Anyone else thinks Raiden is the Hardest Danmaku Space Ship SHMUP in existence?...

[r3d_belmont456]

Now before I start with this I just wanted to add a disclaimer here... This is in NO WAY a complaint thread about Raiden's difficulty (particularly this one's Overkill mode). This is merely a critique as well as my thoughts of the series overall when compared to other Space ship Shooters/Bullet Hell games that are still being released. So with that out of the way, let's begin~!!!

I, for one, am no stranger to the difficulty of Spaceship Shooters, and I am especially familiar with how crazy Raiden's difficulty can be, even from the first stage, as I have pretty much played every iteration of Raiden in existence, from the Arcade versions to the console versions, and even some flash games based on it (Raiden I-IV, Viper Phase 1, Raiden Fighters/Fighters Jet, etc.).

That being said however, Raiden seems to be the only Spaceship Shooter (especially the later versions), that is especially difficult to play at a casual level, mainly because the bullet patterns are not only fairly tight at times, but fly at you so fast that you often have no time at all to react... literally blinking might get you killed, and even on the easier difficulies, the bullet speed and patterns tend to go relatively unchanged. It's a very strange thing to me when compared to other Spaceship Shooters/Bullet Hell games which tend to have a far FAR more accessible difficulty curve, even on Normal... Allow me to make a few comparisons to show you what I mean.

Raiden Series Compared to Gradius, R-type and Darius Series:

Gradius, to this day remains my all time fav Shmup since it was also the first I ever played (it saddens me that it is pretty much a dead series now...), and not only are the console versions fairly accessible on their normal difficulty, but the arcade versions also ramped up their difficulties quite comfortably, it took several stages, often 1/2 way through before enemies began bombarding the screen with bullets, and even then the bullets wouldn't start traveling at the speed that they do in Raiden until roughly the 2nd loop (sooner in Arcade versions, but it still took a good while...). What I also notices in Raiden games is that bullets often times could come unexpectedly (and sometimes cheaply) from any direction on the screen which often times gaves me little to no time to react, while in Gradius games this was rarely if ever the case as many of the enemies came from the front, and if they DID come from the back or sides they often didn't start shooting until they were right next to you instead of as soon as they appeared... The Shield/Force Field system also helped mitigate some of the frustration by a LOT as well, Which is something many Spaceship Shooters rarely, if ever, implement...

R-Type is an interesting one to compare it to as it is still challenging, but possibly the easiest of the 3 since you can, for the most part, hide behind your weapon capsules, despite having a large hitbox. This would often trivialize many of the tight levels outside of a first time play through... What especially made it accessible was the unique mechanic of being able to transfer weapon capsules to the front or back of your ship in order to deal with enemy waves that WOULD come behind you at times, and this at times was also required to deal with bosses, but it was certainly a unique mechanic for the time... At the very least, even on hard, this game is still comfortable to play to a degree, but Raiden games for the most part, even on easy tend to be so ridiculous that I often have to resort to bomb scumming my way through them, which just isn't fun...

Darius is pretty much the closest thing to Gradius I can play that is still alive and kicking to this day, and it, like Gradius is fairly laid back with it's difficulty ramp up, despite it getting to the point where very large waves of enemies try to bombard your ship. Despite the large number of ships that can often appear on screen, however, the amount of bullets you have to deal with, even against bosses is actually on the low side, made even easier by the amount of damage you can take with the Upgradable Force Field.

Another thing this game gets well is even with it's crazy backgrounds, the bullets and enemies never seem to blend into them, making it easy to keep track of everything going on, whereas Raiden games have yet to deal with this properly as most of my random deaths tend to come from a stray bullet that I couldn't see well at all... Hell, I thought the upcoming Raiden V had finally dealt with this issue by making the bullets bright red, but after seeing the glowing blue crystal stage with certain enemies firing bright blue bullets, I ended up facepalming because I could barely make out the bullets at certain points, even when they were going slow (it's as if the Raiden Developers think masking bullets with the terrain is part of the difficulty, when that's just outright cheap...).

Raiden Series Compared to Cave Shooters:

Cave Shooters, especially the Arcade versions, are notorious for not only having ludicrous True Final Boss Requirements, but also having the True Final Boss be the very definition of "Quarter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥". I have yet to see ANYONE beat a Cave True Final Boss without resorting to Cheese tactics due to how stupidly difficult they were designed, but I digress...

Even tho Cave Shooters in the Arcade are Fairly Challenging, they're actually fairly accessible, especially later titles and ESPECIALLY on Console/Mobile where you eventually got access to things like Auto Bomb, Seeing your hitbox/reducing it's size, etc... This didn't stop the True Final Boss requirements from being ridiculous, but just about every Cave Shooter can be enjoyed on normal at a casual level relatively stress free, which in my opinion, cemented it's balance between casually accessible and Hardcore Bullet Hell. You could play it either way and still get an experience worth your while, with the ONLY major downside with most Cave Shooters being that not all of them had 2 player Co-op which is my favorite part of most Spaceship Shooters...

One Cave Shooter in Particular that I still go back and play to this day is DeathSmiles, mainly because it is not only the easiest of all the Cave titles, but also allows 2 player Co-op AND it also reminds me a lot of Castlevania, Asthetic and music wise (which is my all time fav 2D Game)... Raiden may not have the overwhelming level of bullet flooding patterns that cave shooters tend to (for the most part), but the speed of the bullets that every single enemy spits out on top of all the different directions the enemies tend to shoot from just ends up adding FAR too much layers of randomness to the levels, to the point where often times the bosses end up being EASIER than the levels themselves which never really made any sense to me, and is most likely all the cause of my woes for the more modern Raiden Titles...

Raiden Series Compared to Touhou Shooters:

Just like Raiden, Avoiding Death comes from being in the right place at the right time, especially once patterns start becoming utterly ludicrous... Unlike Raiden however, most if not all of the RNG that is present in nearly every Raiden title is non existant. Enemies will pretty much always shoot at the same tempo, bullets go exactly where you expect, they don't blend in with the backgrounds and even on harder difficulties, bullet speed tends to be farily slow. This essentially means that even when boss patterns fill the screen with hellfire, you are usually given ample time to find the right place to be in so as to avoid death, not to mention the boss patterns are always static, meaning that you don't have to worry about that one magic bullet going faster than all the bullets surrounding you and catching you completely off guard (something that bosses in Raiden have had since it's first incarnation)...

All this essentually means that even on the hardest difficulty, Touhou shooters can end up becoming so ludicrously easy that even the least savvy Shmup player could make Lunatic Look like a breeze, mainly because everything at play can be comfortably learned and for the most part you are never thrown an RNG monkey wrench which can cause a cheap death or three. This is probably one reason why no matter how long I play a Raiden game (particularly the newer ones), I can never 1 CC them without resorting to bomb spam because of the lightning fast and random nature of the patterns, even on Easy difficulty since you're often reacting to bullets coming from right next to you with no time to think...

Conclusion and the Future of Raiden:

So basically, while Raiden's simple gameplay and scoring system may seem to be appealing from a casual perspective, It has many MANY inherent flaws that have been there since the beginning and only seem to have gotten worse... and while many of the companies that make Shmups are dead, dying or struggling to innovate within a very niche genre of shooters, leaving the choices we have for new shooters to play very limited, just about any shooter you could think of and go back and play holds out far FAR more than most of the Raiden Library for the sole reason that said games tend to be far more reasonable in difficulty curve... With Raiden 5: Director's Cut releasing to steam soon, I decided to check out it's gameplay to see if it would be worth picking up.

While It appears the Raiden Developers are doing everything they can for mass appeal without isolating it's core audience by adding a Story mode, Shields vs Stock (Health System) that allows you to keep your upgraded weapons when you take a hit, possibly allowing access to free play right off the bat, etc... If much of the core of Raiden remains unchanged, I sincerely have doubts that the devs will get the success they expect from it, especially in the west where these games are far FAR less likely to sell than in Asian Markets... Despite it being on such a large platform such as Steam.

Honestly, it could just be my personal tastes talking here, but I've played enough space ship shooters, new and old, to know what could at the very least hold attention today. Even with the rise in popularity of hard Rogue Lites such as Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon and so forth, Devs for those games still make sure that said games are accessible enough that even the most casual player could have a good chance to enjoy their game. Take the recent Cuphead for instance... Despite everyone saying the game is too hard. Comapred to something like Contra 3 it's quite a cake walk, especially when you add in that not only do you not have to start over from the beginning for getting a game over, but you can also purchase upgrades by simply playing the game which can eventually even trivialize certain areas you're struggling with...

Although the last thing I want the devs to do (though I sincerely doubt they'd read this thread anyway...) is to dumb the game down to the point where it pleases neither casual nor core fan, I'd argue there's honestly nothing wrong with finding a minor compromise in at the very least givnig a casual player some leeway to enjoy your game, even if it means making the nornal difficulty, or at the very least easy mode, actually an easy mode (not NES easy which in today's standards would probably be considered hard mode, not even joking...).

I don't know what the status of the Raiden Developer Team is, nor do I know if Raiden V will be the last Raiden game we will get in the west (or ever for that matter), but because both Raiden and Darius are pretty much the last big names in Spaceship Shmups left in the industry that have had a recent release (to my knowledge at least, since I'm not sure if Cave is releasing Shooters still, and I sure as hell doubt Konami will anytime soon...), the last thing I want is for these big name SHMUPS to seize to exist, only to really exist in spirit via indie games inspired by them or via fan games...

If you've read this far, I appreciate the time you gave this read :3 , hopefully I provided some insigt to what a fan of SHMUPS thinks of the Raiden Franchise, i'll bee seeing you around! (cause Hachi scarred me that badly :x...)

[r3d_belmont456]

Originally posted by tenlinkedparts:

See, now you're just gonna call me a fanboy instead of reading anything I'm saying. You are wrong about what you claim with Raiden, and you continue to be wrong about things that have nothing to do with Raiden. Calling you out for your lies does not make me a fanboy, and your supposed years of love for the genre only make you look even more ignorant.

That whole bit about this "buyer's market" means a whole lot of nothing, yet at the same time is perfect proof of exactly what I'm talking about. Most to all games are severely underpriced, not just Raiden or even any shmup. In addition to ridiculously low retail prices, you also have endless sales and bundles that reduce games to sub-$1.00 amounts. On top of that, people treat games as disposable one-time affairs and have no idea what replay value actually is, which is almost certainly why these same people keep demanding lower and lower prices. That's not sustainable, especially if you're spending any real money on developing a game, like with Raiden V. It's a lot easier to just rerelease an older game, which the vast majority of the "cheap" games on Steam are, than it is to make one from scratch. Raiden V itself is already a lot cheaper now than the original sticker price on its launch a year ago. And yes, that sticker price was completely worth it.

This bullet visibility thing is obviously a big deal to you, is something wrong with your eyesight? Look, that sucks, but that's not something the developers really can or even should do anything about. Developers should not bend over backwards for the demands of a small group.

Look, I believe devs SHOULD stand their ground when gettinc criticism as they have every right to, but NOT on bad decisions that affect a lot of the playerbase... If they or you cannot see that then I cannot help you any further, and they only have themselves at that point to blame for the game flopping.

The ONLY people who'd defend games having high prices are either Publishers, Developers or Fanbnoys, so you're one of the 3 and call me a liar due to being pro consumer, because games being underpriced is a load of bollocks, and I can tell you that as someone who has worked with designing a game, has seen the publishing costs and has played games all his life, seeing how the market has shifted until this day...

I can tell you straight up that making a game has not only gotten cheaper than ever, but publishing one is dirt easy, they don't even have to be good games in fact, just look at the avalanche of shovelware that has flooded steam thanks to how easy it is to publish games here. Maybe we wouldn't have to sift through literal 1000s of crap games just to find anything worth playing if publishing were still as challenging as before. Hell, even for companies that are super anal about the games that go into their market such as Nintendo, it is easier than ever to publish your games.

If the Devs/publishers are overpaying to create and publish their games, then that is on them and is an entirely different story, my point still stands... More choices = Competition = Cheaper Games, and cheaper priced, NOT CHEAPER QUALITY games are good for the consumer, because there is less risk for us to get screwed over by an overpriced game that does not meet our standards, the refund policy only makes things even less risky, so better for us once again, and the less likelyhood of making your customer feel buyer's remorse when getting your game, then the more likely they are to continue to buy more. Call me a liar all you want, the Market speaks for itself...

As for my eyesight being the reason of my complains, if that were true then I'd not be able to play ANY shmup even on normal and get through it, but not only have I so far been able to 1cc the majority of CAVE's library and many other Doujin SHMUPS, including ZUN's very own Touhou games, but also some of the older Arcade games that still hold plenty of water today.

Just last year I went to a bowling alley with my Dad where there was a Galaga arcade cabinet, and I managed to get in one quarter, all the way to wave 125, having never dualed ships and perfecting nearly all of the challenging stages along the way, I even managed to reset the cabinet score to the point where they had to move my score to the left side of the screen and I could no longer earn extra ships. I remember that day clearly because my wrist was swollen for 2 days after that, and the knucles of my finger hand were bloody as well by the time I was done... Even recorded the score on my iphone just to remember the achievement.

Raiden games, specifically the newer ones, on the other hand I have yet to 1cc without resorting to bomb scumming due to always getting killed by a stray bullet that did not catch my eye in time on certain stages thanks to the aformentioned issue... Does that mean that Every other SHMUP I play is bad? Does that mean my eyesight is bad? or that the Raiden game's have a design flaw that the devs still haven't addressed yet?... If you cannot clearly see what the answer is after all that, then you are simply just another raving fanboy and I rest my case. Now if you'll excuse me, Deathsmiles calls my name...

[Daikatan]

tenlinkedparts, you sound like Despatche from forums...

your faith in Raiden is undeniable

but what you see, others see in opposite

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

What does faith have to do with anything? You're not making sense. My like or dislike of a given Raiden game has nothing to do with what I'm saying. I don't actually like the Raiden series all that much, because it does have major flaws that red_belmont doesn't talk about at all... and they were largely fixed with III and onward anyway. V fixes even more of them. This topic has absolutely nothing to do with why Raiden V is poorly viewed anyway, except maybe the price, so please don't try to act like you're anything but a minority.
----------
These aren't bad decisions, and they don't affect the playerbase at all. They affect a tiny minority. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

It amazes me that you honestly believe that assigning proper value to video games is anti-consumer. This actually amazes me. I cannot possibly say anything else on this.

I have no idea what avalanches of shovelware and devs "overpaying" has to do with anything at all.

I have no idea why you bring up the refund policy, which is a good thing that we needed a long time ago. Do you think I oppose that?

And so we're back to point 1. What you're telling me is not making sense at all. It simply does not occur in these games. It's fiction. Once again, the only time you ever really run into bullet visibility issues is whenever That One Desert Stage appears, and it's an incredibly minor effect that might get you once ever, simply because it's a trip. It's not some crippling flaw that the developers need to fuss over, because most people aren't aware it even happens. The developers certainly aren't; how do you think they playtest and balance the game? You probably think it's not actually playtested or something, don't you?

I don't know how many times I have to tell you "you're actually wrong" until you get it. All the claimed experience in the world does not make lies true, it just damns those lies even further.

[Daikatan]

All those people who complain about bullet visibility in reviews and on sites, and they were complaining for them for ages, not just for Raiden V or IV. You can't just make it look that they don't exist. And to assume that they lie would be going for concpiracy theory. In the end, it's "some people have problem with recognition of what happens on screen and some dont".

Saying that reactionary playthrough in stgs is nothing is also nonsense. Unless you agree that you talk for yourself that it's only about pixel-perfect memorizing for you; and logically you cant play without being reactionary unless you mean you watch plays before playing yourself; if not, then of course you play and dodge bullets with your pattern reading and reaction.

* unless, of course, i totally misunderstood both of you

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

But they haven't. The few people who actually really do complain about bullet visibility are:

1. the memers who said the same thing about Battle Garegga, which is also untrue.

2. those people who just really hate desert stages.

No, these games are absolutely not reactionary, unless RNG is involved. Raiden doesn't have much of RNG, so they aren't really reactionary. No, you don't really have to memorize anything "pixel-perfectly" to get anywhere in these games, you generally just have to know what bullets are going where. There's no "reacting" in that. Reactions only come up when you don't know what's about to happen, such as with RNG.

The difference between reacting and memorizing is the difference between talent and skill. Reactions are not something you learn.

There's no "conspiracy theory" here. There's a bunch of clear ignorance that can easily be dispelled, but it does no good if people believe in their lies so strongly.

[100% lob juice]

Mate, dumbing down the genre or making it "more accessible" will achieve nothing but alienate the few people who actually play shmups. Many, many developers have already tried this and it does nothing to make the genre appeal more to average consumers.

The only way to get a game like this to have mainstream popularity is to be in a similar position with cuphead, where you can sell the game on a unique visual style and also be lucky enough to get memed to have constant comparisons with Dark Souls, because in the eyes of your average consumer Dark Souls invented difficulty in videogames.

Some other comments:

-Touhou games have MORE RNG than Raiden games, especially the earlier touhou games. Since most bullets in Raiden IV are aimed at the player's current position, the game is actually entirely deterministic which means that tap-dodging and misdirecting will work consistently.

-I don't get why you praised PSIKYO games so much while criticising Raiden, when I would say that Psikyo games actually have much more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty than any Raiden game (with some exceptions like Zero Gunner). At least in Raiden the bullets aren't so fast that you literally can't even see them.

[r3d_belmont456]

Originally posted by Lob:

Mate, dumbing down the genre or making it "more accessible" will achieve nothing but alienate the few people who actually play shmups. Many, many developers have already tried this and it does nothing to make the genre appeal more to average consumers.

The only way to get a game like this to have mainstream popularity is to be in a similar position with cuphead, where you can sell the game on a unique visual style and also be lucky enough to get memed to have constant comparisons with Dark Souls, because in the eyes of your average consumer Dark Souls invented difficulty in videogames.

Some other comments:

-Touhou games have MORE RNG than Raiden games, especially the earlier touhou games. Since most bullets in Raiden IV are aimed at the player's current position, the game is actually entirely deterministic which means that tap-dodging and misdirecting will work consistently.

-I don't get why you praised PSIKYO games so much while criticising Raiden, when I would say that Psikyo games actually have much more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty than any Raiden game (with some exceptions like Zero Gunner). At least in Raiden the bullets aren't so fast that you literally can't even see them.

TBF, I recently purchased Raiden V, and a lot of the criticism I had for raiden IV seems to have been adressed, but for the most part I still stand by what I say when it comes to Raiden in general. But to address your concerns:

-When I say Touhou (at least the ones I've played which are 6 through 11) is less random, I meant that in general, boss patterns are completely static vs the Raiden boss patterns which tend to spit out a bullet or laser at off beat intervals which can and often does turn a boss pattern safe spot into an unsafe one. Essentially what this means is you're having to keep track of two completely different patterns at the same time at all times or else your timing will be thrown off by one. I especially hated when minor enemies would infinitely spawn to do what I just described until destroyed and Some bosses in Raiden V unfortunately still do this...

-Bullets being fast wouldn't be such a problem if they came from a central direction, like in most other SHMUPS... unfortunately this isn't the case in Raiden games, as they literally come at you from just about every single angle on the screen. Even in Gradius, when enemies came from behnd, they wouldn't start shooting at you until they came to about the center of the screen.

So why in the hell do the Raiden devs think it's a good idea to have enemy tanks, boats and aircraft coming at you from behind and the sides and start shooting immediately after they're visible? At that point, the game becomes more about memorizing enemy placement rather than dodging bullets, and considering how slow the ship usually is and the weird angles the enemies come from, you'd have to have Homing Missiles at all times just to deal with that crap... worse yet when you have little time to react to so many angles with such a slow ship...

-While it's true that many STGs would be lucky enough to receive Mainstream attention like Cuphead, most STG devs usually don't go above and beyond to make their STG not only stand out, but reasonably designed to boot, and after playing through and beating it in co-op no less (if you thought battletoads co-op was hard, lol...), I must say it defs deserves every bit of it's success.

For one, the art aesthetic is not only easy on the eyes, but makes it very easy to notice boss and enemy telegraphed attacks which means you can pre emptively react to it vs reacting to it as soon as it comes out... backgrounds also don't blend in with any of the attacks, at no point was this a problem. Not only that, but because Cupead is overworld based, you will always have a full set of lives and super meter (bombs) at the start of every stage/boss, making it an accessible run and gun shooter with the player in mind...

Most STG devs tho are still stuck in the Past, in the arcade days of gaming where most games were designed to be quarter munchingly difficult (and by that I mean cheap), and for a reason... Those days are over (at least in the west) and Cheap difficulty will not work for come console games anymore, hard but fair does (hence the everything is like Dark Souls comparisons). Even Raiden V is still guilty sadly of falling into the pitfalls I just described which can make the game feel cheap at times.

An STG doesn't have to be dumbed down to be enjoyed, I still enjoy challenging shooters like Geometry Wars, Nex Machina and most Danmaku I come across that are done well enough (there's even one touhou game in my wishlist which looks like it will honestly be a blast to play once I get my hands on it...). All I ask for is the devs of future STGs consider Quality of Life changes to the standard formula just like the ones I described in Cuphead just now which made it great without stifling difficulty...

[100% lob juice]

Originally posted by red_belmont456:

Originally posted by Lob:

Mate, dumbing down the genre or making it "more accessible" will achieve nothing but alienate the few people who actually play shmups. Many, many developers have already tried this and it does nothing to make the genre appeal more to average consumers.

The only way to get a game like this to have mainstream popularity is to be in a similar position with cuphead, where you can sell the game on a unique visual style and also be lucky enough to get memed to have constant comparisons with Dark Souls, because in the eyes of your average consumer Dark Souls invented difficulty in videogames.

Some other comments:

-Touhou games have MORE RNG than Raiden games, especially the earlier touhou games. Since most bullets in Raiden IV are aimed at the player's current position, the game is actually entirely deterministic which means that tap-dodging and misdirecting will work consistently.

-I don't get why you praised PSIKYO games so much while criticising Raiden, when I would say that Psikyo games actually have much more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty than any Raiden game (with some exceptions like Zero Gunner). At least in Raiden the bullets aren't so fast that you literally can't even see them.

TBF, I recently purchased Raiden V, and a lot of the criticism I had for raiden IV seems to have been adressed, but for the most part I still stand by what I say when it comes to Raiden in general. But to address your concerns:

-When I say Touhou (at least the ones I've played which are 6 through 11) is less random, I meant that in general, boss patterns are completely static vs the Raiden boss patterns which tend to spit out a bullet or laser at off beat intervals which can and often does turn a boss pattern safe spot into an unsafe one. Essentially what this means is you're having to keep track of two completely different patterns at the same time at all times or else your timing will be thrown off by one. I especially hated when minor enemies would infinitely spawn to do what I just described until destroyed and Some bosses in Raiden V unfortunately still do this...

-Bullets being fast wouldn't be such a problem if they came from a central direction, like in most other SHMUPS... unfortunately this isn't the case in Raiden games, as they literally come at you from just about every single angle on the screen. Even in Gradius, when enemies came from behnd, they wouldn't start shooting at you until they came to about the center of the screen.

So why in the hell do the Raiden devs think it's a good idea to have enemy tanks, boats and aircraft coming at you from behind and the sides and start shooting immediately after they're visible? At that point, the game becomes more about memorizing enemy placement rather than dodging bullets, and considering how slow the ship usually is and the weird angles the enemies come from, you'd have to have Homing Missiles at all times just to deal with that crap... worse yet when you have little time to react to so many angles with such a slow ship...

-While it's true that many STGs would be lucky enough to receive Mainstream attention like Cuphead, most STG devs usually don't go above and beyond to make their STG not only stand out, but reasonably designed to boot, and after playing through and beating it in co-op no less (if you thought battletoads co-op was hard, lol...), I must say it defs deserves every bit of it's success.

For one, the art aesthetic is not only easy on the eyes, but makes it very easy to notice boss and enemy telegraphed attacks which means you can pre emptively react to it vs reacting to it as soon as it comes out... backgrounds also don't blend in with any of the attacks, at no point was this a problem. Not only that, but because Cupead is overworld based, you will always have a full set of lives and super meter (bombs) at the start of every stage/boss, making it an accessible run and gun shooter with the player in mind...

Most STG devs tho are still stuck in the Past, in the arcade days of gaming where most games were designed to be quarter munchingly difficult (and by that I mean cheap), and for a reason... Those days are over (at least in the west) and Cheap difficulty will not work for come console games anymore, hard but fair does (hence the everything is like Dark Souls comparisons). Even Raiden V is still guilty sadly of falling into the pitfalls I just described which can make the game feel cheap at times.

An STG doesn't have to be dumbed down to be enjoyed, I still enjoy challenging shooters like Geometry Wars, Nex Machina and most Danmaku I come across that are done well enough (there's even one touhou game in my wishlist which looks like it will honestly be a blast to play once I get my hands on it...). All I ask for is the devs of future STGs consider Quality of Life changes to the standard formula just like the ones I described in Cuphead just now which made it great without stifling difficulty...

Hey, I'm not saying that enemies coming from all angles and shooting immediately is good design, in fact part of the reason why Raiden IV is my favourite in the series is that it has the lowest amount of that kinda ♥♥♥♥ (I haven't played Raiden V yet, well I did a little bit when it was shown at Comicon and I kinda liked it but only the first two stages so I can't comment much on it), but it's really not as bad as you make it seem. In the older raiden games large enemies would appear from the bottom of the screen, but only if you let them fly past you when they are coming from the top. It's not ideal design but it does mean that it's preventable with good target prioritisation.

I actually agree that most arcade-game devs are stuck in the past, but I think that can be a good thing at times because games with this level of challenge and tight-level design are hard to come across nowadays, with the only alternatives being indie "savestate simulators" like Super Meat Boy and IWBTG. And like I said before, I cannot see a game like this becoming popular anyway even if the devs made it more accessible without a lot of luck involved.

If I was to make a shmup and release it on PC, I would try to do the following:
-Provide full-controller support, full-keyboard support, and a ton of sound, video and framerate options, including a separate "fullscreen mode" (Like Under Defeat HD), support for at least 1080p resolution and a 120 fps limit if possible.
-Allow all stages and bosses to be practiced individually from the start, with different setups (like Crimzon Clover WORLD IGNITION)
-Have two main game modes, a standard "arcade mode" with no continues (continues are an outdated relic from the coin-op days, and will mean that new players will just credit feed the game to say that they have "beaten it" in the first half an hour then never play the game again. Roguelikes are short games to finish like shmups, and they don't have continues. Neither should shmups) and an "adventure mode"
-Adventure mode would work somewhat like cuphead, where stages and bosses are separated in an overworld in which your progress is saved. In the overworld you can talk to npcs or something and access side missions which would also be accessible in the main menu for people playing arcade mode.
-Provide online co-op (it's weird how no shmups on steam have done this yet) and online leaderboards.

I think that kind of structure would allow for more accessibility, while not being alienating to genre veterans. Of course though, it is hard for developers to make all of those features, especially when they are not a AAA developer and making a port of an already-existing game. Such additions could only feasibly be made if you're making a new game from scratch (and even then probably not all of them).

[Daikatan]

as long as you don't say that dark souls are "easy" (ahem), i'm fine with calling most shmups much harder :D

[100% lob juice]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

as long as you don't say that dark souls are "easy" (ahem), i'm fine with calling most shmups much harder :D

Dark Souls is a hard game for sure, but it does make some concessions to make it not as hard as it could be. The problem is that Dark Souls is hard for completely different reasons than why shmups or run-and-guns are hard which is why the comparisons are so memey

[Daikatan]

Speaking of memes, Mushihimesama's "Hardest Boss Ever" video was popular before Souls came out?

[r3d_belmont456]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

as long as you don't say that dark souls are "easy" (ahem), i'm fine with calling most shmups much harder :D

I honestly wonder what anyone who thinks Dark Souls is hard would do if they played something like Contra III, Battletoads, Ghosts N Goblins or Ninja Gaiden... They'd probably have a Stroke.

I personally think Dark Souls' challenge comes from the 1st blind playthrough, but after that the game becomes a joke...

I remember when I first played Super Ghouls n Ghosts, I couldn't even get passed the 1st stage on the easiest setting, many years later and I can finally beat the whole 2 loops without taking a hit once, on Professional to boot, but I still rely on God Frame abuse to deal with the deadliest hazards and bosses and I don't switch out the Knife to the bracelet until the 2nd to last level...

I remember the very first Danmaku I ever played, it was Ikaruga for the Gamecube, and holy moley did it kick my ass, to this day I still cannot 1CC it on Hard or even get a remotely high score due to how insanely difficult chaining AND staying alive in a polarity system is for my poor brain...

[Daikatan]

Of course Souls are hard, it's just arcade games are harder than hard, and harder than harder than harder etc.

Calling Souls "a joke" is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or elitism. Or more like new meme created to counter existing "souls is teh hardest" meme - both are wrong.

[r3d_belmont456]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

Of course Souls are hard, it's just arcade games are harder than hard, and harder than harder than harder etc.

Calling Souls "a joke" is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or elitism. Or more like new meme created to counter existing "souls is teh hardest" meme - both are wrong.

I wouldn't say it's elitism, at least not from my perspective, mainly because I've just played and got used to harder games and so I speak from experience, wether people struggle more than me or not in Dark Souls games doesn't change my opinion about it...

[Daikatan]

As for hardest one, Death Label boss rush mode from ps2 ver of DDP DOJ took 7 years for be completed by anyone...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8JBDyFC9BE

http://shmuplations.com/scorer3/
http://shmuplations.com/scorer2/