If you had to pick between these 3 shooters.....

[Gredler]

Oh dear, I must really suck at playing shootemups, then!  :oops:

Don't fret good sir, for you are not alone in finding challenge in these games. Lords is one of the few shooters I've been able to beat on the system, so I suppose I can see how it can be called "too easy" hahaha

I haven't put much time into Gate of Thunder - I've never owned it, and have only tried a "backup" copy a few times to see what the hype was about. I grew up without a CD attachment, and only got a Duo abit over 2 years ago.

My vote is for Lords, since I was more drawn to and put more time into it after trying both - although lords was the second I tried of the two games I was toying with at the time. I will try Gate out this week, and see if I can best this "too easy" shooter

[Necromancer]

I find that 'too easy' is just right for my meager shewty skills.  :oops:

Even if y'all find the default difficulty level to be too easy, there's always hard/super/devil levels to try.

[Black Tiger]

Lords and Gate are great in that they are difficult if you blindly jump into them, but become very reasonable after you get a feel for them. The variety of weapons and different ways to deal with each section compliment nany different play styles. You just need to play until you've synced your oersonal play style. They really stand out from shallower games.

[csgx1]

I actually thought both games were quite difficult when I first played them.  Only after beating them multiple times they become easy. 

A game that I would consider way too easy is Star Parodier, where it's possible to 1cc on the first try. 

[SignOfZeta]

I love both LoT and GoT (There is only one Gate, btw, and it belongs to nobody) but Lords/Winds is much more unique. GoT is like a "real shooter" in that it's refined to the point where it's really similar to other shooters. LoT is much more unhinged. For example, when you are being pushed around and shit by rocks and stuff. The fact that you have a very generous life bar. It's all much more loose.

Tiger does well to point out that they do both accept different styles of play really well, something not a lot of shooters do. I go through GoT in a way that's probably different that other people.

[Otaking]

Winds is the greatest shooter of all time and Gate is a 9 out of 10.
They are both in the "best of the best" category.

My only one criticism of Gate is I found it too easy to finish.

[SignOfZeta]

Man. I really don't think Lords is as good as that. It's so flawed and amateurish here and there. The way the bosses can die in less than two seconds and some take much longer. The way you can easily survive six or seven hits because your life bar is huge but if your weapon takes more than two you're probably f*cked anyway. And shops. Shops are bullshit in a serious shooter.

As a game it's 10/10 because the whole experience is so awesome. The graphics and music are just f*cking great. I'd say the same of ArmJoe (a fighting game based on Les Miserables) however, it wasn't a 10/10 fighting game like SFIII or KOF '98.

GoT doesn't take as many risks, the design is super conservative for a space shooter, and the music dares to actually cover more than one genre. However, the end product is as good as any shooter I've played before and nearly all since.

GoT is The Olympics, LoT is WWE. Just because they are both Hudson and have similar names doesn't mean they are all that similar or that they should be compared. The important thing is that noobs get both of these games before dropping major bread on Sapphire, Steam Hearts, Spriggan, or any of the other shooters that usually cost much more and aren't as good. Just because there are common US versions of both games doesn't mean, for once, that there are better more obscure JP-only ones like in the case of most systems. In these two cases we got lucky.

[Zero_Gamer]

Man. I really don't think Lords is as good as that. It's so flawed and amateurish here and there. The way the bosses can die in less than two seconds and some take much longer. The way you can easily survive six or seven hits because your life bar is huge but if your weapon takes more than two you're probably f*cked anyway. And shops. Shops are bullshit in a serious shooter.

As a game it's 10/10 because the whole experience is so awesome. The graphics and music are just f*cking great. I'd say the same of ArmJoe (a fighting game based on Les Miserables) however, it wasn't a 10/10 fighting game like SFIII or KOF '98.

GoT doesn't take as many risks, the design is super conservative for a space shooter, and the music dares to actually cover more than one genre. However, the end product is as good as any shooter I've played before and nearly all since.

GoT is The Olympics, LoT is WWE. Just because they are both Hudson and have similar names doesn't mean they are all that similar or that they should be compared. The important thing is that noobs get both of these games before dropping major bread on Sapphire, Steam Hearts, Spriggan, or any of the other shooters that usually cost much more and aren't as good. Just because there are common US versions of both games doesn't mean, for once, that there are better more obscure JP-only ones like in the case of most systems. In these two cases we got lucky.

Regarding shops, or at least the shop aspect of LoT...  I think the inclusion of the shop, and the advantages it provides, is balanced out by collecting the crystals to spend in the shop.

To me the crystal collecting adds more challenge and difficulty to the game. Your are constantly darting around the screen trying to collect crystals, while tracking/dodging bullets, and killing the next wave of enemies. To me the crystal collecting is what makes LoT more difficult than GoT.

[Black Tiger]

Anyone who's played both games extensively knows how easy it is in Gate of Thunder to kill some bosses in less than two seconds, while some take much longer.

You don't have to make Lords easier by buying up everything you can in the shops or milking every exploit. The crystals are part of the scoring system and being as conservative wuth them as you can both increases the challenge and your final hi score. Just like spamming turbo switches and continues while tripping/throwing your way through a fighting game doesn't mean that's all there is to the game or that it's too easy.

Gate and Lords of Thunder have a comparable variety of music. Even if you believe that "guitars with drums" is somehow a genre.

[WoodyXP]

Gradius II.  It's the only game out of the three that hasn't burned me out. 

[cr8zykuban0]

winds of thunder forsure!

[SignOfZeta]

Anyone who's played both games extensively knows how easy it is in Gate of Thunder to kill some bosses in less than two seconds, while some take much longer.

You don't have to make Lords easier by buying up everything you can in the shops or milking every exploit. The crystals are part of the scoring system and being as conservative wuth them as you can both increases the challenge and your final hi score. Just like spamming turbo switches and continues while tripping/throwing your way through a fighting game doesn't mean that's all there is to the game or that it's too easy.

Gate and Lords of Thunder have a comparable variety of music. Even if you believe that "guitars with drums" is somehow a genre.

The genre of music in Lords of Thunder is 80s heavy metal/power metal. I can't see how this would be even slightly up for debate. They ape said genre so specifically that you can tell exactly which guitarists/songs their cribbing from sometimes.

BUT DON'T FLY OFF THE HANDLE JUST YET. I'm not slamming the game for this. Remember the thread that shows all the art in games that was shamelessness ripped off from Akira, Gundam, Terminator 2 or Bladerunner? We all love those games and I'm just describing the musical equivalent of that. It's OK. Don't get mad. Some of my favorite anime is only available with its original OST on Laserdisc because it rips off other shit so bad. I don't have any problem with it, honestly. Please don't Google my username for hours trying to shove somthing in my face that in the end doesn't even have anything to do with what I'm saying. Please don't wear out a keyboard on me just because the Professor is in a hybernation period. Please don't attack. Please.

But seriously, LoT is "that metal shooter". It's been that for 25 years. That's what it is and that's totally metal as far as I'm concerned. I love metal and I love Lords of Thunder.

Either way, this is key to why people who were into Iron Maiden, Helloween, etc already when the game came out were not quite as impressed as the non-metal people who are often blown away by the soundtrack of this game because to them rock peaked at Whitesnake. Those people think T's Music is some genius group when it was really just a couple of classically trained session musician who could copy anything. Guys who could easily do anything Metallica did except do it for the first time.

Gate has stuff that is more outside this genre which most definitely is a genre for sure and not something I made up just to shit talk a game I love and get into an argument on the Internet. However, people still talk about the LoT OST a lot more so I wouldn't say it worked for GoT in any way.

[shubibiman]

Agree with Signofzeta. WoT's OST is so utterly 80's heavy metal that you can tell for almost every music which song it covers.

One of the musics is a clear cover of Rainbow's Gates of Babylon.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qu8HiZepRWo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'd add that even metal lovers where impressed by WoT's OST because at the time, you would have this kind of OST in a video game.

[Dicer]

Gate>Lords(winds)>Gradius...

Either way you wont go wrong

[Otaking]

When I first played Winds/Lords when it was released in 1993 I was completely blown away by the music. I wasn't a fan of Heavy Metal or Rock music, I was heavily into UK Rave and Jungle music. In fact I'd rarely listen to music on any video games, often whilst playing I would turn the volume down and listen to the London Pirate radio stations instead. But Winds/Lords grabbed my attention, to this day I've yet to hear a video game with a better sound track.