Mushihime-sama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ej9wyqWiPQ

This game can now be played emulated via pcsx2, if you've never had the chance to play it, it's probably worth going through the effort, as it's one of the great shmups of all time.

My brother recently lent me his Japanese ps2 and this game, so I could finally play it seriously, but unfortunately none of my arcade sticks work with his ps2. While a stick doesn't necessarily make this kind of game easier, for me it makes them feel right and more manageable. With pcsx2 you can pretty much use any stick you want, so that's great. I set that up last night and other than occasional tiny bits of slowdown during the most manic moments (and that little extra slowdown is actually a blessing) the game runs flawlessly and actually seems to look a little sharper than running the game in a ps2, since you can run it in a higher resolution.

thanx jeff! ive been playing lol sengoku blade l8ly this looks good

I need to roll back my enthusiasm a little as I have now quarter fed my way through the entire game on normal and by the third level the performance (at least on my computer) slows down quite a lot. It's definitely still playable, and the slowdown actually makes the game easier (though it's still quite overwhelming), it just feels wrong throughout most of the second half of the game, unfortunately. Though it could just be I have some settings wrong, as pcsx2 isn't yet super user friendly - I'm definitely going to fool around with it some more and see if I can get some better, more consistent performance. Other than dropping down into to 40fps range and running at maybe 70-80% speed in the later half of the game, there were no other issues that I noticed, so a better computer than mine with a better graphics card (mine is now around two years old, I guess), should do a better job.

update - pcsx2 has a speed hacks section - turning those on seemed to pretty much clear up the problems I was having running the game. It's still not perfect, but I played the game back to back on my computer than on the ps2 and it felt pretty close (maybe it ran 5% slower now?). Both systems actually have sections with significant slowdown - either it's ps2 hardware limitations or intentional (I've yet to play the arcade version so can't say for sure).

Must emphasize how wonderful the arranged version of the game is. Somehow I actually made it to the 4th level too!

Lamp - I just tried out Tengai / Sengoku Blade: Sengoku Ace Episode II (via MAME) - only played the first two levels so far, but I enjoyed it, though maybe it felt a little slow. Is that what you've been playing, or the Saturn game (is that any different?)? I've played a fair amount of Psikyo's Dragon Blaze, Strikers 1945 Plus, and Gunbird 2 all of which I recommended if you like Sengoku Blade and haven't tried them yet (all of which work fine in MAME).