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

[BurlyHeart]

Got a no miss 1-ALL of Thundercross today. Made it to 2-3.

This a pretty easy memorizer. Just 1 or 2 things to watch out for per level and you're golden. Then it's just a matter of stringing it together for a full run. I learned the game from scratch to a no miss 1-ALL in half a day. Spent maybe five hours total.

I was learning the game with the twin lazer but made huge progress as soon as I switched to the boomerangs. I did eventually have to switch to the twin lazer for the last stage.

This is one of those comfort food games. You have a ton of firepower, you can take down bosses in seconds, there's no shortage of safe spots and rocking tunes. Some real feel good blasting. The stage 4 song is so good. Sounds like something that could have been in Thunderforce.

Final score: 1,339,300

Congrats! Been eyeing this one for a while. The Konami Anniversary Collection is on my to do list...someday soon I hope.

[To Far Away Times]

Got a no miss 1-ALL of Thundercross today. Made it to 2-3.

This a pretty easy memorizer. Just 1 or 2 things to watch out for per level and you're golden. Then it's just a matter of stringing it together for a full run. I learned the game from scratch to a no miss 1-ALL in half a day. Spent maybe five hours total.

I was learning the game with the twin lazer but made huge progress as soon as I switched to the boomerangs. I did eventually have to switch to the twin lazer for the last stage.

This is one of those comfort food games. You have a ton of firepower, you can take down bosses in seconds, there's no shortage of safe spots and rocking tunes. Some real feel good blasting. The stage 4 song is so good. Sounds like something that could have been in Thunderforce.
Final score: 1,339,300

Congrats! Been eyeing this one for a while. The Konami Anniversary Collection is on my to do list...someday soon I hope.

Thank you. I played a bit more today and recorded a video. Not as good as yesterday's no miss run, but good enough, I suppose.

[Nahar]

I did a Normal Difficulty 1CC of GanaBlade. Go get the game, it's very good. Now I'm going after a Hard 1CC.

[To Far Away Times]

I did a Normal Difficulty 1CC of GanaBlade. Go get the game, it's very good. Now I'm going after a Hard 1CC.

GanaBlade is awesome. That was an insta-buy as soon as I saw it. Congrats.

[Nahar]

GanaBlade is awesome. That was an insta-buy as soon as I saw it. Congrats.

Yeah, I hope the dev wants to release more games on Steam. Let's see what happens next, but this one is promising.

[KAI]

SDOJ 1CC on the 360, spamming bombs like crazy to survive the last boss.
I dont like this game, at all.

[bobrocks95]

It's taken just over 20 years, but last night I finally managed to get an S++ rank in Chapter 3 of Ikaruga on Normal:

Old post but as a fellow Ikaruga player congrats, stage 3 is the hardest to remember after time away imo and the high-speed barrier section I drop a chain every time. Stage 1's S++ took me longer but I wasn't practicing with Dolphin save states at that point (the Steam port really should have had conquest mode or whatever the training mode was called).

[blazinglazers69]

Fire Shark - 1cc (Genesis. Normal. 1-ALL, NO DEATH.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEOws3q7dk

Phew. Y'all. I'm gonna be real. I am massively stoked for this clear. I'm writing this immediately after beating it. No death. This was my first time clearing the game from start to finish and it's a freaking no death.

This run was the culmination of an approximately 70 hour long journey. 70 hours of save state practicing, frustrating janky deaths from sniper planes, weeks of taking a break to clear/play something else, etc. The Genesis port, especially on Normal, is not nearly the feat of clearing the cruel quarter black hole that is the arcade version, but it is spicy for me. And for me, it took a lot patience.

What can I say about Fire Shark? While Toaplan's earliest shmups didn't have flying enemies, this one most CERTAINLY does--and oh my god are they malicious little scumbags. They dart around the screen in insane loops. They come from the sides. They come from the corners. They come from behind. THEY COME IN THE NIGHT. If their bullets don't hit you (which they often will since they often fire ahead of their flight trajectory directly to the direction you're dodging in) they will simply kamikaze into you.

To top it all off, one of the three weapons--the green laser--is absolutely dog crap against the fighter planes. Why? Because it fires a straight shot when you desperately need the spread of the blue or red shots. And because it has GAPS. And it's not even that powerful to compensate! AND THE POWER UP BOUNCES AROUND THE SCREEN FOR EVER!!! The green "power-up" is lowkey the most insidious enemy in the game. Even IF you save state practice, it's chaotic bouncing pattern always forces you to improvise and anticipate it as bullets and kamikaze ships hurl towards you. Fun.

I did a lot of save state practice. Pretty much every level, but especially levels 7-10, with level 8's battleship being an insane run-ender if you have the misfortune of getting shot and losing all your power. Lot of Gradius Syndrome there. When I died on the level 8 battleship I'd estimate that I was able to fight through under-powered MAYBE 10% of the time.

But it all came together for this run. I put my earbuds in, sat close to my laptop rather than far away from the TV per my usual set-up, told my wife I was doing something very serious (lol), and went to town with my trusty 8bitdo arcade stick complete with an LS-32 lever. My adrenaline was real. I sighed between every level. I pushed away negative self-doubting thoughts and focused on my breath as I played. I stretched between levels. It's just a stupid video game, but to me this was a long-term goal I've been chipping away at for a few hours here and there for about 2-3 years.

I probably could have gotten my total practice time down to 50ish hours had I been more focused (I have ADHD) and save state practiced more rather than played through from the beginning all the time, but for me shmups are more about fun than maximizing my efficiency. This is a passion, not a job.

So yeah. That's it. I only went for 1 loop because my skill/patience level is just not up to par for the harder difficulty of consecutive loops at this time. And to be honest, getting the 1-ALL was such a White Whale for me for so long that I want to move on.

So I am.

I had boatloads of fun, I got a respectable No Death 1-ALL, and I got that little Tom Selleck looking pilot on the box art past the enemy lines. Today was a good day.

10/10. Would fire and shark again. Eventually.

[BurlyHeart]

Congrats! Love reading about these clears, especially ones where it has taken quite the effort.

I've heard the Mega Drive version of Fire Shark is rather good.

[sunnshiner]

I (finally) 1CCed Akai Katana Shin Novice with Tsubaki today.

[Angry Hina]

Fire Shark - 1cc (Genesis. Normal. 1-ALL, NO DEATH.)

(...)

10/10. Would fire and shark again. Eventually.

I cleared this game as well some years ago but only on easy and with deaths (but without save states on original hardware) and of course I encountered the same two difficulty pillars, the weak balanced weapons+the nearly impossibility to avoid getting the ones you dont want to (much harder as in most games) and the kamikaze planes in the later stages coming from all sides. But if you die, the recovery is also very hard because of the speed up system and your weak standard shot. But this third pillar can of course be avoided by not dying

The game has its moments as well and one has automatically more sympathy with a game one has praticed so long and synchronized with it but this game design with the bouncing around items and the attacks from behind that often... I dont know... For me its bad game design, even if its Toaplan who did this. I often think, I would like to have a more honourable clear like MD normal or 2P version but it makes me just sick, if I see the first green item bouncing around for hours. And raising the difficulty with many behind attack you have to learn is just cheap (in Tatsujin for instance they are present as well but even in this hard game not THAT nomerous and you dont have to focus on flying around items at the same time).

I would never give a game with this stupid stuff a 10/10

[Agt2018]

R-Type II (Japanese Version) 2-ALL No Miss. Played it on PSX port "R-Types".

[Steven]

Holy fuck, now that's something to be proud of. That game is already insanely vicious as it is, and you played the hardest version of the game.

[To Far Away Times]

Wow, R-Type II's second loop is infamously brutal.

[BIL]

Nice! Not only the harder region, but the PS1 port is even a bit tougher than the PCB, with its speed bumped up to 60hz from 55hz.

[Agt2018]

Thanks! Yes, the second loop doesn't mess around. The last stage is particularly brutal, with very little room for error. I also spent a lot of time learning to beat the 4th boss (Rios) since its pattern changes every time, and somehow I can't destroy it fast enough like what Jaimers did at https://youtu.be/foDADP2Lecs?si=CdcpA5uTYDwwZM85

[bobrocks95]

Just got a 1CC on Normal in SATAZIUS, a fun little doujin Gradius tribute. I believe my score was 1,791,296 but there's no leaderboards or high score page, just going by what it says in-game.

Pretty easy on normal, but I enjoyed it a lot as a quick afternoon playthrough, which is what I was looking for. It seems like there's an updated SATAZIUS NEXT on Switch, and... Wii U/Dreamcast?? Weird.

2 broken Steam achievements for it really ruin me as an achievement whore though. I'm hoping Henteko Doujin can get them removed since that's a super easy way to "fix" them (without actual development work).

[copy-paster]

R-Type II (Japanese Version) 2-ALL No Miss. Played it on PSX port "R-Types".

Huge congrats! R-Type II is already too tough in World version for me.

Speaking of R-Type, I did a Live PB of Delta with No Deaths in the bag with R-13 aka first time nomiss and first time 1CC with R-13 done live on RGLtv's event weeks ago, with over 150 viewers

Real run starts at 17:40 because I died too much atm, one reset changes everything.

[BIL]

Speaking of R-Type, I did a Live PB of Delta with No Deaths in the bag with R-13 aka first time nomiss and first time 1CC with R-13 done live on RGLtv's event weeks ago, with over 150 viewers

Nicely done! Must be amazing to hit those milestones for a live audience. I dunno how you guys do that stuff, I'd be too nervous.

[To Far Away Times]

R-Type II (Japanese Version) 2-ALL No Miss. Played it on PSX port "R-Types".

Huge congrats! R-Type II is already too tough in World version for me.

Speaking of R-Type, I did a Live PB of Delta with No Deaths in the bag with R-13 aka first time nomiss and first time 1CC with R-13 done live on RGLtv's event weeks ago, with over 150 viewers

Real run starts at 17:40 because I died too much atm, one reset changes everything.

Nice. Clearing R-Type Delta with the R-13 has been on my "to do" list for a decade. Such a fun ship to use.

[To Far Away Times]

Got a clear last night on Sonic Wings 3. This game is really cool. The music is certainly a choice, but it grew on me after a while. This game is pretty much a memorizor, but not a terribly difficult one. There is a ship that appears after certain levels and depending on which wing you destroy you will go on either the left or right path. I chose the left path the first time, then the right path for the next two choices. If you choose the right path for stage 8 the final boss is normally the UFO, but I got lucky and got the rare Mahjong Girl boss instead. I don't know how it's triggered but I'd assume after all my practice runs that boss shows up probably 5-10% of the time? Something like that. Anyway, that boss is quite a bit easier than the UFO, almost like skipping the final boss if you can make it there.

[XoPachi]

Not that it's really all that tough, but I got a Type-C All Clear in Gana Blade hard mode.
My perfectionist ass was restarting level 1 constantly though and I get the feeling there's a boss after stage 6 that was locked off because of that. But if not, well there you go.
I didn't realize the game wouldn't save records either. Should have screencapped the final results. All I got is this.

[blazinglazers69]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7j_5su8vOE

Today we are clearing R-Type. It's funny, but clearing this game almost makes me feel...goofy? It's R-Type. Like, I feel like I'm 15 again playing Smoke on the Water in Guitar Center. It's just that CLASSIC. That VINTAGE. That monumental in the world of not just shoot 'em ups, but the eternal Arcade itself.

What can I even say about R-Type that hasn't been said? The HR Geiger aesthetic, the utterly iconic opening theme, the force pod, the checkpoints--you know the drill.

All I can hope to add is my personal experience. Yes, I used autofire. I always do. But I will admit I did feel a tinge of shame using it for this one, just because it's so classic that using modern QoL features feels....tacky? Idk. But then again, I obviously used save states to learn this memorizer-shooter. Like who tf in 2023 is actually going to play it start to finish EVERY time and learn EVERY checkpoint? Kudos to those who do, but it's not 1987 anymore and I am not THAT MUCH of a masochist.

I'm debating whether or not to go for the proper 2-ALL. Emotionally, I'm kind of done with it for now. Dying on Stage 4 or 6 and having to slog through the first 3 levels again feels kind of meh. Once you know them, the game doesn't even feel like it truly begins in earnest until 1-4. But it is a short loop. I don't like looping games that are 30+ minutes, but 15-25 minute loops aren't bad. We'll see.

This clear took me 16 hours to get. Apart from the stage 2 boss and some of the stage 6 stuff, it's not too bad on the first loop. I have an LS-32 and an LS-56 in my arcade sticks. The 56 is in a wired stick though and I was too lazy to swap them out and I prefer the wireless one--so as tight as the stage 2 boss is and a couple moments here and there are, I was able to get it down fine with the less precise feeling LS-32. The trick is to just practice flicking and getting a feel for the deadzone you have to pass to activate the microswitches. With consistent practice it's doable.

I died quickly into the second loop since I feel like I didn't have the right weapon equipped. I had never attempted the 2nd loop so if I do, I'll probably have to tweak my strategies and weapon choices here and there to learn it.

But yeah this was fun. Feels like a right of passage. Good stuff. I usually stick exclusively with console shmups so maybe this will give me the courage to finally branch out a tad.

[To Far Away Times]

Congrats! I agree R-Type is one of those foundational clears that feels really good to get. One of my favorite games I've ever played.

As a save state practice game its a fantastic time, and memorization and planning grants measureable results fairly quickly. The game itself is never unfair without memorization though - a true landmark in stage design. This type of game lives and dies by its level design and R-Type absolutely crushes it.

It's also wild how ahead of its contemporaries R-Type was. Feels like its a whole generation ahead of games from that era.

[DGR114]

Battle Bakraid (USA Version)
Mode: Training Mode
Score: 3,375,690
Ship: Flame Viper C
I know that training mode isnt that impressive, but this is my 1st clear of a Raizing game so far. This clear took a couple days of practice. Time to work on a Normal Mode clear I guess.

[Ice Beam]

1-all of Thunder Cross (Hamster PS4, "new" Japanese version). A kind shooter with a good scramble soundtrack (I don't know what else to call that sub-type of video game music; musical alarms and klaxons over slap-bass). Because I'm cheap, I used the B shot through the whole game, except for the last level where T is imperative. And would it have killed Konami to let me keep my options on the second loop (yes, it would have killed them dead)?
And mein gott, the NA version of the game is horrible. What was with the American branches of Japanese video game companies tampering with games? Their changes were always dumb at best, and ruinous at worst.

[adamstarckk]

I've actually played EspRaDe a fair amount, it's always given me a bit of trouble for whatever reason. By stage 3 the bosses are always a bit of an ordeal for me, the length of the fight wears on me. I should give it a few runs and see how I'm feeling, it's been a while. download apk

teatv

[blazinglazers69]

1-all of Thunder Cross (Hamster PS4, "new" Japanese version). A kind shooter with a good scramble soundtrack (I don't know what else to call that sub-type of video game music; musical alarms and klaxons over slap-bass). Because I'm cheap, I used the B shot through the whole game, except for the last level where T is imperative. And would it have killed Konami to let me keep my options on the second loop (yes, it would have killed them dead)?
And mein gott, the NA version of the game is horrible. What was with the American branches of Japanese video game companies tampering with games? Their changes were always dumb at best, and ruinous at worst.

What did the NA version do that was shittier?

[Ice Beam]

What did the NA version do that was shittier?

You only get two fixed pods instead of up to four adjustable pods, only the V shot is available (removed B and T along with the special weapons), and added a smartbomb feature.

[AeroBranford]

Finally beat Esprade Psi after grinding it out for a month or so. It's my first CAVE 1CC, and can't wait for Daioujou in December!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHvKdSqK-HA