Lockdown 2020: Scrolling Shooters Are Nonsense

Konami made games?

Please do more of these. The old game streams are NEVER tiring. Plus I'm older so it's nostalgia.

12 minutes into this and vibing so hard with the chillness of this stream.

Oh hey, a stream personalized just for me.

The Gradius music just makes me want to replay the Konami picross game. And who needs 60fps when you can play at a lower "cinematic" frame rate?

Hey Brad, do more of these.

Love the Transformers shoutout.

This is amazing. Amazing! Glad you're healing well, Brad. Looking forward to more Brad solos in the future.

What a great video thumb

As some one that has been slowly putting a mister together for 2 weeks this helps show the reward. Hope to enjoy more content!

Brad got injured?

Brad: Please, please continue doing these Mister streams. You talked a lot about being unsure if this is good content. This. Is. Good. Content. Please continue!

Did you find the guy?

Also please play Cybernator next time.

@zelnox: he had nasal surgery

I could never get sick of old games! It's the main thing I come here for. I've actually been jonesing for more old game content lately. Hope to see more (and maybe catch it live next time).

With the warning on that Forgotten Worlds game, how many people do you think felt like they were hot shit if they were playing it in Japan?

Bradius III

Brad's constant desire to play scrolling shooters like Gradius over the course of many streams he's been on has always been admirable, but gosh do they ever so rarely result in successful level completes or length of play, hahaha. I can only hope he never chooses one of these games as a Breaking Brad feature - he would truly be broken.

I'll never get sick of these retro game streams.

I need to play more shmups. But I also feel like I don't jive well with full on bullet hell games. Not sure if there's much of a distinction but when I think of bullet hell games I think of keeping your ship in just the right tiny sweet spot and moving it ever so slightly to navigate the stream of fire. Just something about it seems a little too shallow and a bit too extreme and dependent on youthful reflexes of a sort to me. I do love the asthetics of games like R-Type though.

I do have that last darius twin (?) game so maybe I'll down a few beers and try that tonight. What could possiblay go wrong?

Has Brad played Lightning Force (Thunder Force 4)? Its fun. There’s a cheat code to get tons of lives to help you beat it. The music is good too.

did you find the guy?

Man I love these retro / MISTer streams, really hoping both Jeff and Brad continue them. They're awesome.

Does the MISTer support netplay like Retroarch does?

Also random question: does Brad still have piggies? :3

Ive been playing Ghosts n Goblins alot lately so it was neat to see Brad play the sequel. Looks just as brutal.

"I swear there were more swimmy things this time"

Yup, Gradius 3 has a hidden rank system that goes up as you collect more powerups and makes the game harder. I believe it's fairly sane on consoles (makes sense to dial down enemy attacks if you've just lost all powerups), the arcade versions were so bad that pro players route specific deaths into their run because otherwise enemies spew huge clouds of bullets and it gets pretty much impossible. Don't want to die on a checkpoint where it's hard to recover. Gradius 4 arcade is also known for this. I've heard that Gradius 3 and 4's arcade versions have a very bad reputation (including even rushed development) and it's recommended that you play the home console versions instead if you can.

I'm not super far into this yet, but man I've missed Brad. Good to see him again

That Ghouls 'N Ghosts music loop is killing me

@ripelivejam: There are a bunch of different styles of shmups, and bullet hell is just one of them, so you've got tons of options. The Darius series is great, although some of the console-exclusive ones like Darius Twin can be more hit-or-miss. (For alternatives, Darius Gaiden and G-Darius are both great, and the more recent Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours is great and has tons of content, if you don't mind the price tag.)

Some other ideas:

* Games made by Psikyo: known for their lightning-speed enemy bullets. Strikers 1945, Gunbird, Samurai Aces, Dragon Blaze, etc. Many of these are on the Switch eShop for cheap. If you prefer a horizontal game, Sengoku Blade (Tengai) is your best option.

* The Raiden series: similar to Psikyo in that the bullets are very fast, but your ship is also extremely slow. A lot of random no-name shmups from the 90s were Raiden clones. I personally prefer the Raiden Fighters offshoot series (all bundled in Raiden Fighters Aces on 360), because it adds a variety of playable ships and a deeper scoring system.

* Games made by Toaplan: Grind Stormer, Batsugun, Truxton, Fire Shark, Zero Wing, and Slap Fight all received console ports.

* If you want to stick to horizontal games: Gradius, Darius and R-Type are all recommended, but they're all pretty frustrating in that you power down on death, so you've gotta spend some time learning the stages before they start to feel more fair.

I just want to say please do more of these. I love the retro streams and having Brad add to Jeff’s mix is welcome in my book.

Crime Brad Doin' Crimes

loved the stream, thanks Brad

Mister streams are my favorite streams. It could because I am old.

I very much enjoyed this stream. Old game GB - streams are my jam. Brad alluded to it, that Jeff has played some of these games on his Mister, but even so I very much enjoyed Brad's Mister stream. Very different to Jeff's, I hope Brad continues to do these!

My brother and I still occasionally just text each other 'ARMS INSTALLATION COMPLETE' from Axelay. My gaming foundations are SNES shmups and JRPGs. <3

If you ever play Gradius 3 again:

1. Two Way Back

2. Double

3. Elaser

4. Circle Options

5. Reduce

Turns you into a glowing rolling ball of DEATH that can not be stopped.

Forgotten Worlds seemed pretty neat actually. I'm a sucker for screenfilling bosses that die in absurd ways. Love me a chilling dragon who lets his heart out.

I'm pretty surprised there's so little Future COP LAPD footage on GB actually. Like whenever that game gets talked about , people in chat lose their shit at how much they love that game.

Great stream! Thanks Brad! Would love more solo streams of you doing old games or you and Jeff trading off chatting about them.

Love old games.

Yay!

Can anyone point me toward some resources for making a MiSTER and the recommended parts/sites, etc? I've been thinking about doing it a lot lately, but it all seems pretty confusing insofar as what to get, so on and so forth.

Where the peegs at

I love old game streams and so I hope Brad keeps it up. I don't have any problem with the sampling of weird games, but that's something Jeff does a lot of as well, and it'd be awesome if Brad picked one or two old console games at a time and tried to really get into them and finish them.

@the_nubster: I think one of them passed, not sure if he got another.

Oh no! That's so sad. My condolences to Brad. Guinea pigs are very social animals so it would make sense if he ended up rehoming the other one.

I love it! Can’t speak for others, but I never get tired of old games, Brad. Old games (and VR) are all that keep me invested in this hobby with how bland and same-y most modern games have become. I’m weird, I know.

Please more old game streams.

Definitely up for more, chill retro game streams are always welcome

yay, you did it

I would absolutely love more of these Brad.