I loved/hated ______ until I tried playing for score.

[ncp]

I loved Mushi Futari 1.5 Maniac until I kept on dying trying to milk that stupid goddamn stage 2 boss, but then I start liking it again after I get past that. That boss is like a wall for around 90% of my runs and makes me want to break shit, especially after getting 180+mil points right before fighting it. It's like all of the fun gets sucked out out the game and then comes back again when/if I finally reach stage 3. If I didn't have to milk that asshole, the game would be so much better!

Too bad that boss alone is worth 100 mil if you score properly...

play 1.01 if you have it

[Mischief Maker]

I was ambivalent toward Blue Wish Resurrection Plus until I started playing for score, now I love it. YOUR BULLET SPRAYS DO NOT FRIGHTEN ME, BRING IT ON POINT BLANK! In a weird way, playing on accelerated mode encourages playing like you're after score just to survive.

[moozooh]

I deliberately don't play some games (basically every chaining game ever) how they're meant to be played, to make them more fun. Whenever I find that scoring doesn't make the game more fun, I play it for survival and add scoring in ways that don't obstruct this goal.

I hated Garegga until I realized that scoring helps pretty much everything, and makes it a damn great game.

Loved Psyvariar 2 until I decided to play it more offensively. The game became pretty much uncontrollable and I never had a desire to try it again. :\

Disliked VP1 initially, hated it with passion after trying to score.

Hated Psikyo, playing for score didn't make it any better BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO SCORING SYSTEMS HURR.

Loved Perfect Cherry Blossom initially, but playing it for score filled me with deep appreciation of the game.

People mentioned RFJ and 19xx. RFJ went sideways because I love some aspects of scoring but not others. 19xx ought to go down like Viper Phase but it's not nearly as hard to perfect stages so I wasn't bothered.

Agree with all this.

[Subterranean Sun]

Hated Psikyo, playing for score didn't make it any better BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO SCORING SYSTEMS HURR.

Try Dragon Blaze.

[moozooh]

So to speak, Dragon Blaze is the only Psikyo game I've played that I somewhat like. Yet I still don't think it has any scoring system to speak of.

[clp]

So to speak, Dragon Blaze is the only Psikyo game I've played that I somewhat like. Yet I still don't think it has any scoring system to speak of.

LOLWUT? i would only expect a comment this ill informed and stupid from a touhou fan oh wait........

[Kollision]

I deliberately don't play some games (basically every chaining game ever) how they're meant to be played, to make them more fun. Whenever I find that scoring doesn't make the game more fun, I play it for survival and add scoring in ways that don't obstruct this goal.

Then Mars Matrix is perfect for you!

[moozooh]

LOLWUT? i would only expect a comment this ill informed and stupid from a touhou fan oh wait........

Your comment is, by itself, ill-informed and stupid. You don't have to get defensive about Psikyo games if a random "Touhou fan" on the internet doesn't like it, especially in a thread where we're expected to praise/rag on games.

Then Mars Matrix is perfect for you!

Thanks, I've been meaning to give it a go, and I sure will!

[Obiwanshinobi]

So to speak, Dragon Blaze is the only Psikyo game I've played that I somewhat like. Yet I still don't think it has any scoring system to speak of.

Maybe not much to speak of, but there is a big difference between sheer survival and high scoring in Dragon Blaze. Isn't it the very point of scoring systems? Not being impenetrable, but giving you an incentive to improve your performance beyond the level necessary to survive? Dragon Blaze has this kind of depth without a convoluted scoring system.

[BIL]

Dragon Baze's scoring system awards point items of double the value in exchange for destroying enemies up close with the short-ranged, slow to reload Dragon Shot.

[Obiwanshinobi]

...and if you don't do Dragon Shot rather a lot, you're screwed, because there's gonna be more bullets than you're likely to handle, therefore scoring rewards the tactics good for your health, if still risky. Personally I don't want them to kill me with their bullets, so I try to destroy them before they spawn said bullets, but I must come close to destroy them immediately, which is always risky in fast-paced vertical scrollers. That's kind of intuitive. The game forces and rewards the most aggressive approach.

[BIL]

There are still many spots where shooting from a distance is the safer, lower-scoring option, however. Usually involving several small / medium-sized enemies.

[moozooh]

...and if you don't do Dragon Shot rather a lot, you're screwed, because there's gonna be more bullets than you're likely to handle, therefore scoring rewards the tactics good for your health, if still risky. Personally I don't want them to kill me with their bullets, so I try to destroy them before they spawn said bullets, but I must come close to destroy them immediately, which is always risky in fast-paced vertical scrollers. That's kind of intuitive. The game forces and rewards the most aggressive approach.

That's pretty much why I like it, yes. I consider it the best Psikyo game by far, and the least Psikyo-ish of their games I have played.

Maybe someday I will actually feel the fun from playing it. Both Gunbirds and the entire Strikers series didn't work for me at all. I've come to love a lot of Yagawa games, which I initially disliked, but for some reason my opinion on Psikyo hasn't changed much in the last three years.

[Matsunaga]

I liked the Raiden Fighters games, then I figured out the medal system, now I'm addicted to 100,000 point medals.

[gs68]

If I hadn't learned what Ikaruga's scoring was about, I'm sure I would've played a shitload of it at Fanime, where 70% of the time during the day it was the only playable shooter at the console gaming tables.

[Rob]

scoring rewards the tactics good for your health, if still risky.

You can use the dragon shot a lot (survival tactic) and still have many of the coins fall uncollected. Collecting all of them is the riskiest part.

[Aru-san]

If I hadn't learned what Ikaruga's scoring was about, I'm sure I would've played a shitload of it at Fanime, where 70% of the time during the day it was the only playable shooter at the console gaming tables.

Hell, I knew about the scoring system yet proceeded to fail at it 3 times by playing it with the fire button held down (and failing epicly at dot eater).

[gs68]

I hated Razing Storm until I learned what playing for score was about.

"Blah, it's just a dumb Time Crisis spinoff with a bad framerate...oh hey this is more speedrun-friendly than TC3 or 4 and the scoring rewards speedrunning and not just stalling the game to milk no-miss and combo bonuses."

[EricDaNerd]

I hated shmups until I played for score.

[esreveR]

I don't know about you, but I kind of liked Psikyo's old-skool scoring system...it's a refreshing change from the complexity of, say, CAVE games. With the exception of Dangun Feveron, which actually had a very good scoring system in my opinion. ITEM-BASED WOO

Also, Metal Slug used to be a rather old-skool game in terms of scoring. Ever since MS6, however, the whole rush blaster system has made me rage. "NEVER MIND THE PRISONERS, YOU CAN GET 640,000 POINTS ON COINS INSTEAD!" I wish I was kidding but I sadly am not.

Although, shmups with super-complicated scoring but that still give you reasonable old-skool objectives with them (Like Giga Wing) are positively awesome in my opinion.

Games with a destruction ratio in scoring make me rage but they actually make perfect sense. Same goes for boss timers, and in push-scroll games, level timers.

And...um, Yagawa games are great to play for anything but score. They're fun and feel awesome to play and all, but in all honesty I think the scoring systems are broken at best, lest I go into what they are at worst. In my opinion there needs to be major incentive to A) not die, B) not bomb, and C) kill stuff, and somehow Yagawa manages to avoid fulfilling any of these. What a shame. The least he could've done was reset medal rank when you die or something.

I've had ideas about what I believe to be the perfect scoring system (Like it'd ever be implemented...I don't know shit about programming), basically you'd have it based around any kind of action, the more you do it without dying the more points you get on it, up to nine times. So the first time you shoot an enemy you get 1 point, second time 2, and so on, but the first enemy you destroy gains you 10, then 20, and the first wave you destroy gets you 100, then 200, and so on. It's kind of weird, I know, but it's the best I've come up with. Oh and bombs don't give you any points. Because bombing is for losers amirite

Maybe it's just me but there need to be more shmups like Ace Combat Advance. I mean, come on, we need some degree of realism every now and then. Why ACA hasn't spawned any sort of ripoffs is simply beyond me.

Also, has it ever occurred to anyone that IRL scoring you'd be considered an ace if you shot down five planes?

[Rob]

In my opinion there needs to be major incentive to A) not die, B) not bomb, and C) kill stuff, and somehow Yagawa manages to avoid fulfilling any of these.

There's incentive to "kill stuff" in revealing medals. They just don't encourage shooting at the air.

My favorite scoring systems tend to be the A) forget everything you thought you knew about shooting games kinds and those are right at the top (you have to love it, and Battle Garegga is #1). The extreme boss milking is the downer.

[gs68]

So, how about games where bombing carries a bigger penalty than dying? *coughfutariblacklabelcough*

[moozooh]

The incentive not to die makes you shift your focus from scoring with more fun and aggressive play towards conservative survival style. God bless games with no significant remaining life bonuses.

[KindGrind]

My favorite scoring systems tend to be the A) forget everything you thought you knew about shooting games kinds and those are right at the top (you have to love it, and Battle Garegga is #1). The extreme boss milking is the downer.

Exactly the same thing for me.

[Plasmo]

My favorite scoring systems tend to be the A) forget everything you thought you knew about shooting games kinds and those are right at the top (you have to love it, and Battle Garegga is #1). The extreme boss milking is the downer.

I wouldn't call boss milking in Garegga extreme, because:

A) It doesn't give you that much points. You can get ace scores without any boring milking at all.
B) The only really 100% boring milking is at the third boss. All the other milking techniques are much more interesting.
C) The bosses don't last for very long.

Milking, yes - extreme? No!

[BIL]

Indeed, it's usually only extreme as in "dangerous." I love setting up Satanic Surfer's drones without getting a shell in the face.

On the same note, I hated "extreme milking" and "anal chaining" until I started playing shooters. Now I'm relatively fond of both!

[emphatic]

On the same note, I hated "extreme milking" and "anal chaining" until I started playing shooters. Now I'm relatively fond of both!

Anal milking?

[BIL]

Nah, never really got into ESPRade.