GD: Metal Black

[Limbrooke]

During level 4, one of the parts where you have a low floor and high ceiling. There's a couple antennae things on the floor and a couple on the ceiling. They protrude either straight up or down and can kill you with one hit, and as far as I can tell, you can't kill them. They're avoidable but still extremely annoying.

Ideally, they must be destroyed before landing. Otherwise to hit them at the base (by the surface where they land; top or bottom) takes them out. Of course, sometimes this isn't possible thanks to being hidden behind scenery but I find it doesn't happen to much to cause a problem. So just take them out right away.

[BIL]

Just had the most unfortunate run - screwed around until unexpectedly acing Black Out with no lives in stock, then just couldn't hold it together until the end of st6. Metal Black: the heart and soul of a thoroughbred arcade shooter. The scoring consistency of a busted fruit machine.

I've never had those vertical barrier enemies become unkillable, in either st3 or st6. Must be a really rare thing. In the worst-case scenario, you can bomb / beam them if you're charged up.

edit: Okay, just had a pretty enlightening ALL run! A measly 477xxx score, but I'll get to that. Finished on my last life again, but this time the deaths were ones I can learn from as opposed to half-asleep brainfart misses. Three things:

1) I think there is some rank in MB, possibly linked to survival time. The fifth boss' bullet spread attack was far more vicious after I made it there with only a couple misses, as opposed to the blooper reel that was my last ALL. I'll be ready next time.

2) I used to think starting a beam duel at low power levels (2-3) was suicide. Actually it's an effective escape technique, if you're about to eat laser. The sphere will die before it can enlarge and fly at you.

3) Unfortunately, the last boss times out as aggressively as all the others. I danced around with him for a good few minutes, only going as far as the "fossil" backdrop. Abruptly, he gave his usual death wail as the background cycled towards "cat" in fast forward, and bye-bye a good chunk of points. :[

So I guess the thing to do is wear him down to his later, more aggressive phases quickly, and draw them out instead.

[Klatrymadon]

Good stuff; thanks for sharing. The "half-asleep brainfart misses" are the only truly demoralising thing about the game, for me. It's absurdly easy to bollocks everything up in sections you already know inside-out. Nearly there now, though.

[3DOMan]

LOL this is probably the worst score ever but oh well.

One credit, normal difficulty, all other settings default 35,730 Level 2. Taito Legends 2 PS3 version.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Definitely a work in progress but I will master it eventually. My 1ccs on Darius Force are slightly more impressive. I might also take a vid of my horrendous Metal Black gameplay so maybe some of the more expert players can take a look at it and tell me where I'm going wrong.

[Klatrymadon]

LOL this is probably the worst score ever but oh well.

Hehe, nah, although you can improve it pretty easily, mate. If you kill most of the enemies in the first stage (including Apartheid), which isn't hard to do, you'll usually have around 50,000 points. If you do reasonably well in the bonus round, you'll begin the second level with 70-80,000.

But don't worry too much just yet. Your real enemy is the second bonus round, during which your pilot appears to have a severe panic attack, judging by the the camera's violent swinging. You can't even compensate for it, only follow your target and wait. It's a bastard.

[BIL]

The demoralising thing about MB for me is, even if I were to put my shoe up its ass with a no-miss, it wouldn't mean jack if those alien clay pigeons don't play along.

If you kill most of the enemies in the first stage (including Apartheid)

Holy crap, is that the first boss' name? Do you know the others by any chance? I love being able to attach names to shooter bosses, particularly in strategy discussions. "st6 boss" just doesn't sound as motivating as "Junkey Monkey."

[Klatrymadon]

Haha, I really need to get back into Garegga.

Apartheid is an awesome name for an alien boss, eh? I love it when bosses are vaguely named after concepts or ideas that actually resonate within the game, in a clumsy sort of way. The rest are, in order of appearance:

Feeder
Daio & Gishiin
Amazo
Ghost (I prefer the track title of "Phantasm", and blimey, they get some serious mileage out of Apartheid's sprite. )
Omega Zone

I know what you mean about knowing boss names. I have no idea what's so cool about them, but they are.

[BIL]

Excellent, thanks!

Apartheid is an awesome name for an alien boss, eh?

Indeed; perfect thematic match for the forebodingly titled "Visitor" and the conquered setting, too. All about the tyranny. Must've been one of those rare alignments of the Engrish planets.

[BIL]

Okay, quite sure MB has significant rank. No-missed to stage 5 with four extra lives in stock, and immediately noticed the micro-walkers' bullets were much quicker. Boss' bullet spread was evil, as before. Most enemies in st6 seemed faster than normal, as did their bullets. And that cluster of pink, teleporting, 8-way laser enemies right before the last boss? Usually I can easily pick them off from the left of the screen. This time there were more of them, the only instance I noticed of enemies increasing in number as well as speed.

Despite losing all my extra lives by the last boss, the increased speed never went away. I narrowly missed killing the last boss ("doll" backdrop) on this run, owing to the beating I took in stage 6.

I doubt it's random; this was my best run since picking the game back up in Feb, and the only one where I've seen this effect. So... surviving for too long apparently puts the rank up. High rank makes enemies meaner, not more numerous. Extra lives / misses are irrelevant where score is concerned. Rank won't decrease upon death. Seems it's best to drop a life somewhere around stage 4.

Also, looped around Amazo (st4 boss) four times without dying, before killing him... not sure if it's really worth it, unless you're really trying to wring this game for points. Personally I'm going to try for 550xxx in the short term, and 600xxx as a long-term goal. Will keep playing MB for this week, then put what I know into an ST.

If any of you guys want to go ahead and start an MB ST yourselves, please do; I'm happy to contribute to an existing topic. Otherwise I'll get it going this weekend.

[Klatrymadon]

Not sure I'm really up to it yet, mate. Still trying to develop a consistent no-bomb strategy for the ends of levels 5 and 6 (lots of wee teleporting bastards and potential bullet clusterfucks, etc). Although, I suppose I do understand how to deal with these sections. I just keep ballsing them up.

[BIL]

No worries, it was a "don't fret, no forum drama will ensue if someone jumps the gun on an MB ST" notice as opposed to an appeal for assistance. I don't care who starts it as long as there's a quick reference for the perennial "MB punched me in the face and stole all my napkins" posts.

Just finished a low-rank run, much easier (and higher-scoring) all-around. Milking Amazo is actually fun if lives are kept at 02. Suiciding extends as they arrive seems to do the trick.

Another observation: the floating mines which first appear in st2? I always thought if they drifted off the left edge of the screen, they could waft back in and smack you. Actually, once they're gone, they're gone; far easier to shoot 'em all down now, since I don't need to watch my back nearly as much.

About the end of stage 5, I'd just bomb if I were you. You'll get more kills and stay safer. What I usually do is beam those three mini-walkers in the last "valley" bit, then use the remaining energy to kill off a good chunk of enemies in the open (blue background bit), particularly that damned eel (really hate those). The green formations entering from the left can be killed pretty easily even with the peashooter (scrape 'em from above), and you can power up before the boss easily.

Anyway, my brain's had enough for tonight! Gonna give this another go tomorrow.

[Klatrymadon]

Cheers! I suppose there's no real reason to forgo bombing, really (and it definitely hinders scoring), but I do like the feeling of getting through each area at its most hectic. I used to find the end of level two a bit of a nightmare without using the beam, but it's a piece of piss even with the peashooter, now.

By floating mines, do you mean the flashing orbs that are left behind by the blue-grey enemies? Unless I'm very much mistaken, the only thing that makes them swing back to the right is your own shots.

Edit: ohhh, sorry, just being dozy. Yeah, I always worried about the mines blowing back onto the screen, too, but you can mop more or less all of them up if you stay near the bottom left-hand corner for a bit.

[Limbrooke]

LOL this is probably the worst score ever but oh well.

One credit, normal difficulty, all other settings default 35,730 Level 2. Taito Legends 2 PS3 version.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Definitely a work in progress but I will master it eventually. My 1ccs on Darius Force are slightly more impressive. I might also take a vid of my horrendous Metal Black gameplay so maybe some of the more expert players can take a look at it and tell me where I'm going wrong.

I'm not an expert player but I can tell you where you're going wrong without even looking at a replay. Simply put, if you enjoy this game enough then by way of practice you'll get better on your own. I've been playing Metal Black on and off for about 5 years without any guide or advice and within the last year I decided to refine my plan of attack with stage practicing and survival guides for certain/annoying sections of the game (see: Stage 2 before final boss, which by the way can be beaten without a bomb). This at first seems to be a frustrating game because of the almost strictly survival based game-play and as such that's how money is/was earned, through a hard/cheap memorizer challenge. Keep practicing and you'll get there.

Okay, quite sure MB has significant rank. No-missed to stage 5 with four extra lives in stock, and immediately noticed the micro-walkers' bullets were much quicker. Boss' bullet spread was evil, as before. Most enemies in st6 seemed faster than normal, as did their bullets. And that cluster of pink, teleporting, 8-way laser enemies right before the last boss? Usually I can easily pick them off from the left of the screen. This time there were more of them, the only instance I noticed of enemies increasing in number as well as speed.

I doubt it's random; this was my best run since picking the game back up in Feb, and the only one where I've seen this effect. So... surviving for too long apparently puts the rank up. High rank makes enemies meaner, not more numerous. Extra lives / misses are irrelevant where score is concerned. Rank won't decrease upon death. Seems it's best to drop a life somewhere around stage 4.

I never noticed any rank, even when getting to Stage 6 without dying. The game steadily seems to get more aggressive and dying doesn't seem to ease the cause. I'll check it out though.

Also, looped around Amazo (st4 boss) four times without dying, before killing him... not sure if it's really worth it, unless you're really trying to wring this game for points. Personally I'm going to try for 550xxx in the short term, and 600xxx as a long-term goal. Will keep playing MB for this week, then put what I know into an ST.

If you're looking for a 600k run, milking the bosses, all for long periods of time, is the only way you're going to get there. Good bonus rounds are necessary to score, but scoring well, not so. Messing up the BRs obviously could mean a restart but if extra points aren't gleaned from all 6 bosses then 600k is out of reach (at least on a normal time benchmark). It's known most of the points are obtained from the final boss and what is important here is doing little damage to the boss itself, to prevent timing out. To get 100k from the final alone is quite possible and I've seen upwards of 90k myself.

As was mentioned by KAI I believe, they are correct in stating the Level 3 laser is more effective in destruction of enemies/objects. The narrower beam penetrates faster possibly since the surface area of contact is smaller making for damage being more concentrated, that's my assumption anyway.

[BIL]

By floating mines, do you mean the flashing orbs that are left behind by the blue-grey enemies? Unless I'm very much mistaken, the only thing that makes them swing back to the right is your own shots.

No, those pink spikey things which float in from the top/bottom of the screen early in st2. The spheres left by the blue/grey guys are indeed moved by your shots.

I never noticed any rank, even when getting to Stage 6 without dying. The game steadily seems to get more aggressive and dying doesn't seem to ease the cause. I'll check it out though.

I'll upload the .inp if you're interested, gimme a sec.

edit: never mind, I over-wrote it with a fuckabout run.

edit 2: actually, if you're used to reaching the last two stages without dying, you probably won't notice any difference... I've generally died at least once in the first four since picking MB up again last month. Maybe it's a low-rank run I should show you, but you can set that up yourself I'm sure.

If you're looking for a 600k run, milking the bosses, all for long periods of time, is the only way you're going to get there.

Oh, I know. I've gotten milking strategies figured out for st1-4's bosses until their timeouts. st5 only has those shitty missiles, but I'll get him too once I figure out the time limit. It's the last boss I need to work on.

As was mentioned by KAI I believe, they are correct in stating the Level 3 laser is more effective in destruction of enemies/objects. The narrower beam penetrates faster possibly since the surface area of contact is smaller making for damage being more concentrated, that's my assumption anyway.

Yeah, that is correct. The power level rises until 3, then declines somewhat while the beam keeps expanding. I noticed this a while ago, but I just don't like playing with a narrower beam. I use the lvl3 beam on stage 5's boss when the rank is up, but I'll be avoiding that situation from now on.

[Klatrymadon]

I think that might be the wrong .inp, chap. Daio & Gishiin give you a severe thrashing in that one.

[BIL]

XD

God damn, never mind. I'm gonna get my seven hours sleep tonight.

Sorry, I thought I'd saved it, but maybe not. It's not necessary, anyway. Anyone used to making it to stage 5/6 without dying can try it out by ditching their extends as they arrive.

edit: I should add, MB is no Garegga / Ibara; I'm just not bothered about misses, since there's apparently zero incentive to stay alive. If it turns out there's some reason to stock lives, I'll be all for it.

[Klatrymadon]

Oh, of course. It's just that the video ends there. As you say, though, it's no biggie.

By the way, is it possible to fast-forward through replay files?

[BIL]

I'd like to know myself - I tried turning throttle off, but I think that desynced the replay and got my ship blown up. I'm pretty new to recording .inps, so I'll have a look around. I tried recording straight to .avi with MAMEPlus, but unfortunately my PC can't handle it (game runs at about 75% speed).

[saucykobold]

By the way, is it possible to fast-forward through replay files?

Yep, I do it all the time. If you're using some version of Mame32, leave "Throttle" checked in the display settings. In-game, F10 will speed things up as fast as your computer can manage. I don't think I've ever seen F10 desync a replay.

[Klatrymadon]

Oooh, you're a chap. Thanks!

[3DOMan]

Where did you get the names of the bosses? I'm going to do another playthrough and see if I can come up with a better score.

[BIL]

By the way, is it possible to fast-forward through replay files?

Yep, I do it all the time. If you're using some version of Mame32, leave "Throttle" checked in the display settings. In-game, F10 will speed things up as fast as your computer can manage. I don't think I've ever seen F10 desync a replay.

Excellent, this works! Thanks, makes it a lot easier to review the later stages. I must've been watching a run where I died anyway, it's staying in sync now.

[3DOMan]

Ahahaha. I basically doubled my score the second time playing.

69810, normal, Stage 2, 3 starting lives. I didn't even play that well really, and my score was doubled. Crazy.

[3DOMan]

Another question...how do you get this ending???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikD2APRw ... re=related

[BIL]

Get a game over on stage 6.

[Klatrymadon]

I've always liked that ending, but I thought the idea in MB was that you'd snuck away without the support of the military or the government (who'd capitulated to the aliens years ago), so surely if you died and they knew about it, they'd be like "Deepest apologies, your many-tentacledness. That ungrateful, insubordinate cretin definitely was not one of ours. We do hope you can find it in your kind and gracious heart not to reduce our few remaining cities to rubble."

[BIL]

I guess Mr. Protagonist's tearing up so much of the aliens' territory singlehandedly reduced the military's estimation of them (hence that coup it mentions). This probably happens a lot when shooter protagonists do a "close but no cigar, chum!"

Doesn't the soundtrack elaborate on it somehow (I seem to recall "IT'S A TRAP" being the gist of things).

Got milking Amazo, the Titanic Lance knockoff with a name bringing to mind a continental European porn star, down to a reliable process. I'm getting to the last stage with about 444xxx now, provided the bonus rounds don't suck too badly, so I'm about ready to cash in my chips with MB and go for an ALL. I love this game, but geeze, did it get the bonus stage vs main game point distribution ass-backwards. Gonna get that ST posted, so hopefully it won't be written off as broken so frequently any more.

[Klatrymadon]

It wouldn't be such a bad system if you could actually get good at the bonus levels, but the only strategy that enjoys a modicum of success is "stay around the middle, and hope the camera doesn't veer to the right at 100mph".

Edit: are Daio & Gishiin really that milkable, by the way? Are the balls of scrap metal worth quite a bit?

[BIL]

The scrap balls are 1k a pop, which add a fair bit to the final score if you go through them quickly enough. Killing them with the main gun is laborious; I get the gun to level 3, kill the ball with a beam -> repeat. Level 3's beam allows you to time it so as soon as the ball is reformed, it'll get blown away (fire just before it's vulnerable).

Then all you have to watch out for are the intermittent bursts of destructible bullets from Daio (I'm guessing that's the bug?), which can be easily guarded against by shooting.

Amazo is a pretty big value as well, once you master navigating around it. A straight beam helps a lot on the third, fourth and fifth laps; if you put the ship adjacent to Amazo and fire a level 4 beam, you're largely invincible and will kill most emerging enemies instantly. There are a ton of hazards in this process, needless to say... mostly when you're dealing with two missile-firing eels and a screenfull of destructible bullets, at the "brain" end. I'm just about comfortable with it. One trick I've found is to not collect any excess newalone; it'll hang around for you to grab once you've used a beam. It'll be easier to explain via .inp!

Since life stock is effectively worthless, it's okay to drop a few lives chasing kills there, as long as you can still make it to the ALL.

[Klatrymadon]

Ace, cheers! I do usually destroy about five of the balls of scrap, but I bet you can squeeze in quite a few more. As for Amazo, aye, I'm getting more confident with him, too. There are a few things in the tougher laps that can throw me, but I'll have 'em nailed soon.