Your VERY FIRST 1CC - tell us all about it!

[Air Master Burst]

Do you remember your first 1CC? What game was it? Where and when? How old were you? Share for posterity!

My first "real" 1CC was on a Captain Commando cab in late summer of 96 at a movie theater in St. Paul. I was 10 years old, and trained for months! I got a dollar every morning that summer for lunch at the community center day program, so of course I spent it all on Captain Commando instead. I was just in time, too, because they replaced it with Die Hard Arcade when they renovated that fall. Pretty sure the machine was on default difficulty, because attempting it now on max difficulty is significantly harder than I remember.

Pretty sure I 1CC'd MUSHA, TF3, and TF4 on a Genesis back in the 90s as well, but I didn't really keep track of that stuff yet. My first "real" console 1CC was Ikaruga on DC in January 2003.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Mine was Ghouls 'n Ghosts. I had played the GnG games a few years prior and loved them, but the thought of playing them without continuing hadn't crossed my mind. It wasn't until a year after that that I started poking at doing three-credit runs of arcade brawlers I liked a lot, like Alien vs. Predator, and not until a couple years after that - in 2013 - when I sat down and decided I'd give my favorite of the original GnG trilogy a go. I spent a bit just seeing how far I could get on one credit, enjoying the steady, slight progress, before I started making real headway and it turned into an actual goal to shoot for. By the time I was close to clearing, I had started mixing in cursory attempts at Ghosts 'n Goblins for variety's sake, and a month or so later I cleared that one too.

[guigui]

Xenon 2 Megablast on the Sega Megadrive

Was about 13 years old, 1995ish. Note sure how I got the game, it was certainly the cheapest on the shelf when my parents went for buying me my 4th game on that video game system I insisted so much about getting for birthday.
I did not even know what a shmup or 1CC was, I just played the game again and again until I could clear it, and got that legendary ending screen.

[RZM]

It was NOT R-Type on Game Boy, only shmup I ever owned as a kid (except some kusoge on CPC 6128).

Got into shmups quite late tbh so it was DoDonPachi, 15ish years ago. Knew nothing about danmaku, watched again and again a crazy A-L japanese superplay then built my own survival routes. It was a cool way to get into Cave stuff.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

At a pizza parlor called Bob's Take-N-Bake, they had had an upright cab of Data East's Heavy Barrel back in 1988-1989. I'd play it on occasion until I would get far enough into the game where it became a matter of perfectly timing the pickup of all six pieces to assemble the namesake "Heavy Barrel" super weapon to my advantage. By picking up the sixth and final super weapon component prior to facing the armored mecha behemoth boss, by firing just a few shots from the massive super weapon, it'd go down quite easily without it firing a single shot at me -- thus my first true 1LC (One Life Clear). Average score would be 1,400,000+ points easily + placing on the high score screen with my high score initials for all to see was the highlight of pulling off such a 1LC session.

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Of course, when the pizza joint would cut the power off to the arcade games at night, all high scores and high score initials would be erased/set back on default -- so it'd be back to placing on the high score list again the next day with the Heavy Barrel cab (as there wasn't high score saving functionality onboard whatsoever).
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Since I was spending real quarters, it made sense to master Heavy Barrel in the shortest timeframe possible to maximize my overall playing time with it, indeed. The SNK manufactured LS-30 rotary joysticks used on a typical Heavy Barrel cab were quite responsive & innovative for their time.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I can't remember my first true 1CC - I'm sure there's stuff I beat as a kid on console games without continues eventually but I don't remember actively working to do no continue clears honestly until after I really got in to shmups. I always knew about and enjoyed shmups like Jackal and Life Force on the NES, and I first discovered small hitboxes as a concept with Gradius V which I saw in a store shortly after it was released and realized I hadn't bought any new shmups, I literally didn't own any on PS1 or N64.

At some point after that I heard about and got into Touhou games as well as X.X's games (BWR, Eden's Aegis) and that's about the point I got into 1CCing as a thing to get the best endings, and got into arcade games from there.

My first arcade 1CC was Giga Wing, I remember seeing it at a pizza place ages ago and when I finally tried it I found it clicked with me and I played it pretty much non-stop until I got the clear. From there Espgaluda was the next one. I'd actually imported the XB360 ver of Mushi Futari by now but I owned it for a year or so before the game really clicked with me, arcade shmups are more aggressive than your average Touhou game on Normal / Hard and getting used to that was a transition. ^^;

[Sumez]

What even counts? If we're including home console games, it seems most likely it must have been Super Mario Bros. 1, but that doesn't feel like much of an achievement.
I can't actually remember where, when, why, who, or what I got my first actual arcade 1CC...

[samspot]

Mushihimesama in Nov. 2023 on Original/Normal. I think I got a 2cc in Time Crises 2 back when it was current. I had to play a credit every time I saw that game.

[Stevens]

Black Belt SMS.

Easy 1 LC for 10 year old me.

[Hazuki]

For home consoles I don't remember. Been playing ever since I was 5 years old, and played a lot of stuff through the years.

For arcades it was Deathsmiles, and Daimakaimura after that. Daimakaimura would have been a 1LC, but I had to kill myself at the beginning of stage 4 in the second loop because a torch got in the way.

[Sengoku Strider]

Arcade it was when I discovered the elbow cheese in Double Dragon. On home consoles I don't remember. Bionic Commando is the first game I remember beating, but I don't know if I did it in one shot. Super Mario Bros must have gotten beat around the same time, but probably with warp zones, I don't know when I did the whole thing. The first game I remember mastering though was NES Gyruss. I eventually got good enough at it that I could no-miss it.

[To Far Away Times]

Touhou 08 - Imperishable Night back in August of 2007. Still one of my favorite shmups.

[MJR]

My very first completion of an arcade-style game would be Ghost'n'Goblins on Commodore 64, which took my just one afternoon.

But my first 1CC of an arcade coin-op where I paid coins to play it - that's another story.

So that would be Irem's Dragon Breed, in 1989. I used to bike few kilometers to the bar where the arcade game was, when ever I had some spare change.

My first 2-All is also Dragon Breed - over 30 years later, on my home, where I have the arcade PCB

[neorichieb1971]

Would have been Paperboy in the arcade.
Then Outrun.

In the home, I did the first loop of Gradius with 2 lives. I died and miraculously dodged swarms of bullets for about 2 mins to get powered up again.
At the time I didn't realize it wasn't a 1cc unless you do 2 loops, but even then I don't know if there is an end to the game.

Most shmups are way too hard for me to 1cc. But I enjoy playing them none the less.

[BIL]

As far as actual arcade titles go, Strider 2 and Raystorm's PS1 ports. After several years PC-only, I got a PS1 in summer of 2000, basically to play SOTN. Nabbed R-Type Delta, Einhander, and Raystorm on sight too, affectionate of STGs ever since NES Life Force sent me and buddy packing for the relative safety of Contra and Ninja Gaiden.

Will always remember how biblically hard it was in comparison to IREM and Square's console-original masterpieces. They're tough by home standard, with defaults I'd put at AC lower mid-tier, and upper modes comparable to their directors' previous IREM and Konami works. But Raystorm is hard by arcade standards. I adored the imperious challenge, and its stately aesthetic - Stage 4 remaining my pick for STGs' most viscerally harrowing battleship raid - but couldn't imagine surviving it. So I just mucked about with credit-feeding past Stage 3.

That fall Eric C. Mylonas wrote his classic GameFAN editorial, savaging EGM et al for their credit-feeding Strider 2 reviews. Called 'em a bunch of jerkoffs riding Free Play like the "previous channel" button on a surreptitious Skinemax JO session.

Made me revisit that game with new appreciation, getting a 1CC, and IIRC eventually S-Ranking each stage, before thinking "hmm" re: Raystorm. Raystorm is way the fuck harder than Strider 2. X_X Same micro/macro principles apply, though! Pay close attention to the mechanical detailing, while gradually assembling routes.

Kind of like IRL!

Those two were largely all I played from September to January, and then I started college and didn't game much at all until early 2005 and Gradius V, whose emcee became my second ECM.

I used to write off that clear, assuming the NTSCU must've been nerfed by Working Designs in some way. I didn't practice very well back then. But I managed a launch day 2CC to the last boss in Ray'z, despite not having played in many years. So maybe it wasn't that compromised? tbh, I think a good part of RS's difficulty is absorbing the angled perspective, and memoing that shitbird Alaric. If you can get those under control, it's far less imposing, though still balls-hard. In any case, my time with the PS1 port certainly made later 1CCs less intimidating than they might've been.

EDIT: technically, I 1CCd Strider's PS1 port - bundled with its sequel - first. But I'd grown up with the Genesis port, which is genuinely so goddamn close, you could pretty much practice it at home and 1CC the cab. Actually, I find the Genesis/MD one significantly harder... it's 1:1 for the most part, but the wheels start falling off in Stage 5, with Hiryu's larger hitbox jamming up the routing. Your saucers seem nowhere as devastatingly OP as the arcade's, too. Also you literally can't 1LC the NTSCJ cart; Ouroboros mkII won't arrive to ferry you to Meiou, necessitating you fuckin kill urself

So I never really considered it in the same light as new-to-me Strider 2 and Raystorm. But yeah that was the first arcade game I cleared without having to sell my ass for more coins. Good first pick tbh, a rollicking wall-to-wall playable action movie every time.

[XtraSmiley]

I've been gaming for 44 years now. I'll let you know when it finally happens.

I love reading these stories though, so keep them coming!

[TransatlanticFoe]

Good lord. If we're allowing everything then it's Operation Wolf on the Sega Master System. If it's strictly arcade.... well, what do you judge a 1CC on the classic Atari Star Wars game? Otherwise it's probably Virtua Cop 2 or The Lost World... I got both down to practically muscle memory to the point where I'd usually pop £1 in for 3 credits and the dual wield after clearing the game.

[Stevens]

That fall Eric C. Mylonas wrote his classic GameFAN editorial

I had a subscription to Gamefan from 93 until its demise. I later migrated to Gamer's Republic and then Play. Dubious business practices aside I always thought Dave Halverson knew how to put out a great magazine.

You don't happen to remember the pen name Mylonas wrote his reviews under?

Anyway I know it is maligned around these parts, but this thread if worth the price of admission:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/gamefan/GameFAN.htm

Some truly insane shit.

I'm reading through it now. I perused it a few years back, but I think it is worth reading again. I do remember the Jap Bastards incident well.

[BIL]

I think he was just "ECM" when I was reading, I remember he had a Terry Bogard POWWA GEYZA avatar. He wrote a great Batrider review around then, too.

[MJR]

That fall Eric C. Mylonas wrote his classic GameFAN editorial

I'm reading through it now. I perused it a few years back, but I think it is worth reading again. I do remember the Jap Bastards incident well.

Damn, that gave me some memories. Back in nineties, my workmate from Housemarque showed me the actual issue where this was printed and told how the magazine printed apologies on the next issue. This is the first time I've seen it mentioned in internets, so I guess it was infamous enough to be recorded for the history books..

[XoPachi]

Obviously, SNES Gradius 3 and SuperNova aren't noteworthy clears. But, I was the kid among my neighborhood friends who was able to beat those two games back in the 90's.
They were also just the first 2 games I ever played.

SuperNova happens to be my favorite of the Darius games.

[Marc]

Bloody hell.....
I remember some C64 shooter...... Delta, maybe?

Yep, just checked and that was it. From what little I remember, at least half of it had to be memorised perfectly, and it had all the usual Euro issues.
Chist, it was shit.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

That fall Eric C. Mylonas wrote his classic GameFAN editorial

I'm reading through it now. I perused it a few years back, but I think it is worth reading again. I do remember the Jap Bastards incident well.

Damn, that gave me some memories. Back in nineties, my workmate from Housemarque showed me the actual issue where this was printed and told how the magazine printed apologies on the next issue. This is the first time I've seen it mentioned in internets, so I guess it was infamous enough to be recorded for the history books..

In the very last year that Gamefan was published (back in 2000), it was ECM whom would write the "Arcade Alley" column and he'd talk about buying Cave ESP.ra.de. & Konami's Xexex pcbs while visiting in Japan and bringing them home to the USA (praising the virtues of them both). Another "Arcade Alley" article talked about the Capcom CPS-2 Mars Matrix game as well. I got to PM ECM one time when he made a surprise visit to the old Shmups.com site and asked him if he was going to write an "Arcade Alley" article on Success Corp.'s arcade stg of Psyvariar Medium Unit G-Card running on the Taito G-Net arcade platform (that debuted in Japan back in March of 2000). He said that he had plans to do it but when Gamefan magazine folded, sadly, it fell to the wayside (and it was never written). I wrote to ECM saying that I got to try out Psy-MU twice at a Japanese game center back in March of 2000 and it was quite a cool arcade stg title. None of the other American based video game magazines (EGM & GamePro) were covering arcade stg titles like Gamefan did back in 2000 -- that was true.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've been gaming for 44 years now. I'll let you know when it finally happens.

Have you played Terra Force by Nichibutsu? Seriously, one of the easiest arcade shmups ever made, it's not unheard of beating it on one's first credit.

[orange808]

I'm not clear on the criteria. Is it when the stages start to repeat themselves? Is it when you flip the score to zero? Is it when the game freezes? .

Prince of Persia had a brutal way of training us to get the 1CC. Not my first "one guy" clear at home, but it was satisfying. Used to play it everyday.

In the arcade, it had to have been Kid Niki.

[Stevens]

That fall Eric C. Mylonas wrote his classic GameFAN editorial

I'm reading through it now. I perused it a few years back, but I think it is worth reading again. I do remember the Jap Bastards incident well.

Damn, that gave me some memories. Back in nineties, my workmate from Housemarque showed me the actual issue where this was printed and told how the magazine printed apologies on the next issue. This is the first time I've seen it mentioned in internets, so I guess it was infamous enough to be recorded for the history books..

I had every issue from 93' until their demise. If memory serves correctly the incident was a review for a football game. Might have been Quarterback Club 96.

[Air Master Burst]

I'm still a little confused why anyone would pick Ace Combat of all things to complain about Japanese gaming trends in the mid-90s.

[XtraSmiley]

I've been gaming for 44 years now. I'll let you know when it finally happens.

Have you played Terra Force by Nichibutsu? Seriously, one of the easiest arcade shmups ever made, it's not unheard of beating it on one's first credit.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll go take a look!

I did forget, I MUST have 1CC's Thunder Force 3 at some point when I was a teen, as I remember it being super easy. I may have to spin it up and see if I remember correctly.

[Andrey Aritonov]

Contra NES - 1994
Also Onira, summer jam
Summer carnival!
2nd - 1998

[emphatic]

First shmup must've been Flying Shark in 1987. First 1CC was probably Black Dragon or Rush & Crash (which technically could be considered a shmup as well).