Shoot 'em Up
It certainly doesn’t pull any punches and the learning curve might wrongfully turn a lot of people down. But if you enjoy challenging games, then you will discover that R-Type is one of those games that become more fun the more you play it. I do wish it had more accessible options for all players like Infinite mode in Dimensions EX, but it is what it is. The reason I emphasize the loading times between deaths so much is that no other shmup has such a rough new player experience. Unlike many other shmups, death in R-Type will take you back to the last checkpoint you reached. This means that there will be sections that will me burned into your brain with how much time you spent there before reaching the next checkpoint.
Besides everyone's story modes and the whole menus, there's also the fact that the way HM's programmed is different from all other games. I mean, if you just classify yourself as "incapable of lunatic," of course you'll never do it, because you'll be limiting yourself. Anyone who ever manages to 1cc lunatic will be written off as "always was capable of it," and you'll think of them as different than yourself. Again, considering who I am my opinion probably doesn't mean much, but I don't think you should ever say you are incapable of doing it, because if you do you'll never improve.
Good luck and remember the most important thing is having fun and dont compare yourself to other players cause a lot of people like to inflate how good they are and how "easy" a game is. Yes, there's a super small fraction of people who can get good at shmups. But that's not because they're gifted with superhuman reflexes or anything like that. If you want to get good at shmups, you have to play them, you have to free yourself from self restricting rules, you have to seek help, and you have to persevere. Very few people are willing to go through so much effort for such outdated "casual" games. This is basic but you never know if it might be helpful to point out.
There isn’t enough territory in arcade the corner to build a defensible group from such a weak position. Our novice plays out the ladder, ultimately losing many more stones. This breaking down of the design wall is like putting an x-ray machine right up to a game.
Cave shmups are very doable for me, but Ikaruga is just prohibitively difficult because of its polarity mechanic and claustrophobic level design. By brushing aside the needs of our new players, they become stunted. By insisting “we’ll talk about all that hard stuff later. New players are incapable of comprehending high-level play. That’s our underlying assumption when we adopt this approach.
Turbo CD/PC Engine CD - Arguably, one could say this is this is to console shmups what Elvis is to rock n' roll. Hudson Soft championed this console with their shmups, but other companies had some nice inputs as well. Dreamcast - Short lived console that saw quite a few iconic STG exclusives. Due to its similarities with the Sega NAOMI arcade system board it was a bastion for arcade ports that ran on NAOMI/Capcom CPS-2 hardware.
If the game offers some kind of defensive technique, such as a force pod or shield system, know exactly how it works and when to activate it. Are you invincible when firing a mega-laser? Take note of how long that invincibility lasts. Does the force pod stop every type of weapon, or can some lasers penetrate it? When it comes to music, I honestly didn’t find it to be too memorable. The soundtrack definitely works and helps to put the mood into the game.
Can you tolerate the idea of playing a shmup for months or even years before you actually achieve your high-score? Some games experimented with pseudo-3D perspectives at the time. Nintendo's attempt at the genre, Radar Scope , borrowed heavily from Space Invaders and Galaxian, but added a three-dimensional third-person perspective; the game was a commercial failure, however. Atari's Tempest was one of the earliest tube shooters and a more successful attempt to incorporate a 3D perspective into shooter games; Tempest went on to influence several later rail shooters. Sega's Zaxxon introduced isometric video game graphics to the genre. With these elements, Space Invaders set the general template for the shoot 'em up genre.
If you’d like to play on genuine hardware, it makes sense that your controller would be the same as what you’d use on the cabinet. We are blessed to have so many controller options in our modern era. Using the same control scheme — or even the same controller — across platforms will help you remain consistent. Therefore, you may need to try different setups.
To do so is to definitely an accomplishment. We discussed above that not everyone can save-scum through a shmup, but an even smaller number of players can successfully 1CC a shmup. I would point out that 1CCing is harder than save-scumming and therefore deserves more praise in comparison. The community doesn’t backslap one another for credit-feeding or save-scumming, so we clearly have a metric for what is and isn’t a notable accomplishment in the shmup genre. Truthfully, though, not everyone can do that.