Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Master O]

I'd recommend laser for the third boss, spread gun/homing missiles for the rest of the game. Also learn about the safespot in the final boss fight. And more importantly, always use the blue ship. The game is considerably harder when playing as 1P.

So the spread gun/homing missiles strategy can still apply to either player 1 or 2, despite the difficulty, right?

[Stevens]

Mars Matrix AM. 2 credits, 1.4 million XP and a pink digit.

Finished stage one with 771 chain and 340,000 XP. Ate a stray bullet in stage five but decided to continue since I was so far ahead of my normal scoring curve.

It doesn't count, but it is within reach.

[LordHypnos]

Mars Matrix AM. 2 credits, 1.4 million XP and a pink digit.

Finished stage one with 771 chain and 340,000 XP. Ate a stray bullet in stage five but decided to continue since I was so far ahead of my normal scoring curve.

It doesn't count, but it is within reach.

Yeah, that's about as good as I ever do on stage one, though a few days ago I got an inexplicable almost 400k in stage one (it was like a +800, I think), but that almost never happens. I've been averaging more like +690 to +720 recently.
Pink digit (trillions) doesn't sound right for 1.4 mill, though, especially not for non-clear, or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
Just to brag a bit, I got a couple 2ccs with lower 2 mill in exp the last few days Also got a pink digit score one time, but still no clears.

Also have been playing Blue Revolver a bit since it came out, and it's really enjoyable. I think my favorite configuration so far is Mae power shot with the cluster bomb, but I scored better with Val + arc laser. Also the arc laser is very cool, too. Might try val spread sometime soon.

[Stevens]

Pink digit (trillions) doesn't sound right for 1.4
Just to brag a bit, I got a couple 2ccs with lower 2 mill in exp the last few days Also got a pink digit score one time, but still no clears.

You're right, I'm retarded. It was still a good run in light of the mental hiccup on my part. At least I know I can beat my PB!

Keeping my sessions between 30-45 has helped immensely. Either I get a few good runs in or I don't and walk away.

Brag, It's motivating:D

Should have some time to play this evening.

[LordHypnos]

Pink digit (trillions) doesn't sound right for 1.4
Just to brag a bit, I got a couple 2ccs with lower 2 mill in exp the last few days Also got a pink digit score one time, but still no clears.

You're right, I'm retarded. It was still a good run in light of the mental hiccup on my part. At least I know I can beat my PB!

Keeping my sessions between 30-45 has helped immensely. Either I get a few good runs in or I don't and walk away.

Brag, It's motivating:D

Should have some time to play this evening.

Had a couple good runs today. The best was 2.7 million exp and a pink digit. It was incredibly frustrating, because I had a momentary lapse in memory and screwed up the rose at a bad time, and was unable to quite make it past the (incredibly easy) final form of the final boss.

Also I refigured out how to do the beginning of the first stage chain better, but I can't seem to do well on the very last part of the first stage. I did manage to get +800 once in practice mode, which was crazy. mostly I've been getting upper +600s, which is especially annoying since I'm getting more in the early part of the first stage.

[JBC]

Had a fun time playing Dariusburst CS in the PSVR headset tonight. It's blurry & comparable to playing on an old CRT through RF, but it's a really good solution for Arcade Mode this side of buying a massive TV. I have a massive TV & it's not enough...

[Jonst]

I'm addicted to ibara. I thought I was burnt out completely with it. Turns out that's not true, beat my personal best score this morning and almost beat the stage 5 boss. If I hadn't made a stupid mistake on stage 4 I may well have got into stage 6!

[Stevens]

Had a couple good runs today. The best was 2.7 million exp and a pink digit. It was incredibly frustrating, because I had a momentary lapse in memory and screwed up the rose at a bad time, and was unable to quite make it past the (incredibly easy) final form of the final boss.

Also I refigured out how to do the beginning of the first stage chain better, but I can't seem to do well on the very last part of the first stage. I did manage to get +800 once in practice mode, which was crazy. mostly I've been getting upper +600s, which is especially annoying since I'm getting more in the early part of the first stage.

Ouch. Final form of stage 6? I laughed a little

The bold is the difference between 500+ and 700+ for me, and only just within the last week have I started to understand how to chain the last part. I've been doing this:

After the tower that drops the big cube, there is the scenery you can destroy and then the two squads of ships dart diagonally.I head to the top right, pierce the 1st few and then keep piercing and head straight down to the bottom right, hit a green carrier thing or two and then cubes from the first set of ships start reaching me. Keep piercing, destroy the second set of darting ships, reflect some of there bullets and now the hard part.

The green carriers come on to the screen. I seem to have the best luck waiting as long as I can to collect their cubes and that has led to some being on the screen when the last wave arrives. Then I try to grind one of those ships to keep the chain going. If I can do that great run, if not good run.

I would guess stage 5 would be the easiest stage to find more points. I never had a 1000+ on that stage till the other day Not kidding.

Jonst you devil! I'm going to work and you're on lunch I take it?

[Jonst]

@stevens. day off!

[LordHypnos]

Had a couple good runs today. The best was 2.7 million exp and a pink digit. It was incredibly frustrating, because I had a momentary lapse in memory and screwed up the rose at a bad time, and was unable to quite make it past the (incredibly easy) final form of the final boss.

Also I refigured out how to do the beginning of the first stage chain better, but I can't seem to do well on the very last part of the first stage. I did manage to get +800 once in practice mode, which was crazy. mostly I've been getting upper +600s, which is especially annoying since I'm getting more in the early part of the first stage.

Ouch. Final form of stage 6? I laughed a little

The bold is the difference between 500+ and 700+ for me, and only just within the last week have I started to understand how to chain the last part. I've been doing this:

After the tower that drops the big cube, there is the scenery you can destroy and then the two squads of ships dart diagonally.I head to the top right, pierce the 1st few and then keep piercing and head straight down to the bottom right, hit a green carrier thing or two and then cubes from the first set of ships start reaching me. Keep piercing, destroy the second set of darting ships, reflect some of there bullets and now the hard part.

The green carriers come on to the screen. I seem to have the best luck waiting as long as I can to collect their cubes and that has led to some being on the screen when the last wave arrives. Then I try to grind one of those ships to keep the chain going. If I can do that great run, if not good run.

I think I'm probably already doing this, though it's a bit tough to say for sure. What usually makes the difference is those last few enemies. I try to suck up the bullets and spray them in such a way that as many of them as possible turn to gold cubes against the enemies, then collect them without dying.

There are a few variants that are bad. One of them is where I can't make it over to the cubes (I'm usually lower down than the enemies onscreen, and the cubes seem to end up above them; naturally they are firing bullets at this point. I usually try to have two of the dropped cubes on the bottom, which is sometimes enough to keep going until I can collect the reflected cubes. Sometimes I either don't get enough dropped cubes or can't weave around to get the reflected cubes before the chain break. With a chain break I'll usually end up with around 150k exp and restart. Often times when all of that doesn't go wrong, I'll just end up with not nearly enough reflected cubes, and therefore only get a little more or less than 200k (which seems to be around +680 or +690 chain), and I'll usually keep that, but be annoyed.

When I get a good chain (+700 to +800) it's upwards of 250k experience. Not sure what exactly, though. You can see my basic strat for this in this video I took of stage 1 with +777 chain [[warning: even lower video quality than my clear video]] As a surprising aside, that's not actually the only time I got exactly +777.

Actually, watching that, it looks like I'm doing the last leg a little differently than I do now, by going way over to the top left before releasing the mosquito, so perhaps I should try imitating that video more. Note that the beginning of the chain in that video (particularly around 0:30) is pretty suboptimal (and it looks like I noted that in the video description). Recently I've been getting up to around +200 at around 0:37 of that video, and it looks like that is maybe like +170ish. This is because I failed at trying to exploit the bonus enemies, which I don't usually screw up.

I would guess stage 5 would be the easiest stage to find more points. I never had a 1000+ on that stage till the other day Not kidding.

Yeah, there's a lot of unexploited potential there for me too, even though I know how to full chain it, already. I think there's a lot you can do with not killing as many enemies so that they keep firing bullets that you can turn to gold with the bullet cancelling enemies. Also there's some notable parts where you can trigger more bonus enemies that are quite valuable, especially if you have a crazy high multiplier. Rob has a very nice stage 5 video (that you can find on page 9 of the score thread) with a like +2500 chain.

I think I usually get around +1400 or maybe +1300 or +1500. I'm not actually sure. There have been a few times where I've gotten +1000 even without full chaining the stage, so make of that what you will. It usually only ends up being around, I want to say, 600-800k in a regular run if I full chain it, though.

By comparison stage 3 with my mostly complete chain is more like 1-1.1 mill (I usually get +1400 to +1600 chain, but there is a far higher percentage of single cubes in 3 than in 5, so you get higher experience for it). Unless you're already mostly full chaining stage 3 you might actually find that that would increase your overall multiplier a lot more than stage 5 would. 3 really gives you the most for the least effort. This is not to say that it's easy to chain. Minus the waterfall, I'd say it's harder to chain than 1 or 5, but it's consistantly achievable, at least using my route.

Sorry for the painful amount of detail, btw

[Stevens]

Minus the waterfall, I'd say it's harder to chain than 1 or 5, but it's consistantly achievable, at least using my route.

Sorry for the painful amount of detail, btw

I restart on stage 1 enough. If I get 150,000 I take it and run. not to say I wouldn't rather have more.

3 is sort of an enigma for me other than the waterfall. Survive it? Sure. Chain it? I would try to chain 2 or 4 first.

Didn't play yesterday. Definitely playing today.

That 600-800K on 5 will be the difference of me making level 8 or not.

And beating my score of course.

[LordHypnos]

Minus the waterfall, I'd say it's harder to chain than 1 or 5, but it's consistantly achievable, at least using my route.

Sorry for the painful amount of detail, btw

I restart on stage 1 enough. If I get 150,000 I take it and run. not to say I wouldn't rather have more.

3 is sort of an enigma for me other than the waterfall. Survive it? Sure. Chain it? I would try to chain 2 or 4 first.

Didn't play yesterday. Definitely playing today.

That 600-800K on 5 will be the difference of me making level 8 or not.

And beating my score of course.

Yeah, well it is probably best to take the low hanging fruit, and if that's 5 for you, them go for it. That being said, 3 is probably easier to chain than you think. Certainly easier than 2 or 4. My 3 route that chains grew naturally out of my survival route. To improve it I'd need to change it a lot, but 1 mill is pretty good

[Stevens]

Yeah nothing. Work was sent into lock down today. Found out afterwards it was a hoax, but that shit is still stressful as fuck.

I drank and played 3rd Strike and a little Fast Striker. Probably too driunk to play Mats Matrix. <----Someone make a wrestinlg game called this.

[Leandro]

Playing Mushihime Sama Arrange mode and getting my ass kicked... Can't get past stage 4, can't even re4ach trhe boss

[Vludi]

Playing some Gun Frontier. When people think of proto-danmakus names like Batsugun or V-V come to mind, but this game also feels a lot like those for me, screen gets cluttered with slow-ish bullets in no time, however the difference here is that the hitboxes are also quite big and the enemies shoot bullets very near to you, giving it a different style. It's for sure an interesting title, although clearing it will require some strict routing and resource management.

[Aldnox]

Blue Revolver is super fun.

[Some-Mist]

played through pink sweets arrange for two weeks till I got the 1CC
now working on muchi muchi pork 1.01 and I'm hitting a wall at the end of stage 3/end of stage 4.

having a blast with this bundle and glad I'm really sinking my teeth into it.

[LordHypnos]

Finally managed to get the clear. Was a weird situation where I did really well on the first half of the game, with 2 mill exp before stage 4, then only managed to get like 300k on stage 5. Must have broken the chain without noticing. I think I died only on stage 4 boss and twice in 6. Also tried to learn how to chain early stage 2. We'll see how that goes

[Durandal]

spent a whole day practicing DDP hard
now I can reliably get to stage 4

[Stevens]

Finally managed to get the clear. Was a weird situation where I did really well on the first half of the game, with 2 mill exp before stage 4, then only managed to get like 300k on stage 5. Must have broken the chain without noticing. I think I died only on stage 4 boss and twice in 6. Also tried to learn how to chain early stage 2. We'll see how that goes

Nice.

Haven't played since Thursday. Was away all weekend and Monday and Tuesday I get home late from work. Tomorrow for sure!

[atheistgod1999]

Just started Crimzon Clover, and I suck at it. It took me four attempts just to make it to level 2.

[Gamer683441]

Back playing Darius Gaiden. Love It!! Got to level 5 without dying but once I lose a ship, it feels tough to comeback.

[Shepardus]

Just started Crimzon Clover, and I suck at it. It took me four attempts just to make it to level 2.

Welcome to bullet hell, I guess?

Protips:

• You've got that break/double break meter for a reason, use it. It's critical for both survival and scoring. It's also super fun.
• Use your lock-on attack more too. It's a key part of your arsenal and there's no limit to how much you can use it.
• When you use your lock-on attack, hold the button longer to get larger volleys of missiles. In almost all cases where the lock-on attack is useful at all (e.g. when there are large enemies) it's more effective to charge up the attack to full or near-full (it'll only charge up if the enemies on the screen have enough health to absorb the missiles' damage). If you repeatedly tap the button you won't lock on to things as quickly, I think because the lock-on circle has to re-expand every time you press the button. Every enemy in stage 1 except the boss can be destroyed with at most one full lock-on plus a few extra shots. Destroying enemies with larger volleys of missiles also gives you a larger lock-on multiplier which is critical for scoring as it not only affects the score you get while it's active, but also the rate at which the break rate multiplier increases. Shooting large groups of missiles is also a hell of a lot more satisfying.
• You move more slowly when you're holding the lock-on attack button. Use that to your advantage in places like the stage 1 boss. Especially with the Type III ship, you should be holding the lock-on button all the time, only releasing it briefly when you want to launch missiles.

[davyK]

Trying out 2 arcade sticks for my 360 (2 Hori Ex2s - one had developed a glitch) - and had them both connected - just took the defaults on Futari Original 1.5 and was messing about and not really trying - player 2 was Normal Palm which I hadn't tried before. When P1 got a game over I was able to pick up the MP and it was very entertaining blasting away at max strength in the earlier levels! It's tempted me to try Normal Palm despite how twitchy he feels.

(btw think the glitch just needed me to disconnect and re-connect. I was getting laser when I was tapping normal shot - as if the button was sticking even though it wasn't)

A little bit of Dreamcast Gigawing and DDP:Res on 360 (novice and 1.5)

[Stevens]

Got 45 minutes of MM in last night. Hit 300,000 twice on level 1 and 200+ twice as well.

Of course a potentially brilliant run was negated by stupidity, and then the escape pod.

Mostly stupidity though.

Gonna hit that shit again tonight.

[Blem]

Slowly chipping away at Dai-Fukkatsu.

C-Strong is painfully unfun though. Maybe I should just grit my teeth and learn how to not die in Power.

[Shepardus]

I said earlier that the PSP version (and the other 32-bit ports) of Parodius Da! tames down the rank system a lot which leaves the stages feeling rather unthreatening in the first loop, but turning up the difficulty setting solves that. On difficulty 8 (the maximum) it's fast-paced mayhem as early as stage 1. Instead of the heavy rank management of the arcade version, you get a game that pulls out all its stops from the start (except suicide bullets, I guess) and lets you do the same, including taking multiple speed ups. Also there's almost no slowdown unlike the arcade version. It's amazing fun but stage 2 is an infernal deathbed - I may have to turn the difficulty down a bit to get used to it.

Still having trouble with the stage 5 boss in the arcade version... I've gotten to stage 8 a number of times but have yet to get past it. My most recent run there managed to get past the school of suicide bullet fish with a full arsenal of options and ripple laser but was ruined when I picked up a roulette capsule and pressed the upgrade button without realizing it was a roulette capsule. Instead of getting tailgun like I thought I would, I got the "Oh!"

[BIL]

I said earlier that the PSP version (and the other 32-bit ports) of Parodius Da! tames down the rank system a lot which leaves the stages feeling rather unthreatening in the first loop, but turning up the difficulty setting solves that. On difficulty 8 (the maximum) it's fast-paced mayhem as early as stage 1. Instead of the heavy rank management of the arcade version, you get a game that pulls out all its stops from the start (except suicide bullets, I guess) and lets you do the same, including taking multiple speed ups. Also there's almost no slowdown unlike the arcade version. It's amazing fun but stage 2 is an infernal deathbed - I may have to turn the difficulty down a bit to get used to it.

Nice, this sounds great. Without a Saturn at the moment, but I like to follow discussions of the Deluxe Pack/Portable sets' foibles.

[Stevens]

Still MM.

Getting better on the first three stages with regards to XP. I think I can get 1 million+ by the fountain (did it once already), the X factor is how well I can chain stage 3 up to that point.

[atheistgod1999]

Welcome to bullet hell, I guess?

Protips:

• You've got that break/double break meter for a reason, use it. It's critical for both survival and scoring. It's also super fun.
• Use your lock-on attack more too. It's a key part of your arsenal and there's no limit to how much you can use it.
• When you use your lock-on attack, hold the button longer to get larger volleys of missiles. In almost all cases where the lock-on attack is useful at all (e.g. when there are large enemies) it's more effective to charge up the attack to full or near-full (it'll only charge up if the enemies on the screen have enough health to absorb the missiles' damage). If you repeatedly tap the button you won't lock on to things as quickly, I think because the lock-on circle has to re-expand every time you press the button. Every enemy in stage 1 except the boss can be destroyed with at most one full lock-on plus a few extra shots. Destroying enemies with larger volleys of missiles also gives you a larger lock-on multiplier which is critical for scoring as it not only affects the score you get while it's active, but also the rate at which the break rate multiplier increases. Shooting large groups of missiles is also a hell of a lot more satisfying.
• You move more slowly when you're holding the lock-on attack button. Use that to your advantage in places like the stage 1 boss. Especially with the Type III ship, you should be holding the lock-on button all the time, only releasing it briefly when you want to launch missiles.

Thanks for the advice. I've managed to get a little better. Here's what I got after 7 more tries.

How's this easier than the Yellow Devil?