Retro Shmups for Dummies

[Discoalucard]

Yeah, I mean, it fluctuates from game to game. "The game gets harder as you get more powerful" is linear and very easy to understand. On the other hand, I've read a strategy guide for...Pink Sweets. Here's the quote from here: shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=18189

An important task besides scoring well is controlling the Rank. Basically everything raises it and nothing lowers it. The only way to ‘control’ it, is not to let it raise to quickly. Let us start with the worst thing you could ever do, the Rose Cracker. Simply never use this thing, because if you use it once, the Rank raises, the bullet patterns get more dense and then the second time you are forced to use it. By the third time you are already game over. Other stuff that raises Rank (not as much as the Rose Cracker though) is:
-Pressing a button
-Survival Time
-Collecting items (including roses and medals)
You can not do anything against the first two points, so just ignore them. For the third one, I would suggest only collecting medals and maybe one Special Power Up at the start/after a death. Try to avoid Rose Hip items, as you do not get any points from killing an enemy with it anyway. Another very important thing is your life stock. The more lives you have in stock, the worse is the effect of the stuff that raises the Rank. The best way to keep Rank down is to play with an empty life stock the entire game.

Shooters are games about shooting and collecting power-ups, and here this person is suggesting that the best way to play this game is to do neither? That's all just absurd. What's the point of giving the player a unique bomb (the referenced Rose Cracker) if the game is going to punish you for using it? Granted, from my experience this guy is exagerating a bit, but there's definitely some truth to it.

[Vokkan]

Well, all that quote really is saying is that survival time, bombing and excessive pickups raises the rank. It just sounds complex because he is stating all the intricacies that are behind the scenes for preciseness/factuality.

Rank is always going up in every game. The nature of games is to be increasingly difficult, be it shooters, sims or racing games. Rank control is just that. Control of the games' flexible systems.

[BulletMagnet]

Aug 1, 2011 20:04:33 GMT -5 Vokkan said:

I'm doubtful, but if that's the case, then could you possibly depower yourself, then suicide (or die naturally, as one tend to do in a "naked" state) for extra rank decrease?

No idea, honestly, though I'm sure that SOMEbody out there has tried it at some point.

I despise rank manipulation in games especially because they're hidden in practically every game.

On this particular point I can't really disagree, especially since it tends to do just as much harm to the developer's image as anything else - various misconceptions about how Garegga's rank worked made the game sound terrible, but once someone hacked the ROM and got some hard numbers it became much less intimidating and made a lot more sense. The problem, of course, is that someone needed to hack the ROM to find out how to play the game properly - I do wish more "rank-centric" shooters took the "okay, let's lay it all out there" approach, a la DFKBL.

And TECHNICALLY some of the Cave ports have it shown on screen - though I don't really trust it, mostly because Pink Sweets will continue to kick my ass even though it's at the lowest rank possible.

Well, that's because it's Pink Sweets, and that's what Pink Sweets does. By the by, debate continues to attempt to decipher exactly how the rank works in that game, so that ST you quoted may or may not be correct (which relates to the whole "why don't they just TELL us" aspect discussed above).

Shooters are games about shooting and collecting power-ups, and here this person is suggesting that the best way to play this game is to do neither? That's all just absurd.

I guess it depends on how "traditional" you like your shooters...yes, the typical experience involves grabbing absolutely everything onscreen without thinking so you can blow everything away before it gets you, which is fine, but stuff like Garegga challenges you in a different way, by goading you into getting by with as few lives/bombs powerups as possible, walking the knife's edge, as it were. Off to the side, I'm curious how you feel about stuff like Psyvariar and Vasara, which actively discourage shooting in favor of other techniques much of the time.

[acidonia]

Psyvariar is freaking impossible you have to 100% perfect run every stage without using your default weapons or dying to probally even reach one of the real final levels. I tried on my Ps2 European copy and only once I could get best rank even on first level and I was on the easyiest seting.

Though for years I though my European copy of Homura on Ps2 I thought only had four levels no where in the instuction book says you can not continue to even play the final level.

[Discoalucard]

Aug 2, 2011 15:52:37 GMT -5 BulletMagnet said:

I guess it depends on how "traditional" you like your shooters...yes, the typical experience involves grabbing absolutely everything onscreen without thinking so you can blow everything away before it gets you, which is fine, but stuff like Garegga challenges you in a different way, by goading you into getting by with as few lives/bombs powerups as possible, walking the knife's edge, as it were. Off to the side, I'm curious how you feel about stuff like Psyvariar and Vasara, which actively discourage shooting in favor of other techniques much of the time.

I'm not a huge Psyvariar fan, but I can dig how it works, because it's a mechanic that's explicitly explained and easily understood. Same goes with Ikaruga and color switching, and both Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun when choosing when and where to shoot. Stuff like Garegga is way, way more abstract about how it's all supposed to work.

And following up on what Derboo said a page or two back - did the developers intend for players to play like this, or is it simply players learning to "break" the game to maximize scoring/survival?

[BulletMagnet]

Aug 3, 2011 9:50:33 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

And following up on what Derboo said a page or two back - did the developers intend for players to play like this, or is it simply players learning to "break" the game to maximize scoring/survival?

I'm not aware offhand of any direct statements on this subject from the Raizing crew and others like them, though I'm sure someone somewhere must've pinned down Yagawa at some point...in any event, whether or not it was the designers' original intention, it's been pretty well "legitimized" by now (even in games where "rank control" isn't outright necessary to beat a game, it's still part of the discussion, especially when it comes to optimal scoring). I'm tempted to compare it to how combos first made their way into fighting games, though obviously it's not as ubiquitous.