooters.

Edited by Rhomaios
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10 minutes ago, Rhomaios said:

 

Sorry, I wasn't saying *you* were picking on it, just that some people do. Austin above mentioned quantity over quality, for example. I was just piggy backing off your comments defending some shooters.

My bad, I gotcha. I said something randomly the other day about the turbo's best known bootlegger and got called toxic for it. My Turbo-soft spot must be too sensitive.

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25 minutes ago, Rhomaios said:

 

Sorry, I wasn't saying *you* were picking on it, just that some people do. Austin above mentioned quantity over quality, for example. I was just piggy backing off your comments defending some shooters.

The real system fir shmups that is quantity over quality is the NES/Famicom I have 30+ games. They vary in quality from god tier ((Compile, Capcom (in house, not outsourced), Komami)) to dogshit (Micronics lol).

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42 minutes ago, Rhomaios said:

Sorry, I wasn't saying *you* were picking on it, just that some people do. Austin above mentioned quantity over quality, for example. I was just piggy backing off your comments defending some shooters.

I call it as I see it. :)

 

I personally love it as a shmups platform, but it doesn't give me everything I want out of the genre. Later generations have a greater mix and there's generally less "bottom of the barrel" trash to sift through. "More" is not always "better", but some see it that way.

 

The PCE is still chock-full of quality shooters. It was just in an era before the genre fully matured and it was easy to crap one out without putting much effort into it (*cough* I'm looking at you, F-123).

13 minutes ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

The real system fir shmups that is quantity over quality is the NES/Famicom I have 30+ games. They vary in quality from god tier ((Compile, Capcom (in house, not outsourced), Komami)) to dogshit (Micronics lol).

You do know that more than one platform can be "quantity over quality", right? ;)

 

But yeah, I can agree with that. I went through the entire SMS shmup library recently and I'd toss that in there too. It seems these systems, with a few exceptions aside, just weren't able to do the genre justice compared to platforms in the 16-bit era.

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8 hours ago, Austin said:

I call it as I see it. :)

 

I personally love it as a shmups platform, but it doesn't give me everything I want out of the genre. Later generations have a greater mix and there's generally less "bottom of the barrel" trash to sift through. "More" is not always "better", but some see it that way.

 

The PCE is still chock-full of quality shooters. It was just in an era before the genre fully matured and it was easy to crap one out without putting much effort into it (*cough* I'm looking at you, F-123).

You do know that more than one platform can be "quantity over quality", right? ;)

 

But yeah, I can agree with that. I went through the entire SMS shmup library recently and I'd toss that in there too. It seems these systems, with a few exceptions aside, just weren't able to do the genre justice compared to platforms in the 16-bit era.

The Famicom/NES does have a handful of amazing shmups though. My fav being Gun-Nac.

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9 hours ago, GoldenWheels said:

My bad, I gotcha. I said something randomly the other day about the turbo's best known bootlegger and got called toxic for it. My Turbo-soft spot must be too sensitive.

 

All good, man. I actually agreed with you about him in that thread.

  

8 hours ago, Austin said:

I call it as I see it. :)

 

I personally love it as a shmups platform, but it doesn't give me everything I want out of the genre. Later generations have a greater mix and there's generally less "bottom of the barrel" trash to sift through. "More" is not always "better", but some see it that way.

 

The PCE is still chock-full of quality shooters. It was just in an era before the genre fully matured and it was easy to crap one out without putting much effort into it (*cough* I'm looking at you, F-123).

You do know that more than one platform can be "quantity over quality", right? ;)

 

But yeah, I can agree with that. I went through the entire SMS shmup library recently and I'd toss that in there too. It seems these systems, with a few exceptions aside, just weren't able to do the genre justice compared to platforms in the 16-bit era.

 

I definitely get it, we can agree to disagree civilly. Hard to do these days, but I know it's possible! For what it's worth, I would say that every console suffers from schlock games. I just tend to ignore it. I prefer to look at what we do have and judge consoles based on the number of good games, and the Turbo/PCE has plenty of quality games.

 

But more to your point, I actually find I'm less enthusiastic about some of that maturation. Overly complex scoring, collectathon-esque multipliers, anime and loli girls, and danmaku never really did it for me like short, simple, and sweet of the older shooters. There aren't very many Dreamcast-era and later shooters I love.

 

We can both agree on the Master System, though. I think it only has about 5 decent shooters (and R-Type can be found better elsewhere, leaving, what, 4?), and because of their price I had already decided it was more worth it to sell them then keep them. I know Europeans love it to pieces, but that console just does not do it for me.

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1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

I do like Master System Sagaia. It is amazing what they were able to wring out of the poor thing.

So the five I had in mind were: Astro Warrior, Power Strike I & II, R-Type, and Sagaia. Bomber Raid wasn't impressive last time I played, and I never played Cloud Master. I can't remember how well Sagaia played on the Master System, it's been years. I also never got a chance to play it on the Genesis or Turbo, but I assume it's better in 16 bit glory, no?

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5 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

I can't remember how well Sagaia played on the Master System, it's been years. I also never got a chance to play it on the Genesis or Turbo, but I assume it's better in 16 bit glory, no?

Super Darius II is the only PC Engine release, but it’s probably my favorite version. (It’s easier ;p)

 

The Genesis version is great.

 

The Master System version is fun. It’s just really, really stripped down. Bosses are smaller and they still have to eliminate all background graphics to be able to display them. I play it on the Game Gear for maximum pain.

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8 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

But more to your point, I actually find I'm less enthusiastic about some of that maturation.

Same here. There are countless quality classics from the "immature" era, and plenty of stinkers in the later one too. In fact, I consider the original Defender to be the best shoot'em up ever, and that's a game from the proto-era.

 

On an unrelated note, as somebody who had never owned any console before PSX, I just realized that you had to use d-pad to play most of these wonderful games. The horror! I'm now so used to the anologue stick on my Dualshock I can't imagine dealing with that. So, I'd have to revise my "best console" for the one which would allow some sort of joystick solution. I know there is an arcade board for Saturn, how about PCE?

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11 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

 

All good, man. I actually agreed with you about him in that thread.

  

 

I definitely get it, we can agree to disagree civilly. Hard to do these days, but I know it's possible! For what it's worth, I would say that every console suffers from schlock games. I just tend to ignore it. I prefer to look at what we do have and judge consoles based on the number of good games, and the Turbo/PCE has plenty of quality games.

 

But more to your point, I actually find I'm less enthusiastic about some of that maturation. Overly complex scoring, collectathon-esque multipliers, anime and loli girls, and danmaku never really did it for me like short, simple, and sweet of the older shooters. There aren't very many Dreamcast-era and later shooters I love.

 

We can both agree on the Master System, though. I think it only has about 5 decent shooters (and R-Type can be found better elsewhere, leaving, what, 4?), and because of their price I had already decided it was more worth it to sell them then keep them. I know Europeans love it to pieces, but that console just does not do it for me.

One thing I don't really like about the late 90s and early 2000s shmups is most of them are bullet hell to the max. Please no.

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The 32X is not the best system for shmups. In fact, it has only one. (EDIT: poor Zaxxon’s Motherbase 2000, even I forget it. Okay, two.) But that one is arguably the most beautiful game on the whole Genesis stack, as well as one of the most interesting. Kolibri is really unclassifiable. The best way I can describe it as Ecco the Dolphin turned into a shmup. (That’s also very literally what it is.) You play as a hummingbird with a range of weapons through autoscrolling and free-scrolling levels alike. Often there are puzzles, but ultimately your goal is to blow stuff up, collect lives, collect additional levels to your current good weapon, and make sure not to pick up one of the crappy weapons. (Oh god, not the smoke rings again.) IOW, it is a real shmup.

 

The expanded color range of the 32X is used to the fullest, with multiple layers of background and foreground that go beyond the merely pretty into the realm of uncanny and uncomfortable, which is to say, art. (I don’t know much about art, but I like what I know.) The lack of ANY HUD or onscreen indicators - of score, of lives, of goals, of directions - makes it one of the most immersive shooters I’ve ever played. The music and sound design similarly is rich, eerie, and organic. The most artificially video game-sounding thing you will hear is a harp.

 

The influences come from all over - Ecco, Fantasy Zone, Barunba, Atomic Robo-Kid - but they are synthesized fully into something entirely of one cloth, making for a singular and worthwhile playing experience. While it is true that the default Hard mode is absolutely sadistic, the Easy mode is a plenty satisfying challenge for most people, and selecting fast bird speed further evens the playing field. The password system lets you pick back up where you left off, but sometimes it’s hard to get through a level if you’re starting without a big backlog of extra lives and a powered up weapon.

 

After renting it repeatedly as a kid but never buying it, I got a cheap copy from a second hand game store fifteen years ago, at a time when all my classic gaming stuff was in the storage space or in the attic. I think I paid $15 cart only. It commands a much higher price now. I can’t say that it alone justifies getting a 32X and making it part of your Genesis/Megadrive installation, but for me personally it and superb 3D spaceflight sim Shadow Squadron were the two 32X games that kept me from selling my 32X in the years I was content with a DS, a Wii, and an Xbox 360. Spending some real quality time with it this week cemented that feeling. Of all the 32X library, this is the one I most wish would get revived.

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On 4/22/2021 at 1:34 PM, jgkspsx said:

The expanded color range of the 32X is used to the fullest, with multiple layers of background and foreground that go beyond the merely pretty into the realm of uncanny and uncomfortable, which is to say, art.

I believe that only the closest layer is 32X and not pushing a very high color count. Like most 32X games, most of the background is just the plain old Genesis.

 

32X games like Kolibri and Knuckles Chaotix make it easier to understand how color depth wasn't the big weakness of the Genesis, it was the low number of sub-palettes.

 

If the 32X was just a second Genesis inside and layered one Genesis over the other, it would have been much better than the 32X we got for 2D games and still good improvement for 3D.

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