Practice modes and Save States - What do you think?

[BIL]

Practice modes and Save States - What do you think?

Spoiler

[chum]

Fairy Wars doesn't have a practice mode, let alone save states, and I've done just fine in that only doing full runs (maybe around 30000 credits, I've used too many score files to remember.) Savestates (or whatever efficient form of practice) are nice because every deep scoring game will have particular obscurities, subtleties and difficulties that are nearly impossible to truly get to grips with without repeatedly trying over and over and over again to perfection. This is not something to think about before you're starting top level playing, when you're going to want to attempt the same 1 thing 1000s of times for consistency. I'm confident that 99% of every game, at a top level, can be pretty comfortably learned by a talented and dedicated player through just credit spam. Everyone has a different ability to move, read, understand, different learning rates, consistency and intellect. This is going to be true no matter if you do full runs or practice. If you think that using save states will magically make you the better player you are wrong. Back to Fairy Wars again, the way I've done it is to put in credits only since there is no practice mode, and study replays repeatedly (mostly my own) and write down notes. I can't stress enough how important it is to study the game, treat it as a fucking science and study it to perfection. This is not a "real" substitute for save states and practice modes, but it is essential. Save states can be a very helpful tool for this, too. Bottom line, you don't need save states/practice modes, but they are invaluable and when available, and I'm sure most of the greats used them when available because it's stupid not to.

If we're talking about simple hit 'n' run clears, you're not being competitive anyway, so what do you have to prove? Does it matter that much that someone chose to be more efficient, if the end result is the same anyway? Are we talking about fun? Maybe someone finds it more fun to practice than to do runs. The trash talking about this phenomenon has been a farm staple and is fucking embarrassing every time, assuming that the lack of a smart mentality and efficiency is a bragging right, and that using that efficiency is a weakness. Some seem to forget that you still want to do all the things you're practicing all in one go, in addition to all the time you spend practicing them, and some people insist on practicing a lot. It's not some kind of magic that does everything for you and it will not turn you into an amazing player and hand you "awesome" achievements.

[trap15]

I really REALLY don't care how others play their games

It sure doesn't sound like it.

[Despatche]

This was always bait. "shmup purists" are the people who are actually for practice modes and save states.

Not advertising practice modes properly is why everyone really hates this genre. There is way more to practice modes than grinding out a high level trick. Kinda like fighting games, it's great to have a way to figure out survival strats (or basic scoring tricks) in the later levels without having to play the entire rest of the game each time.

Also, NTSC-J's post.