Operation Quickening - Second Wave

[ACSeraph]

I'm in Tokyo, so I did today's Quickening at the arcade (specifically Super Potato's retro arcade).

ACSeraph - Sexy Parodius - Koitsu Auto - Autofire off - Stage 3 Boss Rush - 174,600

[LordHypnos]

Cool! Good idea.

[soprano1]

soprano1 - Galmedes - Stage 1 - 24500

http://postimg.org/image/qudaexsod/

Pretty intense.

[Eno]

Eno - Wyvern Wings - Thunderfox - 1-1 - 51,300
Used 2 credits, last one was the worst.

This game definitely has a place in my not-baddest shmups of all time list.

[LordHypnos]

Lord Hypnos - Zero Wing (AC) - Stage 1 - ?

I think the TV is overscanning my score, but suffice to say All my base are belong to them >_<
Also, whose idea was it to put the speed powerup as the last powerup

Complaints aside, this is actually a pretty fun game, and runs almost perfect in MAME4ALL DC with auto frameskip. By comparison, Hellfire is very choppy, and Varth... I don't even know. Pretty sure it's not emulating right though, I'm surprised it's even emulating at all.

Also: Used a reroll to avoid playing scramble again

[Squire Grooktook]

Finally got access to my 360

Squire Grooktook - Strania: Side Vower - Stage 2 (hard) - 350,990

Pretty much playing blind, only tried out the beginning of the first stage once or twice.

[EmperorIng]

EmperorIng - Gun Frontier - Stage 3 - 194,600
Two rerolls

Man, fuck this game.

[LordHypnos]

Gunbird 2. I swear I used to be able to get to 1-4 regularly... Well only on the default stage order, I guess, and I didn't end up getting that (didn't realize I had rotated controls on at first, and you only get default stage order the first time)
...Also never learned how to properly chain, I know how it works, but it's hard >_>
I gotta play this game more often .

Lord Hypnos - Gunbird 2 - Morrigan; Stage order=2,3,1 - Stage 1-3 - 242,500

Spoiler

[EmperorIng]

Gunbird 2's chaining is something you really shouldn't even worry about until you can, like, not get murdered by stage 3. Take it from a guy who gets murdered by stage 3.

[endoKarb]

Gunbird 2's chaining is something you really shouldn't even worry about until you can, like, clear both loops.

[Despatche]

yeah uh no chaining is super fucking easy compared to getting anywhere in the second loop. hell, just figuring out chaining for 1-1 and 1-2 is easier than trying to clear the first loop.

you guys should know better, you actually play this game!

[endoKarb]

well, I was being hyperbolic ^^

Seriously though, coin chaining really isn't worth all that much. Surival is basically all that matters in gb2 unless your very very good already.

I've clear the first loop and I've never even fully chained the first stage. shit's too hard for me

[ACSeraph]

ACSeraph - Deathsmiles II - X Mode - Follet - A3/B3/C3/D3/E3/Final - ALL - 2,214,150,380

Yay first level 3 clear! Satan Claus is actually really brutal on level 3. It's gonna be hell once I try to throw in the EX stage and the TLB.



Is that sufficient to clear your challenge Captain?

[Eno]

Eno - Super Fantasy Zone - 1 - 15,900
Well, at least it's not Ordyne again.

[LordHypnos]

As far as GB2 chaining goes, I mostly just don't do it because it's not a very fun scoring system for me, and survival is plenty hard to pose a challenge. FWIW, I didn't exactly get murdered by stage 3, actually made it all the way to the boss. I think only 1 miss too (those damn turrets before the boss are hard on third level difficulty). I can make it past stage 3 on default stage order, too, because the Japan is a pretty easy stage in any position in the first loop.
stage 4 murders me every time, though.

Also, does anybody have a link that can tell me what each of the stages is called? It would help tremendously for talking about the game. I found by googling that the first 3 in default order are USA, Italy, and Japan, but I don't know what anything else is called.

EDIT: Rolled V.V, will see how that goes. It'll be something like my second time playing. Also I have to do auto frameskip and nosound to get it to run decently well on my computer, but that's fine.

[LordHypnos]

used 1 credit

Lord Hypnos - V.V - Stage 1 boss - 69,560

Spoiler

...Oh, now I get how the weapons system works

[ACSeraph]

ACSeraph - Gradius Galaxies - TypeA/F-Field/Manual - Stage 2 - 66,200

Terri-bad run, but this game pisses me off so I refrained from using a credit. This would probably be one of the best Gradius games if only the ship speed was better tuned (its either too slow or too fast), and more importantly if it wasn't the most cheapass game in the entire series. Just so many bullshit deaths, everywhere. Who the fuck thinks it's a good idea to put dead end paths into a shmup, making survival a total guess until you memorize everything? It probably wouldn't frustrate me so much if everything else about the game wasn't so good.

[Captain]

It sure is enough, go ahead and pick a game!

[ACSeraph]

Ikaruga - Dot Eater

- Normal difficulty
- You may not kill anything, Polarity Shift only
- If you for some reason do not have access to Ikaruga, go play Mars Matrix for LordHypnos

ACSeraph - Ikaruga - Dot Eater - Stage 2 - 92,600

[LordHypnos]

Maybe people who can't play Ikaruga should have to do a shield-only run of Mars Matrix
I tried doing that the other day, and only made it a bit into stage 2. I think I was likely going about it all wrong.
I can play Ikaruga though, and will a little later today.

EDIT:

Wow, that was atrocious. I knew I was gonna do bad, but not this bad
Lord Hypnos - Ikaruga - Dot-eater challenge - Stage 1 - 15,300

Spoiler

EDIT 2: Just realized I posted out of sequence I'll wait 3 until next time.

[EmperorIng]

Lucky I have the shitty steam port to make things extra easy with all the slowdown.

EmperorIng - Ikaruga Dot Eater - 91,900 - Stage 2

Not 100% sure how the crate hitboxes work.

[LordHypnos]

Totally agree about those crate hitboxes. Also wish it weren't so easy to die from enemy collisions in Ikaruga. Then again, I probably only feel that way because I'm used to no enemy collision in Mars Matrix, but it seems like in general Ikaruga has more divebombing enemies than your average modern shmup.

[Blinge]

Great idea Seraph =D
I never need an excuse to play more 'ruga. And damn, dot eater's a whole different discipline.
More divebombing enemies, Lordhypnos? Try playing a few other tate shmups without firing....


Blinge - Ikaruga - Dot Eater - Stage 2 - 250,720

I might put a dot eater section in the Ikaruga Scoreboard actually, Mind if I add your scores, guys?

[LordHypnos]

Great idea Seraph =D
I never need an excuse to play more 'ruga. And damn, dot eater's a whole different discipline.
More divebombing enemies, Lordhypnos? Try playing a few other tate shmups without firing....


Blinge - Ikaruga - Dot Eater - Stage 2 - 250,720

I might put a dot eater section in the Ikaruga Scoreboard actually, Mind if I add your scores, guys?

Yeah, that's a good point. Divebombing would be more of an issue when not firing. hahaha. I just remember that I couldn't figure out how to get past the like weird pre-stage section thing for stage 2 without getting divebombed in a normal run (b/c it's from all sides). I didn't spend a huge amount of time on it though. Certainly not as bad as like Raiden or something, anyway. Feel free to post my score if there's room on the scoreboard, anyway (probably would be the lowest one).

[Blinge]

I just remember that I couldn't figure out how to get past the like weird pre-stage section thing for stage 2 without getting divebombed in a normal run (b/c it's from all sides).

Hm. my survival solution for that is stay white, stay roughly near the middle and make little dodges, almost in a figure of 8 pattern. but the figure of 8 developed naturally, I don't consciously think about it
..that might help =p

incidentally that works in dot eater too but you have to be very conservative with your movement, which isn't my style really, my ship looks drunk in every shmup i play

[LordHypnos]

I just remember that I couldn't figure out how to get past the like weird pre-stage section thing for stage 2 without getting divebombed in a normal run (b/c it's from all sides).

Hm. my survival solution for that is stay white, stay roughly near the middle and make little dodges, almost in a figure of 8 pattern. but the figure of 8 developed naturally, I don't consciously think about it
..that might help =p

incidentally that works in dot eater too but you have to be very conservative with your movement, which isn't my style really, my ship looks drunk in every shmup i play

That's nice to know, thanks. I tend to not like being conservative with my ship movement either, though I'm sure part of that has to do with being relatively new to shmups. I tend to like games that involve a lot of bullet herding though, moving back and forth across the screen and all that.
BTW, in dot-eater, are you allowed to use the charge shot (C button), or only polarity switching?

[ACSeraph]

Glad to see everyone enjoying it. That was actually my first ever attempt at Dot Eater, been wanting to try it out for a while now. Seems more fun than normal Ikaruga to me

Just realized I posted out of sequence I'll wait 3 until next time.

I don't think the sequence matters for forced games.

Lucky I have the shitty steam port to make things extra easy with all the slowdown.

Really the steam port is bad? I would have expected it to be pretty much the same as the 360 version...

I might put a dot eater section in the Ikaruga Scoreboard actually, Mind if I add your scores, guys?

Go for it, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit more than I expected to, so I'll put in a few more credits and try to improve a bit.

[EmperorIng]

Shitty for me. I have tried all sorts of settings on it, but it usually runs at around 45-50 fps. Slowmo mode.

Emulating in NullDC actually makes the game run at normal speed. Haven't really figured it out and what I mostly got for advice was "get a better computer."

[LordHypnos]

I'm guessing it's just a matter of the DC version being significantly more optimized. PC games are always really poorly optimized. At least it seems that way. My shitty netbook is significantly more powerful than a Dreamcast but has roughly the same capabilities as far as games and emulation go, from what I can tell.
My recommendation, rather than getting a better computer is to just emulate it in nullDC if it runs better there. Not really a perfect solution though.

[ACSeraph]

ACSeraph - 2hu 11: Underground Voodoo - Reimu Type 1 - Stage 4 - 29,643,460

First real attempt at this, seems good. That stage 3 is rough for Touhou