Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

A forum for saving and showing off all your hi scores
Post Reply
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

Image

Also known as OutRun: Thunder Harrier nevermind it was my imagination :p


quasi-3D Shmup with automobiles by Taito, featuring cyberpunk atmosphere and Zuntata music!

Rules:

World/US/Japan version
Autofire is allowed
Default setting (5 shields, 1 shield per stage clear)
1 credit
Changing fire rate via DIP Switch is allowed (default is 7 frames per second, changing it means autofire is ON)
If you forgot zone order after game over, just post latest zone are you on (can be seen on Name Entry screen)

DETAILS is for what console/emulator/PCB, what region release. Sega/Mega CD scores will add to separate board.
NEED INFORMATION: I heard that Japan and World/USA have minor difficulty differences, if this is true I would separate the board for them. Please let me know in the comments :)

----------------------

Format:
Name - Score - Zone - Version - System - Autofire ON/OFF

Arcade/PS1/Saturn:

R=# & Name & Score & Zone & Version & System & Autofire R=01 & EmperorIng & 23,711,550 & A-C-E-H-M-R [ALL] & Japan & Saturn & ON R=02 & copy-paster & 16,171,520 & A-B-E-H-L & World & ShmupMAME 4.2 & ON


Sega/Mega CD:

R=# & Name & Score & Zone & Autofire R=01 & Kollision & 29,102,790 & A-B-D-G-L-R & ON R=02 & & & &
Last edited by copy-paster on Fri May 08, 2020 1:15 pm, edited 10 times in total.
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

Image

copy-paster - 10,641,150 - ACEI - World - ShmupMAME 4.2 - ON

idk which route is easiest to clear, I need to learn dodging those aimed missiles
User avatar
EmperorIng
Posts: 5065
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:22 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by EmperorIng »

Is that your pacifist run score? What a boost.

I play this game every now and then as a relaxing, easy(ish) clear. Sometimes even set up the difficulty to max. I will definitely dig out my Saturn copy to post a score. It needs some love.
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

No way I would go pacifist haha, game's just too hard and needs precise memo to do that :mrgreen:

I wonder if anyone gonna do pacifist run, you could score over 80mil because pacifist bonus is ridiculous.
User avatar
Kollision
Posts: 2605
Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2008 3:48 am
Location: BRA
Contact:

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by Kollision »

wait a moment
is there a pacifist bonus in Night Striker?

how does it work?
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8okwp0hBS38

This is from Replay Burners. Look how much the score multiples each pacifist bonus :shock:
You get pacifist bonus by simply don't fire, don't get hit, don't kill enemies.
User avatar
Kollision
Posts: 2605
Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2008 3:48 am
Location: BRA
Contact:

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by Kollision »

:shock:

good to know about that
I'll try it on the Saturn, hopefully soon

meanwhile, here's an old score for the Sega CD version:

Kollision - 29,102,790 - ABDGLR (ALL) - Japan - Sega CD - ON

Image
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

great!

I wonder if Mega CD version have pacifist and all wipe out bonus too, all wipe out bonus only give you 1mil each stage by destroying all enemies on-screen.
User avatar
EmperorIng
Posts: 5065
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:22 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by EmperorIng »

A fresh score, done tonight just for you! You should be able to beat this if you get hit less on the final zone. This game is always a joy to pop in.

EmperorIng - 23,711,550 - A-C-E-H-M-R - Japan - Saturn - Autofire ON

Image

Keep in mind these were my settings on the Saturn:

Difficulty: Normal
Fire: Fast (aka auto)
Control: Normal
Auto-Neutral: Off

Does pacifist only work if you don't get hit? I didn't shoot at all for two stages but hit environmental hazards. I didn't notice any big score boost.
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

Impressive! is it easiest route to clear? I still haven't figured how to dodge those fast aimed missiles hahah. What does Auto-Neutral do btw?

Don't fire, don't get hit, don't kill enemies. That's the requirement of pacifist bonus. Hitting environmental hazard means get hit too.
User avatar
EmperorIng
Posts: 5065
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:22 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by EmperorIng »

Thanks for the info! I'll have to try again for the bonus.

Auto-neutral means that your ship automatically returns to the center of the screen if you are not holding a direction. In the arcade, you controlled with a flight stick which didn't have auto-neutral to my knowledge. But some versions without the stick did? Not so sure. It's an annoying thing because it makes it harder to control.

As for routes to clear, my general sense is that the hardest stages late in the game are Temple, Factory, and Tunnel. At high rank these are really difficult to avoid getting hit (when coupled with the lack of space to avoid shots). So I pick stages with more open areas (though I did go through one Tunnel stage in this route). The final one was City, which is a lot like the first zone. Some bosses are easier to deal with than others. This zone's final boss was a trio of helicopters (like the one that starts the game). In my view it is one of the easiest of the final bosses because it's not that much different from the first boss in terms of strategy (only challenge is killing the three quickly for a larger time bonus). Others are very nasty mechs/enemy groupings that require you to be on the move at all times.
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1683
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by copy-paster »

copy-paster - 16,171,520 - A-B-E-H-L - World - ShmupMAME 4.2 - ON

Image

Slight improvement at least. Zone L boss is wtf these three mechs ram you while shooting aimed missiles, like there are no room to dodge. Dunno if this one worth for serious practice, I just wanna see people here do ALL pacifist run for real :shock:
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

oh hi, forgot my old account here so i guess we're doing this!

i've gotten obsessed with this game, to the point it's now my #1 wish for an Arcade Archives port (so i could legally play it in marathons or w/e). BBH introduced me to it many years ago and i fell in love right from the get-go, between that OST i shouldn't need to explain here and how well the game pulls off the whole Blade Runner-ish aesthetic in general. like, if i ever get into the video-essay game this would definitely be one of the first things i'd talk about

in particular i've recently focused on learning pacifist, which i'd eventually like to do for every stage. thus i'll just post some tips/thoughts here from time to time as i get closer to full clears!

to start, i recently discovered that homing missiles are easier to dodge in the Japanese version. see this thread for some clips/details:

https://twitter.com/joshthefunkdoc/stat ... 5192939795

so i'd say if you want to go for this, JP version is the best to learn with for sure

i also wanted to mention a small detail in the scoring system that doesn't seem to be well-documented: you score more points for staying on the ground, but only if the stage has solid ground! this means the CANAL, SKY & SEA stages are lower-scoring than the others since they don't have solid ground at all

for pacifist, the TEMPLE stages are far and away the hardest because their boss requires more execution & memorization than the rest of the game combined (OK, maybe exaggerating but only slightly). thankfully there's only 2 of them, so stay away unless you feel like putting in weeks of practice lol

for now i'll close with advice for your first 2 stages:

- after the first wave of enemies in Stage A, you can drive off the road to the right side then just stay slightly off-road; you'll avoid everything for the rest of the stage until you reach the boss! i think one of the versions (maybe USA?) requires you to use the left side for this trick instead, but not positive. the boss is obv easy if you just fly around in circles, but actually takes some time to learn if you want to stay on the ground the whole time for optimal scoring

- for Stage B you can just hold Up/Left until you get past the second set of homing missiles (at which point you'll want to move toward the middle to prepare for the moving walls at the end). you don't need to adjust anything at all on the Japanese version but for USA/World versions you'll want to hold Up/Right shortly before the homing missiles reach you (then shift back to Up/Left after dodging them). the stuff i said above about the Stage A boss applies to this boss as well, except this fight is longer and will take more practice to survive on the ground

- Stage C is actually a bit harder on the Japanese version because the enemies traveling on the ground will fire at you sooner, but it's not bad at all once you're aware of that. the end section where you have to fly in between all those pipes is annoying if you're like me and play on MAME with a non-analog stick...until you realize you can just hold Down/Left and steer clear of everything. the boss is laughably easy too, in fact the easiest in the whole game from a scoring perspective (since you don't need to stay on the ground)
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

just a shorter post tonight on despawning~

in the majority of stage types, you can scroll the screen upward if you keep flying as high as you can for a long enough time. where this can come in very handy for pacifist play is when the stage features those jets that shoot homing missiles. if you were flying at maximum height when they spawned, you can typically despawn the homing missiles by moving all the way down (or vice versa, though it takes longer to scroll the screen upward than downward). this can also be used with other enemy types of course, and can help for some of the larger mobs of enemies that fire the standard shots, but it's most commonly used to deal with homing missiles.

on a related note, you can even use a trick to cheese out the final boss in Stage T (SUBURBS)! the idea is you want to block the view of the door firing all the homing missiles (using your vehicle's sprite), and it won't spawn them. here's an example that messes up a bit so you can see a couple still spawn at times:

https://youtu.be/NtHC9iXuJz0?t=761

what would be one of the hardest bosses for a pacifist clear becomes one of the easiest with this, lol
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

Learned something tonight: you score "kill" points for each enemy that explodes when you reach the end of a stage! This means it's not always best to stay on the ground then; it may be advantageous to fly at certain points so you can spawn more enemies for that explosion.

The very first stage allows you to gain around 100k points by flying upward when the last big wave of helicopters before the boss forms a single line. Once they do so you want to just keep flying up all the way until you see the explosion (then go back down ASAP for those ground points, of course). If you move downward too soon you'll despawn a bunch of those helicopters and hurt your score!

There's also a more advanced method that can score even higher, by flying at an earlier point in the stage as well to get a couple of the orange helicopters to stay onscreen for the end...but i can't get it to work for the life of me. You can see it here if you want to try:

https://youtu.be/XpbMN4sLMLw?t=22
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

One of the top active Japanese players recently informed me of an interesting detail i don't think has been noted in English before...

It turns out that the score bonus for staying on solid ground actually increases with the difficulty level! You can easily measure this using the opening of the game, seeing where your score is at once Urban Trail kicks in ;)

In that example, you seem to gain slightly over 7k points for each notch up the difficulty scale. The default Medium difficulty will have you right around 30k at that point, while on Easy you'll only be at 23k. Hard will leave you at 37k, and Hardest will have you on the cusp of 45k!

So i guess score records would need to be tracked separately based on difficulty, or at least have the difficulty setting noted. Honestly i like this a lot, another neat little detail that adds more ways to push your score besides "dodge everything".
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

Using machine translation on Japanese Youtube comments can yield gold nuggets sometimes, and i just found another one!

On the Stage J boss (the robo-wolves), if you go on the ground then move up in the air for a brief period after the last wolf disappears, the stage will end with the boss timer on "1" so you'll get a time bonus in addition to the pacifist bonus! From my testing this doesn't work on Stage E (the first TUNNEL) since the stage ends almost immediately after the last wolf is gone, and Stage K (the last TUNNEL) looks similar in that regard + i've never seen that trick there in any of the replays online.

Still working toward that all-pacifist clear...going A-C-E-H-M-R as that's supposed to be one of the easier routes but R still kicks my ass atm
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

One thing i'd like to start doing as i learn more of this game is write down the scoring differences between stages. Can start with one today:

Stage B, if done 100% optimally (i.e. staying on the ground the entire stage) has a little over 600k advantage compared to Stage C on the default difficulty. The boss is not the easiest to handle at first for max score, though, so if you fly around in circles to survive you'll lose a bit of that.

Also for curiosity's sake i decided to calculate how long each stage takes (not counting the stage-transition segments) since going longer is better for score if all else is equal. My quick & dirty findings in minutes:seconds format -

Stage A: 1:24
Stage B: 2:07.5
Stage C: 1:35
Stage D: 2:00
Stage E: 1:48.8
Stage F: 1:40
Stage G: 1:41.8
Stage H: 1:49 (this one's deceptive because the stage itself might be the shortest in the game but the boss is one of the longer ones)
Stage I: 1:54
Stage J: 1:45.7
Stage K: 1:29.6
Stage L: 1:47.5
Stage M: 2:11.2
Stage N: 2:15
Stage O: 2:04
Stage P: 2:06.2 (see my description of H except the discrepancy between stage and boss is even more extreme here)
Stage Q: 1:53.5
Stage R: 2:02.5
Stage S: 2:16
Stage T: 2:17.5
Stage U: 2:13.8

Kinda funny how the TUNNEL stages get shorter as you move up the ladder - they also require a decent amount of flying, so they're certainly the lowest-scoring after CANAL/SKY/SEA (AKA the stages that don't score you extra for staying on the ground). And FACTORY is hands down the longest stage type on average, entirely because of the boss.

To close out this random yapping, there are no routes that completely avoid the CANAL/SKY/SEA stages. However, there is exactly one route that goes through 3 of those: the all-right route that ends with U. i had assumed that would have to be the lowest-scoring route, but the Gamest/Arcadia WRs i could find had a higher score for U than for P (all-left route). That seems extremely odd given P only has one of the "no solid ground" stages, but that record was held by a different player from all the others so maybe it was less optimized?

And as for the question of highest-scoring route, my research suggests the theoretical strongest is A-B-E-H-L-R...but A-B-E-H-M-R is maybe like 800k behind at most and infinitely easier. R is by far the highest-scoring stage in the game since you still get the pacifist bonus even with your little buddy ship blasting everything in sight, so any reasonable candidate has to go there. To give an idea, the WR score for the R route is ~4.3mil higher than any other route's gotten! H and L score more than I and M respectively (despite their shorter runtimes), due to how many enemies explode at the end of those stages; L in particular might give you the most points of any stage for that. The problem is that L is easily the hardest stage in all of Night Striker since the boss is a complete and utter nightmare and you can't cheese out the stage itself like you can with S (the only other TEMPLE). I have had a Japanese player tell me only a few players have ever gone through L in a successful pacifist clear, since it's not required for any of the endings - of course that had to be the first route I tried learning!
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by BIL »

Excellent work as always, funkdoc! :o Image
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

BIL wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2024 6:39 pm Excellent work as always, funkdoc! :o Image
Wait, have we talked before? The name on here doesn't ring a bell - were you one of my stream viewers back in the day? In any case, your Metal Black guide has been a *tremendous* help to me as i'm still working toward my first 1CC on that game as well, so i can't thank you enough for that!

sooooooo tonight i set a new bar for this forum:

Image

This is well below WR-level play, but i'm still extremely new to this game compared to the likes of HOLiNO so i'm very happy with it for now. Definitely did not think i'd get this clear on my first night of real attempts!
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by BIL »

funkdoc wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:33 am
BIL wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2024 6:39 pm Excellent work as always, funkdoc! :o Image
Wait, have we talked before? The name on here doesn't ring a bell - were you one of my stream viewers back in the day? In any case, your Metal Black guide has been a *tremendous* help to me as i'm still working toward my first 1CC on that game as well, so i can't thank you enough for that!
Just a longterm admirer of your Castlevania and Holy Diver prowess, amongst many other games. :mrgreen:

I'm so happy to hear the Metal Black ST is still proving helpful! Cheers bud, I'll be getting its long-procrastinated update underway soon.
User avatar
Meriscan
Posts: 243
Joined: Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:15 pm
Location: da military zone

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by Meriscan »

funkdoc wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:33 am sooooooo tonight i set a new bar for this forum

[img]

This is well below WR-level play, but i'm still extremely new to this game compared to the likes of HOLiNO so i'm very happy with it for now. Definitely did not think i'd get this clear on my first night of real attempts!
A new bar indeed! Extremely nice score especially if this was your first nights of real attempts. Was getting the all pacifist clear your goal, or are you going to keep playing?
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

Meriscan wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:49 am
funkdoc wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:33 am sooooooo tonight i set a new bar for this forum

[img]

This is well below WR-level play, but i'm still extremely new to this game compared to the likes of HOLiNO so i'm very happy with it for now. Definitely did not think i'd get this clear on my first night of real attempts!
A new bar indeed! Extremely nice score especially if this was your first nights of real attempts. Was getting the all pacifist clear your goal, or are you going to keep playing?
Oh trust me, i'm just getting started! i want to learn every stage and get clears for every ending, as this really has become one of my all-time favorite games the more i've dug into it. =) Plenty more to come on my streams...
funkdoc
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2024 2:36 am

Re: Night Striker (Arcade/PS1/Saturn/Sega CD)

Post by funkdoc »

OH SHIT I MISSED A BUNCH OF POINTS IN STAGE C AAAAAAAAAAAAA

you know all those pipes you can crash into there? if you manage to fit yourself in the gaps between those pipes, you get 100k each time! This can score you over 1 million just from the end of the stage alone, and that part can definitely be learned with practice even on MAME's wonky analog controls. the real problem is, it's also possible to squeeze between the tiny gaps in a bunch of the other pipes there...but that's ridiculously harder. so an important part of a WR score is pulling that off, which seems near-impossible in MAME compared to a real cabinet where you can hold the stick in a certain position to maintain your height. doesn't mean i won't try and find something, though! this video shows what i mean (and may give some clues - look at how they set up the beginning of the stage):

https://youtu.be/nYx8tXaJ--4?t=126

BTW this also goes a long way toward explaining why the all-left route is the lowest-scoring: it's the only one that requires you to avoid Stage C, which is the 2nd highest-scoring level in the game if you go all out with the pipe bonuses (since no other stage has pipes)
Post Reply