The top 10 best selling games in the U.S. in 2014 are...

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Andrejake
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20 Jan 2015, 11:36 am

Misery wrote:
I do have a Youtube channel, yes. Most of what I put up there is random bullet-hell shmup runs that I've recorded.

My best couple of examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uON3zty3-Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdDRj0XklQU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOQBL1T2o8

Well, those are the most impressive of the group at any rate. The Dodonpachi DOJ Death Label one is probably the next most impressive (it's also the hardest one to follow, as it's the game that moves fastest of the group), and then also the Deathsmiles "Jitterbug" boss fight. That one in particular got alot of views for who knows what reason. I do so many shmup vids as it's one of the genres I'm best at; pretty much my main talents are a couple of things: reacting/processing absurdly fast, and tracking a huge number of things all at once. Problem is that I"m not all that good at much else, hah. Put me in an FPS and most of what you'll see are me managing to explode myself alot, or something.

There's also the LittleBigPlanet bullet-hell bosses I put together. Other than all that, there's some random things that I threw in just... because. A few have commentary.

It's been awhile since my last video as my blasted SD card reader randomly ate one of the cards and died. I might go get another one at some point this week as it's been bugging the heck outta me, particularly since there's a particular game right now that I'd like to get videos of.



But yeah, I agree with you, watching impressive displays of skill can be very fun and awesome. I've seen tons of different shmup runs of different games, and super high scoring runs of old (and thus usually very difficult) arcade games also impress me alot.

What tends to impress me the most though: amazing FPS skill. It's a genre I'm often not all that fond of.... I love "Doom" style games but dont like playing the recently-popular "modern military" style ones... but holy heck, watching high level competitive players in that genre... I dunno how they do half that stuff. See, when *I* try it, well... it turns out that reflexes and tracking/processing dont add up to a damn thing if you CANT HIT ANYTHING. Or havent the foggiest sense of "tactics" in a game like that. Far as I'm concerned, "tactics" for me is the same thing I do in Doom, which is to charge at things, yell "BLAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!! ! ! !", and either shotgun or just punch them. That's me being tactical. I do the same in fighting games, which works most of the time. Doesnt work in modern FPS games though, hah. But yeah, just.... I dunno how those guys do some of the totally loopy kills that they manage. Often they'll get like, 12 in a row before dying once, and just.... yeah, wow. And the teamwork and strategy on display, I also often dont know how they know where to go and what to do at any given time.

Oh, and anything from the "moba" genre, if you know what that is. I like that genre, but I'm still new to it, so am easily impressed by the very high skill level of tourney players. They put in soooooooo much time to be able to do that loopy stuff.


Also totally agreed on the game list bit.... those mostly really are lacking even the tiniest shred of original ideas, or even good execution in most cases. Just.... ugh. It's a craptastic list, it really is.... but TOTALLY expected.


Yeah, it's not surprising that they are on the list.

I saw your channel, you have a lot of videos there.
I'll see it again with more calm when I'm back home from work, but I just watched one of those videos that you linked here and...
Holy God... How do you... I... Just...
How can you dodge that freaking amount of shots coming at you at the same time? I was feeling a little dizzy just by watching you lol
Do you have your position in each stage memorized or is that pure reflex and reaction (I don't know if those games use a pattern or if they shot they way they want/when they want)? I wish i was that fast in observing that amount of things and quickly reacting properly.
When I'm playing games I am quite a good observer and I can think quite quickly, but in a different way (and probably way slower) than what you do. I could probably spend some time watching and, if there is a pattern, memorize where I should position myself.
That's why i'm most into games that have its difficulty relying on puzzles and gameplay aspects that let me at least think before act like some turn based RPGs (problem is that most of them are stupidly easy), dungeon crawlers, zelda games (the last ones are also too easy, but still fun), and games where the development of the character (talent points, skill trees to choose, equipment) require some deep thought and intelligence to play.
I think i'll try one of those bullet storm games when i have an opportunity. I'm now curious about how i would perform on them with some training.



Misery
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20 Jan 2015, 12:34 pm

Andrejake wrote:
Yeah, it's not surprising that they are on the list.

I saw your channel, you have a lot of videos there.
I'll see it again with more calm when I'm back home from work, but I just watched one of those videos that you linked here and...
Holy God... How do you... I... Just...
How can you dodge that freaking amount of shots coming at you at the same time? I was feeling a little dizzy just by watching you lol
Do you have your position in each stage memorized or is that pure reflex and reaction (I don't know if those games use a pattern or if they shot they way they want/when they want)? I wish i was that fast in observing that amount of things and quickly reacting properly.
When I'm playing games I am quite a good observer and I can think quite quickly, but in a different way (and probably way slower) than what you do. I could probably spend some time watching and, if there is a pattern, memorize where I should position myself.
That's why i'm most into games that have its difficulty relying on puzzles and gameplay aspects that let me at least think before act like some turn based RPGs (problem is that most of them are stupidly easy), dungeon crawlers, zelda games (the last ones are also too easy, but still fun), and games where the development of the character (talent points, skill trees to choose, equipment) require some deep thought and intelligence to play.
I think i'll try one of those bullet storm games when i have an opportunity. I'm now curious about how i would perform on them with some training.



Hm, those sorts of games, much of the time dealing with them is a combination of memory & reaction. How much of each depends on the individual player. For me, my memory is bloody horrible. Just bad, bad, bad. And I blank out alot (forget what I'm doing while I'm doing it, or worse). Always have, always will. So it's more about speed and tracking for me. But I'll remember some stuff of course; I know what each individual enemy type is going to do, for instance, and I typically have at least a vague idea of "important" positions in very specific parts of certain stages, where something special occurs that I must remember in order to pass without dying; like the rocks following the midboss in the first of those 3 videos. Wheras other players are excellent with the memory bit, and can memorize damn near everything, and dont have to rely on speed to do what they do.

The actual patterns are both pre-made patterns, AND aimed, in most cases. That first video, for example: Not even one of those patterns is randomized. But at the same time, none of them are fixed in place either; they're all preset patterns that shift or change depending on my own position and current movement. That's very typical of Cave's games (Cave being the developer of these). For example, the mid-sized bird things that appear early on in that first video; they fire that sort of "triangle" shaped burst. That pattern is *always* shaped like that, but the direction it flies in is dependant on where I am at the time. That's only a very simple example; some patterns will alter in subtle or downright bizarre ways depending on where I am and what I"m doing.

And they can get COMPLICATED. The third video, the boss at the end is probably the hardest bit to watch/follow for many. That very first attack it does, I just call it "the blur", because I figure that's probably what most people see when they look at it. What it ACTUALLY is though, is three seperate layers, each one it's own pattern, each one behaving entirely dependant on my movement, though with each one reacting to me in totally different ways. I both know this and can see it, and as such I actually almost never get hit by that. Wheras the 2nd attack the boss does, I very clearly just outright forget what to do there (it's a "trick" pattern, and for the life of me I havent the foggiest clue what to do there, cannot remember), and so I throw a bomb to clear it.

Those games though are... very extreme examples. The first one, Mushihime-sama Futari, is accurately described as the hardest game ever made. Probably less than 20 people have ever beaten it. Just as an example of HOW hard it is, you can see me do all that crazy stuff in the first level.... but I cannot beat the second level. I've yet to manage that at all. It gets worse from there, culminating in a final boss so bloody horrible that the entire rest of the game was a really vague warm-up for it. The second of those 3 videos is actually of that boss, except it's the "easy" version of that boss, despite how crazy it will still look (yet it is *really* dramatically less difficult). Though the second half of that fight is a totally different thing than the nasty version.

Most of the genre never gets THAT loopy. And most of these games are typically not played just for survival, but also for score (which also means never using continues, though that's the rule regardless, usually), and have complicated scoring systems too (which is my favorite part).

Good example of one being played for score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75MXLijhy_8

There's all sorts of game elements mashing together to create the scoring system; there's bullet-canceling, chaining, medal timing/collecting, use of specific shot types/modes for specific purposes relating to the scoring, and so on. Again, not all of them are that complicated, and in that specific video I'm playing on the hardest mode; that one's actually a very accessible (and just downright fantastic) game that anyone could get started with.

If you want to try some of the genre for yourself, hmm, I'd say to start with the original Giga Wing. It can be found as a rom for the MAME emulator (arcade). It's the one I started with, and does make for a great entry point into the genre. There's a bazillion such games out there though, and so many different gameplay and design styles; the real trick is just finding ones that wont make you get overly frustratred with them.


....on another note, I totally agree on the JRPG bit. In concept, I like turn-based RPGs. In execution.... uuugh. They're SO DAMN EASY. Particularly those made by Square, which is a shame, since everyone else then tends to COPY them. Just.... ugh. There certainly are turn-based ones that are hard as freaking nails, which are typically ones that play like the Wizardry series (usually tend to be first-person dungeon exploration, but with typical random turn-based battles appearing), but usually the ones everyone knows, and the most common sort, are.... ugh. Yeah. Boring. I just cant do them. A cure for insomnia, they are! Not that anyone ever AGREES with me on this though, bah.



Andrejake
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20 Jan 2015, 3:37 pm

Misery wrote:
Hm, those sorts of games, much of the time dealing with them is a combination of memory & reaction. How much of each depends on the individual player. For me, my memory is bloody horrible. Just bad, bad, bad. And I blank out alot (forget what I'm doing while I'm doing it, or worse). Always have, always will. So it's more about speed and tracking for me. But I'll remember some stuff of course; I know what each individual enemy type is going to do, for instance, and I typically have at least a vague idea of "important" positions in very specific parts of certain stages, where something special occurs that I must remember in order to pass without dying; like the rocks following the midboss in the first of those 3 videos. Wheras other players are excellent with the memory bit, and can memorize damn near everything, and dont have to rely on speed to do what they do.

The actual patterns are both pre-made patterns, AND aimed, in most cases. That first video, for example: Not even one of those patterns is randomized. But at the same time, none of them are fixed in place either; they're all preset patterns that shift or change depending on my own position and current movement. That's very typical of Cave's games (Cave being the developer of these). For example, the mid-sized bird things that appear early on in that first video; they fire that sort of "triangle" shaped burst. That pattern is *always* shaped like that, but the direction it flies in is dependant on where I am at the time. That's only a very simple example; some patterns will alter in subtle or downright bizarre ways depending on where I am and what I"m doing.

And they can get COMPLICATED. The third video, the boss at the end is probably the hardest bit to watch/follow for many. That very first attack it does, I just call it "the blur", because I figure that's probably what most people see when they look at it. What it ACTUALLY is though, is three seperate layers, each one it's own pattern, each one behaving entirely dependant on my movement, though with each one reacting to me in totally different ways. I both know this and can see it, and as such I actually almost never get hit by that. Wheras the 2nd attack the boss does, I very clearly just outright forget what to do there (it's a "trick" pattern, and for the life of me I havent the foggiest clue what to do there, cannot remember), and so I throw a bomb to clear it.

Those games though are... very extreme examples. The first one, Mushihime-sama Futari, is accurately described as the hardest game ever made. Probably less than 20 people have ever beaten it. Just as an example of HOW hard it is, you can see me do all that crazy stuff in the first level.... but I cannot beat the second level. I've yet to manage that at all. It gets worse from there, culminating in a final boss so bloody horrible that the entire rest of the game was a really vague warm-up for it. The second of those 3 videos is actually of that boss, except it's the "easy" version of that boss, despite how crazy it will still look (yet it is *really* dramatically less difficult). Though the second half of that fight is a totally different thing than the nasty version.

Most of the genre never gets THAT loopy. And most of these games are typically not played just for survival, but also for score (which also means never using continues, though that's the rule regardless, usually), and have complicated scoring systems too (which is my favorite part).

Good example of one being played for score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75MXLijhy_8

There's all sorts of game elements mashing together to create the scoring system; there's bullet-canceling, chaining, medal timing/collecting, use of specific shot types/modes for specific purposes relating to the scoring, and so on. Again, not all of them are that complicated, and in that specific video I'm playing on the hardest mode; that one's actually a very accessible (and just downright fantastic) game that anyone could get started with.

If you want to try some of the genre for yourself, hmm, I'd say to start with the original Giga Wing. It can be found as a rom for the MAME emulator (arcade). It's the one I started with, and does make for a great entry point into the genre. There's a bazillion such games out there though, and so many different gameplay and design styles; the real trick is just finding ones that wont make you get overly frustratred with them.


....on another note, I totally agree on the JRPG bit. In concept, I like turn-based RPGs. In execution.... uuugh. They're SO DAMN EASY. Particularly those made by Square, which is a shame, since everyone else then tends to COPY them. Just.... ugh. There certainly are turn-based ones that are hard as freaking nails, which are typically ones that play like the Wizardry series (usually tend to be first-person dungeon exploration, but with typical random turn-based battles appearing), but usually the ones everyone knows, and the most common sort, are.... ugh. Yeah. Boring. I just cant do them. A cure for insomnia, they are! Not that anyone ever AGREES with me on this though, bah.


Hum
I think i got it. They do have a pattern for the attacks but where the attack go usually depends on your position. This makes things a little clearer in my mind for how you do this.
I just looked at the last boss of the game you mentioned (Mushihime-sama Futari) and dear God! If i were watching this before you mention the game difficulty i would think that the video was just some kind of custom game played by a bot lol
There's one comment there that made me laugh loud:
"You can almost count the amount of pixels that aren't bullets."
lol
I have a MAME emulator on my phone, i'll download the game that you mentioned and see what happens. Although i can already feel the playing something like this using touch screen will not be good.



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20 Jan 2015, 8:50 pm

Andrejake wrote:
Hum
I think i got it. They do have a pattern for the attacks but where the attack go usually depends on your position. This makes things a little clearer in my mind for how you do this.
I just looked at the last boss of the game you mentioned (Mushihime-sama Futari) and dear God! If i were watching this before you mention the game difficulty i would think that the video was just some kind of custom game played by a bot lol
There's one comment there that made me laugh loud:
"You can almost count the amount of pixels that aren't bullets."
lol
I have a MAME emulator on my phone, i'll download the game that you mentioned and see what happens. Although i can already feel the playing something like this using touch screen will not be good.


Yeah, there can be ALOT of bullets on the screen with these games.

One thing to remember with them: high density does not necessarily = higher difficulty. I can think of a few bosses in these games that have some sort of attack that just drenches the entire screen in multicolored doom, but it's the sort of thing that LOOKS terrible, yet really isnt. It's moreso about how the pattern is structured; where each bullet is moving in relation to each other one. Some of the patterns I might call truly nasty (aside from the uber-difficult games) actually use an oddly small number of shots, yet they'll give me so very much trouble.

As for your phone, hmm, what kind of phone is it? There are actually *alot* of shmups, many of them bullet-hell types, on mobile. It turned out that a touchscreen is wonderful for that sort of game (it's the perfect shape, and movement via touch is more accurate than movement via dpad or stick); though, how that sort would be on a phone VS a tablet I'm not sure. I use my iPad for it. But yeah, dumb as it might sound, there's no such thing as more accurate controls than that. Mushihime Futari itself can be found on iOS, for that matter (under the name Bug Princess 2, I think). Though the controls for changing shot type in that one are a little annoying, but the movement is perfect.

Mame on a phone though.... hah, yeah, that one might not go quite as well.



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21 Jan 2015, 5:28 am

I have a Sony Experia ZQ, i think it can handle most of the games that are available for Android.
I've played a few games on the Mame emulator and they were nicely playable, although i haven't played nothing were small drops on framerate would be a problem (it looks like on these games it would be).
Do you know of any of those games that works on android then?



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21 Jan 2015, 9:34 am

Andrejake wrote:
I have a Sony Experia ZQ, i think it can handle most of the games that are available for Android.
I've played a few games on the Mame emulator and they were nicely playable, although i haven't played nothing were small drops on framerate would be a problem (it looks like on these games it would be).
Do you know of any of those games that works on android then?



For Android:

Dodonpachi Resurrection, this is the mobile version of Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu. Which I think is brilliant. Very accessible game, it's a good entry point into the genre.... until stage 5, where there's an absolutely godawful difficulty spike, relatively speaking. Dunno what maniac designed THAT part. The controls for shot switching/bombing are odd. This, I think, is the one you'd want to start with. Both game modes are great.

Deathsmiles: Strange one, the main gimmick is that you can switch directions, firing either left or right (as opposed to always facing one way). Controls are definitely odd for everything other than movement. Like Resurrection this is a very accessible, easier game until stage 5 where that same maniac came and made a level.

ESPGaluda 2: ....this one is weird. I'm not even sure what to say about it. Each of these games comes with a special new mode (in addition to the normal one) that's mobile-only, and for the most part these new modes are all very good... but THIS one is just freaking weird. As for the normal game, eehhhh.... it's one of the few I dont like much, though that's mostly related to it's scoring system. Controls still odd for everything that isnt movement. The only Cave game that got the controls perfectly right is DDP Maximum, which is also the best of the bunch... but it's available on everything that ISNT Android.

Danmaku Unlimited 1 & 2: Fairly basic ones, but pretty well designed. If I remember correctly they were designed for mobile to begin with.



Beyond that, I'm not sure. iOS is what I use, and I can also point out about a bazillion such games on PC (some free, others not), but Android I'm not familiar with at all. I just know of that group. The Mushihime games are not on Android, and neither is the other Dodonpachi.



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21 Jan 2015, 7:49 pm

Thank you for the suggestions.
I'll get some of them to see if i can have some fun.