Shmups

I kind of missed out on the whole *zeal franchise. While this has already been out for a while on Steam, this is the remix version's first appearance on Switch.

I'm really enjoying this series of YouTube videos.

Tube shooters? An interesting sub-genre, but one I don't have ton of familiarity with. I have played Gyruss a few times on NES, and maybe a little bit of Tempest... good games, but not my wheelhouse.

While this game has a mixed reputation as a "gooner-shooter" it sounds like there's some mechanical problems hindering the gameplay:

While the graphics are much improved in the Saturn version and the music is pretty good, the locations remain fairly uninteresting and bosses tend to lack any distinct personality outside of their cutscene appearances. The one thing about Steam-Heart’s that jars most is that it’s almost impossible to know when your ship has been hit unless you check the life gauge. There’s no clear audio or visual feedback, which just means you kind of glide through things not realising you’ve taken damage until it’s too late. This, if we remember correctly, was an issue in the PC-98 original, too, and by 2025 should really have been rectified.

Shmups were born in arcades, and remain their natural habitat. Happy to see new venues are still springing up!

Are any of y'all running this on Linux or the Steam Deck? It's 10% off but $53 is a lot to spend to find out whether or not it works. I suppose I'll wait on reviews.

More Toaplan stuff -- and if you've ever wanted a shirt with a picture of the Truxton skull-bomb, you're going to get your chance!

From the description:

Eight Legendary Shmups, One Explosive Bundle! The Toaplan Shooting Collection Vol. 2 truly puts the blast in "Blast from the Past"! Coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X | S and Xbox One on August 14, 2025!

This collection includes:

• Zero Wing
• Hell Fire
• Slap Fight / Alcon
• Grind Stormer / V.V
• Truxton / Tatsujin
• Truxton 2 / Tatsujin Oh
• Vimana
• Twin Hawk

The Toaplan Arcade Shoot 'em up Collection Vol 1&2 will also release in explosive new physical editions!

From the video description:

This week we are covering the updated version of Blue Revolver in Double Action. VanArtic and birb join us to comment on 3 seperate World Record scoring replays in 3 different modes: Hyper, Parallel, and XP Modes. We break down the mechanics and secrets such as executing the multiple "Break" secrets, and etc for optimal scoring.

How it works:

To nominate a game, leave a comment on this thread with a game you’d like to nominate, and if you want, feel free explain why you think your nominee should be GotM. (You can nominate more than one game, but please make a separate comment for each title.)

To vote for a game, simply upvote the comment that nominated it!

Votes will be tallied at around 12:00 AM EDT on June 1st, and a new Game of the Month sticky post will be put up shortly thereafter.

A few guidelines and procedural things:

The Game of the Month is meant as a way to celebrate individual games, but also to drive engagement with some friendly competition. So, when nominating a game let's try to pick ones that have some competitive element involved, like scoring, time-attack, or that can be 1cc'ed in a single playthrough.

Second, while I'd prefer to abstain from voting, in the case of a tie I'm just going to go ahead and choose a winner from the nominated games.

OK! Happy voting!

These sorts of projects are mostly just for fun and education, and I think they're kinda neat.

Timestamps from the description:

00:00 Earthion
01:18 Toaplan Arcade Collection
02:37 Sonic Wings Reunion
03:29 Mamoukun ReCurse
04:07 Touhou 20 - Fossilized Wonders
04:40 Nitro Express
05:21 Steel Carnelian
06:18 Cattle Crisis
07:01 Blast Rush LS
07:44 ACA NeoGeo Selection vol. 5 and 6
08:22 Nebulas Ray
09:25 Super Xevious
09:41 Neon Hawk
09:55 Sterendenn Binary Stars Deluxe
10:28 Bootleg in Wonderland
10:37 Rayging Blue
11:11 Break Arts 3
12:02 The Rise
13:25 JDM - Japanese Drift Master
14:13 The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy
15:04 A.I. Limit
15:51 Doom: The Dark Ages
16:46 Switch Blade
17:27 Stratogun
18:13 Rhythm Witch
19:00 Final Zone

via Rin💖 - Mari💙 on standby on Mastodon.

Fishy!

The game was GG Aleste (the M2 release on Switch). I know it's hardly DDP DOJ lol, but it's actually the first shmup I've ever 1cc'ed, and I feel pretty good about it!

I could say I just causally cleared it this morning before work, but then again I have been playing versions of it off and on for the past decade or so! Letting myself switch sub-weapons was the eventual key to my success. Homing shot seems like a no-brainer, but sometimes you've got to lean on the shield when things get hectic.

From the description:

Shmup Slam 7 | Live Shmup Demonstrations | Day 1, Part 1. Shmup Slam has returned and we have an amazing lineup of runs this year! Also the event is taking place at Akihabara Arcade in Westminster, Colorado! A huge thank you to Akihabara for generously hosting the event and providing such an awesome venue :-) If you are not familiar with Shmup Slam, it's a long running Shoot Em' Up event that I host that features live shmup runs (kind of like GDQ) all piled on top of each other back to back. It's such a fun time and a great way to demonstrate how skill intensive and brutal the genre is, especially in a live setting. I think it's such a cool way to interact with Shmups (Bullet Hell) that we don't get to see very often.

Day 1 features 20 different runs of games and is going to be PACKED! Here is the Schedule for day 1: https://horaro.org/slam7/saturday

The Games are:

1 Strikers 1999
2 Touhou 4 - Lotus Land Story
3 Salamander 2
4 Stellavanity
5 DonPachi
6 Truxton
7 Viper Phase 1 (New Version Japan)
8 Interstellar Sentinel
9 ESP Ra. De.
10 Espgaluda
11 Espgaluda 2
12 Rayforce
13 Raycrisis
14 Satryn Deluxe
15 Guwange
16 Gate of Thunder
17 Battle Garegga 2016 Rev
18 Xeno Crisis (Modern ver.)
19 Azure Reflections
20 Ikaruga (Arcade)

Check the link to see the time in your local timezone.

Releasing in Japan this month, those in the West will have to wait until October.

This article is an excerpt focusing specifically on Nishikado's thoughts regarding bullet hell shooters. You can read the full interview, where he talks about his career and the games industry, here.

Personally, I love danmaku shooters, but I can understand how a game developer might see increasing bullet density as providing diminishing returns as far as entertainment goes. Thankfully a lot of creative people are still out there bringing new concepts to the genre, keeping it fresh.