ST: Mushihimesama Basics, Modes & Scoring

[Rupert H]

Excellent! Thanks guys.

[Skykid]

Both original and maniac will fall with practice Rupe - ultra a lot of practice (I don't have that much time these days.)

When I 1cc'd original, I didn't even know there was rank (the game seemed to play consistently each time so I didn't notice - it just seemed like stage progression.)
I used whichever the centralised shot is (three silver beams - probably the third option?) because in normal you need to match the speed of the bullets. I found that because it was the most powerful, it gives a lot more time to kill and keep moving. I find the wide shots much easier for Maniac because you have slower incoming fire and the sheer volume of bullets mean you don't screen hop as much - so wide shots are more effective for those times when you're confined.

Still, the arcade hardware is far superior to that Mushi port. I'd suggest going to casino and trying your skills - you'll probably find you're a far better player than the PS2 version makes you think.

[Rupert H]

Thanks for the advice dude. I've got it running just about as flawlessly as can be from the PS2 (tate'd 27 inch PVM with 240p patch) and it looks stunning. The erratic slowdown really does throw me though so I may just have to acquaint myself with the PCB in Casino.

[Momijitsuki]

Call me dense, call me whatever, I'm sorry-- but I'm afraid I don't understand what it means when you mention A+ and C+. What does that mean in comparison to simply A or C? I have a feeling that my scoring potential would be a lot better if I was playing right. Before playing this, I was holding C while tapping A (I just didn't understand!), but I guess I want to make sure I understand perfectly before practicing on what I've learned so far.

Thanks for the guide so far, though!

[croikle]

A+ and C+ refer to autofire on A and C buttons, respectively.

[Momijitsuki]

So... A+/C+ means hold the button down? Sorry, I'm really confused here

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out.

Turns out I didn't even have A+ or C+ set to any button at all on the controller (PS2).

Now I don't know which button to use at what time!

[freddiebamboo]

So... A+/C+ means hold the button down? Sorry, I'm really confused here

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out.

Turns out I didn't even have A+ or C+ set to any button at all on the controller (PS2).

Now I don't know which button to use at what time!

These should help:

http://www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.0

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=13177

[Momijitsuki]

These should help:

http://www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.0

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=13177

Okay, I think I'm starting to get it now, thanks!

Though, when not facing a large enemy/midboss/boss, what method of shooting is best to use (basically what I mean is, what's the best way to deal with the popcorn enemies and have the best effect on the counter?)

[freddiebamboo]

For the popcorn and most other enemies you want to be hitting them just before they come on screen, which basically means getting the order that they come out and where you need to be on screen memorized. The closer you are to them will also affect how much your counter is raised, but point blanking is dangerous obviously. The start of stage 3 can give you a good indication of how accurate and quickly you need to position yourself. A good target is reaching the power up with about 2000 on your counter by simply catching everything just before it appears.

Watch this vid by maco here that shows an aggressive approach which gives him 5000 when he reaches the power up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Ruek27WPU

[Momijitsuki]

Okay, so it doesn't matter what way I'm killing them (A or C), as long as I'm killing them?


I decided to give Maniac mode another go to try to apply what I learned here, and I already doubled my top score (which still isn't impressive, seeing that my top score before this was only around a pathetic 25 million, but I think if I practice more, it will click with me better. I also made it to stage 4 and got about halfway through it, which is the farthest I've ever got on one credit (I've only made it to stage 4 once before). I've also finally managed to get the extend at the end of Stage 3, when I used to end up killing the center before trying to skyrocket as much as I could.

I noticed that when I tried to slow-tap A against those larger enemies after the stage 2 boss (the sand worm things), my counter went down. Was I not doing it right, or should I be holding C and tapping A or something?

[freddiebamboo]

Yeah, killing them with either is fine, but you do get a slightly higher counter boost on enemies if you are holding A to focus your options on an enemy. You also get a counter boost for holding A and tapping C, but I only ever used that against the bosses (makes the stage 3 and 4 bosses much easier as you will kill them before their most annoying attacks come out).

If your counter is falling when ever you are doing the slow tap A then you are tapping too slowly and like wise if you aren't seeing the red flash on large enemies you are probably doing it too fast. The problem is that the speed you need to tap varies depending on how far away you are, just takes a bit of practice. In all honesty, I was too lazy to bother slow A outside of the midboss on stage 2, you can sustain your chain from the midboss quite easily by just going through the motions with the normal A or C and stage 2 doesn't score well (at least for me ) compared to the last 3 stages so I saved my tapping stamina for stage 3.

Practicing stage 3 will give you a good knowledge of slow A tapping as there are so many enemies that it can be done on from a variety of distances. IMO going into stage 3 with formation rather than trace will give you a much easier (though possibly lower scoring) time of things as you can abuse the lop sided 2 options on stuff as opposed to trying to arrange those bastard trace options to hit things.

[Momijitsuki]

Ah, that's a good idea. I need to practice against a lot more, especially against the stage 2 midboss (what should my counter be at at the end of the midboss, ideally?), and stage 3. I'll make sure I use Formation instead of Trace coming into stage 3.

[freddiebamboo]

Well if you go into the midboss fight with a counter of say 10,000 to 15,000 you're looking to leave the midboss somewhere between 60,000 and 90,000, although you can get it much higher with perfect execution of the sky rocket and good chaining in the first half. Remember that trace options are slightly more effective than formation for the midboss as it is easier to get all of them to hit at the same time.

You'll find yourself practicing stage 3 a lot unfortunately as it is a significant jump in difficulty and needs a degree of precision to keep certain parts alive to drag your counter through to the end. It's also the the easiest part of the game to score heavily from so it pays to learn the route through it off by heart. You can get a very respectable stage 3 score by simply doing basic chaining through the level and keeping major parts alive long enough to avoid the barren patches of enemies in the level.

IIRC it's also worth noting that when you die during a midboss fight the value of your child counters are kept even though you lose your chain. If you died when they were up high you can resurrect some of your counter by immediately point blanking the midboss while hammering the C button to skyrocket what is left on the child counters. Very useful on stage 4 and 5 if you fuck up at a critical point.

[Momijitsuki]

Ah, good to know, I'll keep that in mind.

Really, I'm not looking to go for a 200mil+ score just yet-- hell, I'm going to be ecstatic when I finally break into nine digits. I also want to 1CC Maniac mode as well, but since that's going to be quite a bit of practice on my part, I might as well practice scoring well on the stages that are relatively easy for me now when I don't try to score well.

As for stage 2, I should try focusing on skyrocketing well (I've got the rhythm down at this point, just not the timing) at the midboss. I think I can manage to keep the counter up until the boss from there.

Oh, right. I read in one of those threads that there's a 1mil bonus if you don't destroy any legs of the boss. How do you do that?

[ncp]

Personally I would suggest getting the clear before trying to score in this game... but that's just me.

[freddiebamboo]

Oh, right. I read in one of those threads that there's a 1mil bonus if you don't destroy any legs of the boss. How do you do that?

Yeah, there is a bonus for every leg (or is it just all? Can't remember) you keep intact on the boss, but it is more important for original mode where getting any kind of extra points on top of your clear bonus is a big deal - actually, I'm not even sure if it gives the bonus in maniac to be honest, I never tried for it. A couple of million or so isn't a biggie in maniac anyway as scores are so much higher in the mode. To do it you just focus your attack on the centre of the boss to avoid destroying the legs when they are out, it's easier on original as you can use S power which has much less chance of accidentally hitting the legs when the boss moves about. Keeping the legs also makes the boss harder as they fire homing shots IIRC.

[chempop]

Been playing this a solid month and have not even delved in to the scoring system, slow tapping, or point blanking...
I've noticed in the options menu something about rapid fire etc, but since I'm playing with a pad and not a stick I don't really know if this means anything.

Do these mechanics also apply to arrange mode (I've mostly been playing this lately, despite having you start off very overpowered..)? I'm getting a joy-stick this week so I'll be able to experiment then.

[Aquas]

I wouldn't mind getting a little insight into Arrange mode scoring, myself. I'm not really transitioning my Maniac route to arrange at all. What's the deal? What should I keep in mind, I guess? I think it might be that I'm so used to that anal-fuck of a Maniac route I did so many times. I probably just need to play more This game just keeps giving, though.

[samu]

How much is the end game bonus per remaining life in this game? Is the only way to get 20M+ to play along with the sorry excuse for a "scoring system" this game has?

[Plasmo]

You get 10mill for every remaining life in Original, Maniac and Ultra. In Arrange mode you get 100mill. That means remaining lives are only important for Original and Arrange and can be completely ignored in Maniac and Ultra.

[samu]

Yep, I noticed that from the super play on super-play.co.uk

Next question: Does anyone know how you can save a rank setting for the practice mode. It would prepare you better if you could practice the stages at their real difficulties.

[unitone]

Does anyone know how you can save a rank setting for the practice mode. It would prepare you better if you could practice the stages at their real difficulties.

I would really like to know the answer to this also. Its pointless to have a practice mode where the bullets only go half the speed that they go in the actual game. Also for some reason the bullets seem to be faster on a default rank setting rather than the no miss setting (which is a little confusing), though still slower then when playing a full run it appears.

[freddiebamboo]

To save a rank setting all you need to do is go into the practice menu and select the rank0# option and then just hit start on stage 1 and play through the game. Once you die the rank01 or whatever slot you saved it on will allow you to start any stage you reached with everything as it was when you arrived at the stage in your original run. Very useful for stages where the default options are not the style you usually take through the stage, and the rank accuracy is useful for original mode practice.

[unitone]

To save a rank setting all you need to do is go into the practice menu and select the rank0# option and then just hit start on stage 1 and play through the game. Once you die the rank01 or whatever slot you saved it on will allow you to start any stage you reached with everything as it was when you arrived at the stage in your original run. Very useful for stages where the default options are not the style you usually take through the stage, and the rank accuracy is useful for original mode practice.

ah thank you that is going to help a lot.

[samu]

Does this really work? The only thing that seems to be affected by this for me is the amount of lives I have. But the fucking bullets are still as slow as normal practice mode is.

Here's what I did:

1. Choose rank setting
2. Pressed triangle on rank 1 to delete it so it was empty
3. Started practice mode from stage 1 top with empty Rank 1 selected
4. Played as far as I could until Game Over, I got to st5
5. Then I chose st5 Top
6. Started practice mode and sure I had four lives like when I played from stage 1, but the bullets are super slow which makes it completely useless for practice

[whoozwah]

I just recently got the game. Love it so far but I don't seem to be getting the rapid fire system. I'd like to know what's the best way to set up my controller for survival play and way rapid fire settings I should use.

I'm going for a clear, not really for score.
I like playing with S-power
I stay at the bottom of the screen if I can help it.
I'll play in either normal or maniac mode but maniac seems to be easier for some reason.

I'll try whatever you suggest as far as settings go.

Thanks

[ncp]

You don't really need to worry about rapid fire if you're playing S-type.

Basically the only rapid setting you need for survival is rapid-shot, setting 2. Hold full-auto and rapid-shot for faster firing shots. The difference is pretty negligible with S-type though, from what I can tell.

[whoozwah]

right on. so I basically just need to stop sucking at getting hit and I'm good.

Thanks.

[chempop]

Why can't I beat Original??? This is getting ridiculous, I think I'm going to finally cave in and set A+3 so many hands don't give out by stage 5.

Maniac was easier for me to 1CC...

[edit]. Well after a few runs getting used to a fourth button as A+ I was able to clear it without much trouble. Kinda felt like I was cheating though, but still, after almost two years of struggling to get the 1CC I'm wondering why I didn't use A+ earlier

[gunni]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V01CmSd5 ... mNUe_6Cijy

Here's a visual explanation of the high level scoring techniques explained in this thread