Easiest Shmups You've Played?

Psygnosis8

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The Genesis port of Air Buster is a cakewalk. I found solar striker on the gameboy to be pretty easy as well.
 

oliverclaude

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Here are my clears just to give you an idea of my lack of skillz

Harmful Park
...

Harmful Park is set to 'easy' on default, though the 'normal' setting barely differs and still won't let you see the the real face of the stage 4 boss (or does it? ;). Anyway, the difficulty settings should be inflation-adjusted: 'normal' to 'easy' and 'hard' as 'normal'.
 

egg_sanwich

Windjammers Wonder
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Star Parodier on PC engine is pretty simple, I cleared it on my first run.
 

oliverclaude

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I don't know what's up with people recommending harder than average games in this thread.

Maybe it's some sort of savant syndrome, a combination of talent and deficit? They're blessed with extraordinary skills and biased towards clearing the hardest STGs, but the easy ones out there are unsolvable for them, be it because of their enhanced perception or sensory hypersensitivity. Needless to say, their recommendations are simply useless for us, non-autists.
 

andsuchisdeath

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I have been trying for MONTHS, and cannot beat that last level. Bout to grind my teeth into power.

For console standards, I don't consider it very easy either. I was only able to clear it after performing a specific trick.

I've been searching for what it was but can't remember. It may have been getting the 8-way power up, but I also thought it involved letting a boss time out at a later part of the game which yields a ton of respawn gels which ended up making the final stage relatively easy.
 
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JoeAwesome

I survived Secret Santa, It wasn't Easy.,
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For console standards, I don't consider it very easy either. I was only able to clear it after performing a specific trick.

I've been searching for what it was but can't remember. It may have been getting the 8-way power up, but I also thought it involved letting a boss time out at a later part of the game which yields a ton of respawn gels which ended up making the final stage relatively easy.

I should've clarified I found Blazing Lazers easy to play, since I don't recall clearing it, but in my defense, both questions (easy to "play" and "clear") were asked.
 

FilthyRear

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I thought Final Soldier was pretty easy, same with Zanac Neo.
 

famicommander

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The Geometry Wars games are all pretty easy but it doesn't stop them from being really fun.
 

Ip Man

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I cleared R-type pretty easily. Einhänder too. And parodius was a cakewalk.

you must be really good at these games. r type was one of the first games i owned for the master system from back then and i still can't beat it.
 

opt2not

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Mind you, this was 20 years ago. Haven't played it recently but R-Type was my muse somehow. Probably beats the shit out of me nowadays.

Edit: that said, it definitely wasn't the easiest since I practised a lot. So scratch it :)
Want a challenge? Try Salamander for MSX.

You seem to not understand the point of this thread.
 

Jeneki

Enemy Chaser
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A few more:

PS2 - Shienryu Explosion. Overall this is probably the easiest clear I've ever done. Not to be confused with the original Shienryu which gets balls hard in the second half.

PCE - Sylphia. Another first play clear.
 

oliverclaude

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Hawk F-123 (SCD) is one of my favorite guilty pleasure games, so I also tried its predecessor, Power Gate on the PCE. Cleared it with just a few attempts during a single session. Not good, but very easy.
 

fake

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I popped in Blast Wind today. I like it. It's fast, which makes it pretty scary especially since the hit box is pretty big. I've gotten to the end of level 5 so far, so I don't think a 1CC is out of reach. My only real complaint is the backgrounds. There's just so much happening it's hard to tell what's going on, if an enemy is coming in, where the enemy options are going, etc.

Harmful Park is set to 'easy' on default, though the 'normal' setting barely differs and still won't let you see the the real face of the stage 4 boss (or does it? ;). Anyway, the difficulty settings should be inflation-adjusted: 'normal' to 'easy' and 'hard' as 'normal'.

I'm not sure what it was set to. I'm assuming default. I was at a meet-up and someone handed me the controller. It was on an original PS1 copy, but I have a PSN version on my PS3, so I'll check it out.
 

oliverclaude

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I'm not sure what it was set to. I'm assuming default. I was at a meet-up and someone handed me the controller. It was on an original PS1 copy, but I have a PSN version on my PS3, so I'll check it out.

Don't worry about it, I was just passing on a curiosity. Hellfire is set to 'easy' on default, too and I never even tried to play it on 'hard'.
 

andsuchisdeath

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I popped in Blast Wind today. I like it. It's fast, which makes it pretty scary especially since the hit box is pretty big. I've gotten to the end of level 5 so far, so I don't think a 1CC is out of reach. My only real complaint is the backgrounds. There's just so much happening it's hard to tell what's going on, if an enemy is coming in, where the enemy options are going, etc.

Don't be scared of the scary stuff. A 1cc is definitely within reach. Some key info...

1. Take advantage of the invincibility from the power ups as much as you can. Don't take this to extremes where the process becomes counterintuitive and you're killing yourself by avoiding power ups/stockpiling them for the right moment (which I honestly doubt you'd fall into the trap of).

2. Defining your route. Some routes are better for scoring, some are easier, some will yield you more coins which in turn will give you 1up drop (I believe after every 100 coins you collect, a 1up will drop). Plus there are score based extends in addition to this.

As far as the routes go, a "1" = not hitting the path changing switch, "2" = hitting the path changing switch.

The route I've used to clear the game is

1-2/2-1/3-1/4-2/5-1/6-1

"Good job. Keep up the good work"
 
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