The forgotten posts, part 3.
Team Too Close for Comfort as well as myself achieved decent results overall during the STGT 2011. It is a little bit sad that we lost the 5th place in the last week, but the point difference was so clear that Touhou Is Too Easy deserved it in the end. We would have needed a CRI with more free time to beat them. However the 5th place would have been the perfect result for us with these great competitors on the spots 1 to 4, so the 6th place is still good.
In the player rankings I ended up on the 21st place, compared to 15th in STGT 2010. Considering the different amounts of playtime this is a very natural decline, so I have no reason not to be content here. Only some individual scores should have been better, but this feeling can't be avoided in a weekly competition anyway.
The only thing I'm not so happy about is the choice of games and thus the amount of fun I had during the whole tournament. 2010 was very good, this year only Daioh turned out to be awesome from my point of view. Blade Buster was pretty good besides the fact that I sucked so much at it. Gokujou Parodius and P-47 Aces were mixed bags while 1944 received lots of hate from my side... I still found lots of enjoyment in the tournament, yet I hope next year will match my personal taste better.
The battle for the top spot in the team ranking between Touhou Is Harder and TCACTRM was the icing on the cake. Here's hoping for more exciting tournaments like this. Too great that it ended in a tie. I wouldn't mind TCACTRM to lose next year though. They have been ruling for long enough. ;)
November 5, 2011
STGT 2011 Week #5 - Blade Buster
The forgotten posts, part 2.
Remember my ramblings about pseudo Raizing week and pseudo Psikyo week? Well, Blade Buster is almost a pseudo Cave week to conclude it all. Not honestly this time, Blade Buster simply belongs to the subgenre of Caravan shooters. I hadn't played any of these before, so Blade Buster's mechanics only reminded me of Dangun Feveron's, concerning how a new enemy wave appears after all from the previous one have been destroyed. Just like Dangun Feveron this was the conluding week from the respective STGT where I almost ruined my overall result. I seem to suck hard at this type of games.
I wasn't so glad at first about the game choice, or let's say the choice of the platform specifically. The graphics as a whole aren't my cup of tea. 2D graphics inspire me on 16 bit and newer systems, but for Famicom graphics I honestly do not care for the most part. At least, slowdowns, flickering etc. weren't much of an issue. While not caring about the graphics, I adore the music from the 8 bit era. And since the music in Blade Buster isn't particularly enjoyable, there isn't much for me in this game at all; besides the gameplay itself.
Even with the gameplay I had several issues. It's not Blade Buster's fault though, my lack of skill and experience in Caravan games made me pay the price. Firstly, getting used to the necessary hectic style of play is a thing I still haven't managed. Secondly, my memorization abilities are a huge problem. I can memorize linear level designs where enemies always pop up at the same time and spot. In Blade Buster enemies spawn at different times, depending on the player's performance. So the scrolling background and enemy appearances create two different layers which are basically independent from each other. Since I personally need the background for memorizing the stage designs, this confuses me way too much. Last but not least there is my desire for small breaks between all the action which I have already explained in my comment on P-47 Aces.
But in the end I found myself having a lot of fun with Blade Buster. The game's length of 5 minutes was perfect to improve one's score fast, even without lots of playtime. The kill-as-fast-as-possible-to-get-more-enemies-to-shoot thing - despite the hectic pace - was really motivating. Not to forget those many secrets which gave the game some depth. Frustration barely ever showed up. In fact it only did after I realized on Sunday that I'm not able to do much better. I was still way too far away from the top spots or even the region where I usually rank in. I even think I got most secrets in my best run. If I had been able to do better, I would have had even more fun with Blade Buster. This way a slightly bitter taste remains. ;)
This week our team was crushed by Touhou Is Too Easy who took the 5th place in the overall ranking. Sadly they woke up after a very inconspicuous start into STGT. But the 6th place is still nice. Roughly what I had expected before the tournament, too. It didn't help that our best player CRI practically missed three weeks, but anyway. Next year we will strike back!
Results:
15. m3tall1ca - 1,629,300
39. STG - 1,481,200
48. Battletoad - 1,434,900
51. Geist - 1,414,600
66. Jockel - 1,267,500
72. DJW - 1,225,900
Remember my ramblings about pseudo Raizing week and pseudo Psikyo week? Well, Blade Buster is almost a pseudo Cave week to conclude it all. Not honestly this time, Blade Buster simply belongs to the subgenre of Caravan shooters. I hadn't played any of these before, so Blade Buster's mechanics only reminded me of Dangun Feveron's, concerning how a new enemy wave appears after all from the previous one have been destroyed. Just like Dangun Feveron this was the conluding week from the respective STGT where I almost ruined my overall result. I seem to suck hard at this type of games.
I wasn't so glad at first about the game choice, or let's say the choice of the platform specifically. The graphics as a whole aren't my cup of tea. 2D graphics inspire me on 16 bit and newer systems, but for Famicom graphics I honestly do not care for the most part. At least, slowdowns, flickering etc. weren't much of an issue. While not caring about the graphics, I adore the music from the 8 bit era. And since the music in Blade Buster isn't particularly enjoyable, there isn't much for me in this game at all; besides the gameplay itself.
Even with the gameplay I had several issues. It's not Blade Buster's fault though, my lack of skill and experience in Caravan games made me pay the price. Firstly, getting used to the necessary hectic style of play is a thing I still haven't managed. Secondly, my memorization abilities are a huge problem. I can memorize linear level designs where enemies always pop up at the same time and spot. In Blade Buster enemies spawn at different times, depending on the player's performance. So the scrolling background and enemy appearances create two different layers which are basically independent from each other. Since I personally need the background for memorizing the stage designs, this confuses me way too much. Last but not least there is my desire for small breaks between all the action which I have already explained in my comment on P-47 Aces.
But in the end I found myself having a lot of fun with Blade Buster. The game's length of 5 minutes was perfect to improve one's score fast, even without lots of playtime. The kill-as-fast-as-possible-to-get-more-enemies-to-shoot thing - despite the hectic pace - was really motivating. Not to forget those many secrets which gave the game some depth. Frustration barely ever showed up. In fact it only did after I realized on Sunday that I'm not able to do much better. I was still way too far away from the top spots or even the region where I usually rank in. I even think I got most secrets in my best run. If I had been able to do better, I would have had even more fun with Blade Buster. This way a slightly bitter taste remains. ;)
This week our team was crushed by Touhou Is Too Easy who took the 5th place in the overall ranking. Sadly they woke up after a very inconspicuous start into STGT. But the 6th place is still nice. Roughly what I had expected before the tournament, too. It didn't help that our best player CRI practically missed three weeks, but anyway. Next year we will strike back!
Results:
15. m3tall1ca - 1,629,300
39. STG - 1,481,200
48. Battletoad - 1,434,900
51. Geist - 1,414,600
66. Jockel - 1,267,500
72. DJW - 1,225,900
STGT 2011 Week #4 - P-47 Aces
My god... several months have passed since my last post and I haven't even bothered to finish my STGT comments. Ok, I'm being a bit too harsh with myself, I got very busy with my work and rarely had even time to play any games. So using my little free time to look forward was my choice rather than looking back to STGT.
However, now with more time to think about it (and Kollision's inducement ;) ), I'm not really happy with this incomplete treatment. I even had made some notes on the last two games already. Probably no one cares anymore, but let's nontheless finish this for the sake of completion and mostly for myself, if I ever want read this again and refresh my memories.
P-47 Aces - a second horizontal in the same STGT! Does not happen that often, eh? I sure hadn't expected this and in the end I can say, I wasn't that happy about it either. I am not quite as good in horizontals, let alone when played with a keyboard. My finger position is not ideal for them as I use my right middle finger for both the up and down buttons and that slows down my vertical movements. For a horizontal game with lightning fast bullets like P-47 Aces, this is a killer. Now someone might ask why I don't bother to buy a USB pad instead. I have already tried a bunch of different ones, but without finding a satisfactory solution. (If you have any tips, feel free to contribute.) I gave up some time ago and got used to playing with a keyboard instead. It works well in most cases, but... anyway, I'm rambling too much once again, back on topic.
You could say that 1944 was a pseudo Raizing week in 2011's tournament, then I'd like to call P-47 Aces the pseudo Psikyo week. It is still very different with these two though. While 1944 was developed by Raizing and didn't feel like it at all (because it was done for Capcom and stands in the tradition of their series), P-47 wasn't developed by Psikyo, but clearly reminded me of them. It has some similar trademarks like orange-coloured bullets with lightning-fast speed as well as the nature of the bullet patterns. So P-47 Aces made me think of Sengoku Blade instantly, Psikyo's only memorable horizontal shmup. (Pilot Kids doesn't exist.) Even though P-47 Aces was released one year beforehand.
Since I love Psikyo that should be a great thing. And indeed, I would have also liked P-47 Aces, hadn't it been for two things:
I am not even complaining I guess. It is just sad, this could have been a fun game. The excitement of waving through the fast bullet patterns, the uncomplicated gameplay and the weird, but somehow cool humping feature - all awesome. The humping is like the signature feature of P-47 Aces. It is totally broken since players have to exploit luck-included glitches to get top scores. For a more average player like me this was fun nevertheless. I mean, how cool is it to forget about collision detection for once, jump around on walls and enemies and even get points for that? Pretty fun and original.
I am not such a fan of the game's rhythm though. It feels like getting overwhelmed constantly. Enemies are approaching without breaks, you are just dodging and dodging and dodging and begging for a respite. I prefer a more controlled way of playing to this constant stress. That's also the reason why Zero Gunner 2 and Giga Wing are my favourite Shooting Games: I like to get several slight ups and downs in the game's tension, difficulty increases and sometimes small breaks to get some rest and a reward after dodging tons of stuff, even if it is only for two seconds. P-47 Aces only offers a never ending and never changing wall of troubles.
At last I tried my best, but sucked at this brutal game. I was just lucky that everyone did apparently, leading to an average position for myself, somewhere in the 30s like usual. medals was our team's best player once more and DJW got his first score for the team's top 3. We, the Team Too Close for Comfort, could hold our 5th place in the overall team ranking.
Results:
17. m3tall1ca - 2,037,860
34. Battletoad - 1,216,970
35. DJW - 1,201,720
57. Geist - 737,520
However, now with more time to think about it (and Kollision's inducement ;) ), I'm not really happy with this incomplete treatment. I even had made some notes on the last two games already. Probably no one cares anymore, but let's nontheless finish this for the sake of completion and mostly for myself, if I ever want read this again and refresh my memories.
P-47 Aces - a second horizontal in the same STGT! Does not happen that often, eh? I sure hadn't expected this and in the end I can say, I wasn't that happy about it either. I am not quite as good in horizontals, let alone when played with a keyboard. My finger position is not ideal for them as I use my right middle finger for both the up and down buttons and that slows down my vertical movements. For a horizontal game with lightning fast bullets like P-47 Aces, this is a killer. Now someone might ask why I don't bother to buy a USB pad instead. I have already tried a bunch of different ones, but without finding a satisfactory solution. (If you have any tips, feel free to contribute.) I gave up some time ago and got used to playing with a keyboard instead. It works well in most cases, but... anyway, I'm rambling too much once again, back on topic.
You could say that 1944 was a pseudo Raizing week in 2011's tournament, then I'd like to call P-47 Aces the pseudo Psikyo week. It is still very different with these two though. While 1944 was developed by Raizing and didn't feel like it at all (because it was done for Capcom and stands in the tradition of their series), P-47 wasn't developed by Psikyo, but clearly reminded me of them. It has some similar trademarks like orange-coloured bullets with lightning-fast speed as well as the nature of the bullet patterns. So P-47 Aces made me think of Sengoku Blade instantly, Psikyo's only memorable horizontal shmup. (Pilot Kids doesn't exist.) Even though P-47 Aces was released one year beforehand.
Since I love Psikyo that should be a great thing. And indeed, I would have also liked P-47 Aces, hadn't it been for two things:
- The invisible bullets. Whoever thought it would be a good idead to place light-green bullets with a weird flashing animation in front of a light-coloured background or even loads of white smoke, should be tied to a chair and forced to play this for the rest of his lifetime, always to be punished after he lost a life. I probably died half of the time only because I couldn't see the bullets in time. So much about a fair challenge.
- The powerdowns after a death. This game is the perfect example of how a game can be designed unfair even without checkpoints. You are left totally powerless. You often can't collect the powerups which are left on the screen either since they might be out of reach and take ages to get near you. You can use one or two bombs to grab them without being shot, but even then you are still underpowered. Cheap and frustrating like every checkpoint shooter.
I am not even complaining I guess. It is just sad, this could have been a fun game. The excitement of waving through the fast bullet patterns, the uncomplicated gameplay and the weird, but somehow cool humping feature - all awesome. The humping is like the signature feature of P-47 Aces. It is totally broken since players have to exploit luck-included glitches to get top scores. For a more average player like me this was fun nevertheless. I mean, how cool is it to forget about collision detection for once, jump around on walls and enemies and even get points for that? Pretty fun and original.
I am not such a fan of the game's rhythm though. It feels like getting overwhelmed constantly. Enemies are approaching without breaks, you are just dodging and dodging and dodging and begging for a respite. I prefer a more controlled way of playing to this constant stress. That's also the reason why Zero Gunner 2 and Giga Wing are my favourite Shooting Games: I like to get several slight ups and downs in the game's tension, difficulty increases and sometimes small breaks to get some rest and a reward after dodging tons of stuff, even if it is only for two seconds. P-47 Aces only offers a never ending and never changing wall of troubles.
At last I tried my best, but sucked at this brutal game. I was just lucky that everyone did apparently, leading to an average position for myself, somewhere in the 30s like usual. medals was our team's best player once more and DJW got his first score for the team's top 3. We, the Team Too Close for Comfort, could hold our 5th place in the overall team ranking.
Results:
17. m3tall1ca - 2,037,860
34. Battletoad - 1,216,970
35. DJW - 1,201,720
57. Geist - 737,520
August 31, 2011
STGT 2011 Week #3 - 1944: The Loop Master
I must be fair, 1944: The Loop Master never had a real chance with me. In shooting games I enjoy dodging a lot more than shooting, a formula with equal proportions is nice, too. But I don't like such an emphasize on shooting in most cases anymore and so I didn't have much fun with this game either. I don't accuse 1944 for being this way, yet there are quite a few things that are simply wrong in this game. Firstly, the hitbox including your small sideplanes is huge and it's not fun to lose so many of your assistants because you don't have enough room to dodge. Secondly, I found the ship speed being too slow, especially since it is a vertically oriented game on a horizontal screen.
Then there is this lifebar thing. Before this week I didn't understand how much hate this mechanic gets. I mean how should a lifebar ruin a game if it's fairly similar to having lives, just that you don't explode and respawn, but stay on the screen? Can't possibly be worse than checkpoints and losing all powerups. Indeed it isn't, nontheless I understand the problems now. It is just wishy-washy. I screamed at the screen more than once not understanding how I had so little energy left. Numbers as the amount of lives are simply way more convincing and obvious than this. So I thought I must have received so much damage from one mistake because of getting hit by several bullets or something. Then I tried this out in practice runs, flew into enemy shots twice in a very short interval and noticed that you are given a decent time of invincibilty after one hit. But then it just happened again. I swear that I got multiple hits in a row without invincibility several times. I don't get it.
The worst part about 1944 is the invincibility during charge shots. Not directly, but how the game design is based around it. End bosses are the best example. Their patterns, or at least some of them, are just broken. What you are supposed to do is mostly use your charge shots and bombs on them. Otherwise there is no way to dodge certain attacks or it is way too dangerous. And when you figured out a pattern and think about dodging, suddenly sub-turrets which have been passive in every previous run start to shoot for no reason and ruin your plan. Sounds like fun, right?
So these are not the exciting and fair boss fights I would wish for. Moreover, some end bosses hop around the screen like madmen. So unsteady that it's just annoying. Incidentally, it is also odd to see the normal enemies' movement in this game which is kept rather realistic, and then boss planes with these crazy flying routes and tanks accelerating and braking like they had turbos on their backs.
I have to be honest one more time as I liked a few things about 1944 indeed. The tactical use of your sideplanes like shot blocking and suiciding to execute a minibomb are sweet. The possibility to load up your charge shot in multiple phases adds another tactical element and leads to fast transitions between normal shooting and charge shots. Yet I'm not a huge fan of these charge shots that take forever to load. That bothered me in early Psikyo shooters already.
I absolutely don't know what more to say about this game. I just didn't like it. I even screwed around senselessly with the player sides, switched to P2 side early because I don't like Lightning's ship design. Then I noticed far too late how often I got hit because I guessed my ship's positioning wrong. Zero's green sprite tended not to have enough contrast to the background since there are so many damn forest levels. So I switched back to P1 on Sunday, even though it didn't help anymore. My best run even ended by triggering a bomb just slightly too late. The bomb was activated, but the lack of instant panic function wanted my game to be over. I at least reached my minimum goal of 6 million, 7 million were in reach though. Considering how little time I had before the weekend and how inconsistent I performed on this game, I still can be half-content with my score. medals also hated 1944 and got a similar score while CRI was back to kick some ass. Not a too bad week for Team Too Close for Comfort, somehow it even got us the 5th place in the overall ranking.
Funny side note: I got shocked when I finally had a look on the title screen on Sunday to find out the game was indeed released in 2000. It already said "2000 Capcom" in the YouTube No Miss replay, but I just ignored it thinking "no way". It feels and looks so oldschool that I would have expected mid 90s or something. The boss sprites are huge and well done, but besides them I didn't find the graphics exciting or nice to look at or whatever.
Results:
16. CRI - 12,875,900
31. Battletoad - 6,312,670
34. m3tall1ca - 6,038,280
66. STG - 3,641,720
67. Geist - 3,578,889
89. DJW - 2,525,800
Then there is this lifebar thing. Before this week I didn't understand how much hate this mechanic gets. I mean how should a lifebar ruin a game if it's fairly similar to having lives, just that you don't explode and respawn, but stay on the screen? Can't possibly be worse than checkpoints and losing all powerups. Indeed it isn't, nontheless I understand the problems now. It is just wishy-washy. I screamed at the screen more than once not understanding how I had so little energy left. Numbers as the amount of lives are simply way more convincing and obvious than this. So I thought I must have received so much damage from one mistake because of getting hit by several bullets or something. Then I tried this out in practice runs, flew into enemy shots twice in a very short interval and noticed that you are given a decent time of invincibilty after one hit. But then it just happened again. I swear that I got multiple hits in a row without invincibility several times. I don't get it.
The worst part about 1944 is the invincibility during charge shots. Not directly, but how the game design is based around it. End bosses are the best example. Their patterns, or at least some of them, are just broken. What you are supposed to do is mostly use your charge shots and bombs on them. Otherwise there is no way to dodge certain attacks or it is way too dangerous. And when you figured out a pattern and think about dodging, suddenly sub-turrets which have been passive in every previous run start to shoot for no reason and ruin your plan. Sounds like fun, right?
So these are not the exciting and fair boss fights I would wish for. Moreover, some end bosses hop around the screen like madmen. So unsteady that it's just annoying. Incidentally, it is also odd to see the normal enemies' movement in this game which is kept rather realistic, and then boss planes with these crazy flying routes and tanks accelerating and braking like they had turbos on their backs.
I have to be honest one more time as I liked a few things about 1944 indeed. The tactical use of your sideplanes like shot blocking and suiciding to execute a minibomb are sweet. The possibility to load up your charge shot in multiple phases adds another tactical element and leads to fast transitions between normal shooting and charge shots. Yet I'm not a huge fan of these charge shots that take forever to load. That bothered me in early Psikyo shooters already.
I absolutely don't know what more to say about this game. I just didn't like it. I even screwed around senselessly with the player sides, switched to P2 side early because I don't like Lightning's ship design. Then I noticed far too late how often I got hit because I guessed my ship's positioning wrong. Zero's green sprite tended not to have enough contrast to the background since there are so many damn forest levels. So I switched back to P1 on Sunday, even though it didn't help anymore. My best run even ended by triggering a bomb just slightly too late. The bomb was activated, but the lack of instant panic function wanted my game to be over. I at least reached my minimum goal of 6 million, 7 million were in reach though. Considering how little time I had before the weekend and how inconsistent I performed on this game, I still can be half-content with my score. medals also hated 1944 and got a similar score while CRI was back to kick some ass. Not a too bad week for Team Too Close for Comfort, somehow it even got us the 5th place in the overall ranking.
Funny side note: I got shocked when I finally had a look on the title screen on Sunday to find out the game was indeed released in 2000. It already said "2000 Capcom" in the YouTube No Miss replay, but I just ignored it thinking "no way". It feels and looks so oldschool that I would have expected mid 90s or something. The boss sprites are huge and well done, but besides them I didn't find the graphics exciting or nice to look at or whatever.
Results:
16. CRI - 12,875,900
31. Battletoad - 6,312,670
34. m3tall1ca - 6,038,280
66. STG - 3,641,720
67. Geist - 3,578,889
89. DJW - 2,525,800
August 26, 2011
STGT 2011 Week #2 - Daioh
Daioh! Just listen to the voice shouting the title at the end of the intro: it tells you right in the face how cool and wicked this game is. Welcome to awesomeness! Or not? Admittedly, this is the purest form of a love or hate game. Or even both at once. I had loads of fun with it personally.
My first impressions were decent already. Daioh appeared to me as a mix of Raiden Fighters and Tatsujin. Yeah I know it was released a few years before Raiden Fighters, but the fast bullets and frantic gameplay reminded me a lot of it. Perhaps it would be better to compare it to the original Raiden, but to be honest I don't know that one well enough to do so. Tatsujin on the other hand... well just look around. Stage 4 is Tatsujin! It seems to borrow complete enemy sprites, attack patterns and background layouts from Toaplan's late-80s shooter. Additionally, Daioh has three different kick-ass weapons for your ship: lightning (blue), spreadshot (red) and forward shot. How could you not think Tatsujin? Some may find these similarities cheap, I think it is awesome this way. It somehow feels like another, more straight forward version of Tatsujin, not too memorization-heavy and with not such a huge hitbox and thus more enjoyable for me. Together with the nice graphics and catchy music this caused a fat grin that got frozen into my face during the first hours to play it. All the fun made me forget Parodius' frustration fast.
The three different bomb types are something I have never seen before in any shooting game. Sure, at first it was annoying to get used to all the 6 buttons, but the variety of the bombs' impacts added another nice tactical element to the game. Once the stages are learned, you can keep your finger prepared for the most appropriate bomb for the specific passages.
Apart from that aspect Daioh is not particularly a shmup that wants to be innovative. I even tend to say that it sends forth a fairly cheesy charm as it steals more than the above mentioned things from other games, is not always perfectly balanced and feels a bit weird to say the least. Yet the overall game is so fun that the lack of originality didn't bother me.
Daioh still has its flaws, no doubt. The shot patterns are extremely simplistic and repetitive. Looking at the release date this is no big deal though. The fast bullets combined with a certain amount of randomness lead to cheap deaths, but keeping rank low can mostly bypass this problem, too. The enemies shooting at you from each possible position, angle and distance with barely any possibility to point blank them was unfamiliar and annoying at first. If you take care of all the enemies carefully, you can avoid evil bullets from the side rather easily though. The only thing that really stinks is bullet visibility. When everything on the screen flickers during certain explosions you better beg for not getting hit. Not only the bullets disappear momentarily, sometimes the enemies do so, too. So there you go thinking you have destroyed them, before they appear out of nowhere again and hit you with a shot to the face. Brilliant. However I died to this only three or four times during the whole week which I still don't understand. Must have been lucky. Enemy shots also get camouflaged in normal explosions although that wasn't too much of a problem for me.
Unlike Gokujou Parodius, Daioh kept my fun alive throughout the week, even with these issues. Simply because it does a lot of things right. I will only mention a few.
Let's have a look at the checkpoint system. I am horrible at this kind of games and always get way more frustrated than motivated. It is ridiculous and unfair since one mistake can kiss your whole run goodbye. But what does Daioh do? It takes the system of going back and losing powerups to a much more forgiving level. You never have to go back really far as there are tons of checkpoints in each stage, you are given a decent initial ship speed, you even keep a few powerups if you had unused P items in your stock and you can make use of three bombs which should usually get you to the next checkpoint at least. You even respawn instantly when dying during a boss battle. Come on, seriously, who are the geniuses that developed this game? Ok, I do not mean that fully serious as it shouldn't be that hard to program a fair checkpoint shooter where it is possible to recover from deaths without being a shooter god. The thing is, apparently no one had the guts (or rather the mercy) to do it, especially not companies like Konami and Toaplan. So hats off, Athena! Loop 2 is still a different story though.
If there is one thing that characterizes Daioh, it shall be the lightning weapon. I said it on day one and I can only repeat myself: best homing laser ever. It is fast, precise, jumps from enemy to enemy or even circles around in an opposing ship until it dies. Just watching the laser dance around the screen is incredibly cool. No more explanations needed.
In the end the rules of STGT do not apply to this game as I actually loved it at the end of the week. I did go through a huge hole just before the weekend though. I struggled a lot, especially because of having almost no experience with rank management in shmups. Thus I had 1.7 million in stage 1-5 by Saturday noon. All the time (even though it wasn't much of it), I had approached it in two wrong ways:
On Saturday I finally did it right. Picking up no point items, but powering up fully and collecting nothing after that was the key and made the game much, much easier, especially when rank decreased after not collecting the flashing powerup. Furthermore, a lot of credit goes to m3tall1ca who helped me out and gave many tips. Without him I would never have beaten the first loop, let alone reached stage 2-4.
So this was not only a great game for my taste, but a beautiful week overall, ending with my first STGT 1CC (I count a 1-ALL as 1CC and additional loops as a bonus only) and my best effort in both of my tournaments by far. Well yeah I only ranked 23rd, way behind my 11th place in Mars Matrix last year, but I already had played that game before and wasn't fully content with my score. With Daioh I couldn't have been happier. So thanks Daioh, your place in my recently posted top 25 shmups list is well-deserved.
Our team result turned out great, too. Our best player CRI didn't have much time unfortunately, otherwise it could have been even better.
Results:
16. m3tall1ca - 6,217,630
23. Battletoad - 4,809,450
34. Jockel - 3,569,460
51. DJW - 2,012,730
62. Geist - 1,726,790
64. CRI - 1,704,180
My first impressions were decent already. Daioh appeared to me as a mix of Raiden Fighters and Tatsujin. Yeah I know it was released a few years before Raiden Fighters, but the fast bullets and frantic gameplay reminded me a lot of it. Perhaps it would be better to compare it to the original Raiden, but to be honest I don't know that one well enough to do so. Tatsujin on the other hand... well just look around. Stage 4 is Tatsujin! It seems to borrow complete enemy sprites, attack patterns and background layouts from Toaplan's late-80s shooter. Additionally, Daioh has three different kick-ass weapons for your ship: lightning (blue), spreadshot (red) and forward shot. How could you not think Tatsujin? Some may find these similarities cheap, I think it is awesome this way. It somehow feels like another, more straight forward version of Tatsujin, not too memorization-heavy and with not such a huge hitbox and thus more enjoyable for me. Together with the nice graphics and catchy music this caused a fat grin that got frozen into my face during the first hours to play it. All the fun made me forget Parodius' frustration fast.
The three different bomb types are something I have never seen before in any shooting game. Sure, at first it was annoying to get used to all the 6 buttons, but the variety of the bombs' impacts added another nice tactical element to the game. Once the stages are learned, you can keep your finger prepared for the most appropriate bomb for the specific passages.
Apart from that aspect Daioh is not particularly a shmup that wants to be innovative. I even tend to say that it sends forth a fairly cheesy charm as it steals more than the above mentioned things from other games, is not always perfectly balanced and feels a bit weird to say the least. Yet the overall game is so fun that the lack of originality didn't bother me.
Daioh still has its flaws, no doubt. The shot patterns are extremely simplistic and repetitive. Looking at the release date this is no big deal though. The fast bullets combined with a certain amount of randomness lead to cheap deaths, but keeping rank low can mostly bypass this problem, too. The enemies shooting at you from each possible position, angle and distance with barely any possibility to point blank them was unfamiliar and annoying at first. If you take care of all the enemies carefully, you can avoid evil bullets from the side rather easily though. The only thing that really stinks is bullet visibility. When everything on the screen flickers during certain explosions you better beg for not getting hit. Not only the bullets disappear momentarily, sometimes the enemies do so, too. So there you go thinking you have destroyed them, before they appear out of nowhere again and hit you with a shot to the face. Brilliant. However I died to this only three or four times during the whole week which I still don't understand. Must have been lucky. Enemy shots also get camouflaged in normal explosions although that wasn't too much of a problem for me.
Unlike Gokujou Parodius, Daioh kept my fun alive throughout the week, even with these issues. Simply because it does a lot of things right. I will only mention a few.
Let's have a look at the checkpoint system. I am horrible at this kind of games and always get way more frustrated than motivated. It is ridiculous and unfair since one mistake can kiss your whole run goodbye. But what does Daioh do? It takes the system of going back and losing powerups to a much more forgiving level. You never have to go back really far as there are tons of checkpoints in each stage, you are given a decent initial ship speed, you even keep a few powerups if you had unused P items in your stock and you can make use of three bombs which should usually get you to the next checkpoint at least. You even respawn instantly when dying during a boss battle. Come on, seriously, who are the geniuses that developed this game? Ok, I do not mean that fully serious as it shouldn't be that hard to program a fair checkpoint shooter where it is possible to recover from deaths without being a shooter god. The thing is, apparently no one had the guts (or rather the mercy) to do it, especially not companies like Konami and Toaplan. So hats off, Athena! Loop 2 is still a different story though.
If there is one thing that characterizes Daioh, it shall be the lightning weapon. I said it on day one and I can only repeat myself: best homing laser ever. It is fast, precise, jumps from enemy to enemy or even circles around in an opposing ship until it dies. Just watching the laser dance around the screen is incredibly cool. No more explanations needed.
In the end the rules of STGT do not apply to this game as I actually loved it at the end of the week. I did go through a huge hole just before the weekend though. I struggled a lot, especially because of having almost no experience with rank management in shmups. Thus I had 1.7 million in stage 1-5 by Saturday noon. All the time (even though it wasn't much of it), I had approached it in two wrong ways:
- Picking up everything for points and thus raising the rank way too much. Very fun way to play the game in the first 3 stages, rushing over the screen with maximum speed and dodging all the lightning fast shit coming at you, but it gets too ridiculous in stage 4 and afterwards.
- Collecting nothing and powering up just slightly. Also working in the first stages, but then you are too underpowered.
On Saturday I finally did it right. Picking up no point items, but powering up fully and collecting nothing after that was the key and made the game much, much easier, especially when rank decreased after not collecting the flashing powerup. Furthermore, a lot of credit goes to m3tall1ca who helped me out and gave many tips. Without him I would never have beaten the first loop, let alone reached stage 2-4.
So this was not only a great game for my taste, but a beautiful week overall, ending with my first STGT 1CC (I count a 1-ALL as 1CC and additional loops as a bonus only) and my best effort in both of my tournaments by far. Well yeah I only ranked 23rd, way behind my 11th place in Mars Matrix last year, but I already had played that game before and wasn't fully content with my score. With Daioh I couldn't have been happier. So thanks Daioh, your place in my recently posted top 25 shmups list is well-deserved.
Our team result turned out great, too. Our best player CRI didn't have much time unfortunately, otherwise it could have been even better.
Results:
16. m3tall1ca - 6,217,630
23. Battletoad - 4,809,450
34. Jockel - 3,569,460
51. DJW - 2,012,730
62. Geist - 1,726,790
64. CRI - 1,704,180
August 22, 2011
STGT 2011 Week #1 - Gokujou Parodius
My concluding thoughts for Gokujou Parodius. Most of it probably has been said before, but anyway.
What I liked:
What I hated:
So this was a week with very mixed feelings. Our team ended up struggling a lot and I was wasn't really happy with my score either. With 900,000 points I would have been, but stage 3 kept kicking me hard. CRI saved our asses, so our team result wasn't too bad.
Results:
13. CRI - 1,017,400
41. Battletoad - 787,600
42. m3tall1ca - 779,400
57. DJW - 723,600
88. Geist - 564,100
What I liked:
- Another Konami shooter, but simply a huge improvement over Xexex last year. Weapons, gameplay, level design, graphics, music, score-based extends - all much better than in the R-Type clone. The only thing that Xexex did a lot better was the usage of shields. See below.
- Graphics and music. The graphics are colourful and the bosses outstandingly animated. But Parodius lives from its setting of course. The funny, cute and often rather obscure style adds greatly to the fun of the game and even makes some frustrating deaths more bearable. Same can be said for the soundtrack. Though borrowing from classical music a lot, it sounds unmistakably like Parodius due to the overall well executed rearrangements.
- The powerup system is great. Really. But just as long as you stay alive.
- Weapon variety and character selection are also cool. I tried everyone at least once, then chose Michael before sticking with Koitsu for the rest of the week. The characters without the traditional option system allow for great variety and yet fit well into Parodius.
- I was very much afraid of the bell chaining at the beginning of the week. It turned out it wasn't so bad in stage 1 and 2 at least. Admittedly, it even was fun to figure out the best ways not to break your chain. From stage 3 on it just got ridiculous nontheless because I couldn't find enough time to let off the fire button and grab the bells without getting massively overwhelmed. But I was surprised to find myself having some fun with the scoring.
- The bell powers are all fun and of good use if you just have the luck and/or eye coordination and planning to get the right one at the right time. Sadly I didn't have neither.
What I hated:
- Checkpoints and powerdowns. I think nothing more needs to be said here. It's unfair, cheap and not even necessary. Why can't you keep at least some of your powerups? Trying to recover at certain spots is cruel and for me next to impossible as I am not so good at it.
- The rank "helps" a lot with that. It goes insane quickly and then drops very slowly after dying. After the first death you are still encountered with countless bullets, just you don't have any weapons to deal with the enemies. After losing most of your lives, the rank is low enough to finally have a chance again. Wow.
- The hitbox always felt weird. Several times I had the impression that I died shortly before getting hit or I thought to have dodged a bullet yet died. Moreover the collision detection is very inconsistent. You can almost fly through the destroyable mass in stage 3, but the boss' lasers seemingly kill you even with a few pixels distance to your ship. Either I'm just not used to huge hitboxes anymore or Parodius' one is just messed up.
- How would I accept the unfair checkpoint system? If the game would still allow some mistakes without the brutal punishment, for example with shields. Gokujou Parodius does have shields, but they are mostly garbage. Some take more hits, but just protect you from the front, others increase your hitbox (probably double size) and vanish before they actually get useful. Koitsu's shield is decent actually (and the main reason why I chose him over Michael), can take a lot of hits and offers a little protection from above and below, too. Only problem is the lack of indication how many bullets it can still hold off. I still managed to get hit a lot from behind, too.
- The most terrifying thing about this game was stage 3 though and this statement is probably even more subjective than the rest. Not only have I never no missed it, moreover most of my runs ended here as I died in any possible way this stage offers. It actually got worse throughout the week. After constant improvements, I reached stage 5 a few times, but then problems just increased as I performed better, always got the Moai battleship after stage 2 and thus raised the rank for stage 3 to "insane". The limitation of movement, masses of durable enemies dancing all over the screen, countless bullets and stuff falling down... my god. There we have it again, the Xexex-style difficulty jump. Would have been a better stage 5 or so. Seriously, this stage will hunt me down in my nightmares. Forever.
So this was a week with very mixed feelings. Our team ended up struggling a lot and I was wasn't really happy with my score either. With 900,000 points I would have been, but stage 3 kept kicking me hard. CRI saved our asses, so our team result wasn't too bad.
Results:
13. CRI - 1,017,400
41. Battletoad - 787,600
42. m3tall1ca - 779,400
57. DJW - 723,600
88. Geist - 564,100
August 21, 2011
STGT 2011 - Introduction
Alright! Let's get the dust off this blog and open up a new chapter that is long overdue: the Shooting Game Tournament 2011. As I'm horribly late with my planned concluding thoughts for each week, we are already heading towards the end of this journey full of fun, action, frustration, anger and great competition. I can't even say I was lazy, my time simply is very limited this year and I didn't want to waste too much of my free time not playing. Anyway, to me STGT 2011 has been surprising with the choice of the specific games that I mostly haven't even heard of before, let alone played. I also hadn't really expected so much oldschool and two horizontals. What hasn't been so surprising was the overall feel of the tournament. It is clearly business as usual. What I mean by that:
But I'll just stop the ramblings and get straight to Gokujou Parodius. Post coming today or tomorrow. Promise. ;)
- Games are chosen which are rather unknown and/or haven't been played seriously by too many people.
- All games are really, really hard.
- A bunch of players show you how bad you actually are at shmups as they complete the games easily with ridiculous scores. Especially considering that they are achieved during only one week.
- At the beginning of the week you find the game odd or kind of fun before starting to like it, then getting frustrated after a few days and totally hating it by the end of the week. STGT always remembers me of why I normally just play shooters I adore and with a healthier playtime.
- Last but not least almost all games turn out to be fun, but mercilessness and especially some critical flaws often turn it into frustration. Just look at last year. Cyvern: The Dragon Weapons had utterly brutal rank and boss fights, Xexex ridiculous difficulty jumps and checkpoints, Mars Matrix' chaining was off-putting for newcomers at least, Raiden Fighters 2 ended up in restart hell (for me) and well, Dangun Feveron had Uo-Poko. I still liked 3 1/2 of these games.
But I'll just stop the ramblings and get straight to Gokujou Parodius. Post coming today or tomorrow. Promise. ;)
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