Old School Maniax Tournament 2007 - Week #1

[shoe-sama]

For anyone choosing Strite as their stage 1, it's a good idea to get the secret free way powerup at the bottom of the screen when the music changes (appears with the 1up). The first part of the boss is a joke if you just stay in the bottom right and use it.

[The Coop]

Is this carrier otherwise a 1up?

I believe so.
There are at least two very fast carriers in that stage, one holds the Extend. Both I know of skim the bottom of the screen.

Shield counts from memory:

Strite - 0
Ruins - 1 (I think, very hazy on location)
Air-Raid - 1 (during lock turret section)
Daser - 1 (fast carrier during music change section, dependent on shield condition)
Battleship - 1 (before start of battleship section)
Underwater - 1 (upper section during midpoint of stage)
Lava Caves - 2 (both in upper section of screen)
Bio Base - 2 (one in closed section before boss)
Wall - 1 or 2
Final - 1 or more (sometimes randomly spawns during battle before last boss)

For those interested, you can finish the game with a total of 16 lives, maybe more. If you want to make your life a lot easier in Mania Mode, get Free Way as soon as you can. ^_-

Are you sure you're playing the game on "Mania"? Stage five doesn't have a shield power up that I've ever seen, and the Underwater shield comes about ten seconds before the boss encounter (the one you're speaking of is simply a weapon power up) on "Mania". I've also not seen one on stage 9 on "Mania".

[Icarus]

Are you sure you're playing the game on "Mania"? Stage five doesn't have a shield power up that I've ever seen, and the Underwater shield comes about ten seconds before the boss encounter (the one you're speaking of is simply a weapon power up) on "Mania". I've also not seen one on stage 9 on "Mania".

Quite certain. My routes in both Normal and Mania takes me through as many shield powerups as I can get in one go. Bear in mind that some shields will only appear in certain conditions (normally when you have 1 hit left on your current shield, or no shield at all).

Don't make me load the game up. ^_-

[The Coop]

Speaking of having fired up the game earlier...


The Coop - 7,161,850 - All

[RotateMe]

Tried for another 2 hours just to get 700 points more... well no luck this weak, hoping for a more forgiving game (-setting) next weak...

[shoe-sama]

Getting pointblanked and not knowing it is not fun... >_>

[Shocky]

Shocky - 81,880 - 2

(Strite - Daser)

HOW IN HELL'S NAME DO I KILL/EVADE THE BLUE SNAKE FUCKING ASSHOLE THING IN DASER? >:(

I love this game, I hate playing it like this... The moment I delve into my usual zen-like shooting trance and stop actively thinking where the enemies will appear, that's the moment when some little lightspeed *cker flies straight at me from the edge of the screen and even ninja reflexes couldn't save me X_x I might try tomorrow again now that I discovered what amazing firepower the Free Way gun has.

Coop must be the memorizer ever.

I didn't milk any bosses or subbosses, because there are no safespots. At least I didn't notice one yet.
Dodging the attacks the whole time would be to annoying for me. But when playing for score it's only natural to try and maximize your points, milking bosses and enemies is part of that strategy. It's not my fault ED had this flaw.

There is a safespot in Strite. Just fly along the horizon when the train-like midboss is moving under you. The key is to not take the rail gun but keep the doubled back shot. Then you switch on autofire, sit back and watch the midboss send out these flying dudes which get nailed by the back shot.

Kids, don't use safespots, this is purely theoretical.

[The Coop]

Just giving everyone a heads up. Nemo made a thread in the Hi Score forum, where he had this to say at the time...

12 hours left. And just so it's clear, only scores posted in this thread will be counted.

So if you posted a score in here, and didn't know about that thread, go to...

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=12949

... and post your score. There are 6 hours and 38 minutes left, so do it soon.

[Edge]

There is a safespot in Strite. Just fly along the horizon when the train-like midboss is moving under you. The key is to not take the rail gun but keep the doubled back shot. Then you switch on autofire, sit back and watch the midboss send out these flying dudes which get nailed by the back shot.

Oh, didn't know about this one...
And don't worry I won't make a new score using that strategy, I'll be just waiting for the next game.

[Shocky]

So if you posted a score in here, and didn't know about that thread, go to...

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=12949

... and post your score. There are 6 hours and 38 minutes left, so do it soon.

Whoops, thanks for pointing that out =)

[RotateMe]

Shocky - 81,880 - 2

(Strite - Daser)

HOW IN HELL'S NAME DO I KILL/EVADE THE BLUE SNAKE FUCKING ASSHOLE THING IN DASER? >:(

Lol, that's what I called it before, I think it makes you automatically feel this way (or did you call it like this because I did?). Oh well you beat my score by 3000 ... ... .... lucky bastard I'm still hating me for not training stride and than go to daser... i beat the thing in daser and it got me a lot of points but without some points of stride it's still <100,000 and still sux

[Shocky]

Shocky - 81,880 - 2

(Strite - Daser)

HOW IN HELL'S NAME DO I KILL/EVADE THE BLUE SNAKE FUCKING ASSHOLE THING IN DASER? >:(

Lol, that's what I called it before, I think it makes you automatically feel this way (or did you call it like this because I did?). Oh well you beat my score by 3000 ... ... .... lucky bastard I'm still hating me for not training stride and than go to daser... i beat the thing in daser and it got me a lot of points but without some points of stride it's still <100,000 and still sux

That was my own reaction when my "perfect run" was ended by that thing. Then I went back to the thread to see if there was some hint about defeating this bastard and noticed your comment, then I went back to my own message and added the missing ingredient, namely the "fucking asshole" part Too bad nobody answered. Tonight I'm gonna try the game on normal difficulty and rip that snake fucker into a heap of pixels!

When I was practicing all the stages, the game felt easier and I was optimistic about this, but I didn' t know there was rank here... the Strite boss is harder for no-miss playing and most of my gaming time went to either dying because of the little fuckers that dart from below after taking Blade weapon or in the boss because of some stupid mistake.

What about the effects of credit usage on gameplay? I've just tried again with continues because it's faster, but at least in Ruins there is a difference, the midboss appears in the beginning of the stage if you start in Ruins, but if you continue it doesn't appear... go figure.

Coop, reveal your secrets.. how did you do it? Which order of stages? What speed settings (I used 75% all the time)? Which weapons?

[The Coop]

Coop, reveal your secrets.. how did you do it? Which order of stages? What speed settings (I used 75% all the time)? Which weapons?

Well since you asked so nicely...

Basically, I choose the first four stages in this order...

Air-Raid
Daser
Ruins
Strite

The reason being, Air-Raid isn't that hard of a level, and it offers four of the five weapon power ups (Freeway, Blade, Snake and Rail Gun), the C.R.A.W. upgrade, and a shield about mid-way through the level. By the time you reach the boss, you're damn near fully powered up, and the Blade/Rail Gun/Freeway combo will make quick work of him.

Daser comes next, because this stage is a pain in the ass. The difference is, it becomes more of a pain in the ass if you save it for later (remember, the longer you survive, and the more weapons you have, the tougher this game'll get, even on Mania). The mid boss isn't too bad as long as you avoid flinging your ship way up or way down. The mid boss'll start zooming around a lot faster if you do this, so try to keep your vertical movement to a minimum. Also, hang back a bit on the screen. This'll up your chances of having the mid-boss stop in an open area so you can get behind him and use either Rail Gun or Freeway on the back of his head while the two orbs he launches are out and about. Note, that the Freeway weapon works best for this stage, and it coupled with Blade works well on the boss.

Ruins comes next, as by this time, you have the two best weapons for it... Blade and Freeway. Blade works for just about all the areas, except those spots where a lot of smaller enemies come drifting in the from the background. Freeway takes care of them easily, and it'll do away with the mid-sized ships that fire a thin stream of electricity too. There's a shield on this stage, but it's hidden along the top (wait until there's a train or line of those enemies coming in from the background behind, go up to the top with Freeway on, and fire the missiles upwards).

Finally comes Strite, which should be very easy now with all the weapons and shield.


As for those snaking shapes on the Ruins stage, pay attention to where they're positioned in terms of how far into the stage you are when they appear each time. When you know they're about to show up, go all the way up, or all the way down vertically. Stay there as long as you can, making sure you get as many of those things to appear on the right side of the screen as possible. Be sure to fire as well, as once they're hit, they stay in position vertically. If you don't do this, they will follow you when you move.

Anyway, once those things are getting too close for comfort, go to the opposite side of the screen vertically (if you went downwards to lure them, go upwards). You'll either leave them all safely below/above you (don't go back right away though, as they still need time to scroll off the screen), or you'll only have to contend with one of them instead of all of them.

[RotateMe]

Coop, reveal your secrets.. how did you do it? Which order of stages? What speed settings (I used 75% all the time)? Which weapons?

Well since you asked so nicely...

Basically, I choose the first four stages in this order...

Air-Raid
Daser
Ruins
Strite

The reason being, Air-Raid isn't that hard of a level, and it offers four of the five weapon power ups (Freeway, Blade, Snake and Rail Gun), the C.R.A.W. upgrade, and a shield about mid-way through the level. By the time you reach the boss, you're damn near fully powered up, and the Blade/Rail Gun/Freeway combo will make quick work of him.

Daser comes next, because this stage is a pain in the ass. The difference is, it becomes more of a pain in the ass if you save it for later (remember, the longer you survive, and the more weapons you have, the tougher this game'll get, even on Mania). The mid boss isn't too bad as long as you avoid flinging your ship way up or way down. The mid boss'll start zooming around a lot faster if you do this, so try to keep your vertical movement to a minimum. Also, hang back a bit on the screen. This'll up your chances of having the mid-boss stop in an open area so you can get behind him and use either Rail Gun or Freeway on the back of his head while the two orbs he launches are out and about. Note, that the Freeway weapon works best for this stage, and it coupled with Blade works well on the boss.

Ruins comes next, as by this time, you have the two best weapons for it... Blade and Freeway. Blade works for just about all the areas, except those spots where a lot of smaller enemies come drifting in the from the background. Freeway takes care of them easily, and it'll do away with the mid-sized ships that fire a thin stream of electricity too. There's a shield on this stage, but it's hidden along the top (wait until there's a train or line of those enemies coming in from the background behind, go up to the top with Freeway on, and fire the missiles upwards).

Finally comes Strite, which should be very easy now with all the weapons and shield.


As for those snaking shapes on the Ruins stage, pay attention to where they're positioned in terms of how far into the stage you are when they appear each time. When you know they're about to show up, go all the way up, or all the way down vertically. Stay there as long as you can, making sure you get as many of those things to appear on the right side of the screen as possible. Be sure to fire as well, as once they're hit, they stay in position vertically. If you don't do this, they will follow you when you move.

Anyway, once those things are getting too close for comfort, go to the opposite side of the screen vertically (if you went downwards to lure them, go upwards). You'll either leave them all safely below/above you (don't go back right away though, as they still need time to scroll off the screen), or you'll only have to contend with one of them instead of all of them.

Thanks! I guess I'll stick with this game sometime longer it had a great learning curve during this weak for me (even on maniac an with 1-life condition). Playing for highest score possible in every stage made it even more enjoyable, since I chose Daser very early I got near to every enemy down that would pop up which required being at the right place at the right time throughout the whole level (well I made it just after the mid-boss this way).

[Shocky]

Thanks for sharing, Coop. I'll try this new method against the blue snake thing. I was just madly zooming around it at 100% speed, hoping it will either die of my scatter shots or get bored and go away.

Thanks! I guess I'll stick with this game sometime longer it had a great learning curve during this weak for me (even on maniac an with 1-life condition).

Yeah, the learning curve made this interesting. Too bad I wasted most of the little time I had to play this on just memorizing how to evade enemies, and not locating new weapons that could have helped to destroy them.

I chose Strite first because it's by far the easiest, I wanted to get guaranteed results. I chose Daser next because I discovered that I can just fly through the stage at the bottom of the screen, not scoring a lot but surviving. But when I found the hidden Free Way in Strite, I used that to mercilessly kill Daser enemies from my safe spot. I realized that even Air Raid and Ruins could be possible to no-miss with this weapon, but it was too late to try again