Xbox 360: Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 (November 2009)

[stryc9]

... and then he beat his hi-score by 67M and got to the last boss...... in normal play mode

Albeit that I did have to bomb a lot of the latter 1/4 of stage 5 as it was barmy and 17k+ on the counter wasn't helping things.

Why do I play so badly in score attack?

I stopped playing score attack so regularly for this very reason

[chempop]

Do not underestimate the power of moving in an infinity symbol way, especially in stages 4+5. Tap-tap-tap and then make your swooping movement heading toward bottom corner, then up the side and back around through the middle, finding the small breaks in enemy patterns to navigate through.

These games take serious amounts of practice, but once your skills improve you'll be able to clear them in much less time.

[Sapz]

I don't know what magical format the practice you seem to be prescribing takes, but if I'm practicing levels for the umpteen hundredth time and I'm still dying because it boils down to patterns being too fast for me to dodge and there not being enough room to move, I don't see what else I can can do. Play the level again? done that. Sometimes I get through, sometimes I don't.

I'm still dying on patterns that I died on the first time I ever saw them, and it's not because I don't know the pattern. I've seen them enough times but it doesn't make any difference. If I am still dying it's because it's too fast or too tight, and what I find odd about this game is that patterns are relatively dense seeing as they move so fast you can't even see them sometimes.

What Icarus is getting at and you seem to be missing, I think, is that simply putting in the reps is all well and good, but it's far less useful than practice specifically designed for finding problems, and making plans and coping measures for said trouble spots.

Example 1: 4th midboss. I used to have a lot of trouble with an attack from the fourth midboss; it's a very fast spray of bullets which I tried to dodge on reaction but pretty much 'lucked' through whenever I managed it (which was less consistent than I'd liked). After looking for a consistent way through the attack in practice, it turned out to all be aimed, so simple tap-streaming would perfectly dodge the attack every time.

Example 2: 4th boss final attack. This is a very difficult attack no matter how you try it. After practice, I found a small improvement in my consistency and found that the attack became a lot easier if you tried your best to make only small movements keeping the lines from going all over the place - but to still use a bomb in a panic situation if I lost control.

Example 3: Stage 5 1up. There's a red ground dragon and a bunch of lanterns that can be shot for points just before this. The dragon has an abnormally high amount of health, and I found it extremely difficult to destroy all the lanterns, kill him off and safely get the 1up. After practicing, I couldn't find a good way of doing it, so I decided to plant a bomb on the dragon as soon as he entered the screen and after destroying of the initially hittable lanterns, so I could still get all the lanterns with the shot for points. This gave me a lot more time after killing him earlier to get to the 1up, and had the side benefit of a much better timed bullet cancel. The fact that there was a bomb with the 1up meant that this was potentially a lossless strategy in an ideal run, which was another bonus.

That kind of thing.

[DrTrouserPlank]

I find it strange that you would find that particular attack of the 4th midboss hard, or that you'd have trouble getting the 1up safely when I find both of those pieces trivial. But surely this maybe explains why I'm having such difficulty. I am simply having difficulty with bits, or difficulty with more bits that most people encountered when they were learning the game.

I do have a phobia of using bombs because I don't see it as solving a problem, more just avoiding it; but that in itself comes at a price because it's a problem you may encounter later that can't be bombed. I usually hit the bomb half a second too late (when I'm not getting caught by lazy deaths) but in order to compensate I have to bomb a second too early and sometimes it turns out to have been unnecessary such as managing to kill the bullet-cancel enemy that was taking too long, or avoiding the last milliseconds of a boss pattern.

[Sapz]

Getting the 1up by itself isn't that hard, but I find getting it while also getting all the lanterns (crucial for a high score) quite tricky because of the dragon with crazy health. Also bear in mind that in my practice (and good runs) the rank is over 50k by that point. As you improve your scoring, you'll find areas start to climb in difficulty quite a lot.

I understand that bombing is frustrating, but if you have resources you're not using, and you're not achieving the goal you're aiming for yet... well, the solution seems obvious, haha. Doing something like clearing the game without bombing is incredibly hard, and not very useful when you could have turned that into a high scoring run with fewer misses.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Getting the 1up by itself isn't that hard, but I find getting it while also getting all the lanterns (crucial for a high score) quite tricky because of the dragon with crazy health. Also bear in mind that in my practice (and good runs) the rank is over 50k by that point. As you improve your scoring, you'll find areas start to climb in difficulty quite a lot.

I understand that bombing is frustrating, but if you have resources you're not using, and you're not achieving the goal you're aiming for yet... well, the solution seems obvious, haha. Doing something like clearing the game without bombing is incredibly hard, and not very useful when you could have turned that into a high scoring run with fewer misses.

I suspect that the rank-issue does make it much harder to get the 1up consistently, and if what I read earlier about chaining the lanterns making them score for increasingly more each time is true then I appreciate that you may have other things on your mind than simply nailing the 1up.

I did have a go at stage 5 with max rank in practice and I have to be honest, I didn't find it much worse. What I can avoid I still avoided, and what I couldn't avoid I still got hit by. The only thing I find distracting is that the game feels like it's playing on fast forward in the sense that the enemies move faster as well as their bullets. It's an odd phenomenon. Like playing a very old PC game on vastly superior hardware and the game plays at the wrong speed.

Is the TLB in 1.5 original mode for a no-miss run? I was surprised to skim through the replay of the no1 score and see that he missed several times and obviously didn't fight the TLB. Obviously his scoring must have been excellent, but I was just surprised to see a less than impeccable run with the top score.

[BulletMagnet]

Is the TLB in 1.5 original mode for a no-miss run?

TLB only appears in Ultra, if memory serves.

[ratikal]

Getting the 1up by itself isn't that hard, but I find getting it while also getting all the lanterns (crucial for a high score) quite tricky because of the dragon with crazy health. Also bear in mind that in my practice (and good runs) the rank is over 50k by that point. As you improve your scoring, you'll find areas start to climb in difficulty quite a lot.

I understand that bombing is frustrating, but if you have resources you're not using, and you're not achieving the goal you're aiming for yet... well, the solution seems obvious, haha. Doing something like clearing the game without bombing is incredibly hard, and not very useful when you could have turned that into a high scoring run with fewer misses.

So the game increases difficulty the higher the colored number is? If so, I might just screw score after I get 100M until I get a clear.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Getting the 1up by itself isn't that hard, but I find getting it while also getting all the lanterns (crucial for a high score) quite tricky because of the dragon with crazy health. Also bear in mind that in my practice (and good runs) the rank is over 50k by that point. As you improve your scoring, you'll find areas start to climb in difficulty quite a lot.

I understand that bombing is frustrating, but if you have resources you're not using, and you're not achieving the goal you're aiming for yet... well, the solution seems obvious, haha. Doing something like clearing the game without bombing is incredibly hard, and not very useful when you could have turned that into a high scoring run with fewer misses.

So the game increases difficulty the higher the colored number is? If so, I might just screw score after I get 100M until I get a clear.

Enemy bullets move faster as the rank is driven up by the overall counter. I think rank maxes at 70k on the overall counter but I can't find the FAQ to substantiate this.

You can set the rank in training mode if you want to see the difference between, say, 20k overall counter and 70k.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Do not underestimate the power of moving in an infinity symbol way, especially in stages 4+5. Tap-tap-tap and then make your swooping movement heading toward bottom corner, then up the side and back around through the middle, finding the small breaks in enemy patterns to navigate through.

These games take serious amounts of practice, but once your skills improve you'll be able to clear them in much less time.

My problem is that until I am down to zero lives remaining I don't play how I should do. I play conservatively and it either gets me killed or means I have to bomb in situations I could have avoided.

When i'm down to zero lives on stage 5 and it's a case of "find the gap or die" I miraculously find the gap...... how can you take those risks earlier though?... if you die you'll regret it for being reckless.

[moozooh]

The risks aren't really what they seem if the player is in control. Panic and fear of imminent failure is what robs you of it for the most part. Solution? Expose yourself more and eventually become numb to danger that is illusory, opposed to the danger that is quite real and bomb-worthy.

If you've driven a car or at least ridden a bicycle in your life, tell yourself, was the sensation the same the 1st time and the 10th? 100th? The "risk" is always there (crashing on a speed like that bears more consequences than getting a gameover in a shmup), yet for the vast majority of people it's so natural they are more calm and relaxed in a car/on a bike than most of us are on a good Futari credit.

[Sapz]

70k is indeed the rank cap, and bullets have a huge speed jump at exactly 70k (whereas 0-69999 is a gradual increase). Also, past 70k, you get a per-frame score increase similar to DDP's max bomb bonus, which gives more per-frame as your counter increases. Reaching 70k is extremely difficult, though.

[burgerkingdiamond]

my 1CC replay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnndxw6XYHE

Unfortunately I don't have a capture card or anything. The best I could do was take the 360 out of my cab and hook it up to the TV and record it with my video camera. Even in 720p the quality isn't great, but it's watchable.

To Sapz and other freaks (I mean that in the best possible way ) don't hesitate to point out any spots where I should be milking more gems. I would like to hit 300 million someday.

BKD

[DrTrouserPlank]

Got to the last boss again, this time with 2 lives.

I need to find a way to beat her. In practice I've never managed it without losing 4 lives, and I'm pretty unlikely to make it there with 4 remaining either.

[Skykid]

Got to the last boss again, this time with 2 lives.

I need to find a way to beat her. In practice I've never managed it without losing 4 lives, and I'm pretty unlikely to make it there with 4 remaining either.

Bloody hell, I think the penny's dropped.

[moozooh]

Nice. Getting to her with two lives basically means you can cruise through all of the hard patterns on bombs and just dodge the easy things.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Nice. Getting to her with two lives basically means you can cruise through all of the hard patterns on bombs and just dodge the easy things.

Not for me it doesn't.

I'm running it in practice and bombing lots and I can only do her with 7 lives maybe 1 in 20 times.

Pretty much every pattern needs to be bombed at some point and costs lives otherwise.

[burgerkingdiamond]

Nice. Getting to her with two lives basically means you can cruise through all of the hard patterns on bombs and just dodge the easy things.

Not for me it doesn't.

I'm running it in practice and bombing lots and I can only do her with 7 lives maybe 1 in 20 times.

Pretty much every pattern needs to be bombed at some point and costs lives otherwise.

I never thought I'd say it, but Larsa really isn't too bad. I spent about 2 hours practicing her and that was all it took to memorize exactly which patterns where coming up and when to bomb. On a good run all I need is 2-3 bombs. The second half of the first pattern is the worst. If I get past that without missing it's pretty much in the bag for 1 miss or less.

The worst part of practicing Larsa is having to watch that stupid intro over and over and over and over and over.............................

Anyone speak japanese and care to translate? I've only heard it 150 times or so. It'd be nice to know what they're saying.

[moozooh]

You'll be disappointed. She just insults the character and wishes him/her to die.

[Sapz]

To Sapz and other freaks (I mean that in the best possible way ) don't hesitate to point out any spots where I should be milking more gems. I would like to hit 300 million someday.

Alrighty then!

• Stage 2's icicles are a big one. The icicles will continually spawn jellyfish which can be shot for gems, and destroying the icicle will also destroy all the jellyfish that spawned from it. With this in mind, it's best to attack jellyfish over the icicle to get more gems, and destroy the icicle when there are a ton of jellyfish around (as late as possible).
• The stage 4 midboss should always be killed with shot regardless of your counter - if you do, his whole web will turn into large gems, worth significantly more than what the midboss itself gives. Ideally you should also do this with the third boss for the ground gems at the end, but don't worry about that one too much, it's pretty high risk for low reward.
• Stage 5 lanterns. For each one of these that you destroy (bombing them doesn't count), you get a number of points, and the -next- lantern becomes worth even more. They start at a few hundred thousand each and finish up at something like 4-5m apiece, if you manage to get almost all of them. Of course, a lot of them are difficult to get, but it's definitely something to watch out for if you're after 300m.

That's pretty much all of the specifics, you seem to have the stages down well - very nice performance on stage 3 and 4! The other thing is just a piece of general advice, which is to try and grab all the gems as they're still green (double value) - it really adds up over time. As long as you're making a conscious effort to do it, you'll pick it up naturally as you play and start to focus on score over survival.

Congrats again on the 1cc, and good luck for 300m.

[burgerkingdiamond]

To Sapz and other freaks (I mean that in the best possible way ) don't hesitate to point out any spots where I should be milking more gems. I would like to hit 300 million someday.

Alrighty then!

• Stage 2's icicles are a big one. The icicles will continually spawn jellyfish which can be shot for gems, and destroying the icicle will also destroy all the jellyfish that spawned from it. With this in mind, it's best to attack jellyfish over the icicle to get more gems, and destroy the icicle when there are a ton of jellyfish around (as late as possible).
• The stage 4 midboss should always be killed with shot regardless of your counter - if you do, his whole web will turn into large gems, worth significantly more than what the midboss itself gives. Ideally you should also do this with the third boss for the ground gems at the end, but don't worry about that one too much, it's pretty high risk for low reward.
• Stage 5 lanterns. For each one of these that you destroy (bombing them doesn't count), you get a number of points, and the -next- lantern becomes worth even more. They start at a few hundred thousand each and finish up at something like 4-5m apiece, if you manage to get almost all of them. Of course, a lot of them are difficult to get, but it's definitely something to watch out for if you're after 300m.

That's pretty much all of the specifics, you seem to have the stages down well - very nice performance on stage 3 and 4! The other thing is just a piece of general advice, which is to try and grab all the gems as they're still green (double value) - it really adds up over time. As long as you're making a conscious effort to do it, you'll pick it up naturally as you play and start to focus on score over survival.

Congrats again on the 1cc, and good luck for 300m.

Thanks dude! I will try and focus on those points. It's much easier to have someone like you explain, because even by watching your replay it's hard to pick up on the little specific things you're doing.

.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Pretty sure shot is tapping (0-499) whilst 500-999 is laser (holding)

[Sapz]

No problem. By shot, I mean spread - I think of the 500-999 one as 'laser'. I dunno if that's just me though, haha.

Whoops, ninja'd.

[burgerkingdiamond]

No problem. By shot, I mean spread - I think of the 500-999 one as 'laser'. I dunno if that's just me though, haha.

Whoops, ninja'd.

haha yeah, I went back and edited the post cuz I figured all I had to do was watch the replay again and I could figure out what you meant.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Bought black label last night. Not sure why really.

Not too convinced about it being easier. Granted that you tear through bosses quicker but there's more bullets in general.

[dunpeal2064]

Bought black label last night. Not sure why really.

Not too convinced about it being easier. Granted that you tear through bosses quicker but there's more bullets in general.

I find it way easier come stage 3. It seems to me like there is more slowdown in bl

plus, you can shed gems, and they are so shiny! I love scoring in bl

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Black Label is easier to just survive. Black Label is harder to score.

[Skykid]

Bought black label last night. Not sure why really.

Not too convinced about it being easier.

Waaaaaaaaay easier (for pure survival.)

[DrTrouserPlank]

Can clear Larsa's first and second patterns consistently.
(well relatively consistently, I don't see it being a high-success-rate task ever)

3rd patter gets too much...

2nd form, 1st pattern is stupid as I've yet to develop the ability to move each of my eyes individually so that I can look at two things at once.
2nd pattern is "ok" relatively... it's do-able.

3rd form 1st pattern... ridiculous.
2nd pattern.. must be blind tap-dodged because it's way too fast to react to
3rd pattern.... don't understand how it works... if you have to react to it being semi-random then it's stupid.

[moozooh]

Shameless self-plug for justice. :D