Comparatively, 2019 has been one of the best years I've had in shmups in quite a while. I was worried that my 'glory years' were in the past (given that I achieved the most 1ccs by number in 2016), but hard work and dedication revealed some truly great milestones I am pretty proud of. Speaking of which, 2019 was one of my better years of life in general... Achieving a far greater work-life balance, committing to diet/exercise and losing nearly 40lbs, improving my long distance running times by over 6 minutes, branching out and achieving some truly excellent things in my own social life and community. It's important to keep that in perspective since self-betterment and self-improvement should be goals at the forefront of everyone's lives.
2019 saw me break past 50 shmup 1ccs. Now granted, some of those games weren't exactly taxing in difficulty, but nonetheless, it stands as a nice barometer for where I've come from over the years. As well, many of my clears have been from arcade games versus more toned-down console 16bit games.
(1) Personal Favourite Achievements of 2019:
- ESPGaluda 1CC with 33 Million
- Mushi Original 1CC
- Irem 1ALL: Image Fight
- Psikyo 1ALL: Sengoku Blade
- Raizing 1ALL: Mahou Daisakusen, Armed Police Batrider (Normal mode tho)
- Dariusburst CS Mode Completion
There are several that stand out.
A holdover from my 2018 goals was my clear of ESPGaluda. I had been working on this for the last part of 2018, and couldn't quite manage. However, persistence paid off and I managed to get myself a clear of the game. However, the more I played the more I discovered the depth of its scoring system, so I went ahead and continued to push for improvements, culminating in a pretty respectable 33+ million score, which
I even recorded and used for Mark_MSX's shmup slam.
This year I am proud that I not only achieved my first Irem 1cc (a 1ALL of Image Fight), but my first Psikyo 1ALL (Sengoku Blade) as well. Adding to this, I managed to 1CC the very demanding Mahou Daisakusen. In fact, three of these games -Image Fight, Mahou, and Sengoku Blade- were done as part of Dent's Calice Cup tournament. For a long time now I wanted to 'up' my credibility and my shmup palette by getting more clears from the 'big' names. Now, it remains to be seen whether or not I am any more credible than before, but I'm glad to get a taste of clearing several different kinds of shmup as I work on overall improvement, from golden oldies to more modern games (if we're calling Mushi modern, ha).
One of the big accomplishments I am quite proud of is finally defeating the final boss and campaign of Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours. This was a fight years in the making, given my slow slog through the many campaign fights in CS Mode. Despite the length, the final battle is definitely worth it, and a worthy send-off to the Dariusburst series. I even managed to record numerous runs of the final zone, and get a decent score while I'm at it. You can read about my
struggle here. You can watch my titanic fight to the death
here.
Furthermore I am really starting to grasp and understand its scoring system, and am starting to piece together better and better runs. I hope to start giving the leaderboards a more aggressive push going into this year. My average clear score is 100 million; I think a good first step is to push that to 110-120 million (most WRs are 200m). This game is probably the most score-centric Darius title yet. And while Dariusburst isn't without its problems, its short length and multiple ship scoring and playing styles make it easy to jump in and either mess around casually, or go for more hardcore clears. I might even pick up the DLC modes to try the insanity that is playing Dariusburst with Opa Opa from Fantasy Zone, or the Black Fly from Metal Black!
I note on my
goals list from last year, I had listed a Cave clear (specifically mentioning Mushihimesama) and a Psikyo 1ALL (mentioning Blade). Man, am I good or what?
(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2019:
- Spending money on Star Force for Calice Cup
- Failing to get a Dangun Feveron 1cc for Calice Cup, as I claimed I would
- Choking non-stop to junk wizard and ninja at Mahou Daisakusen
- Getting to Gigantic Bite in DBCS with 28ish shields and blowing the whole fight by missing just about every burst counter timing
I was away from my computer at Thanksgiving weekend, so I went and bought the ACA port of Star Force during the final weekend of Calice Cup. Was the couple extra 100,000s of points I gained worth the $8 I spent? I am not so sure. I discovered that I really didn't get the game at all, and quickly moved on to more fun things like Image Fight.
In retrospect it was foolish of my to say that I would clear Dangun Feveron, especially since I was trying to score and keep discomen as opposed to scrub clear things. I was pretty headdy saying my goals would be to clear Sengoku, Mahou, and Dangun for the month. I was thinking that Dangun would be one of the easier Cave games since it didn't loop... how wrong I was. I couldn't even survive stage 3 in my best attempts. Mahou was actually an obsession leading up to the tournament. So many runs lost, so many fists smashed into my desk as some cheap-shot ended my run and chances for recovery. Several times I no-missed up to the boss rush in stage 6 only to lose it all due to shitty RNG with the bosses.
I eventually pulled through...
(3) Favourite Achievements by Others of 2019:
- All the members of my Calice Cup team, Galactic Dancers, crushing games left and right. AKO, prales, OmKol, Lyv. Just check out the leaderboards.
- In that vein, Dent organizing the Calice Cup tourney in general
- Mark's DDP 2-ALL
- chum's 1ALL of Same! Same! Same!
- MauCast's 2ALLs and other high-score achievements in Game Tengoku / Cruis'n Mix
- ZPS getting past the 40mill barrier in ESPGaluda
- Ythundyth's vids of no-miss boss attacks in Cave TLBs (except the aspect ratio it's getting worse my dudes)
One of the greatest pleasures in shmupdom I had in 2019 was being a captain in Dent's Calice Cup tournament. An 'eclectic' game selection meant my skills were drawn all over the place, but the single best motivating factor was that the teammates I had chosen consistently proved themselves, again and again, to be players of incredible caliber, tenacity, and skill. This tournament saw two world records (Sky Adventure and Armed F) happen! Insane!
Even though we took 2nd place overall, the motivation of Ako, prales, OmKol, Tejate, mycophobia, DocHauser, and all of our other members encouraged me and pushed me more to achieve victories than I could have ever done by myself. It made me realize that there is really no substitute for competitive scoreplay, especially with a large group of people involved. I can and still will grind for 1CCs, but pushing certain games for higher scores is extremely gratifying - even if it's weird games like Sky Adventure. I hope there's nothing keeping me from participating in the next tournament.
A huuuuge shoutout to Dent for organizing the Calice Cup; this might have been the most fun I've had in a tournament during my time playing these games. Between the sometimes bizarre game choices and the month-long struggle, I had a blast. You did great!
It was fun to see ZPS catch the ESPgaluda bug that I caught last winter. I had hoped to strive for 40m but I got pulled towards different games. I was glad to see he pushed his own scores higher. Will he get 50 million?
Seeing Mark's long journey towards the 2ALL was cathartic to say the least. Between that and all the fun stuff he gives to the shmup community, I want to congratulate and encourage him.
(4) Goals for 2020:
- RAY series. It's time for these games to fall - Force and Crisis, particularly. Crisis is a game I actually like playing for score; I just never posted any and I didn't want to start until I cleared it.
- 150 million in DariusBurst EX, plus more route clears. Where will I find the extra 50 million points?
- scrub clears (my hope): Metal Black, ESPRaDe, Cotton 2, any R-Type game
- dip my toes into streaming/recording runs. I've already started, a little
(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
Prales! Get the 1ALL of Tatsujin Ou! You are so close; you've made it to stage 6. Do it and show the world that you are not only an expert, but a king as well!
Everyone on the farm! Sign up for a shmup tournament and commit yourselves to excellence! You won't regret joining a team and working towards the top score!
prales wrote:
Play 達人王. The game is so incredibly good.
Will you accept Truxton II as a substitute? If so, challenge accepted! I will make it back to stage 1-3, like I did so long ago.
. Others were entertaining too, like Vludi's Tatsujin 1-ALL, and I probably forgot many.
If you don't, Prom's A-L score will have stood for 10 years!
learning DDP, Ketsui and DOJ (haven't got those 1CCs yet) made me pick up Garegga and DFK, and DFK really jumpstarted my brain into starting to play the genre "seriously". to that end, i would say my 2019 goals were to start learning how to play STGs for score and learning the fundamentals, to which i feel like i can say i succeeded. i did manage to get a 1CC 1-ALL on DFK 1.5 Novice twice, and almost completed the second loop in Novice Mode on that same credit, and now i can almost comfortably 2-chain stage 1 in DDP! i feel like i can comfortably jump into and start learning all kinds of games now. 
