# of hours until 1cc Ikaruga

ktownhero · Post by **ktownhero** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:18 pm

Just curious what the rough number of hours it took people around here to 1cc Ikaruga. I think I'm at around 15 hours of total playtime with the game so far, and I'm not close. I get caught up playing for score a bit too much (the chain system in this game is so addictive once you get the hang of it). I really can only 1cc through level 3 so far, and haven't had the opportunity to really practice/learn levels 4 and 5 yet (although I have beaten the game). Still working on that S ranking for level 1, and I'm *so* close to being able to chain those crazy little ships in the first section of chapter 2 without dying. It's hard to find a balance between playing for survival to get further, and wanting to perfect the chains in the early levels.

I got set back for a few hours when my HRAP arrived, but I'm finally used to playing with a stick again.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:23 am

I think you're going about this the right way - chaining and trying to make progress.

Almost all the enjoyment of ikaruga comes from chaining, as it's not too hard to just plough through it without a care for score.

PROMETHEUS · Post by **PROMETHEUS** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:34 am

Depends a lot on how much time you've spent playing other shmups before that anyway.
If you've spent 200h on dodonpachi, you'll 1CC ikaruga a lot faster than if you've never played a shmup at all ;D

ktownhero · Post by **ktownhero** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:42 am

PROMETHEUS wrote:Depends a lot on how much time you've spent playing other shmups before that anyway.
If you've spent 200h on dodonpachi, you'll 1CC ikaruga a lot faster than if you've never played a shmup at all ;D

Ikaruga is the first shmup I've ever really played hardcore. I just got acquainted with Cave games a couple weeks ago. Still haven't put much time into any yet.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:45 am

ktownhero wrote: Ikaruga is the first shmup I've ever really played hardcore.

It was the first shmup I ever played seriously as well, back in early 2003. IIRC it took me between 60-80 hours for my first 1CC in normal mode, I think my score was 18mil (or 23?). I continued playing for another year or so improving my scores and 1CCing it countless times, then I finally managed a 1-life Clear with a score of 29.5 mil in early 2004.

Addictive as hell!

ktownhero · Post by **ktownhero** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:55 am

TWE wrote:
ktownhero wrote: Ikaruga is the first shmup I've ever really played hardcore.
It was the first shmup I ever played seriously as well, back in early 2003. IIRC it took me between 60-80 hours for my first 1CC in normal mode, I think my score was 18mil (or 23?). I continued playing for another year or so improving my scores and 1CCing it countless times, then I finally managed a 1-life Clear with a score of 29.5 mil in early 2004. Addictive as hell!

Nice! I can't wait to get that good. Glad to hear it really took that long though, it feels discouraging sometimes when I play for an hour and feel like I made no progress. It's not uncommon for me to replay level one over and over for an entire play session, lol. I've gotten an A++ so far, but I want that damn S!!!

Arvandor · Post by **Arvandor** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:18 am

Haha, I get restart syndrome in most games, but Ikaruga was the worst -_^

Ikaruga was my first 1cc, and the first shmup I reallly devoted any time to as well, and I think it took me about 80 hours for the first 1cc.

WarpZone · Post by **WarpZone** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:17 am

I took about 20 hours to 1CC easy and then about another 30 to 1CC Normal.

"It's hard to find a balance between playing for survival to get further, and wanting to perfect the chains in the early levels."

You'll also find that your early chaining will pay off with more lives to lead to that 1CC. In particular, the final boss tiers are the main 'survival' challenge of the game. Even seemingly hard sections, like lv. 4, usually have an 'easy' way to survive, but the final bosses do not. The fun (and challenging) part is picking what sections to chain better at, and what sections just to skip, and seeing the cummulative gains of applying that strategy over and over. Good luck

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:42 am

It's more a question of how quickly you're learning the game than how much time you've spent.

ave · Post by **ave** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:24 pm

Ikaruga was my first shmup and also the game which started my way into the import & collecting business. I can say that it started my whole passion for 2D-shooters, japanese language and collecting hard- & software. Wow. What a game that is

It took me about 90 hours to 1cc I believe, but consider that I was a noob before and that I got already 21mio on my first 1CC because I always restarted it if I made a single mistake untill stage 4.

ktownhero · Post by **ktownhero** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:32 pm

Twiddle wrote:It's more a question of how quickly you're learning the game than how much time you've spent.

Well, yeah, obviously. I was just curious to know roughly how long it actually took some people around here.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:11 am

I've spent over 100 hours and I never got close. But I am very very bad at these games.

msm · Post by **msm** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:43 am

Ikaruga was the game that got me into shmups too, I've spent around 80+ hours on it and haven't got a 1cc yet! very close on easy, but no where near on normal. i'm rubbish though so don't let that put you off

Kaede · Post by **Kaede** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:04 pm

Took me 30hrs to 1cc easy mode, then about another 20 or so to 1cc normal mode with a score of around 16m. I'm now up to 20m in Normal mode.

This is the game that got me back into gaming and shmups in paticular. I think before this I hadn't played a shooter in about 3-4years.

Daigoro · Post by **Daigoro** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:23 pm

ive never done it myself.

if its the first shmup youre trying to 1CC it may be difficult. like you i found it very difficult to strike a balance between chaining and surviving.

look up a few posts at the 80-100hrs spent without being able to 1CC. id say youre looking at around that amount of time to get close unless things start going really well for you. like most shmups things start to get really hectic around and after stage 3.

good luck. youve got a lot of work ahead of you.

99pence · Post by **99pence** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:52 pm

I've played it for 11 hours. I still haven't done it yet.

The great thing about Ikaruga it's like a normal game most of the way through where you can see where you went wrong. That is until the final boss when it turns into your typical shmup 'how the dickens am I spose to do that, it is silly difficult' mode.

jp · Post by jp » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:48 pm

A week I think. It didn't take me too long, then again, I wasn't playing for score since it was before I ever found shmups.com.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:57 pm

I watched Kiken's replays before I ever played the game. That may be partially responsible for taking me so long to learn. But if I hadn't seen them, I might not have enjoyed Ikaruga (and other shooters) as much, and never have appreciated the skill required to get high scores.

I may pick it up again later, but I don't want to have so much stuff at once, I've never truly tried focusing on 1 or 2 shooters but I have a good chance now, and Ketsui, ESP RaDe, and a bit of Judgement Silversword are taking those slots.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:25 am

ktownhero wrote:Just curious what the rough number of hours it took people around here to 1cc Ikaruga. I think I'm at around 15 hours of total playtime with the game so far, and I'm not close. I get caught up playing for score a bit too much (the chain system in this game is so addictive once you get the hang of it). I really can only 1cc through level 3 so far, and haven't had the opportunity to really practice/learn levels 4 and 5 yet (although I have beaten the game). Still working on that S ranking for level 1, and I'm *so* close to being able to chain those crazy little ships in the first section of chapter 2 without dying. It's hard to find a balance between playing for survival to get further, and wanting to perfect the chains in the early levels.

I got set back for a few hours when my HRAP arrived, but I'm finally used to playing with a stick again.

just play it and enjoy it

like many have said, ika was sort of the game that turned me on to 2D shooters. overall, between GC and DC versions, i've probably done 150-200 hours total

[/quote]

the common consensus from the players on ikaruga.co.uk was that you don't start getting really good until you've clocked 3-4 hundred hours...! my advice is to balance scoring and survival. and the more you play, the better you'll get; and the better you get, the more you'll play. just have fun with it, it's probably the greatest game you'll ever play

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:14 am

Wow, I'm such a push-over. I can beat level 3, but never see myself getting past level 4. Honestly, the last level is easier for me than level 4.

Congrats to those who can do it (that's probably a lot of you.) The great thing is that sucking at shmups does not preclude enjoying them--for instance, my personal goal at donpachi doj being 1cc'ing it up to the 3rd level mid-boss

ktownhero · Post by **ktownhero** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:44 pm

jpj wrote: and the more you play, the better you'll get; and the better you get, the more you'll play. just have fun with it, it's probably the greatest game you'll ever play

Is that the truth, ever. I'm blown away by how many layers there are to this game. As soon as you master one thing, you move on to the next level. First it's surviving, then it is basic chaining, then advanced chaining, then it is extra bullet eating, then it is getting faster to get those bonus chains - and then you discover a whole new way to chain and start over again

... DOES IT EVER END? I hope not.

ktownhero · Post by **ktownhero** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:33 pm

So, back when this post originated I probably stopped at around 25 hours of playtime in this game, only to fire it back up with the XBLA release and I'm fully addicted again.

It was actually nice getting that time off from the game, I think it helped me look at the game from a fresh perspective. I immediately find myself being more creative with chaining.

I'm not back up to par for myself overall yet (I was chaining level 1 and then "surviving" to level 4 back in the day for around a 9mil score I think), but I'm better at the core game. I still haven't gotten an S on chapter 1 but an A+ is standard for me, and I can pretty easily B++ or A chapter 2. Haven't even beaten Chapter 3 on a 1cc yet on the xbla release, but I can feel myself getting close. I just really suck on that mini boss (is that shigi?)

I just freakin' love this game... I'm slowly, but most assuredly, making progress. I'm not getting as far in the game lengthwise, but the quality of my chaining is much better. Guess I just gotta keep playing, and playing, and playing and playing

... maybe one day I'll get that 1cc!!!

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:03 pm

jpj wrote:it's probably the greatest game you'll ever play

WTF?!

You guys are going to hate my review. But that's cool, I'll stand by it.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:10 pm

fuck you

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:07 pm

HA HA!

brokenhalo · Post by **brokenhalo** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:16 pm

i put about 25 hours on gc ikaruga back in the day (just checked my last save from dec 23, 2003, lol) and only managed to make it up to the level 4 boss on 1 credit. i'm glad to see that everyone else took a good long time to really get this game down. makes me feel a lot less garbage.

but now the addiction is back, and theres an acheivement on the end of that stick....i think i'm going to be putting a lot more time into ika now. and i've got a few non-shmup playing friends playing it too now. thats always good for competition.

now if i could only remember how to chain the beginning of stage 2 again

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:36 pm

glad to know you're still playing it ktown. it's great to see a whole bunch of people pick this up who otherwise may not have ever heard of it. our part-timer got the demo the other day, and really liked it. in fact i think he's probably bought it since i last saw him. i brought in the dc version and played it in the office, 19m with a stock dreamcast pad. i've still got it!

ktownhero wrote:Guess I just gotta keep playing, and playing, and playing and playing

yep!

ktownhero wrote: ... maybe one day I'll get that 1cc!!!

definitely

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:05 pm

I've been practicing it on easy mode with extends every 2 mil and 5 stock, and I finally 1cc'd it that way some time last semester. Took about 25-30 hours (only 25 are registered on my memory card but I know I played more than that without saving) I know it wasn't even a legitimate 1cc but it was still one of the happiest moments of my life. What an amazing feeling! I can't wait until I do it on easy mode with default settings.

I've been taking a break since that run, which has turned into months of non-play. I should really pick it back up at some point.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:15 pm

this thread on super-play forum is a great read:

Diary of a 1cc Wannabe

KindGrind · Post by **KindGrind** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:22 pm

Played it for 50 hours+, no 1CC. The only real tricky parts for me are lvl 3 midboss (for obcsure reasons) and chaining+surviving 4-2. Terrible.

shmups.system11.org

# of hours until 1cc Ikaruga

# of hours until 1cc Ikaruga

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