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It is odd to have a major score incentive to capture captains, but then you can't utilize them to kill things if you want the best score. Not sure if they meant it to be that way, but I wouldn't be surprised. The Darius series has other trollish or counterintuitive mechanics like fully powering up will actually make you less powerful.

I do think it's more interesting this way. At least on a few captains, like Zone A, your routing has to be much more nuanced than if it didn't matter who shot down enemies. Of course G Darius has a better, more fleshed out version of this system since fighting with captures is a major gameplay focus throughout.

The odd shot leveling system also adds a bit of strategy. Pro players can go for early max power and get a good number of red powerups at 5k max bonus. The tradeoff is increased rank, the last two captures will be way harder, and certain final boss fights will be much longer and more difficult. One thing that's easier at max is that throughout the second half of the game you don't have to dodge red powerups.

So if there were a patched rom that made captain's kills count for score and made the final powerup level actually the strongest, the game could be considered to be "fixed" or at least make more sense in terms of conventional game balance. Although I think that would remove two of the elements that can help differentiate player's scores at higher levels.

What? That's really only in this game, and only with the absolute last main shot powerup because of its exact particulars (autofire also has an input on this). Gaiden is singularly weird. Things make more sense in the first Darius where you're actually switching weapons altogether and are having to power up completely from scratch, never mind that Wave is really good in the first Darius anyway.

I played without autofire and I was pretty sure that once you upgrade from the max piercing yellow laser to the green shot, it's way weaker (both King Fossil and Ancient Dozer take forever with it, and it doesn't look like this is due to rank alone).

I also seem to remember that the last weapon upgrade in Darius Twin also makes you weaker. (So that's 2/2 of the Darius games I played seriously so far:P)

Oh yeah the first green wave is super weak against King Fossil. The shot level from stage one that is just three white spheres has the highest pure damage output in the game if you're shooting point blank. Of course bc it lacks piercing ability it's not a balanced weapon to take on the whole game with.

It would be a funny challenge run type of thing to see someone actually no miss the game with that shot type to showcase how fast it can kill bosses with 30hz.

There's an ebb and flow to your power level all the way through DG so you really have to plan well for a fully optimized run. And a power up plan for a survival run will likely be different than for an advanced player doing max boss milking. Whatever changes you make you have to still be sure to land at a powerul shot level for each captain.

I'm not as experienced with Darius 1, but I know some players find Old ver. 1cc easier staying at low shot power and low rank. Or at least waiting to power up until after dealing with Fatty Glutton. Maybe I exaggerated it a bit, but there are pros and cons to leveling up early or late.

Extra is different bc laser and wave are more effective against bosses like Fatty.

The problem with Darius pre-Extra is that you're normally stuck with Laser during Fatty Glutton (iirc it's not possible to get Wave for Fatty Glutton, at least not on difficulty B), which is suffering and Laser is arguably a penalty weapon. There isn't much more of the game after that, so doing the Missile strat and then powering up Wave sufficiently is difficult. Also, Missile is great with autofire and such. This all leads to most people sticking with Missile the entire game.

Not a no-miss but here you go : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUZPZr8hWVE

That shot type is also very usefull in co-op play : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbOghpp ... A2&index=1

Aside from that, and extra challenge I don't recommend anyone staying with the three missiles/white shot types

Mokkun did a new world record for Zone Z on the Switch version. Which also makes the replay on the leaderboards a new highest scoring replay for those who have access to it. Glad to say I'm sitting in 2nd place behind him, but I think what he's done is play on a different Switch so has two accounts with 1st and 2nd so technically I'm showing up in 3rd lol.

Curious to see how much points he got from grey medals

And isn't it cheating to have two accounts for the same leaderboard ? I mean I.M.O, etc. could buy dozens of Switches and there wouldn't be anyone else left in the ranking (just saying you know).

Over 290k from grey medals which is very lucky. Since he beat his old arcade record by only around 10k I'm curious how they compare. It doesn't seem too unusual to get around 200k or even 250 while getting close to 300k is pretty rare.

I'm guessing Mokkun has also beaten IMO's old V' score (in terms of base points) and just not gotten the same luck on medals. Mokkun goes for early max red medals making the last couple captures and especially Storm Causer much more difficult which also gives a healthy point boost from those 5k red medal bonuses. He said he has been on track to get a world's first 12M on V' and died to Storm Causer more than once.

Yeah the double account thing wouldn't bother me unless someone was intentionally stacking the leaderboards while hiding their identity. If you had to get a new switch/acct hacked or gave your old one to your kid or something then whatever.

It'd be nice to see a 12M+ on the lowest scoring route. The Storm Causer fight must be quite something at max rank with full wave.