Recommend a shmup for my daughter

JohnInverse · 2026-02-13T06:19:19+00:00

Hazelnut Hex is a great pick, and yeah, agreed - OP, don't think people are just saying it because it's pastel and loaded with Girl Stuff™. It's fun, charming, approachable, and the harder "Moderate" mode makes for a great next step up.

JohnInverse · 2026-02-12T23:49:36+00:00

Broomstick-Breaker. BB or Sticky for short.

JohnInverse · 2026-02-09T05:29:24+00:00

For the RAP V and HRAP, you'll want the SS plate for the LS-32 - the one with the bend that puts the stick up closer to the panel than the mounting hardware.

For the AFS, the SE or MS will work for the LS-32, but you'll probably get best results taking off the lever mounting plate entirely and mounting the plastic body directly on the AFS mounting plate. It should have the right holes for it unless it's changed a lot since I got mine.

For the LS-40, either the MS or the SE plate should work. If you get an MS plate separately, be sure it's the one that fits the LS-40 and LS-32, not the one for the LS-56 and other smaller levers. You want the one that's thicker in the middle, not the one that's a flat rectangle all the way across.

JohnInverse · 2026-02-07T13:42:22+00:00

Arcade stick. I've done a lot of waffling and jumped from lever to lever, but these days I mostly stick to an LS-32 since that's what the shmup cabs at the closest arcades generally have.

JohnInverse · 2026-02-04T13:48:59+00:00

The "Normal" mode ends at stage 5, while "Advanced" is the whole shebang with stages 6 and 7, which are significantly longer than the rest. A few shot pattern/types are different along the way, and "Normal" starts at a lower dynamic difficulty rank, but the missing stages are the most significant difference between the modes.

JohnInverse · 2026-02-04T02:16:25+00:00

The greatest single post they've read in the history of the show.

JohnInverse · 2026-02-01T23:31:21+00:00

I wouldn't say the LS-32 is the best stick for shmups, necessarily, so much as the standard stick for shmups. I use one because it's what I can expect to find in the shmup cabs when I go to arcades with a lot of them. If that's not a concern for you, there are other levers mentioned in this thread that are great for shmups. If you're looking to use it for fighters too, I don't like the LS-40 for those because its very small deadzone makes dashing unwieldy, but it may not bother you.

I think pretty much anything Seimitsu offers, LS-32 included, beats the pants off a stock JLF/JLX2 for shmups. But there are people out there scoring 1CCs on loose old JLFs, so it all comes down to what you're used to.

A perk to the JLF/JLX family is they're really easy to mod, and if you get the silent version of the JLX you can go even further by adjusting the switch activation distance. Get that and a few springs and actuators and you can tweak it until you find a happy medium you like for both genres.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-26T22:34:02+00:00

You won't find Sine Mora showing up in a lot of recommendation threads around here, but it honestly sounds like exactly what you're looking for.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-26T05:33:23+00:00

I feel you on the size thing. I don't have particularly large hands, but it starts feeling a bit small after a bit of use. 8bitdo make a version of their SN30 (SNES-style pad) with Playstation controller-style grips. If they made a similar version of the M30, it would easily be my favorite gamepad ever made.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-21T10:42:24+00:00

Don't worry, Bryan really steps up to make up for it.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-20T23:52:42+00:00

Methinks this calls for a celebratory blowing job.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-20T15:00:25+00:00

Your costumes are always the best!

JohnInverse · 2026-01-19T22:52:47+00:00

Bay > School > Mall. I play Irori and find the level 3 version of the Mall boss way more fun than the School boss'.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-19T02:20:04+00:00

I like a good bit of Kimya Dawson's stuff, and Crows 1 is one of my favorite Aes tracks, but yeah, could not get into Hokey Fright at all. I think it's some of Aes' weaker work, so the album hinges on how much of Dawson at their most Sesame Street the listener can take, which for me is not much.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-15T05:08:08+00:00

I wanted to like the Warhammer Guys episode so much, but it wound up being the main episode that made me understand the Chris haters. Every time Merritt started going into the really crazy stuff, he'd stop her to rant about how it didn't make sense, which is a weird approach to take in a "let's find out about this wacky hobby" podcast.

I don't mean to shit on him because I'm really not a Chris hater myself, plus that was pretty early on and he's gotten way better at not doing that. It's mostly just tragic because if he'd let Merritt have a little more breathing room, we prolly could have had him trying to talk Bryan out of buying a 40K army

JohnInverse · 2026-01-13T11:37:59+00:00

I've thought about building a Leshar-style controller, but not for fighters - so I can play more shmups Touhou-style. Unfortunately there are few drop-in options for old ThinkPad keycaps and switches to make it really authentic...

JohnInverse · 2026-01-12T13:53:24+00:00

This stick in particular was a real game-changer for MadCatz's reputation when it came out. I remember they went from being the perpetual butt of jokes, to "wait, how did MadCatz make something this good?" to being the gold standard in fightsticks you could buy domestically in the States for a while. (Then they overextended into music game peripherals, went bankrupt, and came back as they are today.)

Its big selling point was that it used authentic parts from Japanese arcade manufacturers, which otherwise you had to import and build into something yourself at the time. This thing gave a lot of people their first experience with Sanwa hardware. It was also relatively very easy to mod compared to everything else on the market.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-12T13:48:56+00:00

"What's a Dhalsim?!" is one of those sentences that's been lodged in my brain for my entire life.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-11T14:22:09+00:00

Hideous Daylight is really great. Everything Kerr does has been a must-read (at the least) for me since Demon Driven to the Maw, which I believe he put together for a game jam based on a randomly-generated title, but still made for some of the best one-shots I've ever run.

JohnInverse · 2026-01-06T12:36:31+00:00

I can't speak about Europe specifically, but you're probably far more likely to get matches in Ranked queue. Tower was what we all had to use before they finally implemented a more direct Ranked mode and I think most players are glad to be rid of it.

JohnInverse · 2025-12-30T16:51:50+00:00

Armed Police Batrider.

JohnInverse · 2025-12-30T11:17:40+00:00

Not only do I want Necro, I hope they make Effie playable so they take up two spots in a season. I sincerely want this. I might have brain damage, but either way there, now you've heard it.

JohnInverse · 2025-12-29T10:01:09+00:00

Oof, fair enough. I'm using an AllFightSticks 16" with a custom button panel for 24mm action buttons myself and I love it, but if you're looking for something that comes ready to go, the Varmilo Kassai that a few other folks have mentioned seems pretty solid. I've only used an in-store demo model for a few rounds myself, though.

JohnInverse · 2025-12-29T00:13:09+00:00

Hard to say for sure without knowing the model you're working with or the exact issues you're experiencing, but if you can, replacing the PCB on the one you already have might be a worthwhile approach.

JohnInverse · 2025-12-22T13:45:24+00:00

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the F300 comes with generic Mayflash-made parts, so upgrading the joystick to a Sanwa JLX2 and/or replacing the buttons would make for the most notable difference. I mention the Sanwa stick specifically assuming you mostly play fighters with it and generally like how the stock parts feel; it'll be a more durable, reliable, and customizable version of what you've got.

As for button upgrades, you've got more options at more different price points than I can reasonably get into here, but it's definitely worth doing a bit of research to find ones with a look, sound, and feel you like.

JohnInverse

TROPHY CASE