Shmups Skill Test シューティング技能検定

Awhile back, I read somewhere that as you age, your reflexes and hand-eye coordination become increasingly worse. This could happen as early as your 30s(!). To be fair, the source was a random person on an internet forum, but it got me thinking... and worrying. As of this review, I'm 35 years old, and I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to be put out to pasture. I still play 2D shootemups, or as the young'ns call them: shmups. My skills when it comes to this genre are just as sharp as they ever were, maybe even sharper... right?
Enter Shmups Skill Test. In as little as 10-12 minutes, gamers across the globe can get a scientifically* accurate assessment. They can also challenge friends and strangers alike in the online leaderboards. Over the course of a session, players will attempt four minigames, each having two (or three) variations, while engaging in a handful of interspersed microgames. Each minigame focuses on specific skills, such as dodging, shooting, and showing good judgment. Upon completion of a session, the player's "gamer age" is determined, and their score is uploaded.
Now, onto the minigames.
8-bit! Tank A! Tank B!
These three minigames test the player's overall ability. If I'm playing Shmups Skill Test for score, I go with 8-bit. This minigame sends wave after wave of flying ships at the player. It's very reminiscent of the old-school games where a line of enemies would attack at once. This minigame is my pick for scoring because it's the easiest to clear. Even though minigames are picked randomly, the session always starts with either of these three, so restarting is painless.
Tank A is a relentless tank assault. In just a short amount of time, players will face a barrage of tanks, and their cannon-fire continually increases in speed. This is an exciting mode due to its raw intensity. It's worth pointing out that players will experience every kind of dodge. These can include (but are not limited to) the "I expected that.", the "That was close!", and the always classic "Wow. How did I even avoid that?". After awhile the bullets move at obscene speeds. Surviving beyond this point requires pure grit.
Tank B is less intense, but there are multiple tank-types, all with their own attacks. This minigame requires a good sense of judgment, since you have to focus on the most dangerous enemies, while also paying attention to what the nearby forces are doing. Unlike a number of shooters, enemies can fire bullets from off-screen. Overall I think this variation is the most complex and interesting of the three.
Dodge the Bullets!
The purpose of this minigame is to test dodging. You're put up against an invincible boss that fires off several bullet-patterns. Admittedly, this minigame prey on my weaknesses. The bullet-patterns aren't particularly complicated, but they are pretty fast. Sometimes, the best approach is not to rely on reflexes, and to instead use short focused maneuvers. I can reach level 50 (out of 99) in these minigames pretty consistently. However, once the speed doubles, I start panicking (and losing).
Dodge the buildings or the balls!
Yep, more dodging. The basis of any 2D shooter is in the dodging, so I can't say that I'm surprised. There is some randomness to this minigame, but there's also a sense of control to them. It's almost as if you can influence the general direction the screen shifts, by how you move your ship. It's hard to explain, but when playing this minigame, I try to move as often as possible. The objects are static, but the screen can sometimes shift in a way that sends the player into an instant collision with them. Overall, I'd say that this minigame is equal parts intriguing and frustrating.
Button pressing!
The final minigame tests the player's ability to mash the fire buttons. This is the second to last minigame of the session and for good reason: It's positively exhausting. Both variations require that the player shoot exceptionally durable objects, before they pass the bottom of the screen. Since auto-fire is turned off, you have to press buttons as quickly as possible, in order to survive.
While it would be all too easy to get a controller with turbo functionality, I prefer my Hori EX-SE arcade stick. In order to clear these minigames, I attempted various techniques. One method involved pressing buttons in a sequence, as if I'm drumming on a desk out of boredom.
However...
In order to get the firepower necessary to destroy giant asteroids, I have to brush my hands across all of the fire buttons at once. It's sort of like dusting off an old book, except at a forearm-destroying rate. By the way, it's a bad idea to allow the finger-tips to do most of the work. In just a couple minutes, I got a blister. It's rather ironic that in my 33 years of gaming, this is the first time that I've ever gotten a blister. These are the things that happen I suppose.
Odds & Ends!
Before the session ends, the player enters the "cooldown" phase. The player shoots cans so that they fall into a floating garbage-can. This is an oddly well-developed minigame. The cans have physics, and will react accordingly when they are shot or make contact with other cans. This is also a nice way to score some extra bonus points, but I can't say that I'm a fan. The microgames are neat, though their quality can vary wildly, depending on the skills of the player. While I like finding the right moment to use a bomb, or shooting through a huge wave of tanks, I always fail within two seconds of the "dodge everything!" microgame.
The Results!
After a few hours of practice, I've been able to consistently hit a gamer age of 20. It's been a very rewarding endeavor, although I could have done without the blister. Shmups Skill Test works not just because of its variety of minigames, but that it also respects the foundation of the genre. The controls are perfectly suitable, the mechanics are rock-solid, and the visuals are clear and concise.
It's also very nice that the sessions are short and to the point. This makes them good for practice, before players take on a more involved 2D shootemup. The minigames succeed on their own merits as well. It's very likely that I'll return to Tank! minigames over and over again. This is because despite their simplicity, they're consistently challenging and entertaining. Overall, this is a collection well worth looking into.
*I'm certain that if there was an accredited shmup scientist, they would recommend this game.
Disclaimer: For the purpose of this review, a key was provided by the publisher.
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Warioware meets Brain Age all in a shmup. One second you're blasting an army of tanks, then you're dodging through some really aggressively spinning scenery, then you're... shooting cans into a recycle bin to save the Earth?
Complete about a half dozen of these challenges and you'll register a score and get an insulting shmup age of 57 or something, then you get back in and knock out a different assortment of games.
It's not a hugely long-lasting affair. The games are certainly nice in the one-and-done quick change format, but they aren't compelling. It fits perfectly as a niche shmup that you can knock out a full session of in 10-15 minutes, but it's certainly not a game you play seriously.

Just a quick warning, if anyone buys this game, DO NOT USE FULLSCREEN, it raises game speed by a ridiculous amount where if I tappes left on the D-pad once on my controller, I would go flying across the menu. Everything works fine in windowed mode.

Shmups Skill Test was first released in 2007 for Arcade (Sega Naomi board) and later ported in 2009 to Xbox 360 as part of the "Shooting Love 200X" collection, which brought together beyond this game other three: "Minus Zero", "Trizeal Remix "and" Exzeal ", all of them developed by Triangle Service (japanese developer founded by a former employee of Konami) and now in 2016 this game finally comes to Steam at the hands of Degica, publisher that has been noted for bring to the Steam (and thus to the whole world) many shmups (acronym for shoot' em up aka STG) previously restricted only to Japan. Shmups Skill Test is a unique and very interesting shmup that brings together a collection of several mini-games that allow to test and also enhance the ability of shmups lovers in several important aspects for this kind of game, such as dodge bullets and obstacles, collect items, training aim, shoot bombs accurately and etc. Therefore, the game works as a great training tool for improving the ability of the players in shmups and of course also have fun in this process. There are four main modes in this game: the main mode of the game, in which the system randomly assembles the sequence of mini-games that will appear in sequence on the screen to test the player's skill level and, in the end, provides beyond the score also the age that corresponds to the player's skill, so that the newer, better; where the player himself chooses the mini-games sequence that he wants to play, so to improve specific questions that he desired; for 2 and 4 players and finally mode. Importantly, the player has at his disposal a great leaderboard online and also has the ability to save replays of games played, and the player can also view replays of other players inside the leaderboard, something always useful for those who want to know and learn the patterns and techniques used by the best players. The graphics of the mini-games are quite simple, but fulfill their role, with several customization options such as filters, screen rotation, image scale and etc. The soundtrack is interesting, fitting well in the various mini-games, including the presence of some well-produced vocal chords. The gameplay is solid, fun and as mentioned very useful for enhancing the skills of shmups players. The controls work well (I used the official wireless Xbox 360 controller and works well both in digital and analog mode). Therefore, due to its unique characteristics, Shmups Skill Test is a very interesting game especially for shmups lovers who want to increase their skills. Below two videos of this game played by me:

So, finally, Shooting Love 200X has released... I remember seeing and hearing about this a LONG while ago, back before the 360 version came out, and wanting it... but then I just never got around to importing it. Fast-foward to now, and the whole thing is out, consisting of Exzeal, Trizeal, Minus Zero, and this game, Shmups Skill Test.
Shmups Skill Test is an.... interesting thing. When you first try it, you're likely to have alot of "WTF" moments. The game hits you with a barrage of funky "minigames", each geared towards testing some specific trait/ability that somehow relates to shmups. In the main game mode, you go through a series of these, randomly chosen from the available minigames in each category. For example, the first category is always "overall", which essentially throws you a mini-shmup, where it's all about dodging, blowing stuff up, all the usual. The enemies keep coming, and you get points for taking them down. Simple, right? Well, the rules change after each round. The next round might be a "here's 20 squillion powerups bouncing around the screen, only grab the red ones" sort of thing, or it might pit you against Definitely Not Hibachi, who throws bullet patterns at you to dodge, getting more and more intense as time goes on, your only goal here being to survive; naturally, you cant kill a foe such as that. Or the game might try to hit you with buildings. You're even going to get to do some recycling, as you battle your hated arch-nemesis, Physics! No, seriously, that seems to always be the one at the end....
There are no game-overs here; you move onto the next challenge when the current one is cleared (if it's a type that CAN be cleared) or when you get hit, or in a couple of specific cases, when you screw something up (like the one with the rocket). At the end of the gauntlet of tests, you're given what is essentially a scorecard, and it calculates a "gamer age" for you; your overall goal is to have this number be as low as possible. You also have a traditional score though, so dont worry, that's still there.
For the most part, the various minigames are well done. Unexpectedly well, in some cases. For example, my favorite is this one that tells you to "DODGE!" and then drops you in this horrible hellhole filled with giant red spheres. Shooting doesnt help, here... it's all about dodging the spheres as the camera/playfield spins and zooms all over the place, but you cant just memorize THIS challenge, no sir. You never know what the thing is going to do next in this mode. It'll abruptly change the direction that everything is shifting in, and change the speed, and keep spinning, and it can do this pretty freaking fast.... and then come to a near halt, slowly spinning like 5 giant orbs around you, making you wait for what you know is probably coming, that moment when it just abruptly lurches off in some random direction.... overall, that challenge is not about MEMORIZING, it's about REACTING. It's hard to explain, but it seems to react to you, too... if you were to play it enough, you'd probably see what I mean. There's definitely some sort of AI in place there acting alongside the RNG. The interesting thing is? No matter how many times I try that minigame, it *never* does anything unfair despite the randomness and all the wild movments and spinning. I have yet to have a "what the hell was I supposed to do about that?" moment. Or any moments that feel like they're completely about luck. And that kinda amazes me, considering how this specific minigame/mode works.
And honestly, the whole game is like that. It just WORKS, and that includes all of the many bits that have RNG in them. When there is RNG, it's all in the right places, and more importantly, not in the WRONG places, AKA, places where it can kill you regardless of skill. And for the non-RNG challenges, they're equally well made; none of the patterns that Definitely Not Hibachi fires at you are at all cheap or broken or anything like that, for instance, though you might get a TAD irritated at the one where the bullets blink on and off yet dont actually stop existing during the "off" state... you'll see what I mean when you get there. But even that is never unfair, never cheap.
And overall, the actual scoring system... I dont mean the age thing... seems well done too. Each minigame is weighted properly, in terms of how much overall score potential it has for you. Getting a truly high score in the main mode really will involve mastering ALL aspects of this.... which is pretty much the entire purpose of the whole idea. So that's well done.
As a rule, the different minigames are all pretty fun, and definitely quirky. The only ones I kinda dont like much are the ones called the "shooting tests". The idea is to last as long as you can, and stop things from reaching the bottom of the screen by shooting them. .....without rapid-fire. Things will take more and more hits to destroy as time goes on. That's right... this is a test of just how rapidly you can hit the damn fire button. And you have to go really... freaking.... fast.... to master it. I hit level 99 (the game measures current difficulty in "levels" that keep slowly going up over the course of each minigame) during the main game challenge the first time the "shoot the boards" one came up, and by the end of it, I'd stopped holding the controller normally, and was instead slashing my entire hand across the facebuttons, back and forth, REALLY fast, in order to keep up the utterly absurd fire rate needed to keep going. My entire arm and shoulder still hurt after having done that. The nasty part, there's an achievement for hitting level 99 in that.... but you have to do it in the challenge mode, not the main mode. I'll have to do that AGAIN later... ugh. BUt yeah, I'm not too fond of the fire-rate test thing. But I can understand why it's there, even if it is a very outdated concept (it's mostly very old shmups that had fire-rate as an important thing; nearly all modern ones use auto-fire, so that your arm doesnt fall off).
Overall though, I think the entire thing works well. Most importantly, I just find it really FUN. And that's the key to everything, eh? And I think that's what's special about THIS one.... shmups can be fun but are often also frustrating; there's always that one boss you cant quite manage, or that one enemy formation that will impede your progress, or just that one THING that happens every freaking time, and you get irritated. I know I do. But in this game... I dunno, it never gave me that feeling. When I'd screw up, I kept thinking "I can make up for that mistake in the next couple of challenges". Or something like that.
Functionally, everything is good, by the way. Controls are perfect, no issues there, there's leaderboards, and a replay-save system that works in all modes.
Overall, this is a pretty strange game, but it's one of those ones that I can recommend to any shmup fan... particularly if you like Triangle Service.
....also the soundtrack is REALLY bizarre. ....yay?

This is a surprisingly addictive shmup that will more than likely hold your attention for a few nights if you're interested in the "Brain Age" angle.
My first major complaint is no actual tate/portrait mode support. You CAN rotate the display, but it has no actual vertical monitor support, so people with a secondary monitor for tate gaming are out of luck. Who rotates their main monitor without changing from landscape to portrait just to play a game in that awkward way anymore? Really wish there were portrait mode resolutions supported.
There were 2 minigames I didn't like that I wanted to bring attention to (I don't know the names so bear with my descriptions while I wing it):
-Dodge Everything! This one shoots out a very predictable checkerboard pattern shot, vertical then horizontal. This one will either be a very easy one that you get without trying 19 times out of 20 for an easy 10,000pts, or a frustrating miss where you can't predict the horizontal shot depending on your skill level. As someone who falls in the former category, I say this minigame is a total detriment and it's removal would only make Shmups Skill Test slightly better.
-Grab the scores! This one consists of trying to grab 10,000pts worth of 100/1,000 skill bars flying off the screen within 10 seconds. This one will be frustrating until you realize the top of the screen is much easier to grab the points... then after you find that out, it still feels a bit too random when it pops up as far as being an indicator of your "game age".
Both of these minigames are a bit annoying if you think they're being considered hard into the ranking. That said, when trying to figure out the names of these minigames for the review, I looked in the practice section to see what they were called and couldn't find them. I took that as an indicator of these games having less of an impact on your actual ranking and more as just a "street fighter smash the car" bonus stage. Wish there was more of an indication to show this, as these are the main games that really take you out of the whole "game age" ranking system.
All that said, I enjoy the brain age gimmick and thought it was done pretty well. I can absolutely recommend this game for a few nights of fun shmup fun when you just want to jump into some shmup minigames, or if you want a nice warmup before diving into your next 1cc attempt at your shmup of choice.
P.S. In response to top negative review: this isn't a bait title. It's Shmup SKILL TEST, not Shmup TRAINER. That's like being mad at the SAT's for not helping you git gud at math :p

Decent tool for testing your Shmupping skills. I get to truly see just how good I could be at shmups with some simple exercies, fun challenges and a daunting soundtrack. Give it a go, see how good you truly are at shoot-em-ups.