oh hi, forgot my old account here so i guess we're doing this!
i've gotten obsessed with this game, to the point it's now my #1 wish for an Arcade Archives port (so i could
legally play it in marathons or w/e). BBH introduced me to it many years ago and i fell in love right from the get-go, between that OST i shouldn't need to explain here and how well the game pulls off the whole Blade Runner-ish aesthetic in general. like, if i ever get into the video-essay game this would definitely be one of the first things i'd talk about
in particular i've recently focused on learning pacifist, which i'd eventually like to do for every stage. thus i'll just post some tips/thoughts here from time to time as i get closer to full clears!
to start, i recently discovered that homing missiles are easier to dodge in the Japanese version. see this thread for some clips/details:
https://twitter.com/joshthefunkdoc/stat ... 5192939795
so i'd say if you want to go for this, JP version is the best to learn with for sure
i also wanted to mention a small detail in the scoring system that doesn't seem to be well-documented:
you score more points for staying on the ground, but only if the stage has solid ground! this means the CANAL, SKY & SEA stages are lower-scoring than the others since they don't have solid ground at all
for pacifist, the TEMPLE stages are far and away the hardest because their boss requires more execution & memorization than the rest of the game combined (OK, maybe exaggerating but only slightly). thankfully there's only 2 of them, so stay away unless you feel like putting in weeks of practice lol
for now i'll close with advice for your first 2 stages:
- after the first wave of enemies in Stage A, you can drive off the road to the right side then just stay slightly off-road; you'll avoid everything for the rest of the stage until you reach the boss! i think one of the versions (maybe USA?) requires you to use the left side for this trick instead, but not positive. the boss is obv easy if you just fly around in circles, but actually takes some time to learn if you want to stay on the ground the whole time for optimal scoring
- for Stage B you can just hold Up/Left until you get past the second set of homing missiles (at which point you'll want to move toward the middle to prepare for the moving walls at the end). you don't need to adjust anything at all on the Japanese version but for USA/World versions you'll want to hold Up/Right shortly before the homing missiles reach you (then shift back to Up/Left after dodging them). the stuff i said above about the Stage A boss applies to this boss as well, except this fight is longer and will take more practice to survive on the ground
- Stage C is actually a bit harder on the Japanese version because the enemies traveling on the ground will fire at you sooner, but it's not bad at all once you're aware of that. the end section where you have to fly in between all those pipes is annoying if you're like me and play on MAME with a non-analog stick...until you realize you can just hold Down/Left and steer clear of everything. the boss is laughably easy too, in fact the easiest in the whole game from a scoring perspective (since you don't need to stay on the ground)