xris wrote:
I'm a little curious as far as if you had ever choose to start avoiding killing certain enemies in order to take advantage of a better score opportunity, or rank control, or do you continue to try and kill everything untill you find a way?
I don't do that, I just do what I'm told to do in the superplay video and adapt. If it's too hard I would tone some details down a bit by maybe killing some enemies faster or whatever makes it a little easier. Ways that make the game easier or that get you more points heavily depend on the specific part of the game, could be killing enemies faster, slower, being a little earlier or later in a position, using shot instead of laser, or laser instead of shot, at one specific second... Pretty much have to figure it out exactly for yourself if you can't copy. Even when copying, a lot of understanding and adapting leads you to this kind of efforts.
xris wrote:
What are your thoughts on methods of medal chains in Raizing style games?
I don't play Raizing games, I have no particular knowledge about medal chaining and its difficulties. Sorry !
xris wrote:
What if bombing is seriously detrimental (Futari Black Label)?
Like I said in that post earlier, it's up to you, at any time in a run, to decide using a bomb considering how high the risk of dying is, and how much you're going to lose if you bomb. But in any Cave game bombing is an important skill, even when bombing kills your score more than death, unless you know you will 1CC anyway and end of game bonuses for spare lives are less valuable than the amount of points you lose consequently to using a bomb in a specific part of the game. If finishing the game is hard, then you need to bomb to save your lives so as to make sure you play longer and keep the run going through all parts of the game, taking advantadge of all of your scoring time.
xris wrote:
Do you incorporate secret items from the begining, or work them in as you go along?
In Cave games, I can't think of anything other than "secret" 1ups that fall into that category. Because I start playing and memorizing via a video from the first hour when I play a new game seriously, I incorporate everything I have enough ability to incorporate into my play, from the beginning. For example when I started playing DOJ a few months ago, I started by copying HFD chains right away and it worked really well because my ability (acquired with past shmup experience) was already enough for that in all 1st loop, although I toned some stuff down a bit to learn faster, or because it seemed a little too hard to do consistently.
If you were thinking of secret items a la Dimahoo or Raiden Fighters, I don't play them, but if I did, sure I would incorporate, just the same, everything and anything I see in superplay videos, from the beginning. As long as my ability is enough to execute what it takes to get those secret items, when I start learning the games. If not, I would look for ways to get as many points as possible without jeopardizing my success rate for full runs too much. Sometimes I might be a little lazy to attain a level of refinement as high as the video so I just approximate things and get a little less points.
Generally I avoid ever learning an non-optimal route if I feel I have enough skill to learn an optimal one. It is pointless to progressively improve your scoring routes by yourself or using different videos if you think you have enough skill to just try and copy the WR route or something close to that (if you want to get good fast).
xris wrote:
I think you should see if you can include an interview in the back as well!
Hehe, why not, but I'm not gonna interview myself ! ^^ The chapter with my story at the end seems like a good way of getting to know the author + a shmup player's life example. A Q/A section could always include Q/As about me if people have any they want to ask. Well I'll probably include questions and answers that were already asked in this thread including this post !