STGT08 Week 1: Thoughts

Aquas · Post by **Aquas** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:36 pm

Well now that you've all tried 19xx: The War Against destiny, scored big, tried to S rank the bosses, or at least played it to see what it was like. Let's hear your thoughts about 19xx or the week 1 scoring period.

I think the game is pretty outstanding, the soundtrack is especially notable during the waterfall scene in st. 3 I think, a huge wave of bad guys takes a rest and the song is doing this funky drum beat and the waterfall background animation looks pretty cool. The whole game is vibrant and colorful, and just the right amount of difficulty, catering to casual players and scorers.

I started playing a bit before the weekend on a tate'd 19" LCD monitor, and occasionally running the game in windowed mode when I was chillin on the comp. ^.^ I've been using a PS2 pad as well, what are you guyses setups?

I've averaged out Team Loser a little ;D w/ my score

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:43 pm

I loved it for about 4 days. My settings showed I played 15 credits in those 4 days, so that's like an hour and a half a day, lol. Playing it so much reallymade me hate the scoring system though. I'd find myself hitting stage 4 with 3 million 1 time, then getting a few s ranks/100%s and barely scraping 1,000,000 at the start of stage 4. Also, the game is much too easy for most of the game. Stage 1-3 are a cakewalk, and if you die, it's going to be from idly straying into a bullet because you're not paying attention. Stage 4 is a little better, stage 5 gets quite challenging halfway through. But it's not until stage *6* in a 7 stage game until the difficulty really kicks in. Why couldn't the game start on level 5

So, it was fun, and I don't regret spending my time on it, but I don't think I'll be playing it again :p

dex · Post by **dex** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:46 pm

It was a great game until I started wishing I could hate it to death.

RGC · Post by **RGC** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:57 pm

I didn't get good enough to appreciate the hate, but can easily imagine a dozen or so more attemps at reaching stage 7 driving me batty. Stage 2 is probably the most tedious (an award that would have gone to stage 3 if the sound and visuals didn't compensate). I played in standard (yoko?) with an HRAP2 on a 17" CRT. Couldn't be bothered to flip it over. Good game.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:00 pm

Thank goodness that's over with.

lgb · Post by **lgb** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:06 pm

I needed to play more. I feel stupid now.

Observer · Post by **Observer** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:29 pm

I liked it till I broke my pad and realised that you pretty much can't die at all once you are towards the middle of the stage if you want to keep the big medalling bonus at the end. The Rank S is also important but it was getting 100% accuracy compared to 99% what drove me mad. The difference was really notorious.

And if I see that damn black plane one more time...

Dumple · Post by **Dumple** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:56 pm

Observer wrote:And if I see that damn black plane one more time...

Watch out for Giga Wing...that evil black plane really gets around!

I learned an important difference this week.

Sancho Panza is a character in Don Quixote. He is Don Quixote's illiterate squire, and he's one of the first wisecracking sidekicks in literature.

...and the Stage 5 boss from 19xx is a Sancho Panzer.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:55 pm

I liked the game, but I didn't improve quickly enough to have a good score.

It does seem easy though, so there's a good chance I'll try to 1CC the game sometime.

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:57 pm

Observer wrote: And if I see that damn black plane one more time...

lol hivemind

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:10 pm

WHY DIDN'T YOU POST MY AWESOME CAPCOM BANNER

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:16 pm

nice game with shite scoring system.

memorising safespots just isnt fun imo.

varth is much better.

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:17 pm

Dumple wrote:...and the Stage 5 boss from 19xx is Sancho Pedro.

Fixed. That's spanish for Saint Peter.

My thoughts...

Survival-wise:

The game is ridiculously easy. For the most part, there's barely anything shooting at you, until you reach the bosses. They have some tricky patterns that might get you by surprise. With some practice, it's manageable.

Then you get to stage 6, and the difficulty ramps up a bit. It's still manageable, but will require quite some practice. The boss is particularly tough.

And then there's the final boss. That guy is a real bastard and will kill you many times. He has many patterns I find no way to dodge, and I simply have to bomb all the time. Got very lucky to end the game with 2 lives left.

Scoring-wise:

The scoring system is anal, frustrating and plain unforgiving. Killing a boss one second too late will cost you a lot of points, and missing one single plane in a stage will pretty much ruin your run. And the medals means you have to no-miss the stage if you want a good bonus. Put them all together and frustration is guaranteed.

Bottom line:

I hate this game and I won't play it ever again.

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:19 pm

Been a long time since I last played 19XX seriously (around '02 if I remember correctly), so it was nice to break my old personal best.
Varth would have been nice, though. I was just starting to enjoy that.

lgb · Post by **lgb** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:23 pm

We should just play games without scoring systems from here on out.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:29 pm

sven666 wrote:varth is much better.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:36 pm

MR_Soren wrote:I liked the game, but I didn't improve quickly enough to have a good score.

I always screwed up my runs due to little mistakes. I also found the bosses to be a bit unbalanced. I had no problems with the bosses of stages 4 and 5, but the third one caught me by surprise with a quick bullet spam time and time again.

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:39 pm

I sucked big time, I just couldn't get the stage 3 boss right, even though I found stage 4's boss to be pretty easy.

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:04 pm

lgb wrote:We should just play games without scoring systems from here on out.

That's why I voted for Kai. No complicated stuff to deal with...just shoot things.

Now that I gave Varth a good try, I can see it's also pretty straight-forward, and the number of stages isn't really a drawback. I should've voted for it (not that it would change things anyway).

PS: What's with the lowercase username?

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:10 pm

Wish I'd had more time to play it, as it's a personal favorite of mine...especially considering as I know I can never be good enough to strive for perfection on it (or anything else), I can just enjoy the game for what it is. A good way to start the tourney.

mikwuyma · Post by **mikwuyma** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:37 pm

Zebra Airforce: Sik didn't have it for the first couple of days

I'm taking over the scoring threads from now on, so I'll post the banners when appropriate. I have to say, Not Taito week and Famous Manic week are masterpieces.

I still need Caravan week. JoshF says he gave it to Sikraiken.

CHI · Post by **CHI** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:39 pm

19XX is quite a challenging game (the boss quick-kill, the no-miss 100% and the medalling), it all adds-up and i actually enjoyed it...
abit frustrating (the stupid little deaths here and there)... but a game i will try to 1cc... one day...

for some reason i find stage 2 tough compare to stage 3 and 4...

set-up: yoko on 17' flat with HRAP (black case with green buttons)

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:44 pm

just noticed that out of 112 participants im the only one playing it on its original hardware?

it saddens me that were just 1 person away from beeing another marp competition..

sikraiken · Post by **sikraiken** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:20 pm

I didn't get the banner until friday night I think, banners went in the voting thread last time. I'll stick it in the next voting thread. : )

Warp_Rattler · Post by **Warp_Rattler** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:41 pm

The game was fun, but not without its flaws. I don't like that the majority of the scoring depends on the rank you get on killing the boss, with the other part being amount of enemies shot down during the stage. Ground kills, medals (yes, even with the multiplier), and even the straight point values for the in-stage planes are hardly worth bothering with if you miss those two planes that make the difference between going up 4 ranks and 6.

The boss patterns are also pretty arbitrary at times--I got into such a good groove on the Ayako Special, then on one go right as its destruction was going as planned, it let loose with this barrage I'd never seen before, which promptly killed me and fucked my boss completion time. The other bosses were pretty random in how they used some of their attacks as well.

Also, as I noted to sven, the backwards-scrolling part on the waterfall in level 3 killed my computer. Deadly, warping slowdown. Otherwise a perfect MAME port.

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:53 pm

There was a lot less complaining than I thought there would be, which I appreciated and also was easily explainable due to who didn't post.

dex wrote:Hooray!

dex wrote:dex - SDA-B - 12,429,500 - ALL - Mosquito - 30 - MAME

I hate this game now. With a fiery passion. I wish I could go back in time and prevent it from being created.

lol

tbh people probably think speedrunning looks fun too before they try it

Ruldra wrote:And then there's the final boss. That guy is a real bastard and will kill you many times. He has many patterns I find no way to dodge, and I simply have to bomb all the time. Got very lucky to end the game with 2 lives left.

It's safest just to get all up in his face most of the time.

Aru-san · Post by **Aru-san** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:08 pm

From my blog:

Sakayama Aru//SEIKATSU wrote:Forgiving scoring system my ass! Even if scoring is not exponential (I'm staring at you, DonPachi series) the scoring hill is extremely steep in this game, requiring that medals be collected, all enemies be killed, and that bosses be killed ASAP...all in ONE LIFE. Unless you know how to do all that, getting a high score is but a mere dream. Also, dying screws you over because not only does it reset your medal count to 0, you miss enemies leading to a low percent, give boss battles more time (a big, fat no-no in this case), thus leading to a lower score due to a lower multipler and/or a lower grade. There is a HUGE difference between scoring 120K and scoring 400K or above on the first level, for instance.

One of the three reasons why I just...gave up and walked away a LOSER.

Necronopticous · Post by **Necronopticous** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:16 pm

19XX is a fantastic game. I was very, very impressed by the design. Stage 5 is a masterpiece, and the game-long chase sequence of that black jet fighter is really cool. The scoring system can get annoying, but I don't think it's as bad as many of you made it out to be.

Had fun!

captpain · Post by **captpain** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:20 pm

I barely played, but I really liked the art.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:22 pm

I didn't enjoy the game much, but then again I had a messy week and I was out to Venice (to see Ponyo) in the sunday, I could have easily improved my score with a purely conservative / survival approach. Hope to do better in next weeks.