The RGF Shmup League - Season #3 Game #2: Hellfire

[coffeejoerx]

I vote in autofire on.

[AmidstStorm]

Yep my arm is done by stage 3 I can't get auto fire On my version of mame it seems and the later versions won't run the rom..

Does the ps2 version have the option?

[Misery]

Guys, no autofire in a game like this is just insane.
C'mon, get it on.

If I can't autofire Varth I'm out.

No autofire in ANY of these is bloody stupid, really. It's as simple as that. I for one am not playing this anyway, already playing other games, but I'd HAVE to stop immediately if such a rule were put in place; it'd not be a choice in my case.

Anyway, the game can be done in autofire just fine. I saw this, and went and gave it a quick go.

Mame version .122, not using the UI version of this (which seems to disable this stuff....), using the "Mamep" one in the same directory.

Varth runs just fine and use of the custom buttons (you set one of them equal to whatever button "fire" is on, and then you set an actual controller button to that in the controls under "custom 1") and auto-fire settings menus allows for autofire with this game.

If you want to come up with a rule for the autofire, I'd say force the autofire rate in any of these to be about 5, on that menu, I've found that's a good setting for pretty much any shmup.


Really though, autofire isnt going to ruin the challenge with one of these.

If a pro player can point-blank a boss and wreck it by firing and bombing really fast.... chances are they can do it with auto-fire off simply by smashing the button really really fast.

Not to mention..... nobody said these older games were balanced, heh. I remember watching a pro player do this to EVERY SINGLE BOSS in Sonic Wings 2, and that wasnt because of autofire.

[kollisionBR]

For those wondering what's the deal with the scoring boost against the 4th boss:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 66#p418166

Most important excerpt:
- The bonus you get from the boss depends on how fast you kill it. It starts at 30.000 and decreases with time.
- According to the japanese wikipedia on Varth, this bug happens if the bonus you get is either 27.000 or 29.000 points, which will instead give you 270.000 or 290.000 points, respectively.
- Here's a video of myself killing it as fast as possible and getting the 290.000 bonus: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UDK1R0M8
- If you don't kill it fast enough, you might get the 28.000 bonus, which won't trigger the bug. If you aren't confident enough to go for the 290.000 bonus, you can try the technique shown in DEL's video to get the 270.000 bonus, but that's 20.000 points you're missing there.
I did try try killing the boss in many different ways, but how you do it doesn't really matter. As long as you kill the boss on the right time, you'll trigger the bug.

[kollisionBR]

kollisionBR - EDW - 2,675,400 - Stage 14 - Fixed - PS2



Things get pretty intense later on.
I tried the smart pods for a few runs but I can't go back now.... Too used to blocking bullets with the fixed ones.

Does the ps2 version have the {autofire} option?

Yes, it does, but I don't think it's as good as MAME's.
I do use a turbo controller to get around that.

[AmidstStorm]

I find the smart pods pretty useless. They let the odd stray bullet through. Rank is a little less aggressive to start with though, but I guess when youre hitting scores like that, what does it matter eh?

You reckon you'll get this game done in the time frame kol? I've broke 1 million now. Really hopIng that once I get auto fire sorted It will benefit my scores. Still not found a good way of killing off stage 4 boss unscathed

[Misery]

Well, I'd considered jumping back into this with a game that ISNT from the bloody DDP series,

......and then I realized.... Varth isnt the game I was thinking of. For whatever reason I thought "Varth" was the name of a certain game that I now CANT REMEMBER THE BLOODY NAME OF, but going a couple of levels into this one...... yeah. This isnt that one; that one was pretty good, this one is pretty..... ugh. This is the one with the hyper-slow playership and enemies that take 20 kersquillion hits to kill. I remember this one after a couple of quick and really irritating goes. I believe a local arcade has this one still standing in it for some unholy reason.

Not jumping back in after all. Lol.


Also I didnt think it possible, but I believe my loathing for Capcom actually just got worse as a result of this game existing.


Oh well.


Edit: Ahhh, the one I was thinking of was "Viper Phase 1". Thank you big damn Mame archive.

[AmidstStorm]

Holy freaking crap this game goes mental.. There are so many score bonuses to be had.

Somehow managed to no miss Stage 07 with that epic plane boss.. bomb, wiggle stick like a madman, bomb repeat.. somehow worked.. Stages 08, 09 & 10 i don't have any memory of I just shot the living crap out of everything.. one of those 'seat of your pants' credits.. phew!

AmidstStorm - AMS - 1,434,300 - Stage 10 - Fixed - MAME

[gmintyfresh]

Had an hour on this surprisingly good game last night and showed some progress after losing some lives very cheaply at the end of level 3.



Gmintyfresh - GEF - 238300 - Stage 3 - Fixed - PS2

[Sputryk]

Autofire. I consider that, if it isn't an in-game option (a la Parodius; which was a pretty poor Auto option in any event - manually hitting fire granted a faster shoot rate), or a standard occurence (a la Varth - fire can be held down and for a few moments gain the benefit of rapid fire, then repeat the process), then it is a form of cheating and kills the challenge of any game. I am all for it being banned. No unauthorised autofire - everyone must concentrate more (which may give everyone a more equal chance of a Top 5 finish).

Anyone who insists on unauthorised autofire being permitted - wimps!

[AmidstStorm]

haha, definitely wimps

Anyways, here's a quote from the rules of the league:

- The use of auto fire is allowed on a game if agreed by most players. Some games it will not be allowed due to it's enhancement of the scoring. This will all be bought up for discussion as and when is needed.

This rule needs to be edited..


I propose:

"The use of auto fire is allowed in a game. Some games it will not be allowed due to it's enhancement of the scoring and difficulty of the game. This must be bought up for discussion and agreed prior to game start"


I have read that the bosses are significantly easier with auto fire as that super play vid shows that i watched. I haven't played with auto fire and can say that bosses 4 & 7 are relentless slogs.

Thing is, this isn't a pro league and there's no way to police people using it or not unless i demand a vid for higher scores.. which i most certainly won't be doing. That's crazy.

y'know what.. i say f#ck it.. what does it really matter.. it would work much better if everyone perhaps declares during submission from now on whether they have auto fire on/off? i dunno... point deductions? public whippings? you guys tell me? I'm just the messenger here

EDIT: A simpler way is to put it to a vote. Majority wins and it's then a fixed rule for every game, but i would like people to declare if they're using it or not. I have to say pre league I never did but I have for Sexy Parodius, Arrow Flash & Sonic Wings 2 and i can say the only one that it helped me for was Sonic Wings 2 because I was using an AES arcade stick and playing the game to death to get that 1st loop clear.

[AmidstStorm]

Ok just to add.. I have just played a credit on the PS2 version with auto fire enabled and personally i didn't feel it helped.. In fact the rate of fire was less which in no way can help the scoring or killing enemies quicker just RSI.. I can't speak for using auto fire on mame though.

rankings updated

[weakboson]

I'm for autofre. For most games it's not going to make a big difference to fairness but will make them more fun to play. There are probably some games for which it would be significant so I'd be hesitant to say we should always allow it, but I would rather just not play those games than do without for the rest. Overall I think Varth is of the ones that's better for it.

[gmintyfresh]

Gmintyfresh - GEF - 553800 - Stage 5 - Fixed - PS2

[gmintyfresh]

Slight score improvement



Gmintyfresh - GEF - 582900 - Stage 5 - Fixed - PS2