Board 8 > question for anybody with knowledge of prominent vertical shmups

(+) Yeah! (+)

recently set up a monitor in portrait mode for tweetdeck for work, and was gonna get in on some vertical shmups because why not

i'm pretty familiar with the genre in its earlier days, as a huge TG-16 fan as a kid, i had plenty to work with as far as both vertical and side scrollers are concerned.

but in looking at some lists for things in the steam sale, there are three games that came up that i am not very familiar with. they are:

DoDonPachi Resurrection ($15 on sale)
Mushihimesama ($8 on sale)
BLUE REVOLVER ($7.50 on sale)

Anybody have any thoughts on these? They come heavily recommended, but all have been out for some time and none of those three have been on "great" sales. Are they worth the current pricing? i have some steam credit and was thinking about going that way, but not sure if one of those stands above the other or if they are all required or what.
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I take it you're familiar with Ikaruga?

I'm not an expert on this genre, but I always go to Ikaruga first
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transience posted...

I take it you're familiar with Ikaruga?

I'm not an expert on this genre, but I always go to Ikaruga first

yup, i bought ikaruga like 10 minutes ago since i never bought the steam version, but i've played a whole lot of it on other platforms. looking forward to this definitive version.
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I would go with mushihimesama. I haven't played it but I've always viewed it as the definitive bullet hell game. (I don't think of Ikaruga as bullet hell)
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yeah Mushihimesama is pretty good, and generally anything else by CAVE. Even the mobile version is pretty fun.

DoDonPachi is by CAVE as well. I don't know about this version in particular but DDP is generally regarded as very difficult even for a shmup

Blue Revolver is made by Western devs but with JP-shooter sensibilities and anime aesthetic. The artist is fairly well-known depending on what circles you dwell in (woof/woofycakes). It's getting a free Director's Cut update in spring. I would recommend it.
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Oh, the newest Touhou is on Steam too. I don't know how good it is though, and also it's only in Japanese because ZUN dislikes money. This is also the reason none of the other mainline Touhou games are available on Steam
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digiiiiiiiii posted...

Mushihimesama ($8 on sale)

sea of purple

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

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Oh, the newest Touhou is on Steam too. I don't know how good it is though, and also it's only in Japanese because ZUN dislikes money. This is also the reason none of the other mainline Touhou games are available on Steam

There's an English patch
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I had a tun of fun with eXceed 3rd: Jade Penetrate Black Package a few years back.
Killer soundtrack with crazy bullet hell fun.

It's $3 on steam atm
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Raiden V came out last year and was pretty well-received, though I haven't personally played it
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All three of those are solid games. Cave has been one of the more prominent companies for bullet hell games, so you know you're getting a good product from them. I kind of know one of the people who worked on Blue Revolver, so I followed along with the progress as it was being completed. It's not as well known as the others, but everyone who's played it seems to range from enjoying it to loving it, so I don't think you can go wrong with this one either.
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Alright, I went ahead and picked up Ikaruga ($5), Raiden IV: Overkill ($2.24), Mushihimesama ($8) , Crimzon Clover WORLD IGNITION ($2), Danmaku Unlimited III ($4) and Blue Revolver ($7.50).

Add to that Downwell, which isn't a SHMUP but a portrait mode-supporting game that I already owned, and I think I have a pretty damn good list of games to test the portrait monitor setup.

I'll wait on DoDonPachi until it gets cheaper, same with Raiden V and I'll look into the other games mentioned here).
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if you're interested in figuring out what the hell touhou is all about but you don't want to pay money for it, you could try out jigoku kisetsukan. it's on steam, it's by an english developer, and it's FREE. but it's basically like the dollar store version of what a touhou fan would make if they wanted to make a touhou game. still pretty decent quality though and fits in the same category with enough similarities that I think you could easily go "hey, I like this, maybe I'll check out some touhous" or "I hate this and will never play a touhou in my life."

major differences are that the music is not as good, which is not a surprise since touhou music is known for being pretty legendary, and the story progression is a liiitttlleee bit different from your 'average' touhou. that being said the 'average' touhou usually experiments with some kind of new set up or gimmick so you could think of this as continuing in the same tradition. anyway instead of having a small cast of characters each with multiple options for different shot types, there's a larger group of playable characters. at the start you only have one but as you defeat each boss they actually become playable and each have their own route.

there's also neat trophies for things like completing the game without killing anything... which I've attempted but not succeeded at yet.

edit; I'm not throwing this in the ring as a rec for the greatest game in the world or anything, but more that I personally find it worth mentioning because I doubt anyone else would bring it up due to it being relatively obscure. and since it's free there's really no harm if you don't like it.
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got Jamestown? it's certainly not in the bullet hell category but is likable. I think they put out a second version, like a director's cut kind of thing, that I never played? I haven't thought about it in a while
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I was about to recommend Jamestown too...but that's because the only shmups I've played in like the past decade are Galaga, Ikaruga, and Jamestown.

That ship that lets you shoot multiple directions is A+ with me.
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yeah, i have jamestown, and completely forgot about it as well. it wasn't listed among games that support portrait mode so i'll have to see if it does! thanks for reminding me about it
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I think Jamestown was meant to be played vertically in landscape. I could be wrong though
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i can't imagine caring about something like that personally
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I guess you could maybe look at the Tale of Alltynex trilogy, but I haven't played it and don't know if it's on sale.

I haven't really played much in the genre since I was playing touhou/seihou/x.x/aba games on my laptop.
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