TRP-STGT 2017 Conversation Week 1: Bakuretsu Breaker

[Sumez]

The stage 2 helicopters are fortunately easy when you know what they are going to do, but yeah they are a good example.
Only had a single short session with the game so far though. Hopefully Thursday will be the day I get to try digging into this.

[Mantrox]

On the stage 2 heli's i found the easiest strat for me is to stay in the middle, as soon as he fires the first stream tap dodge to the most convinient side for you and then return to the middle.
When you return to the middle, the cris cross pattern misses and you don't have to dance around to avoid the next stream attack if you are underpowered.

[copy-paster]

Third stage probaby the game's real deal because the enemies mostly pointblank at you, also the fourth boss too.

[Bananamatic]

just shoot the fourth boss from the side, it never drops the pod on you then
if he does one of the two attacks, move to the side with more space and dodge the purple bugs he spawns away from him

[mycophobia]

just shoot the fourth boss from the side, it never drops the pod on you then

[EmperorIng]

I've been making progress and trying to practice and the current roadblocks are 1) stage 3 boss without bombing; 2) stage 4 Zub rushes, especially at the end, as they have a nasty habit of spawning on top of you; 3) stage 5 boss and dodging its spread attack

I've noticed that the st3 boss's spread attack is aimed directly at you, so I wonder if the optimal strategy is to move to its side and move out of the way after it starts shooting. I wish the ship wasn't so slow though.

I'll have to take Bananamatic's advice and try to side-shot the st4 boss to death to see if that makes the fight easier.

The final boss's first two phases are the hardest, funnily enough. It does not feel as if there is consistency in the spread shot of the red insect-thing. you have almost no opportunity to hit it before it does its laser attack, making you need to either waste bombs and point-blank or have a very drawn-out fight with a dangerous attack. The second form just has so much crap (the giant balls from its two... ball sacks) that makes me want to use a bomb just to try and kill one of the hands by point-blanking.

The real challenge is dodging all of the shitty power-ups that bounce around on-screen for five fucking minutes before disappearing. That and the bullets you can't see.

I am seeing neither of these issues. Instead, I'm having trouble trying to actually collect powerups I want because they keep running away from me. Lonely world, etc.

For me, the helicopters on stage 2 are a good example. They are huge, visually distracting sprites whose effects (smoke/debris), when coupled with the ugly light blue they turn into as they sink in front of the next heli makes it hard for me to make out the 3-way spread that they shoot out. The stage 3 boss has all those lightning effects which can conveniently obscure his bullet attack on his first form.

Some of the smaller bullets on stage 3 are also annoying, as the stage feels very cluttered. Maybe this isn't worth complaining about, but it seems as if enemies start firing even if there is only a pixel of them on-screen, which can be off-putting as it can feel as if enemies are shooting from off-screen. And point-blank rules do not seem to be in effect!

I guess these are not huge issues, but they are the ones I am having the most problems with, when added with the slow ship (at least for Hanse) and huge hitbox. Oh and the terrible sub-weapons! So many bad ones. Is there any way to even control the fireworks C attack?

EDIT: Doesn't seem like anyone's used Nigel or Mai, if I skimmed properly.

Nigel's spreadshot at full power is quite nice, and his level 3(?) power with the large bullets (before it upgrades to a larger spread with weaker bullets) is useful. Mai I want to like for a decent bomb and the fact that the shots come out from behind offering a little protection, but I feel like her firing rate is too slow for what I need in the game to get the 1ALL.

[Bananamatic]

I've noticed that the st3 boss's spread attack is aimed directly at you, so I wonder if the optimal strategy is to move to its side and move out of the way after it starts shooting. I wish the ship wasn't so slow though.

I'll have to take Bananamatic's advice and try to side-shot the st4 boss to death to see if that makes the fight easier.

The final boss's first two phases are the hardest, funnily enough. It does not feel as if there is consistency in the spread shot of the red insect-thing. you have almost no opportunity to hit it before it does its laser attack, making you need to either waste bombs and point-blank or have a very drawn-out fight with a dangerous attack. The second form just has so much crap (the giant balls from its two... ball sacks) that makes me want to use a bomb just to try and kill one of the hands by point-blanking.

stage 3 boss is aimed spread->missiles on the sides->aimed missiles->lightning bolt in the middle, then spreading out twice, repeat
the only hard part is not getting shot by the lightning bolts after dodging the missiles, just watch for the glowing orbs on the sides to see where the lightning is going to be

for st6 boss 1st phase, point blank it in the middle until you see the laser charging up, then dodge to the side and hopefully he doesn't crush you
the middle is perfectly safe until he shoots the laser without exceptions, then just focus on dodging on the side and return to the middle afterwards

giant balls are aimed, just find the correct timing to turn around and one arm dies before the second round if you used the C subweapon
if you have full power+C as Hanse, the yellow part at the bottom in the final phase dies from point blanking before it even shoots
after that it's just not getting screwed by the random yellow shots

[Deadliar]

giant balls

[Kyper]

Is anyone recording MAME inputs? The first few times I tried to playback a recording, the random stage 1 midboss was always the incorrect one, causing the replay to "desync". It seems to have mysteriously fixed itself now, but I hope it doesn't happen again when I actually get a good spawn

[Deadliar]

I plan to just record a plain mp4 once I get enough practice.

As a protip for anyone who will do the same, I use Handbrake to compress it before uploading. It's great.

[Shepardus]

Is anyone recording MAME inputs? The first few times I tried to playback a recording, the random stage 1 midboss was always the incorrect one, causing the replay to "desync". It seems to have mysteriously fixed itself now, but I hope it doesn't happen again when I actually get a good spawn

I haven't tested, but there's an eeprom saved in nvram/bakubrkr that maybe affects the RNG, so try deleting that between runs.

[drauch]

Think I got those goofy helicopters down now. Thanks for the tips, all. Need to practice on stage 3 boss now.

[BIL]

GET THEM READY FOR VIETNAM (｀ω´メ)

What a prescient shitpost this turned out to be. With all the Cold War air power flying around the joint, you'd think I had insider information.



Quite liking this one, down to the edgy presentation. Handles as smoothly as I'd expect of Kaneko. The way bosses and setpieces rear up out of nowhere, and the surreal army/sci-fi/fantasy clash, almost reminds me of Osman. Just replace Utata Kiyoshi with a cubicle of smoked-up programmers rifling through a stack of clipart discs.

[EmperorIng]

Sheesh, I got the clear, despite getting down to my last life early into the final boss and running out of bombs on its second phase. It was a fairly sloppy run. This game annoys me, particularly the clutter around the 1UP spawn in Stage 2 and the clusterfuck of stage 3. The other levels are ultimately far tamer.

Looking at the scores, it looks like I can really cash out at the meteor run, but bombs are too precious to be used there for me.

The hardest bosses for me are definitely the stage 5 boss's lasers and the red insect-thing on the final boss. The lasers on the giant battleship are frustrating since the boss can still shoot at least one from off-screen, which throws off your movement. The only way I've really dealt with the st5 boss safely is to bomb and point blank the middle so I don't have two attacks to deal with.

Part of me wants to record a run for posterity's sake (after all, I recorded last year's W1 entry, Sand Scorpion, showing off my mad 1ALL skillz), but another part of me is exhausted from over an hour of practice and frustration and never wants to play this game again!

Think I got those goofy helicopters down now. Thanks for the tips, all. Need to practice on stage 3 boss now.

One thing to keep in mind on the second phase (just the head) is that you ought to start on a far corner opposite the boss, so that it aims the large spread at you. It's almost impossible to get out of its follow-up aimed shots if you let the spread pin you down (at least without using a bomb). After the spread and shot combo, it does a harmless destructible wave attack which is when you can get the most hits in.

[copy-paster]

How do you guys can even reach 600k? Is there a secret bonus points outside of picking secondary powerups?

One thing to keep in mind on the second phase (just the head) is that you ought to start on a far corner opposite the boss, so that it aims the large spread at you. It's almost impossible to get out of its follow-up aimed shots if you let the spread pin you down (at least without using a bomb).

You can move to the very left or right side of the screen before the boss fire his spread shots, when he fire it move left/right quickly to get out of his spread zone.

[EmperorIng]

A number of people are saving bombs for stage 5's asteroid speed-section (check the previous page iirc). If you bomb a few times there, it dramatically boosts your score. Of course, that means surviving up to that point and wanting to use bombs for non-survival purposes... And it also means not hoarding 7 bombs, since after 6 the game apparently freezes and reboots. Quality!

Thanks for the extra tips, too!

[Perikles]

Regarding the third boss: if you sit on top of it you only have to dodge the very first spread pattern, neither the first nor the second form will ever be able to do anything else if you unfetter the glory that is 30hz autofire with Jean.


As for scoring: the ideal concatenation of circumstances would be thus, I think:

- Earn about 42,000 points from the very first indestructible enemy by bombing it and then sacrificing your life on top of it. It seems to be a little bit random how far you'll be pushing it upwards, anything below 40,000 points or so is worth a reset.

- If you get the ancient mariner as the first miniboss, reset. If you want to go for the highest scores possible, wait until you get the Gynoug face that spews destructible bullets, this one is by far the most lucrative out of the bunch. Also make sure to not push it upwards too soon (say, by refraining to pick up the second power-up immediately). The other two potential bosses are somewhat serviceable, although not nearly as worthwhile.

- For comparison's sake: my best score leaving stage 1 was 99,190, it can be as low as about 91,000 points, however (I've played it ceteris paribus aside from the first two points, of course). That's a lot of scoring difference with a one-loop restriction in mind.

- The second stage will make or break your run in terms of optimal scoring. Now, under the very best circumstances you would be able to collect massive amount of points for the straight missiles since you leave stage 1 whilst having it collected three times, meaning it will be worth 4,000 points the next time. However, outside of randomly getting it in stage 2, you will only ever receive it one more time in stage 5. Thus, it may or may not be better to switch to the shield or the fireworks for more points. I got a shower of shield power-ups in my best run and managed to reap several 8,000 points surplus boni overall.

- I think it is better to milk the four helicopters in stage 2 for a few missiles instead of destroying them outright, no?

- You can probably route in such a way that you get more points for pushing the grenades in stage 4 out of the screen, but I'm not sure how much that's worth in the end.

- Get lucky with rock formations in stage 5.

[laml]

Earn about 42,000 points from the very first indestructible enemy by bombing it and then sacrificing your life on top of it. It seems to be a little bit random how far you'll be pushing it upwards, anything below 40,000 points or so is worth a reset.

You can also just use straight laser guy and get 39-40k points just by shooting at him, idk if you miss out on any score potential vs other characters later on though

[Blinge]

Haven't played shmups in months..
The good thing about games like this is they remind me how much I miss Cave...
And yknow. good games.

[Tigershark]

Busy week. Sat down to play this but for some reason no matter what Rom I use Mame is not recognising it and the game isn't even coming up on the games list. What am I doing wrong?

Edit: sorted it.

[ED-057]

The stage 2 helicopters were bugging me because I would die there with a full stock of bombs. Their pattern isn't terribly hard, but I'd still find a way to die there on occasion. So I was fooling around with save states and I found that I could point-blank them to death one after the other, without them getting a shot off. Couldn't do it reliably though, maybe one out of four times (with Nigel)

[copy-paster]

Tried the game again with Jean, he's awesome and somehow tricky to use, especially on third and fifth stage. Good for pointblanking bosses but his bomb delay is super annoying!

Also is there full run replay available with Mifune? I can't imagine how people can clear it.

[Vanguard]

The stage 2 helicopters' spreadshots never hit me as long as I stay exactly in front of them at the bottom of the screen. Most of the really excellent scores are using Jean and Mifune. Do they have enough firepower to destroy the little rocks on stage 5 without bombs or something like that?