Hey Ilpalazzo, finally got around to watching your
Saigo 1CC! Sorry it took so goddamn long, classic case of too much good stuff to do.
Hell of a finish versus Boney-sama. I liked the commentary!
A few things I noted during the run:
For the st1-2 Red Monks, their leap is triggered by damage, not just your jump (unlike the Greys' staff). I always have my full set (two shadows + POW Grenades & Kusarigama) by the time I reach them. A shot of either is more than enough to trigger the leap, which'll leave them stranded whether you finish them off or move on.
I guess the idea is to take out players attacking from above, but they'll leap if you're overhead anyway.
In
st4-2: in case you don't know, once you've spoofed a Black Ninja (stay still as they move in and strike), you can break them out of their attack with a quick about-face. As with so many things in this game, it's a finesse touch that can also save you from a worst-case scenario, eg being pincered over a spike pit.
(I like to think they're tracking Tsukikage by his footsteps, and staying still foils that. Best stealth gameplay ever! EARTH NINJA, otoh, has some moleman geolocation going on, and will promptly stab you in the ass)
There's a subtle art to evading
Ryuichi Airtype's jumpslash like that. Vludi has a good example
here. Just like the Groundtypes, being in front of them as the slash comes out is certain death. Airtypes will also pivot to slash players behind them, making the airspace either side of them lethal. However, just like the Groundtypes, if you can pass into overlap proximity from above or below, they'll whiff.
Exactly the same principle as the Groundtype's "Ryuichi drop."
Obviously, it's better to not have to do this at all, instead baiting the Airtypes with pre-emptive hops. Or, if you know you've got the footing,
beating them outright with your height and acceleration. But again, it's good to know in a pinch.
Finally, 7-1.
This can indeed happen. 
I've had more than a few would-be 1LCs end there, typically by jittering onto the ground trap as it fires.
I prefer a "rip off the band-aid" approach. As soon as you spawn in, move forward just a tick, then using the "dark steps" landmark,
vault onto the ceiling. It's tight, but if you bend the jump subtly forward, you'll avoid both the ground and ceiling traps. It's actually the deadliest bit of st7-1, imo. Or maybe that's just the nerves inherent in reaching the finale? Either way, this tack serves me well. Even if a Ryuichi spawns early, he'll be forced to pause his advance to follow you upstairs, ensuring an easy kill.
This post is fairly tongue-in-cheek, as is my wont, but the methodology is real.
It's sadly not the most graphically distinct setting (I suppose a cave wouldn't be... IREM maintaining that flat, unvarnished aesthetic), but the sprite art has a few fairly recognisable visual cues in there.
---
Sir Ilpalazzo wrote:-Realizing that you don't really need the sword and shuriken did disappoint me, though. On the surface, the weapon balance seems like it's very good, like all the weapons fill a particular niche, but the sword really is useless outside of some edge cases once you have a good handle on how to aim the kusarigama and misdirect enemy attacks, and the shuriken's higher damage against single strong targets hardly ever matters. On the other hand, maybe it's for the best that you don't have to fiddle with the weapon select button during high-intensity situations, and the kusarigama is still fun to tear enemies up with, so the current weapon balance isn't the worst thing.
I've come to think of Saigo's weapon balance like I do Alien Soldier's. Technically, only two weapons really matter (Kusarigama/Grenades & Flame/Lancer) - but they're individually satisfying, and they contrast sharply enough for an interesting game. Plus, with Saigo built on a dichotomy of slash/guard VS shoot/kill, it doesn't hurt much that each pair has a "major" and "minor" representative. (it'd be a much bigger issue if there was little reason to shoot or slash, of course)
As with AS, where I have a handful of uses for Buster and Ranger, I still like using Sword in st3-2's marsh. Even without POW, its arc is a comfy anti-zako umbrella, and I'm not bothered about killing the Monks - if anything, I like to have a couple of damaged ones follow me into the boss for easy dispatch.
Shuriken's 16way lag VS Grenades' 8way snap is what truly marginalises them, imo. While they exterminate st7-1's Ryuichis quicker, the precision needed to connect the full spread can be dangerously compromised by the terrain. Grenade splash, with the possibility of a small evasive hop to confirm the kill, feels stabler. Their finest showing is probably st4-2, assuming you want to keep to the ceilings. Will punch clean through would-be Ryuichi pincers. I've always preferred liberally grenading the ceilings and floors while pressing forward, though.
-My big, initial complaint about the game back when I started playing in 2014 or so didn't change: stage 2 is a little too sleepy.
Although I'll always regard Daimakaimura's pitch-perfect opening pair as roundly schooling Saigo's, I've warmed up to st2 a lot. It's the only stage where you can really enjoy the soaring jump, in its first half, and do some extended "platforming," in its second. Going from branch to branch without breaking stride is a fun optional challenge, sniping Red Ninjas and Hitodama, and looks ninja as all hell (as does the boss speedkill it segues into). I like to grab the shield just before the bridge, so your shadows become a train of burning destruction.
st5 is probably the game's weakest, being brutally memo-demanding (like st7), but relatively harmless once routed (
entirely unlike st7). Its brevity, novelty and consistency (as chaotic as Saigo can be, IREM clearly knew when to
avoid RNG) keep it from doing damage, imo. Nailing down
my route wasn't great fun, but in practice, its ~35seconds - rocketing up the cliff face from foothold to foothold, swiping the shield from its nest of foes, then demolishing the boss in a pummelling M72 uproar - acquit themselves well.
A good speedkill never loses its satisfaction... (・｀ω´・)
And this... ( ・｀ω｀・)>⌐■-■
Is one of them! (■｀ω´■)
-Stage 6 is very good, but I'm still not totally sure how to feel on it. I think the back half is unequivocally excellent (save the boss), and agree with BIL's earlier point that the first half is the really dangerous one - ironically, the regular samurai are a way more threatening enemy than their upgraded, jumping variation - but even up to the end I never really felt confident in the first half of the stage. It feels like unlucky enemy placement can screw you over far more easily than in the second half of the level, where enemies are more easily misdirected, and I wonder if the stage might just be a little too luck-dependent. Still, it's a really fun level overall, and is learnable enough.
When going for my first 1LC, I often thought how radically Dai-styled armour would've changed stage 6. It's so ragingly deadly, and the RNG can interact in such wicked ways, it would
not be unwarranted.
At the same time, I think the damnable frustration (and/or survivor's guilt
) is part of a perfect imperfection - the vagary of all-out war. It's de rigeur for action games and the films they mimick to cast the protagonist as a one-man army, storming the front, defying the impossible. Plot armour inevitably nags at such work, in bad cases sabotaging it. Saigo packs the bluntest, most authentically capricious refute I've found - a struggle sans narrative mercy or favour, only the most fickle of battlefield fortune. You are a indeed a one-man army, your razing firepower and soaring agility putting the previous year's
Contra to shame - but you are also
one man facing an army. What ensues on stage 6's beach is no celebratory rout, just the lonely stand that gives the game its very title - what its ending eulogises as
The desperate fight.
^ that isn't Saigo art (it's mildly shooped from
Death's Gambit), but in a title low on official illustrations, I like the effect. No other action game I've played is this good at contrasting superhuman might with mortal vulnerability. Paired with the necro-feudal atmosphere and deliberately austere palette, it's like a morbid
Actraiser, a tale of demigod power pushed to its utter breaking point.
I've had
lucky 1LCs (no coincidence that was my first),
unlucky 1LCs (spontaneous
HELL BULLDOZER eruption at the brink of salvation!), and outright
diabolical 1LCs (Stealth Ryuichi
twice in ten seconds 
), but they only became so in hindsight. At the time they all felt the same, roiling chaos and a deadly test of composure. It reminds me of what an old law prof said, that memorising statutes and doctrines is most certainly essential - but that real skill is in flexibility, being able to apply that knowledge on the fly. Not wanting to talk up Saigo
too much here (
).
I love that it went all-out on stage 6. It's the apex of its martial-fantasy wuxia, and the relatively short runtime (10-15min per 1LC) suits a blistering intensity. It's a game I can always return to with a sense of mortal uncertainty. The only things I'd alter are Ryuichis' low sprite priority (their ability to hide behind Monks is the sole hazard that feels artificial, rather than calibrated... and with the alertness required to consistently survive 6-1's nightmare, its rarity is little comfort), and of course the boss, which is simultaneously a washout and a welcome breather.
Shouldn't be either!
(The monk miniboss is pretty fun to annihilate while dodging samurai once you know the correct pattern for dealing with him, but the fact that he is basically totally unworkable unless you know that very specific strategy gives me pause.)
I felt the same while learning this guy. Besides the hellacious surroundings, it doesn't help that the hitbox on his charge is weird. Sometimes I'd survive a seeming head-on collision as he vaulted away, others I'd die before he made landfall. Before long I happened across the easy exploit, and I haven't had any reason to tinker, so I called it quits with him there. He's a microcosm of 7-1 itself, to me. Punishing rote, made interesting by spawn RNG. As you say, you can receive some evil Ryuichi setups, imbuing an otherwise stable takedown with urgency and relief.
-The weird bug that causes you to jump backwards sometimes when swinging the kusarigama is a little unforgivable given how easily it can screw you over and how often you need to use the kusarigama. I think there's a way to tell when it's going to happen but I never figured it out.
Ah yes - this annoying thing. It's to do with the way the game processes Tsukikage's direction during a swing. Although he'll visibly rotate to the opposite direction, as far as the code is concerned, he remains facing the
original way throughout the swing, and for a few frames after. If you execute a running jump during this window, you'll be forced to travel in his original direction. Neutral jumps (and ledge drops) are unaffected.
Video without input display is of limited use, but here I am
deliberately triggering it a few times. Turn on Closed Captions for visual markers - note also how Tsukikage is facing backwards during each glitched jump. I decidedly remember my encounters with it in the past, some real
"Fuck's sake!" mishaps in st6, but I recall it happening less recently. Muscle memory, I suppose... wouldn't surprise me if it creeps back in once I've been gone a while.
It helps that for all its chaos, Saigo is an innately deliberate game in even its deadliest straits. Very rarely (if ever) is twitch reflex superior to calculated strategy.
(I probably shouldn't talk much... Holy Diver PTSD may have permanently calloused me to relatively mild glitches
)
EDIT: Also, since I was already at my PC I uploaded a quick demo of the
Kusarigama's full-body projectile invincibility during attack frames. As shown, it ain't a free lunch VS multiple shooters, but versus the odd potshot it's a snap.
He'll always be the spiritual successor of Rolling Thunder Jutsu to me, but I wonder what the official story (if any) was.
(I even made up my own story for him 
Proximity to iconic 80s vg ninja = #1 risk of death! Just like the movies!
