|
blackoak - 3,473,400 - ALL - Birthday - 31
Well, the score is nothing special, but I wanted to document the clear for others to see. This was really fun to do. I'd say I put about 10 hours into MAME practice (learning bosses, enemy appearance) and then another 6-7 refining things and trying to get a solid run in. Before this I had only played a credit here and there.
I might write a little "Birthday 1CC" strategy soon. Clearing with Birthday is basically all about the bomb accumulation in stages 4&5, and memorizing certain enemy spawns so you can be ready with the correct element. The beholders in particular are deadly if you're unprepared. The bosses need to be learned to a degree, as most of them have strange "invincibility" frames if you try to point blank bomb them too early. Cypider and Dribling, for instance, can take anywhere from 1-3 bombs depending on when you bomb them. Honestly I'm not 100% sure how it works yet, but if you can get a few solid charge shots in, or just survive for awhile doing sustained regular fire, then you can usually take them out with 1 bomb. Infernon can be easy and take only 1 bomb, or he can take 3-4, depending on the attacks he puts out.
Rank management is crucial, and one interesting thing I noticed is that the game seems to raise the rank if you pick up zero items (you'll see NO ITEM in the stage clear message). Chaining the magic books, which top out at 10k I think, also raises rank. Any rank raising for Birthday is pretty much deadly. Her speed is perfect for the initial rank of the game--really quite fun and feels just right. But even 1 completed set will make it difficult, if not impossible, to dodge many patterns. Also, bombs fall faster and are thereby easier to miss when the rank is higher. I think rank is raised by surviving a long time, too (or it might be bombs in stock--difficult to tell the difference with this playstyle).
Anyway... I really encourage anyone who is trying to get into Dimahoo to try a Birthday survival run if they're turned off by the initial difficulty/weirdness of the scoring. Played this way, its a well-balanced game in and of itself, but the memorization of the stages and enemies will certainly help when you try to score, too. The last thing I'll mention is that this game deserves to be played on a PCB. Even on shmupmame its a laggy experience (many attacks are undodgeable for me on mame, but not on pcb), and I think its helped contribute to the reputation of this game being extremely difficult.
_________________
shmuplations.com - translated game developer interviews and more
support shmuplations on patreon!
|
FAQ
Search
Register
Login
