shmups.system11.org

Since the ST and the other GD thread seem to concentrate mostly on maniac mode, it seems that the real basics of the game remain undiscussed and I got the impression that original mode, due to its lack of a complex scoring system, is deemed unworthy of discussion.

Personally, I hardly play any of the other modes, so I'd like to discuss Original a bit, without the information getting drowned among the many posts about counter banking and autofire manipulation.

Some questions to get started:

Which power does everyone use? I normally use S-Power for Original and W-Power for all other modes. Has anyone found M-Power to be useful at all? In theory, M-Power should be the perfect synthesis of the other Powers's strengths, but instead it seems to possess both too little power and too little coverage.

When I watched Ghegs play Mush at his place, I noticed that he finished the first stage with 10k to 12k more points than me and I wondered how he does that. The only real difference I could see was the point at which he killed the boss's first form. I have tried to copy his strategy since, but with little luck. Sometimes I can hit 5k more than the score I consistently achieved with my own strategy, but sometimes I also get 5k less than before. I assume that I simply don't get the timing right. Any help?

How many round amber stones are there to collect? In Original, this number seems fixed. I think I got them all in the first two stages. In stage one I get 224 small stones and 40 (Or was it 44? I'll have to look again.) big ones. In stage 2 I get 234 small ones and 80 big stones. In stage 3 there are zero of both. Am I missing any? And how many are there in the last two stages? (Anyone with a one-life-clear under his belt able to answer the question? DEL?)

Herr Schatten -Firstly, I hope you enjoyed your visit to Finland! I was in Holland visiting Maikel at the same time .


With regards to Original Mode, I haven't counted the small and large stones on ST4 and 5. If you're squeezing for score, pls look at Icarus's 'collect stones first' method on the Mush Hi-Sc thread.

You can milk the ST1 Boss by going for the slow kill, but bear in mind that there is a time limit and the patterns speed up towards the end of that time limit.

The ST2 trees can obviously be milked to a large extent & are important for overall Original Mode score.

Try to get greedy on ST4 and kill all the dragons.

Other than that, make use of the fact that there is a small period when mid-sized enemies can be milked without taking damage when they first appear on screen.

Cheers,

DEL

DEL, I did indeed enjoy my trip to Finland and, of course, meeting Ghegs there.

I'll take a look at Icarus's posts in the highscore thread. I'm still not quite satisfied with my progress in Original mode, as I keep on making stupid mistakes from, like, stage 3 on. I know I can finish it perfectly with no miss, but I seldom really manage to do it.

I normally don't play for score, but since I just need the extends (sucky as I play), I feel that I have to, so I started paying some more attention. And I still think that Original is not discussed enough. hopefully, some more people will chime in.

Anyway, if you saw me playing Mush right now, I think you'd still be a bit proud of me if you compare my playing with how I did at the London meet. I even use my bombs now. ...sometimes.

Any thoughts on bomb distribution? ATM, I bomb once for convenience when switching to the other side of the screen when killing the side tentacles of the 1up head and then again at the stage 3 boss on the first pattern of the second form. That one's still giving me nightmares. I just don't know how to dodge/lead the bullets properly.

While my theory that "grab gold first" wil boost scores has been disproved, the gold items are still very important in Original. It is more a case of how many you get, not when you get them, though.

If anything, to maximise your scores in Original, it is best to grab all available gold items, and learn a strategy which will see you destroy each form of a boss when the screen is filled with bullets. There are also a few tricks unique to Original that must be learned, I think more was discussed in the hi-score thread.