BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

A forum for saving and showing off all your hi scores
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Perikles
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BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

Image

One credit only, as always.

Please post your scores like this:

Player - Score - Stage - (Autofire in case of the arcade version)

Arcade

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage     Autofire     
1. Perikles    4,540,900    ALL        Yes      
2. Emuser      4,232,700    ALL        Yes
3. 
4.  
5.
SFC/SNES

Normal

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage     
1. Perikles    5,453,900    3-5
2. CIT         3,047,200    2-5
3. Kollision   2,433,700    2-2      
4. 
5.  
Hard

Code: Select all

    Name         Score     Stage     
1. pegboy      4,322,300    3-1
2.      
3. 
4. 
5.  
Last edited by Perikles on Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:20 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

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Perikles - 2,389,500 - 2-2

Not really satisfied with it, but it'll do for now.
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Kollision
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Kollision »

Soooo much air in this game.... :roll:

Kollision - 2,433,700 - 2-2

Image
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

No kidding! There is a stretch before the final boss where nothing happens - for 45 seconds. :lol: The only reason why I can tolerate such a blunder is because of the terrific soundtrack. Gotta love energetic tunes like Alpha or Fighting Machine!
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pegboy
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by pegboy »

Might as well add my score since I spent some time on this game:

pegboy - 4,322,300 - 3-1 - Hard mode

I agree that this game has great music, there are also a few interesting visuals, but for the most part it's just a bore.
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

As said in the other thread: great work like usual. :) Just one question: what technique do you use to mash buttons like this? :shock: I can never destroy the mid-boss in the final stage, and you wiped that thing out by the time you reached the halfway point, that is some impressive button violation.
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pegboy
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by pegboy »

Perikles wrote:As said in the other thread: great work like usual. :) Just one question: what technique do you use to mash buttons like this? :shock: I can never destroy the mid-boss in the final stage, and you wiped that thing out by the time you reached the halfway point, that is some impressive button violation.
Lol It's not button mashing. This game has autofire built in (press x).
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

No way! And I was mashing like a lunatic this entire time... :oops:
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pegboy
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by pegboy »

Were you using the y-button? I'm pretty sure X is autofire.

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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

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Perikles - 2,751,100 - 2-3

Well, I'll be damned. I was indeed exclusively using the Y button until now, which makes some of the boss fights needlessly difficult. I couldn't believe how fast the midboss in stage 3 got annihilated, he usually circled around for two or three times before I got him. I could kick myself for not trying it out earlier. I still made some stupid mistakes on loop 2, but that was to be expected, anyway. Thanks a lot, pegboy, without you I probably never would've been enlightened. :D

Edit: Looks like the other host I used is out of business, added a working picture.
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

Arcade

Image

Perikles - 3,013,000 - ALL - Autofire Yes

Video

Please tell me whether or not you used autofire in the arcade version, it makes a huge difference. And also do yourself a favour and play it to begin with, it's grand. :)
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CIT
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by CIT »

Old score for the SFC version (normal difficulty):

CIT - 3,047,200 - 2-5

Image

This game is both horrible and amazing at the same time.
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

Arcade

Image

Perikles - 4,389,400 - ALL - Yes

Graaaah!
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Emuser
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Emuser »

Posting another arcade score for the all stages perfect clear I got a few days ago:

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

Emuser - 4,232,700 - ALL - Yes
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

Arcade

Image

Perikles - 4,540,900 - ALL - Yes

Alright! A few blunders in the beginning, space-consuming nervosity at the end where I even failed to destroy two harmless platforms, but I finally managed to get a Perfect on every stage, a No-Miss and a great milking process at the third boss. Will of course upload the video with several notes, but first and foremost I want to thank Emuser for his sagely advices and his video, helped me out tremendously! :) Extremely satisfied with this result, only 60k below my best savestate attempts, I have a terrible suspicion how the WR was achieved, more on that later!
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Emuser
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Emuser »

Dang, good stuff. Kind of crazy how quickly these scores escalated over a week and a half, this game's arcade version never had much activity then suddenly it's being torn apart with scores that are between 200K and 100K away from the WR.
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

Here's the video (removed the first casual clear, of course)!

For future reference, here's what could be improved (under realistic circumstances):
Spoiler
Stage 1

Milk a handful more enemies from the hatches. Those are worth peanuts, but it's there.

Ideally you can destroy two turrets while taking out the first boss, that requires luck, though. If you're unlucky, the core spawns in an isolated area and you don't get any additional turret at all, the best you can get is two turrets, I believe. That's also negligible in the long run.

Stage 2

I milked the Titan for a few of its missiles already, but I could've gotten more points, I believe. Again, peanuts.

And once more a slightly better milking from the hatches.

Second boss fight was really bad (for safety reasons). You can get over 20,000 points more out of it, probably requiring a different suit.

Stage 3

I only got one mine from the Barons before the mid-boss since those guys immediately escape afterwards. You can get one from each. That's another 20,000 points.

While I am extremely satisfied with how the milking turned out on the third boss, it could be better (see below).

Stage 4

Milk the first phase of the mid-boss for a few more missiles. This is yet again a minimal amount of points.

Get a slightly better time at the boss. I was nervous wrack at that point and didn't use the special attack properly.

Stage 5

Destroy several more spheres from the mid-boss. Didn't even look into that all that thoroughly, but again, I was too nervous at that point, regardless.

Don't miss two platforms that are easy to get and worth 10,000 points each!

Get a few Titan missiles for a pitiful amount of points at the end of the game.
Now, this would ideally net a score over 4.6m, but it's still under the WR by a considerable amount. Unless there's some sort of a bug that gives you extra points for doing something esoteric, I would assume that there must be a way to squeeze a lot more points out of the third boss. The spheres will spawn faster the quicker you destroy them - if you let one sphere pass by, however severely damaged, it will continue its merry-go-round before a fresh set appears. My initial thought was that a Baron suit or the Garland itself might be faster than the Grain Beat since they offer true point-blank auto fire capabilities that the latter lacks, but it's apparently either not the case or completely unrealistic to pull off (the Baron has one hell of a time actually doing damage to the boss, too!). But this is pretty much the only spot in the game that's left for big points. Sure, if you somehow optimize the process of taking over fewer mechs you might get a few thousand points more, but we're still talking about roughly 100k here. No idea where those are...

I will say, however, that I am really happy with my current score. :)
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ProjectAKo
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by ProjectAKo »

If you keep playing the same game for several months I guarantee you'll figure it out. It's gonna be really boring though.
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pegboy
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by pegboy »

Do all the bosses and mid bosses time out in this game (arcade version that is)?
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

Yes, they do. Bosses will time out once the timer hits 0 (this also denies you the perfect bonus even if you got a 100% shoot down rate), mid-bosses time out on their own rather fast. I milk the fourth mid-boss for all its drones, for example, he would've fled right afterwards. The one mid-boss that definitely could've been optimized is the fifth one, he'll shoot out more of those orbs that split into laser beams. You do want to kill some of them quickly, though, since you spawn a handful of additional enemies that way.

You can destroy more turrets on the first boss and also on the final boss, but you effectively lose a lot of points since the timer far outweighs the benefits of that feeble milking process. The only boss that is worth milking is the third one.
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pegboy
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by pegboy »

Perhaps there is a way to make the 3rd boss spawn the orbs faster?
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

It is standing to reason that there must be a way to milk this guy even more, yes. You absolutely want to destroy every single sphere of each cycle since that triggers a new set, elsewise he'll repeat the pattern with however many spheres there were left from the previous cycle. The problem is that there are only so many options to enter this fight:

- With the Grain Beat as I did in the video. It lacks massive point-blank autofire capabilities, yet it pierces these things (allowing you to damage the boss at the same time) and destroys them satisfyingly fast as is. This also makes dodging much easier since you don't have to be too close to the spheres while doing so. The Grain Breat is by far the best suit to reliably get many points out of the ordeal, it also makes the beginning of the next stage considerably easier.

- You can enter the fight with a Mars suit (that's the one with the three-way shot), but it's entirely useless. Due to the inconsistent autofire rate you'll never be able to take out every sphere, and you're most definitely not going to kill the boss or dodge the missiles at the same time.

- There's also the Baron (the one that drops the mines). It was my first suspicion that you have to enter the battle with this suit since he'll obliterate the spheres from up close thanks to the rapid-fire bombs. The major drawback is that he does pitiful damage with the main shot (which will eventually ruin cycles when you have to retreat; I also have no idea how to actually kill the boss in time with him since the few bombs that hit the eye won't do nearly enough damage). Also, despite its appearance, the hitbox of this suit is absurdly huge, making it extremely difficult to dodge the missiles.

- Lasty, there's the Garland itself. This might not be a terrible idea since it can point-blank with both projectiles, but I couldn't get much of a surplus out of it, either. Unlike the Grain Beat it doesn't damage the boss while doing the milking, you have to make the conscious effort to damage him. This also complicates the process of dodging since the Garland is rather slow compared to the Grain Beat even though the hit box might be minimally smaller.


In nuce: I'm honestly not sure how to optimize it. Since the non-auto WR is lower than the maximum score I managed to achieve with savestates I'm going to assume that it must be this boss (it's the only section in the game where you can potentially squeeze out much more points and where autofire is this important), I just don't know how.
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Perikles
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Re: BlaZeon [Arcade/SFC/SNES]

Post by Perikles »

SFC

Image

Perikles - 5,453,900 - 3-5

A particular mood overcame me in this case, I suppose. I actually refined some strategies in that very run, I'm fairly certain I could consistently lose one life per loop at most now provided my concentration would hold (not something to take for granted with all those dreary stretches), I don't really feel like it, though. It's such a tragedy how this port turned out, a few of the (mid)boss fights still administer the unique & interesting nature of the original, the incessant lulls and obvious examples of slovenliness (the hitbox in the rear of the regular ship is colossal, you have to navigate through the shafts in the final stage in highly unnatural ways as a result) entirely ruin what could've been an adequate interpretation. I actually rather like the new second midboss in stage 4 (stage 3 in the arcade game) and the fact that Battle of Silence still plays during the final boss confrontation, so it's not like every single one of the changes was for the worse.
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