1P side (when it matters), Japanese version, default settings should be assumed if nothing is specified. Autofire can be assumed when relevant, unless otherwise stated. Only writing down the hardest difficulty setting, I may sometimes have done easier modes.
Aside from Windows games, emulation can be assumed. I use Mame for Arcade (Shmupmame 4.2 for my older clears, a newish version of vanilla Mame lately), Neko Project for PC-98, Snes9x for SNES and Mednafen for most other systems.
Breakdown by dev:
- Toaplan: 16 (all done)
- ZUN: 11
- Konami: 8
- Cave: 6
- Raizing: 5
- Irem: 4
- Seibu: 3
- Taito: 2
- Others: 18
(counting different versions of a game as only 1 clear even if the routing can be very different, like Batsugun Special and Original, Mushi Original and Maniac, Same3 1P and 2P, various difficulty levels...)
Now that I have a few rarer clears that don't have a lot of discussion when it comes to their difficulty, I also included a list of subjective difficulty ratings if that can help whoever is reading this, using the same scale as
Perikles' list: big number is harder. Due to the nature of this ranking system being all relative, difficulty grows exponentially: the gap between a 30 and a 20 is much higher than the one between 20 and 10, for example, because most games fall in the 10-20 range. For this reason, the higher ratings (25 and more) are to take with a grain of salt since I don't have much to compare them to.
The rating is taking into account my specific ship/character and conditions (autofire most of the time, unless it's stated), sometimes other ships might be easier than what I used. For the few no-miss clears I got, if I don't specify anything regarding the rating, it's not specific to the no-miss: it's the rating for a clear, no matter how many lives you lose in the process. The no-miss just happened or I went for it in a subsequent run.
The rating only reflects survival and scoring doesn't matter, although sometimes it goes hand in hand (some scoring effort was made in Yagawa games for example). Also, since it's subjective and because my skill evolves between clears and we all have preferences (I try to take that into account when rating), I'm not totally adamant about some ratings and I admit that there is room for mistake. A 20 might as well be a 18 or 22, but most ratings should be fine within a margin of 2 points or so.
Comparing different styles doesn't make a lot of sense, so you should sort of see it as different scales sharing the same list, if that explanation makes sense. For example I rated Ketsui and Kyukyoku Tiger as roughly the same, but the latter's style (98% memo, fast bullets, slow ship, emphasis on recovery) is much easier for me, whereas some people would think the opposite and easily flail around in Ketsui, but couldn't adhere to very strict routing and struggle with Ktiger. So, it's comparing the bullet hells together in their ecosystem, the vertical Toaplan memorizers in their own ecosystem, and so on. For the record, I honestly think that 1-ALL Ketsui is harder than 1-ALL Same3 1P, but most people would disagree.
Also, the rating assumes that you have access to any documentation regarding the mechanics, potential safespots, cheese strats and so on. For example, doing Garegga without knowing how the rank works would be much, much harder, but all the information is easy to find and controlling the rank is fairly easy in itself once you know what to do.
I also put ratings for the easier modes I may have cleared, when applicable. Sometimes such rating is very approximative, because I played the hardest mode first and played the easier mode later out of curiosity, but it feels so simple with the knowledge I got in the hardest mode. These ratings are written with a tilde (~) and should be taken with a grain of salt.
A few notes on top of that:
- Deathsmiles: Just too many things that can influence difficulty, I'm talking about playing the game with a majority of lv. 2 stages and an occasional lv. 3, and no optional stage.
- FixEight: Very dependant on character and I won't clear with each one. I think Cull is considered to be the best one, so other characters can be rated higher. Also, I remember reading that the non-Japanese versions were substantially easier, don't know by how much.
- Flame Zapper Kotsujin: I didn't clear Normal or Hard mode, no idea about the rating but probably not that much lower. Mania mode is absurd, without kidding it's probably at least in the low 30s.
- Hishouzame stops being harder at loop 4 which is why I stop the rating there. Bosses do get slightly more life with each loop until loop 16 but it's not a huge deal although you notice it after a while. Also, Flying Shark is a tad easier, but not that much. I would say -1 point for 1-ALL of Flying Shark and -2 points for 2-ALL, but I can't really confirm how higher loops go.
- Mr. Heli: PCE version is much easier than the arcade game, don't let that rating fool you if you try the arcade version, it's really hard. There's also an "arcade" mode on PCE, which is slightly harder than normal mode but still much easier than the real arcade game.
- Out Zone: Loop 4 is the hardest, everything after is the same except for a few details that aren't really worth a point. However, multilooping for more than 4 loops is a challenge in itself because you don't get extends after the first loop (unlike most Toaplan games), hence the specific rating for the counterstop.
- R-Type is much lower than in most other ratings but I stand by that.
- Slap Fight: There's a trick to skip the first 1/3 of the game or so but it doesn't really change the rating. The beginning is pretty simple, actually pulling off the trick is harder than doing the beginning the normal way.
- Time Pilot: You can cheese the game by farming lives in the first stage (there's no timeout), I assume you don't abuse this. I played this game a long time ago and don't remember if the loops are that much harder (there's nothing impossible), so it's only a rating for the first loop.
- Vimana: not sure exactly when the game stops being harder, it's not extremely noticeable. Final boss always gets harder with every loop and its bullet speed will get crazy after a dozen loops or so, so this could change the rating a tiny bit for a very high count of loops.
- Zero Wing: Recovery is very hard on the 1P set but easier in 2P, not sure how much of a difference it would make but at least you can recover from anywhere without routing in this version. Also, there's a trick to skip stages 6 and 7, the rating assumes you don't use it (I would say a rating of ~11 if you skip those stages as they're the hardest).
Figured I might as well just post my few non-STG arcade 1cc I remember.
No autofire can be assumed if nothing stated:
Autofire in Cabal just tears the game apart (it was done for Calice), I should try to do it without auto.
Combat school difficulty mainly comes from the final mission, otherwise it would be something like a 2.
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