Games with extra enemy wave / speed kill based scoring

[Squire Grooktook]

Chronicling what is undoubtedly the manliest scoring mechanic.

I'm specifically looking for the method where additional enemies pop up from killing things fast enough. Just giving a multiplier or score bonus to kills works too but is a worse method to me for a number of reasons.

Also needs to be more or less the main or one of the most important scoring mechanics. One or two secret enemies being possible throughout the game doesn't really cut it.

I think there's also quite a few Caravan games that work this way IIRC, but I'm more thinking of full length STG's. Might put up a list for Caravan titles too if people name a few.


Extra Enemies:

Dangun Feveron
Thunder Dragon 2
Gundemonium Recollection
GundeadliGne
Mecha Ritz (original and Steel Rondo)
Raycrisis

Score Bonus for Speed:

Armed Seven
Raiden III
Raiden IV
Raiden V
Super Robot Vulkaiser

Borderliners:

Mars Matrix (a few extra enemies possible, not sure how many or how integral though)
eXceed 2nd (score bonus only on bosses, but it's actually the trickiest and most essential part of scoring)

???

Parsec27 (mimics dangun mechanically, but it's hard to tell if the extra waves are carried over)
Blazeon (more points for killing bosses faster? confirmation needed)
Exzisius (indeterminate number of extra enemies possible?)

[Legendary Hoamaru]

Mecha Ritz (I could be completely wrong here, but I think this was a thing???)

It's definitely a thing. It not only spawns more enemies, but also more power up carriers which leads to an increase in rank when you point blank them. When you increase the rank you also increase the scrolling speed of the game.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Right, it's been a while since I had time to sit down with the game. Forgot all about the key component of extra item carriers.

[Gespenst]

RayCrisis probably should fit the bill

also notoriously (thanks to obviously OP free range) Thunder Force V gave you as much as 16x multiplier for speedkilling larger foes.

[pegboy]

I believe Raiden V also has similar scoring mechanics to III & IV.

Also, this is a bit esoteric but I recall BlaZeon giving you more points the quicker you kill the bosses. I believe both the SNES and arcade version both do this but perhaps Perikles can confirm that.

[Squire Grooktook]

RayCrisis probably should fit the bill

Ah, I'm only intimate with Rayforce and passingly familliar with Raystorm. How does RayCrisis handle it?

[Gespenst]

RayCrisis probably should fit the bill

Ah, I'm only intimate with Rayforce and passingly familliar with Raystorm. How does RayCrisis handle it?

It's tied to the encroachment meter. Lower encroachment level (killing as many things as possible) will spawn more enemy waves.

[Squire Grooktook]

RayCrisis probably should fit the bill

Ah, I'm only intimate with Rayforce and passingly familliar with Raystorm. How does RayCrisis handle it?

It's tied to the encroachment meter. Lower encroachment level (killing as many things as possible) will spawn more enemy waves.

Ah I see. You need low encroachment for true last boss/ending (and scoreplay) iirc, right?

[Mero]

Exzisus does this in places (extra enemies), pretty sure Bullet Soul does it as well iirc.

[wizkid]

Armed seven and Vulkaiser both have huge multipliers for fast killing and they spawn lots of extra enemies, the bonus for speedkilling boss is also very big. in CCWI speedkilling is a big part of scoring too, though there is no speedkill bonus, but you want to kill as many things as you can before your lock multiplier runs out, preferably while double breaking, which makes you so strong you will spawn a ton of extra enemies. it's really fun with type z becouse it's so op in double break.

[Squire Grooktook]

Exzisus does this in places (extra enemies), pretty sure Bullet Soul does it as well iirc.

Is there much of a skill ceiling to it in Exzisus? I'm primarily looking for games where this is a very consistent way to raise your score with a fair amount of depth possible in pushing it.

Armed seven and Vulkaiser both have huge multipliers for fast killing and they spawn lots of extra enemies, the bonus for speedkilling boss is also very big. in CCWI speedkilling is a big part of scoring too, though there is no speedkill bonus, but you want to kill as many things as you can before your lock multiplier runs out, preferably while double breaking, which makes you so strong you will spawn a ton of extra enemies. it's really fun with type z becouse it's so op in double break.

Forgot about Armed Seven. I think it's quite well done there, regularly sacrificing your protective sub weapon to kill things faster. Haven't played Vulkaiser but I'll add it.

CCWI is a bit more ambiguous. Like many chaining games, you want to kill things fast when your chain is dependent on it, but other times you want to delay kills to track up the multiplier or keep certain chains going. It's definitely an agressive game, but not quite what I'm thinking of. Might add it as a borderliner.

[Shepardus]

CCWI is unambiguously not what you're asking for, there's no explicit reward for killing things quickly. If you're going to include it, then add Ketsui too since it has a similar timer system. And Dragon Blaze since if you're not speedkilling things in that game you're probably getting killed. And every game where you're not milking every single enemy.

Ikaruga has boss bonuses based on time remaining and also has a number of places where you can get extra enemies by finishing off the enemies quickly.

[Deadliar]

Cho Rensha spawns bonus enemies if you speedkill certain waves. One of them is really easy to trigger on the very first stage. just point-blank the big guys really fast.

[Squire Grooktook]

Cho Rensha spawns bonus enemies if you speedkill certain waves. One of them is really easy to trigger on the very first stage. just point-blank the big guys really fast.

I thought of that, but there's only really one or two prominent examples of that throughout the game AFAIK. The stage 1 "angels" and maybe a few others. But it's not a consistent element of the game sadly.

Would Hellsinker count?

CCWI is unambiguously not what you're asking for, there's no explicit reward for killing things quickly. If you're going to include it, then add Ketsui too since it has a similar timer system. And Dragon Blaze since if you're not speedkilling things in that game you're probably getting killed. And every game where you're not milking every single enemy.

Ikaruga has boss bonuses based on time remaining and also has a number of places where you can get extra enemies by finishing off the enemies quickly.

Hmm, you're probably right. I'll remove it then.

[Gespenst]

Ah I see. You need low encroachment for true last boss/ending (and scoreplay) iirc, right?

Something like that.


Raiden Fighters has Quick Shot bonus for speedkilling mid-sized or larger enemies before they can shoot. Certain enemies and bonus only appears after killing some mid-sized enemies with Quick Shot.

[Perikles]

BlaZeon does indeed give more points if you kill bosses faster, but you also can spawn a handful of additional enemies if you're able to defeat certain mid-bosses quicker (in the arcade game, I don't think this is the case in the port). Lastly, you gain a ton of points if you manage to get a 100% kill rate (which is also the case in Viper Phase 1).

A couple of games (Tatsujin and Trigon) come to mind where depending on how fast you kill the boss of a stage, the next stage starts at an earlier point and thus has more regular enemies. On the other hand, you don't get some enemies to spawn in Trigon if you kill a boss at about the time it would get help from some goons.

I think that Kaitei Daisensou/In the Hunt has a few spots where new enemies appear if you kill the existing ones, though it's not exactly speed-killing in this game, moreso the opposite.

Star Force's entire game design revolves around killing enemy waves at the right time, you can take them out as quickly as possible to advance the sequence, but you actually want to delay that in several instances to have a better chance at survival. Nonetheless, you can spawn more enemies if you murder them with reckless abandon.

I'm not entirely sure about Gun Frontier and Rapid Hero at the moment, might be that enemies are merely numerous in these, perhaps it also has to do with the speed with which you take them out. Macross 2 (the Caravan arcade game) should also have a mechanism like that.

Raiden DX awards more points for killing bosses faster.

[BulletMagnet]

Something in the back of my head is telling me that at least one of Compile's shooters had the "extra enemies" thing, but I can't recall which...on the speedkill bonus thing, the Raiden Fighters games have the "Quick Shot" award, though only for larger enemies.

[Xyga]

I find it too bad when speed killing involves being almost constantly stuck at the top of the screen. It's kinda dumb that a scoring mechanism requires you to abandon about the 2/3rds of the area.

[Squire Grooktook]

I find it too bad when speed killing involves being almost constantly stuck at the top of the screen. It's kinda dumb that a scoring mechanism requires you to abandon about the 2/3rds of the area.

I agree. Part of why I love Dragon Blaze's melee mechanic (not that it features speedkilling as a scoring mechanic, but it's a similarly aggressive game for survival and scoring): the need to retract the dragon after firing it off gives you plenty of time to fall back down to the bottom and make use of your main shot. Forces you to master near and far combat in equal measures.

-

Thanks for the posts Perikles and Gespent, I'll think those over and sort em out when I'm less busy.

[Mero]

Exzisus does this in places (extra enemies), pretty sure Bullet Soul does it as well iirc.

Is there much of a skill ceiling to it in Exzisus? I'm primarily looking for games where this is a very consistent way to raise your score with a fair amount of depth possible in pushing it.
.

Well, it's not something that's going to bag you tons of extra points but you can do it in certain places to get some extra enemies to appear.

Skill ceiling? Not really, though the ship speed in Exzisus is very fast so you need to take care not to crash into anything, especially if trying to speedkill everything.

[Lyv]

Sengoku Blade.
You can get more of the large enemies to spawn by speedkilling them.
Not all of them, but enough to cause significant scoring inequalities depending on the character's firepower.

[KAI]

Milestones is what you are looking for, all their games are based on speed killing and endless enemy waves. Go play Radirgy and Karous.

[Squire Grooktook]

Since a lot of these come with little caveats like "only on certain enemies", etc. I'll probably choose to provide a little explanation for each later on.

Milestones is what you are looking for, all their games are based on speed killing and endless enemy waves. Go play Radirgy and Karous.

See, this is the kind of pleasant little surprise I was hoping for with this thread. I'll try them out now!

[KAI]

I forgot to mention Akashicverse, that game is the caravanest doujin ever.
The regular enemy waves are synchonized with the BGM, and you can get extra waves if you speedkill everything before the music changes. The boss fights also have a similar system.

[Nameschonvergeben]

Touhou

[Shepardus]

Aside from the occasional midboss that reveals extra enemies if you speedkill it, and the spellcard timer that ostensibly rewards you for capturing spellcards quickly, I can't think of anything in Touhou that rewards you for killing things quickly. I can think of far more cases where you would want to keep enemies alive or time down boss attacks to get more graze.

[M.Knight]

Speedkilling is such an awesome scoring mechanic!
Milestone has already been mentioned, so I'll go with Shikigami No Shiro 2 and 3 as well as Hudson Selection Vol.2 : Star Soldier.
The latter is basically what happens when a Star Soldier full game plays like its caravan modes, and it is pretty cool. Here's what I wrote about it in the Annual Shmups Top discussion thread :

Spoiler

While most Star Soldier games' Caravan modes can get intense, I often wondered why this wasn't reflected in the main modes' level-design. Cue this modern reinterpretation of the FC/NES Star Soldier that features a dozen stages that play like the caravan modes with bonuses all over the place, waves to kill as fast as possible to spawn new ones, tiles to destroy and items to collect. Add a rocking soundtrack and you have a winner.

But this Star Soldier is not without its downsides : a controller with turbo functions is required to really enjoy the game, and the power-down system gets very weird after you maxed out your firepower. If you get hit, you'll have to get hit twice again before collecting a power-up restores you to full power, instead of having the same linear progression/regression as usual. Otherwise, all power-ups collected act as bombs and do not grant you additionnal firepower, which is not intuitive at all.

Still, it is a very fun Star Soldier game, worthy of being in my ranking. From what I've played, the PSP version is not as great, with music changed for the worse and a TATE orientation that makes stage backgrounds scroll slower to compensate for the larger play area.

I also think Star Prince in Retro Game Challenge also had that mechanic given how it was inspired by Star Force.

I find it too bad when speed killing involves being almost constantly stuck at the top of the screen. It's kinda dumb that a scoring mechanism requires you to abandon about the 2/3rds of the area.

It is a bit of a shame, but I think clever enemy placement can still make you move a lot and not always stay at the very top. Dangun Feveron also has the discomen to grab so you may have to move downwards to pick them up so it really depends on the other game mechanics.

[Shepardus]

I find it too bad when speed killing involves being almost constantly stuck at the top of the screen. It's kinda dumb that a scoring mechanism requires you to abandon about the 2/3rds of the area.

My biggest problem with speedkill scoring is when players can speedkill so effectively that none of the enemies even make it onto the screen and fire their attacks. You end up with a bunch of explosions around the edges of the screen and not much else. The biggest threat to the player is that they mismemorize something, which doesn't make for terribly fun gameplay in my opinion (whoops you forgot that the 28th digit of pi is 2, you just lost some points and have to deal with some unexpected enemies). If you randomize enemy positions the gameplay becomes a test of reaction time or even luck if the enemy happens to spawn in the most convenient location, neither of which are of much interest to me either.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^That's why, as I said in the op, I believe that systems based around extra enemy waves are vastly superior to those that simply give flat bonuses/multipliers to kills like Raiden > III.

Not only does it accelerate the pacing and create a visceral feedback loop, but by positioning the bonus spawns so that the extra enemies will be able to fire the patterns that were skipped*, you can have your cake and eat it too. It can even form a kind of organic adaptive difficulty / rank, since less enemies will spawn if you're "falling behind" lowering your score but preventing you from being utterly overwhelmed.

*IE: You have to move from the middle of the screen to the left corner to speed kill a big nasty pattern launching fucker before he can shoot his load. Doing this right will result in another one spawning from the other corner, far enough away that he will be able to launch his pattern before you get there.

Ideally, the initial movement to get the first kill should require some risk and finesse as well.

If you randomize enemy positions the gameplay becomes a test of reaction time or even luck if the enemy happens to spawn in the most convenient location, neither of which are of much interest to me either.

I believe all video games forever would benefit from well thought out rng implementation, since to me reaction and improvisation are the most fun thing in any kind of game.

A good example of how to eliminate the "convenient spawn locations" syndrome, where difficulty can vary based on just how lucky the rng is, would be to limit the possible outcomes and guide players to places where the choices presented will always be even.

IE: the player is guided into the middle of the screen by the need to shoot a wave of zakos in the middle before frame 1500. At frame 1500, the game chooses whether to spawn an enemy at 200 pixels to the left, or 200 pixels to the right. No matter which is chosen, the same number of pixels must be traversed to reach the target. Ideally, the designer should also limit the number of bonus enemies that can be summoned by the quick-kill, so that players won't be able to "guess", bypassing the 15 frame telegraphing window.

[Sumez]

Really good points. I agree that being rewarded with extra enemy spawns (preferably some very nasty ones) is the way to go, as opposed to a direct score bonus. Knowing waves well enough to dispose of them immediately has the great risk of actually making the game easier while rewarding the player for doing it, which compromises the classic risk/reward structure you want in a scoring system. If you want your score you gotta work for it. As exciting as Garegga is, I also prefer ranking systems where you WANT to play at max rank for maximum scoring potential.

I think RNG is definitely a big factor here. The reason I don't really want to get into Dangun is that scoring based almost entirely around memorizing the enemy waves just isn't my kinda thing. I already have a really hard time memorizing vertical shooters for survival purposes in the first place, and a game that rewards fast dispatching of enemies would definitely benefit from randomizing the enemy patterns a bit IMO. It's a difficult balance though - there's an obvious risk of limiting scoring potential in a run through random factors, or rewarding the player for simply taking bets on where enemies are about to appear, and that's really not good for a competitive genre. If you want randomness, you want enough of it to balance out things over the course of an entire game.

It's like top level play in NES Tetris vs. Tetris the Grand Master. In the former if you're going for a high-score, you want solid skills AND a lucky game where you get rewarded for taking risks you would never take in a one-on-one match. In TGM a player on a consistent skill level will potentially always get around the same grade due to the way the game tries to even out the random distribution of pieces.