Giga Wing 2 (New Thread)

[marus]

Congrats on beating Rob's score! You're less than 1 quadrillion away from my score too - keep on keeping on! I think you can do it if you just piece together one really good run.

[EmperorIng]

It took a little longer than I thought, but an (almost) perfect run finally did present itself!

66,991,154,460,867,780 - EmperorIng - Limi/NeoStranger (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmZScJztrdE



I really wanted 67 quads, and you can see it was just a hair over your score. I had hoped to make less mistakes on stage 3 (missed several volcanons) but I still counterstopped the medal multiplier on stage 3 and the time bonus I started to accrue really saved me in the end. I'm sure if you put in the effort again you can beat this... but I don't wanna stop either!

I never really thought I would get a score this big when I started playing the game. Now I wonder if it's even possible to finally break the 70 quadrillion barrier. This game is just too good, I keep on playing it all the time. A few of my failed runs I had an 800m multiplier before the stage 3 (cloud) boss!!! I wonder what I could achieve if I could get a good run with those conditions (and if it's better to milk medals at max value instead of time bonus at that stage).

I decided to do something special for the video, because I really do love the game, world, and characters. I recorded all the cutscenes and spliced them in with the English translation (which removes the voice acting). That way people can have not only the full goofy giga wing 2 story experience, but a decent-scoring replay as well!

[copy-paster]

Great job on the WWR! Even though I have zero knowledge on the game, seeing your progress log on discord/this thread is an inspiring read. Are you bad enough to push the game further by breaking the 70quad?

[EmperorIng]

lmao, thanks CPS. I have been particularly dedicated to this game, it really is one of my favorite shmups. I DO want 70 quadrillion! It will take a lot to get there however. I also want to start learning how to score with Romi as well.

[Rob]

Nice score, EI.

[EmperorIng]

Wow, thanks Rob! As a younger man and new to the genre I used to watch your old kart superplay all the time, trying to learn from it.
Still trying to learn mars matrix tho

[MAZ]

Well done Ec! Watching a player in the community, grinding very hard for a very high score (or a record) for a long time and finally getting it, always feels awesome

[third_strike]

Everything has been said and I don't need to say more!

[marus]

Oh man, huge congrats! It's been really awesome watching your progress in this game! I'm a little salty I lost my #1 spot lol, but it's also really cool knowing there's other people who really like this game and are pushing their scores as far as possible.

For a Christmas present to myself I just got an external capture card - I still need to set it up but I should be able to record runs again this year! I'll need some time to relearn and improve my routes but hopefully I can push my score up a bit and provide you some competition, haha. I used to think 70 quad is out of my reach but maybe 2023 is the year it'll happen!

[EmperorIng]

Thanks marus, I appreciate it, especially in light of all the advice and encouragement you've offered in this game over the last two years (and more specifically 7 months). It has been invaluable and very motivating.

That's so cool you got a capture card, I'm a little jealous. Now that there are all these new replays out you have a lot more available to learn from, and you're better at grabbing volcanons than me so I think 70 quadrillion is well within your abilities.

SPE's twitter has videos that might be of help, here's him getting over 500 million multiplier on the stage 1 boss (and ending the stage with 750m).

On a side note, I tried playing on my DC the other night and my timing was all off because of the slowdown differences.

I don't know what to make of these, but I was doing some deep, deep diving on ancient Japanese imageboards (ie 5ch) the other night and seeing what players 20 years ago were saying about the game. A few points, which I am not sure if they are true, stood out

-one player claimed to have over 800m multiplier with Limi after stage 2 (my best is 660ish)
-another claimed that every character in the game can max out the multiplier by stage 2
-a third broke down the general "bests" of each characters' stage 1s:
Kart/Cherry - 750 million
Ralugo/Limi - 450 million
Romi - 350 million

part of the reason I think these are mostly believable is because
a) spe has 750m above, and his twitter seems to comment on how rare it is for him to hit that high
b) the tas you posted in the previous page has romi getting 330m on stage 1 (factory), he ends stage 2 with a multiplier in the 900s (and the stg Hall of Records, shows arcadia posts stating the player maxed out on stage 2)
c) if every character can get 80 quadrillion then they have to max out the multiplier early, otherwise how on earth can they get such a high score?

Of course this means I am 150 million behind on stage 1 and have no idea how to get the extra volcanons...

[marus]

Those numbers all sound more or less believe-able to me (except maybe that every character can max the multiplier by stage 2 - but who knows, my mind's be blown plenty of times in the past few months).

On increasing your stage 1 multiplier, there might be more to it than just getting more volcanons. I was surprised how much I could increase my stage 1 multiplier (with Chery) by just making some slight optimizations in how I move and collect medals on the stage 1 boss. After watching SPEs runs and experimenting a bit I was able to increase my PB from a little over 400 million to over 600 million, even without getting any new volcanons. There might be similar changes you can make as well to optimize your medal collecting. That said, I couldn't say HOW specifically to do that, and your train-stage is already better than mine, haha. I'm lucky too in that I'm able to reference SPE's runs, whereas yours is the highest scoring Limi run on the web that I know of.

Also yeah, the slowdown differences between emulator and actual hardware are pretty big. To be honest I'm impressed you can play so well with all of the missing slowdown! I'm finding savestates to be useful for experimenting with routes, but I still like using my DC for actual runs.

[M.Knight]

Congrats EmperorIng for...well, being this leaderboard's new emperor haha. Well-deserved top spot!

For a Christmas present to myself I just got an external capture card - I still need to set it up but I should be able to record runs again this year! I'll need some time to relearn and improve my routes but hopefully I can push my score up a bit and provide you some competition, haha. I used to think 70 quad is out of my reach but maybe 2023 is the year it'll happen!

Seeing some competition for said spot would be pretty cool to watch for sure! It might be a good way for both of you to push yourselves even more and get even more quads!
The JP superplays that dropped recently probably are gonna be helpful for you too, compared to when you got your score

[EmperorIng]

No real new score updates, but I figured I'd share some things as this is basically the giga wing 2 hub

SPE has made a new breakthrough with Chery/Carmine Plus and has broken through to 85 quadrillion points! He made a few mistakes on the stage 6 boss which probably cost him maybe 500 trillion or so. His runs are getting remarkably optimized. The run is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6t9HwsYaQ8

If you haven't you should check out his twitter as his video uploads of his boss practice are particularly helpful (no matter which character you use). The videos are such a helpful archive from a top notch player, like this one where he does the stage 6 boss properly.

I asked SPE for some advice on twitter with my Limi stage 1, and he offered a few hints though he didn't say "reflect here for more volcanons" which is what I was hoping for
With the exception of saying that I am missing out on a double volcanon at 0:27 in this recording I did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkrTXf-8gg

With the boss I keep on thinking that maybe its blue spreads can be volcanized but I have yet to figure out how to do that. That would be two extra volcanons for a potential extra 80 million (from 320ish to 400ish?). But the central boss part doesn't seem to have enough health to withstand that many reflects so I don't know.

Interestingly, his big piece of advice (and I am not sure I believe him) is that I should just quick-kill the stage 1 boss after two reflects in order to have a big time bonus to bank on later in the game. I am not sure if that is worth missing the extra one (or more?) volcanon. He said to me that every character should be able to counterstop on stage 2, but with Limi I don't know how that's possible without radically rethinking my route through those stages. My stage 2 with her definitely needs work, I know I am missing 2 or 3 volcanons there as well.

So while I am banging my head against a brick wall with Limi, I started dabbling around with Romi, which is another character I wanted to explore for scoring since so little is out there (I'm not touching Ralugo, he fucking sucks). Her stage 1 is quite formidable with few scoring opportunities and the least amount of volcanons (and the ones that are there require extreme precision). Consequently she has the lowest score of all the ships. However because I am crazy (and stupid) I think to myself, "why not?!" And the labbing begins. Using the ancient niconico video as a guide I managed to pull off all the volcanons that player demonstrates and got a nice 240 million multiplier on stage 1!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14AijHRqHRs

Of course, right after I uploaded this, I got 265 million in stage 1, just by collecting medals better! Much like as you said marus, I think if I can just figure out some proper positioning, the gap between this and the TAS replay for Romi (315m for stage 1 iirc) isn't that crazy.

Using extensive savestate practice, I can counterstop with Romi on stage 3 (by the boss), so that would put me roughly on pace with my Limi runs, score-wise. Just messing around in a full run, I got to the final boss (and choked) with 32,723,140,826,615,850, despite making numerous fuck-ups and missing most of the volcanons on stages 5, 6 and well 7.

[marus]

Nice! Yeah I saw your Romi stage 1 in my youtube feed yesterday, haha. I just started seriously getting back into shmups this year, but I've been in a real Touhou mood lately so I haven't played much Giga Wing 2 still. That said I still like keeping track of what's happening as I do want to come back to this later in the year. I'm a boomer when it comes to social media but I think I need to at least get back on Twitter as it seems thats where a lot of the Japanese players are sharing their info now.

Interestingly, his big piece of advice (and I am not sure I believe him) is that I should just quick-kill the stage 1 boss after two reflects in order to have a big time bonus to bank on later in the game.

I suspect that's only true if you can consistently max the multiplier by stage 2. The formula to calculate the end of stage time bonus is:

Code: Select all

(stage#) * 2,000 * (seconds remaining) * (multiplier)

Any second you save in stage 1 applies to future stages; however even if you saved for example 10 seconds and somehow still got max multiplier by stage 2, the total points gained would only be about 546 trillion, or less than 1% of your score (assuming a "modest" score of 67 quadrillion).
You can double-check my math here: Google sheet

Unless the boss timer applies to other stuff too - maybe that's worth investigating.

He said to me that every character should be able to counterstop on stage 2, but with Limi I don't know how that's possible without radically rethinking my route through those stages.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's possible, but I'd really like to see that done with characters who don't get the sky stage in their first 2 stages. You just get so many medals from that stage that I really have no clue how to match that medal count with other stage orders, haha.

EDIT:
I just did another comparison between how much more SPE makes from the boss time bonus compared to me. Between getting max multiplier faster and killing bosses faster, he ends up getting an extra 1.3 quadrillion points compared to my run. So I think definitely once you start getting to the 80 quadrillion scores then this optimization is important, but there's probably other things that's more important to focus on at our level (such as figuring out how to get max multiplier by stage 2).

[EmperorIng]

Not really a score update but I figured I'd post this here as the resident Giga Wing 2 repository



I got myself a Romi score of 54,944,128,060,425,380... I choked RIGHT at the end, it would have been over 60 quadrillion.

I wanted to just force myself into a habit this run of just clearing despite missing volcanons - and trust me I missed a lot. I counterstopped on stage 4, killed both bits on stage 5, but failed to kill the boss. Fun Fact: with Romi, because of her ship hitbox position, the final boss's flower pattern, where you usually hide in the corner, does not work. This has killed me many, many, many times trying to suss out the right pixel to nudge to (usually in the top-right corner).

I've done a lot of practice with Romi, I have a new 300+ multiplier video for stage 1, which is pretty close to RIN's TAS run of 312million - which I uploaded to youtube here for posterity, and for avoiding the annoyance of still using niconico in the 2020s. Based on my predictions of my medal gains, I would probably max out my collection with her at 320m.

Stage 2 savestate practice (the cloud stage) has yielded promising results, I've gotten up to 922 million on stage 2 - and counterstopping on stage 3 is a formality at that point. Of course, actually doing all this in a run is going to be threading a needle.

With Romi I am closer to my goal of 70 quadrillion than Limi/Neo Stranger, mainly from the boost that the earlier counterstop gives, I'd imagine. Maybe that's just placebo? In fact, in my savestate practice, where I've miraculously gotten every volcanon I can, I end the game with 71 quadrillion! I hope I can get that some time this year. Thanks to all of SPE's videos, I have a much better-scoring route through stage 4-7 than RIN's tas run, but I'm still missing a little something to push me past his score.

If I am not out on a trip this August, I hope to showcase the game at the 5th annual Shmup Slam streaming event, probably using Romi considering that is who I am practicing with hard atm.

[marus]

Awesome stuff! Yeah I caught a couple of your twitch archives and noticed you've been grinding lately. I think if you keep at it you'll get a run where everything comes together soon enough. It'd be awesome to see you play at Shmup Slam if you're able to make it work with your schedule!

I've been working on Touhou FDF 2 myself, but this game is still one I want to come back to once I hit my goal there. SPE's videos have been really helpful in revealing how the higher scores are possible, so it'd be a waste not to give this game another shot.

Fun Fact: with Romi, because of her ship hitbox position, the final boss's flower pattern, where you usually hide in the corner, does not work. This has killed me many, many, many times trying to suss out the right pixel to nudge to (usually in the top-right corner).

Cherry/Stork has the same problem lol. With Cherry I found that moving into the bottom-right corner and then making a micro tap left would work pretty consistently. I imagine something similar would work for Romi.

[marus]

I just updated the main post to use the new table format. Please let me know if you see any mistakes!

[EmperorIng]

So far everything looks good to me!

I am still plunking away at Romi, but did manage to get a 1cc tonight with a nice 58,270,662,163,012,150 , and had I not choked during the stage 6 second phase, I think I would have gotten 60+ easily.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1881926125

Spoiler

Big problem is that i still can't figure out a safe spot for the final boss' flower pattern (when it loses all its wings). It costs me 1 life every time I get there, and it's frustrating right now. the corner doesn't seem to work, nor does tapping just left of the corner.

A big problem I'll have to consider (and wonder how far I'll push) is that getting that perfect stage 1 (300m multiplier) takes either extreme precision, or in my case, extreme luck. Same with getting every volcanon in sky stage ver2.

This run I think it was like
1: 238m
2: 688
3: 920
4: 999

Which is too slow. My best, savestate splices are:
1: 303
2: 911
3: 999

Unfortunately Romi just has no room for error on stage 1 and triggering some of the volcanons are so fiddly as to be almost random. I can kind of understand why RIN's TAS is a stage splice, he probably got sick of restarting s1/2. And honestly, I suspect that that's the ultimate reason why Romi's WR of 81 quadrillion is behind everyone else, because restarting her stage at the end is far, far more annoying that getting back to the first 40 seconds of the sky stage or city stage, lol.

[third_strike]

Nice!
And, It would be interesting to separate the characters by tables.

[marus]

Nice EmperorIng! You're getting real close to another 60 quadrillion.

Big problem is that i still can't figure out a safe spot for the final boss' flower pattern (when it loses all its wings). It costs me 1 life every time I get there, and it's frustrating right now. the corner doesn't seem to work, nor does tapping just left of the corner.

Maybe you've tried this already, but you could also experiment with tapping up, or try a different corner. For what it's worth, I had a similar problem with Cherry - you have to be pretty precise with how much you tap.

Nice!
And, It would be interesting to separate the characters by tables.

I've thought about this, but I wasn't sure if it's worth it since there's not a ton of entries on the board. Plus that brings up the question of whether we should split off the secret ships too (and I'm not even 100% sure who used which ships, since people didn't enter that for a lot of the older posts). What do other people think?

In my dream world, the forums would have some integration with Restart Syndrome or a similar database, so people could choose to view the scores however they like (among a lot of other benefits). But that'd obviously be a lot of work.

[third_strike]

I've thought about this, but I wasn't sure if it's worth it since there's not a ton of entries on the board. Plus that brings up the question of whether we should split off the secret ships too (and I'm not even 100% sure who used which ships, since people didn't enter that for a lot of the older posts). What do other people think?

You can put in spoiler. At least a top three looks good. No need to separate secret ships or reflection type.

[marus]

That's a good point - spoiler tags will keep the main post cleaner. I added character specific rankings. EmperorIng I also added your Romi score to the Romi table.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[third_strike]

Nice!

[EmperorIng]

Things look great! If you have the time, maybe you can slide my Kart 1cc back onto the character table.

I am glad to say I finally broke the 60 quadrillion ceiling with Romi too - surprisingly fast! This came as a surprise to me because this was about as bad a run as I could imagine - terrible stage 1, terrible stage 2, about the only thing that went right was stage 4, lol. I'm "quickly" catching up to my Limi score, which is surprising. My pie-in-the-sky dream is to beat RIN's Romi score of 71q which is his TAS that you linked a few pages back. I wonder if I can do it - it's very much diminishing returns at this point!

Hopefully this means i can put on a good show for shmup slam.

62,014,508,174,141,410 - EmperorIng - Romi (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1888802694

[marus]

Awesome job! I updated the first post, and added your Kart score back as well.

Haha that run had a bit of a slow start for sure, but you followed through on the rest of the stages! You even got a double-volcanon on the stage 4 boss - I didn't even know that was a thing lol. You can catch up to your Limi score for sure if you can string together a good first few stages.

Shmup slam should be a good time! I'm looking forward to it.

[marus]

Score Attack
Stage 6 - 3,811,008,551,616,588,420- marus-MPO - Chery/Carmine Plus (RF) - video

I spent some time messing around with the score attack mode today to help refresh my memory on this game, and I managed to up my stage 6 PB! SPE's videos really help a lot. I also spent some time grinding arcade mode of course - I actually got somewhat consistent at the stage 1 volcanons that used to give me problems. I wish I had made the switch to Carmine Plus much earlier - the faster speed really makes volcanons and medal collecting much easier once you get used to it. That said the stage 2 boss kept kicking my butt lol. I'll need to really sit down with this game if I want to get back in shape again.

[EmperorIng]

I've been messing around in the score attack as well, I might have some entries to add for fun later.

Wouldn't you know, one night after choking and losing my live demonstration of Giga Wing 2 in Shmup Slam, I loaded up the game and OBS, hit record, and my very first run I get a new Romi best, 1 quadrillion more than the last. Go figures that I wouldn't get a good run until AFTER I needed it!

The only thing that disappoints me is failing to kill the stage 5 boss. I think that would have gotten me close to my overall best. In other runs I've gotten over 800m by stage 2 so I was definitely behind pace. But MAN do I wish I could have done this on Saturday.

63,023,635,504,341,840 - EmperorIng - Romi (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZr3voPh4lY&lc

[marus]

Awesome run! Yeah marathon jitters are a thing for sure, but you still put on a great performance, and at least you got your revenge now! The stage 5 boss is worth 3 quadrillion so you would have gotten super close to your Limi score had you managed to get the kill.

Shmup Slam 6 was a lot of fun! I regret not preparing any kind of run myself now, but hopefully next time I'll be able to perform something.

[EmperorIng]

It's been a while, and I've taken a few-month break but I was jumping back in and (off-stream) got a new Romi pb. I am getting really close to beating my Limi score now!

65,303,489,332,375,580 - EmperorIng - Romi (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://imgur.com/93BHrzU



This had loads of mistakes throughout and a lackluster stage 1, and I once again failed to kill the stage 5 boss in time. That alone would have beaten my Limi score, argh! I am still eyeing that 70 quadrillion goal, as well.

[marus]

Nice, updated! I'm glad to see you're still playing. You've pushed Romi a lot farther than I thought you would lol - I'm looking forward to seeing you overtake your Limi score with her!

I've also been taking a break from shmups for a bit, and my Touhou FDF II score still isn't quite where I want it be so I'm not sure if I'll go back to that or this game once I hop back into shmups, or do some casual 1ccs of my backlog. Sadly there's only so much time in the day and so many shmups to play!