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

[BEAMLORD]

DOJ Black Label! Such an important clear for me. I feel like I can still do anything I put my mind to, not too old yet!

Well done, man. That clear was a big one for me, too. If you're up for it, White Label will soon follow! In the meantime, enjoy your great success!

[Acid]

Just did my Andro Dunos 2 Arcade 1CC. Not super hard per se, but what a chore, you fail mostly due to boredom and get clipped at random spots along the way. 40 minutes to get to the end, glad it's over. Not a bad game, but slooow and sterile.

When I got mine, a bunch of the final boss's sprites didn't load, eliminating most of its weapons making it free. It counts.

[To Far Away Times]

DOJ Black Label! Such an important clear for me. I feel like I can still do anything I put my mind to, not too old yet!

I had a couple of mediocre runs earlier today and felt kind of defeated. I realized I had time for one more credit before having to take care of today's chores. I was tired of the music (it also stresses me out) so I muted the TV and put on the old (for me very nostalgic) compilation CD "Cheap Shots 2", fired up the console and pressed start. Off to a bad start I failed to chain S1 and only got one hyper from the boss, but I didn't have time to reset. I hit 23 million on S2 and got through it no problem. Time was ticking down. I one-lifed S3 using only one bomb, I figured I might as well play risky because this was just a quick last practice run. I knew this wasn't the run so I didn't care about playing neat and controlled, I didn't care about chaining or anything like that. I just sang along with the music, tapped to the rythm on the buttons and looked at the clock between enemy waves. Only minutes left, would I even have time to reach S5? Oh well, who cares. Let's just have some fun and then get started with dinner. This isn't the run and I definitely won't save the gameplay. To hell with it.

1CC with several bombs left. My heartrate didn't even increase. Wth? My hands were shaking when I let go of the arcade stick though, I think they started doing that after I cleared it.

Congrats!! That’s a great one to have under your belt. You worked super hard for that.

DOJ BL 1-ALL is my proudest gaming achievement, and I was on cloud 9 for a week. Enjoy it.

I remember I had a similar experience, I usually recorded my runs and that day I said “I’ll just practice today,” so I didn’t record. On a whim, I decided to go for the full run, and maybe due to the decreased pressure, that ended up being the one.

[Starfighter]

Well done, man. That clear was a big one for me, too. If you're up for it, White Label will soon follow! In the meantime, enjoy your great success!

Thanks! The very thought of playing an even harder version of this game is making my eyes twitch so let's just say... I'll leave that for the future.

Congrats!! That’s a great one to have under your belt. You worked super hard for that.

DOJ BL 1-ALL is my proudest gaming achievement, and I was on cloud 9 for a week. Enjoy it.

I remember I had a similar experience, I usually recorded my runs and that day I said “I’ll just practice today,” so I didn’t record. On a whim, I decided to go for the full run, and maybe due to the decreased pressure, that ended up being the one.

I really did. Several weeks of daily practice! Initially I didn't even think I'd be able to pull it off because I was completely overwhelmed after every session. But I got there in the end!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

DOJ Black Label! Such an important clear for me. I feel like I can still do anything I put my mind to, not too old yet!

Congrats, I know you've been grinding hard at it. White Label isn't actually that much tougher for a 1 loop clear, you don't get quite as many hypers and the hitbox is slightly bigger, but if you can do Black Label then White Label is entirely doable. The difficulty differences only seriously come into play for a 2 loop clear I think.

[ForeverGnomed]

DOJ Black Label! Such an important clear for me. I feel like I can still do anything I put my mind to, not too old yet!

Hahah - Awesome clear. What a random sort of run to get it Great read.

I think DOJ will be my next Cave 1CC attempt. Been toying with a few after other Cave 1CC clears this year... ESP.Ra.De. down to 2 credits, but got too frustrating getting randomly clipped despite having a good grasp on all the patterns - EspGaluda down to 2 credits, but tired of always getting to the last boss with so many resources and just whiffing it on the last pattern, hahah. So yeah, ready to move onto DOJ - Have never put much time into it. Looking forward to it though, especially having the new port and the PGM cart to switch between.

[To Far Away Times]

I posted about it in the Salamander thread, but I got a 1-ALL clear of Salamander 2 a couple days ago.

I uploaded a replay, and also I took a stab at doing a commentary video.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Great job! The first loop is a very approachable Konami clear IMO, difficult, but not outrageously so, very satisfying. The second loop's rank however is a LOT nastier...

[Steven]

Got two clears in about 12 hours. Last night was Batsugun and today I conferred upon myself the title of Tatsujin.

Very surprised at how easy both of these games are. Tatsujin has a reputation for being a difficult game, but I got the clear with only about 7~8 hours of practice, which is barely more than it took for Hishouzame, and Batsugun was like 4~5 hours, but that game has instant respawn, instant bomb, and doesn't fully power you down when you die, so you can no-skill bomb spam + hold 30Hz autofire -> die -> repeat, which I did on the final boss. Kyuukyoku Tiger was like 150 and then another 100 to clear on PCB with no autofire, but I'm much better now than I was then.

Going through that last stage of Tatsujin with the max power Thunder Laser is a good feeling because you annihilate everything and nothing can touch you. That's good, because with the blue enemy shots blending in with your own blue shot, you can't see anything in that stage. Practiced recovery on stage 5 last night for a while, but it didn't matter in the end because I no missed the stage.

This leaves Tatsujin Ou, Same! Same! Same! 1P, Hellfire 1P, Hellfire 2P, Daisenpuu, Twin Hawk, FixEight, Dogyuun!!, Zero Wing 2P, V-V, and Grind Stormer. Still got a long way to go, but Tatsujin Ou is the only one that I'm really worried about.

[XoPachi]

Zanac Neo normal clear with Hammer Duke.

Spoiler

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I just got a clear of Esp.Ra.De for the first time! It's a game I really struggled with for a long time, but I managed to tighten up stage 4 and 5 enough to get to the final boss with actual resources. Did it with Yusuke as I like his ending, but I think he's actually the worst character... his explosive shots are really inaccurate and his concentrated rapid shot isn't particularly damaging compared to everyone else (JB has good pointblank/midrange damage if 3 streams are hitting and a lot of damage comes from the explosive shots at long range anyways). Might try and crank out a clear with the others while the game's still fresh in my mind.

edit: holy cow you're right, Irori sucks and is visibly way weaker than the guys, I'm noticing it a lot more now that I've improved at the game, she's by far the weakest of the three and her shot being wider than Yusuke's isn't worth having such low speed since it's very weak if you're only hitting with the edges, JB on the other hand has a proper spreadshot that's very strong at mid range distances and effective at long range

[Lethe]

You might also be falling foul of Yusuke's powershot having a lot of velocity on the explosions after they connect, which can cause them to drift past the enemy and not do as much damage as expected. Very obvious on Satoru for instance. It makes scoring with him much more complicated than with the other two where you'll often get a free x16 just going powershot -> shot. For survival difficulty Yusuke and J.B. are about the same IMO and Irori's harder, but it's not really important.

...God damn it, I just started messing around with the game again, immediately got a freak situation where one of the hopping Alices followed me all the way into the Garra fight, and of course I failed to record it. Strike off another thing that will probably never happen to me again.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Interesting to know. Is there a benefit to enabling rapid fire on the power shot with him or the others? I usually play with it off because I prefer how the game recharges to the full 15 power shots before launching another barrage, rather than firing a bunch of quick, slow moving spurts. But if the power shot deals full damage so long as one explosion is touching, with no bonus to how many are touching at once, maybe rapid fire is better for damage but not for scoring?

[Lethe]

But if the power shot deals full damage so long as one explosion is touching, with no bonus to how many are touching at once

I didn't mean to imply that, only that Yusuke has difficulty keeping his explosions in contact with enemies. It definitely does matter how many bullets are in contact at once.

The damage of the powershot increases the longer the burst is, so for survival you always want to try to use the full 15 and hit squarely with the whole sequence.
Conversely, tick points don't scale with damage, so by chipping the boss to death with small spurts you can drag the fight out for a million years and get loads of tick points. The rapid fire is useful for doing this without having to make big horizontal sweeps all the time. There are plenty of other entertaining things to do with the game before you need to start thinking about that extremity, though.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Good to know, I knew a few folks who turned rapid fire on out of force of habit but it always felt weaker to fire it in sustained slow spurts rather than just firing the full 15 each time, so I'd been talking folks out of turning it on if just playing for the clear, but I started wondering if I had it wrong this whole time!

edit: I see what you mean now about Yusuke's explosions moving forward, I never noticed his seem to pierce through enemies instead of staying in place.

[BEAMLORD]

This one is strictly for DADS ONLY

Finally got the Hishouzame 1-ALL. Actually got it twice this morning, making it to 2-3 each time. My deep shame is laid to rest. Thanks to Steven for the instructionals, much appreciated.

What an absolute gem of a game Hisho is. It's really a genre cornerstone. A concise, near-faultless distillation of the shmupping fundamentals that informed it, and a joyous premovision of what would come to be.

[Daytime Waitress]

This one is strictly for DADS ONLY

Finally got the Hishouzame 1-ALL. Actually got it twice this morning, making it to 2-3 each time. My deep shame is laid to rest. Thanks to Steven for the instructionals, much appreciated.

What an absolute gem of a game Hisho is. It's really a genre cornerstone. A concise, near-faultless distillation of the shmupping fundamentals that informed it, and a joyous premovision of what would come to be.

Grats, m'LORD.
I was expecting to spend Golden Week polishing off the Bloodborne DLC, but you've inspired me to take another stab at the sharks!

[BEAMLORD]

Grats, m'LORD.
I was expecting to spend Golden Week polishing off the Bloodborne DLC, but you've inspired me to take another stab at the sharks!

Many thanks.

Interesting that you say this, because I was inspired to return to Yharnam in the last week or so, following on from your chat in the other thread. What a good influence we all are on each other!

[locoBro1196]

Quite happy to have grabbed the 1-ALL on Mahou Daisakusen. It took me nearly 7 hours, but that's on top of the 1-ALL I managed on Sorcer Striker a couple of months ago after 9 hours. With a rather noticeable jump in difficulty, I find it's one of those games that is pretty much impossible to finish if one dies before the last stage (the boss rush), with that damned ninja marking the point at which death is just unavoidable.

Some tough spots for me were the 2nd stage boss (those green bullets and their awful semi-random patterns make them very hard to avoid), 3rd stage mid-boss (again, randomness), stage 5 boss, and the ninja.

I don't think I'll ever be able to complete the 2nd loop, but this is already my favorite Raizing game by far. I love it how in M2's port you can select the OST from the PC (FM Towns and X68000) versions, that's a very nice addition to an already impressive package.

[copy-paster]

The insane amount of RNG starting from the boss from stage 5 and onwards really had me nuts, and the main reason why the overseas version is better (attacks are slower and you can conserve bombs for the boss rush in case the st5 boss would do the turret spam). The 2nd loop in SS is more or less like the first loop in MD.

[eksratu]

Was messing around with M2's DaiOuJou port on my Switch, wondering how far I could get in the Arrange EX mode. And I cleared it!!! I found myself at Hibachi with tons of resources, so I just point-blanked him with Hypers until he died. Fun mode with all the last-second bullet cancels.

[stellar_light]

I got my Futari Maniac clear a couple days ago! I ended up completely ignoring the second score extend, having to worry about optimizing all my gems and cancels was making me not nearly consistent enough and the less time spent in stage 1-3 reset purgatory the better; most CAVE score extends are pretty reasonable but this one's surprisingly strict, and it's easy to accidentally waste several minutes of progress because you laser'd at the wrong time. This run was a No Miss until stage 5 and doing it with one less life means you definitely need to make every resource count because the final boss in particular is a gauntlet, when I got there I ended up dumping my three remaining lives and six bombs and it was still down to the wire. I chose Palm Abnormal for the extra boss damage and him struggling so much with the regular stages definitely hurts (especially compared to Black Label where it feels Reco can afk on the other side of the map and still activate every bullet cancel somehow) but I do also think it really helps the game's routing and enemy control shine brightest. Fantastic game with amazingly tight stage design.

[eksratu]

Congrats stellar_light!!! That’s a tough one that I plan to aim for eventually. No miss through Stage 4 is also impressive.

Are the score extends similarly strict in BL Maniac? I might be aiming for that clear next. But I’m still in that 1-3 purgatory for now.

[stellar_light]

Congrats stellar_light!!! That’s a tough one that I plan to aim for eventually. No miss through Stage 4 is also impressive.

Are the score extends similarly strict in BL Maniac? I might be aiming for that clear next. But I’m still in that 1-3 purgatory for now.

Thank you! Black Label Maniac has the same point requirement for the second extend but it's much easier to reach since the scoring is far more generous all around--it's lower commitment and you can fill the meter basically whenever you want, for a comparison my Futari Maniac clear ended with 185,000,000 of the 250 million points needed for the second extend, whereas in Black Label Maniac I ended at 310 mill. Still have to pay attention to the multiplier mechanics to know how to maximize your cancels, but totally doable without a huge amount of complex score routing.

Good luck escaping reset samsara! Black Label definitely works as a fun lower stress alternative to the standard game, the bullets are faster but you've got so much extra slowdown in BL Maniac and higher damage across the board that it's surprisingly kind of chill. Even the buff to bosses kinda isn't that big of a deal since you'll be using less resources during levels which means much more leeway to bomb patterns you don't like.

[stellar_light]

Got a JP Donpachi 1-ALL tonight! The game's very quaint and charming and I greatly appreciate what it accomplished buuuuut I'm not gonna lie, the most challenging part of the run is not falling asleep it does definitely get spicier during the last couple stages (although at least a part of that is how often it spawns enemies on top of you) but yea, I don't feel super invested in seeing the second loop through. Love the announcer though that one's uncontestable.

I also came back to Dodonpachi for the first time in years to see if I was finally ready to unlock the second loop, and it's still such an energetic and intricate game! I was going back and forth on whether I wanted to get the four sets of bees or try for a bombless run of the stage 5 hall of hell to get the 330 hits as my loop 2 unlock criteria, but I eventually ended up focusing on the former with the hall of hell being available as a back-up strat if something went wrong. Assuming you use stage 5 for your fourth set of bees (much easier than stage 4 since there's only three collection points to remember) the bee routes aren't too tricky, you may have to use a couple bombs to be safe but otherwise you're given so many resources that you'll definitely be able to close out the 1-ALL. I'm not going to seriously attempt loop 2, but it did feel good to finally see what it was like!

[Lethe]

... greatly appreciate what it accomplished ... the most challenging part of the run is not falling asleep ... Dodonpachi

Right? Even today I remain astonished at how they managed to make a game with so much crap on the screen but so little to do in it. Once in a while I'll try playing it again to see if some revelation descends upon me but no, it's always the same experience. I end up feeling under pressure to play in the most idiotic ways possible just to keep myself from losing interest as early as 1-3, and whatever small amount of energy this artificially maintains deflates to nothing the instant I die. Laserless, slowdownless, orizzontale-maestro, no gimmick helps; chaining doesn't help, skipping to the second loop doesn't help, difficulty has nothing to do with the problem. It's a black hole of motivation, a game far less entertaining than most jobs and which you'll never get paid for.

Have you tried DonPachi yet? It shares a few of the faults of its sequel as well as having its own, but it shows plenty of moments of better stage and enemy design, its scoring system offers more of a tangible sensate link to your decision-making and... oh wait. Shit.

[stellar_light]

Cleared the first loop of Progear (JP)! I love the premise that instead of having scripted bullet cancel points in each stage, bullet cancelling is something you can manually trigger at any time as an expendable resource, and it connects to the central scoring mechanic perfectly. Needing to understand the relationship between score and survival is essential for playing almost any CAVE game, but few manage to tie it all together as harmoniously as Progear. It's awesome having an unlimited amount of possible score extends if you can play well enough too, but I honestly think that ended up being a bigger hurdle to me more than anything--shaking off the urge to score just a little bit more during the early stages got me trapped with more resets than ever, I obtained three score extends by the end but I probably would've managed just fine with two if I had been forced to.

This is also just a me thing, but I swear I still haven't been able to fully get used to hori bullet hells. Scouting the field ahead to see what the next pattern is always ends with me losing track of my hitbox or dying to a stray bullet that I 100% would've responded to just fine in any CAVE vert shmup, I can work around it but it still doesn't feel as natural. I was running Bolt + Nail with the front options formation, but I actually ended up putting them at the back after awhile because trying to glance at my ship in my peripheral would have me confusing my position for the options even though they're a totally different color. The bosses are also surprisingly lengthy and brutal, I'm not used to CAVE bosses taking 2-3 minutes long as soon as stage 3; I was playing the JP release so maybe that was the culprit (not sure if that was ever verified beyond the service menu defaulting to a different difficulty depending on which region it is?), and I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a bad thing, but it's kind of rough to adjust to. Some excellent patterns in there though! Love the last phase of the stage 3 boss.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I was playing the JP release so maybe that was the culprit (not sure if that was ever verified beyond the service menu defaulting to a different difficulty depending on which region it is?)

The difficulty in the JP version is very close to the US version, particularly if you're scoring and you crank the rank up to the max. Enemy health is unaffected. JP version is said to be slightly harder, but it's not a tremendous difference I think. The service menus are actually functionally at more or less the same menu setting on default. What's confusing is the JP version's default of 4 is tweaked so it's roughly equivalent to the US version's 2, but it's suspected the US test menus for CPS-2 game start lower so that arcade operators in the US had more room to crank it up and squeeze more quarters out (i.e. the US operators can notch it up 6 times to rank 8 which I think is harder than the JP's 8, only 4 notches up from the default of 4).

How games handle the difficulty slider isn't necessarily consistent though. Giga Wing's difficulty slider does not seem to affect the game whatsoever, and it plays the same on difficulty 8 as on default from what I can tell.

[Starfighter]

This is also just a me thing, but I swear I still haven't been able to fully get used to hori bullet hells. Scouting the field ahead to see what the next pattern is always ends with me losing track of my hitbox or dying to a stray bullet that I 100% would've responded to just fine in any CAVE vert shmup, I can work around it but it still doesn't feel as natural.

100% not just a you thing. This is the main reason I stay away from horizontal shmups. It's not that I dislike them, I just can't see, and prepare for, the same amount of information in them. I take one quick look at a bullet in a vertical shmup and can instantly visualize its full trajectory (or path or what the english word for it is) not having to look at it again, I know where it's going. A bullet from the side? I have no clue. I have to watch it the whole time to know where it is, and then I lose track of where I am.

Edit: Confession time! My 1CC in Darius Gaiden was made by putting the screen in TATE, changing the controls accordingly and playing it as a vertical shmup.

[stellar_light]

I was playing the JP release so maybe that was the culprit (not sure if that was ever verified beyond the service menu defaulting to a different difficulty depending on which region it is?)

The difficulty in the JP version is very close to the US version, particularly if you're scoring and you crank the rank up to the max. Enemy health is unaffected. JP version is said to be slightly harder, but it's not a tremendous difference I think. The service menus are actually functionally at more or less the same menu setting on default. What's confusing is the JP version's default of 4 is tweaked so it's roughly equivalent to the US version's 2, but it's suspected the US test menus for CPS-2 game start lower so that arcade operators in the US had more room to crank it up and squeeze more quarters out (i.e. the US operators can notch it up 6 times to rank 8 which I think is harder than the JP's 8, only 4 notches up from the default of 4).

How games handle the difficulty slider isn't necessarily consistent though. Giga Wing's difficulty slider does not seem to affect the game whatsoever, and it plays the same on difficulty 8 as on default from what I can tell.

That makes sense, thank you for clarifying!

100% not just a you thing. This is the main reason I stay away from horizontal shmups. It's not that I dislike them, I just can't see, and prepare for, the same amount of information in them. I take one quick look at a bullet in a vertical shmup and can instantly visualize its full trajectory (or path or what the english word for it is) not having to look at it again, I know where it's going. A bullet from the side? I have no clue. I have to watch it the whole time to know where it is, and then I lose track of where I am.

Edit: Confession time! My 1CC in Darius Gaiden was made by putting the screen in TATE, changing the controls accordingly and playing it as a vertical shmup.

Yeah, if I'm looking at a screen in a vert shmup I can immediately process "this is my ship, these are the enemies, these are where the bullets will go" but when I try doing the same in a bullet-heavy hori shmup I inevitably lose track of at least one of those elements. Funnily enough for a very brief moment I did wonder "would this hypothetically go a little smoother if I rotated the game??" before going "wait what am I thinking surely that can't be easier than practicing the stages more" but it's cool to see someone was able to make that work in a different game!