Other great bullet hells?

[Random Reference #98]

So I'm really loving this as the first bullet hell I've actually sat down and put some time into. I've played plenty of shmups but usually not bullet hells so I was wondering what are some other bullet hells that would be worth checking out?

Please don't suggest Ikaruga, it's already on my list.

[The Blessed]

I dont recommend Jamestown. Game is too short. The last level is something you need to rely on memory to beat it and I guess this is a way for the dev to make the game chalenging

[his1roguenation]

All bullet hells require memory to score, if you think that you can't actually even win with twitch skill alone, this is not your genre.
And Jamestown has one of the best, if not the best, scoring systems in existence.

[his1roguenation]

All bullet hells require memory to score, if you have the feeling that you can't get a simple win with twitch skill alone, this is not your genre.
And Jamestown has one of the best, if not the best, scoring systems in existence.

[Michel Baie]

I didn't liked the scoring system of Jamestown (basic multipliers, meh), but I loved its final level. And Its end boss music. The only real defaul I can think of is the lack of smartbomb. Yes, the "vault" system can be employed for survival over scoring, but it's somewhat weak.

[his1roguenation]

Playing with a multiplier x2 the whole time is only one side of the medal, you score by shooting the correct parts of enemies first.
Of course that's nothing unique, but very well executed.

[Algester]

we all know about touhou, ex3ed, CAVE games, Ikaruga here are some danmaku games there's Shikigami no Shiro series, Akashikverse series (2 games thus far), Trigger heart excelica (PS2 and arcade), Refrain (not in steam but PC), Samidare, vanhellio (tony taka art asides at easy looks like a trad shooter but the higher the difficulty it seems like danmaku-ish), Bullet Souls I know I have some more titles... mostly are doujin that is never introduced in steam or other localization channels but only in Comiket... (inflated amount touhou games aside), I'll have to be honest I gave up looking at doujin games precisely because of the amount of touhou games (and rarely do you even see the limelight out of these games as 2% is only a small amount in a sea of touhous AKA you won't find them in the internet so easily unless you buy it in comiket, mostly because you will only see touhou games uploaded every so often) you find in comiket CONSIDERING THEY HAVE THEIR OWN EVENT outside of the official touhou games, there are some more surreal danmaku games but I'll not get into that

[Michel Baie]

Excelica is also available on Dreamcast. And XBLA.

... can't find this "vanhellio" game you mentionned, but I like Tony Taka. Do you have a link for an official website or some info?

[TrevHeadTVR]

For newcommers to bullet hells and shmups in general I always recomend X.X Gameroom's Freeware STG's as me and plenty of other ppl cut our teeth on Blue Wish Resurrection (or BWR+ although BWR is better imo). It plays like a std CAVE shmup but the enemy bullets move a tad slower than other STG's which allows the player to build up the hand eye co-ordination and memorise common bullet patterns.

Try to 1CC normal with the 1st or 2nd ship types as they are the archetypal ship types in the genre, ignore the homing shot type and Eden for now. Watch 1CC and score runs of competent players on You Tube and emulate their techniques like tap dodging, strafing and how they handle bosses. X.X Game's Eden's Ageis is another good noob STG, had tons of bullet cancelling.

For those who enjoyed Crimson Clover, Siter Skain's/Nyu Media's Kamui and Alltynex Second are good STG's and use a lockshot similar to Crimson Clover, shame Reflex was the only Sister Skain STG to make it to Steam as it's the weakest of the bunch.

Refrain Prism Memories is another intersting doujin I haven't seen mentioned, it oozes style imo and is less about bullet dodging more about using your special weapons to their full effect. It's the last STG by Team RebRank who like ZUN split from Amusement Makers (Touhou1-5) and went onto make Seihou (Western) while Zun made Touhou (Eastern).

Other than doujin's the best examples of the last decade are mostly exclusive to the Xbox 360. A local 360 isn't that expensive nowadays and most of the best games like Mushihimisama Furtari are region free and have budget versions at £20 a pop that includes the fantastic exclusive Qute STGs, also there are loads of dirt cheap localised STGs either boxed or on XBLA (like Strania by Grev and ex Treasure Ikaruga/RS designer)

MAME is fantastic for STG's from the PS2 era and before like Dondonpachi and Ketsui but I wouldn't bother with the 360/SH3 era CAVE STG's all the slowdown and timings are whack and imo not worth investing time in mastering not when the better 360 versions are so cheap atm and look great in HD.

While I'm here I might aswell mention Kento Cho as his freeware STG's make good practice STG's as is Nomltest

[Coinkydink]

GUNDEMONIUM & GUNDEADLIGNE ARE ON STEAM AND ARE THE NEXT BEST SHMUPS AFTER CRIMZON CLOVER

Otherwise you're looking at Japanese shmups not released here yet:

1- Stella Vanity (Can be bought as a digital download from dlsite.com/eng but the english port is poorly done )
2- Refrain Prism Memories
3- Samidare

There's also Astebreed (also on Steam) but it's not really bullet hell and has some annoying "mech" gameplay, still worth checking out if you like this kind of thing.

[Jeneki]

Originally posted by his1nightmare:

Playing with a multiplier x2 the whole time is only one side of the medal, you score by shooting the correct parts of enemies first.
Of course that's nothing unique, but very well executed.

Oh yeah. The interesting thing I found with Jamestown is how many of the "challenges" are actually scoring tutorials. Some enemies drop far more items when you shoot them at a specific time, or when that enemy is performing a specific action. It's very clever, if someone willing to learn each enemy's secrets.

[SMELL THE GLOVE]

Hangenki is excellent!

[꧁꧂]

Are any of these the kind where you constantly get changes and upgrades to your weapon? I really like CC but I've always been partial to the ones with the random drops.

[Michel Baie]

Random dropping weapons that changes your shooting pattern are really uncommon in bullet hell shmups.
You have that in Mushihimesama (360), even if the drop isn't random as far as I remember.

And... well, that's more or less all I got. I'm sure there are some indie games that do that... I remember a shareware game back in the late 90 or early 2000 that have this kind of system too.

[LuisTheVapor]

No love of Cho Ren Sha 68K? For shame shump fans LOL j/k j/k. ^_^

Seriously if you want some more PC shmup goodness, look to Cho Ren Sha 68K and Hydorah. Cho Ren Sha is a not quite/sorta bullet hell (but VERY good) game, while Hydorah is straight up homage to the gradius games.

Both are very solid titles and FREELY availible, so you have no excuse not to check them out.

Hydorah
http://www.locomalito.com/hydorah.php

超連射68K
http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~yosshin/my_works/download.html

***Cho Ren Sha is kinda iffy to run on a modern machine. If you have windows 7 or later, be sure to right click on the "Latest.exe", and set the compability mode to "Windown98/ME". Doing so will prevent the game from stuttering and ensure some smooth blasting. Just saying.^_^

[100% lob juice]

It's more of a "manic shooter" than a bullet hell, but Battle Garegga really is a God-tier shmup. It has a bit of a learning curve however so make sure you read on the game mechanics before trying it out.

I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to have been mentioned much in this thread.