I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

[Angry Hina]

Much faster and easier than I thought it would be after switching to the All Range (A) weapon to be more stable against all these bullets of the harder special mode of GG Aleste 3 ^^

https://youtu.be/uv12194v-zI

[Sengoku Strider]

First clear of 2022 is Darius Gaiden, ABDHLQV.

I didn't like Gaiden nearly as much as G-Darius.

Gaiden is the most "classic" shmup i've beaten, and, well, yeah i don't like powering down. I really don't like that as a game mechanic.

Gaiden is uniquely rough in that it takes you half the game to reach max power for your main shot and 2 deaths knocks you back down to space wimp. Gradius & R-Type are "harsher" in that you start from zero on death, but they also let you get back to powered up much quicker (though R-Type is stingy with the top & bottom force bits).

[Rastan78]

It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes the key to recovering in DG is avoiding red medals and intentionally staying at a lower level.

If after a death you remember to try and just get right back to a shot level that has the wave plus white spheres you'll be alright. Getting up to absolute max shot power isn't needed to get through the game.. It can be good to know how many red medals are in a stage (which you can pause to see on Cozmic Collection). That way you know if you can jump all the way up to the next level that has white spheres before the boss or if you should just sit tight. On most bosses you'll be better off with a lower shot level with white balls than a higher level without.

Luckily your missiles don't power down. If you do take two deaths back to back and go all the way back to laser that is pretty rough. My advice would be if that's happening to you regularly, use bombs often until you can get your shield back.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I wasn't able to 1CC Donpachi's second loop like I'd hoped. Still stuck at 2-5. I did however clear Sorcer Striker's first loop this weekend. It's pretty easy when you learn to be aggressive with bombs. I'm hoping to 1CC Mahou Daisakusen (its harder JP version) too.

[To Far Away Times]

Got a very basic 1CC in Youkai Kori Kassen. This is a Touhou Danmakufu fan game, but it's pretty cool. You can choose your stage order, and the stages get progressively harder the later you play them, so a lot of work must have gone into making the patterns. In fact most of the patters are really high quality, there's one "gotcha!" that comes from the bottom of the screen without warning on the final boss, but other than that the bullet patterns are very nice. The game actually goes out of it's way to warn you of gimmick patterns, like some of Sakuya's reverse bullet patterns and time freeze mechanics, by showing them to you first in an area up close by the boss.

You also don't have to play all the stages to get to the final stage, you can just play the first three out of five stages then the final stage becomes available. There's no bad endings or anything for doing so, so I figured I'd get the quick and easy version of the 1CC out of the way. Definitely a game worth going back to though to try out different routes.

[Sima Tuna]

Streets of Rage 4, Adam 1cc Arcade Mode. Got the story mode clear credit feeding with Axel, then switched to Adam. He really fit my playstyle. I was just going to try out arcade mode, but I blasted through. Finished with 7 lives. It was only Normal difficulty though, not Mania or anything. Adam is a real bruiser, too. He dishes out a lot of damage, has a dash and some good defensive tools, like his neutral jump kick. Axel, by comparison, felt slow and hard to avoid damage with. Adam definitely suits me. Very fun game, although the hyper armor on bosses can feel like complete horseshit at times. The whole max fight is still a mystery to me. As near as I can tell, you just mash damage onto him as fast as you can and neutral jump the spinning lariat.

Edit: Fight 'n' Rage: Easy Mode Single Player 1cc Ricardo. Easy mode is... Easy.

Fight 'n' Rage: Normal CPU Assist 1cc F. Norris (player), Ricardo and Gal (cpu.) Normal with cpu is easier than Easy with single player. When playing in co-op, companions can't die permanently. This is true for CPU assist but also for couch co-op. So it makes the game way, way easier. I was able to hang back on encounters I knew were difficult, and hold onto my lives while the CPU opened enemies up for combos. The final boss is ridiculously easier when you have 3 chances for him to land in front of a party member every time he jumps.

[serge85]

I managed to 1CC first loop of Dodonpachi, using Mister, my chaining sucks, my score sucks, but man oh man I feel great!

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

[BIL]

Ohshi, nice I remember you mentioning that shitbird DokuRobot and his gigantic assclown hitboxes, sounded nightmarish! Superbly done, will enjoy watching that.

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

Ohshi, nice I remember you mentioning that shitbird DokuRobot and his gigantic assclown hitboxes, sounded nightmarish! Superbly done, will enjoy watching that.

yEah, doc quick fukken suCks ass. wrote about it in the description lol

but yeah dude, i really hOpe you enjoy watching tHat run. i'm definitely pretty fukken prOud of it :3

[ZPScissors]

Starting off 2022 strong

[BareKnuckleRoo]

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

holy shit

Congratulations, I know you'd been busting your ass on this for ages!

[Angry Hina]

GG Aleste 3 in Kaiteki mode (no slowdown and flicker) on normal and special (hard):
https://youtu.be/OJwkHFp7RVQ
https://youtu.be/aXq-pV0jwqI

[xxx1993]

Kaiteki?

[Angry Hina]

It lets the game run without the boundaries of the Game Gear hardware. if you turn it on, the game runs without slow motion and flicker. Its much faster and harder that way.

Its the first option in the ingame menu.

[mycophobia]

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

wow

[To Far Away Times]

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

Oh man that is epic.

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

Oh man that is epic.

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

wow

i know this ain't a shmUp, but i still gotta fukken post this one:
mega man 3 - no damage clear

holy shit

Congratulations, I know you'd been busting your ass on this for ages!

taHnk you, guys! tHat sHit was fukken hard. glad you guys dUg it

[To Far Away Times]

I got a shit clear on Concealed the Conclusion, a Touhou fangame. I was actually introduced to this game by a friend about a decade ago and almost cleared it but got distracted with other things. Fast forward to now and I thought I'd try out some Danmakufu games, and since Concealed the Conclusion was the most well known of the Danmakufu games (at least back then anyway), I figured I had some unfinished business here that needed fixing. And it's a pretty awesome game. The main character, Marisa, has 4 shot types, and each shot type has a unique set of three starting levels and then the last three levels are always the same. I used the homing shot type, which focuses more on Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's characters.

One secret to the game is that your scoring affects your death bomb window. When the counter in the lower left is green, you have a generous 1 second death bomb window that can be done on reaction. But when the counter is yellow you have only a 0.2 second death bomb window, which means you need to preemptively bomb.

This was not a confident run and there was lots of bomb spam at the end, but it was a successful one.

[Angry Hina]

Cleared Viewpoint on Mega Drive. Was a bit surprised because I didn't thought it would happen so fast. It was just on easy but in MD there is just a bit difference in the bullet speed between the four difficulties so its just a slight difference between easy and normal.

But yesterday I tried normal and I wasn't able to defeat the final boss. But on my easy 1cc I came to him with sidepods and a bomb which made the fight a bit easier. If you die like I did in the normal run, you have to deal with him only with the pea shooter and no bombs which is kinda annoying especially with the boring and long lasting first state of the boss. After some tries I shut down the MD and will try to not loosing a life against him the next time ^^

[third_strike]

A Thunder Blaster 1LC which I did some time ago, final score 8,9Mi
https://youtu.be/VU6NGwOpioY

[NuclearPotato]

This week ended up being a very Darius-themed week in terms of clears. Last Saturday, I finally cleared a personal milestone and 1cc'd Darius Gaiden on the survival route for the first time, and would've no-missed it if not for a stupid death in Zone Q. I may have to go back and correct that at some point. The rest of this week I ended up going back to Dariusburst AC and continued my long term goal on that game to learn all the stages and get clears on every possible permutation of the routes in that game. Route BEI had been causing me a lot of pain for whatever reason, but today I finally managed to overcome that hurdle using Assault and get the 1cc on that route. I then decided to tackle Zone J using the AEJ route with Gaiden, and to my surprise managed to get my first Zone J 1cc right then and there. Granted, I ended up blowing all my lives on that stage and just barely scraped past Hungry Gluttons as a result, but a clear's a clear. I also started learning the original Darius using the New version, to try and scrub out a clear with that first before I go on to Extra.

...I swear to god, I'll play a non-fish themed shmup again at some point in my life.

[xxx1993]

Yesterday, I beat GG Aleste 3 on Special without losing a single life. I totally mopped the floor with it. Luna Waizen must be so proud of me right now.

Spoiler

[Wes112]

I managed to 2-All 1cc Under Defeat earlier today after choking in stage 2-5 numerous times (including one choke at the very last phase of the last boss). My first 2-All clear in any game ever. Something I never thought I'd accomplish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq4Hrgobvgk

[BIL]

Holy shit, congrats! Tough game, especially with the lack of extends. I think you're only the third on these boards to get the 2ALL, going by the HS thread.

[Wes112]

Thanks!! Yeah the absence of any extends makes things very nerve-racking but it's a gem of a game imo so it was well worth it.

I think is the 4th 2-All on the boards but 3rd on the DC version. I only wish I did a little bit better score-wise since it was a little below my PB.

[Angry Hina]

A very dirty 1cc in Viewpoint for Mega Drive:
https://youtu.be/SdpVaPCyE5g

You get a huge amount of extra lifes in this games. Thats why it allowed me to try to kill the second encounter of the level 3 boss for ~14 minutes.... I will later try a more viewable run^^

[velo]

I managed to 2-All 1cc Under Defeat earlier today after choking in stage 2-5 numerous times (including one choke at the very last phase of the last boss). My first 2-All clear in any game ever. Something I never thought I'd accomplish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq4Hrgobvgk

Very cool, you're giving hope to the rest of us.

I finally knocked out a few that were hanging loose from last year...

Atomic Robo-Kid: Toughest part of the game has to be the "bonus rounds" (Battle Mode) of all things. A lot of this game's oddness is endearing but I wouldn't mind if the collision code actually worked.

Darius Gaiden: ABDHLQV scrub route w/autofire, and down to my last life even after grabbing two 1ups. I feel like a fraud, but a win's a win. I want to spend some more time with this one.

Darius (New): ABDGKQW no-miss, I don't know if that's an ezmode route or not but I suspect so, and I don't even feel bad about autofire. I'm kind of bugged that no matter which route I take, there's still another six enemy governors at large. RIP Seahorse though. Next stop, Darius (Extra), maybe.

Gigantic Army (Normal): Cool game, but as with Armed 7 (but moreso), I felt like the time limits make the lower DPS weapons useless. What's the best old game like this? I know it's a tribute to... something-or-other, I never played whatever it is.

Thunder Force AC (a/ Rynex): Rynex sucks in this game, or maybe it's just me, but I can't hit squat with blade's crappy hitbox and the sea/asteroid midbosses usually time out on me, including on my 1cc run. So I use hunter for everything, until I die and lose it, anyhow. Not tried Rynex + thundersword yet. Styx in TF4 seems way less annoying.

[BIL]

Gigantic Army (Normal): Cool game, but as with Armed 7 (but moreso), I felt like the time limits make the lower DPS weapons useless. What's the best old game like this? I know it's a tribute to... something-or-other, I never played whatever it is.

GA is basically a tribute to Masaya's Assault Suits trilogy (AS Leynos for MD / AS Valken for SFC / AS Leynos 2 for Saturn). It's actually less of a developing series than three distinct games with diverse strengths.

GA plays the most like Valken, the most popular of the trio. I'd argue that, while it loses Valken's acclaimed cinematic style, it actually improves on its enjoyable-but-basic combat, with better-integrated blocking and melee mechanics, and a simple but compelling scoring system.

You should also check out Dracue's much more recent PS4 remake of Leynos, it's great. The OG Mega Drive Leynos definitely has its charms, but it's also quite punishingly dated by nature (no strafing, no shield/vernier at start). Best feature is the mercilessly random battlefields, impossible to know what lurks over the next ridge or down that valley. Gives a great sense of being a tiny unit out in the fray. The remake's a good way to get an idea of this without losing Valken/Leynos 2's mod cons.

Leynos 2 doesn't have Valken's style or Leynos 1's survival intensity, instead it develops its weapons, propulsion and radar systems to almost quasi-sim detail. It's still a perfectly decent action game, but the real standout is the piloting.

If you like any of the above, you'll probably also dig Ex-Ranza (MD), an impressively meticulous effort from the director of cult classic topdown tanker Granada, and Wolf Fang, which is roughly an arcade-tough take on Valken from DECO.

Astro Port (GA devs) have done further mecha sidescrollers, but I've not played them nearly as much. There's Gunhound EX too, by Leynos remakers Dracue, again I'm unfamiliar. Finally, going a bit further afield, there's the h-game Night Slave for PC-98, pretty much a doujin Valken tribute with some impressive chops. IIRC you can disable the hentai, or I dunno, put a towel over the screen... I've not played it, but it always gets rave reviews from fans of this small but rich little subgenre.

[EmperorIng]

I managed to 2-All 1cc Under Defeat earlier today after choking in stage 2-5 numerous times (including one choke at the very last phase of the last boss). My first 2-All clear in any game ever. Something I never thought I'd accomplish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq4Hrgobvgk

Amazing accomplishment. Big congratulations man, on such a difficult game. Luckily your deaths didn't deter you and perhaps the lower rank gave you an extra fighting chance. You handled the 2-5 boss excellently, panic bombing aside.