I've been meaning to make a thread about it for weeks but didn't do it for some reason. Let's fix this!
FxxK of Tha World is a 7-DVD set with superplay videos on all 5 Milestone shmups. It was released in November 2018 and contains a lot of runs on each game, aiming at showing every mode and potentially every character when applicable. The set also features what was at the time the Karous WR, a whooping 6.4 bil run from Eiden. (For the info, he went over 7bil in the meanwhile)
I have imported, watched the DVDs, and am writing some impressions and comments on each of the runs as to give you an idea of what to expect.
DVD 1- Chaos Field :
Spoiler
Finished watching the first Fxxk of Tha World DVD. It features 4 Chaos Field runs, one has a 1-life Arcade mode clear with HAL, another is an Ifumi scoring run in Original mode, the second-to-last is a Jinn 1CC in Arcade mode, and finally there's a HAL scoring run in Arcade mode.
The most interesting run IMO is the Ifumi one because you don't often see some good runs with this character, and even less in Original Mode (which adds a few zakos between bosses). The first few stages are scored pretty well, but starting from 3-2, chains aren't always maintained throughout the stages so it's a bit disappointing in that regard. I remember seeing the old WR scores being Ifumi and wondering how the hell did someone manage to score better with her than with HAL who seems like the game was made for him. It even made me want to play with her to try to figure out something. (Plus it's always better if you can play as a girl lol) At least the run shows how to play well with her, but maybe not to the point where the strategies shown here will net you WR-level scores or anything. (Not that I have ever cleared the game myself lmao...)
The HAL 1-life only has the 1-life thing going for it. And even then, Chaos Field is not a game you want to hoard all your lives and never lose one so it's not like it would have given him tons of points or anything. I know scoring is exponential and all in that game but still, it feels weird knowing that I have better scores than that run even though I only reached stage 3 at best hahaha.
Jinn's run kinda shows how to manage a clear with his super gimmicky tools even though he doesn't use them that much in the end. That's about it I guess. A shame because I was curious to see what kind of bizarro tricks you would need to pull to make his Wing Layer viable scoring-wise.
The last HAL score run is rather good though the player doesn't chain all the later stages so there's still a bunch of points lost. My biggest issue with this run is that I can just go to yootoob dot com and check out a VTF-INO superplay that's better and has an even higher score. (Actually I just downloaded it to my computer lol)
In the end I still learned a few things about the game, such as the Milestone logo against 3-1 which refills the entire life points and I imagine is awarded for destroying all the boss parts. Most of the runs also make use of the bosses' lack of collision damage to dodge some specific patterns. I always suspected there wasn't collision damage but never tried that myself, so now I am sure.
Here are the scores :
Arcade Mode - HAL - 30.347.660
Original Mode - Ifumi - 94.388.700
Arcade Mode - Jinn - 25.423.850
Arcade Mode - HAL - 192.469.330
Player : FAT (See notes for the last run)
A few notes :
-The point gap between the Ifumi and HAL scoring runs seem gigantic but as I said, the scoring is exponential. Actually, upon reaching the final boss Ifumi was even ahead with 90k mil. VS 75k mil. However the HAL run manages to destroy the final boss with the x9999 chain which makes its score instantly jump from ~95k mil to 192k mil, whereas Ifumi miserably fails to keep that chain during the boss fight, hence the much lower score.
-The HAL score run is made on the PS2 version and I don't see any initials entered at the end of the run. I am not familiar with this version of the game but it seems fucked. You even see the high scores at the end and the run's score isn't there even though it should have been first. It wouldn't make sense not to have FAT as the player as he played the other runs too, but who knows?
The most interesting run IMO is the Ifumi one because you don't often see some good runs with this character, and even less in Original Mode (which adds a few zakos between bosses). The first few stages are scored pretty well, but starting from 3-2, chains aren't always maintained throughout the stages so it's a bit disappointing in that regard. I remember seeing the old WR scores being Ifumi and wondering how the hell did someone manage to score better with her than with HAL who seems like the game was made for him. It even made me want to play with her to try to figure out something. (Plus it's always better if you can play as a girl lol) At least the run shows how to play well with her, but maybe not to the point where the strategies shown here will net you WR-level scores or anything. (Not that I have ever cleared the game myself lmao...)
The HAL 1-life only has the 1-life thing going for it. And even then, Chaos Field is not a game you want to hoard all your lives and never lose one so it's not like it would have given him tons of points or anything. I know scoring is exponential and all in that game but still, it feels weird knowing that I have better scores than that run even though I only reached stage 3 at best hahaha.
Jinn's run kinda shows how to manage a clear with his super gimmicky tools even though he doesn't use them that much in the end. That's about it I guess. A shame because I was curious to see what kind of bizarro tricks you would need to pull to make his Wing Layer viable scoring-wise.
The last HAL score run is rather good though the player doesn't chain all the later stages so there's still a bunch of points lost. My biggest issue with this run is that I can just go to yootoob dot com and check out a VTF-INO superplay that's better and has an even higher score. (Actually I just downloaded it to my computer lol)
In the end I still learned a few things about the game, such as the Milestone logo against 3-1 which refills the entire life points and I imagine is awarded for destroying all the boss parts. Most of the runs also make use of the bosses' lack of collision damage to dodge some specific patterns. I always suspected there wasn't collision damage but never tried that myself, so now I am sure.
Here are the scores :
Arcade Mode - HAL - 30.347.660
Original Mode - Ifumi - 94.388.700
Arcade Mode - Jinn - 25.423.850
Arcade Mode - HAL - 192.469.330
Player : FAT (See notes for the last run)
A few notes :
-The point gap between the Ifumi and HAL scoring runs seem gigantic but as I said, the scoring is exponential. Actually, upon reaching the final boss Ifumi was even ahead with 90k mil. VS 75k mil. However the HAL run manages to destroy the final boss with the x9999 chain which makes its score instantly jump from ~95k mil to 192k mil, whereas Ifumi miserably fails to keep that chain during the boss fight, hence the much lower score.
-The HAL score run is made on the PS2 version and I don't see any initials entered at the end of the run. I am not familiar with this version of the game but it seems fucked. You even see the high scores at the end and the run's score isn't there even though it should have been first. It wouldn't make sense not to have FAT as the player as he played the other runs too, but who knows?
Spoiler
DVD 2 : This one is focused on Radirgy and has 5 runs.
The first one is an Arcade Mode 123 Laser run. The player plays rather well in both survival and score but never tries to pull off really advanced tricks that would elevate the run to superplay status. For example, he never uses the pretty lucrative item milking technique and some boss kills do not have the max multiplier so there's still a bunch of points to be gained. Even my own clear actually has more points than this run lol. Not a lot more, truth be told, but still. Also, for some reason he doesn't destroy all the boss 1 and 2 parts. On top of that, the milking against some of the bosses is also not super optimal, as the player seems to be killing the 1st boss' balloon generator too quickly IMO and he doesn't even seem to care about the 4th boss's cars. Stage 5 boss could have gone through more cycles before being killed as here, the player makes sure to destroy all the drones and funnels but is not trying to keep the boss alive as long as possible in the process.
One thing that is to be commended though is the amount of technique displayed against some of the later boss fights. The 4th boss for example that always gives me hell and that I didn't study enough is handled in a pretty specific way, by quickly disarming the top arms, and then focusing on the side pods, before going for the doors and the core. You can sense that the guy practiced his shit. The Stage 5 boss is also dealt with in a pattern that stays relatively consistent throughout most of the runs. So if you have issues with those bosses, there's still some resources to learn how to deal with them.
The second run is another Arcade mode run that uses the Wide Shot, and also disabled the emails you get during the game. While this speeds up the pace a little bit at the beginning of each stage by immediatly throwing you in the action, it has a few side effects that make it fundamentally incompatible with highly optimized scoring and I imagine this is what was being shown in this otherwise unremarkable run. The post mid-boss emails were freezing the multiplier bar and this is no longer the case here. When you combine that with the fact that some bonus enemy waves that appear if you quick-kill a mid-boss no longer spawn with the mails disabled, you can see how this is bad for score. Basically, in stages 3 and 4, after you kill the mid-boss, you wait 5 to 10 seconds while no enemies spawn and your multiplier decreases. Stage 5 is fine as there are ground turrets to use your shield on to keep your multiplier afloat and there aren't any bonus enemies for quick killing the midboss anyway, even with the emails on.
Run #3 is an Arcade Mode run with the Bubble Shot. An interesting quirk of that weapon is that you can use a turbo fire to spam bubbles and increase the shot's firepower. I remember KAI telling me about this and I tried that a bit and it seemed alright but not particularly game-breaking. The most noticeable side-effect to me was that it made the heroine portrait in the top left corner shake a lot while displaying her super angry face which is quite funny. I thus wanted to know if I simply haven't experimented with that shot enough to realize its true abilities.
In the end, I would say the shot is quite powerful against some specific ennemies (if their shape makes them easy to hit with all the bubbles) but not all of them. Stage 1 boss goes down pretty quickly for example, and some gray stage 3/4 mid-sized enemies seem to be killed relatively quickly with it. That said, the speed-killing ability often seems on par with the 123 Laser, with maybe a slight advantage but nothing enough to make it a game-breaker from what I've seen. The bubbles can also make boss milking a bit trickier as the shots go upwards no matter what once fired so you can't control your fire to keep some boss parts alive longer as easily. Actually, I get the feeling that being able to mash the bubble shot is its saving grace because if this is its rapid fire version's power, then the regular shot mustn't be great at all. Despite all that, the run boasts a better score than both of the other Arcade mode runs, though only by around 10 million points.
The second-to-last run showcases the Owakari mode, a PS2-exclusive mode with faster/denser bullet patterns, though it's debatable how much this actually impacts the game's difficulty given how this port drastically slows down whenever they are a bit too many ennemies on screen, not to mention the fact that sequences where you chain invincibility do not change one bit. Still, in some parts you can see a significant difference between this mode and the regular arcade mode when it comes to dealing with some enemies and patterns. I think the most noticeable one is the blue mid-sized enemy that usually comes in pairs from stage 2 onwards as its new bullet pattern does not allow you to point-blank him without the ABS-Net as much, if at all.
The player himself had a relatively alright run, on par with the others, but somewhere during the last boss it was pretty clear he started losing the upper hand. In the end he ran out of extra lives, used the shield for an extended amount of time (which does not happen in other runs), and ended up going for a quick-kill despite some drones still being on screen. Not sure how much points were actually lost due to this (probably not a lot), but one thing is for sure : the Insanity DVD replay has more points than this run.
And the final score is the Manpuku mode, this one a GC-exclusive with a multiplier that goes up to 256 instead of only 16. I don't think there are any other differences, aside from the lack of score extends that is also present in the Owakari mode (Milestone logo in stage 5 still works in both modes though) and mayyyybe a better ease of getting a steady stream of green pills with the shield? I haven't played this mode a whole lot yet, to be honest.
The run is alright I guess, but as with the others, no item milking or crazy stuff like that. One noticeable flaw IMO is stage 2 where the x256 multiplier is not reached once during the stage portion itself. It's not easy to get the multiplier to the max in the first part of that stage but it should still doable by compromising some quick-kills and focusing on that one cargo carrier a lot, but the player faces the boss with only a x64 multiplier, which is around half of the multiplier bar potential. Unsurprisingly, the Insanity DVD replay also has a higher score than this run.
Here are the final scores :
Arcade Mode - 123 laser - 110.234.210 - 100%
Arcade Mode - Wide Shot - 100.271.450 - 100% (No mail)
Arcade Mode - Bubble Shot - 122.241.890 - 99%
Owakari Mode - 123 Laser - 106.890.740 - 98%
Manpuku Mode - 123 Laser - 1.301.697.520 - 100%
Player initials : FAT
Notes :
-The Bubble Shot run was played on the (godawful) Sakura Flamingo Archives version. That makes it pretty painful to watch in comparison because they have a serious shader problem in that game. Backgrounds are fine but the enemies and the player are super dark for some reason. Also, some bosses don't really have outlines so they look pretty uncannny. It kinda reminds me of the super old builds of my own game when there weren't outline shaders and it doesn't look good at all. IIRC, Radirgy Noa's PC and 360 versions have the exact same shader problems. A shame as it kinda ruins the game's cool aesthetic.
-It might be due to an error that occured when I ripped the DVD to have the run on my hard drive, but the Owakari run on my computer has a little 1-second skip against the last boss's second form. Nothing major but if it's the same for everybody else, it's weird. Anyway, that version's heavy slowdown and the terrible image quality (native to the port AFAIK) don't make me feel like putting the DVD back in the disc tray to rip it again and check whether the skip is due to that lol.
-All videos are on widescreen format, with the commentary on the right and the game itself on the left. Most runs are in vertical/TATE mode but the Owakari run is actually played in the YOKO layout, which basically means you also have the port's interface on the sides with some extra info. I think some superplay DVDs have full screen TATE runs so you can watch the runs with just the game screen on a TATE monitor but this isn't the case here.
-None of the runs use the little button combination to display enemy destruction point values on the top right of the screen. Not a big loss, but still weird.
-For reference, the clear of mine I mention has the following score : 115.138.880pts - 123 Laser - Item 99%
The first one is an Arcade Mode 123 Laser run. The player plays rather well in both survival and score but never tries to pull off really advanced tricks that would elevate the run to superplay status. For example, he never uses the pretty lucrative item milking technique and some boss kills do not have the max multiplier so there's still a bunch of points to be gained. Even my own clear actually has more points than this run lol. Not a lot more, truth be told, but still. Also, for some reason he doesn't destroy all the boss 1 and 2 parts. On top of that, the milking against some of the bosses is also not super optimal, as the player seems to be killing the 1st boss' balloon generator too quickly IMO and he doesn't even seem to care about the 4th boss's cars. Stage 5 boss could have gone through more cycles before being killed as here, the player makes sure to destroy all the drones and funnels but is not trying to keep the boss alive as long as possible in the process.
One thing that is to be commended though is the amount of technique displayed against some of the later boss fights. The 4th boss for example that always gives me hell and that I didn't study enough is handled in a pretty specific way, by quickly disarming the top arms, and then focusing on the side pods, before going for the doors and the core. You can sense that the guy practiced his shit. The Stage 5 boss is also dealt with in a pattern that stays relatively consistent throughout most of the runs. So if you have issues with those bosses, there's still some resources to learn how to deal with them.
The second run is another Arcade mode run that uses the Wide Shot, and also disabled the emails you get during the game. While this speeds up the pace a little bit at the beginning of each stage by immediatly throwing you in the action, it has a few side effects that make it fundamentally incompatible with highly optimized scoring and I imagine this is what was being shown in this otherwise unremarkable run. The post mid-boss emails were freezing the multiplier bar and this is no longer the case here. When you combine that with the fact that some bonus enemy waves that appear if you quick-kill a mid-boss no longer spawn with the mails disabled, you can see how this is bad for score. Basically, in stages 3 and 4, after you kill the mid-boss, you wait 5 to 10 seconds while no enemies spawn and your multiplier decreases. Stage 5 is fine as there are ground turrets to use your shield on to keep your multiplier afloat and there aren't any bonus enemies for quick killing the midboss anyway, even with the emails on.
Run #3 is an Arcade Mode run with the Bubble Shot. An interesting quirk of that weapon is that you can use a turbo fire to spam bubbles and increase the shot's firepower. I remember KAI telling me about this and I tried that a bit and it seemed alright but not particularly game-breaking. The most noticeable side-effect to me was that it made the heroine portrait in the top left corner shake a lot while displaying her super angry face which is quite funny. I thus wanted to know if I simply haven't experimented with that shot enough to realize its true abilities.
In the end, I would say the shot is quite powerful against some specific ennemies (if their shape makes them easy to hit with all the bubbles) but not all of them. Stage 1 boss goes down pretty quickly for example, and some gray stage 3/4 mid-sized enemies seem to be killed relatively quickly with it. That said, the speed-killing ability often seems on par with the 123 Laser, with maybe a slight advantage but nothing enough to make it a game-breaker from what I've seen. The bubbles can also make boss milking a bit trickier as the shots go upwards no matter what once fired so you can't control your fire to keep some boss parts alive longer as easily. Actually, I get the feeling that being able to mash the bubble shot is its saving grace because if this is its rapid fire version's power, then the regular shot mustn't be great at all. Despite all that, the run boasts a better score than both of the other Arcade mode runs, though only by around 10 million points.
The second-to-last run showcases the Owakari mode, a PS2-exclusive mode with faster/denser bullet patterns, though it's debatable how much this actually impacts the game's difficulty given how this port drastically slows down whenever they are a bit too many ennemies on screen, not to mention the fact that sequences where you chain invincibility do not change one bit. Still, in some parts you can see a significant difference between this mode and the regular arcade mode when it comes to dealing with some enemies and patterns. I think the most noticeable one is the blue mid-sized enemy that usually comes in pairs from stage 2 onwards as its new bullet pattern does not allow you to point-blank him without the ABS-Net as much, if at all.
The player himself had a relatively alright run, on par with the others, but somewhere during the last boss it was pretty clear he started losing the upper hand. In the end he ran out of extra lives, used the shield for an extended amount of time (which does not happen in other runs), and ended up going for a quick-kill despite some drones still being on screen. Not sure how much points were actually lost due to this (probably not a lot), but one thing is for sure : the Insanity DVD replay has more points than this run.
And the final score is the Manpuku mode, this one a GC-exclusive with a multiplier that goes up to 256 instead of only 16. I don't think there are any other differences, aside from the lack of score extends that is also present in the Owakari mode (Milestone logo in stage 5 still works in both modes though) and mayyyybe a better ease of getting a steady stream of green pills with the shield? I haven't played this mode a whole lot yet, to be honest.
The run is alright I guess, but as with the others, no item milking or crazy stuff like that. One noticeable flaw IMO is stage 2 where the x256 multiplier is not reached once during the stage portion itself. It's not easy to get the multiplier to the max in the first part of that stage but it should still doable by compromising some quick-kills and focusing on that one cargo carrier a lot, but the player faces the boss with only a x64 multiplier, which is around half of the multiplier bar potential. Unsurprisingly, the Insanity DVD replay also has a higher score than this run.
Here are the final scores :
Arcade Mode - 123 laser - 110.234.210 - 100%
Arcade Mode - Wide Shot - 100.271.450 - 100% (No mail)
Arcade Mode - Bubble Shot - 122.241.890 - 99%
Owakari Mode - 123 Laser - 106.890.740 - 98%
Manpuku Mode - 123 Laser - 1.301.697.520 - 100%
Player initials : FAT
Notes :
-The Bubble Shot run was played on the (godawful) Sakura Flamingo Archives version. That makes it pretty painful to watch in comparison because they have a serious shader problem in that game. Backgrounds are fine but the enemies and the player are super dark for some reason. Also, some bosses don't really have outlines so they look pretty uncannny. It kinda reminds me of the super old builds of my own game when there weren't outline shaders and it doesn't look good at all. IIRC, Radirgy Noa's PC and 360 versions have the exact same shader problems. A shame as it kinda ruins the game's cool aesthetic.
-It might be due to an error that occured when I ripped the DVD to have the run on my hard drive, but the Owakari run on my computer has a little 1-second skip against the last boss's second form. Nothing major but if it's the same for everybody else, it's weird. Anyway, that version's heavy slowdown and the terrible image quality (native to the port AFAIK) don't make me feel like putting the DVD back in the disc tray to rip it again and check whether the skip is due to that lol.
-All videos are on widescreen format, with the commentary on the right and the game itself on the left. Most runs are in vertical/TATE mode but the Owakari run is actually played in the YOKO layout, which basically means you also have the port's interface on the sides with some extra info. I think some superplay DVDs have full screen TATE runs so you can watch the runs with just the game screen on a TATE monitor but this isn't the case here.
-None of the runs use the little button combination to display enemy destruction point values on the top right of the screen. Not a big loss, but still weird.
-For reference, the clear of mine I mention has the following score : 115.138.880pts - 123 Laser - Item 99%
Spoiler
DVD 3 : That's the Karous DVD. Due to how Karous doesn't have ship types and stuff, the presence of three runs in the DVD can feel a bit redundant, especially since one is the Eiden 6 Bil run that clearly overshadows the others and all three of them are on Hard Mode, but I can't say I haven't learned stuff in some of the other videos too.
The first run is a clear where the player mostly levels up the sword and shield. The playstyle is still aggressive with wave quick-killing but even if we disregard the lack of item converter tricks, the player rushes to destroy the first two bosses without destroying as many parts as possible, and for some unexplainable reason, he times out the stage 4 boss by standing still at the bottom of the screen and doing mostly nothing. This is just all sorts of baffling to me because there's no real reason to do that. While watching, I thought there may be a special ending or something like that for lore/story reasons but it doesn't actually change anything. The commentary probably explains it but at least there's no positive effect that's directly visible in-game. One thing to notice in the run is that the player only loses two lives against the TLB's last attack and even then he does so on purpose to grab a DFS recharge item kill it faster.
The second run is a more balanced score run where the player levels-up all three weapons to very respectable levels and as a result gets a much better score. There's one actually important property of the DFS that I learned thanks to that video : the bullets cancelled by the DFS level up the weapon you are currently using, and not necessarily the shield as I thought. I knew the DFS could boost your weapon level increase but I thought it was some sort of bonus multiplier applied to the exp gained during a DFS and not something related to cancelled bullets.
The moment I had this "holy shit" moment is when the player uses a trick with this property to raise his shot by 10 levels in the stage 3 midboss fight's first phase. He moves slightly above the mid-boss to be in a position where he can use the DFS and cancel all its bullets without damaging the enemy if he shoots. And he chains a bunch of DFSes while shooting in that position to get from level 40 to 50 in a few secs. That DFS behavior also means it's actually handy sometimes to let the enemies fire some bullets before quickly killing them with the DFS on as to maximize the exp gains, and this is probably something I've missed all that time.
Judging from the visuals and the sound effects, the player actually uses a rapid fire on the shot, but for some reason it doesn't seem to deal paltry damage on enemies like it does when I tested and showcased it myself. Maybe the firing rate is very specific or maybe the damage reduction does not occur when point-blanking with that rapid-fire shot? I quickly skimmed over the various notes and commentary parts for the two runs and there isn't any "Hz" mention at least, but I can't say if there are any specific details about the shot rapid fire in the text that would be in Japanese. In any case, the rapid firing stuff is something I am getting kinda curious about because it's definitely possible that there are ways to get around the damage limitations that I've experienced. If you can get both the added experience of a higher fire rate and good damage, then the shot might become a lot more useful as a weapon.
Run 3. The star of the show. Eiden's Karous run with over 6 billion points. The main reason to get this DVD set I would imagine. Unsurprisingly, it is a fun watch, with item milking against the stage 2 boss and even a max level for all three weapons, which is a cool accomplishement. I haven't compared this run to the already available 5.7bil recording in every single detail but so far what seems to make a major difference is the boss 2 item milking which seems to have gone much better in this new recording. Both runs enter the fight with ~190 mil points and at level ~130 but the run here finishes the fight with 1.8 bil whereas the previous one ends at 1.3bil. Even level-wise, it is 220 VS 187, which is a big gap actually. Either the technique and timings have improved or luck was also on the player's side with more level-up items for example.
The most hilarous thing in the run is the location the player gets in during the TLB's laser phase. There seems to be an actual safespot lmao. By putting its shield on the boss's brain, he reflects some bullet upwards and some other downwards which makes him completely safe. While he gets hit once in the process of putting himself in position, he is then pretty much safe, until he decides to finish the boss. One odd thing though is that he seems to still have enough life to get hit once more and grab the few item points that spawn but he kills the TLB without doing so as much as possible. It's even weirder when you notice that he purposefully did that in the 5.bil run.
And one of the craziest things about the run is not what is shown here, but what could have been shown. The player gets the bullet converter item during the boss 2 fight, but also tries to trigger it during the stage 3 mid-boss as well as the last boss and the TLB. While he was successful in triggering those last two in the 5.7bil run, he unfortunately isn't as lucky here. That means there is even more potential for higher scores than this! Unfortunately, due to the luck factor involved in getting the coveted bullet converter items to spawn, it's more a matter of grinding runs than pure skill, though I know there are ways to boost your chances such as getting hit before on purpose and slash the generated items to get the converter.
The last video in this DVD is a short bonus focused on the bullet converter item. It shows examples of how you can use this item against the stage 3 mid-boss and the last boss. Both tricks were not in the actual run so it's cool to see how there's still a lot of points you can get if the odds are in your favor. Here the ST3 midboss is timed out while in its first phase as it constantly spawns a lot of bullets, which are converted into tons of point items. The stage 5 fight is more aggressive with direct sword attacks mixed in the bullet converter stuff, as it's important to actually kill the boss to get the TLB. For some reason though, there is no audio on the right speaker/headphone for those two sequences.
...and that's not all there is to this last bonus! You know you can freeze the game by overloading it with fun..I mean with items, right? The video actually shows those freezes, in both the Wii port and on the arcade version. It's fucking hilarous, and you even see the Naomi boot screen after the freeze once the arcade game is restarted lol. Makes me wonder why they haven't shown it for Radirgy too, as it's definitely possible to freeze that game the same way.
Unlike the two previous DVDs, this one feels a lot more like a "true" superplay DVD than a "mere" compilation of good runs, with the appetizer confirmed-player-level runs where you can still learn some things, a really really high score with lots of tricks and advanced techniques, and fun bonus stuff with the kind of ridiculous nerdy shit I love.
The scores :
Hard Mode - 2.412.837.160 - Lvl 219 (30-100-83)
Hard Mode - 3.635.103.790 - Lvl 285 (91-100-94)
Hard Mode - 6.422.836.790 - Lvl 300 (100-100-100)
Player initials : FAT (for the first two runs), EID (for run #3)
The first run is a clear where the player mostly levels up the sword and shield. The playstyle is still aggressive with wave quick-killing but even if we disregard the lack of item converter tricks, the player rushes to destroy the first two bosses without destroying as many parts as possible, and for some unexplainable reason, he times out the stage 4 boss by standing still at the bottom of the screen and doing mostly nothing. This is just all sorts of baffling to me because there's no real reason to do that. While watching, I thought there may be a special ending or something like that for lore/story reasons but it doesn't actually change anything. The commentary probably explains it but at least there's no positive effect that's directly visible in-game. One thing to notice in the run is that the player only loses two lives against the TLB's last attack and even then he does so on purpose to grab a DFS recharge item kill it faster.
The second run is a more balanced score run where the player levels-up all three weapons to very respectable levels and as a result gets a much better score. There's one actually important property of the DFS that I learned thanks to that video : the bullets cancelled by the DFS level up the weapon you are currently using, and not necessarily the shield as I thought. I knew the DFS could boost your weapon level increase but I thought it was some sort of bonus multiplier applied to the exp gained during a DFS and not something related to cancelled bullets.
The moment I had this "holy shit" moment is when the player uses a trick with this property to raise his shot by 10 levels in the stage 3 midboss fight's first phase. He moves slightly above the mid-boss to be in a position where he can use the DFS and cancel all its bullets without damaging the enemy if he shoots. And he chains a bunch of DFSes while shooting in that position to get from level 40 to 50 in a few secs. That DFS behavior also means it's actually handy sometimes to let the enemies fire some bullets before quickly killing them with the DFS on as to maximize the exp gains, and this is probably something I've missed all that time.
Judging from the visuals and the sound effects, the player actually uses a rapid fire on the shot, but for some reason it doesn't seem to deal paltry damage on enemies like it does when I tested and showcased it myself. Maybe the firing rate is very specific or maybe the damage reduction does not occur when point-blanking with that rapid-fire shot? I quickly skimmed over the various notes and commentary parts for the two runs and there isn't any "Hz" mention at least, but I can't say if there are any specific details about the shot rapid fire in the text that would be in Japanese. In any case, the rapid firing stuff is something I am getting kinda curious about because it's definitely possible that there are ways to get around the damage limitations that I've experienced. If you can get both the added experience of a higher fire rate and good damage, then the shot might become a lot more useful as a weapon.
Run 3. The star of the show. Eiden's Karous run with over 6 billion points. The main reason to get this DVD set I would imagine. Unsurprisingly, it is a fun watch, with item milking against the stage 2 boss and even a max level for all three weapons, which is a cool accomplishement. I haven't compared this run to the already available 5.7bil recording in every single detail but so far what seems to make a major difference is the boss 2 item milking which seems to have gone much better in this new recording. Both runs enter the fight with ~190 mil points and at level ~130 but the run here finishes the fight with 1.8 bil whereas the previous one ends at 1.3bil. Even level-wise, it is 220 VS 187, which is a big gap actually. Either the technique and timings have improved or luck was also on the player's side with more level-up items for example.
The most hilarous thing in the run is the location the player gets in during the TLB's laser phase. There seems to be an actual safespot lmao. By putting its shield on the boss's brain, he reflects some bullet upwards and some other downwards which makes him completely safe. While he gets hit once in the process of putting himself in position, he is then pretty much safe, until he decides to finish the boss. One odd thing though is that he seems to still have enough life to get hit once more and grab the few item points that spawn but he kills the TLB without doing so as much as possible. It's even weirder when you notice that he purposefully did that in the 5.bil run.
And one of the craziest things about the run is not what is shown here, but what could have been shown. The player gets the bullet converter item during the boss 2 fight, but also tries to trigger it during the stage 3 mid-boss as well as the last boss and the TLB. While he was successful in triggering those last two in the 5.7bil run, he unfortunately isn't as lucky here. That means there is even more potential for higher scores than this! Unfortunately, due to the luck factor involved in getting the coveted bullet converter items to spawn, it's more a matter of grinding runs than pure skill, though I know there are ways to boost your chances such as getting hit before on purpose and slash the generated items to get the converter.
The last video in this DVD is a short bonus focused on the bullet converter item. It shows examples of how you can use this item against the stage 3 mid-boss and the last boss. Both tricks were not in the actual run so it's cool to see how there's still a lot of points you can get if the odds are in your favor. Here the ST3 midboss is timed out while in its first phase as it constantly spawns a lot of bullets, which are converted into tons of point items. The stage 5 fight is more aggressive with direct sword attacks mixed in the bullet converter stuff, as it's important to actually kill the boss to get the TLB. For some reason though, there is no audio on the right speaker/headphone for those two sequences.
...and that's not all there is to this last bonus! You know you can freeze the game by overloading it with fun..I mean with items, right? The video actually shows those freezes, in both the Wii port and on the arcade version. It's fucking hilarous, and you even see the Naomi boot screen after the freeze once the arcade game is restarted lol. Makes me wonder why they haven't shown it for Radirgy too, as it's definitely possible to freeze that game the same way.
Unlike the two previous DVDs, this one feels a lot more like a "true" superplay DVD than a "mere" compilation of good runs, with the appetizer confirmed-player-level runs where you can still learn some things, a really really high score with lots of tricks and advanced techniques, and fun bonus stuff with the kind of ridiculous nerdy shit I love.
The scores :
Hard Mode - 2.412.837.160 - Lvl 219 (30-100-83)
Hard Mode - 3.635.103.790 - Lvl 285 (91-100-94)
Hard Mode - 6.422.836.790 - Lvl 300 (100-100-100)
Player initials : FAT (for the first two runs), EID (for run #3)
Spoiler
DVD 4 : Illvelo here we go!
This DVD contains 3 runs and 3 bonus videos.
The first run is a regular arcade mode run with a player that speed-kills waves and gets all the keys, but does not always try to milk the bosses or destroy all their parts for maximum points. In the end, his 7.5bil score is only slightly ahead of my PB instead of being as high as the few 9bil runs you can see on yootoob or niconico.
It theoretically could have been a reference I can compare myself to to see what are the things he does better than I at a level that's more accessible than the 9bil runs, but it does not seem like you really need that kind of runs. Understanding how the 9bil runs work doesn't seem too tricky anyway because the game is rather straightforward. On top of that, the lack of boss milk/parts destruction make the boss strategies mostly irrelevant and for some weird reason, the player actually switches to weapon 2 during stage 4. This is definitely not an accident as he deliberately waits for one of the weapon change icons to get to 2 before picking it up while in a quiet moment. Given how he mostly sticks to the module attack and the shield during that part of the run, I suppose he wanted to make use of the higher movement speed, but the aformentioned 9bil runs never need that weapon so it's not as if it was really necessary.
One thing I haven't mentionned up until now is the small SFX added to the replay whenever some commentary appears on the right side of the screen. It hasn't been an issue so far but here the sound effect for the commentary during bosses is the death scream. (Yes, it's literally a "AaaAAaAaaHhhHhHhHhhh" scream lmao) It is pretty jarring hearing that noise right before a boss fight starts while the player is perfectly safe, and it's even more ironic considering the run is a 1-life.
Run #2 is IMO the more important one in this DVD, as it's a run in a mode you don't often see : Illvelo Still, which for some fucking weird reason is only available on the standalone Radirgy Noa Wii version and nowhere else. Welcome to Milestone's ports I guess. @_@ It's basically Illvelo's easy difficulty but with Radirgy Noa's shot types, with the added bonus of different eyecatches and much faster loading times between stages. This run unsurprisingly uses the powerful red shot to clear and score the game. The player is also more agressive during the stage and a good example of this is stage 5 where he manages to destroy 4 additionnal mid-bosses on top of the regular 4, unlike the arcade run where only 2 of these additional midbosses are reached and killed. The milking/boss destruction is a bit more uneven. Sometimes he will destroy all parts, sometimes he will ignore the parts or the milking opportunities.
Despite the missed scoring opportunities, it's still valuable as a resource given the scarcity of runs on that mode (at least to my knowledge) and because it shows some ways to deal with some bonus stages that can be tricky with the way the red shot behaves. Unlike the regular Illvelo's shot, it does not fire a spread shot but something more like an X-shot, so the ship/module placements are not always exactly the same through the run.
One funny thing is how he nearly fucked up the entire run near the end of stage 2 by using the shield to destroy the floating hands in one of the blue key bonus stages. Letting an enemy escape in those stages basically denies you the TLB and there was one enemy that he thought he killed with the shield but managed to survive and started leaving the screen. Thankfully, the player notices this and uses the shot at the last second to finish it off, but it was quite amusing to watch.
The last proper run in this DVD is a Special Mode playthrough that collects all 105 keys and shows the special ending you get for that. Score-wise, it is rather good, as the 3.6bil score is higher than the Illvelo DVD's 3.2bil run, but there is this video online with 4.1bil anyway :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1F0QykgsiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK4gAWr-Qfs
The main differences between the two is the amount of point items the 4.1 bil player grabs, as well as the enemy destruction during parts where it is not necessary to kill every enemy.
So what kind of bonuses do we have now? There are three.
-First is a video of a Special Mode ending where the player has 100 keys. Haven't played Special Mode in a while so I can't remember if it simply is the regular ending or some weird unique ending that only happens if you get 100 keys. I assume it is the former.
-Second is a video guide that features slowed down footage of a run though the first 4 stages (without bosses) while giving pointers on how to unlock and access every bonus stage entrance in the game (aside from the 4 in stage 5 where you just have to kill the midbosses). It's quite useful if you haven't memorized their locations yet, and the lower speed can make you more easily decipher what is going on on the screen at any moment, so that's a good tool for beginners. On top of that, it also doubles as a k.h.d.n. mix as the BGM and SFX are completely muted, in favor of a medley of plenty of the duo's music tracks. It's definitely a cool bonus!
-The third bonus video shows an ending that occurs in the arcade mode if you clear it with 0 keys. I had no damn idea something like this was in the game, it's a really neat trivia and a fun easter egg. I wish I knew it earlier, it would have been fun to try it out. Too bad I wasn't simultaneously terrible enough at videogames to fail every single bonus stage I tried and good enough to still beat the last boss while doing so lol.
Here are the final scores :
Arcade Mode - 7.538.034.360 - 50 keys
Illvelo Still - 9.313.566.590 - 50 keys
Special Mode - 3.640.682.680 - 105 keys
Player initials : FAT
Notes:
The Arcade and Special Mode runs are played in the Wii port's TATE mode, which means the aspect ratio is a bit fucked compared to the Illvelo Still run. Yeah, for some fucking weird reason the game is a bit stretched when playing in TATE. Welcome to Milestone's ports I guess. @_@ [bis] It's also the way I play it actually and it's not too bad but still. I don't really get why this has not been fixed bewteen Illvelo Wii and MSC2 even though they actually put back the proper TLB sound between the two releases so it's not as if they didn't do any work on Illvelo in the MSC2 compilation.
This DVD contains 3 runs and 3 bonus videos.
The first run is a regular arcade mode run with a player that speed-kills waves and gets all the keys, but does not always try to milk the bosses or destroy all their parts for maximum points. In the end, his 7.5bil score is only slightly ahead of my PB instead of being as high as the few 9bil runs you can see on yootoob or niconico.
It theoretically could have been a reference I can compare myself to to see what are the things he does better than I at a level that's more accessible than the 9bil runs, but it does not seem like you really need that kind of runs. Understanding how the 9bil runs work doesn't seem too tricky anyway because the game is rather straightforward. On top of that, the lack of boss milk/parts destruction make the boss strategies mostly irrelevant and for some weird reason, the player actually switches to weapon 2 during stage 4. This is definitely not an accident as he deliberately waits for one of the weapon change icons to get to 2 before picking it up while in a quiet moment. Given how he mostly sticks to the module attack and the shield during that part of the run, I suppose he wanted to make use of the higher movement speed, but the aformentioned 9bil runs never need that weapon so it's not as if it was really necessary.
One thing I haven't mentionned up until now is the small SFX added to the replay whenever some commentary appears on the right side of the screen. It hasn't been an issue so far but here the sound effect for the commentary during bosses is the death scream. (Yes, it's literally a "AaaAAaAaaHhhHhHhHhhh" scream lmao) It is pretty jarring hearing that noise right before a boss fight starts while the player is perfectly safe, and it's even more ironic considering the run is a 1-life.
Run #2 is IMO the more important one in this DVD, as it's a run in a mode you don't often see : Illvelo Still, which for some fucking weird reason is only available on the standalone Radirgy Noa Wii version and nowhere else. Welcome to Milestone's ports I guess. @_@ It's basically Illvelo's easy difficulty but with Radirgy Noa's shot types, with the added bonus of different eyecatches and much faster loading times between stages. This run unsurprisingly uses the powerful red shot to clear and score the game. The player is also more agressive during the stage and a good example of this is stage 5 where he manages to destroy 4 additionnal mid-bosses on top of the regular 4, unlike the arcade run where only 2 of these additional midbosses are reached and killed. The milking/boss destruction is a bit more uneven. Sometimes he will destroy all parts, sometimes he will ignore the parts or the milking opportunities.
Despite the missed scoring opportunities, it's still valuable as a resource given the scarcity of runs on that mode (at least to my knowledge) and because it shows some ways to deal with some bonus stages that can be tricky with the way the red shot behaves. Unlike the regular Illvelo's shot, it does not fire a spread shot but something more like an X-shot, so the ship/module placements are not always exactly the same through the run.
One funny thing is how he nearly fucked up the entire run near the end of stage 2 by using the shield to destroy the floating hands in one of the blue key bonus stages. Letting an enemy escape in those stages basically denies you the TLB and there was one enemy that he thought he killed with the shield but managed to survive and started leaving the screen. Thankfully, the player notices this and uses the shot at the last second to finish it off, but it was quite amusing to watch.
The last proper run in this DVD is a Special Mode playthrough that collects all 105 keys and shows the special ending you get for that. Score-wise, it is rather good, as the 3.6bil score is higher than the Illvelo DVD's 3.2bil run, but there is this video online with 4.1bil anyway :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1F0QykgsiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK4gAWr-Qfs
The main differences between the two is the amount of point items the 4.1 bil player grabs, as well as the enemy destruction during parts where it is not necessary to kill every enemy.
So what kind of bonuses do we have now? There are three.
-First is a video of a Special Mode ending where the player has 100 keys. Haven't played Special Mode in a while so I can't remember if it simply is the regular ending or some weird unique ending that only happens if you get 100 keys. I assume it is the former.
-Second is a video guide that features slowed down footage of a run though the first 4 stages (without bosses) while giving pointers on how to unlock and access every bonus stage entrance in the game (aside from the 4 in stage 5 where you just have to kill the midbosses). It's quite useful if you haven't memorized their locations yet, and the lower speed can make you more easily decipher what is going on on the screen at any moment, so that's a good tool for beginners. On top of that, it also doubles as a k.h.d.n. mix as the BGM and SFX are completely muted, in favor of a medley of plenty of the duo's music tracks. It's definitely a cool bonus!
-The third bonus video shows an ending that occurs in the arcade mode if you clear it with 0 keys. I had no damn idea something like this was in the game, it's a really neat trivia and a fun easter egg. I wish I knew it earlier, it would have been fun to try it out. Too bad I wasn't simultaneously terrible enough at videogames to fail every single bonus stage I tried and good enough to still beat the last boss while doing so lol.
Here are the final scores :
Arcade Mode - 7.538.034.360 - 50 keys
Illvelo Still - 9.313.566.590 - 50 keys
Special Mode - 3.640.682.680 - 105 keys
Player initials : FAT
Notes:
The Arcade and Special Mode runs are played in the Wii port's TATE mode, which means the aspect ratio is a bit fucked compared to the Illvelo Still run. Yeah, for some fucking weird reason the game is a bit stretched when playing in TATE. Welcome to Milestone's ports I guess. @_@ [bis] It's also the way I play it actually and it's not too bad but still. I don't really get why this has not been fixed bewteen Illvelo Wii and MSC2 even though they actually put back the proper TLB sound between the two releases so it's not as if they didn't do any work on Illvelo in the MSC2 compilation.
Spoiler
DVD 5 : Radirgy Noa
While Radirgy Noa has a bunch of modes added to it in the X360 versions, the Radirgy Noa DVD here mostly focuses on the full-length modes, that is to say Arcade, Classic and Expand. No Death nor Massive. A bit of a shame given how those bonus modes add some needed variety and spice to this game, but I wouldn't say it is this DVD's biggest missed opportunity.
The first run is a regular Arcade mode playthrough with the Bad ending which you get by failing to destroy the Dreamer09 (a recurring mid-boss) in time.
Because the run isn't supposed to be about scoring or high performance, some specific tricks or score techniques are not used as much, if at all. One such trick is killing bosses or enemy waves with the charged sword to get the additional x2 multiplier (applied on top of the regular multiplier that goes up to x16, for a max multiplier of x32). In this run, the player almost never does it.
You could think this is a good replay to learn how to easily clear the game without going for high scores, but I am not so sure it works well here. The first reason is that the game itself doesn't allow you to rely on a shield like in the other games, and there even is enemy collision now, so the last stages are pretty relentless and there isn't any easy clear method. The second reason is that it is obvious that the player is good but forces himself to under-perform. You can see that with the boss fights where he even milks a few of them but never goes for the x32 multiplier, or the Dreamer09 fights where he purposefully plays less aggressively once that mid-boss is severely weakened. The last reason I am not so sure of the usefulness of that run to learn how to 1-sissy Radirgy Noa is that the last fight is brutal and every extend is welcome. But by not destroying the Dreamer09 and not really going for score even on some of the easier setups (such as the bosses with x32), the player only gets the second extend...at the very end of the game, right after getting the remaining lives bonus once the last boss is killed.
Speaking of the last boss, the player has a very specific way of defeating it, a route if you can say so, which he replicates in pretty much every run. And this route still makes him lose a life near the end of the fight when the boss goes berserk. One more reason trying to score in the game might offer better clear opportunities.
However, there is one little trick that the player shows in this video that can help for clear-chasers : in the last half of the last stage, he damages but ultimately keeps alive the left-side set of two big gray ships docked on one another and that throw a circle of wavy bullets. By doing this, he delays the moment they are removed from the play area and prevents the dangerous blimps that follow to spawn.
The second video is another Arcade mode run, but with the Good End and much better scoring. This time, the x2 trick is used much more often (including on bosses), and ABS-Nets are fired more regularly, keeping the multiplier higher. The Dreamer09 destruction is also a major point bonus, and in true superplay fashion it occurs during the 3rd stage where he spawns (out of 4), which means an entirely new Dreamer09 spawns on the 4th and last stage where he spawns for some free bonus points too.
Aside from that, there isn't much to say about the run. Radirgy Noa scoring seems relatively straightforward to me, without many hidden tricks. (unlike Radirgy's bullets being converted into item points for example)
That said, there are two types of point items in this game that can spawn when you kill enemies : the blue triangle and the orange pentagon, the latter of which is being worth more. I don't have enough knowledge about the exact trigger for one or the other item variation. Is it related to the charged sword, the multiplier, the destruction of an entire enemy wave, or maybe it's just goddamn random? I can't say for sure, but there are some spots (such as a later Stage 2 yellow ship or the Stage 8 rush of gray enemies after the midboss) where the score run triggers said items a lot more than the survival run.
Is someone is more familiar with said item spawn mechanics, let me know.
The third replay is a run in Classic Mode. This 360-exclusive mode is basically Radirgy Noa without the Dreamer09 stages, the charged sword mechanic, and shot types other than the default green one. Also you can touch enemies again without losing lives in this mode. The idea behind Classic is to make it a bit more similar to the original Radirgy.
While these removals don't radically change the scoring and general routes in the game, some of the differences can still be seen. The green shot only hits forwards and doesn't have the convenient back shots of the red weapon. Even though the bigger enemies are still dealt with by slashing them with the safety of an active ABSNet, some popcorn waves are not killed as quickly as in the score run because the player has to move all over the place more to get them with the shot and sword. This can be seen for example in the first part of the second-to-last stage (with the orange background) where the Arcade run gets more rings of grays enemies to spawn than the Classic run.
And despite the removal of Dreamer09, the extend thresholds haven't been changed (60 and 150 million points) so the player gets the second one during the last stage's midboss fight.
Run #4 is Expand Mode. Basically the same as Arcade, but your mecha is 3 times bigger. That means its sword slashes are much bigger, but the same goes for the player's hitbox! These changes are obviously recipe for a bit more score potential. Not only can you destroy some enemy waves faster without having to move as much , but your charged sword can now hit a lot more enemies at once, applying the x2 bonus multiplier more times.
Even the first stages show how much more potential there is, as the Dreamer09 in the first fight has a few more parts destroyed, and in the next stage the player deals with popcorn waves on the top of the screen without making as many movements in Arcade mode.
I would have thought the bigger sword could possibly make the Dreamer09 be destroyed as soon as the second encounter, but it looks like while the bigger sword is useful to hit more parts at once, it does not necessarily carry more power. As the last parts are usually the sturdy wings where the Expand Sword has not much of an advantage, both Arcade and Expand runs end up destroying this mid-boss at around the same time during the 3rd battle. However, the Expand sword is still useful during the 4th battle with a brand new Dreamer09 since more smaller parts have been destroyed here than the Arcade Mode run, and since this is the last Dreamer09 fight, the Arcade Mode run won't have the opportunity to catch up on this difference later on.
Having bigger hitboxes seems like it can also make it harder to dodge patterns and survive. In Radirgy Noa's case, the best routes favor maximizing the time spent under the ABSNet's invincibility, so the player doesn't have that many trouble spots in regards to dodging. The train boss, as well as some the last boss patterns require increased dexterity to fit that bigger hitbox in the gaps but the general route seems to be the same. It has to be noted that the player does lose a life during the last stage but it's mostly related to ABSNet usage and timing rather than the big hitbox itself.
Another influence of those bigger hitboxes is the power-up item juggling. With this massive sword it's a lot easier to hit these items and cycle through them, whether on purpose or not. It makes the Expand run be slightly later on maxing out the shot power, but on the other hand it also generates a lot more ABSNet recharge items, since powerup icons that have been slashed enough times turn into one, and in Arcade mode trying to do so for every powerup icon takes away more focus from the enemy waves themselves.
The last run is an arcade mode 2P run. Radirgy Noa is the first and only Milestone shmup you can play with a friend. This is a good opportunity to showcase how the game can fare with two mechas on the screen instead of just one. I assume that it's a double-play with one player controlling the two mechas, but the 2P initials are an anagram for some reason so maybe it isn't? However the play-style looks like one player controlling two ships.
While the ABSNet, score, shot type and shot power level are all separate for each player, there is an interesting 2players-exclusive mechanic that I wasn't even aware of prior to watching this run. When both player mechas overlap, both of them fire a more powerful shot than the maxed-out regular shots. This could help in the earlier stages and most notably against the Dreamer09 fights.
If you were wondering if such a new tool could make the Dreamer09 be destroyed even earlier than the other runs...prepare to be disappointed! Not because the player can't, but because he doesn't try. It looks obvious that while he masters the game with one mech, he is no Newtype. The strategies displayed are a lot more safe. Most of the time the two mechas use the green forward shot and stay near the bottom of the screen, not playing too aggressively. This is noticeable when seeing how little the Dreamer09 is destroyed, but also with the fairly low scores themselves. By the end of the game, none of the player sides even get the first extend, and you would have to combine their final scores to barely get it.
It's an okay proof of concept and still a pretty good performance, but I can't help but feel disappointed at what it could have been instead.
Final scores :
Arcade Mode (Bad end) - 153.021.330
Arcade Mode (Good end) - 382.956.530
Classic Mode - 226.645.300
Expand Mode (Good End) - 413.028.460
Arcade Mode Doubleplay - 22.844.240 (1P) & 37.296.890 (2P)
Player initials : FAT (except for the 2P side in the double play which uses ATF)
While Radirgy Noa has a bunch of modes added to it in the X360 versions, the Radirgy Noa DVD here mostly focuses on the full-length modes, that is to say Arcade, Classic and Expand. No Death nor Massive. A bit of a shame given how those bonus modes add some needed variety and spice to this game, but I wouldn't say it is this DVD's biggest missed opportunity.
The first run is a regular Arcade mode playthrough with the Bad ending which you get by failing to destroy the Dreamer09 (a recurring mid-boss) in time.
Because the run isn't supposed to be about scoring or high performance, some specific tricks or score techniques are not used as much, if at all. One such trick is killing bosses or enemy waves with the charged sword to get the additional x2 multiplier (applied on top of the regular multiplier that goes up to x16, for a max multiplier of x32). In this run, the player almost never does it.
You could think this is a good replay to learn how to easily clear the game without going for high scores, but I am not so sure it works well here. The first reason is that the game itself doesn't allow you to rely on a shield like in the other games, and there even is enemy collision now, so the last stages are pretty relentless and there isn't any easy clear method. The second reason is that it is obvious that the player is good but forces himself to under-perform. You can see that with the boss fights where he even milks a few of them but never goes for the x32 multiplier, or the Dreamer09 fights where he purposefully plays less aggressively once that mid-boss is severely weakened. The last reason I am not so sure of the usefulness of that run to learn how to 1-sissy Radirgy Noa is that the last fight is brutal and every extend is welcome. But by not destroying the Dreamer09 and not really going for score even on some of the easier setups (such as the bosses with x32), the player only gets the second extend...at the very end of the game, right after getting the remaining lives bonus once the last boss is killed.
Speaking of the last boss, the player has a very specific way of defeating it, a route if you can say so, which he replicates in pretty much every run. And this route still makes him lose a life near the end of the fight when the boss goes berserk. One more reason trying to score in the game might offer better clear opportunities.
However, there is one little trick that the player shows in this video that can help for clear-chasers : in the last half of the last stage, he damages but ultimately keeps alive the left-side set of two big gray ships docked on one another and that throw a circle of wavy bullets. By doing this, he delays the moment they are removed from the play area and prevents the dangerous blimps that follow to spawn.
The second video is another Arcade mode run, but with the Good End and much better scoring. This time, the x2 trick is used much more often (including on bosses), and ABS-Nets are fired more regularly, keeping the multiplier higher. The Dreamer09 destruction is also a major point bonus, and in true superplay fashion it occurs during the 3rd stage where he spawns (out of 4), which means an entirely new Dreamer09 spawns on the 4th and last stage where he spawns for some free bonus points too.
Aside from that, there isn't much to say about the run. Radirgy Noa scoring seems relatively straightforward to me, without many hidden tricks. (unlike Radirgy's bullets being converted into item points for example)
That said, there are two types of point items in this game that can spawn when you kill enemies : the blue triangle and the orange pentagon, the latter of which is being worth more. I don't have enough knowledge about the exact trigger for one or the other item variation. Is it related to the charged sword, the multiplier, the destruction of an entire enemy wave, or maybe it's just goddamn random? I can't say for sure, but there are some spots (such as a later Stage 2 yellow ship or the Stage 8 rush of gray enemies after the midboss) where the score run triggers said items a lot more than the survival run.
Is someone is more familiar with said item spawn mechanics, let me know.
The third replay is a run in Classic Mode. This 360-exclusive mode is basically Radirgy Noa without the Dreamer09 stages, the charged sword mechanic, and shot types other than the default green one. Also you can touch enemies again without losing lives in this mode. The idea behind Classic is to make it a bit more similar to the original Radirgy.
While these removals don't radically change the scoring and general routes in the game, some of the differences can still be seen. The green shot only hits forwards and doesn't have the convenient back shots of the red weapon. Even though the bigger enemies are still dealt with by slashing them with the safety of an active ABSNet, some popcorn waves are not killed as quickly as in the score run because the player has to move all over the place more to get them with the shot and sword. This can be seen for example in the first part of the second-to-last stage (with the orange background) where the Arcade run gets more rings of grays enemies to spawn than the Classic run.
And despite the removal of Dreamer09, the extend thresholds haven't been changed (60 and 150 million points) so the player gets the second one during the last stage's midboss fight.
Run #4 is Expand Mode. Basically the same as Arcade, but your mecha is 3 times bigger. That means its sword slashes are much bigger, but the same goes for the player's hitbox! These changes are obviously recipe for a bit more score potential. Not only can you destroy some enemy waves faster without having to move as much , but your charged sword can now hit a lot more enemies at once, applying the x2 bonus multiplier more times.
Even the first stages show how much more potential there is, as the Dreamer09 in the first fight has a few more parts destroyed, and in the next stage the player deals with popcorn waves on the top of the screen without making as many movements in Arcade mode.
I would have thought the bigger sword could possibly make the Dreamer09 be destroyed as soon as the second encounter, but it looks like while the bigger sword is useful to hit more parts at once, it does not necessarily carry more power. As the last parts are usually the sturdy wings where the Expand Sword has not much of an advantage, both Arcade and Expand runs end up destroying this mid-boss at around the same time during the 3rd battle. However, the Expand sword is still useful during the 4th battle with a brand new Dreamer09 since more smaller parts have been destroyed here than the Arcade Mode run, and since this is the last Dreamer09 fight, the Arcade Mode run won't have the opportunity to catch up on this difference later on.
Having bigger hitboxes seems like it can also make it harder to dodge patterns and survive. In Radirgy Noa's case, the best routes favor maximizing the time spent under the ABSNet's invincibility, so the player doesn't have that many trouble spots in regards to dodging. The train boss, as well as some the last boss patterns require increased dexterity to fit that bigger hitbox in the gaps but the general route seems to be the same. It has to be noted that the player does lose a life during the last stage but it's mostly related to ABSNet usage and timing rather than the big hitbox itself.
Another influence of those bigger hitboxes is the power-up item juggling. With this massive sword it's a lot easier to hit these items and cycle through them, whether on purpose or not. It makes the Expand run be slightly later on maxing out the shot power, but on the other hand it also generates a lot more ABSNet recharge items, since powerup icons that have been slashed enough times turn into one, and in Arcade mode trying to do so for every powerup icon takes away more focus from the enemy waves themselves.
The last run is an arcade mode 2P run. Radirgy Noa is the first and only Milestone shmup you can play with a friend. This is a good opportunity to showcase how the game can fare with two mechas on the screen instead of just one. I assume that it's a double-play with one player controlling the two mechas, but the 2P initials are an anagram for some reason so maybe it isn't? However the play-style looks like one player controlling two ships.
While the ABSNet, score, shot type and shot power level are all separate for each player, there is an interesting 2players-exclusive mechanic that I wasn't even aware of prior to watching this run. When both player mechas overlap, both of them fire a more powerful shot than the maxed-out regular shots. This could help in the earlier stages and most notably against the Dreamer09 fights.
If you were wondering if such a new tool could make the Dreamer09 be destroyed even earlier than the other runs...prepare to be disappointed! Not because the player can't, but because he doesn't try. It looks obvious that while he masters the game with one mech, he is no Newtype. The strategies displayed are a lot more safe. Most of the time the two mechas use the green forward shot and stay near the bottom of the screen, not playing too aggressively. This is noticeable when seeing how little the Dreamer09 is destroyed, but also with the fairly low scores themselves. By the end of the game, none of the player sides even get the first extend, and you would have to combine their final scores to barely get it.
It's an okay proof of concept and still a pretty good performance, but I can't help but feel disappointed at what it could have been instead.
Final scores :
Arcade Mode (Bad end) - 153.021.330
Arcade Mode (Good end) - 382.956.530
Classic Mode - 226.645.300
Expand Mode (Good End) - 413.028.460
Arcade Mode Doubleplay - 22.844.240 (1P) & 37.296.890 (2P)
Player initials : FAT (except for the 2P side in the double play which uses ATF)
