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

[Angry Hina]

It's been a few weeks, but I've played through the special version of Batsugun:
https://youtu.be/Wfrmt6ylLlw

(5,258,150 pts.)

I managed the first run, including the final boss, without losing a life. Then I played the second to last level in the second loop until I ran out of lives.

In contrast to the original Batsugun, the special version is considered very easy (compared to the rest of the genre). This is partly due to the reduced hitbox size and a small protective shield that you get when you upgrade the weapon. Therefore, your defense is much stronger here. (as most of you already know)

Nevertheless, the game feels fast and challenging, looks great and has varied levels, bosses and music.
So it's an excellent game for a quick round or for learning the genre.
In the second loop there are tons of suicide bullets, which I didn't like so much. So I probably won't try to clear a 2nd loop.

[Ice Beam]

Did a 1-all of Hishouzame, a primitive but enjoyable 1942-like where I get to swing left and right and shoot planes and tanks. I hate seeing my shot travel to the top of the screen and pass over an entering enemy without causing any damage. I'm going to assume that part is outside of the original CRT playing field, but I don't know for sure. The swirling upgrades, and their acquisition, isn't near as annoying as Ultimate Tora, since I don't ever have to avoid the thing.
Speaking of, Kyuukyoku Tiger is still awaiting for me to 1-all it (Hishouzame was a take-a-break game), but I'm not sure if I want to play more Toaplan, or play something fun instead.
Nah, I'll stick with Toaplan for now.

[Sengoku Strider]

Got the 1CC of Gleylancer on Switch. I know some people blew through it within a day or two of release, but it took me a good long while. Aside from refusing to use save state practice for far too long, that last boss and his 3rd phase with the arcing bubbles was RNG hell. That summed up a lot of my deaths TBH. I do really like the game a lot though, I'm baffled as to how it was never picked up for localization. Like, there's got to be some story behind it, the developer was known and it's one of the more impressive uses of the hardware. Even if it came when the genre was in a lull, there's no way it wouldn't have been a more profitable use of someone's publishing slot than another terrible soccer game or mascot platformer. "But opportunity cost!" says the high functioning sociopath MBA crowd. Ah well, at least the game's earned it's respect and gotten multiple re-releases now, some semblance of justice has been achieved.

[To Far Away Times]

Nice! Gleylancer is rad. I still revisit it every now and then. Awesome game.

[locoBro1196]

Got the 1cc on Slap Fight MD (Special mode) after having finished the arcade version a few weeks ago. I almost got the 2-ALL (made it to the final boss unscathed during 2nd run) but the later areas become a huge challenge if you lose a life. I really enjoyed this version, it feels more "compact" than the original one and with much less filler. Good variety of tracks too, and the theme that runs from area 1-29 is simply one of the best I've ever heard coming out of the Megadrive. Pure bliss.

100% recommended. I may take a break from Toaplan for a while though.

[Sengoku Strider]

Nice! Gleylancer is rad. I still revisit it every now and then. Awesome game.

It told me to do hard mode next, and I didn't and felt guilty about it. So I'll have to revisit it again too.

the theme that runs from area 1-29 is simply one of the best I've ever heard coming out of the Megadrive. Pure bliss.

I look forward to playing this some day. Congrats.

[BIL]

Got the 1cc on Slap Fight MD (Special mode) after having finished the arcade version a few weeks ago. I almost got the 2-ALL (made it to the final boss unscathed during 2nd run) but the later areas become a huge challenge if you lose a life. I really enjoyed this version, it feels more "compact" than the original one and with much less filler. Good variety of tracks too, and the theme that runs from area 1-29 is simply one of the best I've ever heard coming out of the Megadrive. Pure bliss.

100% recommended. I may take a break from Toaplan for a while though.

Congrats! Yeah, Koshiro's original music is killer! One of those games where it can be tough going back to the arcade tracks, as lovable as SF's are with their indomitable pep. Side Arms is my favourite STG example, there. Entirely respectable on PCB, with the stoic reserve and stately brass of its Capcom stablemates. HuCard, meawhile, galvanises with one of the most triumphally driven ST1BGMs known to mankind.

Now that's Hyper Dynin'. From WE HOPE YOU DESTROY THEM ALL, GOOD LUCK to HEY PUNKS HERE IS MY PRESENT FOR YOU

On the off chance you've not seen it, our own Sky Boy had a great interview with Mikito Ichikawa, aka Mickey Albert. Worth a read just to to see authentic Shumps Kismet in action with him and Koshiro.

[Steven]

Ichikawa-san's a good dude, and he's also a good player, as he has a counterstop on arcade Kyuukyoku Tiger without abusing the safe spot on the stage 10 boss, which is cool. I imagine it's the soft counter at 10 million and not the actual counter at... whatever it stops at, which I have yet to see, probably because it takes forever. If it is the actual real counterstop, holy shit. I'll ask him eventually if I remember.

Slap Fight is like the most universally loved game among the Toaplan staff. I think everyone who worked on it absolutely loves it, and I know Uemura-san and IKD definitely do even though they didn't have anything to do with making it.

[BIL]

Ichikawa-san's a good dude, and he's also a good player, as he has a counterstop on arcade Kyuukyoku Tiger without abusing the safe spot on the stage 10 boss, which is cool. I imagine it's the soft counter at 10 million and not the actual counter at... whatever it stops at, which I have yet to see, probably because it takes forever.

Superb - I had the impression from what I've read over the years he remains on active duty! I kinda fell away from his MD project, which I believe you were covering... apologies if I've totally misremembered that, I've been absent from this sphere too long. This makes me want to start paying attention to my MD (and company) again. Passion projects like SFMD always do.

Slap Fight is like the most universally loved game among the Toaplan staff. I think everyone who worked on it absolutely loves it, and I know Uemura-san and IKD definitely do even though they didn't have anything to do with making it.

Makes me hopeful Slap Stormer (Slap Five?) will make it through. (and Vim Hawk too - partially because I find the thought of those two eternal underdogs getting their day in the sun both deeply moving, and kinda hilarious imagine the rage if they hold up BatsuGyuun a year Might give M2 time to get clear of the City Connection release, I suppose...)

[bobhasashotgun]

I've played the arcade version on Gradius 1 on and off for quite some time now, always hit on wall on Stage 4. On a whim I decided to play for one credit, just to see how far I could go, and I did it. I won. First proper Arcade clear.

[BIL]

I've played the arcade version on Gradius 1 on and off for quite some time now, always hit on wall on Stage 4. On a whim I decided to play for one credit, just to see how far I could go, and I did it. I won. First proper Arcade clear.

Congrats! Stage 4's where I usually get bopped on revisits too, most recent one I let the closing enemy rush get out of hand. Always a great no-filler time.

[copy-paster]

Been a lifelong fan of Delta and Final 1/2 and it's time for visit the older entries seriously. Moving on to Leo next.

[BIL]

2ALL 1LC

Accomplishing the OG ILLEGAL MISSION with filmic DISCIPRINE An auspicious start. (thumbnail does Akio-sama proud too! )

[lpslucasps]

I just 1cc'd G-Darius - the PS2 version released as part of the Taito Legends 2 collection, which is, afaik an arcade perfect port. Went through the Lambda Route (all up). It took me about 25 hours and I don't know how many tries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xONa3lZTP9U

[copy-paster]

I just 1cc'd G-Darius - the PS2 version released as part of the Taito Legends 2 collection, which is, afaik an arcade perfect port.

Not quite an arcade-perfect since the devs took the PS1 port source code and put it on the collection, and since the code is running on PS2 hardware the slowdown is completely missing at all it runs at constant fullspeed. There are also some differences (also present in PS1 too) like you can cancel the spread bomb attack (it didn't appear in this run because they're on other routes) with your alpha beam whereas in arcade ver you can't.

But great job clearing it on TL2 instead, you really kill that seahorse without taking a death in a slowdown-less setting. That alone is worth to bragging for.

[BIL]

I just 1cc'd G-Darius - the PS2 version released as part of the Taito Legends 2 collection, which is, afaik an arcade perfect port. Went through the Lambda Route (all up). It took me about 25 hours and I don't know how many tries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xONa3lZTP9U

That's an impressive start, even moreso via TM2/TL2! Like CPS says, it's the Hyper Fighting (Hyper Duelling?) label. Raystorm is the same way on that disc, IIRC. Congratulations!

[Steven]

Holy shit R-Type 2-ALL no miss. Now you have to do it on the PS1, where it's even harder!

Ichikawa-san's a good dude, and he's also a good player, as he has a counterstop on arcade Kyuukyoku Tiger without abusing the safe spot on the stage 10 boss, which is cool. I imagine it's the soft counter at 10 million and not the actual counter at... whatever it stops at, which I have yet to see, probably because it takes forever.

Superb - I had the impression from what I've read over the years he remains on active duty! I kinda fell away from his MD project, which I believe you were covering... apologies if I've totally misremembered that, I've been absent from this sphere too long. This makes me want to start paying attention to my MD (and company) again. Passion projects like SFMD always do.

You were probably thinking of the new Slap Fight he was making. That got cancelled a while ago after it grew way out of scale from the initial plan or something like that. I don't know if he's still planning on implementing some of the concepts from that into a different game, but he was at the time of the game's cancellation.

I have been considering making my own new Slap Fight since I heard about the cancellation, but I'm not sure yet.

Makes me hopeful Slap Stormer (Slap Five?) will make it through. (and Vim Hawk too - partially because I find the thought of those two eternal underdogs getting their day in the sun both deeply moving, and kinda hilarious imagine the rage if they hold up BatsuGyuun a year Might give M2 time to get clear of the City Connection release, I suppose...)

It will be super nice to have a V-V that is arcade perfect without having to pay 200,000 yen for the PCB, which has steadily increased in price rather quickly over the past few years. Back in 2017~2018 it was apparently like 60,000 yen, but not anymore... they used to be like 2000 yen back in the 90s if you knew where to look, which makes it even worse when you consider that Japan has relatively little inflation and the domestic value of the yen has barely changed since the 90s, which itself is kind of insane.

[Nahar]

I got a 1CC in PCE Soldier Blade, Normal Difficulty. Pretty easy game, should try the hard mode.

[Creamy Goodness]

Just cleared Tiger-Heli. Man that game is a ball buster. I don't think I've seen such cheap enemy placement in any shmup. Getting flanked on the sides by sniper tanks is one thing, but the tanks that come from the bottom of the screen, that move at the same speed as the screen while unloading on you, but you can't get behind them to take care of them is downright cheap. And although I had some fun with it, if I didn't play it on the M2 release where I felt the need to get my money's worth I probably wouldn't have really sat down with it.

[locoBro1196]

Got a few clears over recent days:

- x.x's trilogy of shmups (Blue Wish Resurrection Plus, Blue Wish Desire, Eden's Aegis, all on Original mode): pretty accesible bullet-hells with a lot of customization features to make the game more or less approachable for the player, mainly because of the auto-guard feature. I cleared them all on the default settings. Personally I enjoyed Eden's Aegis the most, followed by Desire which is available on Steam.

- Gley Lancer: The first MD horizontal shmup I manage to clear, I finished this on Switch. Not a terribly difficult shmup by any standards, but there are certain spots where I had to grind for quite some time until I could get a good handle: namely the corridors of stage 4, stage 5's boss,first half of stage 9, and the last phase of the very final boss in stage 11 (where the burner weapon is a must). I find Switch's modern twin stick controller mode helps a lot with a few parts such as stage 4's boss and overall where higher precision is needed, but anyone who has put in enough hours can complete this game using any type of control scheme. I had a great time with Gley Lancer and the OST is amazing, specially the one used for most bosses and that of stage 4.

[Sengoku Strider]

I got a 1CC in PCE Soldier Blade, Normal Difficulty. Pretty easy game, should try the hard mode.

Classic game, all four PCE Soldier games are worth the effort to 1CC (one of these days I'll pick up a physical copy of the first one).

- Gley Lancer: The first MD horizontal shmup I manage to clear, I finished this on Switch. Not a terribly difficult shmup by any standards, but there are certain spots where I had to grind for quite some time until I could get a good handle: namely the corridors of stage 4, stage 5's boss,first half of stage 9, and the last phase of the very final boss in stage 11 (where the burner weapon is a must).

Congrats! Yeah, stage 4's tight tunnels are easy to lose a couple of lives on even if you're working on the end of the game. For the last boss, hang on to the piercing laser from earlier in the stage if you can. It can hit both the boss and the hunter spheres at once during the final form.

[copy-paster]

Fun game. I played on Hard dips but I have yet to see any real differences to Normal mode, and Japanese version will sent you to checkpoint after death as per R-Type design. World version is recommended for casual/beginners but they changed the way bits work in it so JP players might gonna take time to get used to.

I can see why some people even those who don't like R-Type, picked Leo as the best in the series. There's less methodical/memorizer stage design and plays closer to Konami shmups, the last boss' final form have the same type of weakpoint as most bosses in Xexex for example. According to some infos spread on the net (that I know yet), it was supposed to be a different shmup by Nanao (Irem's parent company) but they decided to retool the project with R-Type flair somehow.

[BIL]

Just saw this on YT, congrats!

According to some infos spread on the net (that I know yet), it was supposed to be a different shmup by Nanao (one of Irem's subsidiary developer atm) but they decided to retool the project with R-Type flair somehow.

Interesting - hadn't heard of that, but it'd totally make sense. Certainly one of the genre's best-accomplished rebadgings, if so.

I wonder what Tamtex (another early 90s subsidiary)'s story was. Spartan X2 is kinda lame, but you can tell the mechanics are quality. Meanwhile, Metal Storm feels for all the world like a bonafide M72 classic that ended up on the Famicom. Those R-Type Huge Battleships™ aren't just for show! I like to consider it a stealth R-Type Gaiden.

[copy-paster]

Seems like a division specifically for console game developments. I didn't knew until recently that they were the ones who did R-Type III. Almost a great game but the first stage has gotta be one of the worst st1 in any shmup with too much dead air here and there, and the infamous lava maze feels like it belongs to the minigames of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Age games

[BIL]

Yeah, definitely seemed like talented guys who needed a stern handler. I would've had that first stage end with the Gains slamming into the boss instead, ala Salamander 2's tragically-cancelled Brain Golem reunion. Rad tunes and that's about it.

[To Far Away Times]

R-Type Leo is so rad.

I love a good sequel that changes up the mechanics. It doesn't always feel like R-Type, but it does well in it's own lane, and it's still got that Irem quality to it.

Awesome soundtrack, too.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

- x.x's trilogy of shmups (Blue Wish Resurrection Plus, Blue Wish Desire, Eden's Aegis, all on Original mode)

Congrats! Note that if you want to play them for score, you'll have to turn Auto Guard to Off as doing so gives you a substantial bonus at the end of the game for each extra life you have in stock.

I can see why some people even those who don't like R-Type, picked Leo as the best in the series.

The music and presentation are all a great vibe. I prefer how World handled checkpoints and the bit controls, a very rare example where an overseas release felt better than the Japanese release. Even if it's not a "true" R-Type it's a really solid game. Kinda felt like R-Type Leo does for R-Type what Darius Gaiden did for Darius.

I also generally don't vibe with shmups with lengthy charge up times for shots. Half the time it feels like Raiden Fighters where I might as well just rapid fire the whole time, and the other half I get killed by something I could have downed if I kept firing the whole time as stuff came onscreen. >w>; It's not like Mega Man or something where you can stop and charge up before proceeding at a leisurely pace.

[Randorama]

I have been side-tracked by Gaiapolis, but I have started playing DonPachi (US version, 2P side) again and I am consistently reaching 2-5. A few more months and the 1-CC should become a reality...
...and somehow I have started to understand how to play Dangun Feveron. I even reached ST 4's boss after a few days of practice.

The wonders of middle age, I guess!

[wiNteR]

Well, the US version of donpachi is easier than JP version.

Regarding dangun feveron, it depends on what you want to do in terms of ship specification, scoring etc. When I 1CC'ed it well over a decade ago I chose speed-3, type-B, roll. I managed to keep chain till just before the end of stage-4, after which I stopped paying attention to chain**.

If I had to get a 1CC now, for a first clear I would choose speed-2, roll with type A or B and not chain at all. That's the safest option since more speed seems (mostly) only helpful for quicker kills and chains.

The difficulty of the game depends on whether you are playing for pure survival 1CC [and ignoring chaining completely] or whether you want to go for better scores. For example, most players going for very high scores seem to choose weapon other than roll [that is, lock or bomb].


**But ofc one of the main thing about the game is that you can get higher chain counts by destroying enemies quicker and quicker I think [bit like raiden].

[Randorama]

WiNteR:

Yes, the DonPachi US version is definitely easier, otherwise I wouldn't have had such a relatively easy time reaching 2-5. If I can 1-CC it, I will try the JP version: I can consistently 1-LC the first loop, but I do bomb-spam to increase bomb capacity. Still, I could avoid using bombs altogether until 1-5, in theory.

I do play VERY safe on the second loop: First, I drop a life so that suicide/return bullets remain at the easiest level; bullet speed is manageable. Second, I bomb-spam bosses without a second thought, and also bomb when in a tight spot. On a good run, though, this means at most one bomb on 2-2, one-two bombs on 2-3, and then I try to follow a careful bomb plan on 2-4. I believe that dropping one more life by 2-5 might be helpful to decrease rank. I am trying to figure out which one would be the best option to get a 1-CC as fast as possible.

I suspect that I discussed this with BKRoo a few months ago and he already obtained an answer that I could obtain by re-reading old posts. Where's the fun in that, though?

Dangun Feveron: I started with type B, speed 3 and lock-on. I am going to try the roll attack though - I simply didn't bother trying it, before. To be honest, this is a game I kept ignoring for decades or so, for the simple reason that It plays very fast and I never was good with very fast games, including shmups (e.g. I always had limited success with Psikyo titles and similar others). I completely ignore chaining beyond ST 2, but I wish that there would be an option to turn off the "lost chain" sound effect. Stage 5 will require me quite a bit of practice and time, I guess.