I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

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EmperorIng
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by EmperorIng »

When I finally get off my butt to get a PC Engine Mini, I'm going to savor the chance to really dive into Sapphire on my TV. It looks like such a cool game, and it even has a rudimentary scoring system (a rarity for the era). Congrats on the clear!
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davyK
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by davyK »

Followed up my Ps2 Raiden III 1CC(on Easy) with a Wardner no-miss (I know - wrong genre) but just did Gigawing. (arcade)

Have been at this game for ages (3 years on and off!!!) Have got to the TLB before but then someone suggested switching from red to green.....big difference!!

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Last edited by davyK on Tue May 05, 2020 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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EmperorIng
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by EmperorIng »

Playing as Stuck gave you the clear? Congratulations! I've been playing Giga Wing 2 on and off recently, but I hope I can clear the first game some day too! I've been thinking of doing something crazy, and playing as Isha (the blue ship)...
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by To Far Away Times »

davyK wrote:Followed up my Raiden III 1CC with a Wardner no-miss (I know - wrong genre) but just did Gigawing. (arcade)

Have been at this game for ages (3 years on and off!!!) Have got to the TLB before but then someone suggested switching from red to green.....big difference!!

Image
Congrats on the clear!

Ruby seems stronger on paper but I definitely saw an immediate improvement with Stuck, big hit box and slower movement speed be damned.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

davyK wrote:Have been at this game for ages (3 years on and off!!!) Have got to the TLB before but then someone suggested switching from red to green.....big difference!!
Congrats on the Giga Wing clear! Stuck is indeed the strongest character in the game under normal circumstances and the easiest to 1CC with.
To Far Away Times wrote:Ruby seems stronger on paper but I definitely saw an immediate improvement with Stuck, big hit box and slower movement speed be damned.
All four characters share the same small hitbox size, basically the same size and shape as the yellow cockpit on the planes. Stuck is actually the second fastest character in the game, and by far the strongest under normal circumstances as he is the only one with a piercing shot type, where his cannonball blasts hit all enemies in the blast area, an important factor when hitting groups of enemies or bosses with multiple separate weak points. Their damage on single targets isn't too shabby either as long as you're hitting with the main gun + at least 1 cannonball, and the cannonballs can be used up close any time you reflect as well, maximizing Stuck's damage any time you reflect.

Ruby has a strong, concentrated shot, but it doesn't get any pointblanking benefit when reflecting, it has no spread, doesn't pierce, and she has the hardest stage order of any character, being the only character with the lava stage as stage 3 (which is by far the hardest stage 3 due to the miniboss and boss patterns being significantly juiced up vs if they show up as stage 1 or 2).
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by davyK »

Ghetto recording of my 1CC from level 4 onwards..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e00dozoJ4Sk

Switched to the Dreamcast port tonight and it feels different enough to be offputting - will take a bit of getting used to - but I want to clear it on DC and unlock the TLB as a hidden ship exclusive to the DC port.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by davyK »

Thanks to those of you who gave me congrats. I'm probably one of the older players here (>50) so any 1CC I get is special to me.

Spent more time with the Dreamcast port of Gigawing and it's all over the place. The default difficulty is definitely higher than the arcade level. It's not too bad in the earlier levels but some bosses have noticeably more HP - some requiring extra reflect attacks to see them off. There is some slowdown when you generate a lot of gold but it feels deliberate. The bullet speed is up a bit too but it only really becomes noticeable in level 6. Got there today and the bullet speed is far faster than what I've been experiencing on MAME- to the point where the level requires a complete rethink or loads more practice to beat it - at least by me. The first phase of level 6 has you quite cramped for space and the higher bullet speed is deadly. It's not so bad later on but I can't see me adjusting for a 1CC on this.

The absence of a practice mode means I can't see me spending much time on it. I moved the difficulty down and the default-1 feels a lot more like the arcade - until you get to level 6 again then that bullet speed returns. I'm wondering maybe what I played on MAME wasn't full speed but from what I've seen YT videos I think I'm experiencing it properly on MAME. I've played Gigawing on MAME on 3 different PCs with different specs and it feels the same so either MAME isn't accurate or the DC port isn't. This forum accepts arcade & MAME scores and stores DC scores in a different table so I'm guessing MAME is accurate enough.

I might just turn the difficulty down to minimum in order to unlock the hidden ship (you get the TLB as a playable ship if you 1CC the game on any difficulty) but apart from that I'm done with the arcade mode. Life is too short and I don't have the talent to adjust without spending a lot of time with this.

The DC port has a score attack mode - I mentioned it earlier but it is more than just a level based score game. There's a new multiplier meter that constantly climbs and goes back to zero if you bomb or lose a life. The gold counter gets reset if you loose a life but it won't if you bomb - so bombing is still worthwhile but clearly the challenge is to no miss & no bomb each level starting with no powerups. I guess if you can do that you are well prepped to beat the arcade mode. It is a practice mode after a fashion but it's a real pity they didn't include that.

You start with no powerups and the rank is low but it soon climbs and by the time you get to the boss you are at a rank exceeding the arcade game going by the new tricks the bosses have. The arcade mode has several levels about the default level. I'm surprised there are no tables for this mode here because it sets quite a stiff challenge.

What shackles the mode a bit is the fact there is no fast restart - critical for this sort of thing. If you mess up early you have to quit out to the main menu and select the mode again - all with some DC loading. This was totally avoidable by the devs and it's a pity they have spoiled the experience a little bit by doing that.

You also have to beat levels on 1 credit in the main game to unlock the levels for score attack. I've only managed to unlock up to level 6 so far. If you don't play on default difficulty or higher you can't save your scores and I don't think it unlocks the score attack levels either. So it's one for hardcore Gigawing folk.

It's a really nice port but it's a pity there isn't an arcade accurate difficulty level. After playing so much of this emulated I've had enough of this game for the time being. Never say never though.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

From what I've played of the DC port, it felt reasonably accurate to the arcade. Perhaps not perfect in subtle ways, but for the most part it plays well. I didn't notice any major differences in boss health when I've played the Japanese version but it's possible there's some small changes? The main complaint with the DC version of the game is the same as this one:
The bullet speed is up a bit too but it only really becomes noticeable in level 6.
What's happening is it's not the actual bullet speed that's adjusted, but rather that there's no slowdown in the game at all in the Dreamcast port, so some dense patterns that had some slowdown on the CPS-2 arcade version run at full speed on the DC. Thanks to the rapid fire button you can fire at full speed when reflecting so that helps up damage slightly, but slowdown is present on a couple particularly dense bits of stage 5, and then on stage 6 and 7. Effectively, the DC is fairly accurate as far as attack patterns from what I can tell, but gets harder during the final stages of the game where extremely dense patterns with slowdown have their slowdown removed. It's not an insurmountable challenge for a 1CC, but it helps to be aware that the speed is going to be faster than in the CPS-2 version at those spots and react accordingly.

For what it's worth I don't even know what the difficulty slider does, and I've tried playing with it maxed out and haven't noticed any particularly significant changes on the CPS-2 version. It's possible the DC version has more significant impacts from playing with difficulty adjusted.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by EmperorIng »

Didn't you do a reflect-less run of the DC port, Roo, or was that mame?

I wonder if the DC USA port is different in difficulty to the Japanese version. IIRC I heard that the arcade USA version is slightly easier, but that might be hearsay.

No slowdown doesn't particularly bother me. You can only pin your hopes to hardware deficiencies for so long.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by davyK »

Saying it's all over the place is probably a bit unfair on my part. It's just I have gone straight from 1CCing it in MAME to the DC port and it really felt different. The first really noticeable change is the delta wing boss in level 3 (with green) - in MAME reflect-bomb-reflect does it once it starts firing the large pink bullets. That doesn't do it in Dreamcast - it needs at least an extra reflect. I'm playing the PAL version with the 60Hz option - maybe that's the issue. If I played it using VGA though that would negate that. I'm playing on a CRT with RGB SCART. Maybe I could make a copy of the US version to see if it makes a difference.

The train seems far more aggressive on Dreamcast too. That's all manageable for me but the bullet speed in level 6 did it for me.

If I could do focussed practice I'd perservere with it but there's no practice mode and the thought of having to play all the way to that point to practice , given I have 1CCed the game already in MAME, was the point at which I asked myself why bother? Having said that I may return to it in the future. I'm kind of Gigawinged out now.

I tried it with the difficulty all the way down and it becomes pretty easy but I didn't play it all the way through so don't know what would happen at lvl6. The lower difficulties seem to lower the enemy HP and the amount of bullets but not the speed. But I don't see the point of me 1CCing it at the lowest level now except to just unlock the TLB to play with.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Didn't you do a reflect-less run of the DC port, Roo, or was that mame?
It was in MAME, which appears to be more or less indistinguishable from the actual arcade PCB (kudos to the MAME team on the emulation accuracy). It was just easier and more convenient to record gameplay from MAME as opposed to PCB, where my only current option is setting up a camera on a tripod aimed at the monitor. For the arcade version, I honestly haven't noticed any significant difficulty differences between the JP and US versions. If there are differences I'd say they're minor.

The DC port I've played a few credits of in an emulator and it felt pretty solid as far as ports go, but then I knew what to expect ahead of time as far as the lack of slowdown goes. I've got a friend with an actual DC, it might be nice to try and clear it on the actual hardware (the emulator I was using was a bit finicky, crashed if you resized the window at all or even alt-tabbed at times).
I'm playing the PAL version with the 60Hz option - maybe that's the issue.
Hmm, could be. I've only ever tried the JP ver and US ver in an emulator, never the PAL one. Could be they messed with the PAL version somehow.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by M.Knight »

To Far Away Times wrote:I 1CC'd Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire (aka Sapphire) last night.
Hell yeah! Congrats!
Sapphire is definitely not an easy shmup, the relatively small screen does not give you lots of breathing room and some enemy attacks are devious. And there's always the temptation to use the charged attack for scoring but you would need to know the safer moments and timings to pull it off.

It's quite impressive that on top of the incredible audiovisuals, the game even has a scoring system. Given the platform and time of release, it wouldn't be taken for granted but the game really wanted to be next-gen in any way it could.

The SFX are indeed too loud in this game, but if you play on Mednafen I have the perfect solution for you (or rather should I say, the emulator has a solution for you hahahaha)
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by davyK »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:
I'm playing the PAL version with the 60Hz option - maybe that's the issue.
Hmm, could be. I've only ever tried the JP ver and US ver in an emulator, never the PAL one. Could be they messed with the PAL version somehow.
Just to be clear - played the US version in MAME, PAL port (60Hz mode) on Dreamcast. :)

I don't think any speed difference would impact on boss HP though. Very odd.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Licorice »

Not much of an I DID IT but I got a TLB fail in Raiden Fighters 2 with fairy. I just learned through save state practice that the TLB is not always triggered, even when you beat the regular last boss in 1 credit. Apparently there's a score requirement too. So, if I hadn't scored so high during that run, I would have gotten the 1CC. Yay? I guess.

Anyway I think that's enough of a shit clear to move on, but I'll definitely be revisiting this one.

First of all, playing with Fairy feels like cheating, although she's a very fun character. Secondly, there seem to be a bunch of secrets and scoring seems fun.

Third, and most importantly the levels are awesome. Levels 3 and 6 in particular are some of the most intense I've ever experienced. I love how in both the stage is the boss, and the way you progress through them is by slowly dismantling these behemoths. Level 6 especially feels that way, while Level 3 also has this whole high speed chase thing going on with the crazy fast scrolling background and those side trains that zoom past. In terms of pure game design the way the camera pans in and out of sniper threats makes for some great tension and timing requirements. Another aspect I love is that almost everything has a turret. What's cool about the turrets is that they fire after a fixed cool down, but only when they gets a lock on. Of course you can avoid the lock on, and it's very risky but rewarding to do so. There's some cool tactics involved in taking down the huge stage bosses too, like you can bomb two large turrets when they just inch into view in the first third of stage 6, before they appear as real threats somewhere in the middle.

One thing I've noticed about myself and shmups is I like taking down giant, well defended, fortifications. This game has given me the best experience so far in that regard and I can't praise it enough for it.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by To Far Away Times »

Wow, I never knew that about the TLB. The TLB is the large black airplane at the end, right? Just after the ground turret boss?
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Licorice »

To Far Away Times wrote:Wow, I never knew that about the TLB. The TLB is the large black airplane at the end, right? Just after the ground turret boss?
Yeah that's right.

At first, I thought beating the TLB was a requirement for the 1CC, as previously I had only ever 2CC'd and he didn't trigger, but when I finally did beat the regular last boss on 1 credit, I was panicked when the game kept scrolling. The TLB is actually fairly easy with fairy, you just dodge his first sally and then point black without impunity for a while and then finish him off with the 2 bombs you get right before the fight.

But yeah then during practice I beat the regular last boss (still on one credit) and the game just ended. I googled it and got to a thread here that mentioned a score requirement along with the 1 credit requirement.

EDIT: Ok got a legit clear now 1CC with no TLB. Also I guess it's not a score requirement? My score was higher this time?

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Shame. I was ready for him this time. Ugh game stop teasing me I said I was ready to move on.

EDIT 2: Just finished watching the credit roll. Apparently you get a perfect bonus (I'm guessing a 1CC bonus, because I did die once to the last boss). So add another 1 to the last digit of the score there if anyone cares.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by DaringSpino34 »

I got my new record in Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label!
Ship type: A-S
Score:1.118.192.720
Reached stage 2-5 boss
Video link: https://youtu.be/jIwTq8ehjKQ
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Jonpachi
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Jonpachi »

Working my way through the TG16 Mini 1CC by 1CC. Spriggan is already down, so here's Soldier Blade and Star Parodier. So far, I've had no issues with input lag, though I'm mostly playing the older classics. My long-term plan is to clear every shmup on the system.

Soldier Blade:

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Star Parodier:

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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by blossom »

While the PC Engine has quite a few good shmups, the problem is you've already played some of the best. If you value your sanity, do some research and ditch the worst ones. Would you really like to suffer through Deep Blue, Toilet Kids, and Rock On?
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Jonpachi »

blossom wrote:While the PC Engine has quite a few good shmups, the problem is you've already played some of the best. If you value your sanity, do some research and ditch the worst ones. Would you really like to suffer through Deep Blue, Toilet Kids, and Rock On?
None of those are on the mini. That said, I’m sure not all that awaits me is good.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by blossom »

Oh, when you said "every shmup on the system" I thought you meant the PC engine as a whole, not the ones on the mini. In that case, yeah, everything on the mini is good and worth your time.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Square_Air »

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Got a random Dimahoo clear the other day while taking a break from Gunbird 2. Birthday is so fucking strong there's no comparison between her and the other characters when it comes to pure survival. Everyone that wrote birthday off as the worst character in the game must have never pressed the B button. Scoring in this game is pretty clandestine, but it seems like a lot of fun.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by M.Knight »

Whoa, nice! Didn't realize Birthday was that useful for survival. I tried my few runs of the game with her but her slow speed turned me off.
I imagine the bomb makes very quick work of most bosses then?
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Square_Air »

Yeah, the projectiles from Birthday's bomb have piercing properties, so if you if you sit on top of bosses at the right spot you can fry them with a single bomb. Being the right colour also seems to affect the damage your bomb does. Infernon and Gigafacer even only take 3 bombs each if you place them correctly.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by blossom »

I know 99% of this forum won't care because they're not arcade games, but I managed to 1cc both Gate of Thunder and Star Parodier in the past 24 hours. Feelin like a badass. Not sure yet if I want to do hard mode for Gate of Thunder or skip straight to devil mode.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by To Far Away Times »

blossom wrote:I know 99% of this forum won't care because they're not arcade games, but I managed to 1cc both Gate of Thunder and Star Parodier in the past 24 hours. Feelin like a badass. Not sure yet if I want to do hard mode for Gate of Thunder or skip straight to devil mode.
Both of those games are quite good.

I like Star Parodier. It is a very easy 1cc but it's a quality game regardless.

Gate of Thunder feels a lot like Thunder Force III, which is a favorite shmup of mine. It's not mega hard but you still have to learn the levels and put in the work and that makes for a satisfying 1cc . Gate of Thunder also really nails the audio/visual component, and the shooting action is solid and well paced. Popcorn enemies don't take forever to die, bosses don't repeat patterns ad nauseam, etc... which is far from a guarantee in console games from this era. I've put it in my Top 25 list before, if I remember right.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Jonpachi »

Blazing Lazers (Gunhead) ended up being more of a chore than it seemed it would be. The first 7 levels are fall-asleep-easy, and then you get hit with BUBBLE HELL in which you just kinda have to have Weapon 3 ready to go or you're going to die. Then there's level 9, where it seems like only Weapon 2 and Homing Missiles have any hope of making it out alive. Happy to be done with one. I know it's a classic, and there are some great moments, but I kinda hate it now. It's an unbalanced mess for the most part.

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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by EmperorIng »

That's compile for you. Congrats on 1cc'ing it, I gave up after my first experience of the difficulty spike.

Spriggan I enjoyed much more though.
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Post by Jonpachi »

EmperorIng wrote:That's compile for you. Congrats on 1cc'ing it, I gave up after my first experience of the difficulty spike.

Spriggan I enjoyed much more though.
Spriggan was a blast, and I love Zanac, MUSHA and many other Compile games. BL though ended up being a tedious slog. Once you know how to collect the glowing orbs for restarts (and which weapon to have when) it's more of an endurance test than something super tough, but I won't be back to it.
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Re: I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

Post by Licorice »

Armed Police Batrider Shorty B Normal Course ALL 1CC.

So, I believe I almost did this once before, but caused a second boss (the really hard red mech) to appear on the Highway stage. I read the ST on this forum, and learned how to avoid that. Anyway the clear came easily after practicing the bosses using the boss rush mode. Not so much because I learned to play with them like the pros on YT, but because in trying to do so I learned which patterns are doable and which ones I should bomb. That being said I did die to Boredom during this run. I died somewhere else too, but forget where now, I think somewhere stupid on Airport. I got my one extend shortly after, which I understand is optimal from a rank management perspective. That's the cool thing about games with rank is whenever you die you can tell yourself "yeah that was intentional, needed to get the heat off" lol.

Anyway really cool game. I like to think of it as a really well designed RPG in disguise. I refer mainly to the way you "build" your party (through the team edit, power ups and the autofire settings) and how the game reacts to what you do (rank, boss triggers). It also feels a bit like a pinball game with all the scoring targets and the fact that you're meant to hit them with your aura or bomb.

Sewer and Airport seem to be all about managing the zako threats to open positional windows for the scoring, with brief moments of tension against midbosses. Not that I was doing much of either zako management or scoring, due to using Shorty B with her beefy homing missiles and trying to stay purely survival focused.

Sky High is all about those two midboss planes and Boredom.

Finally, I found Highway to be a very tense midboss rush, and I imagine it would have been doubly so if I were trying for the extend tricks. I guess this sort of boss rush is what console games like Soldier Blade, MUSHA and Elemental Master were going for in their final stages, just didn't do as well.

When I was first learning about the genre, Batrider was the shmup that attracted me the most. But whenever I played I'd get stonewalled by Confrict. So meager were my abilities. Now, having slowly worked my way up the difficulty list, I found Confrict a cakewalk, and the normal course clear being discussed quite breezy too. Notable is the fact that at first I mixed vertical and horizontal clears working my way up at first, before getting stuck on a vertical rated a 10. I actually dropped down to this one (a 9), thinking I'd fare better, but it was not to be. I realized even though my highest clear was an 8, my highest vertical was a 5. So my last 6 clears were all about re-climbing that ladder with verts, and I've found it to be very smooth so far. My conclusion is that the skill set for being good at horizontals doesn't generalize perfectly to being good at verticals.

I also realized that my initial impressions just reading about shmups have been fairly accurate so far in predicting which games I'd enjoy. There have been some surprises, of course, e.g. Same Same Same, which I didn't think I'd like at all, but now it's probably in my top 5. So is this game. Probably my top 3.
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