Intro to Shoot 'em ups (aka shmups, bullet hell) 

Hello are you still active ? This account haven’t posted in a year hope he’s okay

RefleX has a boss that locks you in place and pummels you with unavoidable shots until you die. I still get more angry about random bullet patterns.

Sometimes the strategy is to kill the boss quickly though, like killing them under 2-3 seconds with your overpowered weapons

Figuring out a solution for a pattern that always gave you trouble is great, isn't it? That's one of the main reasons I play these games.

I remember this spell card in EoSD Sakuya stage 5 mid-boss that was so difficult i just bombed through and that i learned after beating the game it was just aimed bullets

Wow, thanks very much! That means a lot. Makes me wish I had more bullet hell games on my channel. I'm working on one right now but you know how long it can take to get a really good playthrough of those things. Of the other videos on my channel, maybe try the Hammerfight one. There's also the Crossed Swords videos if you like niche arcade games. They're all the same playthrough but with different flavors of commentary: text, voice, or comment-free. I hope you find something you like!

Hey, it's good to hear from you! I haven't seen you much on Steam or Discord, I hope you've been doing well.

I'm glad the video was helpful for you! Have you found a game that appeals to you?

@@Regdren Yeah, I think I'll start with Fast Striker on the PS4. It's just got a look and style that really appeals to me (especially the music) and I like that it has different player ships and enemy formations in each difficulty level. I think that will help keep it interesting and provide a good, gradual difficulty increase while I get used to the gameplay. It's also on sale right now for super cheap (

@@thomasgarrison1088 Rival Megagun is best when you have a friend to play it with, online or otherwise. The single player campaign is just fine though. The AI opponents sometimes dodge in ways that a human couldn't, but they're not invulnerable or anything. I think the story dialog can be pretty funny too. The only reason single player isn't really my thing in that game is because I prefer more structured levels. Gameplay is classic style, which means fewer and faster bullets. I think the game has a Discord channel as well. Hope that helps!

That's true in the Touhou and Len'en series, but there are a lot of shmups where it doesn't work like that.

Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed the video.

You need a certain tolerance for randomized bullets to enjoy those games, but I wouldn't have played through Len'en 2 if there wasn't some fun in there.

@@Regdren Yeah definitely, they aren’t exactly the most balanced or sanely designed games, but they can be really fun

Pay me

Hey, sorry for the late reply! It's great to see more people get in to this genre. Did you find any games that fit your play style?

@@Regdren Well I guess that makes two of us for late replies, I never got a notification for this until just now. I did, yes. I got Deathsmiles and Otomedius Excellent on the Xbox 360, and they are both really fun.

Dodonpachi Resurrection: Gorls who are also guns and ships

Thanks very much. It took me a while to decide on a soundtrack.

Sounds like someone has been burned by Raiden. Or worse yet, Psikyo games. Even most of the dense bullet shmups have some pattern learning since the way through some of that stuff is not something most people can work out on sight. If you want more of a reflex oriented game, try something from the Tale of Alltynex colection. It's not full of dense bullet patterns but they tend to be built so that you can use your tools to push through stuff on reaction. Or if you have to have something slower, Danmaku Unlimited 3 is not bad. Everything except the true final boss is pretty slow.

Touhou 7 PCB has mostly slow, dense and reading-heavy bullet patterns. I would recommend it if you like slow and dense patterns.

Steam has plenty of shmups. The ones by Cave are not really for beginners, but Jamestown is pretty good as a starting shmup. Imperishable Night is also beginner friendly.The ones you named are good games, they're just a bit different from the usual shmup formula. Senko no Ronde and Maiden&Spell in particular play more like a hybrid between shmups and 1 on 1 fighting games. As for mobile, consider Bullet Hell Monday and Aka to Blue.

@@Regdren bullet hell monday is on the list. Aka to blue looks so beautiful but I can't get it right now.

@@Regdren also the reason why I ask you is that one shmups is never enough. I got acceleration of suguri 2 but I am aware that I would crave more, hahahaha.

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Yeah I know what you mean. When get into shmups I just want to play all of them. If you want shmups that are big on visuals, the Danmaku Unlimited games have strong graphics and are on both Steam and Mobile.

@@Regdren aside from fighting game, shmup is part of my childhood and I want to get into it again. Anyways, very much appreciated all this recommendation.

As far as I know there isn't really a difficulty chart for shmups. Difficulty in shmups is kind of complicated. Not only do most of them have multiple difficulty settings, but the difficulty of a survival run is often very different from that of a score run. That being said, there are a few things you can look for. If a game series was originally made for the arcade, it's probably very difficult. Example: the Raiden series. If you can cancel enemy bullets pretty much at will, you can probably complete it with no problems. Example: anything by Siter Skain. Same goes for any game that is very generous about the number of hits you can take before you lose. Games like that are pretty much made to be played for score. Indie games vary a huge amount and as you say it's not easy to tell just by looking at gameplay. The only way I know to figure it out is to ask someone who's played a lot of shmups about where the game is difficulty-wise. For info I recommend shmups forum. That's its name, it's shmups.system11.org, and it has a pretty good community. When it comes to the decision to play a game for score, whether to do it and how serious to get is a personal thing. That's why I'm a little hesitant to give concrete advice. Maybe a rhythm game comparison would help. There's probably a difference between a song you want to complete and a song you want to get all perfects on. For the latter, you need to be able to listen to it countless times. You need to be very comfortable with the game engine and willing to deal with any frustrating aspects it might have, and you might need to do research if the game doesn't tell you everything about how it works. It's almost a different game altogether, and it's something you don't do unless you really want to. Assuming that at least one of the shmup games you've played has a scoring system beyond just shooting everything, I recommend you try playing that for score a bit to get a feel for what it's like. That's the only way to find out if it's something you'd enjoy. Also to use the analogy again, your goal doesn't have to be all perfects. It's fine for a full combo to be good enough. Whatever your approach, playing for score is going to be time consuming. I think it's also very satisfying but I would never insist that everyone who picks up a shmup game play for score. I feel like my advice was all over the place and I apologize for that, but I hope some of it is useful.

@@Regdren It was very useful, thanks a lot for taking the time to write an answer ! :D

I agree. Any game where the number you should use for scoring is up for debate is probably not for beginners.

Yep, I saw it on the Discord channel. Thanks very much!

Since I play on the PC most of the time, I use a keyboard. I like the control it gives over my movement. There's nothing wrong with controllers if you're used to them, though.

That game is Crimzon Clover World Ignition. Same game as 1:23

The name is in the lower right, "Perfect Cherry Blossom." It's also known as Touhou 7.

@@Regdren ohhh thank you man, and sorry, I thought those words meant some kind of game mode or statistics haha, thank you again

"This video is going to show all kinds of shmups," I said. "Touhou is just a small part of the genre, I should avoid using too much footage of it," I said. Later: "I want to show this specific thing in a way that's easy to understand. Where can I find clear examples of what I'm talking about?" And behold, Touhou takes over the tactics section.

Regdren my favorite shmup game is Sky Force Reloaded (2016 remastered version). It really bring back memories playing the classic Sky Force on my dad’s phone, while it comes with new challenge and also more bullethell Do u know dat game? How do u think about it? Any tips?

@@randomlad7851 I tend to play keyboard control shmups but that's just a preference thing. Free mouse or touch control can be very liberating, and it's great that games such as Sky Force give people that option. Unfortunately I haven't played Sky Force Reloaded myself so I can't really give tips for that game in particular. What I can do is make a video about practicing for shmups in general, if you'd like.

Regdren thx Wish the game still updating :(((

Regdren one thing i like at sky force is that they doesn’t give u a cool bullet storm or/and big freaking laser that cover half of the screen. All it gives u at the end is just a automatic shotgun(i say that because even fully upgraded, your plane just shoot a steam of bullet that spread or sth based on plane use, and its not even that big. Even the laser whip that awarded by doing some sort of things(not gonna spoil cuz i want u to try the game by yourself) its only a very thin laser that deal ridiculously high damage but required accuracy. They also focus on game’s graphics so much that you sometimes see the battle like an art that even the background is already beautiful. They not only focus on your plane and make it the only star. They make everything looks shine

I hated them at first too but grew to love them for the different gameplay experience. Try Battle Garegga, sorta bullet hell but with realistic bullets and missiles instead of pink balls.

Do you know some easy enough for a noob old school side-scrolling or vert-scrolling games that have modern graphics. I'm trying bullet hell but my improvement curve is so slow it's soul destroying.. Where the emphasis is more on shooting enemies than bullet dodging. The only 2 I've been able to play so far are Sky Force Reloaded and Natsuki Chronicles

The two have some things in common, especially the part about dodging bullets being extremely important for surviving. They're different in that most shmups don't let you control what direction you fire, at least not directly like in twin sticks. Instead you have one directional stick for movement and the other buttons are for various tools such as different shot types, bombs, adjusting speed and such. Where you shoot still matters in shmups but overall the gameplay is more centered on the dodging. Also Shmups are a bit more structured while twin sticks tend to be more free form. Compare the footage in this video to the gameplay in my Total Carnage video (a twin stick game) and you'll see some differences. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NblZ1nqqekA.html

@@Regdren oh man thank u so much for the info because I am just getting into these genres and wasnt sure the difference. But i recently saw a playthrough of a game called Nex Machina and it was so incredible I instantly needed to play it so i bought it and am hooked. After this I purchased Geometry Wars 3 from best buy and will soon be purchasing Alien Nation. So these are definately twin stick shooters from ur info and i love them but i also like the bullet hell shmups type now like Shikhondo and Sine Mora Ex, these take a more linear approach but are still incredibly fun and actually seem to have medatative properties and a kind of slow down matrix affect on my mind when bullets fill the screen and im dodging. U are great for ur help I really appreciate it. Take care my friend.