shmups.system11.org

I would assume that using the "Small Hit Box" option is roughly the same as selecting the ship with either C or ABC. In any case, it's Rando's thread, so he should be the one to decide whether or not it's fair.

Good improvement though, and with Rust Champion too Stage 5 is a bit of a beast, but the best stage in the game (besides the last...)

Heh, I'm not good enough to use quick ships very well yet...slower craft make it easier for me to weave within those tight bullet patterns, hence The Rust Bucket. I actually managed to finish the game in "Training" mode on one credit, so I at least have some idea of what's coming my way later on...no idea how in heaven's name I'm gonna live through it though, heh.

there is a training mode?? how do i access it?

man i should really learn to fiddle oaround more in teh menues of my games
i dont find red ball all that useful either, its basically in effect on stage 1 and 2 and after that the shots turn back into bullets either becasue of rank or because they turn to "double bullets"...

the "red bullets" option is out, technically it's like playing the later revisions of the game and even if doesn't give a big advantage, i prefer to stick to the "first model" of the game.Any option that automatically triggers the other types of plane (B,C, ABC) is in, after all the effect is the same as the normal option.Maybe this is a controversial issue, but autofire is also on: i strongly advice to learn the subtleties of the different speeds (in case the part in the ST is unclear, we'll add stuff). One possible trick is (in case of a saturn joystick) to change the autofire speed with the specific control.

It's basically the Raizing term for "Monkey" difficulty a la Psikyo, it's right there in the Options menu. Above that there are "Very Easy" and "Easy," then Arcade (IIRC), plus a couple of even harder difficulties that I haven't even looked at, heh. Select any of the difficulty settings and the game will automatically adjust things (the easier modes give an extra life or two, and more credits if you don't mind continuing, as well as lowering the overall difficulty), but you can also select "Edit" mode and tweak the individual characteristics to your liking.

Plasmo - 6,656,230 - Stage 6 - Iron Mackerel

yesssssss
survived all the way through stage 6 and killed this junkey monkey on my first go!Then i lost my last life in a VERY stupid way in stage 7 right before Black Heart MK II.
btw i lost my medal count at the beginning of stage 6 and so my score is a bit low.It should be more like 8million.
Anyway first place for me!yay
Plasmo - 7,345,520 - Stage 7 - Iron Mackerel

Congratulations!

Wait until you meet Black Heart Mk2, and then Glow Squid straight after

Thanks!
btw im really looking forward to see your strategy topic completed.Some stage 5 and 6 advices would be really helpful.
And plz post your 15million+ score Rando

My old score was around D+ (i.e.13M+: A=10M, B=11, etc) range, i think D,600,000, more or less: roughly, a very good score-based play without any milking (except for the fourth boss, actually, i.e. the sperm things). I don't think any score above E or more, at least with Golden Bat, is possible without milking...aside that, if anyone can retrieve the exact score, i would be very happy, i see that shmups.com, of late, has a lot of good scores as the top ones

Plasmo - 8,073,940 - Stage 7 - Iron Mackerel

Lost my medal count in stage 7 and got killed by Black Heart MkII.OMG what a boss.I guess its all about practice again.....
btw sorry for improving my score so fast

I'm working on it, stages 4 and 5 are in the pipeline at the moment. I'm contemplating just putting up all the text for the stage guides and leaving the imagery and replay clips until I get some time away from my gaming backlog to work on them.

EDIT: BTW, what do you need to know about st5 and 6? Anything specific?

BTW, I just got the Gamest Garegga replay VHS, shipped direct from Japan after I won it on Yahoo Auctions Japan. Haven't seen it yet, but I suspect it's T3-KAMUI's "perfect" Gain replay (over 20mil, as opposed to the nearly 20mil he gets on the Garegga DVD...)

Good luck for the ALL, Plasmo!

Ahahahahah!

as long as you keep this pace, you can only make me happy

By the way: it can be useful to do two things;
1)have one extra life by the time you get to Black Heart MkII;
2) Learn to 1-life Glow Squid (which, contrary what Icarus says, is easier than BHMkII);

The extra life is very useful on the streaming vulcan attack (i.e. the one which sweeps left and right), as it's extremely difficult to handle. If you can spend that death in order to skip the attack, you will probably have some more room for survival. By this point, it's difficult (unless you're very close to an extend) to count on extra help, hence the necessity to nail Glow Squid on one life.

If you can do it, regardless of the score, you really have something to brag about...see you at the 1-CC

yikes.. nice score and above all NICE improvement plasmo.. i guess i better fire up the 'ol saturn huh

If I could just stop playing Raiden DX for five minutes, I'd be joining in here as well. RDX is too... addictive... argh!

Soon...

I got to black heart mk2 for the third time today.It seems very impossible to beat this monster without 4 bombs and at least 3 ships.

Small improvement:

BulletMagnet - 3,482,710 - Stage 5 - Rust Champion

I've managed to 1CC the "Training," "Very Easy," and "Easy" settings, so I'll be focusing on "Arcade" from now on.

Larger improvement!

BulletMagnet - 4,492,340 - Stage 5 - Rust Champion

Can't quite best Black Heart yet (actually, I had more trouble with the stuff before him, but he stole my last life), but I'm getting there, hopefully.

Yes! First time breaking 6 million! I'm just entering the suicidal realm of boss-milking... hats off to you few guys who have mastered it.



Vorpal - 6,718,190 - Stage 6 - Iron Mackerel

I have the mame replay for it, though all my deaths are rather embarassing, so I don't think I'll post it ;p

Off to go try and break 7M

P.S. Rando, if you could remove my lower hiscore from the board, thanks! Just don't want things to get cluttered (this is the only shmup I play, so I'm gonna keep coming back here ;p ).

raiden - 4,518,710 - Stage 5 - Gain

having not played the game for a few weeks, I just wanted to try a quick run with the new Sanwa panel I got yesterday. Nothing to be proud of, but a considerable improvement from my last score, so I´m posting it anyway.

Cthulhu - 3,587,360 - Stage 5 - Golden Bat

First time I made it to level 5 when playing seriously. I was doing really well until I shot the rank through the ceiling while trying to get points on the big ships at the beginning of the level... and yeah, it all went to hell after that. Ahh well. This is the first time I've felt any sense of progress in Garegga whatsoever, so I'm happy.

Vorpal - 7,150,930 - Stage 6 - Iron Mackerel

Even though it's my best score so far, I'm angry. I was in sight of the 7th stage! On the Stage 6 boss, the form where he shoots those "chimed" sprays out, my plan was to counter that with the special weapon, but the half second delay when you use the special weapon was enough to get me killed. After that form he is a kitten...

So now that I am actually within sight (i.e. worried sick) of stage 7, I am curious about something. In the replay on the Saturn disc (which in my opinion is heavily cheated...), the player leaves one turret alive at certain points on that uber-plane... why does he do that?

This is to force the screen to stop scrolling at specific points, in order to maximise the amount of enemies that appear. By doing this, you can force the game to generate a lot of Medal-dropping enemies, bumping your score up a lot.

If there's any interest, I'm going to make a simple website dedicated to Garegga Mame replays (with a scoreboard no doubt), since they compress real nicely. If I get a true webhost then I'll include Saturn movies as well (this is likely).

Now here's a development I NEVER would have expected...

BulletMagnet - 4,879,530 - Stage 6 - Simhuu-Giri

I wish I were good enough to really "master" Miyamoto...he's got a load of speed, power, and precision, plus a good "oh crap!" bomb, but dang, dodging tight patterns with him is tough. Wouldn't let me get that last extend, the bugger.

Also, it's been mentioned elsewhere, but to make it "official" I'll make a suggestion that separate HS tables be made for the eight different "basic" craft, at least...almost every entry we've got on the present "comprehensive" list is a variation on the Wild Snail, I think a little encouragement of variety couldn't hurt.

Also, though I'm not sure if there's already a list of these out there, here are (as far as I've been able to figure out) the titles of the various "types" of the Mahou chars, for their lists, if they're adopted:

Gain - Battle Valhalyzer - Baster Sword - S. Magic Bomb

Chitta - Neo-Guidalff - Magic Fire - Jinn the Mountain

Miyamoto - Samurai Dragon - Ninjyutu Bomb - Simhuu-Giri

Bornham - Final Golgdian - Bat Wave - Gate of Hell

If any of the above are wrong, feel free to correct me.

Still shaking, finally achieved stage 7.

Vorpal - 7,537,990 - Stage 7 - Iron Mackerel

gameoverDude - 3943950 - Stage 5 - Iron Mackerel

My first suicide was early in stage 2 against the large gunship. The best score I've had by the end of the flamingos was around 1.6M. I did start to disregard rank control around stage 5.

gameoverDude - 4462910 - Stage 5 - Golden Bat
Got to the part where Nose Lavagghin reappears.
Once I hit Stage 4, I was a bit more liberal on grabbing powerups. When stage 3 comes, I try for 2 options (those damn airbikes can be a problem otherwise).

I think the names of the secret characters are the same regardless of button pressed. Those lists are describing the character name - name of their ship - what their options shoot - and what their weapon shoots. For example, Gain's ship is called the Battle Valhalyzer, his options shoot "Baster" swords and his bomb is the S. Magic Bomb regardless of ship type chosen.

Might be easier to just list secret characters as Gain [C] or whichever button to avoid confusion.

Yeah, but I still think it's more interesting to call 'em different stuff...I mean, the regular ol' planes get cool alternate names along with the different paint jobs, why not the Mahou gang?