STGT 2010: Mars Matrix thoughts

[Acid King]

And like RSG, you can't ignore chaining because if affects your firepower.

But unlike RSG, you have your most powerful weapon right off the bat and its strength isn't affected at all by experience level. If you watch a superplay, you'll see that the weapon relied on most is the piercing shot.

[MR_Soren]

I enjoyed the game, but it was tough to get good at it in the time I had. It didn't help that I also worked 55 hours last week. I only scored 8 billion, but felt like I was nowhere close to hitting a wall. I could have scored much better with more time, but then the week ended.

[Ed Oscuro]

When I started off in the trenches as a young lad with wet ears and dirt between his toes, I hated the game because I would activate the shield and send the bullets flying backwards and sideways into my comrades, instead of the enemies. I would frantically press the button and wait, with enough time to whistle the first few bars of an old English drinking song, before having something smack into me while I was waiting for the shield to activate.

But that was then, and this is now. Quite simply I didn't enjoy the game at first but then I got better. I was only able to try it a few times but each of my sessions was fairly short and I had good progress (relative to what came before) in plays. It's true, my last session didn't give me a score increase, but I'm getting closer to chaining stage one than before - but I also enjoy that chain is tough enough that you really need to be quite good to pull it off, so you don't feel as much of a pull to restart if you mess it up. That's a pretty smart design, as opposed to games where nothing happens in stage one no matter how you play.

[null1024]

I *love* Mars Matrix.
The graphics are fairly meh, the sound is pretty good, but this is the only game I try to play for score at all. I still suck though.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Ive been praticing my stage 1 chaining and boy its allot harder then i thought it would be, its partly due to new enemies spawning at different intervals depending on when you destroy the enemies on screen. It almost feels like sheer luck if you do well. Imo this make the game more suited to skilled players rather then not so skilled players who need to pratice before theyre proficiant.

Ill think im gonna go back to how I normally play, suvival 1st, chaining second. I still want to improve my chaining though, if only to level up my normal shot.

Ild like to know what the MM pros think of the scorining system especially trying to get stage perfect chains. Do they find it easy or hard to chain?

[Rob]

Do they find it easy or hard to chain?

Some parts are a lot harder than others. Level 1 is nothing, but I still think it's fun to do.

[KennyMan666]

Thoughts now on blog.

[Battletoad]

Thoughts now on blog.

Any chance you´ll ever like an STGT game?

Ild like to know what the MM pros think of the scorining system especially trying to get stage perfect chains. Do they find it easy or hard to chain?

Well I´m no pro, anyway I find full-stage chaining very hard in this game. Stage 1 is fairly easy, but I still have to restart sometimes. Stage 5 also isn´t hard except for some parts where you need to be careful and have proper strategies (I fail ). The rest is much harder, I can only chain certain parts. The most difficult is the first half of stage 2, that´s a little weird, so early in the game. I just play there for survival, given up on getting a decent chain which wouldn´t even grant me too much EXP.

[KennyMan666]

Thoughts now on blog.

Any chance you´ll ever like an STGT game?

A week with Raiden Fighters 2 might surprise you. And me.

[Rob]

Thoughts now on blog.

I see the tears but can't locate the thoughts.

[KennyMan666]

Alright, it's not "thoughts" as much as "whining".

[moozooh]

Really good game, but far too demanding for a week-long competition. Can't understand why it looks so ugly, though. Takumi can't design their games for shit.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Even after praticing some more today I still find chaining even stage 1 hard. Its mostly because im allways just keeping my chain going so i dont have the spare time to use my mosquito as much as i should to make lots of cubes thus giving me enough time to mosquito some more. Its quite frustrating

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Im still playing this and sucking at it. Main problem i have is when im playing a chaining shmup like MM or DDP i keep on looking at the chain counter to see if ive broken my chain or not which can get me killed. Unfortunatly with MM been a vertizontal i find myself looking way too much to the extent that im almost exclusivly looking at the damn counter instaed of where im dodging and dieing stupidly.

I am learning to ignore it, (which included me moving the screen so the left side with the counter is slightly further away then the right, it might seem trival but it really helps) which is improving my game greatly.

I do wish that shmups that have a chain counter or something simlar would use sound effects or some sort of graphical effect near the players ship. Samidare's option of showing mini meter bars of the shield enegy and whatnot just below the player ship sprite is a great idea that other shmup makers need to copy

[Battletoad]

You don´t need to look at the counter on the top of the screen (unless you want to know how much time there´s left to pick up the next cube and you indeed have the time to look ^^). The chain counter also appears right where you picked up your last cube. Just look there and if it tells you low numbers, you just broke your chain.

Sound effects would have helped though.

For the +1 cubes you should just get a feel for the timing and rather be a little too early, if there are enough cubes nearby. The bar helps for the bigger cubes when you might use the possible break.