tendo82 said:
Personally, I have always played them but never had the patience to beat one. I'm considering breaking the trend with a Lords of Thunder VC download. I'm banking on the hair metal to fuel my masochistic fire.
A lot of shmups, as we call em, are very demanding and very elitist, but if you do some research you can find some newbie friendly ones.
Take Gradius. The game punishes you when you die. You spend ages powering up your artillery then one screw up and the screen pauses, you have to go back to the start of the bit you find hardest, and with no weapons at all.
But not all are like that.
If I haven't mentioned my love of it enough on forums, Under Defeat is a perfect example. You only get 3 weapons and bombs, and there's no powering them up. Just switching between one of the three when you get the power up.
All of the fun comes from the actual action. And the 3 weapons add strategy to how you play. All the bullets are bright yellow, so you'll never have these unseeable bullets fired at you, so never any cheap kills.
And if you find the space ship/ helicopter/ plane style and locations too dragging, try something like Parodius 2: Fantastic Journey (PSX/ Saturn). Very wacky, very fun shooter. I've owned it for about 10 years, and I still play with friends. It's everlasting.
You just need to do your research.
