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Warning !! A huge wall of text is approaching fast"
This is the first time I'm doing this exercise in english, and it has been a great year for me in the shmup department, so I'll be exhaustive
(1) Personal Favourite Achievements of 2022 :
- Finishing my aesthics/ philosophy of art master’s degree « thesis » (never sure how it’s called) about
Darius II at La Sorbonne, and having do to all sorts of things of many different versions of the game as a consequence of that project (scoring
Sagaia V.2 and getting a few top PSN scores,no-missing all arcade final zones on default difficultry, no-missing all final zones in the Mega Drive version, getting some ALLs on the Saturn version, getting ALLs of all arcade versions on default difficulty with 5hz autofire, clearing new routes with Proco Jr. on the Master System version, daring to do the ACFJOUV’ route at Matamarcianos, etc.) were by far my biggest shmup-related achievments this year.
- Getting to do more « content creation » (hate the word but that's how people call it) : shows, podcasts, videos, commentaries, etc related to shmups (mostly in french).
- Getting to know more about the spanish-speaking community and all the great people over there (UBO, Juan Man, Fran Friki, and many more).
- Getting to clear
Soukyugurentai live at Shmupslam 5, and being able to brag about being one of the few people in this world that are able to clear this nasty game somehow consistently.
- Getting more serious (in the sense of playing for a clear) in shmup co-op with many different players (M.Knight, Lyv, Lerebours, Game Over, and Mickey), as it’s always a pleasure to elaborate co-op strats with friends. There’s now six games for which we’ve seen the ending without any player continuing (
Darius,
Darius II,
Sagaia V.1,
Sagaia V.2,
Metal Black, and
Dariusburst), and let’s hope there’ll be more in the future.
- Getting to clear/ALL (to avoid any confusion note I consider a « clear » to be the 1CC of the game/ or first loop of a game if it has more than one loop. For multi-loops I usually say ALL for the one credit clear of all loops, or x-ALL if it has inifinte loops/if one has cleared several loops but didn’t get the ALL) 9 different games (which is more than any other year) from 7 different companies. Here’s the list in alphabetical order :
Aka to Blue,
Gradius III (Training),
Karous,
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (Original),
Progear no Arashi,
Pulstar, Scramble,
Shippu Mahou Daisakusen,
USAAF Mustang. Some of those clears were quite easy, others took a bit more time, but it’s always nice to clear more games regardless
- Getting my most difficult clear of any game I’ve ever played (not only shmups) with
Darius II very hard mode, an insane kusoge-tier mode that has become a meme in it’s own right. Incredibly satisfied with this one.
- Getting extremely serious with
Pulstar speedrunning (despite not doing full runs yet) and going nuts reverse-engineering the world record score with my friend SGN. It’s been a great adventure, there’ll definetely be more to come from our part.
- Getting a first second loop clear with
Gradius 2-ALL. Not an immensly difficult second loop, though the beginning of the loop is quite technical and precise. I don't really care for loops overall minus a few exceptions, but as I like to play the og
Gradius every now and then and seen all there was to be seen on the first loop I decided that I might as well go for the second loop.
- Getting somehow serious on scoring
Aka to Blue scoring despite my ghetto set-up which doesn’t allow to push things as much as I’d like. Insane game, incredibly happy to have discovered this one.
- Getting my second no-miss, no-bomb, no autofire run on
Darius Gaiden’s Y zone without autofire, and improving lots of things overall (such as being able to no-miss no-bomb Crusty Hammer T consistently). Also got to no-miss abnormal mode in the Saturn version.
- Getting to no-miss every
Dariusburst ACEX route minus Z, and getting to play on the cab twice this year
(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2022:
- Failing to accomplish my objectives I had set myself on the last two shmup events I participated in. It’s not that the runs were huge failures or anything (as it can always happen in the case in live events…), but I’m extremely disappointed since I was very closed both times, and failed for very bad and stupid reasons, which I deeply regret :
1) The
Soukyugurentai run Shoot the Baguette 4, which was failed because I was feeling much too confident. Run was going extremely well and I let one single turret on Bakuzan (爆懺) ultimately ruin the entire run. I already had a big warning when I lost a live against stage boss 5 for acting like a fool. After getting my senses back together and pulling a solid stage 6 I reached Bakuzan with three lives in stock (which is more than comfortable for a clear if playing safe) and totally lost it by trying something new on the boss's first phase (something you should probably never do in a live setting). My mistake was only to live one turret live, and I paid the price for it : I knew very well how dangerous those turrets are if you let them live. I clearly remember how confident I was feeling during the run. What a miserable way to blow up a good run...
2) The
Darius II run at Matamarcianos 3 was failed because of many small mistakes that added up during the run, and left me seconds away from doing the no-miss on one of the hardest routes. The run was badly executed overall, with lots of mistakes, and yet it's infuriating to realize I was so close to have the no-miss
- Reaching stage 9 on
Gradius III and not being able to do much ever since despite trying for it. Game was never really a main objective this year, but it’s still annoying I’ve gotten worse everytime I’ve played the game those last few months. Going to have to work seriously on my consistency issues, especially on stage 5, and spend a lot of time practicing last two stages if I want a chance to clear this someday.
- Not beating my PB on
Soukyugurentai. Again not really a screw-up since it was not something I was aiming (among all things I wanted to be able to have the best possible condition for consistent one credit clear), but I feel kinda bad of not having beaten my PB since three years despite having gotten much better at the game. I have more than enough to improve my score, both with and without the bomb bug (chaining alone could get me something like 1-2M maybe, then add 650k per bugged bomb). It’s definetely something I need and want to improve eventually, though probably not in 2023 since I have different plans for that game this year (see below).
(3) Favourite Achievements by Others of 2022: As usual many cool achievments happened this year, since some of the most insane and obvious achievments have already been pointed out several times I’ll be a hipster and point out some that haven’t been mentionned as well :
- Skalt711's
Gradius community record at max speed : insane achievment from an insane player. If he could somehow talk less about his plans and play more most ppl would take him more seriously, and probably realize how gifted the guy is.
- DMC getting 30M+ in
Soukyugurentai, and getting 60 M+ in
Great Mahou Daisakusen. Insane achievments, too bad most people probably don’t realize how good these are due to not being popular Yagawa Raizing games, nor being very well-known or discussed games among new generations, etc. It was a real pleasure to discuss high level strats with him, and I’m glad I could help him improve his score. The commentary he did with EmperorIng for my Shmup Slam 5 run was also one of the highlights.
- trap15’s finds on those two games. It's always great to learn new things !
- raisonnable’s journeys with
Cyvern and
Marx Matrix, and being the great guy he is.
- Omkol being on fire as usual, clearing all sorts of cool stuff. One of the most talented players I’ve ever seen, and also one of the kindest, most helpfull, and supportive player I know of.
- Lerebours for keeping up with his replays, articles, shows, commentaries, etc. it’s always very insightfull to read of hear what the guy has to say about a game he likes. His IRL sessions and keeping up with his sarcastic sense of humour that always piss off fanboys also count as some of my favourite achievments this year.
- Plasmo and Meriscan for keeping track of all great arcade shmup scores. Fantastic work ! I'd be interested in seeing someone undertake the insane task of doing this for non-arcade shmups as well.
- SGN for teaching me the ways of
Pulstar and finally releasing the Kamui interview that was in stores for years. Hope he finds the motivation for doing a full run optimized scoring run (with and/or without the double kos).
- AndrewR98 for all his great clears (the most memorable for me being his 47M
Grand Mahou Daisakusen ALL with Chitta) and amazing work on the wiki. A very nice and very helpfull player, I am very glad we have people like him in the community.
- Lyv not doing much to get out of semi-retirement and still showing up at every IRL. Crazy cool achievment.
- M.Knight doing lots of very cool achievments like
Dangun Feveron ALL and being an very inspiring ambassador for many games and game design ideas. Let's not forget his WRs are only the tip of the iceberg.
- NSTC-J beating my
Darius II double-screen community out of the blue with a run passing through zone F and on a Switch lite.
- mutmut02 clearing games like a madman, he truly is the
Super-clearer. Big kuddos for his
Gradius IV clear.
- toimine’s no-miss clears of all
Darius Gaiden’s zones without autofire and with very personnal and interesting strats. Very exciting journey to follow.
- VxD’s
Aka to Blue Type-R achievments. Can’t wait for him to figure to finally defeat Murasaki.
- Overall all the people going crazy with just one or a few games : Juju Kenobi, Plasmo, Meriscan, MAZ, etc.
- And on the other hand all the people going crazy with survival clears : Buffi, Rezardi, Pepepacco, Kollision, Con 5 Duros, etc. While I get the feeling survival achievments are less well regarded as getting insane scores, most people don't realize it takes about just as much skill and dedication to destroy many different games with different gameplays in no-time.
- Last but not least : incredibly happy that a great player like AUM_aun ended his
Soukyugurentai’s scoring attempts with the most sublime mumbles about the bomb bug luck-shit rng manipulation, the deletion of all his replays/twitch attempts, and a score under 20M (despite that he could have gotten a much better score if we wasn’t just going apeshit on every bomb and just learned the game instead
). Ragequitting like that is an achievment in itself since it emphasizes how awfull and broken this scoring bug is for the game balance, and it’s time the people that have not seriously played this game for score begin to realize that. I mean you sure can enjoy rng luckshit, but in the end it's detrimental to rely only this. Gives even more credit to DMC’s determination to push for such a high score.
(4) Goals for 2023:
- Working on finding an aesthetics phd with shmus as a subject. So far there’s only been a single thesis/phd done on shmup (
All of Your Base are Belong to Us? Shmups as a Source for Better Game Design by Luke McMillan), which is somehow of a paradoxal situation for what is often considered the very first videogame genre. That’ll be a hell of an project, and I’m not yet certain I will be able to make it happen for many reasons, but that is my main shmup goal for 2023
- Finishing some stuff on the different versions of
Darius II, such as getting my community record back on the 2-screen arcade version, clearing Master System normal mode with Proco Jr., trying Mega Drive special mode and higher difficulty modes, trying other routes on 2-screen arcade version very hard mode maybe, and most importantly working on an update on my master’s degree thesis so that I can make public and accessible to everyone.
- Playing more games on the Saturn. In 2022 I’ve been neglecting it a little bit and played more games on PS4 instead, in 2023 I want to spend more time on the 21 shmups I have in my collection, that includes trying out to tate some CRTs at my parents’ house and finally get to play 3/4 vertical shmups outside of IRL sessions.
- Clear more Konami games. There’s quite a few that I’ve worked on but didn’t finish.
- Getting the
Soukyugurentai ALL with S.O.Q 010 so to finally have a replay available on the internet.
- Play more console
Darius games.
- Finally begin to play
G-Darius.
- Clear shmups from new developpers.
- Overcoming my writer’s block and finally start to write full guides. This is probably my biggest challenge for this year
(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
- Get out of your comfort zone and try different shmups you’re no used to, instead of playing the same type of games eveytime. You might be suprized with what can come out of that.
- If you’re only playing and grinding just one or only very few games try to go for more basic achievments in other games. As satisfying as grinding games seriously can be you miss a lot by just sticking to the games you know. Take some break, try something new, even it’s just for a few hours, get a scrubclear or something, it shouldn’t take too long, and can have great benefits for your grinding in the long run.
- On the other hand if you’re a 1CC destroyer try to get more serious if you find a game you really like, chances are you might get to like it. Isn’t it a shame to spend some time on a game to never to play it again ? You’re missing a lot as well if all you care is seing the ending of a game without continuing. Getting to spend a bit of time on a game past the 1CC (scoring, trying different character, going for a no-miss, etc.) can be very beneficial, you might get to see a game in a new way.
- Most of all : don’t be to harsh on yourself with goals
