Appreciate the director going to all that trouble for his movie though

Reading code: "Is that oChar?" *head explodes*

Wow Miyamoto 😳

Unexpected "Dark Knight side character fighting game movie" cinematic universe developing, with "Joker's henchman" playing Bison here and "Hong Kong mob accountant" playing Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat

I recall an anecdote about arcade shmup players in Japan watching someone do the most insane dodges and saying, "oh they must be new to this game". Now when I route shmups I try to do as little dodging as possible haha

Thanks! I think Flying Shark/Sky Shark are basically the same and slightly easier than the Japanese version (Hishouzame). But not 100% sure

[1all] Sky Shark (Flying Shark) - 2026-04-14 YouTube video by chiba_latte

Cleared Flying Shark finally haha - I played the US version Sky Shark. Pretty bad final score of 708930, if you don't blow the second loop so fast you'll beat it for sure www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1C...

I was actually curious what she would say about BG3 in a review but... there's no review?? Just a 2.1 score linking to a page that seems to be pre-release speculation?

"I don't like the term SHMUP because it sounds stupid and cheap. Instead, I employ the term shoot-'em-up. I consider shoot-'em-up (hyphenated or not) to be the authentic term to employ in computer game journalism." OK then

Oh you already use a similar controller for Melee, that should work great

I use leverless/hitbox-style controller for shmups. Using thumb for up arrow was a game changer after getting used to it, because it means you can immediately transition between down/up inputs without having to move a finger. Keyboard equivalent would be ASD-Space I suppose

Haha you do already have most of them :) I you want to trim down I would pick DDP/DOJ, Espgaluda and Ketsui. Having cleared most of the CAVE games on your list I feel those are the best examples of their style. I really like CAVE so nothing wrong with playing them all though

I'd say Espgaluda, Touhou and some form of Raiden count as "essential" in my book just because of their influence. Even Gunbird 1 as an example of early Psikyo (distinct from Gunbird 2). The others are not as essential but very well done, recommend as secondary games while working on a hard one

Some smaller independent game recs: Sophstar, Super XYX, Jet Buster, Danmaku Unlimited 3, Hazelnut Hex, pretty much everything by Terarin (e.g. Raging Blasters). Mamorukun ReCurse is also a really fun game by G.Rev (Under Defeat dev)

Oh also suggest a Seibu game, e.g. Raiden DX / Raiden Fighters / Viper Phase 1

Bullet curving? Is this Wanted?

Only big suggestions I have are Espgaluda, Gunbird 1, and at least 1 Touhou game, probably 6/7/8. PAN on YouTube has amazing guides for a lot of CAVE games that can help getting started with those

I haven't! Which do you like? Would love to see more. I think I have a copy of A.K. somewhere

La Jetee and Sans Soleil are some of my favorite movies so that sounds really good to me

It's a special game for me and one of the games that got me into shmups :) I did find Full English Normal harder than Moderate with C shot haha

Wow coincidence, I also started playing Flying Shark recently. Toaplan games are hard

GG congrats!!

[1cc 1-miss] Hazelnut Hex - Moderate (C-Style) - 2026-04-09 YouTube video by chiba_latte

1 year ago Hazelnut Hex Normal was one of my first shmup 1ccs. Came back to get the trifecta:

Moderate 1cc: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAFM...
>4M score: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qmi...
"Full English" 1cc: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVFf...

Thanks @chunderfins.bsky.social, looking forward to your next!

Shh don't give them any ideas

Oh yeah 100%. There should be a clear separation between "this is the game" and "this is the practice mode"

I can get behind removing credits/sliders/modes but not sure about save states. IMO save states are a practice tool, not a "valid" way of completing the game. Or is the issue that the distinction between practice/real play isn't clear enough?

By arcade games "never enforcing permadeath outside early 80s" do you mean allowing credit feeding / continuing from the point of game over?

My initial reaction to Last Jedi was "this is the MGS2 of Star Wars". While I have some problems with it, it would have at least been artistically interesting if they'd stuck with the vision presented instead of furiously backpedaling with RoS

This is like being a sports fan vs. playing the sport. Plenty of people watch sports, but I don't think the avg sports fan thinks they are doing the same thing as pro (or even amateur) athletes. Whereas a lot of people seem to think watching videos is the same as playing the games

Shmup to music performance analogies:

Blind playthrough: sight reading
Save state practice: practicing individual sections
1cc: play song without missing notes
Scoring: making song sound good
Avg 1cc player (me): hobbyist (also me)
"Live run 1cc" player: amateur
High-level score player: pro