Yeah, there are 4 versions of Omega Fighter:
1. Omega Fighter rom (
lose pods on death) - defaults (slow top bar, no giant bonus) = Omega Fighter
2. Omega Fighter rom (
lose pods on death) - Special Mode (quick top bar; candy 1ups/bombs, 1,000,000 bonus) = Omega Fighter Special Mode (Omega Fighter SM) or (OFSM)
3. Omega Fighter
Special rom (
keep pods on death, "less random", infinity) - defaults (slow top bar, no giant bonus) = Omega Fighter Special Rom (Omega Fighter SR) or (OFSR)
4. Omega Fighter Special rom (keep pods on death, "less random", infinity) - Special Mode (quick top bar; candy 1ups/bombs, 1,000,000 bonus) = Omega Fighter Special Rom Special Mode
(Omega Fighter SRSM) or (OFSRSM)
= currently playing
This has not happened to me after the first time I booted the game, but the word "Special" in the Title Screen of the Omega Fighter Special rom did not appear until I first selected Special Mode in the test menu. It has remained whenever I booted the rom ever since. This is what initially clued me off about what officially was regarded as the special version. I did not think much of it at the time as I was not dreaming anything in the world that a company would be so stupid as to have two completely different definitions of the word "special" in the same damn game. It could be argued that I just clicked the wrong game at-first, but the mental note I made as Omega Fighter SR was open with no "Special" written in the title was all done without exiting the game and later noticed the "Special" in the title after a playthrough.
With that all said, my interpretation of the forum
demand/request of this game selection would be that adding "Special" to an existing game title indicates the most noticeable and gameplay-changing dynamic be used. In this case, I assumed the dramatic change to the 10x bar modifies the game completely over "less random ___" and pod keeping after death. When I found the Special Mode had to be activated every time, I too thought the "Special" in the title meant that Special Mode was available....later to be discovered inaccurate.
I maintain that I could reasonably assume intuitively that Special
Mode was most what was being referred to when Omega Fighter Special was mentioned in the Week Themes Thread at the time the shortlist and scoring threads were made.
I'm going to change the notation of the game title and some of the 1st post detail to reflect what I explained up-top. I request for all future discussion of this game, new hiscore boards, and strategy threads alike refer to Omega Fighter in the following notations or similar to the additional listing explained:
1. Omega Fighter
2. Omega Fighter SM
3. Omega Fighter SR
4. Omega Fighter SRSM
'cause confusion sucks, man.
From what I can see, all other scoring systems in the game still function. But like capturing a Darius Captain, you'll just have to do this last-enemy-kamikaze too.....-and there's that whole new "risk" element when starting a new stage at lv 1 shooting. Also, this isn't the first STGT game where suiciding was encouraged.
Still, I know what you mean...
Conclusion:
no matter how promising the 80s looked, they were still terrible.
Also, scoreboard is updated
By the time Sunday comes all I'll want to do is relax.
)
) I cannot access the forum after attempts from multiple machines &/or #shmups provides enough indication a widespread number of users can't get online, I will assume the forum will be down and the scoring week deadline will be extended 1 DAY to Tuesday 11:00am GMT. Upon the same failed daily verifications, the deadline will continue to extend a full 24 hours until the forums are back up to the point when I check in at 11:00am I can announce the scoring session closed.
