re some posts on 1st page: Bit of a digression about chaining for a sec, since I did play this game for score years ago. Dunno if this should be its own thread, but it is about Guwange.
There are different reasons why people would not like chaining in a game. Here are the 3 biggest ones I think:
1) inflexible
2) punishing
3) difficult
The one most people focus on is #1, probably because that's what people like Rob always bitch about, and it's always brought up with DDP. Guwange doesn't have this problem at all (nor #3 for that matter), you can just sit on a bullet with your shikigami if you want, you can even bomb at times and keep your chain, etc. #1 isn't what really bothers me in general about chaining though. (Even disregarding that at WR levels, nothing is flexible. But I don't care about WR levels, I care about my level.)
Chaining is inherently punishing, and the longer the possible chain length remaining (lost potential, and the most rewarding part of the chain), the more punishing. This is personally the aspect that bothers me the most. If dying is already bad enough (loss of ship, loss of bombs, loss of bonus), losing your chain from dying is just over the top. In Guwange it "only" halves your chain, but still. 1000 mode only adds insult to injury. The game-long chaining is the injury, btw. At least if you lose your chain near the end of a stage with stage or substage-long chaining, you can start fresh with the next chain. Maybe I'm a wuss, but I hate resetting (and face it, you should reset if you are making scoring runs since your chance of getting a new high score is essentially over) every time I make a little mistake.
Now, #2 and #3 are often related but not the same. What's the difference between 19xx's 100% scoring system compared to Viper Phase 1's? It's easier, so resetting happens less often. That's not equivalent though, it only makes it even more bullshit when it does happen. Is this really what you want in game design? A long-ass sequence of easy things you have to do, but if you fuck a single one of them up, you have to restart? I think that's poor balance. Give me the exact opposite: difficult but forgiving. Rayforce "chaining" is extremely hard to do perfectly in spots, but the good news is your mistake doesn't mean much in the big picture because it only hurts you on that section. Senko no Ronde, with its massive health bars, is essentially a sequence of near-impossible dodges set up by your opponent, with the goal of doing as best as you can. It's forgiving because the event size in every match is so huge that if you're better than your opponent, you will basically always win.
Now I know this is just personal preference because given the "challenging" console games that people seem to like (piss easy to execute but very punishing of bad luck or tiny mistakes or lack of knowledge/setups), "hardcore" gamers do seem to like punishing. When you keep dying in say, 1-4, and finally make it to 1-5 the first time all night, you get a rush like OK NOW CRUNCH TIME. I mean, everything's a tradeoff, I just happen to fall on the other side of this. My Progear runs for STGT were like fucking life or death when nearing the 2nd loop and mindnumbing repetition otherwise, and I don't really enjoy that shit because I'm too old to want that type of frustration in my leisure activities. To reiterate, I'm not promoting a weaksauce attitude, I like challenging games.
Long story short, I like Dangun Feveron.
