Question about import PS2 shooters.

[Crafter]

"Uhm," okay. Thanks.

[MechDeus]

Mushihime, Ibara, Dodonpachi DOJ

Are all awesome and totally worthy of your money.

ESP Galuda

It's decent but when you could be playing the far superior ESP RaDe it's really hard to recommend.

[mannerbot]

ESPGaluda is better than Mushihimesama though. Also, ESPRaDe would only be accessible via emulation or PCB.

[MechDeus]

ESPGaluda is better than Mushihimesama though.

I like Mushihime-sama's visual style better, and I wouldn't agree with that statement anyway. It's more simple and straight-forward but it's also a lot more intense (and sometimes I want a shooter that's easier on the weapons angle).

Also, ESPRaDe would only be accessible via emulation or PCB.

I know, but if Cave doesn't want to make it accessible for people to purchase it then I see no reason to say it's better to buy the okay game instead of emulating the awesome one. Yes, I know he was asking for PS2 games, but my point still stands.

[mannerbot]

Eh, I was pretty hyped for Mushi after seeing vids of the ultra mode and such before it was ported but I just didn't like it much. The fake low-res gave me headaches too. But yeah, ESPRaDe is probably my favorite of all of Cave's games.

[dakidski]

There's been tons of budget shmup releases in Europe.

[blueskied]

"Espgaluda is the best!"
"No, Esprade is better than Espgaluda!"
"You're all wrong, Mushihimesama is better than Espgaluda and Esprade!"
"I like cookies!"
"No, crackers are better!"

Hello subjectivity.

As for Cave port quality, Espgaluda and DDP: DOJ are the best, with superplay DVDs included, very accurate recreation of the PCB's graphics, sounds, gameplay, etc, and options galore. Mushihimesama comes in third. It has slightly blurred graphics, but it is pretty nice as long as you play in TATE (playing in YOKO is horrendous). The gameplay is close to the PCB (I own the PCB by the way) but not as close as Galuda or DDP: DOJ are to their respective PCBs. For example, the slowdown emulation is not exact, particularly in Stage 3 and the Stage 5 midboss, and actually the slowdown is quite jerky unlike the PCB which has very smooth slowdown (jerky slowdown can lead to many frustrating deaths as the game unexpectedly speeds up and you ram into a bullet). The Ibara port is the worst of them all, a truly horrific port of a beautiful game. I have the PCB of this as well, and if you ever play it you'll never touch the PS2 port again. It's that bad.
The blur filter is worse than with Mushi, load times are too long, some enemy placements were changed, and the game plays faster than the arcade PCB (all slowdown was removed!) making it feel like something else. On the positive side, the Arrange mode is fun and many people feel it's worth it just for that. Unfortunately this sells for the most out of all the ports, simply because they didn't make many (the game sold like shit in Japan).

Homura is a really good game (not by Cave) that you should consider as well. I quite enjoyed that one.

[Crafter]

Thanks, blueskied! I'm narrowing my search down now. . .

[mannerbot]

"Espgaluda is the best!"
"No, Esprade is better than Espgaluda!"
"You're all wrong, Mushihimesama is better than Espgaluda and Esprade!"
"I like cookies!"
"No, crackers are better!"

Hello subjectivity.

True. But it doesn't need to be said that this is all opinion; what else could it be?

Anyhow I'm sure Rob would be offended if he read this topic and saw that Gradius V hadn't been mentioned yet. And that one doesn't even require tate or RGB to look good!

[James]

Cave aside, what's the general opinion on Homura? I just got to check it out this afternoon and am enjoying it quite a bit, based on 45 minutes of play getting my ass kicked on level 1. Brutal-tough, at least by my wimpy shooter skills, but something in it makes me want to play more.

James