TRP-STGT 2015 Conversation Week 1: Sand Scorpion

[ProjectAKo]

I think there is rank. Once you die, stuff seems to die much faster. Also most of the WR is just a huge 2-ALL clear bonus and extend bonus. The WR is actually not that great, it's just no missing the game basically.

[Perikles]

From what I've experienced during savestate practice I'd say you have to make sure that you don't use any bombs whatsoever prior to 2-4. It just might be possible to get through the game with enough reserves if you really know what you're doing. The worst thing is that you're not only struggling to destroy those (not-so) destructible projectiles but that you can't really see them during the duration of your bomb anymore. You're essentially just sitting there, surrounded by nigh invincible enemies that cover massive chunks of the screen while desperately trying to dodge bullets and kamikaze attacks. It's as if they never even tested the second loop themselves.

The WR is actually not that great, it's just no missing the game basically.

That's a huge "just", though.

[chum]

At least it ain't no Hacha Mecha Fighter. second loop in that game is impossible in the last few stages, even with TAS, I'm sure. you can spam X over and over and over and the enemies will still flood the screen.

That's not to say this game isn't terrible, though. I personally feel no inclination to play it ever again.

[Squire Grooktook]

Just 1-alled it, thoughts on the game overall

+Zakos are aggressive
+Large hitbox feels visceral and tense but fair
+Destructable but tanky bullets add tension
+Great Sprite Art
+Fairly intuitive and fun point blanking
+Final boss is fun if you have a decent weapon
+Some surprisingly decent risk/reward scoring elements

-Bosses are mostly boring and repetitive, not too much danger outside of forgetting where your hitbox is
-No substantial threat from stages 1-4 once you've memorized them
-Chain deaths on stage 4-6 are hilariously over the top
-Final boss takes too long without a decent weapon
-Hilarious slowdown
-Weapons other then blue are death traps

Overall, probably won't play it much more after the tournament, but I enjoy it for the tournament.

[gimebe]

I think I found a major glitch with the bomb stock. I'm using shmupmame v2.2 and have only tested on it, so some more testing would be nice.

If you acquire 10 bombs - easy to do by taking the hidden bomb pick-up on Stage 4 (to reach 9 at the end of the stage - the display only shows five icons, but the count goes avove that) and then taking a bomb from a carrier on Stage 5, the counter seems to jump up to 16 bombs instead of 10 as you'd expect. Using savestates I did it again on Stage 6, using 7 bombs and picking up a bomb item to bring it to 16 again.

Using this glitch, if you count your bombs you could acquire 7 bombs (!) for every bomb pick-up during the second loop by blowing down to 9 from 16 and picking up a bomb item on every stage.

Edit: the glitch also works in Shmupmame v4.2.

Edit 2: the bomb item on Stage 4 is hidden on the left side right before the stage boss. It gives 2 bombs, letting you get to 10 during the first loop to activate the glitch. Here is partial a replay in which I accidentally stumbled upon the glitch: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52397711/wot.mkv (pay attention to how many times I use bombs, and still end up having 11 left at the end of Stage 5)

Edit 3: seems like you gain extra bombs with any number of bombs equal or greater than 9 when picking up a new one - so there's no need to blow your bombs, just keep their number high and it should be fine. I haven't tested every situation yet, though.

[ProjectAKo]

I was wondering why I had like 15 bombs

[Chaos]

confirmed on mameplus
was wondering how I had bomb counts in the mid-twenties (in practice)

[trap15]

At least it ain't no Hacha Mecha Fighter. second loop in that game is impossible in the last few stages, even with TAS, I'm sure. you can spam X over and over and over and the enemies will still flood the screen.

The WR in that game is a counterstop in 4-3, so the loop must be possible lol.

[DKA_Darius]

At least it ain't no Hacha Mecha Fighter. second loop in that game is impossible in the last few stages, even with TAS, I'm sure. you can spam X over and over and over and the enemies will still flood the screen.

The WR in that game is a counterstop in 4-3, so the loop must be possible lol.

after loop two, the score is available for this tournament?

[trap15]

I was talking about Hacha Mecha Fighter, sorry. Sand Scorpion only has 2 rounds.

[chum]

At least it ain't no Hacha Mecha Fighter. second loop in that game is impossible in the last few stages, even with TAS, I'm sure. you can spam X over and over and over and the enemies will still flood the screen.

The WR in that game is a counterstop in 4-3, so the loop must be possible lol.

either it's fake or there's a huge exploit where you get invulnerable or something like that.

[trap15]

It's in Arcadia so I doubt either of those.

[Eno]

I like how enemies completely inside the gap in the red weapon don't take damage at all. That level of attention to detail and commitment to f#$%ing the player up is phenomenal

I'm also glad all this time away didn't make me suck less at this genre. Missing fully powered up on stage 3 is still on the table, so is missing on stage 1.

[ACSeraph]

Been playing a bit, not impressed with it. Really really hate that only one powerup is useful while the others are a death sentence, and even worse fully upgrading also fucks you over. You constantly have a pool of powerups floating around the center of the goddamn screen which really hurts your ability to just fly around freely and enjoy the game. Combined with the fact the shooting and stage layouts are nothing more than inoffensive, I'm not sure why anyone would want to put significant time into this over the heaps of other potential shooters in the same style.

I've got a general route for it down, and I expect to clear the first loop soon, but I probly won't try to push at all beyond that. What powerup level is everyone using? I've been using the first level of 5-spread (2 bullets), but why wouldn't you want to at least upgrade to the 3 bullet 5-spread? How much difference does it make?

[Ed Oscuro]

Only took me a minute to realize what this was. That big stupid red and white egg slicer / cow catcher vehicle on the crop marks...what a horrible design lol
Beyond that most anything good in the game is stolen, but at least there's an apparently original stage layout.

I lack sense, of course, so I tried playing this with autofire setting 6. Not pretty. 3 is better but there's no reason not to crank this all the way up to 1.

I also had v-sync on, which I'm pretty sure murders playability.

p.s. what's the popular MAME build these days? non-shmupmame 4.2 I mean.

[Squire Grooktook]

It's pretty much a poor man's Toaplan shooter with a truck load of flaws. Has some decent (though not spectacular) stage layouts and some good ideas that aren't fully realized.

My biggest problem with it is that once fully memorized, stages 1 through 4 are incredibly leisurely. There's nothing much that can really surprise you or make you tense up, and it just feels a bit slow. Stages 5 and beyond can get pretty intense with the greater number of bullets, but it becomes a clusterfuck midway through the loop (apparently) or sooner if you die, so it's a bit too little too late.

I enjoyed it for a quickie 1cc ride, and the sprite work is great. Probably won't delete this from my rom folder, but I doubt I'll play it again after this.

[Ed Oscuro]

It's a Raiden hack, I think.

[Shepardus]

p.s. what's the popular MAME build these days? non-shmupmame 4.2 I mean.

I use MAME Plus, same variant of MAME trap15 always recommends. It's nothing super fancy, just MAME with a few extra features such as autofire and an optional GUI client, but that's all I really need.

[trap15]

It's a Raiden hack, I think.

it's entirely original, nothing is stolen. it's japanese, after all. by the same developers as Nostradamus, a far superior game that we were going to play until I noticed it had an infinite score problem.

[Ed Oscuro]

It's a Raiden hack, I think.

it's entirely original, nothing is stolen.

I had another look at Raiden, I'm wrong. Can't be a hack, but damned if this isn't the closest clone I've seen in some time. Different in a few ways though - one is that most things seem to be chunkier than in Raiden, which has a lot to do with the complaints here. Another is the lack of tilting, which imo is welcome here. Strangely, Raiden plays better with triple buffered v-sync on my machine than SS, though.

However, it still does have something Raiden did: The dual spitter turret tanks explode to the same sound effect, in Raiden, as is used for the bomb here, just a bit pitch shifted. Licensed, borrowed, or otherwise, I couldn't guess.

[Yazphier]

Anyone figured out what makes the replays desync?
have some replays working others not.
Managed to get some to desync as soon as first stage, by generating the wrong powerup
=> letting it go into demo mode before credit increases chance of desync
no report from mame either (currently using a RF version of 0.167)

[Perikles]

by the same developers as Nostradamus, a far superior game that we were going to play until I noticed it had an infinite score problem.

I guess you could say it was a bad omen that Nostradamus had this problem, eh?

[Jaimers]

Here's a 2.9 million replay that gets to the 2-6 final boss up for grabs.

replay
mame

[Perikles]

Man, the guy playing didn't know about the bomb glitch, ended the first loop with no bombs in stock and still made it all the way to 2-6. Now I feel terrible for reaching the 2-2 boss with 23 bombs in stock and still not making it further than 2-4. I really don't want to play this game anymore, though...

[DKA_Darius]

Man, the guy playing didn't know about the bomb glitch, ended the first loop with no bombs in stock and still made it all the way to 2-6. Now I feel terrible for reaching the 2-2 boss with 23 bombs in stock and still not making it further than 2-4. I really don't want to play this game anymore, though...

Miss with 23 bombs? That is so frustrating

[Perikles]

Miss with 23 bombs? That is so frustrating

Oh, no, I actually bombed the hell out of that insufferable douche bag of a 2-2 boss, ended the stage with a really unlucky 8 bombs because I didn't keep track. It's just that the guy from the above replay was able to get substantially further with a lot less resources. Makes me feel rather bad about my performance. Then again it's kinda hard to care about this game.

[EmperorIng]

It's a... hack, I think.

I agree completely.

[Eno]

One thing I find funny is that on certain(most?) bosses they actually get easier the more parts you destroy, either losing attacks or switching to easier ones. Contrary to most other games, where parts are optional and usually make the fight harder by dragging it and introducing more attacks.
3rd stage boss in particular illustrates that. Also a goddamn boring fight.

[DKA_Darius]

One thing I find funny is that on certain(most?) bosses they actually get easier the more parts you destroy, either losing attacks or switching to easier ones. Contrary to most other games, where parts are optional and usually make the fight harder by dragging it and introducing more attacks.
3rd stage boss in particular illustrates that. Also a goddamn boring fight.

Every single parts in corner will release more bullets when you destroy any of parts, but you are right, this boss is so boring

[Eno]

One thing I find funny is that on certain(most?) bosses they actually get easier the more parts you destroy, either losing attacks or switching to easier ones. Contrary to most other games, where parts are optional and usually make the fight harder by dragging it and introducing more attacks.
3rd stage boss in particular illustrates that. Also a goddamn boring fight.

Every single parts in corner will release more bullets when you destroy any of parts, but you are right, this boss is so boring

Ah yes, it's a bit sensitive to the order you tackle it, but by the time there's only two corner parts left he becomes stupidly trivial because he switches to alternating one piece letting out one bullet and the other a ring instead of both firing rings.