Your favorite "bomb for score" systems?

[Shepardus]

I dunno, I think the amount of freedom you have for "self-expression" is more a function of how high-level you are at the game than a feature of the game itself. That said, having more interesting mechanics to explore (such as, but not necessarily, "bombs") can be fun in its own right, even if you end up having to use them in particular ways when you reach a sufficiently high level of proficiency. Few games actually make their bombs (or their stages) nuanced enough for the scoring system to do anything with them other than make fewer bombs = better score, though. What depth they have usually comes from other mechanics. Which is fine, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed when you give me a cool tool but no good reason to use it. Perhaps I'd rather not have it in the first place, even if strictly speaking that would be more restrictive, not less.

Many of my favorite shmups have no bombs in the traditional sense. Maybe it's because there's nothing to feel disappointment over not being able to use, or maybe it's because the games are designed to be fair (?) and engaging without them.

You could also choose to have bombs but give them no direct role in scoring, positive or negative. Positively reinforcing bomb usage by having it contribute to score has the potential of making it too important to mess up. If freedom is what you want then your best course is to make bombing as irrelevant as possible.

[CloudyMusic]

Yeah, in Garegga, you need to use bombs for score but at a certain level of play, there is still clearly an "optimal" place to use most of your bombs. You can't really deviate from that very much without actively harming your score, and there are some scoring targets that are so lucrative that your run's potential is basically ruined if you don't have the proper number of bombs/lives prepared in advance.

[RawlingGunnar]

Radirgy and Aka to Blue do a good job. Bombs refill quick to keep scoring opportunities high.

[Squire Grooktook]

Re: Self Expression / Freedom

There are only two real examples of "freedom" at high level play I can think of, off the top of my head.

The first is in stuff like Devil May Cry that uses a ranking system instead of numerical scoring. Once you get to SSS Rank, it's pretty much up to you to continue it in any way that you please that meets the requirement. Hence at that point the game becomes less of a science and more of an art where you're focusing entirely on making it look cool for its own sake. This gives it a unique replayability of its own.

The other is if there's just several routes possible towards the highest possible score. For example if the highest possible score is simply a matter of nabbing every medal that drops, and there's a number of setups for grabbing them with different pro's/cons, than in-theory different players will develop routes that suit their own style and skillsets.

[blossom]

The interesting and disappointing thing is realizing most of these examples are not arcade games, but rather doujin/indie games. And don't get me wrong, I love that scene. Blue Revolver might be the perfectly designed game, a unique blend of Donpachi and Battle Bakraid. However, I'd still like to find an arcade game that would be fun to play for score. Wouldn't even have to have bombing for score, so much a lack of penalty for bombing. I think I'm starting to agree with Shepardus when he says removing bombs from a game might be the better choice. Rayforce is one of the only arcade games where I'm thinking I'd like to play it for score, and the lack of bombs is surely a reason for that. I suppose the previously mentioned Bakraid is another one I could play, however it doesn't feel quite right to me.

[Shepardus]

Battle Bakraid's a really unforgiving game - sure, you get to use a lot of bombs to extend your chain, but you need to use those bombs or else you'll lose your chain. Losing your chain is a serious matter because not only do you lose score, you lose the extends that that score would have given you, which you need to chain in the first place. If you screw up a particularly important chain, like Axebeak (the stage 1 boss), you'll find yourself without the resources to seriously score for the rest of the game.