The RGF Shmup League - Season #3 Game #2: taking nominations

[AmidstStorm]

I just had my third session on the game and went backwards I can get through to the medusa boss without losing a life no problem but because of the rank system the boss is suddenly way harder. If I die then stage 4 is a nightmare to get going on without weapons. Can't decide weather to keep going to get better or try and work out where the best place to die is. Thinking a suicide halfway through 3 gives me chance to collect weapons and beat the boss.

The game is fun but when and where you die makes too much difference. The game loves to give you the 'big' power up too, which then stops you picking up anything else Agree with Amidstorm about the first level, god it's a chore.

The game does have that 'one more go' feeling, maybe thats the league though

The big power up bell lets you collect up all the power up caps though so is probably the only way of surving after an untimely death. Dying before a boss or during is pretty much end of credit imo. So frustrating.

The league dragged me back in to playing this. I pretty much gave up not caring at 315k. Without the league I would've just put it on the shelf with the other 200 shmups or so and gone back to playing Cave without a second thought. I'm now starting to appreciate the depth of Konami's game design, if a little infuriating at time's.

Edit: Also you get an extend at 300k, so i suppose suiciding mid, though i'd say start of s3 would be better then it won't matter too much. For the long haul though if you're going for completion, 1CC, Special Stages etc. then as weakboson has covered previously, all lives remaining at the end of the game give you bonus points. It just depends on what you're trying to achieve I guess. This game is alot harder than it first appears. Bastard thing.

[weakboson]

I thought MAME defaults had the extends at 300k and 800k. That's what I've been playing, anyway.

As for when to suicide I think I decided that I basically wouldn't since deaths are likely to happen anyway. A good place would be at the start of the boss rush, though, since you can power back up straight away from the capsule enemy.

[AmidstStorm]

I thought MAME defaults had the extends at 300k and 800k. That's what I've been playing, anyway.

As for when to suicide I think I decided that I basically wouldn't since deaths are likely to happen anyway. A good place would be at the start of the boss rush, though, since you can power back up straight away from the capsule enemy.

Ah yeah it's 300k, sorry typo

[Sel Feena]

@Amidstorm:

It'll mean throwing away some good pointage, but you could always just dodge around the first boss (amoeba thingy) and gobble up the power-ups he farts out. He'll time out eventually.

My two cents on scoring: I think simplicity is best, and the bonus for 1CC-ing is fair for people who can pull it off.

[AmidstStorm]

I think some games down the line could be easier to 1CC without focussing on score but I think to validate a 1CC the score you submit must involve that 1CC run.

For example:

AmidstStorm - AMS - 700,000 - ALL CLEAR - Mambo - Auto - Saturn

Yet my best might be a higher score but with no 1CC.

if the game time ended with the current scores on that, then I'd finish 3rd in rankings with 11 points overall. More beneficial than than boson's 10 points without a 1CC.

So what do peole think about having a seperate note taken just under the rankings incase this actually happens somewhere? That way come the end of game time the player can decide if he wants to keep his highest or submit his 1CC score if it gives them more points.

Thoughts please?

There's a possibility it could happen so I think this way we then have it covered. Some players I know play for fun with no regard to scoring or survival. Others play simply for the 1CC or max scoring only.

[Vyothric]

Feels like I've been playing this game for a month already and it's only been 2 days!

[weakboson]

I think some games down the line could be easier to 1CC without focussing on score but I think to validate a 1CC the score you submit must involve that 1CC run.

For example:

AmidstStorm - AMS - 700,000 - ALL CLEAR - Mambo - Auto - Saturn

Yet my best might be a higher score but with no 1CC.

if the game time ended with the current scores on that, then I'd finish 3rd in rankings with 11 points overall. More beneficial than than boson's 10 points without a 1CC.

So what do peole think about having a seperate note taken just under the rankings incase this actually happens somewhere? That way come the end of game time the player can decide if he wants to keep his highest or submit his 1CC score if it gives them more points.

Thoughts please?

There's a possibility it could happen so I think this way we then have it covered. Some players I know play for fun with no regard to scoring or survival. Others play simply for the 1CC or max scoring only.

I was thinking about this too and what you suggested is probably the best solution - it might lead to the peculiar situation of someone asking for a higher score to be replaced with a lower one, but the alternative is to give the player the 3 points no matter what score they end up with at the end of the month. That might encourage people to focus on getting the clear and look at scoring only secondarily. This way we're still acknowledging the efforts of those who can survive while keeping focus on the scoring.

The other thing is that we should specify clearly for each game the conditions for getting the bonus. This game, for example, has two ways of being cleared - with the special stage and without. Since a special clear gives such an advantage in scoring I would be happy just saying 3 points for each, but with other games it might not be so simple. Psyvariar Revision can be cleared in 4 ways, the easiest of which would probably be achievable by some people on their first credit, the hardest being a substantial challenge. Then there are games with loops - do you get the bonus for reaching 2-1, or is it only if the game ends with the 1-ALL? Something to bear in mind, anyway.

[Sel Feena]

^ For each game, state the different ways it can be cleared. These would be ranked in difficulty, with impressive 1CCs netting the max 3 points, down to the easiest earning you 1. Maybe?

[AmidstStorm]

It's a tricky one to cover when talking about it in these terms. I'm happy for the 3 points to go to anyone with a standard default clear. Eg. Deathsmiles with no ex stages. most shmups are a challenge in themselves just to clear them for survival, though some players find this easier than others. Perhaps agreed extra bonus scores could be bought in if we felt like certain challenges warranted it. Clearing a second loop for example should perhaps warrant some extra points though getting to 2-1 would still be classed as a standard 1CC. I think perhaps when during the period between games when we know what's next we're playing, we can iron out the point system for that particular game. The same goes for auto fire and score submission info requirements. It could add quite a depth to the scoring, especially if an individual clears a game quick and wants more ways to gain more points to keep them interested. We can keep it simple.

Eg.
highest scorer - 10 points
1CC - 3 bonus points or
1LC - 5 bonus points
or second loop clear - 6 points
second loop 1LC - 10 points

just an example but I'm sure you get what I mean.

[Misery]

Ok, I'm only doing this since I told Amidststorm that I would.

.....but after one attempt, my patience is totally shattered.


So this is very likely my final score: 437,600.


Didnt bother grabbing a screenshot. Didnt occur to me till after, and.... I really dont care enough.

Used.... pointy red ship thing.... ended in.... damn stupid conveyor belt place. Came right after bizarro boss rush place. I seriously dont understand the point of this game.

And again I say: This game is BLOODY AWFUL. And still has the "you die ONCE, may as well restart" problem that the entire Gradius series reeks of. I got through to stupid conveyor place without dying. Including finishing the stage 2 mission in one go due to being really hyped on caffiene. Died ONCE because a penguin sat on me, in one of those "gotta know it in advance to pass it!" spots. After that.... there just wasnt any way of continuing because the checkpoint spot was apparantly chosen by a drunken, blindfolded monkey that had just been kicked into a blackhole. As you might guess, this is not a monkey who is currently paying attention to his job of choosing a good checkpoint area.

The stupid part is, the game SERIOUSLY is not that hard. No troubles dodging all the actual enemy attacks up to that point, but that penguin pretty much spawned directly above me and got me by surprise. I'm usually looking for, you know, bullets and missiles and things to dodge. Though I forget, Gradius in general has a tendancy to spawn enemies ON or very near you.

As for the bells.... well, again, the game makes me irritable even more than usual, so I pretty much just kept shooting the horrid things in the hope that they'd go away and stop making that clanging noise.

Either way, there you go. Made one, and ONLY one, attempt, got that score, I havent the foggiest idea if it's good or awful, and that's what I'm sticking with.


Now I'm going back to playing Darius.

[Sel Feena]

So...not a fan, then?

I think that's the main thing about this game; you have to be aware of enemy positions and map layouts. Play enough times and you can hazard where the bells will spawn pretty accurately too.

The red ship'll be Shooting Star, then. It's quite decent, from what I've played with him. Still prefer Mambo though.

[Misery]

So...not a fan, then?

I think that's the main thing about this game; you have to be aware of enemy positions and map layouts. Play enough times and you can hazard where the bells will spawn pretty accurately too.

Generally, I dont mind having to get used to map layouts and enemy positions and whatever else. I'm used to doing that in both danmakus or traditional types. Particularly in games like the R-Type series. Or other shmups that mimic some of the design ideas from that series, like Satazius. In R-type, you go through the levels bloody perfect or you crash. I dont mind that though, I've always liked R-Type.

.....but the level design in this one is just ANNOYING.

I mean, seriously.... even the " wall level" in Shikigami no Shiro 2 (level 3-1) isnt THAT annoying, and that's really saying something, considering just how irritating that level is. If you havent played that (it's available on PS2. It's brilliant), it's totally worth a shot, but 3-1 will censored off pretty much anyone. Though that level does at least end with one of the strangest bosses in the genre, so THATS worth seeing, but still, whole level makes me wanna punt squirrels.

This though..... MORE annoying than that.

Not to mention the difficulty balance here is really wierd. Levels, enemies shoot plenty of bullets and crap at you, stuff going every where. The bosses.... just sorta died at me. There was Corn Thing, Penguin Jerk, Wierd Splitting Fat Lady, Big Damn Powerup, American Eagle, Mouth Thing, and Girl With Arrows. That's the order they appeared in, I guess sometimes they appear in other orders? Zero trouble with any of them regardless.

To be fair, I never really liked the level design in many of the Gradius games to start with, but still. Annoying.

[weakboson]

I happened to spot Sexy Parodius western record holder saucykobold posting about the game over on the shmups forum. He said he found a way to trivialise the last three gun walls in stage 6 so I asked him about it:

I was playing this recently too as part of a freindly little competition over on the retrogamer forums. I'd called it a day at 940k but it'd be interesting to hear what your strategy for the last few walls in stage 6 is.

I get a red bell at the second gunwall after clearing out most of the surrounding enemies. This isn't too difficult if you use a weapon that can "tap" bells instead of hitting them multiple times per shot. I then use one laser for each of the last three walls. It's not immediately obvious, but you're invincible if you stay within the little icon of your ship before it sprouts the vertical laser.

This strategy only works in Manual mode, unfortunately, since you can't really save red/blue bell powers for later use in Auto or Semi-Auto. Quick demonstration clip

In fact since you have the western record I'm sure any tips you can share would go down well.

Here's a neat trick that can help a ton in stage 5. Mambo, Hikaru, and a few other characters can activate a force field and then fly straight through a thin wall. This makes it easy to reach the large respawning coin if you don't have a blue or green bell handy. You could also kill all of the gun turrets at the wall of death, pass through with a force field, and then collect a lot of yellow bells.

Other potentially useful info:
With only a few exceptions (UFOs in 4a), you can prevent suicide bullets from being generated if you're close enough to their source.
If at all possible, use a red bell on the fifth boss. Fighting it normally is Turbo Force hard.
The colored bell sequence is blue, green, white, red, purple. Definitely worth learning.
The sequence of items is red x5, bell, red x5, bell, red, blue. Worth taking into consideration if you want to plan routes that give bells in desirable spots. For example, if you wanted to farm purple bells at the second boss, you'd need one of the last two enemies in the stage to reliably drop a bell.
A few years ago, KET recorded Auto runs with various ships. They show that it's very possible to clear the main game and the special stage without doing a lot of memorization.

How about that then? It's enough to tempt me back into the game, for some experimentation, at least, but we'll see how it goes. There really is a lot more to this game than meets the eye.

[AmidstStorm]

^that's some damn good knowledge of the game. Cheers for posting this up. So are we going to see a mighty boson return so soon? I really want to see that dude play it now, seems there really is alot more advantages to using the colored bells just for survival. I have so much to learn.

[weakboson]

I'm going to try out manual mode rather than return to my old strategy, so it might not lead to a new score. Really I just want to explore this game a bit more before the month is over, but we'll see how it goes.