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This is interesting, because a lot of people claim that Ketsui has no rank (it also means that dying against a boss *raises* rank in Ketsui!).

What does rank actually change? How would you affect it in any way other than being sure to speedkill bosses (and, I guess, choose player 2)?

From my testing, the rank mostly changes how much in-stage enemies shoot: on a high rank, enemies shoot tons of bullets like stage 5; on low rank, they shoot few bullets, like stage 1. Rank does not seem to affect bosses nor mid-bosses at all.

If you take a while on bosses, you can probably add 6 to 10 to rank per-boss, out of a maximum of 240. The only way to affect rank is by making the game go by faster (by speedkilling bosses), and by not picking up power ups. The player 2 trick makes the power up value cut in half (instead of power level * 4, it's power level * 2), so you can cut up to 10 points off of rank by playing player 2 (sorry, my value was wrong; you can cut up to 1/24th of maximum rank. Don't know how I came up with 1/7th...).

EDIT: The only inputs to the rank function are time, stage, loop, and power; nothing else can affect it.

Still been messing with X-Mode, still no luck defeating Doom. Got a really high score run with plenty of lives in stock, but I think I bombed too much trying to preserve the points from Ura suicide bullets and Doom didn't appear

Anyone know if there's a cutoff to where you can go crazy with dying/bombing and still have Doom appear? I was playing through once and did really well until the part after the reverse scrolling section of Stage 5, then got super frustrated and wound up losing a bunch of lives and bombs. Definitely used more than 6 combined lives lost/bombs used by the time I reached the boss, but still had Doom appear, much to my surprise.

On the upper part I know what the first number is (the total value of the boxes colected on the stage) and the one below is the box you are actually collecting with focus, but what means the number on the middle?

That would be the multiplier. When you kill enemies with lockshot, their value is multiplied by that amount. The multiplier decreases by 1/30th, 1/20th or 1/10th depending on the enemy killed with lockshot.

http://video.niconico.com/watch/sm15474005

What...the fuck...

If memory serves correctly, SPS did worse than this anonymous dude on the first stage. Definitely worth checking out.

Where is the rest of it?! Man, I feel discouraged. Playing for survival is exhilarating, but this complicated airlocking bullshit/score grinding makes this game start to suck.

You will enjoy the upcoming Mr.Stoic mode then!

Is there a trick to the stage 3 boss last pattern ? The one with large bullets on top of each others.
I can no miss/no bomb up to there, but generally lose one or two life on it trying to no bomb it as well..

just hug the walls, the bullets that move left/right never reach all the way to them

It's also important to stay at mid-field: the red bullets travel from one stream at the top of the screen to another stream at the bottom of the screen, so you have the most room for error at the midpoint between top and bottom.

Does Ketsui have a no miss bonus? I've been playing in MAME and I don't seem to see anything different on the results screen when I no miss a stage.

No no-miss bonus, but the end stage bonus is Multiplier * lives * bombs. So even though no-miss is not "actually" worth an additional bonus, it's worth more in that sense.

Soon I'll be doing some Ketsui de-rusting, trying to clear the first loop consistently and work towards Omote.
I play with Panzer Jager and managed the 1-ALL a couple times, but the general wisdom I've seen suggests that Tiger Schwert is an easier ship to use overall, especially in the second loop.

To any good players: would you suggest I practice using Tiger, Or stay on with Panzer?

You shouldn't listen to me since i haven't used Panzer for shit, but i could imagine it being easier for survival in Omote actually!
A fast ship speed should help in re-directing large clusters of suicide bullets more easily.

apparently tiger has an easier time if you know what to do in the loop and panzer if you don't (which shouldn't happen in the first place)
chip value also only depends on vertical distance so tiger makes scoring easier and lets you empty lock more enemies at once I assume

just use whatever, it's not that panzer is bad but rather it has no real advantage over tiger except for the 2-3 boss and dodging doom's final

Get on Tiger right away mate. The faster lock-speed itself is enough to make it much sweeter to use. I really find it easier to use in general. I quickly reached 2-4 Omote with it after switching. Before that I would have trouble surviving hotspots in 1-5 with any consistency and other nuisances so at least check it out!

Alright thanks for the replies people =]
I'll put some decent time in with tiger and see how it feels.

Tiger is the truth!

Tiger is better than Panzer in almost every way, the broader coverage makes up the mobility, and lock speed is acceptable even you are at the bottom of screen, let alone the scoring efficiency.

Stable, safe and easy locking, perfect for those who don't like moving around a lot. The only setback for Tiger is in ura loop, where it has to slip through small gaps in the waves of suicide bullets occasionally, instead of luring them all the time.

Oh yes, and ura 2-3 boss, we call it the "Type-A killer"

This night I manage to pull a no-miss/no-bomb the first two stages with Tiger on Arcade Mode, but is a long journey 'till a full run. In the meantime, I shall unlock all the trophies and the config options.

In that regard, how can you pull the bomb glitch? Any advise about it?
Also, what you have to do in order to unlock the "Chip" and "No bullets" options?

I was searching for a copy of the strategy booklet, for perusal and found the insanity DVD book:

http://www.game-ost.com/albums/15675/se ... rack,_the/

Right hand bar has a full scan of the awesome booklet, with stage maps and bunch of juicy info I can't read. Enjoy!

http://www.projectfirestart.org/360/ketsui.html

and then I found the official one with enemy placement maps, from an Italian site.

Here is a list of some misinformation/unincluded information in the original post.

Misinformation:

-Proximity actually does affect damage when in lock shot during stages.

-The ships are not the same speed in lock shot, panzer is very slightly faster.

-For ura they say "The rate of decrease when an enemy is destroyed with lock-shot is decreased." it is actually increased. (doubled, to be exact)

-Multiplier decrease during bosses is mentioned only for ura, however in omote it decreases at 50% speed compared to loop 1, Ura decreases at 33% speed compared to loop 1.



Unincluded information:

-Damage with lock shot works differently on bosses, proximity damage from lock shot is removed, however on some bosses you can lose out on damage by hitting side parts (this is important on phase 1 of stage 4 boss). Midbosses and DOOM still have proximity damage though. another way the game treats DOOM differently is that it takes off 10% of the multiplier before the stage end bonus, no other boss does this.

-The chip chain timer increases more from shot killing enemies instead of lock killing them.

-The chip timer also decreases far quicker when not shooting.

-The chip timer ALSO goes to max (55) whenever it is reset, you can reset it by letting the timer run out and starting a new one, or by increasing the value of the chain, letting it reset is often a better idea than trying to chain as long as possible.

-Ura revenge bullets also spawn in a wider area compared to omote, this coupled with the speed forces you to stream much quicker compared to omote.