Argus [Arcade/Famicom]

[Perikles]

Of course this now needs a score topic, too! I actually have to take a closer look how the Famicom port exactly works in terms of looping, it doesn't behave like its arcade brother - you can tell at some point you're revisiting old places, it's not quite easy to determine with pinpoint accuracy - for me at least. The arcade game starts to loop after stage 16, you're going to repeat stages 12 to 16 from there on out in an infinite cycle - if you can survive that long. I wasn't certain at first, but now that I look at it I'm fairly convinced the game becomes even harder upon looping.

There are several things you can do to increase score, it's paltry compared to destroying every section from the bosses in later stages, though. You can also get large boosts if you manage to stay slightly above the landing field during the intermission sequences in stages, if you're slightly too high, however, you will unceremoniously crash into the field on account of being too fast. This will result in no bonus at all (which is not that bad) as well as starting the next stage with no power-up in case you had one prior (which can be the difference between life and death). Be wary there.

The format will be thus:

Platform
Name - Score - Stage/Area


Arcade

Code: Select all

   Name                 Score     Stage      
1. Perikles           5,543,190    18         
2. Shepardus            243,090    3 
3.

Famicom

Code: Select all

   Name                 Score     Stage      
1. Perikles           1,701,100    21        
2. 
3.

[Perikles]

Arcade



Perikles - 5,543,190 - 18

Video

Might submit a Famicom score soon while I'm at it, I've cleared with a low score before, not so sure which stage I was at to be frank.

[Shepardus]

Arcade
Shepardus - 243,090 - 3



I have no idea what I'm doing

Why is there a head staring at me

I don't understand

help

[Perikles]

I have no idea what I'm doing

Why is there a head staring at me

I don't understand

help

The game likes to glare at you Argus-eyed, of course.


On the topic of the port:

Famicom



Perikles - 1,701,100 - 21

I can say now with 99.99% certainty that one loop consists of nine stages here. It's a bit confusing since you enter the second loop with a different weapon compared to the first time due to the altered rotation system, but the stages are identical otherwise. Not that these fine details matter, this conversion is simply miserable. Even when powered up, you're moving at a glacial pace, you can never have more than a handful of projectiles on the screen at once and the presentation is horrendous. I'll concede the bullet speed is fairly decent for a Famicom game, that's about it, though. The only interesting part about it is that you rarely transform into an indestructible robot that can bump & destroy enemies for a few more points (for no reason as far as I can tell, it seems completely random when and if this happens), they obviously stole this idea from Konami's Finalizer - no idea why you would be inspired by that particular game, I suppose it is appropriate for this effort.