need to compile a shmups for people who are bad at shmups (me) list.
magical chase
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Love the pumpkin shop keep
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Soldier Blade
Star Parodier
DoDonPachi
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then you should definitely play trouble witches
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Touhou 15 - Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (this is not a joke; play the checkpoints game mode)
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On that note, I want to make a point that I was serious about dodonpachi. A danmaku shooter just asks for different skills than traditional ones. You tend to get by without fast reflexes if you’ve got a good sense of awareness and pattern recognition.
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i do think dodonpachi is a pretty enjoyable time even for someone who isn’t shmupbrained for a few reasons
A) it’s just plain fun and the level of fictive destruction (this is a game whose second ending involves total anthropocide at the hands of the player character lmao) and audiovisual stimulation and fast pace are immediately gripping and above a huge proportion of videogames all while operating largely on a couple buttons and a digital joystick (far more approachable than anything involving a dual analog control scheme for example), and space invaders-like logic (shoot everything that moves, don’t get hit). i think the majority of people on this forum have the gamer reflexes to get to like the stage 2 boss for example, and a number of cave co. games feature relatively gentle difficulty curves where they don’t get especially intense until stage 3 or 4 (usually out of 5 or 6 stages total!)
B) the skills involved are not really in dodging individual hitboxes at the pixel by pixel scale and it’s usually better to go around a cloud of projectiles than through it, i think people often think pixel-scale dodging is how you’re “supposed” to play “bullet hell” games but broadly speaking it isn’t and i don’t think the subgenre is that different from the slightly more old-school irem / gradius style as someone who is a huge fan of both
C) the score system is largely incidental as it is many cave co. titles as in: ignoring it entirely doesn’t impede your progress through the stages to any extent
D) you can spam the credits button however much you want on an emulator, no one can stop you and the only reason not to is the same reason you wouldn’t play other games with unlimited lives or unlimited health hacks, which is simply that for a subset of players, this defuses the fun to a large extent lol
E) the original dodonpachi is one of the high points of 90s pixel art (and by extension pixel art period), why not aspire to play something so well-crafted…
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Here’s my list of stuff that I think is particularly friendly to people without much shooter experience and isn’t stuff people have already mentioned. Assuming you’re mainly looking for vert-scrollers. Reasoning in the drop-downs.
Devil Blade Reboot
An artist at VanillaWare remakes a shmup he made in the 90s. It’s very clever without being particularly hard - lots of variety in enemy and boss patterns without being too bullet hell. Great for learning and honestly just a really great shooter, I consider this up there with the best and I’ve played a lot of them.
ZeroRanger
A loving homage to the genre as a whole. Incorporates tons from other games in terms of both stage design and deliberate visual references (the intro is basically the one from Dimahoo!). Gradually ramps up in a very pleasing way, very beginner-friendly.
Crimzon Clover World EXplosion
Probably the hardest game on this list, but still easier than the likes of DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu (the easiest DDP game IMO, and worth getting if you end up liking DDP or Crimzon Clover). The break mechanic plus bombs allows you to strategically avoid really difficult patterns - good for newer players - and also reveals a very high skill ceiling for scoring. Excellent stuff!
rRootage + Giga Wing
Kenta Cho’s masterpiece, though really any Kenta Cho game can go on this list. Has four play modes that correspond to four classic shmups and which change the mechanics to match those games:
- Normal (DoDonPachi): Standard shooter with laser attack and bomb
- Psy (Psyvariar): You graze bullets to build meter
- Ika (Ikaruga): Bullets have polarities and you absorb bullets of the same polarity as you
- GW (Giga Wing): You have a reflect move that flings bullets back at the boss
As such it’s a pretty good introduction to those games. Giga Wing is actually a pretty friendly shooter too so I’m including it in my recommendation. Any shooter that gives you multiple bullet dodging or erasure options instead of just dodging is always going to be a good starter.
Warning Forever
Classic part-blasting shooter where you gradually dismantle huge bosses and the next boss’ form is determined by how you killed the previous boss. Only a time penalty for taking damage - no deaths - and just a fantastic game that understandably inspired a ton of indie games.
Of all these, I think Devil Blade is the easiest for someone without a ton of shmup experience to learn, and Crimzon Clover is the best entry into bullet hell games.
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Yess Kenta Cho and Warning Forever are really good.
Tumiki Fighters Is a really good ex
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metal black is a great story game, that happens to have horizontal shooter mechanics
soundtrack rules too
every one of these games is good for beginners imo just credit feed but if you wanna learn something play rootage
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I will second Crimzon Clover but not because it’s appropriate to your question but because DOUBLE BREAK
DOUBLE BREAK IS THE HYPEST SHIT
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batsugun special edition would be a great intro to shmups for similar reasons, and it’s not a coincidence that they share a programmer (ikeda tsuneki, who imo could be more broadly recognized as a Legendary Game Designer alongside ppl like kojima hideo and miyazaki hidetaka…)
batsugun and dodonpachi also feel like the source of a lot of the game design DNA of shmups that came out after them!
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Can we split these into a like a Smup’n Ain’t Ez thread?
eons ago, on a long bus ride, i showed a girl dodonpachi on my psp. she played it, and asked midway thjrough the second stage “how far would i need to get to for it not to be embarassing?” and i (truthfully) told her it was pretty impressive that she’d gotten that far on her first ever go.
giga wing and dodonpachi are definitely great beginner stgs. they’re both different, but you could also reasonably describe either of them as “the dynasty warriors of shooting”
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you should be able to change the title shnoz
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The SNES version of Gradius 3. But absolutely not the arcade version.
Also thirding Crimzon Clover. If you set it to Novice, it’s very forgiving.
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Undertale & Deltarune
JK but also it’s kind of true.
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Battle Mania Daiginjou is very easy and very very cool … It’s also the most Sega Mega Drive game on the Sega Mega Drive.
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Shmupin the third
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