Starting Battle Garegga...

[chempop]

[Edit #2]: Alright since I have managed a work around so it won't crash, I'm going to transition the topic into starting the journey in this menacing masterpiece.

[Edit]: so I turned off arrange music and also switched it back to stereo sound and it's not crashing anymore!

Finally able to defeat stage 5 and the game is crashing as soon as I do sending me back to the Saturn's control panel with the message "cartridge is not suitable...", yada yada. Also, the arrange music is cutting out at certain stages...

Here's my setup:

Hardware-
US Sat
Action Replay 4in1

Settings-
Simple menu On
Extra character On (using a Great Mahou character)
Red bullets On
Small hotbox On
Arrange music On

Game disk looks flawless, no noticeable scratches, haven't had any issues with playing imports before...

Any ideas? Anyone?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Examine the disc with some diagnostic tool (on a computer). Thermal damage, for instance, may be invisible to a naked eye.

[Ex-Cyber]

"cartridge is not suitable...",

Is it normal for that to come up? I don't think I'd ever seen or even heard of that error until now, but I'm also not sure I've ever soft-rebooted with a foreign disc inserted, so maybe it's normal in that scenario.

[chempop]

Well, it's working now that I turned off the Arrange music, so perhaps we can chat about how to be successful in working toward a clear - a goal I think I'm ready to pursue.

Any good resources that might help a poor guy out? I don't particularly get much from overly detailed written strategy guides (tried to understand Bakraids scoring and it wasn't going to happen).

I've dabbled with the game for years but back then I didn't have the skills to get far. Now though I think with a bit of direction as tons of practice I'm wiling to take the plunge.

I will not watch superplays and try to copy someone else's run, I think I'll do better taking a more natural approach. I'm also not going to use save-states. I'm more interested in simpler advice, if there is such a thing.

Currently making it to stage-6 with about 3.3mil.

[Zerst]

Which ship are you using? This makes a big difference. Gain and Bornham are very high scoring characters that make clearing the game significantly easier.

[ebarrett]

I'm assuming you've read Icarus' guide; I'll just improvise a mini-guide to getting your first 1cc in Garegga, seeing as I got mine in about one week of playing.

BEFORE ANYTHING, check KET's YouTube channel, which has a bunch of survival/low rank runs; at the very least, watch his Miyamoto vs BH2, it goes through pretty much every BH2 trick in the book. This is NOT superplay stuff; it's pretty much KET showing that Garegga is beatable by anyone. I watched that shit religiously before playing and you can bet it played a huge part in getting a quick 1cc. You're not supposed to copy it; you're supposed to learn from it. If you think that's against some fuckin' stupid rule you made up in your mind, you might as well stop reading right now.

Now, everyone will tell you Golden Bat is the best beginner ship, and that most japanese players get their first (only?) clear with Golden Bat, well, that's a load of bullshit - medalling gets obscenely hard (you can't ever catch a medal that's below you because you are slower than a falling medal) and the bomb is really awkward to use. I'm pretty much sure that the #1 reason for Garegga being seen as legendarily hard is that everyone believes the "Golden Bat is beginner-friendly" crap and proceeds to get creamed by the game with that wacky ship. Use something faster and with a bomb that allows you to panicbomb at the last moment - for example (surprise surprise) Miyamoto.

Some of KET's YouTube runs don't go for medals at all, but if you are using a fast ship it's not really hard to bring in a few million through medalling. Check Icarus' guide for some hidden medal locations, ignore the fuckin' stupid medal rails before Satanic Surfer in stage 4 for now because that shit will break your chain if you try, and you'll see that carrying a medal chain into stage 6 isn't that hard. From there on medalling is a goddamn nightmare and you're better off completely ignoring it for now. If you do end up preferring Golden Bat (maybe you don't really want to 1cc the game, I don't know) or some other insufferably slow ship, maybe completely ignoring medals is a good idea; that's a few less lives to throw away/clear the game with, though.

On rank control: Icarus' guide goes through most of it so I won't go into details. "Don't go crazy on powerups and throw away a life here and there" is probably all you need anyway - using two options is safe enough and will get you through the "I need to control rank" parts just fine. Shoot down everything you can, getting the points and reducing the amount of stuff shooting back at you does much more for your survival than silly pacifist antics. Accidental deaths lower rank too so don't worry too much about where to suicide; you can more or less ignore the flamingos if you wish, it doesn't make that much of a difference in a survival run and if you're using Miyamoto he's crap at flamingo'ing anyway. One exception to "use two options" is the fixed extend from the stage 3 midboss: it's a bit hard to get it with low firepower, so just get four options and suicide later (or randomly die during the chase, that works too).

You also probably already know about setting up homing options; one thing that's rarely mentioned, though, is that that you can easily have homing options during a freakin' huge part of the game. There are a lot of places before bosses and/or entering streches without any bomb items where you can conveniently set yourself up for picking up homing options (instantly or later), and that helps a lot with most of the hard parts in the game. Set up the conditions for homing options even if you already have them; when you die, you'll pick up the powerups you released and have homing options again. From the top of my head, you can easily leave five bomb items in the following places:
- right before Earth Crisis in stage 3.
- the flying platforms in early stage 5.
- right before Black Heart in stage 5.
- just after the turret wall in stage 6.
- right before Black Heart mk. II in stage 7.

After you've controlled your rank early on and you've picked up your homing options at the start of stage 5, get every powerup you need just before the stage 5 boss rush and start playing it as a more or less ordinary shmup; shoot and dodge, try not to die. From there on it's pretty much your skills vs. the game, with homing cheese to swing it in your favour. You mentioned not wanting to use savestates; I think that's really fuckin' stupid (thread derail incoming woooo), and there's the chance that you'll game over to BH2 so many times that you'll eventually give up and join the "Garegga is too hard" legions, but whatever.

Which ship are you using? This makes a big difference. Gain and Bornham are very high scoring characters that make clearing the game significantly easier.

Gain and Bornham are very high scoring characters when you are already very good at the game!

[ncp]

agreed on golden bat being a piece of shit, but Gain is definitely not an expert-only ship. Sick speed, sick bomb, sick penetration options, and his flamingo bombing alone gives you a huge edge over the other characters.

besides, if you're not playing Gain you're missing out on BOOMBAA

[xris]

take red bullet off, you are better than that. especially if you ar making it to stage 5.
it sucks that is acting wonky, battle garegga is the cats meow.

[BPzeBanshee]

Now, everyone will tell you Golden Bat is the best beginner ship, and that most japanese players get their first (only?) clear with Golden Bat, well, that's a load of bullshit - medalling gets obscenely hard (you can't ever catch a medal that's below you because you are slower than a falling medal) and the bomb is really awkward to use. I'm pretty much sure that the #1 reason for Garegga being seen as legendarily hard is that everyone believes the "Golden Bat is beginner-friendly" crap and proceeds to get creamed by the game with that wacky ship. Use something faster and with a bomb that allows you to panicbomb at the last moment - for example (surprise surprise) Miyamoto.

Oh shit, I honestly fell for that one. I guess I didn't notice such intricacies because I don't really bother with medal chaining.

As for the other settings, I did a run of Garegga via Saturn emulator on "Arcade" mode and I swear it was shittons easier than running it in MAME. Probably due to startup rank being higher than minimal rank possible to achieve through letting it run for half an hour (or however long) but still quite surprising nonetheless. I took ebarrett's advice with Miyamoto as a character, bombed and suicided more and found myself at Stage 5 even without the hidden extend.

[chempop]

Wow, awesome advice ebarrett! Thanks for all those tips, it'll help me out a lot.

I have been medal chaining quite successfully, but I was under the impression that once I've maxed them it's worth letting some of the piles to pass by to reduce rank. Maybe I should just go for them and reduce rank another way.

I need to control myself with firepower, I haven't tried playing with only two side-options, but bosses still go down fast so I must bs doing something right.

There are numerous sections where I'm playing pacifist and letting enemies drift by and only shooting when I need to. I'm not suiciding because I typically need all my lives to beat Blackheart at the end of stage 5 (damn drifting vulcan!).

I have been mostly experimenting with the Mahou characters. Not entirely sure if I should be selecting my character with a, b, or c. I think I have small hit-box turned on, so maybe selecting c-type is redundant?

I can get to stage 6 right before the giant lasers, credit-fed some to see whats to come - the boss doesn't seem too bad though.

take red bullet off, you are better than that. especially if you ar making it to stage 5.

Why would I be better off? I know the scoreboard here doesn't allow them, are they the same size? I guess I will try with standard bullets. Making it to stage 6 fairly regularly.

Thanks again fellas!

[BulletMagnet]

I have been medal chaining quite successfully, but I was under the impression that once I've maxed them it's worth letting some of the piles to pass by to reduce rank.

That's a myth, and actually ends up increasing the rank somewhat.

If you get the chance you definitely ought to give the ST on this forum a look.

[RNGmaster]

Yeah, 100pt. medals increase rank much more than 10000pt. medals do.

[chempop]

Wow, already a huge improvement! I owe you guys. If I hadn't missed a medal I would have broke 5 mil and possibly got to the last stage. Totally blew it on 6-boss, but it was the first time reaching him so it's expected. Oh, and this was using Miyamoto, damn he's a tad fast lol.

Hmmm hidden extend eh? Time to dig through the strategy guides I suppose.

[captpain]

Wow, already a huge improvement! I owe you guys. If I hadn't missed a medal I would have broke 5 mil and possibly got to the last stage. Totally blew it on 6-boss, but it was the first time reaching him so it's expected. Oh, and this was using Miyamoto, damn he's a tad fast lol.

Hmmm hidden extend eh? Time to dig through the strategy guides I suppose.

Read Icarus's ST thread. Seriously, it's one of the best STs on this forum and the discussion is a gold mine.

[Zerst]

take red bullet off, you are better than that. especially if you ar making it to stage 5.

Why would I be better off? I know the scoreboard here doesn't allow them, are they the same size? I guess I will try with standard bullets. Making it to stage 6 fairly regularly.

He's not saying you'd be "better off", he's saying you are good enough to do without the "crutch", since red ball is assumed to make a lot of the bullets easier to see than standard competition settings.

Gain and Bornham are very high scoring characters when you are already very good at the game!

I started learning the game with Gain, he is the only character that I have managed to 1cc it with. I don't think I can even beat stage 5 with any of the garegga ships, and I usually game over in stage 6 with miyamoto. Gain's options kill everything so fast.

[chempop]

Gain was my preference initially, but now I'm pretty much sold on Miyamoto - I'll admit it is mostly because flying ninjas are just too cool

Just died on stage-7 at Blackheart... First time getting to him and I think I was close! Broke 6 mil too which seems pretty good.

[chempop]

Read the strat guide (again, had been a while), incredible amount of info, my brain melted. I don't know if I should just continue on the way I was playing, or start trying to maximize score with boss segment destruction and other methods of racking points. Previously I was just focussed on taking the bosses down asap, not sure if the guide was primarily intended for reaching a high score, or going to a 1CC. Are things like Madball milking worth learning if I want to clear the game before reaching letter-scores?

Worried about blackheart 2 being a wall for me

[Casper<3]

Quick question. I play this on mame. I'm wondering if buying a saturn (specifically and only) for this game is worth it?

What are the differences between mame and saturn versions?

[BulletMagnet]

It's expensive, but it is an excellent port: I don't know if I'd call it essential, per se, but some of the extra amenities (easy starting rank reset, code-free Mahou characters, autofire adjusts, superplays, a few others) are definitely nice to have.

[chempop]

Superplays on Saturn port? Not so sure about that.. unless I'm going blind which is highly probable.

I've read somewhere that the PCB (or Mame) have slightly looser controls than the Saturn port. Probably bogus but who knows. I personally much prefer ports over emus, but I know that it is a personal (ahem, materialistic) subject a I've always been a collector with all my hobbies.

If you are getting Saturn why stop at Garegga, I'd say there are at least a handful of other must haves depending on what you're into.

[BulletMagnet]

Superplays on Saturn port? Not so sure about that.. unless I'm going blind which is highly probable.

You hafta unlock 'em, but there are indeed two of 'em on there.

[Casper<3]

wait there is a code to unlock the other ships for the arcade/mame version?

can someone pleeeease point me in the right direction?

[Casper<3]

Superplays on Saturn port? Not so sure about that.. unless I'm going blind which is highly probable.

I've read somewhere that the PCB (or Mame) have slightly looser controls than the Saturn port. Probably bogus but who knows. I personally much prefer ports over emus, but I know that it is a personal (ahem, materialistic) subject a I've always been a collector with all my hobbies.

If you are getting Saturn why stop at Garegga, I'd say there are at least a handful of other must haves depending on what you're into.

I don't really like most of the other games (save dodonpachi).

Garegga and Dodonpachi would probably be my only purchases. None of the other games interest me or/I've tried them out and didn't like them.

[RNGmaster]

wait there is a code to unlock the other ships for the arcade/mame version?

can someone pleeeease point me in the right direction?

Input the Konami Code after hitting Coin. It's Button 1, then 2, then 3 before hitting start.

[Deca]

My jp saturn is set in my living room with Garegga in it at all times, the only other japanese game I own is Daytona USA

I find the DDP saturn port just about unplayable, I'd have to find it at a VERY good price to pick it up. That said I think Batsugun Special is amazingly fun, and it's the next game on my list of stuff to pick up.

Back on topic, I guess I should probably try experimenting with other ships. I played a fair amount without focusing on a particular ship back when I was still new to the game. At a meet a friend suggested going with the Golden Bat and on one of my first credits I made it much farther than I ever had been able to, dying just before the turrets in stage 6. I've stuck with the Golden Bat since then just because it's what I became used to.

I've also never used savestates to practice anything in the past, but I'm thinking it might be a good idea to set one up for BH2. It would probably be a good idea to set some in the later stages of Batrider as well and get back to work on that clear.

[Zerst]

Read the strat guide (again, had been a while), incredible amount of info, my brain melted. I don't know if I should just continue on the way I was playing, or start trying to maximize score with boss segment destruction and other methods of racking points. Previously I was just focussed on taking the bosses down asap, not sure if the guide was primarily intended for reaching a high score, or going to a 1CC. Are things like Madball milking worth learning if I want to clear the game before reaching letter-scores?

Worried about blackheart 2 being a wall for me

Mad ball and the flamingos are, above all else, the two scoring techniques you Should Probably Learn™ since they give you enough points for a couple extra suicides that the rank doesn't even start going much beyond default until stage 3 (especially so if you're using Gain).

Unfortunately I'm not sure how consistent Miyamoto is at both.

[RNGmaster]

Mad ball and the flamingos are, above all else, the two scoring techniques you Should Probably Learn™ since they give you enough points for a couple extra suicides that the rank doesn't even start going much beyond default until stage 3 (especially so if you're using Gain).

Unfortunately I'm not sure how consistent Miyamoto is at both.

Miyamoto can handle Mad Ball with some patience, but the flamingos only give him about 1m at most since you can't use 2 bombs at once.

[Casper<3]

I find the DDP saturn port just about unplayable

What's bad about the saturn port?

[Deca]

I find the DDP saturn port just about unplayable

What's bad about the saturn port?

Little to no slowdown in my experience. I actually feel like the game might run faster overall even. On MAME I've come very close to a 1-all many times, but every time I play the saturn version I find myself struggling to get through stage 3.

[burgerkingdiamond]

My jp saturn is set in my living room with Garegga in it at all times, the only other japanese game I own is Daytona USA

I find the DDP saturn port just about unplayable, I'd have to find it at a VERY good price to pick it up. That said I think Batsugun Special is amazingly fun, and it's the next game on my list of stuff to pick up.

Back on topic, I guess I should probably try experimenting with other ships. I played a fair amount without focusing on a particular ship back when I was still new to the game. At a meet a friend suggested going with the Golden Bat and on one of my first credits I made it much farther than I ever had been able to, dying just before the turrets in stage 6. I've stuck with the Golden Bat since then just because it's what I became used to.

I've also never used savestates to practice anything in the past, but I'm thinking it might be a good idea to set one up for BH2. It would probably be a good idea to set some in the later stages of Batrider as well and get back to work on that clear.

What's your issue with Saturn DDP? I've been playing it recently and have noticed that I'm sucking alot compared to MAME, but I can't put my finger on what it is. I feel like maybe it run's faster or something.