I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

[The Armchair General]

do you plan to keep pushing or move on?

Currently I'm working on a 25+ mil run with type B. The main goal of the run is to get all of the bomb capacity bonuses up to and including 2-1. After that I'll try to get the community record. Emphasis on the word "try."

What is the total number of bombs you tend to use in the second loop (well excluding 2-5)?

I can't really answer that question as it varies. What I can answer is how many planed bombs I use. They go as follows: 2-1: 0; 2-2: 1; 2-3: 3; 2-4: 3; I bombed more or less this much on my 25 mil run.

the immense no-miss-no-bomb bonuses of the second loop are within reach. I'll be waiting for a counterstop.

Yea, totally expect a Donpachi counterstop tomorrow. Never mind the fact that SOF-WTN himself can't do it and it's literly impossible with type B :V. Also you don't need to NMNB the game to get the "NMNB bonuses." You just need to bomb no more than twice and not die throughout the game to get them. You can only really bomb once because the stage 5 bosses final pattern is pretty much impossible to dodge.

[seraph]

I learn new things every day. :3

[Stevens]

I was kind of waiting to hear this. Congrats General!

[KAI]

No-missed DFKBL til the 5th boss and full-chained all the stages, then the ex boss kicked my ass.
I'm loving this game, but still have no idea how to score properly.

[CStarFlare]

I'm loving this game, but still have no idea how to score properly.

hold left

[zak]

Mushihimesama original for me - 1cc with a terrible 27million score

[Shepardus]

1-ALL'd Gradius (Arcade)!





Video

I had a rough stages 3 and 4 in this run (which made this score 40k lower than my PB despite being my first clear) but managed to recover and gradually power back up by stage 6, getting through the rest of the first loop without incident. I was surprised by how much fun I had with this. I enjoyed experimenting with different upgrade/weapon/shield choices (even if I ended up taking a lot of tips from Perikles' video on YouTube). Despite how frustrating it can be, dying and having to recover from a checkpoint forces you to think especially hard about what upgrades you need the most, which I think is cool. Perhaps the things I dislike most about the game are one particular checkpoint in stage 7 that I've yet to successfully recover from, and the absurdly slow base movement speed which makes recovering without a powerup in reserve especially painful. Those didn't stop me from enjoying the game, though. I never thought I'd say this but maybe I should give the other Gradius games a fair shot someday.

[Bananamatic]

[CStarFlare]

Oh my. Now there's two of them. Very well done!

I reiterate my disappointment that the port didn't fix the counterstop. Maybe some day an enterprising hacker will deliver something in MAME.

[Shepardus]

Maybe there'll eventually be a Steam port that eliminates the counterstop. Knowing CAVE, though, changing anything in the PC port for the better is probably too much to expect from them.

[Bananamatic]

knowing cave they won't even fix deathsmiles

[CStarFlare]

That seems like a certainty at this point.

Given that M2 did the port they probably kept the counterstop in the name of arcade accuracy and I'd expect that to hold in any further port (because if M2 is involved they would probably stick to their guns, and if M2 isn't then Cave would be doing the bare minimum anyway).

Romhackers are the only way the counterstop will ever be removed. And I know nothing about coding; that change could be more trouble than it's worth.

[Bananamatic]

honestly, M2 didn't know much about what a shmup port should be like, even though the technical side is A++ with absolutely no lag

1) no quick reset in score attack at all, in normal play it only resets the current stage, you have to quit the game and reset manually
2) 360 and arcade leaderboards are separated despite being the same game with different resolution
3) no midboss practice for some reason
4) useless options like starting a stage with 99999 counter or infinite bombs in practice or graphic filters that make the game unplayable despite the port lacking some important features

at this point the counterstop might just be something they didn't know about

There are also some blatant inaccuracies in the port like the st4 boss on ultra having slowdown on one attack when in the arcade game there's none and the st5 boss on God having consistent slowdown on the 3rd form opener - in the arcade the slowdown is really inconsistent, making reaching spiritual larsa in the 360 port way easier (as the attack is now easier than the Maniac equivalent)

[iconoclast]

Congrats Banana!

I'm interested in how the scores are ranked on the leaderboards. There are several counterstops, yet EnchantedMirror is ranked #1. Upload date seems irrelevant because his replay (7/24/13) is newer than peketti's (#2; 5/16/11) and Gus' (#3; 6/6/13), but it's obviously not as new as Banana's (who's ranked 4th). I haven't watched any of the replays, but it seems very likely that the game continues to track score after the counterstop and ranks people accordingly. So the only thing that would need to be "fixed" is the score display.

[Bananamatic]

yeah, the run wasn't very good, got only 3,75b before larsa but managed to get a good 4 miss of her, got the counterstop just after the TLB2 died so my score is probably the lowest
IIRC EnchantedMirror got the counterstop before even getting to the st5 boss

[ProjectAKo]

mfw that counterstop probably exists because I bet they're just using unsigned 4 byte integers for the score which have maximum values of 4.2 billion

to fix that you could basically create a different score counter somewhere in the game's ram (just make it 64 bits, so double the current size) and make sure everything points to it instead of the old one

[Bananamatic]

one thing I never understood is why the sdoj overflow is at 21,47m

it's basically a 32bit signed integer max value, except divided by 100 - where did the rest of it go? it's not like they're using the other bits for something else, because then it wouldn't be divided by 100?

[ProjectAKo]

haha, that's really weird, but it's too suspiciously close to the right value, so they definitely did something stupid like that

[Tarma]

1cc Same! Same! Same! aka Twin Hawk on the Mega Drive.

Great game... wish they'd ported Flying Shark as well

[KAI]

Congrats Bananamatic.

Talking about M2, 1CCed Twinbee Da! (remake) and Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius ~forever with me~ on PSP.

[BIL]

1cc Same! Same! Same! aka Twin Hawk on the Mega Drive.

Great game... wish they'd ported Flying Shark as well

Same Same is actually Fire Shark; Twin Hawk is Daisenpu, which also got a Mega Drive port from Toaplan themselves (as did Tatsujin/Truxton, Hellfire, Zero Wing and Snow Bros). It's not as great an MD gem as Same Same, and I'd totally rewrite history to have them port Flying Shark/Hishouzame instead, but there's still a lot to love. Especially if you're a sniper tank aficionado.

I'm probably not the best to give recs though, I love all nine Toaplan MD ports one way or another (including Kyuukyoku Tiger/Twin Cobra, V-V/Grind Stormer and Wardner Special, all ported by other devs). All of 'em have that magical effect of bringing out the console's alter ego, a miniature JAMMA death machine that whoops ass like it's getting paid.

[WelshMegalodon]

I think I'd like Tatsujin MD more if it ran at the correct speed on an NTSC system. I mean, listen to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw6l6fkSVP8

The music actually sounds fine on a PAL machine, though no one in the comments seems to realize this.

[BIL]

Yeah, I did raise an eyebrow at Yuge's confession that he'd cocked up the port speed! Donburi ramen on the brain! Ah well... apology accepted sir, I'll follow you gents to the gates of hell for Same Same, Hellfire and Snow Bros anyways.

[WelshMegalodon]

And BIL comes through yet again. Truly, you never fail when it comes to games.

[BIL]

Haha, I try to spread the good works of vital chaps like blackoak and GSK (who confirmed Snow Bros MD's origins a while back - Tengen were hammering out a lot of great arcade ports around then, hard to keep track of who did what).

Speaking of Tengen's latter-day MD glories, how I'd forget about SLAP FIGHT MD. That does deserve a slap. Possibly the biggest triumph of them all, especially if you know about >>>TOAPLAN MODE<<<

[Shepardus]

Finally got the Strikers 1945 1-ALL that's been haunting me since TRP-STGT last year! Somehow I managed to finish the first loop with two extra lives which was enough for me to get to 2-2.

Video
I swear the first four stages are harder than the last four, though it may be because I set higher standards for myself on the early stages. Nice game but I prefer the two sequels, and not just because they have less input lag in MAME. Looking forward to putting some more time in those two now that I don't feel the need to work on the first game instead.

[Stevens]

Nice work Shep. Saturn or Mame?

[chempop]

Congrats Sheppy
Now try with some of the interesting planes

[To Far Away Times]

1-ALL on Gradius for NES and a No Miss 1-ALL on Gradius II for NES.

[Vludi]

Got a Ketsui 1-All after almost a week of practice. I suck at bullet hells so pretty happy that at least i did a basic clear of the games i liked.