Ketsui is too brutal

[Bananamatic]

Slightly offtopic, but is DOJ BL easier or harder than WL?
BL seems slightly easier to me...

[kernow]

I find it a bit tricky to take the same route each time, level 1 I sometimes finish with 12 million, other times 6 , I'm not as consistent as with other games. I do like it but yeah I do find it tough going, level 3 is hairy enough for me let alone future levels.

DOJ BL is definitely easier than WL, no question, and a whole lot more fun too.

[joeboto]

Not only is it hard, the stage 2 soundtrack will haunt you when you least expect it. You're outside, mowing the lawn then out of nowhere you start to whistle it. Shit is brutal.

damn thats true. same goes to mushi stage 1. godddd....

[captpain]

lol you guys dinosaurjerk has a 136 mil score and has looped the game, so yeah he knows what he's talking about.

[Sapz]

ALSO be sure your staying an inch or two from the bottom of the screen so your side options + the stupid pathetic nose laser hit the big enemies full on, like the large planes and tanks, makes them die a lot faster. even tho the nose laser is pathetic and weak it makes them go down faster which is critical and even more critical in the later stages. good luck and god bless

Staying at the bottom of the screen doesn't usually end up very good.
Being aggresive in the middle/upper part and killing shit asap makes things much easier.

The emphasis here is on staying a few inches above the bottom, as opposed to hugging the bottom border so that the central cannon is doing some damage too. As long as all options and the central shot are hitting (and lock on ASAP, of course), you have enough firepower to take on all the stages comfortably, though there's still not a lot of leeway in the latter half of stage 5, particularly the pre-boss rush.

[Bananamatic]

The emphasis here is on staying a few inches above the bottom, as opposed to hugging the bottom border so that the central cannon is doing some damage too. As long as all options and the central shot are hitting (and lock on ASAP, of course)

so basically

the laser has LIMITED RANGE?

what the hell man

[Udderdude]

It's called "Forcing the player to not be a pussy" >_>

[Bananamatic]

They could've at least put a disclaimer on it that the laser is shorter than it looks, because I haven't noticed once across 30 credits or so.

It looks like it's hitting the enemy, except it isn't and then you wonder why aren't those bastards dying and what could you be possibly doing wrong

I mean, they stole two super badass helicopter fighter planes from an evil weapons corporation that develops mechanical credit-devouring butterflies yet those 2 just happen to have a laser with less range than a nerf gun

game developers are evil creatures indeed

[Udderdude]

If you actually looked up the screen you'd see the main laser dissapears in a circle effect after traveling about 75% up the screen.

This is the kind of thing that drives game developers insane, actually. You think you've added something that makes it clear, then players completely fail to notice it

Also I'm fairly sure they do show it on the instruction strip that comes with the PCB

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3240/275 ... f24c_o.jpg (Warning huge picture)

[mesh control]

The laser barely does any damage anyways.

[captpain]

The laser barely does any damage anyways.

It does enough to be quite important.

[man9child]

Yeah, the damage from the laser is definitely noticeable.

Just to weigh in on the whole Ketsui/DOJ thing, for what it's worth I've been to the final boss of Ketsui about 5 times on a credit. I think I've gotten to stage 4 of DOJ three times. Granted, I like Ketsui more than DOJ and have played it more as a result. But as somebody whose only Cave 1CC is Deathsmiles, I think Ketsui is manageable if you stick with it. Other than a few trouble spots in stage 3 and 4, (for me the midboss of stage 3, and the beginning parts of stage 4 with the ships that aim directly at you as they come onscreen) the game doesn't get crazy until the descent in stage 5.

I think playing for score forces you to learn the stage layouts and to keep playing agressively, which lets you take out enemies as quickly as possible. The game gets easier when you play on its own terms.

[apple arcade]

Harder than DOJ? No way.

[BPzeBanshee]

Yeah, the damage from the laser is definitely noticeable.

Just to weigh in on the whole Ketsui/DOJ thing, for what it's worth I've been to the final boss of Ketsui about 5 times on a credit. I think I've gotten to stage 4 of DOJ three times. Granted, I like Ketsui more than DOJ and have played it more as a result. But as somebody whose only Cave 1CC is Deathsmiles, I think Ketsui is manageable if you stick with it. Other than a few trouble spots in stage 3 and 4, (for me the midboss of stage 3, and the beginning parts of stage 4 with the ships that aim directly at you as they come onscreen) the game doesn't get crazy until the descent in stage 5.

I think playing for score forces you to learn the stage layouts and to keep playing agressively, which lets you take out enemies as quickly as possible. The game gets easier when you play on its own terms.

I dont mean to point this out in a nasty way or debunk your view, just out of curiosity, but when you 1CCed Deathsmiles what Ranks did you pick on average?

I ask because the #1 guy on Deathsmiles PAL right now picks 2s and 3s to avoid enabling suicide bullets on the last stage, which to me seems a bit like taking the easy option out. I've been enabling Rank 3's all the way thinking it was the way to go and haven't 1CCed the game yet, and was curious to see if anyone else actually had (regardless of score, I couldn't care less score-wise).

On-topic, I was kidding earlier. The game's not easy but it's certainly beatable *when played on its own terms*. This can be said of any game, though Ketsui is noticably more strict in this regard.
I like to think of it as like learning a Yagawa game - you gotta learn the game with all of its intricacies, not all of which is obvious which is why reading the ST thread for it is beneficial.
I personally can't be bothered with Ketsui because my computer won't run it properly (too old ) but for example in my experience with ESPRade I kept going at it, realised I should be focusing a bit more on its scoring mechanic and usage of bombs, and my scores (and in turn actual survival rate) has shot upwards as a result.

[emphatic]

Actually, the laser's length decreases as the helper ships locks on to a target. You can see it as a limited stock of lock shot energy that's divide equally on all guns, and yes, it's on the move strip (see my translation):

[austere]

That's a really awesome instruction strip translation! I think these things are an integral part of the game (not just a collector's item ;)) and far more elegant than the forced-tutorials you have to sit through while playing most games today...

Do you need an A3 printer to get the right size without having to sew them together?

[emphatic]

Do you need an A3 printer to get the right size without having to sew them together?

Thanks, it was kinda hard work to get the translation "just right". Google translate + a knowledge of the game to understand what the jibberish GT gives you actually might mean. My friend works at a local print shop, so he hooked me up with their monster printer that can print 110 cm wide stuff. I lined up two of these so he printed them with minimal spill. The result is superb.

[stryc9]

But no more brutal than any other of Caves shmups. I can't even tell the difference in difficulty betwixt the various titles now, my credit comes to an end at the end of stg 4/ start of stg 5 on almost all of their games.

Except DOJ and Daifukkatsu BL/ KetsuiStyle. Those bitches show no mercy, but I'm working on them.
I reckon Ketsuipachi is more brutal than Ketsui

PS get the port it has Ketsui X Mode which should satisfy your Ketsuicraving whilst having a toned down difficulty level.

[emphatic]

I reckon Ketsuipachi is more brutal than Ketsui

Faster bullets, but also hypers and user controlled rank = easier.

[stryc9]

I reckon Ketsuipachi is more brutal than Ketsui

Faster bullets, but also hypers and user controlled rank = easier.

This is true. Although I have not really focused too much on Ketsuipachi since getting the Black Label since my time has been consumed by Arrange A.

Can we agree that Black Label DDP DFK is more brutal than Ketsui, (despite the hypers, which have been toned down anyway)

[Erppo]

For everyone saying the first loop of DOJ/Ketsui is significantly harder to clear than the other: you are weird. I always found them pretty much equally difficult to clear, with DOJWL with Exy being possibly the hardest of the bunch, but not by very much. In looping them however Ketsui is easilly the trickiest with the really strict loop conditions.

Can we agree that Black Label DDP DFK is more brutal than Ketsui, (despite the hypers, which have been toned down anyway)

You can still control the rank in DFKBL and you can choose between autobomb and huge amount of hypers so I wouldn't really say that either. Besides I don't really see how making the hypers cancel better even at high rank, more central to the scoring, more easily available (autobomb off), mostly without the risk of danger lasers and even cancellable on top of that is "toning down".

Not counting the hypers though, red rank DFKBL is definitely more brutal.

[ave]

I reckon Ketsuipachi is more brutal than Ketsui

Faster bullets, but also hypers and user controlled rank = easier.

Not to forget the pussy-style bullet-cancelling you can do pretty much any time you want.

[Subterranean Sun]

You are not alone. Ketsui is absolutely the hardest Cave game I've ever played, save for maybe DOJ WL. Even the omote loop is batshit hard, and playing for score only make it worse.

[CIT]

I have to agree with the thread title as well. I find Ketsui too hard. After playing it for about three weeks straight, and being able to reach the stage 4 consistently I just hit a wall and eventually lost motivation, whch is really quite sad, because the game is technically A LOT of fun. I sold the PCB and settled for the 360 port. I guess the good thing about the game is that the linear scoring system is easy to draw you in, but it's less motivating than exponential systems when you get to the really hard parts and have difficulty progressing into the later stages.

[NzzpNzzp]

If you guys think Ketsui is too hard you should try playing DOJ with Exy so you can't just bomb everything.

[man9child]

I dont mean to point this out in a nasty way or debunk your view, just out of curiosity, but when you 1CCed Deathsmiles what Ranks did you pick on average?

I ask because the #1 guy on Deathsmiles PAL right now picks 2s and 3s to avoid enabling suicide bullets on the last stage, which to me seems a bit like taking the easy option out. I've been enabling Rank 3's all the way thinking it was the way to go and haven't 1CCed the game yet, and was curious to see if anyone else actually had (regardless of score, I couldn't care less score-wise).

Yeah, I mixed in just enough 2's to not trigger the suicide bullets. You can totally make Deathsmiles harder by triggering max rank. But that wasn't really my point. I just meant that for somebody who hasn't cleared anything else by Cave, I've been within shouting distance with Ketsui quite a few times.

------

Maybe DOJ appears harder to a lot of people because the learning curve is steeper. It's easier to half-ass Ketsui for score. No, you won't be topping any high score lists, but it feels less "all or nothing" than chains. So you see progress faster.

[Siren2011]

I cannot BELIEVE I didn't notice that the laser becomes shorter when you lock all pods onto one target! Thanks for that translation, Emphatic. I was wondering what that section meant.

I hold getting better at DOJ (I've been playing for years) responsible for the fact that I can get to stage 5 at all in Ketsui. And it took me a significant amount of time just to get past the second stage. It took me a little under two months of non stop playing/obsessing over what happens next in the game to get to the decent into EVAC on one credit. So I'm definitely on the Ketsui is easier than DOJ bandwagon.

[drunkninja24]

Actually, the laser's length decreases as the helper ships locks on to a target. You can see it as a limited stock of lock shot energy that's divide equally on all guns, and yes, it's on the move strip (see my translation):

Oh damn, you got a PDF or something for this anywhere? I'd LOVE to have this in my cab

[emphatic]

Oh damn, you got a PDF or something for this anywhere? I'd LOVE to have this in my cab

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZBNK641G

What type of cabinet do you have? If you have an EGRET II you might wanna leave the white surround + pink stripe (I think this is the version where I made a fake TAITO move sticker behind the artwork).

[ratikal]

DOJ = Remotely easy to survive, a challenge to score
Ketsui = Probably very easy to survive, a bitch to try and score

I honestly think that Ketsui is harder than DOJ. I really think if I had put the effort into DOJ, I could beat it sooner than Ketsui. Whenever I'm practicing, I reset if I die or a chain drops. I reset more often in Ketsui because of deaths than in DOJ because of chain breaks. I know Ketsui is a little more forgiving in it's scoring, but I still find myself dying way more often than in DOJ. I do try to score too, so having to get up close may have a reason with it.

I really just wanna get this damn game over with and 1CC. I'm peeved that other people have 1CCd this game in less than a month since it's release and I'm still working on it.