Has a run of "Life Force" been done w/o powerups?

[KNekoSpy]

Just curious if it's been done before on video in any version. I was thinking of trying to complete the NES version like this, it seems most feasible if its going to be done.

[Mero]

I dunno, but would stage 5 even be possible?

[KNekoSpy]

^Why not?

[Mero]

I could see lack of options and no speed ups being a big problem (to be clear, I'm talking about the arcade version. aka Salamander).

[copy-paster]

This is kinda ridiculous, I think even the developers are not intending playing this way.

Or you can stick with another challenge, like no option run or peashooter only with full arsenal. I once did this in FC Gradius II with only 2 options and no force field.

[OmegaFlareX]

This is kinda ridiculous, I think even the developers are not intending playing this way.

Well of course. But I'd be interested to see if it's possible at all. Or feasible for human players.

I imagine the high-speed section at the end would be quite problematic. You'd have to basically score well and stockpile lives to make it through.

[Shepardus]

Lack of speedups would be the biggest problem. I've seen runs of Gradius 1 and even Gradius III (arcade) with no powerups except speedups, but they're completely impossible without speedups (at least Gradius III is, not sure about Gradius 1). Life Force at least doesn't have checkpoints so you can just die through sections if you have enough lives, but getting lives would be a problem with no powerups (hard to kill stuff that way).

[KNekoSpy]

This is kinda ridiculous, I think even the developers are not intending playing this way.

Well of course. But I'd be interested to see if it's possible at all. Or feasible for human players.

I imagine the high-speed section at the end would be quite problematic. You'd have to basically score well and stockpile lives to make it through.

You can cheese a lot of it by going to the top of the screen, maybe take one death max, zero if you practice and know how to move right.

[gameoverDude]

I dunno, but would stage 5 even be possible?

Really doubting it, with those bastard enemies that encircle you. Maybe without getting either one of the lasers, but I can't see this working without options & missiles.

[pat33999]

I did this on the NES version a while back. Just playing through without powerups was too easy, so I made it look more impressive by memorizing the levels and playing through in a pacifist style.

(Please excuse the video splitting and lack of sound, I was still on dial-up internet at the time and YouTube still had the 10 minute per video time limit)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ply6Rtobnts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzQkPH638J8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6tqRWuoLUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXn-PfZ-gWg

[OmegaFlareX]

Wow. Well, there you have it. Entirely feasible.

Well done. Playing it this way lets you see all the enemies' full behavior, which is interesting I think. If I were a shmup programmer I'd be a little sad if all the little touches I coded were mostly unseen due to players blasting everything ASAP.

[Shepardus]

Playing it this way lets you see all the enemies' full behavior, which is interesting I think. If I were a shmup programmer I'd be a little sad if all the little touches I coded were mostly unseen due to players blasting everything ASAP.

Dragon Blaze has special timeout phases for its bosses, with their own unique attacks and even transformation animations, but you're never going to see them unless you're doing something horribly wrong. Additionally, any player who knows what they're doing isn't going to see any attacks beyond the technical bonus, which is probably why they changed the attack order in the second loop to put before the tech bonus all the attacks that in the first loop were after (also those attacks tend to be harder). I bet developers sometimes put milking in their game because they want players to look at all the work they put in.

[Despatche]

This is pretty feasible on the NES Gradius, Salamander (Life Force is the same game with a small tweak), and Gradius II as far as I know.

Arcade games, likely not. The first Gradius might be doable. Salamander and Life Force (different games) are likely not doable. Well, Salamander might. But any conversation on the arcade Salamander needs to be about the PC Engine port, too bad Life Force isn't in that. Gradius II is probably impossible.