RQ: * Parodius, what affects rank?

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:55 pm

What affects rank most in this game, score or how powered up you are? There doesn't really appearr to be a way to control rank too well as it gets ridiculous if your score is high or if you have alot of power ups.

elbarto · Post by **elbarto** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:12 am

Your power level definitely seems to affect it, not sure about score though. I just did some screwing around with power levels and the giant dancer section in Paro Da, as I'd noticed that you don't always get the same amount of penguins hassling you there.

No deaths, 1 option, double/laser - 10 penguins
No deaths, full power/shield - 16 penguins
death just before dancer - 4 penguins
Full power/shield then "Oh my God!" just as dancer appeared - 4 penguins

The "Oh my God!" might come in handy for the puffer fish boss on Da stage 8 if you reach it fully powered, as its much easier to negotiate at low rank.. just a thought.

Your survival time seems to have some bearing on it too. When I got to the boss rush in Oshaberi on my first life, it was much nastier than reaching it having died once, suicide bullets and all.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 3:39 pm

I watched a mame replay of the game where the player had 600-700k on the fruit level in Goku Paro and the game went ballistic.

Those little guys that ride the knives are FAST, and everyone shoots alot more bullets. That's why I was wondering if score had any effect.

elbarto · Post by **elbarto** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:54 pm

You might be on to something there.. at least for Gokujou. After reading your post I checked out a vid I grabbed from Jigsawman's old FTP site, and saw similar results - they entered the cake stage with 840,000 points (

) and everything just went apeshit.

Now, I've 1-lifed that far before at max power, and it's never gone that mad (thankfully, lol)

Perhaps Gokujou is designed to have a nastier rank system to challenge better players as it's the only one in the series that doesn't loop? (on default settings, anyway)

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 6:33 pm

elbarto wrote:You might be on to something there.. at least for Gokujou. After reading your post I checked out a vid I grabbed from Jigsawman's old FTP site, and saw similar results - they entered the cake stage with 840,000 points ( ) and everything just went apeshit.

It's crazy isn't it?

This weekend I turned on invincibility to see the rest of the game (I LOVE the music in the last few levels). And it was just fucking nuts. The corridor level looked like something out of Gradius V loop 5. The enemies would let maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a second go by before they would shoot again. If 2 enemies got on top of each other, it was almost a steady stream.

I wish the game didn't get so cracked out on rank because I can't enjoy the rest of the game because it gets too hard.

The furthest I've ever made it was the lady-boss that fires invincible neon rabbits. And I've only made it there once. I've only made it to that level a few times (crazy ass level as it is).