Hi guys ! Sorry, I’ve been away for a while but I’ve finally decided to answer this discussion after a year of procrastination. I’ve kept following this thread all along, though I had not much to say about advanced scoring tricks against Deadly Crescent, Neon Light Illusion, etc (I'm not there yet), I was also focused on other games and wanted to leave
Gaiden aside for a while. I’ve been playing the game here and there (including on the Saturn version) and there's been some progress : I've recently done a no-miss no-bomb on the Odious Trident route and improved on other sections. I still want to keep pushing this game in the long term, I'm now to a point where I feel I could destroy more boss parts and increase the rank without resorting to bomb.
@ Rastan78
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Whoa, check out this trippy Darius Gaiden superplay that came out in 1995 on laser disc. It's partly gameplay (mostly from a high scoring Great Thing run) and partly a weird live action movie. There's footage here and there inside an arcade showing an OG Gaiden cabinet. Think it's an old Taito Egret 29 cab and there are bunch of the big screen Teatro 50 cabs in the background. WTF the movie is actually about I have no idea!?
(Trigger warning: when they pan down to the player's hands there is a third button equipped on the DG cab. Viewers with extreme sensitivity to auto cheat abuse may want to fast forward through this part.)

Doesn’t seem like the panels were working, what you see on-screen doesn’t correspond to the players’s imputs as you can see them mash the autofire button and bomb (at 25:47), yet the autofire was showned working fine and no bomb is heard. My conclusion is that they were watching somebody else play, and that he/she was using an autofire circuit. The players are seen mashing, so definetely no auto cheating there

. Goes to show mashing was considered natural for some (unlike
Gaiden many games didn't have autofires included by default). Interesting movie, did not understand much but it was trippy

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Also if you can't no miss/no bomb the route then work on that first and save your bombs. Finally, if you're playing on Saturn the sprite limit works differently making scoring on this section trivial and scores on the lower route not comparable to the arcade. This strategy applies to the AC/Switch/PS4 version 30hz autofire ON
I can confirm that the sprite limit is much higher on the Saturn version, you don’t have to worry much about timing out your bombing right in zone J:
https://youtu.be/sX3BuO18w-Q?t=540I've also noticed that a big walker coming from behind in zone Z may not appear at times, I think this might have to do with the sprite limit, as I've had it not appear on high and low rank.
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I’m still going through and looking at replays and figuring out optimal scores by stage, but the first thing that jumps out at me is how different stage scores are between runs that look very similar. Even if you look at a short straightforward stage and subtract out the score from the silver medals there will still be a difference of 20k or 40k sometimes even more between runs on every stage.
This is a bit of a mystery as I was expecting two optimal runs at similar rank and both destroying every enemy to be practically identical score wise other than the medals. I do remember someone saying they thought that enemies destroyed too soon as they enter the screen would not be counted? I'll have to look into this a bit more. It seems like at high level play these variations in score during the stages add up to be at least as important as the medal luck if not moreso.
Did you find anything ? I don’t think I recall ever seeing something like that.
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Stage 1: Zone A is locked to 6 spawns. You can see this from the very first enemy waves. Even if you die or adjust the rank to 0 you will still get 6. So it's not possible to roll down to only 5 spawns until a later stage.
Interesting since the attract mode shows more spawns.
Darius games attract modes like to showcase stuff that isn't in the game haha
Also regarding Golden Ogre's laser I just did a credit on the Saturn version and it did not appear, very curious as I'm sure I had seen it there. Will investigate on this;
Thanks a lot for all the insights and congrats for your score boosts ! I'm not to the point where I could no-miss no-bomb most final bosses (still haven't nmnb Curious Chandelier in the AC version...) but if I reach the point where I can do advance scoring with or without autofire I'll put the tips you have shared into practice
@ Angry Hina
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ABEINSY:
Was it Prickly Angler who said, that this course is even easier? for me it was not but I tried this one because of his advice and its a good rout for someone who cleared ABDHLQV and wants the next challenge. I think its harder because 1) if you havent collected all red powerups, Electric Fan is a much harder boss than Folding Fan. E alone is a bit harder compared to D, I guess. 2) H is the a little bit easier stage. Both have some of the harder bosses and I am not quite sure which one is more fast to adapt to as a beginner 0) L/N are more or less even 3) Q/S In S there are 2 spots with very much going on. I mostly have to use at least one bomb. The narrow parts with the indestructible blocks in Q are a bit tricky to but also a bit saver to learn. 4) The last stage is a bit odd. Both are on the easier side. Y is even a bit easier, I guess but the boss of Y is way harder and if you dont want to use many bombs its a kinda hard to learn one.
I found it to be the easier course when I started playing the game on my Saturn (without the rapidfire code), but that version has much less rank and since ABEINSY has a lot of ranky bosses it’s comparatively much harder on arcade. H boss is really hard without 30hz, and ABDHLQV has les advantagous shield distribution than ABEINSY overall, so I still think ABEINSY is easier for a basic 1CC (a route ending in V is by far the easiest for no-miss, and no-bomb though) without autofire, as you avoid all difficult bosses and plattform stages, have better shield distribution, and don’t have to go through the trouble of learning zone G or Neon Light Illusion H. It's just my opinion though, people will find some routes/bosses easier, and others harder.
Also GG for your clears
@ MathU :
I had some questions :
- Is it reasonnable to aim for the last capture at high rank without mashing at all ? On the easier routes I’m at a point where I feel like I could increase the rank by scoring more on bosses but I was wondering how far could I push it (I don’t have a set-up that allows me to mash much).
- I noticed that for Odious Trident you are at maximum power-up for the main shot, is it necessary for blowing up all its parts ?
- I have a hard time getting 100% consistent in getting the two red p-ups in F safely, do you have any tips for that ? I've noticed you don't grab them very often.
Concerning your ACFJOUV scoring run (congrats again for that massive performance !) :
- Is there any reason why you did not pick up the second grey medal in the first stage ?
- I noticed you missed some ennemy waves on stage 1&2, was that intentionnal ? Is it due to rank ?
- Also noticed that while you were controlling the captains you shot sparsely, was that so that the captains destroyed less ennemies ?
Something else that might interest you : I found a consistent strat to no-miss no-bomb Crusty Hammer T without having to wait for its attacks to cycle. The strat is pretty simple : just point-blank the **** out of the boss, you have to do it fast enough otherwise the boss will launch an impossible pattern. You need to point-blank so close (you have some room to do that since the boss’s left part of the head doesn’t have an active hitbox) that the missiles don’t arc and then hit the boss’s back : when they go very high on the screen before going down, missiles take a lot of time to hit the boss, preventing new missiles to be fired due to the shot limit, so it’s very important they don’t travel anywhere. When the boss uses its claw I just dodge like usual, and try to nail as many hits as I can but it’s not critical if I don’t, as It’s really during moments when the boss sits there and does nothing that you need to point blank for this strat to work:
https://youtu.be/YIZxrDnFjuw?t=965Might not work at high rank, also made me notice that some bosses hitbox are much smaller than they look, and that you can exploit that to certain extends for doing significant dammage.