STGT 2010: DANGUN FEVERON thoughts

[Dave_K.]

This is the only shmup where I think I might actually get carpel tunnel while playing it.

Also, why is it that I can successfully dodge lots of fast bullets with uopoko, but have an enemy leave a single bullet behind on the screen, and I'll find a way to run into it eventually!

[captpain]

This is the only shmup where I think I might actually get carpel tunnel while playing it.

Also, why is it that I can successfully dodge lots of fast bullets with uopoko, but have an enemy leave a single bullet behind on the screen, and I'll find a way to run into it eventually!

I love/hate that feeling that happens when you've realized that a control input is going to make you die, but the super-fast ship speed combined with the physical requirements of moving the joystick in the other direction mean that it's too late, and you're going to run into the dumbest, slowest bullet possible.

[MR_Soren]

I enjoyed the game when we played the Time Trial mode in STGT '08. I'm glad we can play the main game this year. I'm having a lot of fun with it now. I've been makin' moves I didn't know I had.

I will post a score if I can break 1.2 million. I don't think the ROM with the zeroed out scoreboard will work with any of the Mac-compatible MAMEs. I tried some credits last night and my best was 900k after stage 2. I hope that means I'll clear Stage 3 and break 1.2M before the week is done.

The cat is very fast. I feel like input lag and the throw on my stick will make it impossible to play Uo Poko effectively, so I'm likely to stick with the regular ships. I actually wish the cat was banned because it always gets 5 discomen when collecting powerups which gives it a scoring advantage that is not based on player ability or technique.

[gs68]

STGT 2010 Week 5 is now Recca on Hard mode.

...okay fine I'll get in a few rounds later this week. On mute, lest I develop a hatred for cats.

[MX7]

I actually wish the cat was banned because it always gets 5 discomen when collecting powerups which gives it a scoring advantage that is not based on player ability or technique.

But the cat can't bomb, and moves extremely fast, and has a difficult to discern hitbox. I can see why he was banned for the score attack mode a few years back, but when you're playing the long game, you have to be pretty confident to pick him.

I am neither talented, confident, or even blessed with the time to invest in playing this week, but I'll be playing Poko, because he makes the game AMAZING. All these people moaning about the MAO MAO MAO are going to absolutely hate Muchi-Muchi Pork! and pink sweets ('spesh Muchi) I myself wish every button input of every shooter triggered an improbable sound.

[Tigershark]

There's no one reason why I dislike this game but I do. CLP said practice, and of course he's right, but I guess I'm only prepared to practice with a game I like. I think it's the sum of its parts, the music, the scoring, the lack of a proper high score screen unless you reach a certain score, the meow meow noise, the difficulty in controlling the cat but the realisation that if you don't you'll be prejudicing your score. I could go on. I've liked every game this tournament except this. 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

[clp]

The problem is newcomers or not so skilled players are approaching this game opting to use uopoko off the bat .... you will go mental doing this . Stick to the normal ships if your not comfortable with the cat you will get a better score in the long run , also you only have to fully chain stages one and two to qualify for the ingame leader board so thats like 6 mins of game to learn i think everyone is capable of that .

[Skykid]

The problem is newcomers or not so skilled players are approaching this game opting to use uopoko off the bat .... you will go mental doing this . Stick to the normal ships if your not comfortable with the cat you will get a better score in the long run , also you only have to fully chain stages one and two to qualify for the ingame leader board so thats like 6 mins of game to learn i think everyone is capable of that .

I need to go and look at the strat for this game. I actually agree with clp - I find the game much more enjoyable not playing with Poko - it doesn't feel right.

But I thought I had chained the first two stages, but then I suppose I misunderstood chaining because I can't get on the leaderboard (I though it meant collecting all of the disco men on screen. )

[xris]

This game has a truly evil scoring system.

[Tigershark]

The problem is newcomers or not so skilled players are approaching this game opting to use uopoko off the bat .... you will go mental doing this . Stick to the normal ships if your not comfortable with the cat you will get a better score in the long run , also you only have to fully chain stages one and two to qualify for the ingame leader board so thats like 6 mins of game to learn i think everyone is capable of that .

I need to go and look at the strat for this game. I actually agree with clp - I find the game much more enjoyable not playing with Poko - it doesn't feel right.

But I thought I had chained the first two stages, but then I suppose I misunderstood chaining because I can't get on the leaderboard (I though it meant collecting all of the disco men on screen. )

I did chain the first two stages (with a normal ship) and got to the level 3 boss but did not get onto the leaderboard. I think you only do that if you beat 1.2m. My score was 900,000 odd but when I died I did not have the chance to record it.

[cools]

But I thought I had chained the first two stages, but then I suppose I misunderstood chaining because I can't get on the leaderboard (I though it meant collecting all of the disco men on screen. )

It does, but you have to kill enemies as soon as they enter the screen to get the most disco men.

Playing this game for score is not my idea of fun

[Skykid]

But I thought I had chained the first two stages, but then I suppose I misunderstood chaining because I can't get on the leaderboard (I though it meant collecting all of the disco men on screen. )

It does, but you have to kill enemies as soon as they enter the screen to get the most disco men.

Playing this game for score is not my idea of fun

Right, so that's why Poko seems to double the scores of the rest of the ships - I usually play much more aggressively with him. Still haven't got on that leaderboard yet.

I wish they hadn't put the stupid cat in, it's way more fun playing the game with the regular ships, but you're forced to play with him for the best score.

[clp]

The problem is newcomers or not so skilled players are approaching this game opting to use uopoko off the bat .... you will go mental doing this . Stick to the normal ships if your not comfortable with the cat you will get a better score in the long run , also you only have to fully chain stages one and two to qualify for the ingame leader board so thats like 6 mins of game to learn i think everyone is capable of that .

I need to go and look at the strat for this game. I actually agree with clp - I find the game much more enjoyable not playing with Poko - it doesn't feel right.

But I thought I had chained the first two stages, but then I suppose I misunderstood chaining because I can't get on the leaderboard (I though it meant collecting all of the disco men on screen. )

I did chain the first two stages (with a normal ship) and got to the level 3 boss but did not get onto the leaderboard. I think you only do that if you beat 1.2m. My score was 900,000 odd but when I died I did not have the chance to record it.

The game is all about memory and aggression , try to get a rough idea of the stage layout and then get up there and aggressive basically you get more enemies the quicker you destory them in certain sections and you get more discomen the quicker you kill them anyways . If you are using the regular ships you can literally use a bomb on a boss and whilst its happening sit on the boss,s hitbox with your charge shot on ( either bomb or roll type homing is bollocks ) and you will drain a massive % of its life . You get a fair few bombs in this so its easy enough to devise a survival strategy with them .

[sikraiken]

Regular ship use can probably push 13M+ theoretically.

[WarpZone]

The theme and core scoring system are fun, but having to sacrifice pretty much any sense of precision in order to have a shot at scoring well (even moreso than in Raiden Fighters) turns me off quite a bit.

I have a lot of trouble with fast speeds in other games, but for some reason Feveron just clicked with me at a certain point. I think the game feels the most balanced and fun with Speed 4, learning to take advantage of your speed to eliminate problems before they occur, heavily lead bullets, and arc around bullet groups rather than precisely weave through them. There is less precise weaving than in any other Cave game, I think. Only a handful of situations come to mind, usually boss desperation attacks that can be bombed through.

Another thing I found is that collecting disco men becomes almost automatic after a while, and the jump from playing for survival to score is very slight. You are moving around the screen and doubling back so much that you naturally sweep them up as you play. I really love how you're moving around the screen so much in this game.

[spineshark]

This game has a truly evil scoring system.

Is this your first Cave game?

[njiska]

Fun game, nice change for a CAVE game, but the cat should have never been allowed. I think it will create too much of a scoring advantage for players familiar with the title.

[sikraiken]

Fun game, nice change for a CAVE game, but the cat should have never been allowed. I think it will create too much of a scoring advantage for players familiar with the title.

I don't think it's going to matter much, you can score high with the regular ships too. Familiarity with a title in general can create a scoring advantage, haha. Even just playing the game can create a scoring advantage!

[ShadowWraith]

I'm not sure what to think about this game. On the one hand, the music is cool and the premise of the game isn't incredibly unbearable. I don't mind item chaining and there's no boss milking at all, which is awesome. On the other hand, meowmeowmeowmeowmeow. I should probably have started with another ship, but blagh.

off topic, but sikraiken where is your avatar from? and what exactly is it?

it kinda looks to me like a depressed killer whale.

[njiska]

The more I play this the more i question why it was chosen. Just figuring out what your score is, is damn near impossible.

[clp]

The more I play this the more i question why it was chosen. Just figuring out what your score is, is damn near impossible.

Seriously its a piece of cake to learn and clear the first 2 stages with 1.9million + with the cat .

[njiska]

The more I play this the more i question why it was chosen. Just figuring out what your score is, is damn near impossible.

Seriously its a piece of cake to learn and clear the first 2 stages with 1.9million + with the cat .

I'm glad you're capable of that. I'm not yet and i traditionally suck at shmups with fast moving ships. The problem I have here is that the game does not keep track of your score when you're less than 1.2 million and it does not give you much chance to find out when you die. This is a royal pain in the ass for a lot of us.

[Battletoad]

The more I play this the more i question why it was chosen. Just figuring out what your score is, is damn near impossible.

Seriously its a piece of cake to learn and clear the first 2 stages with 1.9million + with the cat .

I'm glad you're capable of that. I'm not yet and i traditionally suck at shmups with fast moving ships. The problem I have here is that the game does not keep track of your score when you're less than 1.2 million and it does not give you much chance to find out when you die. This is a royal pain in the ass for a lot of us.

Maybe you should try out the zeroed-out ranking list which BBH posted on the first page of the high score thread.

[defected78]

So this is coming out on 360 xbox live. Is that what STGT2010 is where people vote for a release?

[sikraiken]

off topic, but sikraiken where is your avatar from? and what exactly is it?

it kinda looks to me like a depressed killer whale.

It's just some finger paint thing I drew on my ipod thing last year while I was in Ecuador - I just cropped, grayscaled, and inverted the colors. He's supposed to be inhaling/devouring everything.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm playing on a keyboard, and so I have to lift one finger up and put another down to change direction. But ship speed isn't a major issue, when I'm awake anyway.

Raiden Fighters 2's Judge Spear Slave is pretty easy to control.

Here's what I'm not digging at the moment:

MEOWMEOW actually kind of doesn't make a difference. I'm not really noticing it anymore. Kind of like any other shot noise, it truncates often because I'm hitting keys so fast.

The current versions of MAME don't support savestates, so I'm spending way too much time on stage one (I'm at least hitting 320K+ each time now, sometimes considerably more) and the beginning of stage two.

That's about it, the game is pretty good otherwise! It's interesting how I can be dodging back and forth like mad at the top of the screen, picking up discomans, but I'm really watching a single orange rebounder the whole time.

HE'S ON THE MIRROR announcer man you is blind. I love it when his idiotic sayings get cockblocked by the cat. Announcer man is too slow to be any use.

*Credit* DANGUN reoowr!

[dpful]

This game rules. One of my faves. But although I swear I've been on the chart before, I can't seem to do it again. I can just make it to the third boss. I havnt used the cat, or the zeroed chart save state. I'm gonna keep trying, but I'm thinking I won't be able to submit a score this time.

[Herr Schatten]

Had I posted in this thread at the beginning of the playing week, my post would probably have been something along the lines of "oh no, not that shit again". After spending some time seriously with the game, I'm warming up to it, similar to what happened in Mars Matrix week.

I find it interesting that, instead of the tightly designed levels we usually get from Cave, Dangun has a two-layered approach. Some enemies (mostly ground enemies) always appear at the same times and in the same spots, but most of the formations just follow a sequence, so that when the previous wave is gone (either by being destroyed or by leaving the screen) the next wave comes out. Since both layers work independently from each other, some really nasty combinations can occur. This is not without a certain charm, because it really makes every run slightly different, but it makes the level design feel remarkably sloppy. There's probably no other way to implement this because of the scoring system, but some formations are clearly just there as screen fillers. I actually think that the two-layered approach to level design worked better in (dare I say it?) Thunder Dragon 2.

Disallowing the cat might have made for a more interesting scoreboard (It had made for more interesting gameplay for sure), but whatever. You get used to it.

The visuals look like leftovers and rejects from DDP. The disco theme, on the other hand, is pure genius. The soundtrack is the best thing ever, especially stage 4 and 5. The announcer with all his gibberish is awesome, too. Too bad both get completely drowned out by the constant meowmeowmeow. Overall, it's a good game. Not one of Cave's best, though.

[gs68]

Unlockable broken ship allowed, and unless you make >1.2 million calculating your score is either tedious (if you die in a stage) or impossible (if you die in a boss).

Fuck this game, Pabst Blue Caravan. Like homework that I just can't figure out, I'm not even going to bother turning in a score.

[clp]

Unlockable broken ship allowed, and unless you make >1.2 million calculating your score is either tedious (if you die in a stage) or impossible (if you die in a boss).

Fuck this game, Pabst Blue Caravan. Like homework that I just can't figure out, I'm not even going to bother turning in a score.

seriously if you cant even learn less than 6 minutes of a game to get EASILY over 1.2 mill your probably in the wrong genre.