Emuser's DDP log

[Emuser]

Hello Shmups,

I am sharing with you an announcement that some of you are already aware of, but I am playing DDP again. Have been for the past 2 weeks again and its going great so far. I'm putting this in off-topic since this isn't exactly game discussion, just more of a "log" and an offering of a deeper insight of my thinking process and random progressive moments of mine.

I am doing this again though because Assan Chop is hosting a shmupmeet at his place in a month and a half that is going to have DDP on cab, and I want to do my best to achieve a live 2-ALL and try to scrap up a decent score as well. I cleared this last year finally after 7 years, but there's always been a bit of an "empty" feeling later on having only done it on MAME and missing an opportunity to do it when arcade UFO in austin used to have it. I spent time a couple weeks ago on DDP basically remembering the chains again, and I managed to improve my 1-4 and 2-4 chains and finally figuring out how to full chain those. 1-5 and 2-5 are still a god damn mystery to me, I've tried to look at Prom's chains but I just can't do them.

For starters, I spent a lot of time practicing on 2-6 today, I still can't chain the first part of the level into the rest, but I can chain up to the big red planes now. I must've spent at least an hour and a half grinding on the spiral portion trying to figure out a consistent way to get through that part without bombs. I figured a way out but its still pretty shaky and need to watch some other people's ways.

I also feel like an idiot for not realizing that hibachi's final always opens the exact same way:


I still want to test that out to be 100% sure but several vids seemed to all look the same at the start so I'm currently inclined to believe that this is the case. I always found the front of hibachi to be very dense at the start and I'd usually have to bomb so this is nice to know.

I want to clear at Assan's meet on the real deal, and I hope I can persevere. A worry of mine is just the joystick control on PCB deal (mainly play pad), but after a few hours at Assan's last week I was more or less in tune. I just don't have a few hours to practice on it when the meet we play it does come. I am going to stop by UFO soon, see if they still have DDP, and ask them to put it back in if they do, so that way I can practice runs on a joystick, and at the same time give them a little bit of my money since Ikaruga isn't getting anybody -__-

[Emuser]

Since I'll be going to Assan's for a shmup meet next weekend, I'm just going to spend time this week practicing the 2nd loop as the 1st is pretty solidified outside of 1-4 chain, actually fully chaining 1-5, and the 1-6 boss. I'll practice those 1st loop things later in the week when time comes closer.

Spent more time practicing 2-6, finally got a 560+ chain and got to the boss NMNB, then used 2 bombs, died once, and bombed the final twice. Decided to practice the 2-2 boss some more and improved my method even more for a really consistent way to speed kill the boss as I don't like to mess with it's spread on 2nd loop.

After that, I went to practice the 2-3 midboss and still feel like this is a bit of a gamble whether or not one is going to NMNB it at any given time. In 100 tries, I had a 72% success rate so I'm still trying to figure something out other than VEER TO THE RIGHT AND PRAY on the 1st set of balls. Going to practice 2-3 boss some more to see if I can get more consistent at reading the omnievil walls of pain.

MIDNIGHT EDIT: Practiced the shit out of 2-3 boss looking for any form of improvement or consistency, but this bitch is just so fucking stupid. This is literally the most difficult boss next to hibachi because you are expected to get through all of its shit NMNB. I'm starting to think that it's only coming down to sheer luck whether I can NMNB the bitch at Assan's or somehow retain a max bonus past this assuming I have a run that good. Really frustrating as I got phenomenally lucky on my clear run and only on 1 other run where I got 441M having not had to deal with its walls.

[Emuser]

My birthday came early. I figured out a better way to NMNB the 2-3 boss. There is definitely still some luck involved but nothing that is going to force me to deal with walls. Since I'm not using A type, any strat that will let me avoid full on wallness is better than destroying all the boss' parts normally since that slight lack of speed means everything trying to dodge omniwalls of pain...I am happy and cannot wait to get to Assan's this weekend, YOU BETTER WATCH OUT.

[Emuser]

I am saying right now that people who read ARE welcome to post if they want to...

On a related note...

ALL THESE YEARS. THESE MOTHER. FUCKING. YEARS. Why...did I never know that the shot gives you significantly more GP Meter(not sure what its called) vs the laser...WHYYYYYYYY. I looked at vids like what the fuck am I not getting about 1-5 and 2-5 chain...and then on a run I noticed part way through randomly about the shot giving more meter. I NMNB'd 2-5 and got a full chain of 700+ for the first time ever. AHHHHHHHHHHH.

[CStarFlare]

I'm enjoying reading this, even if I have nothing to add. These little "why did I never know..." revelations are news to me as well.

[Emuser]

The shot giving more GP Meter vs the laser is definitely more noticeable in loop 2. In loop 1 I still can't chain into the middle of 1-5 or chain the start of 1-6 into the rest of the stage. At this point I'm not really focusing on getting these down though, even though 1-5 full chain would be worth a nice chunk of score as I'm still missing out on ~50M worth of points I believe not being able to chain 1-5 and 1-6 fully, leaving me with ~125M to 130M scores after loop 1.

Played a few runs as I got home early today, but I didn't have any really great runs anywhere, lots of mess ups today but I'm not too beat up over it as I was stressing out over getting my car repaired throughout the day. I am actually going to take it easy tomorrow so I don't overdo it, but I feel pretty good about this coming weekend right now.

[null1024]

ALL THESE YEARS. THESE MOTHER. FUCKING. YEARS. Why...did I never know that the shot gives you significantly more GP Meter(not sure what its called) vs the laser....

Oh wow. That's useful to know, I never noticed that.

although I'm dogshit at DDP anyway because I barely practice

[Emuser]

I took a break yesterday, and decided to work a little extra to make up for lost time Thursday due to my car's alternator going to shit. I also went out to dinner and got some drinks with old friends, and due to a strange twisted fate discovered yesterday that I'm going to have to move, my lease expires in 2 weeks and not 1 1/2 months like I thought, and found a new roommate to move in with since I am not going to stay where I am right now, ALL in one day. Its the kind of stuff that reminds me kind of like in a movie when someone knows that the next day they have a gigantic battle or challenge that they will be forced to deal with, so they just go out and unwind the day before while they still can.

I'm packing up a few things for Assan's final shmupmeet tonight, and even though this isn't "THE" dodonpachi meet(July 20), I am treating this like it is and am going in. Even though I've played this countless times, there's just something magical about playing it on the real hardware that is so ridiculously awesome every time. I am feeling pretty nervous but the way I see it I will have a nice handful of people watching me and I want to put on a good show with no really stupid mistakes. I've practiced my shit, actually improved routes since my clear last year which is really terrifying when I think about it but as far as I'm concerned there's not anything left to improve except 1-5 chain sometime in the future. I expect that I will have a few crappy runs before I get what I'm looking for, but as long as I can get to at least Hibachi today under all the pressure, I will be satisfied.

I leave for the day to tackle the beast known as DDP, and hopefully by the time I return it will be put down...this time on the real deal.

[chempop]

Good luck man!

[Emuser]

Man, destiny tried everything it could to prevent me from playing DDP today...seriously. On top of the car issues I had earlier in the week, I had 2 flat tires when I was getting ready to head out for Assan's, so I had to get those replaced. When I got to Assan's in the afternoon I came to the horrible realization that his A/C was giving out and that DDP was going to stay off because of the heat. Things were slow the first few hours while we waited for a J360 to come our way for Strike Witches.

Later in the night he turned on DDP but left the other cabs off since they won't turn on now for some reason. First run of the night I got to 2-5 boss, I NMNB'd loop 1 and got up yelling MOTHA FUCKA WHAT. But karma's a bitch and decided to kill me shortly into 2-1, *picardfacepalm.jpg* I wasn't bombing but I should have been otherwise I'd have seen hibachi that run, but I got to 2-5 boss without bombing more than two times on the middle of 2-5 before I dun goofed for the last time. I had a few crappy runs after that but eventually I had the hibachi encounter I was looking for but game overed. My muscles were getting tense on close parts and I was also dealing with the excess heat, but overall I'm happy with the NMNB loop 1 on top of enduring the heat, a true challenge to both mental and physical attributes :3

This is good progress with me being able to deal with extra pressure I'm not used to being around me (people watching/talking), so I really do feel that I can clear at the next meet. Only time will tell though.

[Zeron]

So how has the last few days been progressing? For me it's been pretty much a total disaster just crap runs, to name an example pulling off the best 1st loop yet then messing it up by dying to 1-6 boss twice.... But I won't give up!

[Emuser]

Nothing really exciting, I actually took a week off after the meet just to unwind a little bit and not overdo it as I realize too much practice will wear me out, but at the same time all I've done was practice 2-3 and feel like I haven't really improved on it at all. I feel like there's really nothing I can do to guarantee a NMNB of midboss and boss, the 2 parts I seriously need to grind left are the entirety of 2-4 and the middle of 2-5, 2-6 is finally pretty solid now after going overkill figuring that one out.

[Emuser]

I hate recording inps because I always do stupid shit in them and don't get ANYWHERE, but just a little bit ago I was talked into doing some runs, so partway through what was shaping up to be a good inp, my dpad goes AWOL and my run is completely ruined. Guess I'll be buying a wired 360 controller this weekend...

[Emuser]

19 days remain...

After moving to a new apartment to finish up a sublease for a few months, I went and got a replacement controller today, and decided to take my chances on an ordinary gamestop wired controller, at that time I learned that 1st party wired controllers are discontinued on the 360 now to my great surprise. Got it running and overall I'm quite surprised with the results, it may very well be the best pad I've owned since my Saitek, the legend that tamed quite a number of beasts. It took some getting used to and Right is weird at times, but I wasn't expecting it to work half-decently.

Last summer I raged when I double KO'd on Dimahoo Gigafacer and threw my controller, breaking the pad and putting the discontinued Saitek to rest. After that I used a random USB controller I found in a Best Buy, which served me well for a while, but earlier last week the pad finally fucked up and I decided to replace it. Hopefully this controller will last a while, but if it gives out soon I'm just gonna cough up the money for a 360 Pad EX 2 (if anyone has suggestions on PC pads, feel free to post I'm interested in discovering what I don't know of yet.)

ANYWAYS though, after some screwing around I did a run and got to 1-6 boss before I died, after which I spent a good 30 minutes just practicing the final and doing really badly overall. Not playing this game regularly REALLY kills your consistency, I can't take a 1 1/2 week break again before the meet on July 20th.

[Emuser]

2 weeks left...14 days.

Nothing really interesting happening now, but a few guys got me in on A-S play and after a couple days of figuring out what to do differently, I just hit 312M and shat a fucking brick. Game overed half way through Hibachi and first death on 2-5 middle section. I have never felt so god damn nervous and shaky before, I really do want to say that I'm certain about that.

It was a really cool diversion and A-S actually kicks some major ass in the 2nd loop other than the bosses(easy modo chaining, super slowdown simulator inducing Shot), and it is definitely something I want to pursue more seriously after the meet in 2 weeks.

[Zeron]

First time I reached Hibachi about damn time, terrible score in this run. But this is more of a psychological thing hopefully this eases some of the nervousness I have when reaching 2-6 boss and Hachi.


Now if only I could find a route where my chain does not break midway in 1-5..... This game is so mean with it's maximum bonus business but I can't get enough of it!

edit: Also would you mind posting that A-S replay? I can't find it even by searching in Japanese,Korean and Chinese...

[Emuser]

First time I reached Hibachi about damn time, terrible score in this run. But this is more of a psychological thing hopefully this eases some of the nervousness I have when reaching 2-6 boss and Hachi.


Now if only I could find a route where my chain does not break midway in 1-5..... This game is so mean with it's maximum bonus business but I can't get enough of it!

edit: Also would you mind posting that A-S replay? I can't find it even by searching in Japanese,Korean and Chinese...

Holy hell good job! I still can't do 1-5 to save my life its super difficult. The A-S thing was simply me playing over the course of a couple days and discovering how fun it can be, no replay unfortunately. I honestly can't find any replay at all that has A-S in it no matter where I look but I still really want to see a good A-S/B-S replay.

10 days remain...only seriously need to practice 2-4 and 2-5 at this point. I'm figuring out some different ways to carry my chain in 2-4 as I have been having issues consistently doing the middle of it with the 3 purple ships, slight improvements to that chain but I keep dropping it between the power up ship and bomb carrier at the end of the level.

[Emuser]

6 days left...

I haven't had any time to practice this week cause I was taking care of a friend that came to visit, and out of nowhere I was asked to do a 1CC of Blazing Star at a convention, so I practiced that for a day and a half before doing that. I'm pretty rusty and it's been a few years, but I managed to squeeze out a 37M score with WINdina.

Nothing left to really do now, there's no reason I shouldn't get to at least hibachi at Assan's this coming saturday, not sure if I am going to be able to clear in time before I use up my runs, but we'll see. All I gotta do is just practice a little each day so I don't lose any consistency.

[Emuser]

4 days left...Couple of break through moments leading to making a few parts in the 2nd loop that much easier. B Type is the fucking shit.

1st: Strat where I speed kill the big middle tank in 2-2 and chain the laser into some cars on the left, followed by tapping shot rhythmically on the tanks and couple helis. Its not too hard to actually speed kill the tank, you just have to swerve right then back left at the right time to avoid getting hit by the turrets on the right.

2nd: 2-5. I was shitplaying the middle section flailing around and failing over and over and over because I couldn't figure out the start of it and couldn't find a decent strat to follow that I could apply with any form on consistency. During my flailing about, I just sat in the bottom-middle flailing my pods to the sides by doing down+left/down+right(gets them to veer to a side more quickly), and un-fucking-believably it lead me to getting right up to the 1st middle structure before I really had to MOVE to a side. Right after that thing is destroyed I was able to repeat the motion in the bottom-middle up to the 2nd middle structure. Tried what was my brain exploding on LSD in SHMUP-Visual format and was able to repeat it remarkably. God dammit this weekend is going to be fun.

[Emuser]

One final day left until it's showtime...

This is a really big thing for me as you all know, unfortunately I couldn't make this little "log" of mine very interesting as there weren't honestly a lot of big new things I could learn at this point. All I could offer was a small insight to a few things that blew my mind like learning how much Shot type rapes the 2nd loop and how I can wiggle in the middle of 2-5's hell spot at the start and make the beginning MUCH easier.

I look back and remember the first time I discovered this game and had sensory overload at how fucking awesome everything was, never seriously minded getting shit-wrecked when I credit fed this game for a long time. Eventually overtime I played long enough to get better at it and discover the 2nd loop which absolutely destroyed my mind when I saw how much more brutal it got. The face I made when I discovered there was a Hidden Final Boss that embodies everything I have a phobia of in video game form(bees/wasps), I was just stunned and like "this game was fucking made to torture me." In a way I knew I wanted to get the 2-ALL after that but I was woefully unprepared and had no idea just how much it would take me to eventually do it one time. It was like I had limits on how much I could learn at once, but after a long break the things I'd learned in the past were almost 2nd nature to pull off and I had more room to make improvements.

It's crazy to think at times just how far you can take one game over time, I've played this game in every single imaginable way possible by this point: mame keyboard, joystick, controller pad, guitar hero controller, Arcade PCB, LOL PSP, LOL WII, LOLOLOLOL PS1 (don't do this). Even went as far as to play on a few classroom projector screens and an auditorium to show the game off to a club of people at times.

I want to thank Prometheus for inspiring me enough to never completely give up on this game, seeing some of his logs from ages ago reminds me that even he is mortal and had to do hundreds upon thousands of attempts before he cleared and can't 2-ALL this game with a 100% success rate. This day has been a long time coming, and I really don't know if I'll be able to clear it in so few runs tomorrow, but I know I'll at least put on a hell of a show and get to hibachi at the least.

[Zeron]

I wish you luck for that live performance 2-ALL attempt! I myself have not had any breakthroughs this week. But some important improvements here and there in my runs, need to change a few things in 2-6 end sections. The flaws of the C-L ship really shows at this part meanwhile with C-S it's just shoot and everything is cleared off the screen.

[Emuser]

Well I ultimately didn't pull it off and freaked out quite massively when I got to the 2nd loop this time around really hard. The funny thing about it all is that I had a decent 1st loop but died once on the spiral shot area of 1-6 because I went for the hook-around on the right of the screen 1 second too early. After that of course I'd NMNB the 1-6 final after already having died and lost my max bonus. After that, I completely broke down once I got to 2-3 and game overed well before hibachi.

I got to Assan's pretty late as it was, so I figured with a few people it'd be better to record a run after I got DFK out of the way and a bit after wings came in. By the time a friend of mine setup the camera to record with, I was doing pretty decently until the 1-6 death, and then we discovered later that the camera has a 30 minute idle shutdown function, so right around when I started to collapse the footage died for that run. Afterwards, I took a break so people could get their DDP runs in for the meet, but by the time everyone got their balls off of SDOJ's game case, it was stupid late and I couldn't do the 1st loop without dying anymore because I was piss tired.

All in all I'm disappointed I broke down so badly, it was definitely one of my worst moments in the 2nd loop in ages, but it was the 1st time I had a run recorded not counting an inp where I was able to stay calm enough to not do stupid shit all over the place and die because of it. We at least got the footage for loop 1, so my friend is going to upload it to youtube and I'll post it here once its uploaded. As disappointed as I am about the 2nd loop, the adrenaline rush I got from knowing it was a "live recording" was exhilarating. When I get a new laptop in the next month, I really hope to see how viable it will be for me to stream.

[Emuser]

Last bump for a while, maybe I will continue using this topic if I get a new laptop/computer that can stream, but for now last thing to really post is the remnant of the footage from yesterday, the first parts of the 2nd loop were cut off since the camera shut off partway through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR3pHIon2xs

[Zeron]

Atleast I damaged it a bit more...

I hope you keep on playing this Emuser taking a mere week break from this game resembles more a months break if anything... This game has to be brute forced there is no other way!

Now if only I would stop loosing my maximum bonus in the 1st loop

[Emuser]

Atleast I damaged it a bit more...

I hope you keep on playing this Emuser taking a mere week break from this game resembles more a months break if anything... This game has to be brute forced there is no other way!

Now if only I would stop loosing my maximum bonus in the 1st loop

I haven't given up at all, I haven't been playing a lot of much this past week, crazy work week. When I get really tired of B-L I'll be trying for an A-S clear.

And good job progressing steadily along against hibachi, you're almost there!

[endoKarb]

I haven't given up at all, I haven't been playing a lot of much this past week, crazy work week. When I get really tired of B-L I'll be trying for an A-S clear.

And good job progressing steadily along against hibachi, you're almost there!

Glad to hear you're still going at this, I like reading your log.
That's all, just wanted to leave some positive feedback.

Best of luck

[Zeron]

Came back to this after awhile and voila. All I can say is for the love of god don't play TYPE C-L... 2-5 is madness

[Emuser]

I just saw this NOW, but fucking congrats on a C-L 2-ALL Zeron! That's awesome, I shamefully have not been on my DDP game lately, I tried for a while to get a consistent high scoring A-S play down so I could stream it, but I can't take it anymore. As much as I wanted to be the ultimate hipster and beast with A-S and have a good score, it's just so insane and dumb that I think I have given up on it. The whole time I wonder "how much easier this would be with A-L instead" almost all the time. I may try it again someday but I feel like crap just playing pure survival. I could probably do it if I completely ignored score like I've told others before, but I want to land a great score of at least 300M as well live.

I need to play it again too, sadly been incredibly busy lately so I haven't played a shmup in a couple weeks now. Are you the first on the forum to 2-ALL with C-L?

[Zeron]

I think every ship has atleast 500+ million score. I have seen a 540+ million A-S and 560+ million C-L photographed off HEY! I believe. Still I find it fascinating that for such a popular game K-BAN was the only one to do a unofficial superplay. Anyways this was the best from me before I had enough with the game. 2-3 mid boss remained russian roulette, 2-5 mid section was something of a gamebreaker but I was pretty damn happy with my 1st loop with no dropped chains as I learned how to connect the 1-5 chain. You can definetly do 300 million pull off a good 1st loop then keep the maximum bonus into the 2nd loop for a while a little points here and there from no miss bonus and mission accomplished. Good luck!

I. Are you the first on the forum to 2-ALL with C-L?

I dunno perhaps

[Emuser]

yea getting to 500M with every ship should be possible, with A-S though it's just so annoying to score. That and I have never seen any footage with A-S, would you happen to know where it is? Checked the high score topic and no one reported a C-L 2-ALL so you're probably the 1st.

I'm always having on and off moods with A-S, it truly is love-hate with that thing. Some days I want to quit and others I don't.