Chronicles of Loop 256

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 2:02 am

This was all 2-3 months ago:

Any idiot can credit feed till the very, very end of Gradius V, which is still rumored to end after 255 or 256 loops. However, I've never heard of anybody in the entire world actually doing it.

I tried to be that idiot.

For almost 3 straight weeks I left the PS2 on in the cool basement and tried to find downtime whenever I could to beat the game 1-4 times a sitting. I have seen that damn Continue screen more times than my current sperm count. On that third week, I got a typical visit from the girlfriend. We did our chillin' thing, and the PS2 didn't tie any of my other equipment up 'cause everything is hooked to a receiver along with a sweet multimedia projector all located in the dead center of the room.
The girlfriend and I ended up renting a chick flick for the night and upon watching it, she proceeded to 'jump me' as reward for my horrific suffering of watching a film with Rachel McAdams.

Now that problem with having all my equipment in the center of the room is that power has to come from somewhere else. I conveniently had a matress in the back of the room for 'jumping-ons', but it happened to be atop the master power cord for the entertainment center. The fun times escalated roughly..

and I heard a small 'zzzt'

oi, so what does a man do when something devistatingly nerdy happens during sex?
As for me, I finished the job for her end and had the post-moment bonding, screaming rigorously only on the inside. Cleanup was noticably light that night..for obvious reasons.

But goddamn...made it to loop thirty-something and didn't even have new loops stage select to show for it.

You guys have any shmup interruption stories like this?
Anybody ever made it past loop 256?

Bkeela · Post by **Bkeela** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 2:26 am

Sex has been the undoing of many a great man and many a great deed.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:15 am

HAY GUYS I GOT LAID

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:11 am

TMI, man. TMI.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:40 am

zakk wrote:HAY GUYS I GOT LAID

More or less my thoughts.

Dumb thread, lock plz

~Kid Icarus~ · Post by **~Kid Icarus~** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:07 am

lol

Neon and Zakk not getting any?

J/K!

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:42 am

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 9:28 am

Wait, if that happened to him I don`t see any reasons for this being an inappropriate thread. He could as well have been "while babysitting my turtle, I stepped over the power cord". Him having sex is not the entire point of the post, so I can handle it if he describes it a bit more than "..and then we made loooove".

Anyway...

I actually would like to see Loop 256, given that this is some programming boundary ( I don`t know too much about programming, but 256 is some magical number somehow). Gradius 3 maxes out at 256 (cheated it in MAME, but it did seem to have maxed out rank long before), and I can`t imagine that V really goes beyond 256. It`s a shame you can`t access them somehow for additional challenge without needing to play for so long. Maybe the first stage boss has SIX heads in loop 256.

MSZ · Post by **MSZ** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:20 am

From what I read, the game ends after loop 256.

Also in Gofer no Yabou, the game ends after you got your 100th ship. Some very weird designs I think.

Middlemoor · Post by **Middlemoor** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:03 am

"Every little thing that we do, should be between me and you."

Post by **Ghegs** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:59 am

FrederikJurk wrote:Maybe the first stage boss has SIX heads in loop 256.

No, the difficulty maxes out far before that. I want to say loop 15, but the exact number is lost on me at the moment. I'm sure somebody here has the exact info.

I am curious if after loop 256 the screen just goes black and the only thing you get is a "Congraturation! You are a super player!"-text on the screen or something.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:25 pm

My guess would be that the game just crashes. But thinking of it, hasn`t this 256 something to do with memory? 16, 32, 64, 128, 256... Maybe Gradius V loops till 1024 or something. Then the game would say "Go get some sun, you dork".

~Kid Icarus~ · Post by **~Kid Icarus~** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:17 pm

My guess is that it will keep going. Most likely the enemy ship and bullet speeds are set to a variable amount that increases with each added loop, with 256 being the max. I'm clearly guessing though, I've only played a few hours worth of this game.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:25 pm

FrederikJurk wrote:My guess would be that the game just crashes. But thinking of it, hasn`t this 256 something to do with memory? 16, 32, 64, 128, 256... Maybe Gradius V loops till 1024 or something. Then the game would say "Go get some sun, you dork".

Back then memory was such a constraint, they used the smallest size for any sort of storage. The smallest common size was 8-bits which could hold values from 0-255.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:27 pm

Ghegs wrote:
FrederikJurk wrote:Maybe the first stage boss has SIX heads in loop 256.
No, the difficulty maxes out far before that. I want to say loop 15, but the exact number is lost on me at the moment. I'm sure somebody here has the exact info.

Yeah, difficulty maxes out at loop 10. That's why the stage select stops at that point. But what if Treasure decided to use 2 bytes for the loop and made it end at 65535?

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:29 pm

Yeah, The whole game memory thing ending at 256 probably indicates not a damn thing happens afterward. Still, having a memory card with a stage select of every loop wouldn't be bad to have at the end of the day.

The loops start to blend together somewhere in the late teens, this is basically because EVERY stationary turret will fire an uninterrupted stream/line of shots to the same degree as in loop 3 with those three big ships on stage one with the four destroyable turrets aiming straight up and down. You know, right after the first big core but before you change to the space w/planet background and kill all the zelos heart red orb things.
However, the loops 20 and up will still add very very minor things like an extra firing of homing lasers here, rate of fire & frequency of appearance of bigcores increase there, the speed of certain shots increases on this boss, and with every little shield block on a boss or core that gets destroyed, a wider and more dense spread of bullets appear. Oh I counted it one time when I got to loop 30something. Just one little shield block destroyed on a single bigcore yielded a spread arc of 82 bullets. No I don't remember my rank when counting that.

Slowdown? Yeah, it happened tons.

So basically, before loop 20, the stages start becoming the same. After loop 20, If you're watching for it, you'll notice a small boss or miniboss adjustment. And you'll probably only spot as little as two new challenge adjustments per new loop.

And c'mon guys, you're tellin' me that for a 2D genre that technically may only demand an hour of your time per sitting, you've had no stories about your people interrupting your game? No 1CC concentration-fuck-ups by women or anything? All-in-all, my bad for the TMI. It was necessary. Ya gotta appreciate a TMI bar story once in awhile on a place only a forum like this could understand.

Fine..or go back to the "who the fuck is Cave marketing to" Pink Sweets thread. Goddamn, those promo movies creep me out as much as Cho Aniki. I mean, what is this...seriously.....what is this?!

lol, ~Kid Icarus~, thumbs up.

(edit)
sigh...Eps wins...

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:37 pm

Ganelon wrote:loop 10. That's why the stage select stops at that point.

aahhhh crap!!! Are you absolutly sure?

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:44 pm

Videogames and Sex seldom ever mix.

Even when we want them to. Just doesn't work out.

Best thing to suggest for future reference is to Girlfriend-proof your house. By that I mean make it so that consoles and whatever else don't get in the way of the "relationship".

Eps · Post by **Eps** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:11 pm

DJ Incompetent wrote:Goddamn, those promo movies creep me out as much as Cho Aniki*

*Super Big Brother

I think you can probably take it as read that posters on here know what the Cho Aniki series is.

Post by **Icarus** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:35 pm

I'm usually far too tired to go on after the third time round, and would prefer to sleep.
That applies to both sex and Gradius 5.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:44 pm

Icarus wrote:That applies to both sex and Gradius 5.

Must...not...make..."rank control" joke...

Post by **Icarus** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:27 pm

BulletMagnet wrote:
Icarus wrote:That applies to both sex and Gradius 5.
Must...not...make..."rank control" joke...

Seriously. After three, I just cannot find enough energy to get my next 'EXTEND', and end up crashing.
LOL.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:56 pm

Yeah, Gradius 3 was pretty HARD.

Post by **Ghegs** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:15 pm

Ganelon wrote:But what if Treasure decided to use 2 bytes for the loop and made it end at 65535?

I believe it was in the "Options" DVD where the Game Director himself talks about the game having 256 loops.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:51 pm

Icarus wrote:
BulletMagnet wrote:
Icarus wrote:That applies to both sex and Gradius 5.
Must...not...make..."rank control" joke...
Seriously. After three, I just cannot find enough energy to get my next 'EXTEND', and end up crashing.
LOL.

ahahahahahah

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:18 pm

Icarus wrote:
BulletMagnet wrote:
Icarus wrote:That applies to both sex and Gradius 5.
Must...not...make..."rank control" joke...
Seriously. After three, I just cannot find enough energy to get my next 'EXTEND', and end up crashing.
LOL.

Consider yourself lucky. Where I'm at, it's minimum 1000 coins per credit, and I only have 1 coin.

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:43 pm

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... 56&search=

One Succulla claims to to have grinded his way to the very end.

But his score starts at 0, indicating he can select the loop.

Ganelon wrote:loop 10. That's why the stage select stops at that point.

So is this true for (assumed) Jpn version? Or these videos fake?

Also. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoe1qbJ5uM At the very last second of the final stage of 256, text appears, I can't tell if it's edited in.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:01 pm

DJ Incompetent wrote:Also. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoe1qbJ5uM At the very last second of the final stage of 256, text appears, I can't tell if it's edited in.

It's a standard "don't remove your memory card or your shit is broke" message.

RotateMe · Post by **RotateMe** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:01 pm

iatneH wrote:
Icarus wrote:
BulletMagnet wrote: Must...not...make..."rank control" joke...
Seriously. After three, I just cannot find enough energy to get my next 'EXTEND', and end up crashing.
LOL.
Consider yourself lucky. Where I'm at, it's minimum 1000 coins per credit, and I only have 1 coin.

Well at least you'll get about 2 or maybe 3 lifes when you got these coins!

Plus it's better this than some cheap game where you can credit feed till you're through.... damn this is fun... stupid, but fun!

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:11 pm

DJ Incompetent wrote:http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... 56&search=

One Succulla claims to to have grinded his way to the very end.

But his score starts at 0, indicating he can select the loop.

Ganelon wrote:loop 10. That's why the stage select stops at that point.
So is this true for (assumed) Jpn version? Or these videos fake?

Also. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoe1qbJ5uM At the very last second of the final stage of 256, text appears, I can't tell if it's edited in.

The rank maxes out at loop 10. Every loop thereafter is identical.

The text appearing at the end is the standard "Checking for Memory Card and Saving" message. Since he used stage select in the vid, he only gets to play stage 8 of loop 256.