Kidou Soukou Dion/Imperium [SFC/SNES]

[Perikles]

Seeing as this game is a personal favorite of mine, this thread is but necessary.

Keep in mind that the US version Imperium is vastly different from the original SFC Kidou Soukou Dion. Besides some cosmetic changes in the first two stages (for the worse) and a slightly different arrangement of the soundtrack there are also significant alterations to the game play. Dion contains a lot more enemies in some of the later stages which means that the game is quite a bit more difficult but also allows for a higher score. In addition to that you have a fairly weak homing shot in Dion instead of the powerful wave shot. For those reasons I'm going to set up different tables for the US version and the SFC version.

Rules: one credit only, default settings.

Please submit your score in the following format:

Name – Score/EXP – Stage – Version


Kidou Soukou Dion

Normal:

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage 
1. Perikles     36,955      ALL
2. CSF          27,125       4
3.
4.
5.

Hard

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage
1. Perikles     37,320      ALL
2. 
3.
4.
5.

Imperium

Normal:

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage
1. Perikles     25,540      ALL
2. Kollision    23,555      ALL
3.
4.
5.

Hard:

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage
1. pegboy       23,200      ALL
2. 
3.
4.
5.

[Perikles]

And my own score:



Perikles - 36,775 - ALL - SFC version

[Perikles]

Perikles - 36,955 - ALL - SFC version



Perikles - 25,540 - ALL - US version


Finally got around finishing the US version, and also improved upon my old Dion score by a whopping amount of 180 points.

[Kollision]

Imperium

Kollision - 23,555- ALL - US version

[CStarFlare]

Kidou Soukou Dion
CSF - 27,125 - stage 4

Does anyone know why enemies sometimes give double Exp? It happens on a fairly regular basis but I can't figure out why - it doesn't seem to be tied to weapon or proximity. Figuring that out would make this a lot more interesting.

[pegboy]

I just cleared Imperium on hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwnJswmtdQA

It was actually quite a bitch, and level 4 onward gets ridiculously cheesy with the crap slamming into you from behind and filling the screen with bullets. Oddly enough the last boss is a complete joke and even has safe spots for his final 2 forms.

pegboy - 23,200 - ALL - US Version on Hard

[Perikles]

Great going, you two! Glad to see interest for this game.

Does anyone know why enemies sometimes give double Exp?

Good call, I never noticed that! It seems to be even weirder: I was just watching pegboy's video (which proofs that Imperium is affected by this as well) and I noticed this. If you pay close attention to the experience counter you'll notice that some of the guys with the tails give 20 points, some grant 40, and one particularly generous specimen hands out 60 points! The interesting question would be if that is a fixed pattern (some random enemies might just give more points than their brethren) or dependent on some other factors or completely random. Did you observe some differences between diverse credits? Or would the same enemies always give the same amount of points?


@pegboy: Excellent performance as always, a few spots look decidedly trickier than they do on Normal, although most of it seems to be fairly similar. Really neat that you get a different ending, though! Will you tackle Dion somewhere down the road, too? It's a little more challenging in my opinion since you don't have the mighty wave shot and different/nastier/more enemies at parts.

[CStarFlare]

I did notice a few triples here and there. It's easy to notice at the end of stage 1 with the two big ships that spawn three or four times - usually I get the first at 40 or even 60, but almost always get 20 from the second. But in general neither speed killing not proximity seem to be the key. It's also noticeable on the sets of turrets in stage 2 - I can usually get one in each set to be worth 100 points but I haven't gotten the impression that 1 out of 3 is set to be worth double. Never seen one of those at triple value.

I don't think it's completely random but I haven't found even a possible cause for it either. It could even be a mixture of factors - if you destroy X enemy with Y weapon in Z position, or something.

I wish I were a romhacker, this would be an interesting thing to dig into.

[pegboy]

Great going, you two! Glad to see interest for this game.

Does anyone know why enemies sometimes give double Exp?

Good call, I never noticed that! It seems to be even weirder: I was just watching pegboy's video (which proofs that Imperium is affected by this as well) and I noticed this. If you pay close attention to the experience counter you'll notice that some of the guys with the tails give 20 points, some grant 40, and one particularly generous specimen hands out 60 points! The interesting question would be if that is a fixed pattern (some random enemies might just give more points than their brethren) or dependent on some other factors or completely random. Did you observe some differences between diverse credits? Or would the same enemies always give the same amount of points?


@pegboy: Excellent performance as always, a few spots look decidedly trickier than they do on Normal, although most of it seems to be fairly similar. Really neat that you get a different ending, though! Will you tackle Dion somewhere down the road, too? It's a little more challenging in my opinion since you don't have the mighty wave shot and different/nastier/more enemies at parts.

I might try and pick up the SFC cart in the future and give it a playthrough, but it probably won't be for a while because I'm trying to finish off all the US SNES shmups first.

I wasn't even aware that the XP values varied, hopefully there is a reason and it's not purely random. That could really make a massive difference in score over the course of the game.

[CStarFlare]

After some testing I seem to have more luck getting score by moving "into" enemies with the laser level 2 or 3. I don't see many (any?) extra exp while I'm at level 1, with any level. Playing around with this style of play I ended stage 1 with 4,800 exp; without I guess 4,300 or 4,400 is pretty typical? I THINK I actually got 80 from one of those blue ships, but my math skills might just be shaky.

This is just speculation, but I wonder if it's the game giving points based on how many sources of damage are hitting the enemy at death (in the case of laser, perhaps side beams, main beams, and each homing beam count as a source?). This would explain why larger enemies seem to give extra points more often - they have more hitbox for damage to be in when the enemy dies. Wouldn't explain why enemies in a straight line don't ALL give extra exp when killed with laser, though.

[Perikles]

Kidou Soukou Dion - Hard



Perikles - 37,320 - ALL

Great delight as always, the increase in difficulty on Hard is not recusant, yet noticeable - I particularly like that you now have to use the shuriken weapon against the small enemies that come from behind lest they fill the screen with bullets.