Does anyone play Cannon Spike for score?

[1000Eyes]

Recently picked up Psikyo's Cannon Spike, and having a blast. However, I didn't realize it was so melee heavy, like Psikyo just secretly trying to make a close combat third person game — which makes sense considering the direction they've been going with Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze. I see that you can combo, chaining as many hits to as many targets as possible to increase it.

Is this the crux of the scoring? Is it worth engaging with it, or is plain survival just better? It's hard to tell if I'm actually scoring in the heat of the moment, and the random stages mean that I don't have much of anchor to tell my performance.

(Sorry if this was already answered somewhere, but I couldn't find info elsewhere.)

[Randorama]

I played this game a lot back in 2002-2003 on DC and 1-CC'ed both loops with Rock Man/Mega Man; I recently cleared the first loop with RM/MM again for nostalgia's sake. I remember that using melee attacks becomes very difficult very quickly, because close range combat may result in multiple hits from enemies. I checked now via emulation, and it seems that multiple hits do not give extra points immediately - though the hit count starts at 2 hits. Since it is a Psikyo score, I imagine that combos do not increase score dramatically, even if you should notice a difference from "simple survival" runs.

Melee combos can however deal tons of damage, so there is also the possibility to kill enemies quickly if you time them correctly. Sorry though, I forgot the exact score and damage progression scales. I believe that it is a great game anyway you like to play it, if only because it is one of the very few "Arena Shooters", a veritable "micro-genre", in pseudo 3D (possibly the only one?).

[AGermanArtist]

Just wanted to add that this runs perfectly in 4K using Redream and its $6 update.
https://redream.io/

I could share that $6 file.

[1000Eyes]

Thanks for the reply Randorama. Psikyo had this interesting arc starting from Gunbird 2 to have these distinct melee / bullet-dodging hybrids, which I really enjoyed in Dragon Blaze, so I thought something similar was going on here. I find it good (and difficult) as it is as a survival game, but thanks for the clarification anyway!

[Randorama]

My pleasure.

Something I suggest you to do is to play the game first with the lock-on function (Left hook/L on the DC controller) and auto-fire for the main shot, with cannon shots used when enemies receive a few hits. The lock-on function allows you to easily hit enemies while moving around, because your character of choice can shoot in one direction but move in another direction (e.g. lock-on an enemy on your right, move away by moving to the left). If you shoot a few shots with auto-fire and then use the cannon, you can also easily land a lot of damage.

You can then start using melee attacks when you feel confident with bullet patterns, especially for bosses; except maybe for the last boss, all mid- and stage-bosses have specific openings that you can exploit to combo them for massive damage. Making mistakes may however result in massive losses: for instance, Sasuke the "king of the jungle" boss can kill you with two-three halberd/glaive hits.

I think that playing for score comes after that: I am struggling to land meaningful combos during runs, but I think that players need at least 5 hits to get extra points (x1.5 on each kill obtained after the fifth hit), and possibly more than 10 hits to max out the multiplier (x2 on each kill). I never really learnt to perform combos, as the combination of locked-on shots and cannon plus the occasional melee attack/special melee attack is simply safer

Just in case, and you can double-check controls: X=main shot (long-range attack); Y=Melee attack; A=Cannon shot (i.e. more powerful main shot/long-range attack); B=special melee attack (i.e. powerful close-range attack like Charlie's somersault kick; L=lock-on function; R=Bomb.

As a shameless self-promotion, I do plan on releasing a squib about the game later this year