shmups.system11.org

I'd love to see you tackle Omake! gus. Some people just see this mode as a piss-easy clear and nothing else, but it's a very fun mode to play for score.

Mesh Control, I am just now seeing your question.

It was going really well. I've grown quite comfortable with the main scoring mechanic, but I've decided to stop grinding in shmups for high score from now on and just focus on survival, because doing so temporarily killed my love for Ketsui.

I made it to the fourth stage boss's last phase (he had a sliver of health left before I died at the hands of his final pattern), on my friend's TV in the middle of Spring term and never returned since. I plan on starting back up soon, though!

By the way, anyone else notice that there is a proximity mechanic in this game? I get a lot more gems getting ridiculously close to enemies before killing them, usually reaping the most bountiful rewards whenever I kill an enemy that is behind me. (All who have spent a lot of time with this game know exactly what that means.)

Would anyone be up for helping to update the OP of this post?

It seems a bit old, and is missing parts that should be there plus unsure about some points that should be clear by now.

I'm guessing a lot has been found out since the OP was written? Also the rest of this thread is too disjointed between the different modes. Be good to have a definitive arcade guide in the OP.

Sure -- put your edits here and I will add them.
This was based off of a handful of hours back when the PC came out.

Or if you want to redo one, feel free to use whatever parts of this you want.

Ah hey man, I wouldn't seek to re-do all your hard work with the OP, it's really great and comprehensive.

I've just written about a couple of things that weren't clear to me when I started working with it. I have blabbed a bunch of stuff out below, feel free to use any of it that you think is useful. I'd be interested to hear your feedback on it anyway.

Cheers!


1) More detail on the Kakusei Over Level. It's not clear in the OP what this is really FOR and what to do with it, except to access Shin Seseri. My thoughts are:



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- Raising your Over Level provides a permament increase in rank for ONLY the RED bullets shot by enemies in Over Mode.


- The rewards for getting to Kakusei Over Level 3 are

(a) More green gems are produced when you destroy enemies in normal mode. For this reason alone it is worth raising your Over Level early in the game. There is no requirement to spend any amount of time in Over Mode after you reach Level 3, so this is effectively a very low-risk strategy to get more gems throughout the rest of the game.

[Question: Does it also affect the amount of gold dropped? This isn't clear to me]


(b) Your score will rise automatically over time while you are in Over Mode. This is basically to compensate for the lack of kakusei-based cancelling opportunities while you are in Over Mode. It also allows the crazy masochists who try full Over Mode clears to get some level of comparable score. However for the rest of us, it means that with careful gem management you can convert very quiet periods in the game (e.g Boss fight intros) into ultra-low-risk scoring opportunities by spending them in Over Mode racking up free points.

(c) You can access the 'TLB' fight with Shin Seseri by no-missing up to the Level 5 boss fight


- The risks are:

(a) Level 3 red bullets move extremely fast (comparable to Mushihimesama Futari Original when the gem counter goes over 70k) hence…

(b) If you accidentally run out of gems in Kakusei with a screen full of bullets, those bullets will all start coming at you extremely fast. You can obviously switch back to normal mode at any point, but the added risk is there until you do.

(c) If you no-miss up to the L5 boss, you’ll be fighting Shin Seseri! See if you can watch replays of this fight without feeling sick.


Ultimately, because Over Mode is completely optional throughout the game, you may as well push your Over Level up early on for the bonus gems in normal mode. Just be prepared to suicide if you no-miss to the L5 boss fight and don’t wanna learn that beast of a pattern...

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2) A summary comparing the different scoring mechanics and their effect on the game. It seems to me that the game is actually a bit of a sandbox for scoring, as there are 3 modes you can enter at will (Kakusei Shikai, Kakusei Zesshikai and Over Mode) which each have a different effect on score and on the difficulty of the game while you are in them.

You could break them down almost like the modes in Mushihimesama games:

Kakusei Shikai: The bread-and-butter mode with lowest difficulty, where you try to cancel the highest number of enemy bullets into gold at once taking advantage of the bullet-time slowdown. This is the classic scoring mode carried over from the first game. End of stage bonus makes most sense if you play through using this mode only. Also, you will see the most spectacular bullet cancels using this mode after you max out your gold 

Kakusei Zesshikai: The more difficult mode where you try to spawn out and cancel as many bullets as you possibly can during the bullet-time slowdown. This is almost like a black label mode in itself, given the crazy score difference vs playing through using only Shikai and the ridiculous amounts of bullets that can be spawned. End of stage bonus makes no sense if playing through using this mode, as it will be insignificant vs the rest of your score. Gold level is treated only as a means to entering this mode and will barely ever be maxed out.

Over Mode: The expert mode also carried over from the first game, but now ranks up to even higher levels of difficulty thanks to Over Level. Gems and gold are not a consideration, enemies all drop 1 gold on being destroyed. Somewhat comparable to the difficulty of a Cave second loop, where play is solely about survival (compare Ketsui 2nd loop where all enemies drop 1-chips). End of stage gold bonus will bear some relation to enemies killed.

Having all these modes available on-demand during a single credit actually makes it very difficult to compare scores/runs as different people will use the 3 different modes at different times. There are no penalties for failing to use any of the modes, so it really is up to the player how and when to deploy them. High score record chasers will want to optimise their routes for Zesshikai bullet spawn-fests and cheeky Over Mode freebies, but others may want to dip in and out of Zesshikai less freequently or simply stick to the gold mining ways of the original game. There is always the full-OverMode clear to try if you get bored.

These features make Espgaluda 2 unique among Cave shooters as the player can manage their scoring risk/reward ratio as they see fit.

Then some questions on specific parts:





Has anyone worked out these base values yet?





Does this mean that the points value of the enemy killed feeds into the bullet cancel bonus?




See above- what is the effect on gold dropped precisely?

About the Black Label mode: ReKleSS mentioned there is a way in zetsushikai more to turn bullets into gems and I've witnessed as much while skimming replays on YouTube. Did anyone ever figure out the exact way to do this? Seems like you would have better scores if you could take advantage of this.