RQ: Mushihimesama 1.5 Max - Rank?

[Faith]

Updated with strategy below!~

Hello!~

So, I started to play Mushihimesama 1.5 Original Max... managed by luck to reach Stage 5 boss but now seem to be worse again >.<!!~

But, after a few runs, I noticed... is there some rank with counter??

Unlike Original, in Original Max there is now a counter... and what I noticed, is when it turns green, the enemy bullets get a green glow.

So it seems like the counter will always go up, but sometimes I notice it go up faster... and when the counter becomes green, that is when the difficulty seems to become even more crazy than normal.

So I was wondering, is there any way to prevent the counter from going up too fast? I know bomba and death make it go down though.

Cannot seem to find much information anywhere about Max modes.

Also because some of the counter carry over into next stage, starting Stage 3 with counter green is really super ridiculous because 1.5 Stage 3 is now super tight with less gaps and more enemies x_x"...

Oh... as I typed this I just had idea too: because, only during boss fight counter will keep dropping, so maybe I try to "reverse" milk it?

So, stay alive and not shoot and let counter drop. Hmm, maybe try!

[Faith]

Haha ok, so I did try! Now, for Maniac Max, it seems no rank. It is mostly same kind of counter as normal Maniac.

So, this post, will really focus just on Original Max >.<!~

Because Stage 3 is big headache, and Stage 2 boss last pattern is quite easy in Original Max, I stopped shooting at last pattern of Stage 2 boss to get counter to 0 lol...

The Stage 2 boss actually timed out and went baboom just as my counter reached 0, funny! So it has a time out.

Good news is, that means I start Stage 3 with counter at 0, and that really does make it a lot easier! But it is quite a long drag to do this, so, not sure how often I will.

Counter drop from boss isn't really super fast, so it took a few minutes to drop from I think about 7000 to 0 >.<!!

[stellar_light]

I share your experience with being able to find little information on the MAX modes. As far as I know there's two rank increases in Original MAX: once at 10,000 (green bullets), and a second at 50,000 (yellow bullets). On a survival-focused run without any rank control, most of the run will be spent at green rank and you'll potentially reach yellow sometime during stage 5; for me I triggered yellow rank near the end of the stage with three extends in stock before swiftly taking a death and being knocked back down to green in time for the final boss. So, as long as you aren't a score player then yellow rank won't matter in most cases, and if it does kick in then it'll probably be during the home stretch while you have enough resources to close out the run--in fact, if you're at yellow then you can consider it a positive sign since it means the run is doing well!

As for stalling the stage 2 boss to lower rank during stage 3, I experimented with it but decided not to incorporate it into my attempts. It is worth it in the sense that stage 3 is indeed the hardest part of the run by a long shot, but you'll eventually reach green again later in the stage anyway and it's not an enjoyable boss to spend several minutes timing out. It also adds some additional mental pressure to do the remaining stages correctly afterwards knowing how much time you had to spend stalling to get a shot at it.

Either way, once you get past stage 3 then the difficulty curve gradually decreases from there, with stage 5 being less crazy than both 3 and 4 till the final boss. Reaching the stage 5 boss is already great progress! You'll probably need a couple lives for the final boss just because of how fast the bullets can clip you even in slowdown, but otherwise it doesn't require a huge amount of resources. Good luck!!

[Faith]

Thank you very much for extra info!!~

So I tried to test a bit more, and I actually like to time out the Stage 2 boss... because, the only time rank go down is bomba (-1,000) or death (-5,000) and also when going into new stage, counter is dropped by half (so 15,000 will drop to about 7,500). So, the reason for Stage 2 boss time out, is because even if take death in Stage 3, problem is, if rank is high enough (so, like 20,000) then -5,000 from death means you will still stay on green bullets, and then there is risk for chain death lol. Green bullets zzz.

Also, I found, you can time out Stage 2 boss twice (each phase), and first phase is easier to dodge green bullets anyway lol.

There was another discovery I also made! Picking up the amber score items, especially ground ones, will make rank go up even more lol... and... when you hold focus, you will auto collect ground amber. So now what I do is... for Stage 1 & 2 I do not use focus shot at all, and for Stage 1 & 4 boss, I do not pick up all the amber drop which appear on the ground when the boss KO lol.

Using this strategy, I reached last phase of last boss, but died because new to pattern (and counter was under 10,000) x_x!~

Oh and of course avoid trying to milk those Stage 2 plants lol.

[Faith]

Mushihimesama Original MAX 1CC!!!~



This cursed mode.

So, seems I will be the one giving strategy/advice for this super cursed mode lol @_@"... because of that, I will leave thread up for anyone who need help with it! Bless you if you try it!

There are many many differences between 1.0 and 1.5, and with Max modes even more still!

Suggest playing Original 1.5 with normal shot first before Max, so you can get used to stage changes (most stages have more enemies, and less "gaps" in enemy spawns; so very tight).

With Original there is no rank... but with Original Max there is now rank counter at top left!~


Rank starts at 0, these things will increase it:

• Existing (yes, lol... every second you exist, rank keeps going up)

• Picking up gold amber items from enemy/ground, also especially from those Bush Plant things in St 2 (so... do not milk them!)

And to decrease rank:

• Any bomba (manual/auto) will drop it by about 1,000

• Death will drop it by 5,000

• During entire time when you are in end of level boss fight (mid boss not counted)

• Rank will carry over into next stage, but it will decrease by half: so... if you end St 2 with 15,000 you will start St 3 with 7,500

Rank levels:

• 0 to 10,000: Normal Rank

• 10,000 to 50,000: High Rank (bullets have green glow)

• 50,000 and over: Crazy High Rank (bullets have yellow glow)

When rank increases, only difference is the stupid crazy fast bullets in Original Max mode, become even more stupid crazy fast. Really @_@"...

And this is giga big problem in St 3 because St 3 is now extremely tight.

If you do not do any rank control, you will already start St 3 with 10,000... and that can make the first part (front of monster) super difficult...

So, my strategy is to time-out the first phase of St 2 boss to lower rank.

Usually, I reach this boss with rank counter around 18,000 to 20,000 already. Just don't shoot it, and let the rank lower... it is an easy pattern.

This takes around 3 minutes... and usually once it time out, my rank will drop by 10,000 (so from 18,000 it will drop to 8,000)... and then I will just kill the second phase of boss quickly.

If you do this, you will start St 3 around 4,000 to 5,000 and this makes it easier to manage for a few reasons: first, the starting part of level has many overlapping enemies, and with faster bullet speed, you can easily make situation impossible to dodge. Also, this means if you die, you will go into lower rank again. If you start St 3 with, example, 10,000 rank... you will very fast reach 15,000 and if you die, you only lose 5,000 which makes 15,000 become 10,000... and you will still be high rank. This makes recovery in St 3 very, very challenging, and chain death can then happen. But if you start St 3 with 4,000 rank, then even if you die when rank gets high again at 10,000, it will drop down to 5,000, giving you more breathing space to plan to recover.

I tested to time out St 1 boss too, and even second phase of St 2 boss... do not do this. It is not worth it. It will make game time too long, and add additional stress to do well. It is still more worth it to have more attempts, than to focus too much on one attempt then become stressed.

Also, because of the number of enemies in St 4 and St 5 (a lot), rank will increase super crazy fast... so most your time will be above 10,000.

By middle or end of St 5 you may reach the highest rank with counter over 50,000, but usually that is fine because quite often you will get death at St 5 boss anyway, which will lower it.

Another thing I do is: because the amber drop from St 1 and St 4 boss will increase rank, I will move character to top right when the boss KO.

You really do not want rank to be over 55,000 for St 5 boss... it is bad!~

Also: focus shot will absorb all ground amber. So, sometimes, in St 1 & 2, I will just avoid it. Because in this mode, every small thing will help!

And, the final thing, before I forget: do not forget, in Max, you only get one bomba on death. So, if your strategy is to bomba spam St 5 boss... well, unless you have all your extends still, this will not work. St 5 boss pattern in Max is different, and very evil. Practice to reliably no-miss it!!

And final, really, final thing: use M-Power. In 1.5, Cave improved M-Power a lot and S-Power is crap (W-Power move too slow for Original Max).

Because of bullet speed, you really need to move fast. And because so many enemies, narrow shot is very, very difficult to manage. And even with bosses M-Power is more reliable x_x!~

[Hail Sadako]

Ohhhhhh so THAT's why stage 5 boss behaved differently in training mode. The counter is set to 0 by default. Ironically enough, the 1st pattern is way harder on lowest rank, there is virtually no slow down and has some nasty overlaps