For a long time I've found shmups really spectacular and cool but they tend to be rather frustratingly difficult, so I've generally avoided them. The Gradius, Darius, R-Type, Parodius, etc. games are all really cool (and in the case of Parodius, really insane), but they're mostly inaccessible to me except through emulation anyway, and since I'm emulating anyway, I might as well just savestate my way through like a dirty casual cheater, though that didn't really feel that much fun. Plus, some of those older games did have pretty punishing difficulty even with savestates -- or maybe it was that thanks to using savestates I wasn't actually learning to play the game and thus was basically cheating the difficulty curve to my own detriment...still, playing stuff like Raiden Trad on arcades felt quite fun, and I tried to emulate it -- though thanks to depowering on death, it still felt tedious. I've tried a number of shmups, and while I did enjoy Parodius Da!, a few others such as Darius Twin, Guxt, Gundemonium, Touhou 6 (EoSD), and Strike Gunner STG, etc. just didn't quite capture my fancy. Warning Forever was more interesting, though the controls were a bit hard to get and it stopped capturing my fancy after a few more playthroughs.
I started to feel a slightly more serious interest in shmups (though still casual, and I'm not letting that part go anytime soon) when, in the course of my wanting to support doujin games in general, I ran into Flying Red Barrel. While it's a difficult game to beat, it was also simple and easy enough to be approachable, and its adorable visuals didn't hurt either. From there, I picked up Ether Vapor Remaster, which was a more "serious" shmup, and offered a compelling story and great visual spectacle, which was difficult, but...to my surprise, gave me more extra lives and shields and teased me with the story's twists, which encouraged me to keep playing, which in turn encouraged me to gradually learn the game to a basic level well enough to at least enjoy playing the game. Then I bought RefleX, and that became (alongside EVR) the other shmup that I think is really really awesome -- quite possibly more awesome than EVR, even, thanks to its very simple and intuitive controls but great depth of gameplay (and storytelling, even!) using them. I also subsequently picked up the eXceed games, which are not as awesome -- eX 1 is kinda buggy (but as I've heard, they lost the source code, so...), eX 2nd is quite difficult though has the best music, and eX 3rd has been the most accessible and fun to play for little bits of time. That said, I don't think that I would have approached the eXceed series if not for having played EVR or RefleX (and having some extra time on my hands).
(For what it's worth I've also played SATAZIUS, which felt tedious and didn't make me want to play more; I felt somewhat similarly about Really Big Sky too. Jamestown, on the other hand, looked interesting the one time I played it. What little I've played of KAMUI suggests it's as good as RefleX, but different from it. Still haven't gotten around to Pester or Hellsinker or Syder Arcade or Arkadianax or Suguri or Acceleration of Suguri or several others that I have...)
So yeah, that's me right now. I play random indie shmups I've bought over the past few years, and some freeware and emulated stuff. I'm not particularly in a hurry to get more shmups to play, though I might grab Astebreed and Ikaruga if they go deeply on sale.
TL;DR: * casual shmup player (doesn't care about score) * enjoys spectacle, story, and simple&intuitive controls * own a bunch of indie shmups, thanks to wanting to support doujin game localization
Well, just because they don't include region-locking DRM doesn't mean it's technically legal to use them outside certain regions.
That said, just because it isn't technically legal to use them outside certain regions doesn't mean we can't tell Mayor Kravindish to kindly dismiss himself.
Comments
I started to feel a slightly more serious interest in shmups (though still casual, and I'm not letting that part go anytime soon) when, in the course of my wanting to support doujin games in general, I ran into Flying Red Barrel. While it's a difficult game to beat, it was also simple and easy enough to be approachable, and its adorable visuals didn't hurt either. From there, I picked up Ether Vapor Remaster, which was a more "serious" shmup, and offered a compelling story and great visual spectacle, which was difficult, but...to my surprise, gave me more extra lives and shields and teased me with the story's twists, which encouraged me to keep playing, which in turn encouraged me to gradually learn the game to a basic level well enough to at least enjoy playing the game. Then I bought RefleX, and that became (alongside EVR) the other shmup that I think is really really awesome -- quite possibly more awesome than EVR, even, thanks to its very simple and intuitive controls but great depth of gameplay (and storytelling, even!) using them. I also subsequently picked up the eXceed games, which are not as awesome -- eX 1 is kinda buggy (but as I've heard, they lost the source code, so...), eX 2nd is quite difficult though has the best music, and eX 3rd has been the most accessible and fun to play for little bits of time. That said, I don't think that I would have approached the eXceed series if not for having played EVR or RefleX (and having some extra time on my hands).
(For what it's worth I've also played SATAZIUS, which felt tedious and didn't make me want to play more; I felt somewhat similarly about Really Big Sky too. Jamestown, on the other hand, looked interesting the one time I played it. What little I've played of KAMUI suggests it's as good as RefleX, but different from it. Still haven't gotten around to Pester or Hellsinker or Syder Arcade or Arkadianax or Suguri or Acceleration of Suguri or several others that I have...)
So yeah, that's me right now. I play random indie shmups I've bought over the past few years, and some freeware and emulated stuff. I'm not particularly in a hurry to get more shmups to play, though I might grab Astebreed and Ikaruga if they go deeply on sale.
TL;DR:
* casual shmup player (doesn't care about score)
* enjoys spectacle, story, and simple&intuitive controls
* own a bunch of indie shmups, thanks to wanting to support doujin game localization
Those are some pretty sharp graphicals for 1991.
also, I like how it tells you right away that you're committing a crime
That said, just because it isn't technically legal to use them outside certain regions doesn't mean we can't tell Mayor Kravindish to kindly dismiss himself.