Which is the best of these 3 shooters?

joe8 said:

Blazing Star is a little easier than Pulstar.

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You mean credit feeding is easier in Blazing Star, than in Pulstar. If you go for a one coin clear, both games are difficult, with BS being the tougher one. Especially w/o auto fire.

Blazing Star is deceptively easy at first then it starts throwing all sorts of curve balls at you.

Yeah still saving up for Pulstar. Not ever going to play Blazing Star or atleast anytime soon. I get annoyed at the bonus repetition. Thats my generic excuse and I know how well regarded the game is but still I'd rather get the other 2 games mentioned in this topic along with twinkle star sprites before BS.

ShaolinAce said:

Yeah still saving up for Pulstar. Not ever going to play Blazing Star or atleast anytime soon. I get annoyed at the bonus repetition. Thats my generic excuse and I know how well regarded the game is but still I'd rather get the other 2 games mentioned in this topic along with twinkle star sprites before BS.

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Don't feel too bad about the BONUS! annoyance. That shit has kept me from playing BS more.

Local game store has a Big Red in their store. One of the slots has BS in it and a clerk told me that the fuckin BONUS! audio haunts his fuckin nightmares...

bubba966 said:

Don't feel too bad about the BONUS! annoyance. That shit has kept me from playing BS more.

Local game store has a Big Red in their store. One of the slots has BS in it and a clerk told me that the fuckin BONUS! audio haunts his fuckin nightmares... [emoji38]

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Im amazed there hasn't been a Unibios cheat created yet to disable the Bonus sound. I personally don't mind it but it does get annoying when I want to hear the badass boss battle music

oliverclaude said:

You mean credit feeding is easier in Blazing Star, than in Pulstar. If you go for a one coin clear, both games are difficult, with BS being the tougher one. Especially w/o auto fire.

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Going to disagree on this one, being that I've 1CC'ed Blazing Star numerous times but still haven't managed to do Pulstar more than once (although it's on the list of things I want to relearn).

The thing about Pulstar is that obviously it's VERY memorization heavy, but it's also very difficult on some stages to recover when you've died. You can practice the stages all you want but once you lose all those powerups that let you charge the bar faster it completely throws a wrench in everything, especially if you're going for speed kills on some bosses (which often involves doing some charge shots, then self-destructing the bit for mass damage + invulnerability). Yeah you can earn extra lives through points in that game, but it ends up meaning absolutely nothing if you lose them all at one brutal checkpoint in stage 5 or stage 8.

Blazing Star is a game with a weird difficulty curve - it's not too tough to pick up the first 5 levels for one-credit purposes, and then you hit the wall on stage 6. There's no other way around it but you HAVE to memorize what to do on stage 6 + the "boss" - you have to know where to be on the screen at all times. I had to bust out emulator save states just to practice the stage over and over, learning where I needed to be. You can't just wing it. And then there's the last boss, which isn't AS bad as stage 6 but still. But here's the other thing a lot of people don't realize about Blazing Star - the game has rank, and you can control it. The most important ways to control rank in that game is to avoid picking up the P powerup items after you're already at max power, and avoiding the green B O N U S letters entirely. Keep rank down, enemies fire less bullets and the game is more manageable. You wind up with a lower score though since there's less destructible objects being fired by enemies that can be turned into blue bonus items (which are mostly okay to pick up), but it essentially boils down to this - how much risk do you want to take when playing for score? You can choose to play the game for survival, or you can choose to play it for score and drive up the rank as high as you can, but a lot of my score attempts never made it to the end. It IS possible of course to still clear the game at max rank, a lot of the risk comes from the final part of the stage 6 boss that keeps firing out those objects into the air, there's so much shit on the screen that the bullets they fire afterwards cause flicker and become "invisible" and are a lot harder to dodge. Speed clearing the boss is recommended but you miss out on so many points...

Either way, I would say a low-rank Blazing Star clear is still a lot easier than a Pulstar clear. High-rank is easier too, but there's a huge difference between low and high rank in that game.

Also, I know this might sound weird but I think Viewpoint is easier than Pulstar too. I was able to derust it a couple months ago, most of the scariness of that game is the stage 4 boss. Get that down and then get past the boss rush and then stage 6 isn't as scary. All in my opinion of course...

I agree BBH, it probably comes down to this:

BBH said:

All in my opinion of course...

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I mean, how do we rate the difficulty of an STG? Number of bullets, their accuracy and speed? Enemy density, their aggressiveness, position? Or maybe stage layout? No matter how many points one considers, all of them will remain very relative criteria with their weight on difficulty changing from title to title. You already mentioned save states, there's also the question of auto fire use and other options modern players can access to accelerate their progress and change a once high difficulty game to a standard challenge.

Yet, I'd still consider a Blazing Star clear more difficult, than a Pulstar one, but I agree that the difference in difficulty has levelled over the years. My reasons would be, that Blazing Star has no extends, no speed-up options, only a manual trigger speed increase and overall a more dynamic gameplay, which makes it difficult to play through with memorization alone. After a while, there will be no luck involved in Pulstar, in Blazing Star however, dodging certain bullet patterns will still heavily depend on luck, like at least 60 (luck) to 40 (memory). From my experience, players who have cleared Pulstar, can likely do it again, even after a longer pause. That's not the case with Blazing Star.

Finally, an extreme low-rank play in Blazing Star changes a lot, I agree. But you not only have to let all the extras go, you should time-out bosses, too, which demands quite a bit of practice. It's also a drastic change in game play, up to the point where it's not the same game anymore. But even then, the last parts can get you. Especially the last boss. So, despite your strong arguments, I'd still argue, that even a low rank play makes Blazing Star not easier than Pulstar. It depends how you look at it, though, so of course it's all in my pinion, too .

PS: I remember how Gemant once posted, that very few western players have cleared Blazing Star on one credit, while a lot have cleared Pulstar and that overall the former is more difficult. I'm pretty sure he was referring to a time before save states became available. I could also imagine, that Asian players used auto fire, since it's common there and considered as a valid part of a game.

ggallegos1 said:

Im amazed there hasn't been a Unibios cheat created yet to disable the Bonus sound.

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That'd be awesome to have available. BS would get drastically more play time from me if you could disable that sound.

oliverclaude said:

I agree BBH, it probably comes down to this:

Yet, I'd still consider a Blazing Star clear more difficult, than a Pulstar one, but I agree that the difference in difficulty has levelled over the years. My reasons would be, that Blazing Star has no extends, no speed-up options, only a manual trigger speed increase and overall a more dynamic gameplay, which makes it difficult to play through with memorization alone. After a while, there will be no luck involved in Pulstar, in Blazing Star however, dodging certain bullet patterns will still heavily depend on luck, like at least 60 (luck) to 40 (memory). From my experience, players who have cleared Pulstar, can likely do it again, even after a longer pause. That's not the case with Blazing Star.

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Maybe it's because I've played Blazing Star more, but I don't think the game is too scary to come back to after a long pause. Like I said, the first 5 stages are pretty trivial (especially with Windina), it's just the last two stages that cause problems. Yeah Blazing Star doesn't have extends, but it's also not checkpoint-based so you don't really need backup recovery strats. Extra lives in Pulstar don't mean much if you can't recover from checkpoint hell, so even though you're allowed to die twice in a credit of Blazing Star on defaults, it's not potentially the end of the run if you lose one life.

Finally, an extreme low-rank play in Blazing Star changes a lot, I agree. But you not only have to let all the extras go, you should time-out bosses, too, which demands quite a bit of practice. It's also a drastic change in game play, up to the point where it's not the same game anymore. But even then, the last parts can get you. Especially the last boss. So, despite your strong arguments, I'd still argue, that even a low rank play makes Blazing Star not easier than Pulstar. It depends how you look at it, though, so of course it's all in my pinion, too .

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You don't HAVE to time out bosses for low rank. I'm just saying that a lot of people don't understand how the rank system works in that game. I disagree on it "not being the same game anymore", you do still have to know certain stage and boss patterns, it's just making things easier to dodge on things like the last boss.

PS: I remember how Gemant once posted, that very few western players have cleared Blazing Star on one credit, while a lot have cleared Pulstar and that overall the former is more difficult. I'm pretty sure he was referring to a time before save states became available. I could also imagine, that Asian players used auto fire, since it's common there and considered as a valid part of a game.

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Save states have been available in emulators for over 20 years now...

if more people have cleared Pulstar on one credit than Blazing Star (I have seen no data on this), I would imagine it's because the game FORCES you to learn the levels. I feel like people take the start-where-you-die system of Blazing Star as an opportunity to just credit feed through and not really focus on learning the ins and outs of the game.

Thank you very much for your further insights BBH. This puts it on the verge. I'd only add...

BBH said:

Yeah Blazing Star doesn't have extends, but it's also not checkpoint-based so you don't really need backup recovery strats. Extra lives in Pulstar don't mean much if you can't recover from checkpoint hell, so even though you're allowed to die twice in a credit of Blazing Star on defaults, it's not potentially the end of the run if you lose one life.

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In my last post, I forgot to mention that Blazing Star doesn't have a smart bomb either, which also does matter. Lately, Digmac posted a video of a Pulstar run with no power-ups collected. It proves, that it is possible to recover in Pulstar at any time, which makes the extends very useful and sacrificing your force a valid tactic.

For me it feels, as if all the advantages of the Dino ship in Pulstar − ship speed, trigger speed, force module, its smart bomb use, the options and their lock mechanism, different waepons etc. − were divided into pieces in Blazing Star and spread out individually among its six ships. If you could mash-up Pulstar's Dino into Blazing Star, it would really make the game easier, like having an overpowered extra ship. BTW, it also feels overpowered in Pulstar.

BBH said:

You don't HAVE to time out bosses for low rank. I'm just saying that a lot of people don't understand how the rank system works in that game. I disagree on it "not being the same game anymore", you do still have to know certain stage and boss patterns, it's just making things easier to dodge on things like the last boss.

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Yes, rank control also works if you don't time out the bosses. But then the difference in difficulty is not as decisive to call it easier in my opinion. I saw a time-out run, it's a drastic change, the only one that really made a decisive difference.

BBH said:

Save states have been available in emulators for over 20 years now...

if more people have cleared Pulstar on one credit than Blazing Star (I have seen no data on this), I would imagine it's because the game FORCES you to learn the levels. I feel like people take the start-where-you-die system of Blazing Star as an opportunity to just credit feed through and not really focus on learning the ins and outs of the game.

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Idk, were emulators really as precise, as lag-free and as widely available 20 years ago as they are nowadays? But even if they were, there's still the matter of auto fire, which was commonly used in Asia, and eases up Blazing Star more than save states. Players could have used Memory Cards to practice, which should work very good for Blazing Star. Hmm...

On the whole I agree with you on this point, though. The reason, why there was (once) a huge difference in one-credit clears between Blazing Star and Pulstar emerged, because credit feeding works great with the former. In my opinion, that's also today the reason, why Blazing Star gets tagged with the image of being easier than Pulstar, while in fact this question is not that easy to answer. That was also the main reason, why I disagreed with joe8.

I only liked Blazing Star once I started playing it for score. It's fairly easy to breeze through the first couple of levels without doing much and you don't really feel much sense of progress or structure and there's no interesting power ups either. Also the constant "Bonus!" is annoying. I've had people outside the room scream at me because of that.

It's easily the best schmup on Neo Geo, but I'd argue only once you start to learn it's secrets. I doubt it was that popular in the arcade among casual players.

I've never gotten too deep in Blazing Star because I never took the time to understand the mechanics. I do like the game though, maybe a little better than I like Pulstar for no good reason other than I just "like" it a little more.

Going to OP's original list I do like Viewpoint for the style but that game frustrated me compared to Pulstar. If I had to buy one over the other first it would still probably be Pulstar and then Viewpoint right after.

Fully subjective opinion incoming, but I'm going to side with BBH on this one. A low-rank clear of Blazing Star has in my experience been way easier than Pulstar. After Prehistoric Isle 2, a low rank clear of Blazing Star was my second 1cc ever, after maybe only a couple weeks of practice. For me the checkpoint system of Pulstar (and Viewpoint) make progression quite challenging for novices, as checkpoint recovery can be very difficult and in most cases a full restart is necessary. The ability to credit feed through Blazing Star is more forgiving in learning the areas that will give you trouble, while still feeling like you're making progress.

To this day, I don't think I've made it past stage two in either ViewPoint or Pulstar

As for save states, Blazing Star includes a built in level select that would even have been accessible to players on location:

"At the character select screen, hold right on the joystick and button D on both the one player and two player sides, then select your character. The next screen will be a stage select menu."

Grinding stage 6 with the stage select was the only real barrier to the 1cc for me, but once I had that down it was no big deal. And I didn't bother timing out bosses, I just avoided pickups and reduced the number of bullets fired.

Tl:dr I suck at Pulstar.

So instead of buying a PS5 series X like a normal person I bought myself an MVS copy of viewpoint for Christmas. After missing out on relatively cheap sales of Pulstar (that or me not having spendable money when they're listed) I finally sniped a somewhat affordable deal on Viewpoint and I'm very happy to say the least. Can't wait for Santa to drop it off in the mail.

I will beat this game. I promise. My only experience is beating last resort so far but after all this window shopping I have come into the strive to put the effort in whenever the game does show up. Or so I say now. But yes really excited.

ShaolinAce said:

So instead of buying a PS5 series X like a normal person I bought myself an MVS copy of viewpoint for Christmas. After missing out on relatively cheap sales of Pulstar (that or me not having spendable money when they're listed) I finally sniped a somewhat affordable deal on Viewpoint and I'm very happy to say the least. Can't wait for Santa to drop it off in the mail.

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I created a Santa Claus thread for that.

I just have to mention one: Captain Tomaday remain the best shoot ever realized.

bubba966 said:

Don't feel too bad about the BONUS! annoyance. That shit has kept me from playing BS more.

Local game store has a Big Red in their store. One of the slots has BS in it and a clerk told me that the fuckin BONUS! audio haunts his fuckin nightmares...

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BONUS!

I'd have to say Pulstar is the better game. I've played both Blazing Star and Pulstar way more than View Point.

Unfortunately I haven't played Neo XYX...

1. Strikers 1945 Plus
2. Sonic Wings 3
3. Blazing Star

ShaolinAce said:

So instead of buying a PS5 series X like a normal person I bought myself an MVS copy of viewpoint for Christmas. After missing out on relatively cheap sales of Pulstar (that or me not having spendable money when they're listed) I finally sniped a somewhat affordable deal on Viewpoint and I'm very happy to say the least. Can't wait for Santa to drop it off in the mail.

I will beat this game. I promise. My only experience is beating last resort so far but after all this window shopping I have come into the strive to put the effort in whenever the game does show up. Or so I say now. But yes really excited.

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Congrats, I think you made a good choice as its very addicting trying to get one stage further in each play through of viewpoint..

ShaolinAce said:

Yeah still saving up for Pulstar. Not ever going to play Blazing Star or atleast anytime soon. I get annoyed at the bonus repetition. Thats my generic excuse and I know how well regarded the game is but still I'd rather get the other 2 games mentioned in this topic along with twinkle star sprites before BS.

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Buy a NeoSD and play everything?

Pinball said:

Buy a NeoSD and play everything?

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This. The NeoSD (and earlier the 161-in-1) has changed my Neo life.

Pinball said:

Buy a NeoSD and play everything?

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I have viewpoint already. Im not looking to buy much games after I get pulstar either. Then yeah definitely neo sd will be an option.