I already discussed about my first experiences with Ketsui. But I also played other games that I haven't played before: dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU and Shikigami no Shiro II. I also experienced playing DoDonPachi on a real PCB. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play ESPGALUDA. Dave K. had DAI-OU-JOU and ESPGALUDA sharing the PS2, so we could only play either of them. And I wanted to play DAI-OU-JOU more than ESPGALUDA anyway, so I never asked to switch the games. Anyway, let's discuss some games.

dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU. I had a little strategy going into this game. To reduce rank, I decided to avoid hyper items in the first two stages and to bomb each boss at least once. In the third stage, I also planned not to collect a hyper item, but I kept running out of bombs with the B-Exy, so I collected them to be used for emergency evasion. Then in the fourth stage, I used the hyper item whenever I could in order to destroy enemies quickly. That way, the enemies wouldn't shoot many bullets, even though they would be fast. The best this plan allowed me to do was to reach the 1up cannon in stage 4.

Certainly, this game is tough! I had trouble memorizing where certain large enemies appear, because the game never allowed me to recollect my thoughts. And because the B-Exy carries so few bombs, I couldn't just steamroll through the game with bombs. (I tried the B-Shotia once, but she couldn't destroy a thing!)

I still like Ketsui more, though, because I enjoyed barely surviving through so many difficult patterns. With DAI-OU-JOU, I couldn't get away with improvising in the third stage, so I kept getting cornered with barely any hope of escaping. Maybe DAI-OU-JOU had faster bullets even when the rank was low...

Shikigami no Shiro II. This game didn't excite me at all. The bullets are very slow, so I felt that anyone could dodge these bullets. And whenever I ran into a bullet or obstacle or something, I simply felt stupid (this pattern killed me when 95% of the shooting game player population can dodge it?). I felt that I needed to play for a high score right away if I wanted to get myself excited. But I'm busy playing other games. Maybe some other time...

DoDonPachi. I couldn't believe it—the game on Dave K.'s PCB slowed down more than it did on my slow 900 MHz computer! That's all I took away from my one credit with DoDonPachi on a real PCB and a real arcade cabinet. But it was an enlightening credit!

Oh, and I think I can get used to using the Japanese joysticks (I forgot the brand name that Dave K. used on each cabinet). I still think they're a little loose, because I felt that my dodges were less precise than they were when I was using a keyboard. But I can shift direction quicker with the joysticks than on a keyboard. Maybe that's more important, because I got away with so many imprecise dodges. So I liked using the Japanese joysticks.

Overall, I stayed in the shmupmeet for about 8 hours. I wanted to stay for longer, but I didn't want to feel lonely when all the guests left. And besides, my right hand was sore, since I wanted to cram in as much play time as I could with the games that I never played before. But all in all, I had tons of fun, and I hope we could organize another shmupmeet soon. (Actually, we kicked around the idea of holding another shmupmeet a few weeks after Mushihime's PS2 release.)

Finally, I would like to thank Dave K. for making this shmupmeet possible. Dave, I appreciated the opportunity to play all these new and awesome games. And I guess I have someone local to consult when I start working with real arcade game hardware. :)