shmups.system11.org

General Information

Please note that this guide will be corrected/refined/added to...whenever, is incomplete, and may not feature optimal/best ways to do things until contributors (I hope, though rather unlikely) or I can pull them off with consistency.

Table of Contents

1 - General Information
2 - Simulation Level 01
3 - Simulation Level 05 (incomplete)
4 - Simulation Level 10 (N/A)
5 - Simulation Level 15 (incomplete)
6 - Simulation Level 20 (N/A)
7 - Simulation Level 30 (N/A)
8 - Simulation Level 35 (N/A)
9 - Simulation Level 40 (N/A)
10 - Simulation Level 45 (N/A)
11 - Simulation Level 50 (N/A)
12 - Real Battle Phase 1 (N/A)
13 - Real Battle Phase 2 (N/A)


Medaling in RFJ

Airborne medals can be combined with any medal to become higher-value medals, starting from a value of 100 to a value of 2048000 (which gives a special sound when made, and looks purple, blinging, and gold.)

To get the airborne medals to stick around and follow you, you have to have at least one Slave active, or graze. Since the latter isn't really an option in most cases, it's best to keep only one Slave around or you risk the airborne medal being prematurely collected before it hits the 2 million mark (32 medals collected). A special formation such as Forward may also prevent you from obtaining the medals until you destroy the slaves, so be careful.



After the 2048000 point medal is collected, 9 100-point medals have to be exposed (combining them will "destroy" the 100-point medals, so be careful) to enable the special medal mode.

The special medal mode will drastically increase your rank in RFJ. The medal value is increased Garegga style (10000 to 100000 in 10000 point steps), but without the possibility of recovering their value.

If you drop a medal in the special medal mode, the value for the next medal(s) that appear will go back down to 10000 and you will have to build the medal chain again.

A good run involving only Medaling and surviving can recieve anywhere between 65 to 80 million points by the end of Real Battle Phase 2, so new players might want to aim for this goal.


Rank in RFJ (section info by ycw)

It is largely dependent on power and medals collected. The rank immedately shoots up once you reach these power levels:

Normal Ships:
Power 4 (out of 5)

Slave/Fairy/Miclus:
Power 4 (out of 5)

Guest Ships:
Main Weapon Power 4 + Subweapon Power 4 (out of 5 each)

Basically there's no real way to avoid this, so put up with it.

Medals slightly increase rank per medal collected. In X-MEDAL mode, medals substantially increase rank per medal collected, so there is no hope of you ever having a low rank level once you enable special medals and collect them.

You can reduce rank for a short time if you suicide both slaves in the JP/XBOX 360 version, or suicide one slave in the US/Asia versions.

Dying will drastically reduce rank, but it's bad for score as you'll see later in this post.


Extends

There are none in the PCB or on the Arcade/lower difficulties of the Aces port, but extends are granted in the Aces-exclusive looping difficulty settings Hard (2 loops) and Very Hard (16? loops) at the end of each loop.


Formation Sum

After you have collected two Slave pods and still have 2 Slaves active, collecting an extra Slave pod will change what your slaves do when you deploy the charge attack (or if you're playing a ship without one, this is always active) depending on your Lives + Bombs.

Example:
0 Lives + 7 Bombs = Formation Sum 7
1 Life + 3 Bombs = Formation Sum 4

The easier (harder to some) way to think of this is that the formation sum is judged by a MOD 4 system. but we'll use real numbers anyway to make things simpler.


Formation Sum Effects

For normal ships, these are active when the charge attack is unleashed.
For guest and secret ships, these are active all the time.

0, 4, 8 [Forward]
Forward 2-way Spray, slaves stick out 30 degrees left and right in front of you

1, 5, 9 [Hold/Shadow]
Laser Hold (charge), Laser Snake (no charge)
For those without a charge attack, this can be used as a shield by pressing against the edge of the playing area. Good for 8 hits, replenishes slowly if slaves aren't hit for a while.

2, 6 [Sweep]
Side-To-Side Super-Wide 3-Way Spray, slaves stick a little way behind you going side to side

3, 7 [Tracking]
"Smart" (Stupid) Tracking Formation where they always charge into enemies, never useful unless you want the slaves gone for whatever reason


Bonus Message Chaining System

You might notice some X2/X3/Xn multipliers on some bonuses you achieve. RFJ actually employs a sort of chaining system that depends on the number of special messages you activate on screen. Each consecutive message you activate adds 1 to your bonus multiplier to a max of 9, and 3 messages are displayed at a time (though this doesn't really mean anything to the actual multiplier, but is really the length of time the chain can max out at). The chain is broken when the last message completely disappears.

Collectable bonuses like Fairies or destroyed Miclii are worth one message more but still aren't worth more than x9.

Example:

DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100000x1)
DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100000x2)
QUICK SHOT! (50000x3)
QUICK SHOT! (50000x4)

(messages disappear)

DISCOVERED THE FAIRY! (0x1)
(collected fairy while this message is still on screen, 100000x2)

(or, waited until fairy throws bomb (message disappears exactly when the fairy does this) then collected, 100000x1)

Killing fairies also adds 1 to your multiplier, but you may lose technical point counter, so do this only if you know your bonus chain will benefit more than your stage score.


End of Stage Bonus Tabulation (section info by ycw)

The end of stage bonus is as follows:

ABILITY SCORE * MEDALS COLLECTED * TECHNICAL SCORE

The most apparent modifier to the end of stage bonus is the amount of medals you have collected in a stage, but it may seem unclear what the Ability Score and Technical Score counters mean. Some data is currently missing, but here's what's been discovered:


Ability Score (work in progress)

Generally, the value of any enemy you kill and the BASE value (not post-combo) of any event bonus you trigger, divided by 500 is your ability score. Collecting or destroying fairies does not influence this value. There's a further modifier depending on your stage number, but it is currently unclear.


Technical Score

Not dying in a stage: +5

Destroying over 80% of targets in a stage: +3 (apparently not awarded after you continued)
Destroying over 50% of targets in a stage: +2 (apparently not awarded after you continued)
Destroying over 20% of targets in a stage: +1 (apparently not awarded after you continued)

Collecting over 80% of discovered fairies: +1 (must be at least 1 discovered+collected)
Destroying over 80% of discovered miclus:: +1 (must be at least 1 discovered+collected)

Depending on your medal count and ability score, a loss of a technical point could be a loss of a million points. If you are adopting tactics such as fairy killing in stage 45, remember to be sure that you've collected all the other fairies and make sure you do it in a stage that has at least 5 fairies available.

Not all stages have Fairies and Miclus available, so here's a chart of the maximum technical score you can obtain in the stages:

Simulation Level 01: 10 (3 Fairies / 1 Miclus)
Simulation Level 05: 10 (6 Fairies / 3 Miclii)
Simulation Level 10: 9 (No Fairies / 1 Miclus)
Simulation Level 15: 10 (7 Fairies / 3 Miclii)
Simulation Level 20: 9 (2 Fairies / no Miclus)
Simulation Level 30: 8 (No Fairies / no Miclus)
Simulation Level 35: 9 (1 Fairy / no Miclus)
Simulation Level 40: 8 (No Fairies / no Miclus)
Simulation Level 45: 10 (6 Fairies / 3 Miclus)
Simulation Level 50: 9 (5 or 6 Fairies / no Miclus) (The fourth tank/sixth Fairy's condition is not clear.)

Real Battle 2 (looping versions/difficulties only): (13(!) Fairies / 3 Miclus)
(It is not score efficient to uncover all of the Fairies, though, as a good Quick Shot / Destroyed at a Time chain along with fairy collection may be worth more.)


Ship Selecting

There are only 3 ships worth using: Slave, Ixion, and Judge Spear. This is due to their speed and weapon power, which is required to perform chains more easily.

Ixion's laser attack is the strongest in raw damage, though it doesn't have the special "always on" slave formations. The missile attack is piss, avoid.

Judge Spear is the fastest ship and has the 2nd most damaging bomb and 2nd largest bomb radius (winner of those categories goes to the Raiden Mk2 and Mk2B respectively) but with a slight bomb delay. The weapons are piss weak in comparison to the other two and have to be individually upgraded (L upgrades machine guns, M upgrades missiles), though.

The Slave is a tiny ship with a powerful generic weapon that doesn't need L/M maintenance. It has the same bomb and speed of the ship you select with this. To use a Slave (or Fairy if you choose Miclus) hold Bomb after inserting credit, press Start, then release Bomb.

For those using the PCBs, the Ixion has to be available for the Slave/Fairy to be selected.

For those playing the Xbox 360 port, selecting a Slave/Fairy is as simple as holding Bomb before selecting a fighter.


Hit Boxes

Thanks ycw!

Red areas are the grazing hitboxes, yellow areas are the collision hitboxes.


Stage Paths

more concrete info by ycw from this post:
Sim 01 moves to Sim 05

Sim 05 moves to Sim 10 if you lose two lives throughout Sim 01 and Sim 05
Sim 05 moves to Sim 15 otherwise

Sim 10 moves to Sim 30 if you have not died in Sim 10
Sim 10 moves to Sim 20 otherwise (impossible on default settings if you don't continue)

Sim 15 moves to Sim 30 if you have not died in Sim 15
Sim 15 moves to Sim 20 otherwise

Sim 20 moves to Sim 30 if you have used a continue
Sim 20 moves to Sim 40 if:
-you destroyed more than 98% of enemies
-AND collected more than 90% of medals
Sim 20 moves to Sim 35 otherwise

Sim 30 moves to Sim 45 if you have no missed all stages reached including Sim 30
Sim 30 moves to Sim 40 if otherwise

Sim 35 ends the game (ALL1 condition), or loops in US/Asia

Sim 40 moves to Sim 35 if you've used more than 3 continues (game gives you a funny message?)
Sim 40 moves to Sim 50 if:
-you've used continues but less than or equal to 3
-AND/OR you fail to have the special medal mode
-AND/OR if you have timed out at least one boss
Sim 40 moves to Real Battle otherwise

Sim 45 moves to Sim 50 if:
-you fail to have the special medal mode
-AND/OR you have timed out at least one boss
Sim 45 moves to Real Battle otherwise

Sim 50 ends the game (ALL2 condition), or loops in US/Asia

If you have died at all in Phase 1, you do not get the True Last Boss and you recieve the bad ending (city implied to be nuked). The bad ending gives you a 1 million point end bonus. The stage marker at the end of your score is still marked ALL3.

Otherwise, if you do not die in Phase 1, the end bonus for completing Phase 2 as well as the True Last Boss is 10 million.

Continuing in Real Battle prevents you from seeing the True Last Boss.

In the US/Asia version and Aces Hard/Very Hard, should you die in Phase 1, you just get a truncated Phase 2 without TLB as well as the loop upon completion. The above two conditions and bonuses still apply in the loop.

Further loops, however, will count deaths in previous loops. For example, if you have died once in the first loop and completed it, and died again in Sim 05, the game will send you to Sim 10.


Non-Stage Specific Fairy Retrieval



The red line is roughly in between the start of the last third and last fourth of the screen.

If you destroy the tank turret after it touches it you don't get the fairy.

The tank will still shoot at you if you're not on top of it, and most of the tank auxiliary guns are brutal, so be careful.


Regional Differences

Japan
(Need more info on rank cap/speed)
-requires BOTH slaves to be suicided to reduce rank temporarily
-2 seconds to reveal a Miclus
-one loop, with an Expert Course unlocked with a one-credit ALL3

US
(Need more info on rank cap/speed)
-requires one slave to be suicided for temporary rank decrease
-0.3 seconds to reveal a Miclus
-two loops, second loop has really slow suicide bullets

Asia
(Need more info on rank cap/speed)
-requires one slave to be suicided for temporary rank decrease
-2 seconds to reveal a Miclus
-two loops, second loop has really slow suicide bullets


The Xbox 360 Aces port is identical to the Japanese region for Normal and Arcade difficulties.


shit that doesn't fit anywhere else

- Point blanking deals about 25% to 50% more damage for most of your weapons, and 25% more damage as Slave.
-- Raiden MkII cannot point blank.


useful linx

http://rf-emporium.ghegs.com/ - HI

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hWsU9Emfz6Y - My false start reel where I suicide then restart or just restart if I make a single mistake. Comedy deaths in sim 05!

http://ddp.doorsclosing.com/movies/rfj_st/ - Development folder for this thread

http://www2c.biglobe.ne.jp/~abfuku/raiden/rf_index.html - A.B. DAYO's Raiden Freaks guide, for anyone who can read Japanese


thanks to

Seibu Kaihatsu - for making their last game their greatest
Insanity Naked Hunter - specifically NER, as his game vids were great
Alamone - tipzz on irc
Alluro - tipzz on youtube and a great video showing the boss fight patterns
A.B. DAYO - Helpful stage maps, and the route guide. Wish I could read Japanese so I can make sense of his (much more detailed) stage guides.
incognoscente - correct technical score information
Icarus - allowing me to nick his stuff for the guide, tipzz
ycw - chasing the 2-ALL3, INH hitbox scans, PCB rank, stage paths, score tabulation, and various other info

I am taking contributions and will credit accordingly. Your name will have bolded color in the section you contributed to and you'll feel great* for contributing.

* - not guaranteed, may feel the exact opposite, proceed with caution

Simulation Level 1

General Info:

The biggest and most important trick to scoring in Raiden Fighters Jet is enabling the special X-MEDAL mode. Medalling can be worth over 50 million points over the course of the game. It's convenient that you can enable it in the very first stage, so here some important factors in achieving this:











The total amount of medals obtained from all the targets before the boss (provided you have performed all the important Quick Shots) is 32, exactly the amount needed to create a Golden Eagle medal. Collect it.



Miscellaneous

I'm not sure whether this is important in preventing the tanks and plane on the hangar from disappearing, but it helps your stage ability score nonetheless so go for it.


All three of these targets can be chained together for a total of three Destroyed At A Time bonuses, since they are all linked to each other. The easiest way to obtain these is to significantly damage the large tank boxed in yellow first, then throw a bomb at the two boxed in green, then fly back down to finish off the front tank.

You can bolster the effect by hanging around their dead zones for Quick Shots upon destruction, and/or exposing the fairy of the front tank by damaging it just enough to blow off its main gun, then let it reach the bottom third of the screen.

You can also collect the Fairy while the messages are still on screen for 100000 x whatever you got the multiplier to, but the Fairy's location is tricky as she may dock on top of a medal.


The matching color boxed targets will yield Destroyed At A Time bonuses, and if they are shot before the boss finishes moving up, they will also yield Quick Shot bonuses. You can chain all of them together.

The targets boxed in yellow have significantly more health than the ones boxed in green, so damage those first.
I suggest not destroying them first as the yellow targets are worth 100000 upon quick shot and the green targets are only worth 50000.

Extra Technical Point requirements:

Miclus available: Yes
Fairy available: Yes

Walkthrough-Specific Video:
WIP

Simulation Stage 05

DX Bonuses




Fairy Location



These Fairies do not drop Bombs, but the crane drops one when destroyed regardless.

It is possible to chain these fairies so they're worth up to 500k each instead of the usual 200k per by waiting until the crane goes near the APCs (shooting off a pest tank in anticipation), moving in between the APCs and dropping a bomb, point blanking them both to prevent them from shooting within the bomb (for Quick Shot), ensuring their simultaneous destruction. Then, uncover the fairies but make sure you move in a way that you don't get hit doing so. (video)


Miclus Location



Alternative strategy for First Miclus:
You can instead get rid of the first two pest tanks, then the two coal trucks on the left, then destroy the first sniper tank. Then deal with the DX Bonus as you wish, destroy the second sniper tank, then reveal the Miclus.

3rd Miclus Worst Case Scenario:


After destroying of the second slave pod carrier (and hopefully obtaining DX bonus (obviously not accomplished in this screenshot) destroy the blue target then the pest turrets on the train as they appear on screen and move to the spot marked 1. The train turrets' position seems to be judged by how quickly you destroy the front car beforehand, so adjust your movement path accordingly (alternate path is in a slight green color.)

Then, quickly move in front of the APC (spot marked 2) and destroy it for a Quick Shot, dodging the fire from the large turret or blocking the fire with your slaves.

Note that you cannot hover over the large turret just yet, as pest planes will appear, intending to ram you if you're not firing.

Then, dash to the spot marked 3 as the turret highlighted green appears and destroy it. Depending on where the large turret is aiming, directly hover over the large turret or circle around to hover it.

Best Case Scenario: If your timing is extremely fast, the last step (destroying green turret/circling around large turret) can be bypassed. Watch out for the pest planes. (video)


Boss Chaining Guide

This is purely optional, and depending on your strategy and ship, this will ruin your formation control. But if you need a quick 1.3 million points...

Requires: Ixion, Slave w/Snake formation, 2 bombs

Instead of immediately destroying the miniturret of the boss, burst fire it enough so that it can be damaged quickly when you get to it.

Then, dash to the very right side of the screen and drop a bomb when the fuel cans are about to leave the screen, then immediately dash back to the left side of the screen and shoot the left turret off. During this process, the right turret will explode and, depending on your timing, will provide you a simultaneous destruction bonus.

Then, quickly position yourself in one front of the two shell turrets near the core of the boss while keeping your firepower active in anticipation of the turrets being exposed. By then you'll shoot one off quickly, so immediately dash to the other turret and quickly destroy it.

The last and most annoying step is to destroy the large side turrets, so position yourself in front of one of those, wait 1/2 of a second, then release a bomb. Immediately move to the other turret, and destroy that quickly.

If done and timed correctly, you will recieve:

QUICK SHOT! (50000x1)
QUICK SHOT! (50000x2)
DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100000x3)
DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100000x4)
DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100000x5)

Video displaying the tactic(s) described in this section (no audio; jack was disconnected)


Other notes

For every Miclus you miss, the targets after the crane disappear, in this order:

Bomber
APC
APC

each of which is necessary to do the x5 and x6 version of the fairy chain, and to have better control over your formations.

There are many possible chains regarding the APCs, slave carriers, DX Bonuses, and miclus retrieval points. The most easily obtainable one is the only one described in this stage guide.

This stage is now mostly complete, but may need continued ongoing work. And clearer descriptions, too.


Full stage videos

Imperfect Sim 05, no boss chaining + 1 missed medal (expect a redo)

Simulation Level 15

FREE BOMBS!

After collecting the Fairy, several waves of pest planes will appear. Immediately after the wave containing a pest that drops a medal, a large bomber plane will appear from either the left or right side. Quick shot this to get an extra Bomb, and another will appear, each dropping an extra bomb. This repeats until:

-The 4th bomber appears
-You fail to quick shot a bomber

Be aware of the pest hovercrafts firing at you, as attempting to quickshot these bombers will leave you vulnerable to them, either by directing your fire away from them or by overlapping them so you can't shoot them.

Depending on your luck on bomber positioning and/or your slave formation if you have a special ship (Laser and Super-Wide have the firepower and positioning necessary to chain these Quick Shots), you can get a combined Quick Shot bonus of 1,000,000 points.

Video displaying the tactic(s) described in this section


Fairy Location

Single Fairy:
The bomb-dropping Fairy in this level, if you don't want to take one from the mess of large tanks after the lake, requires you to quick-shot all of the shell launchers in the stage.

X - Slave Pod Carrier (not necessary to quick shot)
O - Shell Launcher
C - Charlie Tank(s)
F - Fairy
M - Miclus

(comes from from bottom to top)

After the Charlie appears on the screen, two pest planes will come from the left, then two more will come from the right, a shell launcher immediately trailing the latter two. Anticipate it with your firepower.

Then, dash to the left to get rid of the 3 Charlies on the left (but don't collect the medals yet), dash back to the middle of the screen to kill another shell launcher, then collect the medals the Charlies leave behind, then move to shoot down the third shell launcher.

Before you reach the lake, a slave pod carrier will appear. Shoot this down, and hover over the tree to the upper right of the hole to reveal the Miclus and make it shit medals.

(You can choose to adjust your slave formation accordingly during this process. The Super Wide formation is recommended if you wish to get rid of the pest hovercraft immediately after the first shell launcher.)

As you enter the lake area, anticipate and shoot down the first shell launcher on the right, while watching out for the crap shots the pests fire at you. The shell launchers will then appear in 3 groups of two starting farther on the side, from the left, from the right, then the left again. Upon quick shotting the 10 shell launchers the fairy should appear on the right side of the screen, from a tree.

Due to the ridiculously high chance of your message chain multiplier being x8 if you've shot down all the shell launchers at the lake, it is more lucrative to collect the fairy as it appears than to wait for it to drop a bomb.

Video displaying this tactic

Bombless Fairies:



Miclus Location






Boss Chaining Guide

Requires: 1 Bomb, 2 tanks running perfectly left and right waiting to be crushed, a ship that's not Raiden MKIIb, 2 bottles of Bawls

Do your best to clear the tanks that are not the aforementioned, and just as the first Fairy is revealed, drop a bomb on the boss at the bottom of the screen making sure the first fairy is outside the bomb radius, damage the two exposed turrets on the boss until they're destroyed, and then after they're destroyed, collect the fairies as soon as possible.

If done correctly, you will recieve:

DISCOVERED THE FAIRY! (0x1)
DISCOVERED THE FAIRY! (0x2)
QUICK SHOT! (100000x3)
QUICK SHOT! (100000x4)
DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100000x5)
(collect fairy) (100000x6)
(collect fairy) (100000x6)

Video displaying the tactic(s) described in this section


Other notes

stupid twiddle, stop linking to the wrong video

There's a chain past the lake involving the slave pod carrier, the two tanks, the two Miclus, the four mid-large attack planes, and the Fairy from the second tank but I refuse to do that shit.

Simulation Level 15 is my new F3 syndrome point.


Full stage videos

Icarus' sim 15 video; features x6 fairy collection and no-mess boss kill, also unbroken medal chain

Nice, good stuff. I like how you're using the multipost way of ST writing, makes it easier to update and add stuff. ^_-

For 01, It is possible to link the miclus in with the boss turret chain, however the timing is very difficult to do. I've done it before, and the total score after bonuses for the stage with this trick is around 11-12mil.

I think you forgot to note the tricky 'getting the Fairy for 100k x8' following the 3 large tanks chain. It's hard to do, and not worth the risk unless you're comfortable doing it.

Two clips by me, one using Flying Ray, the other using Judge Spear's Slave.

Also, might want to note that the clip of NER playing on the RFJ Omake disc (found on the INH website) gives an alternative max medal technique that gives over 12mil by stage end.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For 05, there is actually a higher scoring chain involving the Fairies rail. However, it starts with the last DX Bonus. The chain goes:

> Quick Shot (small tank next to miclus)
> DX Bonus
> Discovered Miclus
> Quick Shot (first large bomber)
> (collect miclus)
> Quick Shot (second large bomber)
> Quick Shot (small tank on left next to Fairies rail)
> Discovered Fairies
> (collect fairies)

Very hard to do, however.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For 15, there are actually 3 bombless Fairies. One of the tanks that come in from the lower-left corner (where the large tank is inbetween the two Miclii) moves up the screen, but it's exceptionally hard and risky to do. Your method is easier.

The x8 Fairy chain makes me want to kill myself each time I try it. I have pulled it off on the US version...once.

Can I put your JS Stage 1 on the guide? It features the luck-required fairy positioning needed for the 800k pickup.

You don't need to ask, you know. ^_-

Other things about Level 15 to note:

1) You can actually chain the four bomb-carrying large planes together and get x4 for the last one. However, you can only do this by bombing (which is a bit wasteful), or by having two Slaves with a powerful attacking formation, such as the sweeping three-way ones, or the laser-firing ones (recommended).

2) The boss can be killed quickly with a two-bomb tech which is demonstrated in this Level 15 replay.

thanks for the guide! I have just ordered this board so the timing of publishing your guide is excellent. looking forward to playing RFJ even more now.

One thing about Level 20 to note:
If you destroy some planes too quickly on beginning, medals will change into RF style medals and rank will increase to hell! trust me

Anyway awesome guide

Nope, read the OP.

hmm..
Jap.ver & Asia. ver : There is no rank difference (exactly same)
US ver : Slightly high rank

Asia seemed to be slower when I played it in MAME. Emulation problem, maybe?

I have Japan ver. & Asia ver RFJET PCBs.(cartridge ver.)
There is no quality & rank difference compared to Jap ver.
US ver. RFJET is the single board ver.PCB, and games are not swappable. There is no quality difference and slightly faster.

Probably an emulation problem or a bad dump for MAME, then.

Great guide Twiddle, has helped me lots.
One thing though,


This doesn't seem to be correct. I wanted to get the ALL1 so I suicided on 15 and 20 to get to 35. But forgot the suicide on 20 one time and still got level 35, even though I had a technial score of 8. I tried to avoid quickshots etc as much as possible, so perhaps it's based on ability. Tried it on both US and JP roms, same result.

Did you have the special medal mode? That loosens the requirements on stage route a bit.

If you did, getting oodles of quickshots and simultaneous destructon bonuses is kind of habitual for me, so I'll update it and investigate when I get home, further investigation pending when STGT is over.

Nope, I didn't trigger the special medals.

Yeah, that might have done it. The stage requirements are tougher without it.

Lv20 :1) enemy destruction percentage( 98%over) & collected medal (80%over) ->Lv40
2)otherwise->Lv35

Boss(Self Destruction) -> Always lv50(lv45->lv50,lv40->lv50)

(lv1->Lv5 ):2miss->lv10
(lv1->lv5)1miss or no miss->lv15

Lv10(1miss)->lv20(impossible!(defalut setting))
lv10(no miss)->lv30

true last boss requirement (ph1 no miss)

jap ver. ph1(1miss)-ph2(boss) (1mil pts clear bonus, bad ending)

ph1(no miss)-ph2(boss) -true last boss (10mil clear bonus & ending)

other ver. ph1(1miss)-ph2(boss)->briefing->2nd loop
ph1(no miss)-ph2(boss) -true last boss->briefing->2nd loop

TECHNICAL SCORE

level 1 : max 3 fairies & 1miclus ,Highest technical score =10
level 5 : max 6 fairies & 3 miclus ,Highest technical score =10
level 10 : no fairy & 1 miclus , Highest technical score =9
level 15 : max 7 fairies & 3 miclus, Highest technical score =9
level 20 : max 2 fairies & no miclus ,Highest technical score =9
level 30 : no fairy&miclus ,Highest technical score =8
level 40 : no fairy&miclus ,Highest technical score =8
level 45 : max 6 fairies & 3 miclus,Highest technical score =10
level 50 : max 5 or 6 fairies(# of large tanks,usually 3 tanks. Sometimes 4 tanks, There is no information) & no miclus ,Highest technical score =9
ph1 : pass( Highest technical score =8,But there is no bonus..-_-;;)
ph2 : max 13 fairies !! & 3 miclus (In other to get higher score,usually get 4~6 fairies & quick shot & destroyed at a time combo bonus),Highest technical score =10(us,asia ver only)

(total # of collected fairies/total # of revealed fairies)*100% : 80%over->+1 tech score)
(total # of destroyed miclus/total # of revealed miclus)*100% : 80%over->+1 tech score)
enemy destruction percentage : 80% over -> +3
50~80% -> +2
20~50% -> +1
no miss : +5

maximum technical score : 1+1+3+5 =10