Cave marathon

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:23 pm

I'm planning on doing a Cave game marathon. Masochistically credit through every cave game all the way through the end. (the ones I have access to. so, the MAME'd ones, and the PS2 ports). Since it's 10 games, I plan to only play through 1 per night, for the next 2 weeks or so.
I suck, so I'm going to keep track of how many credits I use on each one. So far the only ones I've gotten even decent at are Dodonpachi and Progear, which I can beat with 3 credits. I fully expect to use about 100 zillion credits by the time I get to Ibara

Anybody else ever done anything similar?

elfhentaifan · Post by **elfhentaifan** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:32 pm

im doing this with friends.

playing only ONE credit each stage, second loop on doj, with 5 hypers in stock, etc.
I cant clearly remember but it was fun.

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:56 pm

I have not, but Raidenfighter Kirkov once did this in a single session. Unfortunately, the links for his pictures and write-up no longer work.

Necronopticous · Post by **Necronopticous** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:11 pm

I generally try to avoid creditfeeding, since I think the real fun and beauty of shmups comes from learning from your mistakes and subsequently coming to learn what the developers had in mind in each section of each stage.

It can be fun to plow through a game once or twice to see most of the patterns and enemies that the game has to offer, however, I typically like to keep them a secret and reward for myself for getting that far on a single credit.

I think the best time to creditfeed is plowing through a game in doubles mode with a friend. That can be both hilarious, and a lot of fun.

Just my personal preferences, though. Sounds like you'll have a good time.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:29 pm

Necronopticous wrote:I generally try to avoid creditfeeding, since I think the real fun and beauty of shmups comes from learning from your mistakes and subsequently coming to learn what the developers had in mind in each section of each stage.

It can be fun to plow through a game once or twice to see most of the patterns and enemies that the game has to offer, however, I typically like to keep them a secret and reward for myself for getting that far on a single credit.

I think the best time to creditfeed is plowing through a game in doubles mode with a friend. That can be both hilarious, and a lot of fun.

Just my personal preferences, though. Sounds like you'll have a good time.

I do appreciate this way of playing, however, it doesn't make much sense for getting better at the game.
You end up playing the easy 1st level every single time you play, and never get to the hard stuff. How am I going to know how to beat the last boss' pattern if I haven't played it more than twice? Since it's harder at the end, you need more practice at the last sections to get better at them. So why would I want to keep practicing the 1st level over and over (and wasting my time) when it is the last level I need to practice?
So at least by credit feeding, I play the whole game an equal amount.

Although I admit to frequently only putting in 1 or 2 or 3 credits in and then stopping. But I want to start credit feeding more to start getting better.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:33 pm

So why would I want to keep practicing the 1st level over and over

What's your 1st level score?

Post by **Dave_K.** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:44 pm

indstr wrote: So at least by credit feeding, I play the whole game an equal amount.

In general there is nothing wrong with this approach, if the goal is to eventually 1CC while ignoring score. But most shmup players here really rank their abilities by score (notice the HS threads).

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:44 pm

I never tried to do it in "all games I have of developer X" kind of sessions, but so far I've 2CC'd DDP (only 1st loop, obviously) and 3CC'd Guwange. The rest I either haven't finished, or just spent too many credits to count.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Wed May 21, 2008 9:05 pm

You end up playing the easy 1st level every single time you play, and never get to the hard stuff. How am I going to know how to beat the last boss' pattern if I haven't played it more than twice?

Well, if you can't continue to a later part, you'll be less likely to forget and make the same mistake again.

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Wed May 21, 2008 9:18 pm

i credit feed0red my way through stgt07

nobody could tell the difference

ForceDevice · Post by **ForceDevice** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:35 am

That's an interesting idea... I might decide to do the same one of these days, since I still haven't 1CC'd any MAME Cave game if I remember correctly (unless first loops count... and I've miraculously 2CC'd Guwange once, lol).

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:37 am

Donpachi was done tonight. 4 credits. Ship type B

Of all the Cave games, I've probably spent the least time with this one, except maybe Ibara. You can tell that Cave didn't really have the pacing down yet, there are lots of places with not many enemies coming out. Level 4 in particular seems to go on and on forever. And the cheap shots coming from behind are really frustrating. Level 5 is weird as crap, it feels more like level 2 of a Psikyo game than level 5 of a cave game. And I swear the last boss is easier than the level 2 boss (that motherfucker kills me every time)

Also the second loop is completely WTF. When I finished the 1st loop I didn't have any lives left. Thank you for giving me 7 bombs, and also 2 more during the level. On my little 1 life I ended up earning an extend, and getting to level 3 of the 2nd loop. LOL.

Still a nice game, but I doubt I will ever play it much more

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:53 am

lurn2ply

tommyb · Post by **tommyb** » Thu May 22, 2008 10:53 am

Sounds like a cool idea, man. I suck, too, so I'd credit feed the shit out of it as well, haha.

RGC · Post by **RGC** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:47 am

indstr wrote:Still a nice game, but I doubt I will ever play it much more

^That's the reason I try to avoid credit-feeding. For the same reason, I wouldn't watch an entire replay of a game I had only just purchased. It kills the surprise, and thus a large part of the potential reward.

I cannot imagine I'd return to any game I had credit-fed through to completion. Good luck with the mission though!

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:59 am

Credit feeding is bad if the game is "good".

sometimes the game just isn't worth your time so it's nice to pour 1 more credit to see if it gets better. Or credit feeding the whole game and not playing it again. But if the game is nice, fun, deep and so on(like cave shmups) you are just killing the whole surprise of "discovering" the later levels.

It's like a bag of candy, you can eat them one by one and enjoy it for hours or eat em all at once and only enjoy them for a few seconds.

That being said, using credits or save states to practice later levels is a good thing, but only when you try to "master" the game not when you still suck at it.

clp · Post by **clp** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:25 pm

shoe-sama wrote:lurn2ply

seriously credit feeding is pointless beyond belief , shmups are all about trial and error and most importantly practice , even in 2 player my friend and i would only ever use 1 cred each on dodonpachi until we 1 cced the first loop THAT was alot of fun working out a duel strategy .

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:28 pm

I should try playing DDP using dual C-S with someone. I wonder if we will ever get killed during levels like that. :D

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:30 pm

nimitz wrote:That being said, using credits or save states to practice later levels is a good thing, but only when you try to "master" the game not when you still suck at it.

Credit feeding doesn't ruin a game for me, I've fed through Under Defeat a bunch of times and I still like to play it to get better & better. "Mastering" a game to me isn't getting a good score (don't really care about score), but getting further with less attempts. So I was pretty proud when I beat UD in 3 credits

I've fed through Galuda about 5 times now and I still have a lot of desire to play it more. Since I still suck, a "3cc" is kind of my ultimate goal for a game right now. Once I get some more 3cc's under my belt, then I might go for 2cc's, down to 1cc's. I doubt I'll care much about score until I get to that point though. The only thing I care about score for is figuring out how many extends I can earn. (I've gotten 2 extends in Progear, thought that was pretty good).
But I figure it's just like DDR, when I was first starting off I cared about passing songs, it wasn't until later that I cared about how many perfects I got, etc. Same thing here, right now I am working on 3cc, 2cc, 1cc, and then later I might worry about score (maybe?)

I think it's part of my personality, I've always liked frustratingly difficult stuff. I feel it's a much better use of my free time to be playing level 5 of a game than it is level 1 a bunch of times. When I played DDR I always pushed forward and tried out songs I knew I wouldn't be able to pass or could barely pass, that's how I got better -- by challenging myself, not by playing the same level over & over I knew I could get a AA on

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Thu May 22, 2008 5:47 pm

credit feeding is pointless

use savestates instead

kemical · Post by **kemical** » Thu May 22, 2008 6:48 pm

indstr wrote:And I swear the last boss is easier than the level 2 boss (that motherfucker kills me every time)

interesting, the level 2 boss is super easy for me, the level 4 boss is really difficult for me though, the giant shots it fires screw me up. (I can't get past level 4)

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Thu May 22, 2008 8:48 pm

shoe-sama wrote:credit feeding is pointless

use savestates instead

I like savestates too. I practiced Progear this way and played through every level and every boss at least once without dying. It took a lot of reloading.

kemical wrote:interesting, the level 2 boss is super easy for me, the level 4 boss is really difficult for me though, the giant shots it fires screw me up. (I can't get past level 4)

Level 4 boss was hard too, I panic bombed the crap out of it.

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Thu May 22, 2008 10:49 pm

I've fed through Under Defeat a bunch of times and I still like to play it to get better & better. "Mastering" a game to me isn't getting a good score (don't really care about score), but getting further with less attempts. So I was pretty proud when I beat UD in 3 credits
I've fed through Galuda about 5 times now and I still have a lot of desire to play it more.

I'm not saying as soon as you feed through a game you will never play it again. I'm saying in the end you will get less enjoyment out of it.

Also instead of trying to "3cc" every shmup out there why not try too see how far you can get with only one credit and improve on that.

Stating you will never try to "score" is a bit foolish, scoring systems add a lot of depth to games and many shmups are designed around those systems. The beauty of it is that you can play for survival as much as you want or until you realize that they are in fact a huge part of what these games are and a big part of why people like these games.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:22 pm

nimitz wrote: Also instead of trying to "3cc" every shmup out there why not try too see how far you can get with only one credit and improve on that.

I did that on a couple of Doujin's (blue wish resurrection, etc), which was very rewarding, and a good start I thought. I don't really feel I'm ready/good enough to 1cc a cave game yet though.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:40 am

Dodonpachi was done tonight. 3 credits. Ship type B shot power

Man I'm REALLY close to a 2cc on this. This is the best I've done. I got to the 5th boss on the 1st credit (almost 15 million points). Got to the last boss on the end of the 2nd credit. Only 2 bombs left though and I tried saving them, but of course died.
If I hadn't botched the level 3 boss and died twice I probably would have done this in 2 credits

I'll try again for the 2cc after the marathon.

Now onto ESP Rade, which I've really been getting into lately, but still suck at

Edit: I tried Rade three or 4 times tonight but got frustrated with how early I died. I'll run through the whole thing tomorrow night for sure

kemical · Post by **kemical** » Fri May 23, 2008 4:19 am

you know, I really think the 2cc / 3cc approach can be helpful to some people, sometimes you really REALLY hit a wall in shooters and it can be discouraging, putting you off from the game, limiting your continues to a couple helps because while you may not get past that wall just yet, you may achieve or get further on other walls that happen in later stages, so it adds more variability to the success of each attempt.

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Fri May 23, 2008 2:50 pm

indstr, next time you're playing Dodonpachi, pick the C-S ship. That thing kills enemies so quickly they barely have time to shoot at you. It's almost a guaranteed 1cc.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Fri May 23, 2008 5:06 pm

Ruldra wrote:indstr, next time you're playing Dodonpachi, pick the C-S ship. That thing kills enemies so quickly they barely have time to shoot at you. It's almost a guaranteed 1cc.

I tried it once because of hearing people say just that, but I didn't quite like it. That was after spending my first 7 or so hours with the game just using A-S. I really like B-S though, the side cannons that rotate usually get all the crap at the sides of the screen

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Fri May 23, 2008 10:27 pm

There was a time when arcade games back in the 1980's were designed to eat yen and quarters by the mouthfuls -- given the idea that the arcade player has ample amounts of coinage to continue as necessary, that is. Thus the term "quarter muncher" arcade games were made to cash in on this very idea. Given enough time, practice, and money, said arcade game will be become easier to play due to memorization of said stages, enemy placement, etc. that the idea of "let's see how far can one get on just one coin/credit" comes into play... ^_~

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sat May 24, 2008 3:30 am

Ra.De. was done tonight ... either 6 or 7 credits depending on what the hell happened (I honestly don't know). I used the boy character with the straight shot

I got to level 4 on the first credit, and I was about to loose my last life near the beginning, and then I picked up this item, it was red and I think it said "Life up"... Suddenly, I had 4 lives again! What!!! Is this some kind of special pickup or was it some kind of bug?
So my first credit consist of 7 lives I guess, and I still didn't make it past the 4th boss without losing the first credit. But then when I started my second credit, I only had 1 credit left in MAME which confused me because I always insert 3 credits before I play a game ... So I am not sure if the "life up" thing automatically used my 2nd credit for me, & gave me a 4th life for it or what?

Anyway I still suck at this game , level 4 and 5 are ridiculous but I love them. The last pattern of the last boss is insane, I just bombed the crap out of it

Also I love how cave games give you powerups like there's no tomorrow. Oh, you died? Here's full power for your weapon.
Psikyo, on the other hand, are evil bastards. Oh, you died? Fuck you, here's a pea shooter. We're not giving you any more power ups until the next level!