Sisters Royale (Alfa System, PC/Switch/PS4/XB1, 2019)

[EmperorIng]

Normal
Nur
Viper_phase1 - 1,993,591,680 - All - PS4 - https://i.imgur.com/AsjVO69.jpg

Well done on the clear viper_phase1! I think it's impressive you only got hit twice your entire time. I usually am hit 4 or 5 times over the course of a playthrough. I think my problem is a reluctance to use bombs; I need to do that more since they give you so much over the course of a run.

Congrats also on the score, Mero. Once you get 'the one run' I'm sure your score will be tough to beat. I might try a bit tonight to see if my run comes together, or if I can at least get to Seytan.

[Mero]

Thanks, I increased my score a bit and reached Yashin for the first time in a run yesterday so I'm inching towards progress.

I still need to really work out Lale's 2nd phase though, I can damage her and get coins from the ghosts but it seems pretty risky, I'd happily do it in a safer way and forsake the ghosts but I don't see one.

[Mero]

Normal
Selma



Mero - 3,149,840,490 - All - PS4 - Image

This run was about as good as I could have hoped for with minimal mistakes: one absolutely stupid death on the stage 2 boss, one very annoying death in the middle of stage 5 and one death on the TLB when I had no bombs left. Apart from that it was pretty great and I even managed to get through Lale phase 2 without getting killed.

Because I came through stage 3 and 4 unscathed I entered stage 5 with a much better score than usual, about 2.47 I think. The Ece fight went really well too, 1 bomb no miss and I even killed her last phase with my summon for big points. The TLB fight was just trying to stay alive at all costs, 4 of my 7 bombs came against the TLB. I think it was the first time I'd ever seen Seytens final phase but his pattern wasn't too bad (even though I died).
I got a fat bonus at the end too because I got about 50 million of time bonus.

As for next, I thonk I'll leave Hard alone for now, I played a credit earlier and got destroyed on the first stage. I also tried some credits with the other characters, Lale and Ece seem really hard to use and I don't think Sonay is that great either, but Nur looks pretty good so I might try some runs with her, she's insanely good at milking bosses, she might even have better scoring potential than Selma.

[Sturmvogel Prime]

Finally got the elusive Rank SSS with Lale.

Difficulty: Normal
Character: Lale
XBOX Username: SturmvogelPrime
2,075,636,780 - All Clear - XBOX One - Image

[Mero]

Well done on the clear with Lale, I've been playing with her recently myself.

[Mero]

Normal
Lale

Mero - 2,338,901,100 - All - PS4 - image



I can't call this a good run but I'll take the clear, I died twice in stage 4 and twice in stage 5. The best thing about it was that I went through Ece, Yashin and Seyten on 1 life (I was on my last life). Lale is tricky to use well but she decimates bosses.

[EmperorIng]

Congrats on all the great scores everyone! I don't have much ability to post or add thoughts right now (being on vacation) but I wanna congratulate Mero on his awesome 3 billion score! I thought I might be able to get to 3bill first, but I'm glad you pulled ahead (while I'm still practicing).

Lale does shred bosses, though she's hard to use on stages. At least it's easy to get x16 kills on bosses with her.

I have been wondering, from a format perspective, if i should only have the the top score of a player on Overall, or just add them all regardless of a player double-dips or not. On one hand I like showing that there is play on more than just a few characters. On the other hand it might be confusing to keep up with what each player's best score is with each character.

[Mero]

Well, if it was my decision, I think I'd keep the overall table for each players best score only, I'd rather not have multiple entries from the same player in the same table.

And thanks! That Selma score did turn out better than I expected, dying less really pays off.

I tried some runs with Nur too, she's really great in the stages (most of my Selma strats work with her too) but I feel that getting past the TLB with her would be tough.

I sort of want to get at least SSS with Ece too (so that I've got the full set), she'll be the hardest of all though.

[EmperorIng]

Thinking it over, i believe you're probably right regarding top scores. It's better not to muddy the waters/make things unclear, and it'd be a hassle to stay on top of it.

Dying costs a lot in this game. Losing those 10,000 coins and building them back up can really impact your score. If you're lucky you can rebuilt your stock during a boss fight, which is better than nothing.

Meanwhile, I'm getting closer! I made it to Yashin Demon/Seytan with a new PB. My score pretty much sucks in stage 5 as I struggled to survive after a disastrous Lale fight. I barely tried getting any score on Yashin so I wonder where I need to improve to get closer to that 3 billion. As it stands had I cleared I probably would have been around 2.8, maybe 2.9 unless there's a clear bonus I forgot. Still, getting excited!

Normal
Nur
EmperorIng - 2,713,612,030 - 5 - Switch - image

[Mero]

Lale
Hard

Mero - 3,142,655,200 - All - PS4 - image



Decided to tackle hard with Lale, which is what I originally intended before I switched to normal. The run wasn't that great ( I left a lot of points on the table) but at least I 've cleared Hard. I entered stage 5 with 2.2, so stage 5 was worth nearly a billion on its own.

And well done on the improvement EmperorIng, I think Nur would probably be the hardest of the lot to clear with due to the fact that she can't damage bosses quickly and her crap bomb. Seytan's final phase is definitely dodgeable though. Good luck!

[EmperorIng]

Decided to tackle hard with Lale, which is what I originally intended before I switched to normal. The run wasn't that great ( I left a lot of points on the table) but at least I 've cleared Hard. I entered stage 5 with 2.2, so stage 5 was worth nearly a billion on its own.

And well done on the improvement EmperorIng, I think Nur would probably be the hardest of the lot to clear with due to the fact that she can't damage bosses quickly and her crap bomb. Seytan's final phase is definitely dodgeable though. Good luck!

Woo, another Hard mode score, and a clear no less! Nice job. I bet Lale is great for surviving in Hard mode with all the extra suicide bullets to absorb. She probably definitely has a lower score ceiling, but luckily we have individual boards online

I definitely feel like the most dangerous parts of the final bosses are Yashin's second phase and Seytan's first. I can't remember in my practice having much problem with his final phase because Nur, at the very least, doesn't have to worry about aiming or positioning when attacking bosses. Right you are that her bomb isn't all that hot... good or clearing a path out of a wall of bullets - and revealing a Fairy in a boss arena (which is what I usually do since it's too hard to get her in position to reveal it with her shot/familiar).

Hardest thing about Nur is that her familiar leaves her open for enemies to ram right in to her, especially if you are trying to time it to get as many point-blank x8s as possible.

I wonder if the phase 3's of Hard Mode boss fights are still the most lucrative, or do you want to save the fairy for the final phase like you would in Normal mode. The hard mode patterns I saw don't have the same amount of destructible cash-out bullets that I see on Normal.

[Mero]

Lale is good for tackling hard because she can cancel bullets yes, though because her counter shot hits everything it's easy to get engulfed in suicide bullets from all directions, so I had to go pacifist mode a few times. Edit: I should also point out there's no internet at my place, hence I'm not on the leaderboards.

Since you're playing Nur I'd say keep on milking the same phases on hard (only Selma and Nur can really do that well). You're better off milking Selma phase 2 and Lale phase 2 though. For fairy kills, I'd go with the last phase.

[Mero]

Ece
Normal

Mero - 2,170,193,870 - All - PS4 - video

https://youtu.be/s4NQpq_Y7hU

I'd been thinking about going for an Ece clear and I thought it was achievable so I decided to try and make a video (I'm off work this week so more time to mess around), took me 4 attempts which wasn't too bad. This isn't the greatest footage in the world because I shot it on my phone but I've watched it back and it's mostly fine, the camera briefly loses focus a few times but not during gameplay.

I'm fairly pleased with a lot of this run but 3 of the 4 deaths were just stupid, especially the death right before the stage 4 boss, I literally never die there with any character.

The TLB fight went badly and ended up turning into a bomb fest, entered the fight with 3 lives and 4 bombs and finished with no bombs on my last life, I just didn't want to die and have to do it again. All other boss fights went well, though I still had to drop bombs in Lale's final phase (apart from the TLB I think that's the hardest phase in the game on normal).

[Sturmvogel Prime]

Difficulty: Normal
Character: Sonay
XBOX Username: SturmvogelPrime
2,355,309,000- All Clear - XBOX One - Image

[viper_phase1]

Normal
Nur
Viper_phase1 - 1,993,591,680 - All - PS4 - https://i.imgur.com/AsjVO69.jpg

Well done on the clear viper_phase1! I think it's impressive you only got hit twice your entire time. I usually am hit 4 or 5 times over the course of a playthrough. I think my problem is a reluctance to use bombs; I need to do that more since they give you so much over the course of a run.

Thank you! Yes, it definitely helps to be mindful of using bombs.

[Mero]

Normal
Nur

Mero - 2,831,860,280 - All - PS4 - image





Normal
Sonay

Mero - 2,860,366,810 - All - PS4 - image



Before the Nur clear I spent some time in practice mode trying to work out how handle the TLB better, and it was that that got me over the line. I only still really need to use 1 bomb on Yashin phase 2 (I can dodge the first volley of it) and probably one on Seytan phase 3 if I get trapped. In this run I reached the TLB with 2 lives and one bomb and was still able to clear, so it's more achievable than I thought! I stand by the statement that Nur is the hardest to clear with, mainly because of Lale phase 3, that phase is hard anyway but even harder for Nur because most of her tension shots target the two crystals instead of Lale herself, and Nur's bomb hardly inflicts any damage.

I did the Sonay clear not long after Nur, using the same strats on the TLB, though Yashin phase 2 strat didn't work because of Sonay's slower speed. I'd say Sonay is the joint easiest to clear with, tied with Ece.

The Nur score is a bit disappointing because she's the best scorer in the game (at least on normal), I always seem to do badly in the last two stages with her.

Anyway that's all 5 Sisters cleared so I think I'm about done, alas no internet means I can't get the DLC character though if she plays like Fumiko from Shiki I wouldn't be very good with her anyway lol.

[NTSC-J]

Normal
Nur

NTSC-J - 3,619,205,070 - All - Switch - image

[Mero]

Good score NTSC-J, that's more like what Nur is capable of.

[NTSC-J]

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with it and that I only got hit twice, but I didn't milk the last boss enough. Maybe next time.

Normal
Sonay

NTSC-J - 3,185,087,280 - All - Switch - image

[NTSC-J]

Normal
Nur

NTSC-J - 4,239,463,120 - All - Switch - image

[EmperorIng]

Definitely in awe of the skills on display here. It makes me wonder, given that the highest score I've seen for normal is 4.6 billion, if even hitting 5b is possible.

For those that aren't aware, definitely a huge part of the score comes from milking boss bullets as long as possible - even past the timer. After the timer is up you'll be chased by unkillable skulls (more added over time) so I usually can't do more than one extra cycle. But the score improvement is quite noticeable when you do.

[EmperorIng]

FINALLY! It took forever but I at least got a 1cc, and my goal of over 3 billion to boot. Almost at 4billion, even! Nur shreds these stages apart (scorewise). For fun you can watch this quick 30s video snip of my final flail against the last boss, as my bomb -intended to kill him- didn't finish the job leaving me to try and go for a plan B.

Now that I understand how coin multipliers work in this game, the high scores and WR scores (4b+) no longer seem so mystifying.
Basic gist: get a high multiplier from enemies (either by grazing bullets or proximity) AND as you suck in coins, continue to hug bullets or enemies. Your Tension or proximity to a bullet (or enemy) determines what multiplier the coin has when you collect it.

x8 coins, and collect them at x8 (from bullet/enemy grazing) = big points

Normal
Nur
EmperorIng - 3,743,267,320 - ALL - Switch - image

[viper_phase1]

Great job! i knew you could do it!
Nice work dodging at the end.

I took a break from the game, but I'm going to start playing again and see if I can bring my score up a bit.

[Mero]

Nice work!

[Mero]

Returned to this for a while to get a better score

Normal
Nur

Mero - 4,102,549,420 - All - PS4 - image



Here's a video of me getting a lower score (3.85): https://youtu.be/VIuHVkJE_d8
You can briefly hear my voice when I lose a life right at the end lol

[EmperorIng]

Thanks you two! I feel pretty good finally clinching it; but the urge to push further is never far away. I want more; I want it all!

Returned to this for a while to get a better score

Awesome to see you return not only to get a better score, but to break through to 4 billion! That's some serious chops man. Nur has some ridiculous potential, but Selma can crack 4 billion too (I can't remember the others). Did you manage to get a lot of successful milking in past the timeout, or was that more a function of only getting hit twice?

Congratulations by any stretch! I clearly have some more work to do.

[Mero]

Thanks! It turned out better than I expected.

The only place I really go far into overtime is on Selma, and even then I'm careful to end it before it starts to get impossible. I'd do the same on Lale but I really don't want to go into overtime during her last phase. I never really explored milking Sonay without damaging her.

Most of what I did in this run is the same as in my video but with some better execution, getting full value out of more boss kills, a slightly improved milking technique for Seytan phase 2, and of course, going for a long time without dying must have helped my score (the run was no miss until the TLB).

[NTSC-J]

Normal
Nur

NTSC-J - 5,036,195,950 - All - Switch - image

[Mero]

Great score NTSC-J, I guess to get a really good score you've got to go into overtime on every stage.

[EmperorIng]

I thought no-miss would be a big determining factor into punching through to a high score, but even getting hit 7 times didn't stop you from breaking through to 5 billion! Congratulations!

I'll have to update this thread later when I get back from work.