I feel like the game better suited for the Ikaruga parallel is Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is the normie poster child for music games so it gets a ton of praise for things it does that aren’t particularly novel for the genre, but it’s the only one they’ve played so whatever. I don’t think anyone thinks Guitar Hero is actually bad (despite what I may have said about its combo-based scoring when I was younger), they’re just frustrated that so much of the mainstream music game narrative revolves around it when there’s much better out there.
osu is actually just bad. It’s only notable because it’s free and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s an OK way to diversify training your mouse skills if you want to play first person shooters at a high level. Even then there are better free clones of better music games to play if you know where to look.
The only STG I’ve ever put serious time into is Radiant Silvergun, I went at it with the 1CC mentality for a period of a couple weeks andwas able to consistently get quite a ways into it but not within reaching distance of the end, I’d say. The sheer breadth of that game made it very intimidating – it felt like there were so, so many different bosses to learn – but also provided some spice to make it a little less repetitive. I got into it to the depth of watching other people’s runs and trying to incorporate their techniques into my own, but ultimately the final stretches of the game were just too daunting for me and I threw in the towel.
I’ve played maybe 2 or so hours of Ikaruga, and it feels so different to me, much more focused, maybe this is rude to say but much more gimmicky? I could see very quickly what it wanted to focus on and that was something I was much less interested in exploring.
I profess a strong interest in Cave shooters, despite barely sampling any of them (bout 3 hours of DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou, an hour of Espgaluda, I can’t remember but maybe I tried Guwange at some point? Anyway the intimidation factor of walls of bullets and the joy of overcoming them is the closest analogue I’ve found to both the skill ceiling and the meta-feedback loop of rhythm games, which is what has me interested.
I mean to be fair the nomination was specifically for EBA/Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, but I mentally expanded that to include osu to even give it a point of comparison for other rhythm games. Maybe I’m being unfair being like “well no, at least DDR should be there instead of those DS games” because I genuinely don’t think that they’re rhythm games, and hearing them referred to as such instantly has me putting them up against Bemani output
Also yeah Guitar Hero isn’t bad but its timing windows are too wide imo. This has some good in that it makes the high-level modded play that some people perform at possible, but bad because it makes the pedestrian experience of playing it frictionless and unrewarding
Agree, but it came right at a transitional period between SD CRTs and HDTVs so you probably wanted to widen the window somewhat to accommodate for greater input lag
Good point — I’m wondering if they had a timing adjustment option like (I think) Happy Sky CS onwards did, but I suppose even seeking out and adjusting that option is more than should be expected of the target audience — people there to rock n roll, not chase perfection
There are no representatives from the Stranding and F.R.E.E. genres smh
Ikaruga is the best Shoot The Gizmo for me because it looks at Radiant Silvergun’s sword that can eat pink bullets and says « what if you could eat every bullet, not just the pink ones » and is thus much superior for it
Dodging a ton of bullets with your microscopic ship is kind of the point of the genre (at least, the most praised games in the genre) it’s also maybe the part I enjoy the least about them, and Ikaruga sort of almost makes me avoid that. Makes sense why STG fans here groan at the game and outsiders praise it. That’s like what if Zelda OOT was the only representative of the 3D platforming genre in this contest
People groan at Ikaruga because of its overwhelming popularity and because (as @HOBO noted), it was basically solved when it was released. And yeah, that its central mechanic that people love is basically the opposite of why people like STGs.
I know I come off as way against Ikaruga, and I am not. I enjoyed that game a lot, but more as an outlier to STGs, not as THE STG.
Since this thread is discussing a bunch of the failed but stranger noms I’m curious what the STG crowd think of Sine Mora? I played it purely because it was a Grasshopper joint venture but thought it had enough gimmicks to stand out from the crowd. If anyone has an opinion informed by robust knowledge of the genre I’d love to hear it.
I nommed Ouendan because I considered it a fun way to experience stories in a language I don’t understand while listening to pop music in a language I don’t understand, and not really because of its merits as a rhythmatic game. If I were to have nominated a proper rhythm game it would have been some boring choice like DDR, though maybe I could have been persuaded to do something like boost Rhythm Heaven or Vib Ribbon or beatmania or…
…I was gonna put Donkey Konga (US tracklist) there mostly as a joke, but now I just realized that none of us nominated Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.
Whining about how normie the picks are is the most normie thing you can do, fuckin’ hell, if you cared so much you coulda done ctrl +F “Your Favorite Game” in The Thread Made For Nomination Talk and rocked the vote a bit harder. Some folks in here are really proving how important Everybody Votes truly is.
Or you could just, like, not care cuz lists are dumb as hell.
But seriously, there is a thread for nomination talk, there is a thread for discussing the matchups, maybe we can like…actually use these threads for their intended purposes. This isn’t the Axe!! Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 and Espgaluda should have been on this list! I only nominated for one of those! Who cares!! Go ahead and probate me for backseat modding! I don’t care! I’m already fired!!
well joke’s on me because the forum ate my draft with actual thoughts on the games in this round of voting when I replied to @yarusenai and now I have to rewrite them
I love you all, I just ended up spending a few panicked moments searching through like 5 different documents to figure out how a piece of shit like Osu made the list without me noticing it.
It was funny.
Yeah, I think Third Strike is one of the best looking games ever made and it feels better than any subsequent Street Fighter but I am not too big on it. In my experience what @slime said about its playerbase is accurate – it’s largely loved by more casual folk who mainly play fighters for their aesthetics, or highly skilled players who only play 3S. Which is cool! The former group is the only one that’s actually fun to play against. Cuz its high level play is a huge turn off for me. I can build meter and cancel c.mk into super. Occasionally I’ll parry on purpose. This is as far as I want to go. I love Street Fighter. I like games where fireballs are strong. And I hate those fucking twins. So I don’t like Third Strike.
I’m gonna vote for it though. There are only two FGs on this list vs. like half a dozen run 'n guns. Fighters are the only games that can consistently hold my interest for more than 15 minutes. I will probably vote for them every time.
(Gonna be a hypocrite and admit I’m far more disappointed in the FG representation on the list than anything else, it’s just two Street Fighters…and only one of them is Actually Good.)
I must add wrt Beatmania and other arcade rhythm games is that, yknow, many of us straight up don’t have access to them as arcade games. I have never seen a Beatmania machine in real life. The only arcade rhythm game machines I’ve ever witnessed in person were DDR, Pump It Up and the Guitar Hero one. I know there’s peripherals for consoles and PCs, but consider that it is still a big entry barrier for a niche genre and therefore a lot of us have no acquaintance.
third strike is the only street fighter i enjoy playing, but i usually play anime fighters (at a very low level). every other SF just feels so slow that my lack of actual skill is amplified. also third strike looks amazing, and i am definitely in the camp of playing all videogames for aesthetic reasons.
it’s funny how I agree with this but voted for 3S and not that fighting game that I actually love and enjoy. SF2 will likely end up in losers bracket and i will very likely vote for it then
