GD: Shiki II, difficulty to ALL certain character types

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BER
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GD: Shiki II, difficulty to ALL certain character types

Post by BER »

Two information requests for Shikigami no Shiro II:
  1. For each of the eight characters (let Fumiko and Chibi Fumiko count as separate characters), which type does the Arcadia magazine record holder use? (If that's not available, referring to some other source like the Appreciate DVD is fine.)
  2. Among these character types, rank them according to the difficulty of achieving an ALL clear.
The purpose? To amuse myself, I want to achieve an ALL clear for as many characters as I can. To maintain a little sanity, I want to start with the easiest.

By the way, I've already cleared Shiki II with Kim (Type 2), which is arguably the easiest character type with which to beat the game.
Last edited by BER on Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Plasmo »

Arcadia WR scores for Shikigami II are as follows:

Oroshi (ORS) - Kuga Koutarou - 6.529.866.050
Yusemi SWY - Yuuki Sayo - 7.103.884.810
Hige-SADAM - Hyuga Gennojou - 6.252.394.990
Matsuki - Fumiko O.V. - 5.460.319.890
T.Y - Kim de John - 6.891.249.320
T3-CYR-WIZ - Niigi G.B. - 6.667.763.600
Dame K.K - Roger Sasuke - 6.558.937.500
EOT - Chibi Fumiko - 5.659.184.630
WSM-Y.S 333/DGR - 2Player - Kuga Koutarou/Roger Sasuke - 6.818.608.670

All are on the Appreciate DVD except: Fumiko O.V. (there is no replay at all with her), 2player (same as for Fumiko O.V.) and Kim de John (score on the DVD is 6,879,535,480 done by KDK-ASK).

I'd rank the difficulty to get the 1cc in 3 tiers:

Easy
Kuga Koutarou
Kim de John
Niigi G.B.

Medium
Yuuki Sayo
Hyuga Gennojou
Roger Sasuke

Hard
Chibi Fumiko
Fumiko O.V.
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Re: RQ: Shiki II, difficulty to ALL certain character types

Post by Kiken »

BER wrote:By the way, I've already cleared Shiki II with Kim (Type 2), which is arguably the easiest character type with which to beat the game.
I'd actually argue that Kohtaro (either Type) is the easier SCC as he doesn't need to be close to use his Shikigami Attack and he does a fair amount of damage. His bomb is also wide-reaching.
BER
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Post by BER »

Plasmo wrote:All are on the Appreciate DVD except: Fumiko O.V. (there is no replay at all with her), 2player (same as for Fumiko O.V.) and Kim de John (score on the DVD is 6,879,535,480 done by KDK-ASK).
Thanks for pointing this out, though I'm having trouble determining the types used for each character based on the trailer for the Appreciate DVD trailer. Is the following correct?
  • Kuga, Type 2
  • Sayo, Type 1
  • Hyuga, Type 2
  • Chibi Fumiko, Type 1
  • Kim, Type 2
  • Niigi, Type 2
  • Roger, Type 2
Plasmo wrote:Easy
Kuga Koutarou
Kim de John
Niigi G.B.
I'm surprised that Niigi would be an easy 1cc. I toyed around with her Type 2 in stage 5-2, and she does make the boss less stressful to fight against. But I'm having trouble using her for the rest of the game. I've only played with her for a few hours, though, so obviously, I need more practice. :)

Anyway, I'm currently using Kuga Type 2, so it's nice to know that I made a good decision. I'll think about the rest of the characters later.
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Re: RQ: Shiki II, difficulty to ALL certain character types

Post by BER »

Kiken wrote:
BER wrote:By the way, I've already cleared Shiki II with Kim (Type 2), which is arguably the easiest character type with which to beat the game.
I'd actually argue that Kohtaro (either Type) is the easier SCC as he doesn't need to be close to use his Shikigami Attack and he does a fair amount of damage. His bomb is also wide-reaching.
I've killed bosses quicker with Kim Type 2 than with Kohtaro Type 2 (I don't intend to use Type 1). For the bosses, I quickly learned when to attack close with Kim's Shikigami Attack and, if necessary, when to retreat. If I did retreat, then Kim's shot finishes off the current boss form quickly, sometimes quick enough before the boss switches to some difficult attack. With Kohtaro, either I have to dodge some tough patterns longer or I have to dodge some tough patterns that I don't see with Kim. So I'm not worried about the limited reach of Kim's Shikigami Attack.

(If this is unconvincing, I'll provide some examples of this later. I'm getting sleepy.)

Also, most of my deaths came from bosses, so the less time I spend with the bosses, the happier I'll be.

I still have yet to use Kohtaro's bomb effectively, though. The bomb has reach, sure, but if the enemy is at the edge of the blast radius, then the bomb does little damage. So I can't lounge at the bottom of the screen, activate the bomb, run up, and hope to do massive damage--Kohtaro moves too slowly for this. But if I can somehow set off the bomb in the center of the enemy, then I can do massive damage (more than with Kim's bomb). Right now, I'm learning where to position myself and when to activate the bomb to take advantage of this power.

As for the stage trips, I can survive comfortably both Kim Type 2 and Kohtaro Type 2. No meaningful comparisons to make here.

Overall, I think using Kim Type 2 is the easiest way to 1cc Shiki II, because he can kill bosses very quickly. But I haven't played Kohtaro as long as I have with Kim (about 5 to 10 hours with Kohtaro and about 15 to 20 hours with Kim), so I can still change my mind.
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Post by third_strike »

Kim 2 is by far the easiest!
Yuuki Sayo has an ultra hyper fire good for beat bosses!
I would like to see the replay of the Kuga 2 of the DVD!
Cool!
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Post by BER »

*** Updated Aug 10, 2008 ***

Note: The Arcadia record holder for Chibi Fumiko uses Type 2, not Type 1 as I thought. I'll leave the original post below intact, though.

. . .

A postmortem. I have cleared the game for each character in the following order:
  1. Kim (Type 2)
  2. Niigi (Type 2)
  3. Chibi Fumiko (Type 1)
  4. Kuga (Type 2)
  5. Fumiko (Type 1)
  6. Roger (Type 2)
  7. Sayo (Type 1)
  8. Hyuga (Type 2)
This is roughly how I would rank, from easiest to hardest, the difficulty of clearing the game for each character. This list includes only the character types that the Arcadia record holders used (I'm guessing on Fumiko's type, though). But except possibly for Niigi, the type for each character in the list is the better type for survival.

Now, a few surprises. First, I cleared the game with Niigi sooner than expected. Her type 2 shikigami is tough to use at first, mainly because I run into the bullets that I wanted to block with the shikigami. But after about ten hours of practice, I was able to control it well enough to clear the game.

By the way, I'm hesitant to recommend Niigi's type 1 shikigami for players who don't care about scoring at all. It does have a shield fixed in front of the character, so it's much easier to use. I'm just concerned about the boss attacks that come from the sides. It's probably not a big concern, but I need to test it to be sure. And I don't feel like doing that.

Second, I cleared the game with the two Fumikos much sooner than expected. I think players are afraid of standing still while aiming the shikigami attack. Notice, however, that the bosses take a while to start their attacks for each of their forms. So Fumiko can unleash a few shikigami blasts before she needs to actually start moving. And from there, the boss takes less time to beat than that used for the characters ranked lower in the list.

It looks strange that Kuga is wedged in between the Fumikos. I did use Kuga after clearing the game with Kim, but I had problems beating bosses comfortably with him. So I gave up on him for a while. When I tried using Fumiko after clearing the game with Chibi Fumiko, I found out that Fumiko needs to dodge attacks that Chibi Fumiko doesn't need to dodge (Chibi Fumiko has the more powerful shikigami attack, which is more useful than the more powerful shot that Fumiko has). That was when I returned to Kuga, and I stuck with him because I was close to beating the game with him.

But when I returned to Fumiko, it didn't take me long to clear the game with her. I'm tempted to switch Fumiko's and Kuga's positions in the list because of this. But I want to play Fumiko and Kuga more extensively before I decide what to do with their positions.

Now for the rest of the characters. Roger is tough to use because he can run into bullets with his fast movement speed. So it's tough to remain vertically aligned with a boss. But in between boss forms, I can stick in one shikigami attack before the boss starts attacking. Then I can finish off the boss with Roger's powerful high tension shot. So bosses go down rather quickly if the player's lucky enough not to run into any bullets.

Sayo has the same problem of needing to stay vertically aligned to a boss, but she has more weaknesses that the player needs to overcome. Unlike Roger's normal shot, Sayo's shot is very weak from long range. And, unlike Roger and the Fumikos, Sayo does not have the ability to simultaneously attack with the shikigami and shot. So overall, bosses take a much longer time to beat with Sayo than with the other characters.

As for Hyuga, I have my reasons given here:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 402#381402

But most importantly, he has one glaring weakness that the other characters do not have: a weak bomb. Basically, it likes to lock onto things that are not the boss itself (even air!), so overall, bosses take less damage than usual.

It was nice to experience the breadth of characters in Shikigami no Shiro II. And I liked that the things I learn for one character carry over to other characters. I hope to still enjoy this breadth, because even though I'm going for a high score now, I'll still be trying out all of the characters to determine which one is right for me. It'll just be on a deeper level from here.
Last edited by BER on Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
Bernard A. DORIA (retired)
BER
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Post by BER »

*** Updated Aug 10, 2008 ***

I realized that the Arcadia record holder for Fumiko uses Type 1, not Type 2 as I assumed. I don't feel that this realization is important enough to bump this thread, so I have simply edited the original post to remove information about Fumiko (Type 2).

Also, since all of my requests have been fulfilled, this is now a general discussion thread.

. . .

After realizing that the Chibi Fumiko player in the Appreciate DVD used Type 2 (not Type 1 as I thought), I attempted to clear the game with Chibi Fumiko (Type 2). It only took me a few days to do so successfully with a score of 1,632,626,270. This score is lower than the score that I earned with the Type 1, but I want to have a record of it on the Internet.

It feels only a tiny bit harder to clear the game with Type 2 than with the Type 1; it still feels easier to clear the game with her than her love interest Kuga. Now this is how would I rank, from easiest to hardest, the difficulty of clearing the game among the eight characters used by Arcadia single-player record holders:
  1. Kim (Type 2)
  2. Niigi (Type 2)
  3. Chibi Fumiko (Type 2)
  4. Kuga (Type 2)
  5. Fumiko (Type 1)
  6. Roger (Type 2)
  7. Sayo (Type 1)
  8. Hyuga (Type 2)
Now I can go back to beating those high scores...
Bernard A. DORIA (retired)
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