shmups.system11.org

ACKNOLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to BER and Rob, who both are Giga Wing experts and provided me with useful material and insightful discussions.

INDEX OF CONTENTS

0.0 THE WAR OF THE MEDALLION
0.1 SOME NOTES ON THE PORT
1.0 BASIC MECHANICS
1.1 SHOT
1.2 BOMB
1.3 REFLECT FORCE
1.4 THE PLANES
1.4.1 SINNOSUKE AND THE RAIJIN
1.4.2 RUBY AND THE CARMINE
1.4.3 ISHA AND THE PORCHKA
1.4.4 STUCK AND THE WIDERSTAND
1.4.5 A FEW NOTES ON STRANGER
2.0 ADVANCED MECHANICS
2.1 THE SCORE SYSTEM AND THE MULTIPLIER:MAXING OUT
2.2 EOS
2.3 RANK AND DIFFICULTY
2.4 WHAT TO DO AND WHEN: SOME NOTES ON LEVEL DESIGN
2.4.1 STAGE 1
2.4.2 STAGE 2
2.4.3 STAGE 3
2.4.4 STAGE 4
2.4.5 STAGE 5
2.4.6 STAGE 6
2.4.7 STAGE 7
3.0 TIPS, TRICKS AND ODDITIES

0.0 THE WAR OF THE MEDALLION

Giga Wing is about a steampunk future in which humankind is afflicted by global wars instigated by a mysterious medallion, which is apparently the messenger of the gods.A group of pilots, bent on destroying the said arrogant omnipotent artifact, is the only hope for humankind to gain again peace.Kao Tome's work creates thus a nice (and New Age-ish) atmosphere for this peculiar title: the first game that can be labelled in the "New Minimalism" era (shmups which are simple but not simplistic in their basic mechanics), it is the first title which features the ability to use enemy's fire against them, and for scoring purposes. The game is also part of a series of three shmups produced by Takumi (ex-Toaplan programmers, please read here ).for Capcom, namely Giga Wing 2 and Mars Matrix. The original game runs on CPS-2 hardware, which was mainly used for fighting games, and then saw a number of shmups and other games in its final years of life-span.It has a Dreamcast port, which is one of the few shmups that received all three localizations ( Pal, NTSC-U and NTSC-J).How does it compare to the original version?

0.1 SOME NOTES ON THE PORT

The Dreamcast port has a few extras, like a gallery and score attack, rearranged music, a few changes in enemy placement (less snipers, more or less:we're speaking of a tank or two per level put in a different place,so it's really trascurable), and basically no slowdown at all.This is not a small aspect, as the CPS-2 version, in a few spots, slows down consistently, due to hardware limitations and to make the bullet patterns navigable. The Dreamcast version lacks this slowdown, as the basic hardware is more powerful: however, the bullets still go at a slower speed, as the programmers optimized the speed to make the incriminated sections still navigable.
Finally, there's the stranger (the true baddie behins all the wars) as a selectable plane, which is also quite more powerful than the other planes (and bad for scoring). Ah, one thing, the japanese version (both arcade and DC) has voice acting, removed in the other versions.As i said, Music has been remixed and the drawings are somewhat more detailed, especially in the cut-scenes.Now, let's how the game plays.

1.0 BASIC MECHANICS

I will cover the basic mechanics of the game in this section: namely, the main shot, the bomb and the reflect force.

1.1 SHOT

The main shot is mapped onto button A and has two purposes: shooting (tap the button) and triggering the reflect force (hold down the button with a full energy bar). With A, you need to tap in order to speed up the shooting rate and create an auto-fire effect: on the Dreamcast version, you can map a button for autofire, it will not trigger the reflect force if held down and will be overrired by the main button (i.e. if you hold down autofire and the normal fire, you will keep shooting and trigger the reflect force).You will need three "P" icons to be fully powered-up, then they will be worth a bonus to your multiplier (+10, +50 on stages 5 and 6, +250 on stage 7).

1.2 BOMB

The classic Smart bomb, it damages all hit enemies (but bombs work in a different way one from the other, see planes section) and cancel all bullets.Extra bombs, of course, are obtained by picking up the "B" icon. One good thing, typical of Takumi shmups, is that the bomb is instantaneous in activation, so you won't curse too much for a useless panic bombing.Time to cover the reflect force, now.

1.3 REFLECT FORCE

The reflect force is a new idea in shmups, speaking from a 1999 (February) point of view.It works in this way: you hold down the shot button and the bar in the lower corner of your side (left,1P;right,2P),once filled (and not before) will cause for the reflect force, a sort of shield, to be activated and reflect back all bullets touched.The reflect force will make you invicincible because it will reflect the bullets back to enemies as streams of energy (and you're also invincible to collisions).These bullets will turn into medals, and those medals, once collected, will increase your multiplier (upper corner of the screen, below score and lives). How this mechanic works?

Every reflected medal is worth +1 multiplier points (from now on: MPs), and their value also increases per medal collected.In short, if you pick 3 medals, the first will give you 1 point and be worth +1, the second is +2 and give you to points, the third +3 and give you 3 points.This means that you basically can find out the added value by having the sum of collected medals:

n(n+1)/2

With n being the value of collected medals. 100 medals, for instance, will give you 100*101/2=5050 MPs. Aerial planes will also give you medals, usually worth more (+5,+10,+200 even!), which will work in the same way.This means that getting a +10 medal after those three will give you 1+2+3+10=16 MPs, and also a value of +13. I will return on this in section 2.1, of course.Let's see the planes, at this point.

1.4 THE PLANES

The game has four planes and, in the Dreamcast version only, the Stranger (the baddie) as a special plane, activated by 1-CCing the game (or inserting a cheat code). Alternate colours can be chosen by pressing X+A or B, on the dreamcast, or start and bomb on the arcade version.Bomb/a gives a darker shade, Start/B a lighter one.Their hitbox is circular and roughly located on the cockpits and,unlike later Takumi titles, collisions will be fatal.The four basic planes are:

1-4.1 SINNOSUKE AND THE RAIJIN

Your standard wide-shot plane with a purple default colour, its pilot is Sinnosuke, the typical japanese samurai-like warrior bent on fullfilling his duty.Its bomb is an electric discharge, with screen-based damage (weakest bomb for this reason).It is also the second slowest ship, and the worst scorer.The Stage order is Airport-Train-Vulcano base.

1.4.2 RUBY AND THE CARMINE

Your standard full frontal plane with an orange default colour, it is the fastest plane and its pilot is Ruby, a bizarre multi-billionare lady who fights for the future of her adopted children.Its bomb is a central fire stream with sweeping fire gusts, which deal less damage (the second most powerful bomb, though). It is also the second best scorer.Stage order is Airport-Train-Vulcano base.

1.4.3 ISHA AND THE PORCHKA

Central shot and homing missiles for this plane, blue default colour, the slowest of the bunch and piloted by Isha, a nun (!!!) of the Marie Therese order of poverty's nuns.She fights to end the war, and has a snow-storm as a bomb (second weakest, the central stream deals the main damage). The second worst scorer, its Stage order is Vulcano-Train-Airport.

1.4.4 STUCK AND WIDERSTAND

The top scorer, this is a peculiar plane: Main central shot and moving pods which shoot powerful mines, the pods will position themselves in the opposing direction of movement (i.e. if you go up they will go behind the plane). The second in terms of speed, it is also gifted with a powerful bomb, a sort of giant robotic face that creates a black-hole and damages everything on screen.Stuck, its pilot, is a cyborg who fights for the sake of fighting, but he has a secret reason: his pretrified wife has been turned into stone by the medallion.

1.4.5 A FEW NOTES ON STRANGER

Only present in the DC version, it can be obtained by putting a cheat in the gallery section ( ) or by 1-CCing the game.It is the faster and most powerful plane in the game, actually it's too powerful: most of the time you will destroy enemies too early, and thus it's difficult to use for scoring purposes.The bomb is a set of four small medallions shooting laser blasts, also incredibly powerful. Also incredibly fast, its pilot is Sinnosuke.

Once we've covered the basic aspects of the game, let's see the advanced ones.

2.0 ADVANCED MECHANICS.

I will cover, in this section, the scoring mechanics and the guides to levels, focused mainly on Widerstand.One important aspect of the game is maxing out the multiplier before the sixth stage:this because the time bonus on bosses can be pretty consistent, if bosses are taken down quickly.Since the bosses are also the best source for medals, a compromise must be made: Early bosses can be milked, but the fifth and the sixth ones must be taken down quickly, and this also implies that the multiplier must be maxed out before these two. Let's see how.

2.1 THE SCORE SYSTEM AND THE MULTIPLIER: MAXING OUT

One key aspect of this game is learning how and when to reflect: aside finding the right spots, it is also necessary to maximize the amount of reflected bullets.This basically means that you have to know how many bullet streams you can reflect back: for instance, the blue kyte-like planes on Airport stage will shoot four streams of bullets: reflecting more than four of them will be more or less useless, as often there won't be enough enemies to reflect them against.Also, it is important to close-in (i.e. approach the enemy) once reflecting huge streams of bullets, so the first row will be "accelerated" and hit the enemy at the same time as the first, and it will be easier to collect all medals. This is not always valid, as in some cases you will use terrestrial enemies to do this. Also, some attacks (especially on bosses) must be point-blanked, as it is the best method.In short, it depends a lot on the specific level section.One important thing is to know the extra medals and to collect the normal medals, as they will give a good boost your overall medal value.

As a general rule, the multiplier should follow this progression: 8M per stages 1-3, then 10M on stage 4, and then 15M on stage 5.Since medals aren't worth any points, maxing out the multiplier is necessary to reach a high value (49.999.990 MPs) when collecting the EOS (End of Stage bonus) at last 3 stages. Else, you won't really collect many points.Since i've mentioned the EOS, let's see how it works.

2.2 EOS

The EOS is probably the most important aspect of score, once the multiplier has maxed out. it works in this way,as clearly pointed out by BER and based on this site:

* Boss break: 1,000 * current multiplier * boss hit percentage * time remaining * stage number. (Notes: First, if your boss hit percentage is 100%, then this bonus is doubled. Second, in stage 7, the time remaining is always 1.)
* Shoot down: 10,000 * current multiplier * stage hit percentage * stage number. (Note: If your stage hit percentage is 100%, then this bonus is doubled.)
* Bomb reserve: 10,000 * current multiplier * number of remaining bombs * stage number.

As you can see, destroying everything on screen and not using bomb are also very important mechanics, but in cases like stage 5, destroying the boss quickly (let's say 60 seconds) will warrant a coefficient of 1,000*60=60,000k points, or 6 times the basic value of bombs and destruction rate.This also implies that completely destroying bosses (all of their sections) is necessary, as it will double a potentially high value. Also,not bombing is a good policy, albeit the usage of bombs will not be really punished heavily, so to speak. This basically means that you can use bombs without fearing to rape your score.Last but not least, a 100% destruction rate is only possible on the sixth and seventh stages, as they are boss fights.

About rank, then...

2.3 RANK AND DIFFICULTY

The game features a simple rank system, which will make bullets faster and reduce point-blank distance (i.e. the distance at which an enemy won't shoot at you because too close).The earlier you die, the lower rank will increase.The default difficulty is 2 on japanese versions and 4 on US/EURO ones, but they play in the same way: so, no necessity to change things.Finally, it's obvious that the different stage order will affect the difficulty of levels: The Airport boss will shoot more bullets, if the Airport stage is the third one, and vice versa regarding the lava stage. Now, a few notes on level design.

2.4 WHAT TO DO AND WHEN: A FEW NOTES ON LEVEL DESIGN

One characteristic of Giga Wing, as opposed to its sequels, is that there are quite more secrets to uncover, and in many sections it's necessary to let enemies live in order to have something to reflect bullets against.Also, in many occasions you will need to take down all enemies save some pop-corn planes, to make things more navigable: it is important to have the right amount of bullets to reflect, not too many, as else most medals will be uncollectable, or just won't hit anything.On bosses, also, it's important to know what can be point-blanked, as it will yield a lot of medals.

At any case, all the proper tecniques will be pointed out in the following sections.One important thing: i will follow Stuck and its stage level order, regarding the stage guide.Also, i will provide a temptative value for the multiplier bonus after every key point, as a general guide.No value of the madals, as i lack a good video, but the multiplier value should do.

2.4.1 STAGE 1

1.General rule for secrets: destroy all purple turrets at the very last moment, a +20 medal will appear from the top part of the screen. Reflect as you like on the part before the stranger, you can reflect the turrets' pattern as long as you don't destroy them. (30k).
2.Be ready with a shield on the stranger, start reflecting from a short distance and then point-blank, refill and repeat (500k).
3. Repeat the turrets' tecnique and destroy everything in sight, there is about a minute of nothing worthy until the first tank. On the first tank, let it shoot a bit and close in from right to left, so its remaining bullets will go against the green planes.You should be at 700k before the tank, 1M after.
4.Prepare a shield for the left tank (1,2M) then another shield for the right tank (1,4M) and refill for the twin tanks (1,7M).Reflect random stuff (and on the last tank)and stay centered on the final two bullet spammers (up to 2,3M).

- BOSS -

1.Surprising to say, but reflect every time you can, by doing the close-in tecnique.At roughly 50 seconds left, you should trigger the second form and have about 4,5M.
2.Reflect the spam attacks (one of the four, 4,8M) and be ready for the spiralling attack: stay low and centered on the submarine when dodging, so you can see the holes in the pattern.Point-blank without shooting when you can, you should be able to do two boosts and arrive at 6,1M.
3. Reflect the aimed streams and shoot the fire-balls to make them spread more (easier to dodge) and arrive at 6,6M, then on the last attack you can reflect twice and get at 7,6M, in two reflections.Be careful to hit th submarine body with the reflected material!

2.4.2 STAGE 2

1.A few secrets: at the beginning, let the moving train appear entirely on screen for more medals.Then, stay low on the height of the "credit" entry and shoot, you will get all medals from the planes.(7,8M)
2. The train is tricky: destroy the left train (all of its vagons) as quickly as you can, if you stay low the train will also try to stay low.Reflect bullets from the right one on the left one, so it will go down faster. Then, stay on the lower left so the right train will start shooting at you:Reflect the bullets from the cannon wagons (they will shoot double streams of needle-like bullets), and point-blank the locomotive when it will become orange and shoot the spread-like attack(9M).
3.Stay high and in front of one disc-like enemy, collecting the +10 medals, and reflect everything from this position.The main advantage behind this approach is that most of reflected medals will be obtained by using the point-blank effect.Don't worry about destroy the lateral turrets(9,7M).
4.Quickly destroy the central tower in the building, so the radar on the left will start shooting medals instead of stars.Then, reflect and point-blank disc-like enemy formations.Reflect on the planes from the left to be invincible, then stay on the right column of planes to collect most of the medals.(11,5M).

- BOSS -

1.Tricky boss: this giant flying Pancake is about reflecting the lateral streams or point-blanking the medallion once the first layer is destroyed.For the first phase, just reflect the said lateral streams until the layer is destroyed (at roughly 23 seconds, and at about 13M).
2. Once the medallion is revealed, point-blank twice the spread attack, and dodge the rest.This should net you at 15M.

2.4.3 STAGE 3

1.Destroy all the planes and, once you enter the hangar, stay on the right: the kite-plane will shoot two streams, reflect once they're out and close in once the second couple of streams appears. (15,3M)
2.Stay on the lower left corner and close in when the kite-plane has two streams on screen.Repeat this operation twice on the next kite-planes, on the third one, let it survive until it is over the big red tank and reflect (17M).
3.Stay on the lower right part, reflect on the right-centre kite-plane and then on the left one, then move up on the control tower on the left and destroy it , so you'll get 8 +20 medals. Reflect again and be ready for the big kite-plane (18M)
4-Point-blank it once, then wait for the kite-plane on the left and destroy it with a reflection, ending said reflection on the big kite-plane.Go then on the right lower corner and repeat the reflection by having the second stream from the lower kite-plane appear.(20M)

- BOSS -

1.Destroy quickly the wings, and the wings only.
2.Reflect as soon as you can, as basically all attacks are worthy.One thing, don't shoot as you will need to damage the body of the plane with reflected bullets only. (25M)

2.4.4 STAGE 4

1.Same discourse on the kite-plane, then stay on the lower corner of the right for the helicopters, reflect.On the stranger,wait a second and then reflect the first attack (so you will reflect the blue three-way attacks), then stay in front of him, above the space covered by the bullet-spam. Reflect again the second attack as soon as it starts, point-blanking, and you will have a third possibility for reflection (26M).
2.From this moment on, reflect on the kite-planes by point-blanking them, and destroying tanks when you're refilling. You should be able to always take them down with a reflection, the last thing you need is for them to stay on screen after a reflection.The order is: one on the right-one on the left-two on the centre-destroy immediately the tower on the right for medals-one on the centre.27M
3.Point-blank the tank twice for medals, then destroy the purple orbs and after those the red orb (on the right), to receive giant spheres which, once destroyed, will release +200 giant medals.(28M)
4.Destroy the two pillars beside the door on the background, so it will open and release a fountain of medals.take those and reflect for defense, then quickly sweep the screen of enemies (30M).

- BOSS -

1. As a general rule, stay high and on one side on this boss, and destroy its hands and cannons as soon as you can.Since the attacks can be somewhat random, it's important to know that the most rewarding attacks are the blue streams and the pink spreads.One good thing about hiding in the upper corners is that most of this patterns will not be aimed, and thus appear below your position.Reflect on the shoulders, at any case.(35M)

STAGE 5

1.Stay high and destroy all planes, which are the key enemy of the level.Destroy the two tanks on the centre and then reflect on small turret on the left.Then, wait for the spamming tank and reflect its bullets on the column of tanks. Reflect again against the two tanks at the centre, then go the right and wait to be able to reflect the tanks' attacks against the planes.Most of the time, you will need to reflect some meaty attack against these planes' formations.(37M)
2.Stay on the right, and use the small tanks popping from the pyramid to reflect back the bullets (wait for two tanks to be on screen).After this part, Destroy everything and wait for the barge (the giant egg-shaped enemy) from the left, reflect once the planes dive in and destroy incoming barges.From this point on, destroy all barges when refilling the shield, then stay on the rows of tanks from pyramids when reflecting.Be careful, you need to always destroy enemies when without a shield! (40M).
3.Again the stranger:Reflect at the second passage of the first attack, staying on its right side to make the final part of the pattern dodgeable.Wait for it to close in with blue bullets and reflect, then point-blank the last two attacks.Don't shoot during the battle (44M).
4.Final part: destroy the scisssors-like enemies by reflecting once the planes dive in, the destroy the tanks and reflect once the second barge is in, blowing up all other barges while refilling. Repeat this operation twice, and this worst is over (47M), so you can safely destroy the last formations of planes.

- BOSS -

1.Don't worry to max-out immediately: point-blank its left wing when it shoots a meaty pattern, and do the same on the right wing.Be careful to destroy all of its parts quickly.
2.Once the main body is the last part, overlap your ship on the medallion section on its attacks.All of them are easy to dodge, in case, if you stay low, as you an easily see the holes in the patterns.Wait a bit and then reflect in the said way when getting the red flashing pattern.Be quick! A good kill is at about 60 seconds. (49,9M).

2.4.6 STAGE 6

1. This giant plane is easily destroyed by reflecting its meatier attacks.On the first form, reflect the main blue stream and stay on one side when refilling. When it closes in, do the same and hoarde the aimed stream in the corners, movements must be tight but they're not difficult to do.Don't be shy, reflect a lot as you will damage more the boss (Take down this form at 219 seconds:also, ignore medals from now on, they're worthless).
2.When it stretches its arms, destroy the core nodes and not the external sections, you will get the same result.Reflect for protection and to point-blank.Trigger the third form with tentacles at 170 seconds.
3.Point-blank and reflect as soon as it starts shooting, so you'll trigger the second attack, the spiral.This attack has a safe spot at its centre, but the boss also shoots a pink bullet.Point blank it when reflecting and do left-right dodges to avoid said pink bullet.Take down this form at 160 seconds.
4.The final tricky part. Reflect the huge pink attack by point-blanking it, then be ready for the tricky spamming attack.This attack must be reflected twice by point-blank (very beginning and as soon as the shield is up again), and while refilling, you should slowly tap to be in front of the boss.Failing that, bomb if you get cornered, but don't do abrupt movements, they will create lethal spam. After that attack, point blank the small needles attack, it should explode at 130 seconds.

2.4.7 STAGE 7

You can access this stage only if you arrive here with one credit.
1.Quickly destroy the medallion, by point-blanking its green spiralling attack.
2.Stay on one side, there's a safe spot on its wide and fast shots.Point-blank the bullet spam.
3.Nasty attack: tap left and right while it zaps, don't do abrupt movements and reflect its green and fast aimed shots.Always stay at the bottom while it zaps.
4.Final pattern: try to stay in front of it, reflect when it's at about half of the screen by point-blanking, then slowly tap among the bullet-spam, it's a matter of precision. In case, well, bomb, it should go down after four point-blanks.

3.0 TIPS, TRICKS AND ODDITIES

One important thing about the game is learning to quickly maximize the multiplier: at any case, both fifth and sixth bosses are more rewarding if taken down quickly, than milked for multiplier.
Aside knowing well the stages, bosses are the best source for MPs, as it can be figured out by the multiplier progression proposed.
This is the first shmup title after Kyukyoku Tiger II, and the first with Capcom.After the said three titles, Takumi returned to be published from Taito, shmups-wise.
This is also the first game that started the "exploit the bullets" (Or New Minimalism) era, 4 months before Guwange and 6 before Psyvariar.
You can get an extra life if you're down to 0, by destroying the orbs on stage 4 in the right order.It will appear in place of the red orb.
Yes, Isha is a nun, and her secret final (i.e. if you can reach the seventh stage) proves that aimed violence can work!
Makoto is Sinnosuke's girlfriend, and a reference to Street Fighter III: Third Strike, but no, Makoto is not his girlfriend, just an obliquous reference.
Like in the other two titles of the series, most of the score (75%+) comes from the last three stages.
Takumi did a second chapter with Capcom in late 2000, and then a third chapter with Taito in October 2004.

Have fun with this excellent title!

(deleted for redundancy)

It's in section 1.4

Two small things:

1) Maybe it'd be worth noting that, though collisions with other craft kill you, as you said, that (IIRC) using the reflect force makes you invincible to both bullets and collisions.

2) Has it ever been figured out exactly how to activate the 1-Up on stage 4?

Edited the passage on the reflect force for great justice

The 1p only appears if you've lost 2 lives, from what i've seen so far, i think it's just a question of balance (i.e. giving you one more chance if you've died twice and you do that trick).

Heh, seems that Takumi has borrowed some of Raizing and Cave's sadistic tendencies towards their players... "Aww, do you really suck THAT much? I thought you were just kidding back there! Well, all right, don't cry now, here you go..."

Randorama, could you please run the first post through a spelling and grammar checker? Lotta missing spaces in there, etc., making it more difficult to read.


Some of your information is incorrect. All of the following is based on the CPS2 US 990222 version of Giga Wing (dunno if any of this was changed for the Dreamcast):

Plane Speed:
Carmine > Widerstand > Porchka > Raijin
Isha's Porchka & Shinnosuke's Raijin are probably the most closely matched in speed, but the Porchka is somewhat faster.


I don't know for certain whether the stage order is always the same for any given character, but if it is, then these are the correct stage orders:

Shinnosuke:
nighttime airbase -> lava -> train/lake

Ruby:
nighttime airbase -> train/lake -> lava

Isha:
lava -> nighttime airbase -> train/lake

Shutock:
lava -> train/lake -> nighttime airbase


Not a correction, but something maybe worth noting:
The game won't let both players use a bomb at the same time, so you don't have to worry about accidentally wasting any screen clears in 2-player mode.
(And if you're playing on an emulator, alone but controlling both planes, you may want to map both planes' bombs to the same button. P1's bombs will be used first, then P2's if P1 is out of stock. Less to think about and keep track of that way.)

Thanks, I'll edit ASAP.

Quick question about rank control.

Based on what Randorama said in the first post, I take it dying right at the start of the game will keep the rank lower over the span of the entire game? Or does that only matter for the stage I'm dying on? Or it doesn't matter at all?

Answer appreciated.

Moozooh: The former, you die in the beginning at the game to keep rank lower throughout the rest of the game. However, if you collect the stage 4 1-up, your rank shoots back up.

What is point-blank?
Cool!

Would that be suggestable for score though? Or would bullet numbers be too reduced to allow major medal pickup?

Considering Clover-YMN's gets nearly 260 trillion points in his playthrough, I think you'll be ok

lower rank has some advantages for multiplier

Fewer bullets = easier to collect medals.

You get less medals to appear from reflecting, but w/e

It depends on the score one wants to obtain. Dying in the beginning of the game may be fine for getting a nearly 260-trillion-point score as Clover-YMN did. But for beating the Widerstand score record (which is over 290 trillion) in Arcadia magazine, I wouldn't do it, since the current record holder, EXCHANGER, considers it disadvantageous. And I imagine that not dying intentionally is how he earned that record score. Here's the testimonial:

http://forums.marpirc.net/viewtopic.php?p=29999#29999

BER: I think if you saw this is for a tournament that ends in about 28 hours, you would realize no one is even trying to achieve 200 trillion

Does anyone know if there's some advantage to using the P2 side? The top 3 replays I've seen all use P2 (HDK 217T Ruby, YMN 259T Stuck, and the new 270T Ruby), so it seems like there's something there.

According to TANINI's Giga Wing guide, it's because some enemies are weaker on the 2P side. I don't know why this is a benefit, though. Here's the guide:

http://www.bellcity.ne.jp/~wild7/game/g ... giga0.html

. . .

As a side note, you'll also notice in the guide that on the 2P side, all of the boss's bullet patterns become easier once you lose a life. But the top players, including the Arcadia record holder EXCHANGER, consider it a disadvantage as mentioned here:

http://forums.marpirc.net/viewtopic.php?p=29999#p29999

If you see a replay in which the player loses a life right away, it's probably an old video.

I just noticed some more slight differences in the Dreamcast version and thought I´d post them here.

- A "P" icon when already fully powered up adds +10 to your medal count (+50 in the Arcade version). That was in stage 2, don´t know about the following ones.
- Some enemies which take a second between their last hit and dying (e.g. the big planes on Air Carrier and Stage 4 or the midboss in Stage 4 or 5) still seem to give you medals for more reflected shots in the "dying animation". I didn´t have the impression that they did this in the Arcade version. There they just seemed to absorb the shots and not giving any more medals shortly before dying.
- The stage 3 boss (which is the the Pancake for me) shot some different patterns (was definitely not because of rank!). More difficult, yet not really bad. The other bosses seemed just like normal.
- More sniping shots, especially noticeble on stage 4.

Did anyone notice the stranger's data is still present within the Arcade version? You can use some emulator cheats to get it I think. I prefer Carmine though.

Yeah, I know, rather useless information. c_c

I wonder what pilot and fighter is the best choice for beginners.

Carmine does lots of damage both in shot and bomb, but she moves extremely fast, so you might have trouble getting through tight bullets, not to mention her shot is relatively narrow. Normally, character with homing shots would make for a good beginner choice, and Isha's not bad, but her homing missiles appear to be a bit underpowered honestly, not to mention they're rather slow. Sinnosuke feels a bit on the weak side in both his shot and bomb.

Stuck/the Widerstand is a solid choice (I might be biased, since he's the one I learned to use). He's currently got the WR in terms of scoring (I think it might have to do with his and Isha's first stage having a huge multiplier potential, especially if you milk the boss), and he's extremely strong as well as having a spread attack instead of Carmine's narrow shot. His bomb is quite powerful, and his shots do plenty of damage, especially if you get up close and shotgun or move on top of enemies during a Reflect as you can easily get his main gun and both sets of cannonballs hitting a boss. The cannonballs travel pretty far before exploding on their own, so it's pretty easy to hit bosses with them even at the bottom of the screen. His options can also be repositioned when he's not firing.

Worse comes to worse try each one out. Be warned though that you'll probably want to pick one and stick with it as it can be hard swapping characters and getting used to the different/tougher boss attacks depending on the order of each character's first 3 stages.

Any development on the above discussion? Have made a start on Gigawing and am using the default character. Any advice re character selection for low skilled (I can make mid boss of l.4 on Futari 1.5 original on 1credit) players starting out and thinking about a survival run?

(I am enjoying the scoring though)

Have watched some playthroughs and it looks like this one is manageable to lower skilled players if you can use good use of the reflect as there doesn't seem to be as many hi-skill dodges used?

Giga Wing was my first exposure to bullet hell, made it to Stage 6 on just reflect/bomb alone (with a fair bit of practice to work out optimal timing for reflect). The entire of Stage 6 (one big boss really) and the TLB require a lot more skill on top. I've only cleared the game with the hidden Stranger plane, it has pretty insane damage output.

I found Ruby or Isha easiest to start with - Isha is slow enough for dodging and the homing missiles helpful for thinning out enemy ranks (not so helpful for scoring as you'll drop medals), so might be the better bet. Stuck's options can take a bit of getting used to but are powerful, might be worth sticking with it - first 4 stages, excluding bosses, are managable with well timed reflects so there's plenty of room for experimentation.

Sinnosuke's wide shot ends up being too weak overall to be of much use, and he's slow with it.

After reading through the high score threads here and with some experimentation I have opted for Stuck (green). His level 1 is the lava level and that has the advantage of encountering its boss at the lowest level (it is considered the toughest of the 1st 3 levels).

I like his combination of frontal attack and spread too and his movement speed is manageable. Ruby seems to be the favourite in the high score threads and I can see why but her movement is too hot for me to handle when it comes to pattern weaving.

Isha looks good too with the homing missiles (and stage 1 lava level) but for now I'm going to persevere with Stuck. I'm getting to mid way through stage 2 on 1 credit and making slow but steady progress (which I am used to - as I've got older my skills have only got worse!) I can only manage 30-60mins a day with my lifestyle - which is why STGs are a perfect fit for me.

The lava level (1 with Stuck) generates more planes to shoot if you dispose of the stranger ship quickly. If you can dispose of him using two reflect shields it seems to do the trick.

There's a large medal generated occasionally from the large structure on the left just after the two large tanks that appear at the same time in the latter half of the level. Haven't figured out what's causing that. (edit: guessing it's the note in the guide about shooting purple cannons first).

Since I've been playing the game a lot lately without using Reflect Force (including 1cc'd it a few times), I've become a lot more familiar with some nuanced differences between the characters. Gonna post some info here, hopefully it's of use to someone.

• Sinnosuke piloting the Raijin: He's a lot better than I gave him credit for when I first started playing. His main disadvantage is he's the slowest, which works against him for reflecting, for medal collecting to score, and in general for survival where extra speed is generally better in Giga Wing. His spread shot's more reliable than Isha's homing missles though, and his main shot is actually very strong despite how it looks (firing in spurts as opposed to a continuous stream). In fact, his main shot is stronger than Stuck's continuous beam when both are at long range and aren't hitting with their gunpods. Stuck's still a much better beginner character though; not only is Stuck much faster and has far better killing power in the stages, Sinnosuke also has a harder stage 1-3 order than Stuck or Isha due to having the lava stage second (which has the hardest boss fight at higher rank due to its speeds when it's stage 2 or stage 3).

• Isha piloting the Porchka: Second slowest character. Her missiles are a bit unreliable at times, and she doesn't benefit much from pointblanking unless you're able to get on top of the enemy with her gunpods (which is usually impractical due to how they're behind her). Her concentrated damage is pretty decent, though technically she's the weakest character in the game under optimal conditions. Without using reflect, the other 3 characters will kill the stage 4 black plane miniboss much faster. Reflecting does massive damage and her offensive issues with the homing missiles are covered thanks to the sheer multidirectional damage and versatility offers. A bit unusual in that she's a slower than average straight shot type that happens to have homing missles, but a solid character. She is roughly tied with Stuck for having the easiest stage order, as both she and Stuck have the lava stage appear first.

• Stuck piloting the Widerstand: A good deal faster than Sinnosuke or Isha, with a powerful piercing wideshot that fires explosive cannonballs. Stuck's main gun alone is weaker than Sinnosuke's, but you easily get pointblank damage opportunities any time you reflect, and his ability to rip through multisegmented bosses with his cannonball gunpods makes him the best boss killer of the game for all bosses except for the last section of stage 6, and the true last boss in stage 7, where Ruby is the damage queen. His cannonballs look short ranged but they travel up so far that Stuck actually hits many enemies with them even at the bottom of the screen, and damage only goes up as he gets closer where they can fire faster. He's a fantastic beginner character as well as a high scoring character as his stage order is both the easiest, as well as the optimal one for scoring if I'm not mistaken (the lava stage is the best scoring stage of the first 3 where you can get a huge multiplier early on).

Note that Stuck's gunpods move around when not tapping or holding the shot button. It can be helpful in some spots for boss milking to move up and position the gunpods behind him, but generally speaking for raw damage you always want them facing directly in front of you as forward as possible.

• Ruby piloting the Carmine: The high speed straight shot character of the game. Her speed makes her slightly tricky to control for beginners but it plays to the reflect mechanic's strengths, as well as maker her a great scoring character for medal collection. Damage output is also exceptional regardless of how far away she is from the enemy, and reflect gives her the ability to hit enemies that aren't directly in front of her when need be, so she's way more powerful than your average straight shot character in a shmup. Her center line of bullets accounts for most of the damage, so it's important to hit with those when damaging enemies and not just one of the outer fire waves, but her raw focused damage makes her optimal for taking down smaller targets such as when the medallion is exposed on bosses.

Ruby's benefits are offset by the fact that she has the hardest stage order out of any character. Her lava stage shows up as stage 3, both the black plane as well as the stage boss are significantly harder than any of the possible stage 3 bosses. The black plane's second attack is extremely difficult to deal with without reflecting or bombing, and the boat/submarine thing fires incredibly fast when it's the stage 3 boss, being far more difficult than even the stage 4 boss is in my opinion due to the bullet speeds. A fantastic character, but beginners will have to be prepared for a fairly difficult stage 3 if they play her.

• Bombs are all pretty comparable in damage. They may have slightly different damage values, and some do more damage based on positioning such as Sinnosuke's which does slightly more at close range than at full-screen away from the enemy, but for the most part all the bombs are pretty close damage-wise and do roughly the same damage as if the character were pointblanking with their main shot for the same amount of time. None of the bombs have any major advantage worth using a character specifically for the sake of the bomb.

Stuck's is the oddball bomb. It does fullscreen damage boosted based on your position which determines where the swords appear, but it also sucks in non-boss flying enemies into the center of the screen as it damages them, where it then inflicts an instant kill if they touch the gateway at the center of the screen. Note that it can reposition enemies and leave them there if it starts to suck them but leaves them alive as the bomb end. Also, it's a bit dangerous to use in 2 player mode as the second player is NOT invulnerable when the first player bombs (or vice versa) and planes dragged towards the middle can collide with the non-Stuck player.

• I haven't played the Dreamcast version much yet so I can't personally speak to any changes or how its difficulty compares, but I've played both the US and JP version of Giga Wing extensively and as far as I can tell there is no difference between them in terms of difficulty. The CPS-2 hardware appears to have a quirk in the bios where Japan region games have their difficulty set to 4 whereas US region games have their difficulty set to 2, but unlike a game like ProGear where the difficulty slider has a significant impact on the bullet speeds (which I discovered when I tried this in Fightcade and discovered it unusually has the default difficulty MAXED OUT for some reason instead of set to the true default), the difficulty slider appears to do absolutely nothing in Giga Wing. I've played it cranked up to 8 (again, Fightcade for some reason defaults to maxed out difficulty) and noticed absolutely no changes in bullet patterns, speeds, or density. If there are any difficulty differences between the two regions they appear to be trivial.

• Apparently 2P side does slightly more damage than when playing on 1P side. I haven't tried the 2P side enough to confirm this myself, and when I've used 2P instead of 1P the damage seems pretty comparable. May just have been a rumor, will have to confirm for sure at some point, but note that 1P side is perfectly capable of getting some aggressive speedkills on bosses and doesn't feel underpowered at all. As far as I can tell, the planes have identical movement speeds regardless if you're playing 1P or 2P side.

Each plane has 3 selectable colours in the arcade version depending on what button is used to select the character (possibly 4 in the Dreamcast version):

Isha: Shot - Blue (default), Start - Dark Blue/Purple, Bomb - Teal Blue
Ruby: Shot - Red (default), Start - Slightly darker shade of red, Bomb - Yellow
Sinnosuke: Shot - Pink (default), Start - pale/Mountbatten pink, Bomb - Dark Purple
Stuck: Shot - Green (default), Start - Yellow green, Bomb - Teal green

This could right as well be a long-standing rumor indeed.

But if it's not a difference in damage, the question becomes: What is the difference then?

I keep meaning to check this more thoroughly - I have a good idea of expected boss kill times on stuff that you can pretty much stay up close and personal for an extended period of time on without reflecting. Without health bars it's obviously harder to tell, but the stage 4 midboss and the stage 4 boss are both ideal for straight up damage comparisons so I'll play around with 2P side and see if I notice anything. Someone with more experience reading game memory could probably figure out the raw per-hit damage values for each character or the health value of a boss and work it out that way.

It's entirely possible there IS a difference be it intentional or not, but it could be subtle enough that I have trouble noticing it even when I'm looking for it, or I've just not played 2P side enough to realize I've been missing out on extra damage?

Tested with savestates on the JP version of Giga Wing, default settings, on the Stage 4 appearance of The Stranger (the black plane). Without reflecting and just firing away so no shots miss, Ruby 2P kills it while it's at the middle of the screen as it moves slowly left, 1P Ruby kills it just as it touches the left side of the screen to start a new attack. Isha 2P also kills about a half second or so faster than 1P. It appears it's confirmed that 2P does more damage, but with the caveat that the damage increase is very, very slight, and doesn't appear to affect reflect damage. I popped in a credit with Stuck on 2P side and I didn't notice particularly fast kill times over 1P side so while there does appear to be a difference in damage on 2P over 1P, it's negligible and 1P for all intents and purposes is just as capable of killing things in a timely fashion.

Plane colour you select doesn't appear to change anything (unlike Armed Police Batrider for instance) but again, it could be there's a difference, just one that's so slight it's hard to notice.

Just tried the Dreamcast version. Up to stage 5 it's pretty accurate and the same strats work well. There seems to be a few adjustments to bullet speeds perhaps in Stage 5 where the green turrets (such as the one that has the Bomb item) are slowed down a bit, and some pyramids have shots sped up? The Stage 6 boss is the major challenge of the game in the Dreamcast version as it had a lot more slowdown in the arcade version.