I did some PCB runs lately. And I'll do more, once this STGT-thingie ends.
I'll just quote most of the comments from my MotK entries so this'll be pretty boring read to those who have already read it over there.
Actually it's a pretty boring read to everyone.
Easy - SakuyaB
Seppo Hovi - 1,237,884,060 - C - 0.416% -
Replay (No bombs)
I decided to go on with the run after a border break to Chen's final noncard. Stage 3 was okay, but I failed stage 4 really really hard. First of all I accidentally ended Prism first card prematurely, netting only a sum of 5m as a Spell Bonus, and losing awful amounts of graze. Also picked Merlin since I wanted to experiment a bit and it was... pretty horrible. I tried to do some grazing with her spell and ended up breaking a border. Jeez. Everything else was okay, didn't fail final card as I did on an earlier run today.
But the stage five was gruesomely horrible. I failed to get the border for the streaming after midboss Youmu (argh), broke one border somewhere around Youmu and also died once to the first card since I'm a fucking idiot and forgot where the bullets hitbox was. Fuck.
The stage six spam was rather lame with only 590k Cherrymax, but at least I got my border during it. Then I ended midboss Youmu's noncard way too early and had to readjust my borders a bit. Everything would've been okay but I broke a border to the first Yuyuko card, losing some cherry and a border bonus. Whatever, carried on and did everything as it should be done - apart from maybe ending Flowery Soul way too early, almost missing a border for Repository (I got it, thank goddess) and not gaining a second border during Yuyuko's penultimate card. Reflowering was okay, I'm starting to get used to doing the PoC thing on the lower difficulties.
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Normal - ReimuA
Seppo Hovi - 1,399,144,040 - C - 0.225% -
Replay
It kind of feels stupid, that this run is only a 4M improvement to my old one. And yet so many things are different. Where should I start.
Okay, background. I've been wanting to beat Erppo's PCB score for a long while, and the recent stage 4 weekly got me really interested in ReimuA. Interested enough to start forming my own route.
This run was first to achieve many things. Maybe it could have been the first to hit the 1.4b, had I not fucked up so majorly in the late game. For example, I broke my stage 1 normal cherrymax record, it's now
235k. My overtime record gain of cherry in stage 1 is on easy, which would be
36k. I also have some 40k gaining hard MarisaA runs, but those are not relevant, since they never make it to the end. The stage 1 grazing was pretty low, though. I should've been way past 600 when it ended. Oh well, not a big fuckup. I still don't handle the manly ways of supergrazing the two borders I gain within stage 1, but 15k of cherry from grazing does not sound too bad, at least not for me. I did try to look into some of Heartbeam's replays for tricks here, but I just can't follow it. He's too good with this game. Or I'm too bad. Most likely the latter.
Stage 2 went awesomely well, every border was right where I wanted them to be, and the RNG was smiling. Which meant something I've never hit during stage 2 normal before, that something being
300,480 Cherrymax during stage 2. I was really happy to see that happening. The grazing was a pit poor outside it and I still have no idea what the fuck are HS and Heartbeam doing during Chen's penultimate card.
The third stage and Alice are a thing, which I am really bad at. About 10 runs ended on stage 3 before this one. I should really improve my consistency here. Lately I've been implementing the grazing for Alice's first midboss appearance, for the first two waves I circle around her. Unless the RNG is shit I do not fail this, but as you can see I'm still a bit new to it - I don't gain the optimal graze here. Which is not the main failure in stage 3 I did. The main failure is
dying to the wave of fairies before the second midboss Alice. I've died to a lot of stuff but it's first time for me to die here. Thankfully it's not that bad since I gain quite a bit of cherryitems right after it. And I do continue, mainly since I want to save the run to take a screen of the 300k cherrymax in stage 2. It really felt good, at least with this route. The rest of Alice goes quite well, while I falter a bit with the latter cards. Especially Alice's second card. I just can't get the grasp of the PoC trick here. Or maybe I'm too much of a coward to try. Whichever it is, I'm losing some precious points there.
Stage 4. PCB stage 4, which I used to fear when I still played for my first 1CC. And now I fear it when scoring. My route is pretty solid here, I know what to do perfectly well. I never die to RNG-releated stuff, I can avoid that by being clever enough. What gets me is some static failures. First thing was completely messing up the border for the final wave of fairies in the opener. I still got it for the wave, but I didn't really get any graze during it. Nevertheless I've had awesome first two stages so I have 400k Cherrymax to work on during stage 4. It could be easily pushed to 600k, maybe even beyond that if I started to break my route. I somehow fail either pre-Lily or post-Lily, or both, on every full run. Maybe I'm just too much of a shit for this, I don't know. This time the mistake was post-Lily, and what a mistake that was. I entered the post-Lily grazes with
471k Cherrymax. I could push that to 520k with perfect work, unless I'm calculating something wrong. This run, I leave the post-Lily portiong with the awesome amount of
484k Cherrymax. Which is like one border and grazing 30 bullets. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. The another bad thing is, that I just don't understand how to get all the fairies during the pre-Prismriver spam.
I miss one almost every wave. Heartbeam gets them, HS gets them, and I have no idea how it works. And I'm a coward again, I don't dare to ask for help. Or maybe it's that I already got more than enough, and now I want to figure something by myself. But yeah, this thing is something I just.. don't understand. More hours needed.
Prismrivers. I'm pretty okay at those three, to be honest. I do pick "the wrong sister" since I am horribly inconsistent with everything else, especially when stressed by a real run. But I've formed a route for the sisters and actually improved the route lately. Which means some extra tricks, and cherrypoints. I also recently broke my record on the first card on normal gaining 10M from it. Of course on this run, I forgot to stop shooting and end it too early, netting only a bit over 5M from the bonus. I recently watched a
stage practice run where the player does some sick shit during the Prism Concerto. I, sadly, do not understand how it works. And even if I did, the dodging would be too high level for me. Maybe some day, but certainly not today.
Stage 5. Usually I can handle Youmu quite well, but this time it was the bane of this run. A lot of major fuckups happened. First of all, I started the stage with
a premature border. It would not be too bad, and it actually helps me as I don't have to break the second border of the stage (I wouldn't have had to break this one either, but of course I accidentally did by ramming into... something like an idiot). But, it means that I have to PoC the stage 5 early spam. Twice. And I'm quite bad at that, to be blunt. Somehow I pulled it off this time, and nothing bad happened, but everything could've ended there, that's how scary it was. And then Youmu, whom I usually handle without trouble. I start by
dying to the midboss card, without even trying to supergraze it. Awesome. Next thing is
I panic during the first card and BOMB. I should be doing NB-scoreruns, this is unacceptable. The run is wrecked now, but I want to finis for aforementioned reasons. I still can hit the 620k Cherrymax back during Youmu, everything is ok. Unless I ram into a bullet during the easiest card in the stage.
Which of course happens. This also almost ruins my border timing for the stage 6 spam, but I still save the cherrycount by breaking a border during Youmu's final card. It's only a spell bonus I'm losing, not like that has happened with every boss Youmu's card but one during this run. Yeah I captured one card from stage 5. Superplay.
Stage 6 starts with
way too low bpv, which I cannot do anything to before the spam portion ends. At least I gain the border for the spam, which I break in order to restore some decency. Or maybe I accidentally rammed into a bullet, my mind was really cloudy at that point. In any case, after the infernally shit stage 5, I am entering Yuyuko with
875M and a 640k Cherrymax. I've had a run which entered Yuyuko with 900M and 662k. That run died three times to Yuyuko's second card. But that run is gone, forget about that run. Everything else on Yuyuko goes quite good, aside from the fact that I don't supergraze anything before the third card since I have no idea how to, until I
succesfully run into a knife during the third non. And theres a space enough to fill a fucking cow just left from me. I'm not this bad, it's the stress of a real run, that's what it is. I graze the third card with the pussymode since the manly style is too hard. 20M bonus, that's enough for me. Repository gains me 32M, which is a record on that card on normal. I skip one border during the final card due to tension, and my inconsistency, just plainly capturing it with fully focused shooting below the boss. Then Reflowering, I could've grazed a bit more. I SHOULD'VE grazed a bit more. Only worth of 900k. But no. No, of course not.
Ending bonus is 204M, just a tiny bit more would have been needed to gain 1.4b. I could've grazemilked stage 6 midboss Youmu's non, for example. That would've done it.
All the tension for nothing. The score is bad, the goal is bad. I should not care, not after seeing someone lose several 2b runs and talk about those. Reading several WR tier posts, WR tier fails. But of course I do care, this is my playing, best I can pull off. Special for me.
Geh. I have to keep heading for that 1.4b.
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Hard - ReimuA
Seppo Hovi - 1,343,213,440 - C - 0.236% -
Replay
Horribly horrible horrid horseshit. - I have cleared PCB hard under 10 times and it shows.
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Extra - 997,380,310 - C - 0.041% -
Replay
THREE MILLIONS ARGHHASJKDHAJFH. I haven't played extra ever since. Too scary, but I want that 1b on SakuyaA.
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Rather dull, rather bland. I'd like to perfect Yukari, some day, wihtout any real attempts at it. I like her battle and theme very much.
Phantasm - MarisaB
Seppo Hovi - 1,048,966,550 - C - 0.068% -
Replay
Died to Yukari's first card and failed the stage borders. Also broke a border to DBDB but that was obvious. Also my route sucks but everyone knows that.
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I also have a lunatic score, but it was done during nighttime and I was drunk while I played it. Also it sucks so I'm not posting it.
Yeah right, and my other scores don't suck. Keep dreaming.