[fw.net update] STGT '07 Replays

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:10 am

Icarus wrote:
Twiddle wrote:
Icarus wrote:@Twiddle:
You still want to see the ending to G-Darius Lambda route? I can up the ending sequence in high quality somewhere for you.
yes pls
It is done. Note that the PSX version of the intro and epilogues are in FMV, while the arcade and PS2 versions are in real-time rendering. This was on the PSX ver, so it'll look a liitle odd. ^_-

hooray they made it

Plasmo · Post by **Plasmo** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:56 am

oh god why do you upload your vids to youtube when theres super-play

definitely upload your batrider all clear vid to super-play pleeeeeeease

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:31 am

I second the motion to move your batrider replay to superplay!

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:52 pm

Plasmo wrote:oh god why do you upload your vids to youtube when theres super-play
definitely upload your batrider all clear vid to super-play pleeeeeeease

seconded - very much so infact, blur'o'rama on youtube makes me sad

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:31 pm

Christ. People complain when you upload large vids ("make them smaller please!"), people upload when you use a codec for high quality ("I can't play that video back, I need software! I don't wanna install new software!"), people complain when you experiment with new formats ("Why are you using that??!"), people complain when you use a particular resource ("I can't download off that site!! Upload somewhere else plz!").

Just no pleasing some people. -_-;;

The ALL will be in high quality. I am looking for mirrors to up the file to.

@Plasmo:
Has rjpageuk decided what he's going to do with super-play.co.uk? All his talk in this thread worries me about the future of the site. I need confirmation that the site will be around still before I upload new footage there, because I do not want to spend time uploading something one day, only to see the site vanish the next.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:51 pm

Don't worry about it. He's not really in the 'oh god, I'm quitting' mindset, he's just legitimately wondering what he can do to attract more people. Having more replays helps in that respect! Even if he does decide to give up, he won't just disappear with the data. I won't let him.

I worry more about the long-term viability of youtube. Even if super-play goes away, there's probably a quite few people with your videos still saved on their hard drive(s) (or raid arrays, like me). When youtube finally implodes the best you have are a few people with some crappy quality .flv files.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:06 pm

I hope not. Naming a thread "SITE DIRECTION - PLEASE READ" gives contributors to your site a scare, and since that thread appeared, I've been looking for viable alternatives in case of emergency. My main worry is finding a permanent host for high quality stuff without the owner of the site suddenly going on a "what am I doing? do I even care any more?" trip. ^_-

The 'Tube isn't a permanent option, just a dumping ground for old footage. The only advantage to the 'Tube is that I don't spend three hours uploading a 300MB AVI file, and I'm not eating someone's bandwidth distributing the files.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:12 pm

You'll never find a permanent host that's never in danger of going away suddenly. Just find multiple ones and hope they all don't go away simultaneously

I have like 1200GB/month of bandwidth I never use (because who watches my videos, huh?) if you need mirroring help.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:24 pm

That's the problem. I am thankful that super-play appeared as it was a good place to put new stuff up, but there are some users who are unable to download stuff from there for whatever reason (speed, ISP connection and whatnot) so having to look for mirrors became a necessity, not just for other users to access the files, but in a worst-case scenario as well.

All those freebie file distro places like YouSendIt are imposing limits to filesizes now that really screw up my options. Apparently RapidShare have upped their filesize limit to 300MB, so I might give them a spin.

Thanks for the offer. I'm assuming the costs for your hosting is quite expensive for that amount? I'll continue to hunt around for the time being. ^_^

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:30 pm

Icarus wrote:That's the problem. I am thankful that super-play appeared as it was a good place to put new stuff up, but there are some users who are unable to download stuff from there for whatever reason (speed, ISP connection and whatnot) so having to look for mirrors became a necessity, not just for other users to access the files, but in a worst-case scenario as well.

All those freebie file distro places like YouSendIt are imposing limits to filesizes now that really screw up my options. Apparently RapidShare have upped their filesize limit to 300MB, so I might give them a spin.

Thanks for the offer. I'm assuming the costs for your hosting is quite expensive for that amount? I'll continue to hunt around for the time being. ^_^

Not really. It's a dreamhost account that I paid like $10/month for or something. I think their base plan is $7.95/month. I paid a bit more for a static IP when I signed up, plus paid for a year upfront. I use it mostly as a file dump and to host one or two things I do, so it's vastly underutilized.

Rapidshare is the worst name ever. If you don't have an account there, downloading involves something around a 1.5 minute countdown delay. Rapid! ha! Maybe it doesn't suck so bad if you sign up, I dunno.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:08 pm

zakk wrote:Not really. It's a dreamhost account that I paid like $10/month for or something. I think their base plan is $7.95/month. I paid a bit more for a static IP when I signed up, plus paid for a year upfront. I use it mostly as a file dump and to host one or two things I do, so it's vastly underutilized.

Rapidshare is the worst name ever. If you don't have an account there, downloading involves something around a 1.5 minute countdown delay. Rapid! ha! Maybe it doesn't suck so bad if you sign up, I dunno.

Well its called CrapidShare for a reason. ^_-
Its passable for what it does though, which is a bonus. Uploading is slooooooooow though. -_-;;

If you don't mind me chewing up a bit of your bandwidth every month, what can I do to borrow a bit of your webspace and b/width? ^_^

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:52 pm

i would NEVER complain about size/high quality of a vid

but the whole purpose of a replay gets kinda wasted on youtube, its just a garbled mess of coloured legos

feels like your effort is a bit wasted? (tho i still very much appreciate it!)

www.megaupload.com is what i usually use for vids, 250meg sizelimit (i think 500 if you sign up) its pretty quick and easy to use too

i found uploading to it alot faster than rapidshare anyways.
atleast its a good mirror option

zinger · Post by **zinger** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:13 pm

Very impressive Icarus, thanks for sharing!

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:28 pm

In replay-spamming mode at the moment.

Batrider Advanced and Blazing Star ALL replays are now available at Super-Play, for those who desired the higher quality, non-streaming versions. As usual, they're in 60fps, and quite a hefty download. Took long enough to upload, after being timed out several times this week. -_-;;

Armed Police Batrider - 10.8mil ALL with Strawman (A)
- Mirror @ Super Play
- Low Quality Advanced Course Demonstrations @ YouTube

Blazing Star - 43.8mil ALL with Windina
- Mirror @ Super Play
- Low Quality Version @ YouTube

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:53 pm

Boah! I missed a post here. You have a PM, sir.

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:11 pm

zakk wrote:Boah! I missed a post here. You have a PM, sir.

You are a gentleman and a saint. Thank you. ^_^

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 11:51 am

powerups and lucky letters up the game difficulty?

thanks for sharing this, no wonder stage 6 always felt so inhuman!
gotta try this a.s.a.p..

Post by **Icarus** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:43 pm

Thanks to a good friend, I now have Shikigami no Shiro 3. ^_^

And for a bit of fun, I have video-captured my second ever credit on the game, and have uploaded it for comedy viewing. I used Koutarou Kuga (Type 1 - the "classic" type) and made it to stage 3-1 before losing the run on a bullet in the shifting block zone. Final score: a very low 1.6bil.

You can find the replay here:
http://bigcore.rsdio.com/icarus/shikiga ... soplay.avi
Many thanks to zakk for providing the mirror!

EDIT: Fixed filename to reflect actual score.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Some impressions while playing:

Port quality is pretty good. Runs smoothly on my PC, and aside from occasional slowdown (expected during boss explosions and very busy sections of the game), it runs great.
Game pauses and stutters when loading cutscenes in for the first time. You can turn off the cutscenes like in Shikigami 2 (thanks Twiddle for letting me know how).
There's an updated game mode called Directors Mode, which makes the game play more like Shikigami 3 Evo. Also has regular Arcade Mode, and selectable difficulties (I think - Normal, Hard and Extreme).
Nice and customisable options, including windowed and fullscreen, yoko and tate, and other stuff. Controls are fully customisable too.
Important to note that Hi-Tension Mode is not time activated but bomb stock controlled - you can only use Hi-Tension if you have bomb stock, and each use depletes a bomb. So scoring is increased, but only through smart bomb management. ^_-
You can see the next empty bomb and life slots fill up as you continue to score, giving you a sort-of visual clue for how close you are to your next Extend marker. Nice touch.
Game is pretty damn hard! ^_^
No in-built replay saving modes. Twiddle rightly pointed out that Shikigami 2 and the recent Raiden 3 PC ports have it, although it might be attributed to a different company porting the game this time. Shame though.
Net ranking feature retained. Yay!

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:11 pm

Icarus wrote:Thanks to a good friend, I now have Shikigami no Shiro 3. ^_^

Uhmmmmmmmm

ok, at any case, how much power does it need? If those fools don't port it to PS2, i can't see any other source of Shiki fun...

Post by **Icarus** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:18 pm

Randorama wrote:Uhmmmmmmmm
ok, at any case, how much power does it need? If those fools don't port it to PS2, i can't see any other source of Shiki fun...

Shikigami 3 is pretty intensive, so you'd need a desktop PC and not a laptop. ^_-

Anything 2.0GHz or higher, at least 512MB of RAM (1GB+ preferred) with a DX9.0c compatible dedicated graphics card.
http://www.alfasystem.net/game/shiki3/shiki3pc.html <-- some system specs.

I think Shikigami 3 might get ported to a console, but I haven't heard any official words yet, so don't take my word for it. For now, PC version is the way to go. PS2 port would be pretty nice, however.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:21 pm

Icarus wrote: Shikigami 3 is pretty intensive, so you'd need a desktop PC and not a laptop. ^_-

I should get a real computer someday.

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:53 pm

Thanks for the great replays Icarus.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:41 pm

My Emilio score is only a hair above that.

Kuga is horrible for taking advantage of the HTMAX feature, as you need a character that can basically sweep entire areas of enemies.

Post by **Icarus** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:54 pm

Twiddle wrote:My Emilio score is only a hair above that.

Kuga is horrible for taking advantage of the HTMAX feature, as you need a character that can basically sweep entire areas of enemies.

Yeah, its frickin' hard to score with Kuga in all iterations of Shikigami, as his Shiki Attack is too indirect. The only problem is, I'm not clued up on the other characters yet. ^_^;; Might give the Kim ripoff a spin later on.

HTMAX is a pretty interesting system, with it being bomb-stock controlled, meaning that suicide play and smart usage of HTMAX in particular sections is the key to consistent scoring. Its sort of like a cross between a Raizing game and Psyvariar now.

Going for the quick and dirty ALL first. ^_-

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:43 am

Funny shit. Sayo is now Kuga's shiki and ??? is Roger's shiki.

Post by **Icarus** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:51 am

Twiddle wrote:Funny shit. Sayo is now Kuga's shiki and ??? is Roger's shiki.

Yeah, I noticed that. I wonder what the story behind that is?

In any rate, gave it another go tonight. That Harry Potter lookalike with the beam Shikigami is pretty interesting, if a little underpowered. The female Kim is... well... just like Kim. And that loli Niigi copycat as well, complete with similar Shikigami attacks, is fun to play, if a little tricky to maintain 8x in stages.

Suicide tactics are fun to work into the game now. Purposely dying before an Extend to get two free bombs is pretty satisfying. Just need to work the HT-MAX into stage routes for maximum coinage.

So far, 1.8bil at the stage3-1 boss with Kuga1. Could probably do better, might swap to Kuga2 later and see if I can get better.
Pretty good fun this. ^_^

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 6:57 am

Icarus wrote:
I think Shikigami 3 might get ported to a console, but I haven't heard any official words yet, so don't take my word for it. For now, PC version is the way to go. PS2 port would be pretty nice, however.

brand new HD kits are JPY50K @ fujita

getting a type X mobo seems like a pretty good investment concidering the impressive shmups available

theyre cheap too (which is nice since the mobo isnt)..

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:57 am

jesus if I ever make a shiki 3 replay it'll have 100% less crying sayo and 100% more emilio making stupid and/or cute faces

kuga's wapanese buddy roger is a blast to play and kills things almost as fast as niigi did but i'm not sure how to score well as him

i've gotten a 1.2b stage 1 as batou, but i'm not sure how exactly to use the spear charge right

Post by **Icarus** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:21 am

Batou2 seems to be played like Sayo used to with the spinning spear. The only problem being the charge required to get it spinning. Hyuga is the same-old-same-old, but remarkably is really good fun if handled properly. Fumiko... well... less said about her the better. ^_-

Haven't tried Roger yet. Is it still the charge-and-throw cluster or has he changed Shikigami for this one?

1.2bil in stage1 is pretty good. I take it you were depleting your bomb stock for HT-MAX for it? I'm at around 900mil after beating Yukari ver2, but I can see plenty of milking oppurtunities, such as the destroyable orbs she throws at increasing speeds on her final health bar. Its a pain trying to catch them with Kuga, however, but easy with a different character.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:27 am

Icarus wrote:Haven't tried Roger yet. Is it still the charge-and-throw cluster or has he changed Shikigami for this one?

Yeah, same thing. I only noticed that ??? popped back up as his shikigami in his character profile (I think). Now all we need is Niigi turning out to be a plotwise younger/older/otherdimensional version/counterpart of the default 1P or 2P characters and we have all of the old roster or relatives (of some sort) of the old roster present.

Oh yeah, Kim died and that's the reason why his sister is in this game.

Batou is a monster, only having a few hundred million shy of the WR dual play record. The S1 charge attack is pretty long ranged even if the charge is low and it kills most boss forms in one sweep when fully charged.

Oh yeah, I abuse HTMAX as well.