Please forgive this self-indulgent wall of text! I didn't write anything last year so I am all pent up
And thanks to all the folks like Daytime, wes, zps, maximo et al. for the kind praise.
(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2024:
My achievements this year, quantitatively, are smaller than years previous but hopefully I made up for them qualitatively. Less scores, bigger milestones!
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Sonic Wings 1 - MaoMao 2ALL
January began the year of MaoMao! I carried over my 2023 goal of 2all'ing the game and got it right at the start of the year. This was quite a difficult grind as I came to grips with something that is becoming a common feature in my shmup journey: lack of replays (none existed for MaoMao, so I had to be the first!), weak character (her damage if you lose full power is nonexistent), and a rather difficult and sometimes buggy/trollish game (Video System staple!). Coming so early in the year portended great things, perhaps?
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Giga Wing 2 - Limi - 75 Quadrillion
The game I keep on coming back to. Not too long ago, my overriding goal was to break 70 quadrillion, but it soon became clear that I could reach even higher than that. Friendly competition with marus - as well as collaborating on strategy via twitch and discord - pushed both of us to discover new secrets and techniques that put us on the path of the superplayer. A lot of people kept on asking me why I didn't just switch to the standard, popular ship everyone else used (Carmine Plus) to get better scores. Well, I kind of hate following the crowd when it comes to stuff like this. Maybe it's ego, or big-fish-in-a-small-pond mindset, but it is far more rewarding to go my own way. This would be a recurring theme throughout the year.
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RayCrisis WR02 - 19 million
I've long loved this game's aesthetics, music, and style, and it was one of the early shmups I really was drawn to. While it took me a while to 1cc (not until the Ray'z was released - thank you for finally having savestates), it wasn't until I had cleared RayStorm (in 2023) that I had it in my mind to try for a good score in this game. I had the lofty, selfish, and somewhat silly goal of getting the top score in the western community, and set about doing that with the WR02. I think I am officially retired from the game after the journey into the heart of darkness (ie bugs, randomness, bullshit rng). However, it was nonetheless gratifying to finally to get a "high" scoring run and record it too to tempt future generations of malcontents and crazies to attempt to beat. This run is extra special because I realized at the end I wouldn't get my goal unless I risked everything at the final boss, tossing away all my lives for score.
-Radiant Silvergun - st4 route 1cc
I always wanted to clear the harder route, and it took quite a bit of practice, but I did! I messed up the chaining on stage 5 really bad, however. I would like to eventually get a good score on top of the clear. Story Mode clear next??
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Sonic Wings 3 - MaoMao 5.6 million
lol, this is the one that is the most important and maybe even the one I'll be "remembered" for! The year started with MaoMao, and ended with her as well. How poetic can you get?!
This score transitioned from daydream to reality so quickly, I still can't believe it.
I only started seriously playing in October! I don't want to humblebrag though. At first I just wanted to repeat my SW1 feat above - get a decent 2all with MaoMao with modest score goals, but as I began to understand the quirks of the game (and played it constantly) I kept setting my sights higher and higher. Of course, the whole process was buoyed by a great collaborative effort of score and strategy sharing by a number of people across discord and twitch, who kindly took interest in my goals and started to help me put together the pieces to get the one lucky run. Ako, toimine, niviv, members of stg rev and La Plaza, and even the infamous synthricardo all had their hand in the achievement as we figured out the best way to break the game apart. That type of collaborative spirit is so rare in the genre so when it happens it is so awesome to see!
(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2024:
-Not achieving my 80q score goal in Giga Wing 2 when the race with marus was on and the heat was cranked up. I got all the way up to 75q and thought I could close the gap, but I got some serious burnout and started exploring other games - particularly RayCrisis (yikes) and Sonic Wings (yikes!)
-similarly, dangerous levels of burnout with Dimahoo, I grinded too hard and only got to the ninja boss with Grimlen, and not even all that great a score either. For shoving 40+ hours into the game I don't have much to show for it. I still recommend interested players check out baf and Olifante's excellent mame gadgets overlay for the game that they developed;
I am hosting it ever since copyright strikes took it down.
-utterly losing my sanity with RayCrisis only to find out that scoring the WR02 in the game is bugged to hell, meaning it was all for nothing HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2024:
The part I dread writing, I always forget all the great things people pull off over the year.
-marus being the first westie to crack 80 quadrillion in Giga Wing 2. This is beyond the realm of the enthusiast and mere skilled player, he has seen (far off) the throne of God! It was a race between us to see who would get there first and I faltered while he succeeded. I hope to join him soon. Just overall incredible stuff! It's also worth mentioning that I am, like marus, so happy to see a new World Record in Giga Wing 2 by Koizumi. All four of us (me, marus, SPE, Koizumi) have informally encouraged one another and chatted a little bit, and it's great to see this type of globe-crossing strategy talk and theory-crafting.
-When I saw that MKnight had posted a 1cc of Psyvariar 2 I was pretty excited since the game is sadly overlooked (Despite its flaws). However, when I saw his Shooting Type score, easily doubling my own hard-fought 1cc, my eyes literally bulged out of my head! A hearty congratulations for that, and for recording one of the cleanest TLB fights I have yet seen in the game.
-DMC's 35 million in Soukyugurentai. The time, luck, and dedication it takes to get a score this high is simply inspiring. He has already for a few years now been showing how he is one of the best players of the game on this half of the globe, but he's arguably one of the best players by any metric now. Also, his
shmup meme videos are pretty damn funny.
-CPS, aka, the Milkman, God-gamer that he is, managed to do a live, back-to-back 2all of R-Type 1 and 2 during the streaming event RetroGameLive not too long ago. As someone who has done several live-event runs, I know how stressful and mistake-prone they can be (I have a 50% success rate with them). So not only to pull off one, but two 2alls back to back is not only seriously good luck but shows how well he mastered the games. GG!
-gunna hop on the wes fanclub. GG big man especially on your back-to-back ura entries with a 2all to cap it off.
-maz and the 35.7+ in Ikaruga. This score is hard to explain for those not in the know. Simply put: He is in the top percentage of Ikaruga players worldwide now! A wide gulf is between here and the next 36 milestone, but if he feels like continuing I am sure he can pull it off. Go for it!
-third_strike coming out of danmaku retirement to showcase ESPGaluda at a Shmup Plaza relay stream, and then pushing past a strong showing (50+ million) to go all the way to 65 million. Very incredible stuff!
-wabbylegs' Same!Same!Same! clear beating -THE- jaimers' score!!!!
-synthricardo's 5cc of the gameboy color port of Rayman!
And many, many many other accomplishments by others. I just like seeing the community play and try for their goals, it's always inspiring.
(4) Goals for 2025:
-80 Quadrillion or more in Giga Wing 2. It's high time I finally put this goal to rest. Maybe a nice high score for Romi (whose world record is scarcely above 80q) as well. I definitely want to beat RIN's old 'tas' Romi score of 72 quadrillion.
-Push the Sonic Wings 3 score for Chaika & Pooshka as far as I can go. Another record???
-1ALL Sonic Wings 2, then maybe think if I have it in me to 2ALL.
-Grimlen 1cc in Dimahoo, and be free of the game once and for all.
-finally fix all my broken scoreboards. Sorry!
(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
-Download baf and Olifante's overlay and try Dimahoo!
-play something besides a Cave game, you just might find out you like it
-Ako, come out of idle-rpg retirement and get an insane score in Sonic Wings 3!
-I encourage you to try participating either in a "live" stream event (e.g. Shmup plaza relay, Shmup Slam, Shoot the Baguette etc.), a competition (Calice Cup), or a meetup. The pressure of a crowd, and of competition can be really invigorating in judicious doses.
Spend some more time on twitch and hang out with the rest of us. You can easily find the relatively few streamers by using the STG Shmups tag. It's not as a good as a real arcade center, but arguably the closest thing.
https://www.twitch.tv/search?term=STG%20Shmups
Seconding this!
