Giga Wing 2 (New Thread)

[EmperorIng]

Made some serious progress, thanks to looking at your vid, marus, plus Rob's old superplay (where he uses Kart). It's really tough to trigger some of the Volcanons on stage 1's sky stage and I find myself restarting a lot. But man, what a difference it makes when you play more seriously for score. My PB just shot up by the... quadrillions?

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
2,576,312,892,374,660 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - 4 - DC - https://i.imgur.com/N4EZ5SN.jpg



I really, really wish I had beaten the Stage 4 boss, but I guess the fact that I made it here is good enough (since I've never gotten to the boss on a single credit before). Maybe I should take advantage of that stage attack mode.

I've also noticed that if you DO choose "restart" on the menu, the game starts your score off at "1" like you added a credit... even if you restart on stage 1! What a bummer. Luckily this run (and the previous) were "fresh" (especially once I knew what was going on). It's not going to help my restart-syndrome.

I tried playing some of the other ships for laughs, and Limi's stage 1 seems a little limited but doable. I have the hardest time in the city stage for Romi and Ralugo, with much fewer Volcanons. I wonder if it matters what stage 1 you have as long as you 'cash in' on the later stages though. I actually almost never have played as Cherry, but I should give her a try sometime. I tried to unlock the other ships by setting the difficulty to 1, but it doesn't differentiate scores by difficulty on the leaderboard so I was a little nervous about messing up my score-tracking...

[EmperorIng]

Double post, but I'm moving on up! Broke through a major milestone, reaching stage 5 for the first time! Talking with Plasmo, he pointed out how this is one of the most score-rich opportunities in the game, due to how much those little bits are coming from the boss. I have a lot of practice to do, not only to survive but to make the most out of their absurdly-high value.

I've been following more of your routes on stage 1, marus, as well as Rob's old superplay and it definitely made a difference - doubling, if not quadrupling my multiplier and seeing my stage 1 score shoot up into the... quadrillions? The boss is pretty simple, but getting the max amount of volcanons in stage 1 is really tough and a little finicky - especially with those large ships before the battleship raid (where you find the extra bomb). Very frustrating when I don't pull it off!

I focused on survival on stage 4, which means despite reaching 4 red digits on stage 1, my score didn't truly jump up after that. The boss I kinda just tried to spam and kill without milking, because I was too focused on beating it and reaching stage 5 for once. The result of that is that I didn't survive in stage 5 for all that long! I guess I can use score attack to get a better handle on the last 3 boss/stages.

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
4,712,736,941,093,000 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - 5 - DC - https://imgur.com/ggiVKSq

[marus]

Nice job! Sorry I missed your last post, but the tables are updated now.

For scoring, I've found that optimizing the early stages does the most for your score. Since your multiplier carries over from stage-to-stage, getting a big multiplier early on will boost your score for the entire game. The bosses in the last 3 stages are all worth a lot of points, so you can actually get a really good score even by just learning to score stage 1 and then playing the rest of the game for survival. When I was playing to beat Rob's score, I restarted a ton of runs on stage 1 until I got a multiplier I was happy with, and then would play out the rest of the run. I'm definitely not very consistent on all of the volcannons myself

I found that stage 4 and onward is when the difficulty starts to ramp up. It's not bad once you have a route down, but figuring out and practicing a route was tricky for me just due to how unique the reflect force mechanic is compared to other shmups. I definitely recommend spending some time doing stage practice on all of the later stages. Score Attack is great for learning survival routes, but one trade off is that it's easier to get volcannons in Score Attack, so it's not useful for learning to score. In Arcade mode though you can restart a stage as many times as you want, so that's a good way to practice scoring routes.

Btw if you want to try out the unlockable ships, there's a cheat code you can use to unlock everything. Just go into the Gallery and input the following: UP X Y X DOWN Y X Y Y

[EmperorIng]

It's been a while, but I've still been practicing, and I'm finally happy to submit a new score that really jumps past my last few attempts! This is partially thanks to watching your replay (and Rob's old Kart superplay) a lot Marus, giving me some valuable tips on how to maximize my scoring on the early stages. I've been wanting to break the 1... quadrillion? mark (whatever the blue digit is!) for the longest time, and despite mistakenly doing a lot of practice on difficulty setting 1 (as my scoreboard shows), this didn't put me at a disadvantage learning some basic scoring routes.

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
13,930,596,271,286,570 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - 6 - DC - https://imgur.com/hATVFfd




I find stage 4 to be the most difficult to score in. I can barely trigger volcanons in the first half (prior to the midboss) despite my best efforts.

This run with kart had the most ass-kicking stage 1 I've yet had, getting nearly 1 quadrillion (4 red digits?) by the end of the st1 boss! Usually I average anywhere between 600 and 800 trillion (at best). Getting so many excellent volcanons so early really set the stage for the other levels, where my high multiplier early on paid off big. As I'm understanding how volcanons work I'm getting a -little- better at manipulating them but it can still be a crapshoot triggering some due to how precise you need to be. For example: the first double-volcanon you can trigger on with the two zeppelins on st1 (sky stage). I can get it maybe half the time I try, but if I'm just slightly out of position or move too soon, I muck it up. Same goes for a lot of the trickier volcanons. I can't get all three volcanon triggers from the three large circular enemies halfway through stage 1, so I can only settle on two.

I had two stupid deaths on the st4 boss, but I managed to soldier on and collect myself enough for some pod-milkin' on stage 5. Are you supposed to destroy those pods on the stage 5 boss? Or do they have infinite health? I recall plasmo telling me a huge part of your score comes from the pods but try as I might they won't die before the boss itself dies or times out.

Btw if you want to try out the unlockable ships, there's a cheat code you can use to unlock everything. Just go into the Gallery and input the following: UP X Y X DOWN Y X Y Y

Thanks for this, and I really will have to start being adamant about restarting stages (despite the indignity of the extra digit!) to learn some scoring routes. I did that a lot to learn some more volcanons on the factory/warehouse stage (though I have only a partial success rate with many of them).

I've also been playing some of Limi just for fun and am getting decent with her as well. Her stage as a stage 1 isn't so bad, score-wise, until you get to the boss, the walker tank. I cannot for the life of me trigger more than one volcanon on it playing as Limi. I wonder if the boss is easier to score with the Reflect Laser (I think stage 4 would be easier to score with the laser).

[marus]

Nice improvement! Stage 4 definitely has some of the harder volcanons to trigger, not to mention the stage itself is tricky just to survive in if you don't have your route down. Ideally you want to come in with a high enough multiplier that you don't need to play perfectly to max your multiplier, but that doesn't really come into play until you get to a more advanced level. The really good players have their multiplier already maxed out before even entering stage 4. Rob also found that you can score more in stage 4 using Reflect Laser, but I don't think it's worth the medals you'd lose in the first 3 stages.

For stage 5, yes you want to destroy both pods for maximum score. Each pod is actually worth more points than the main boss, and if you come in with a high multiplier your score can really skyrocket on this stage! It's a bit tricky though because the pods have a ton of health, as you already noticed. You need to be careful with your reflects to damage to the pods without prematurely killing the main boss. I think most characters require bombs to do this properly - Limi (Neo Stranger) can do it with her regular shot since it does so much damage and her laser pierces through the towers, but I think most other characters need to use bombs do enough damage. This run (which is the highest scoring video I know of), shows a route with Kart for doing it. It requires 4 bombs and a suicide though, so until you get consistent at surviving I wouldn't bother with it. If you route it correctly you might be able to destroy one pod without any bombs though, or maybe one bomb.

[EmperorIng]

Hey marus! I don't have a new score update to post, but I am finally getting back into this game over the past month after a long hiatus.

I wanted to ask about the the "No emulated runs" stipulation and see if that still applies. Recently I've been playing Giga Wing 2 on the latest Demul build, and as far as I can tell, it is extraordinarily close to my experience playing on a real dreamcast. All of my scoring routes are unchanged and it feels like the muscle memory carried over. Now granted, because I am derusting I am not yet back at where I was when I was posting last May. I have two video samples here of a run up to stage 4 with Kart, and a run up to stage 5 with Limi and am curious to see if you think these are far off from your play on the DC. I have a decently strong PC, built in... 2017? 2018? thereabouts with at the time higher-end parts.

Kart run: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/893755271
Limi run: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/917359009

[marus]

Hey EmperorIng, I'm glad to see you're playing again! I made that no-emulators ruling at a time when I was a lot more hardcore about any sort of competition being done on as close to original hardware as possible - however at this point in my life I'm of the opinion that it's not worth splitting hairs over. Especially for a lesser played game like this, I'd rather everyone have a chance to play on whatever hardware they have available. If the game gets an influx of new activity in the future and if the community deems it necessary, then maybe we can talk about splitting the boards or something, but for now I'm okay with emulated runs being submitted. Just please indicate what emulator you're using in case we need to do any splitting in the future.

That said in terms of the runs you posted - I haven't watched them in full yet but I can notice some big slowdown differences. For example if you compare the first double-volcannon on the sky stage, the dreamcast version has way more slowdown:
Kart run (demul)
Kart run (dreamcast)
Cherry run (dreamcast)

Outside of slowdown though I can't notice any obvious scoring differences or bugs with enemies or bullet patterns. The missing slowdown will make some segments harder, but otherwise I don't think the differences are enough to warrant splitting emulators into a separate category.

[EmperorIng]

I can't believe I haven't posted here since February. This wasn't done on emulation, but I imagine I'll probably beat this score eventually as i get further along. This is a pretty nice increase and a return to stage 6, which is, uh, pretty hard to get to IMO! Clearly the next thing to angle for is 20 quadrillion and above, and actually making it to the final boss.

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
18,442,069,667,802,930 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - 6 - DC - https://imgur.com/2Hfrt6r

[marus]

Nice job! Good luck on stage 6. I think survival-wise that's the hardest part of the game for me, since the boss has so many different phases. You can easily screw yourself if you reflect force at the wrong time and trigger an undodgeable pattern.

[EmperorIng]

Thanks! I have never beaten stage 6 because the boss (and the stage 5 boss too) are both pretty intimidating and long. I hope I can clear that hump before the end of the year.

I don't need to have this score "posted" but I did get to stage 6 with Limi last night, who is my side character. So it's nice to have that consistency to get that far with a different character.


(Using Demul)

Limi is definitely harder to score with as her stage 1 just gives so much less in terms of multiplier. Do you have any idea how apparently she is the one with the highest score out of all the characters? It really boggles my mind given her early-game handicap. I would think Kart or Cherry would have the highest scores. Maybe she just is able to coast on stage 3 (cloud stage) or st4 with a high enough multiplier from the early stages? I really wish there was some high-scoring replay for her.

[marus]

To be honest I don't know what the WR runs do to get so many more points. The highest runs I've seen videos for are in the low 70 quadrillions, which is pretty far from all the WR runs in the high 80s and low 90s. As far as I can tell, once you max out your stage multiplier there isn't a lot of points to be had from medalling; most of your score just comes from destroying enemies and boss parts at that point. So either there's some high-value bonus enemies or something that I don't know about, or they're maxing out the multiplier super early.

This TAS run is the highest score I've seen, and the player maxes out the multiplier in stage 3. I can't see how it's possible to max it out in stage 2, but obviously there's something I'm missing so who knows for sure.

[EmperorIng]

I was worried for a second when you said TAS, but as opposed to using hack tools/frame-advance or what-not, it looks like that player just restarted stages until he got the score he wanted (which actually is a decent practice feature fwiw). In that case, that's a cool find so thanks for sharing! Especially with Romi who seems like she has the worst stage order of them all. Almost makes me want to try her out...

I've chatted a little with Plasmo about it, and all he could suppose is that there must be a number of double volcanons that none of us know about - which tbh I find that hard to swallow with these 70+ quadrillion replays. Unless the multiplier is maxed out by the start of stage 3 or something, which seems also impossible!

Maybe the smaller player pool and replay resource might mean that the wr's were simply a case of near-perfect optimization.

[EmperorIng]

This isn't a bump with a new score (believe me I'm trying), but just to bring to people's attention that japanese superplay SPE has been grinding the game recently on what I believe is the arcade original, and has been achieving some pretty incredible scores.

Like a week or so ago he got 75 quadrillion, now today he uploads a replay using Cherry's Carmine Plus ship that gets 78 quadrillion! Well work watching if you really want to see someone take this game apart. He maxes out the multiplier by the stage 2 boss, which might be the earliest possible place you can do so.

Watch the video here!

It's very interesting to see that once SPE gets the medal multiplier maxed out, he starts quick-killing the bosses in order to get the boss timer bonus - which is cumulative, I didn't know that! - higher and higher.

[marus]

Holy shit this is awesome! I'm gonna have to watch in more detail later but I'm blown away that you can actually max the multiplier out by stage 2. That stage 1 was super clean too. I also never realized that the boss timer bonus was cumulative - at a glance it looks like the bonus still isn't too significant, but it still adds up over all 7 bosses.

Thanks for sharing this! I've always wanted to see how the super high scorers tear this game apart so I'll be keeping an eye on SPE.

[EmperorIng]

FINALLY! A NEW PB! And finally broke 20 quadrillion! It only took me ages.

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
22,405,669,298,633,730 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - 6 - Demul - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1491205189



I am setting up savestates in demul to give myself some more consistency with volcanons. I am slightly better at stage 2's first few (though this replay doesn't show it lol), and I have figured out how to get a few more in stage 3. Unfortunately, a bad choke in stage 4 tanked my chances at getting at the final boss.

Thanks to watching YTN's replay you've linked in the past, I can copy his route to destroy both of the stage 5 boss pods. If I get to that boss with 3 bombs, I don't even need to lose a life! That's a huge "IF" however.

By the way, maybe marus, you know what's going on, but I cannot for the life of me trigger the stage one volcanon with the final of those mid-sized ships that shoot pillars of bullets. It's at 1:25 if this link doesn't work. What exactly am I missing? I feel like I do the same thing I do for all the other ships. Similarly I have a hard time getting as much out of volcanons as you or SPE, like you get over 30m in your multiplier by the first volcanon, my best is 27 and my average is 23-25. Even with some tips from plasmo, I wish I had a better handle on them.

Speaking of SPE, you might be interested to see that SPE has increased his score to 79 quads, I don't think he's stopping any time soon(?). Will we see finally a legendary 80 quad clear?

Finally, I am also experimenting with Neo Stranger/Limi, seeing how far I can take that character and hopefully beat Kollision's score There's gotta be some secret with her if she can score better than everyone else in the game.

[marus]

Awesome, congrats on the PB!

By the way, maybe marus, you know what's going on, but I cannot for the life of me trigger the stage one volcanon with the final of those mid-sized ships that shoot pillars of bullets. It's at 1:25 if this link doesn't work. What exactly am I missing?

That volcanon (or really that whole sequence of volcanon's) is pretty tricky. The trick is 1) you need to start reflecting before the first column of bullets leaves the screen, and 2) you need to not reflect too many bullets so you don't kill the ship right away. It's a little hard to explain in words but if you watch my run it should hopefully make sense.

I start the sequence for that whole series at 1:08 in my run:
1. I start a RF a little after the big ship on the left starts leaving the screen
2. After that, I let go of auto-shot and hold down the shot button, so I'll RF as soon as the meter builds back up
3. When I get to the last of those mid-sized ships, I'll hopefully have timed everything right so that I RF just before the first of its bullets leave the screen
4. As I move up the left column of bullets, I reflect up of them up until the LAST 3 ROWS. This is the max number of bullets I found that I can reflect without killing the ship.
5. Then I move towards the center of the bullet pattern, so at the end of the RF I reflect all of the remaining bullets
6. As soon as the RF is done, I start holding down the auto-shot button to shoot the ground structures (tbh I'm not sure if this does anything, but I have a superstition that it helps)

Getting the timing for that first volcanon is very important, since if you don't get that right then you won't get all of the remaining volcanons. Tbh this isn't the most precise setup, but I found that after warming up a bit I can get it fairly consistently, so you don't have to be frame perfect or anything. If I pick this game up again seriously I might try and find something a bit more consistent though, since stage 1 restarts got pretty aggravating.

Similarly I have a hard time getting as much out of volcanons as you or SPE, like you get over 30m in your multiplier by the first volcanon, my best is 27 and my average is 23-25. Even with some tips from plasmo, I wish I had a better handle on them.

There's a bit of luck involved (or at least I'm not consistent either), but I can give a couple tips:
1. In general you want to try to pick up the volcanon medals as soon they explode from the regular medals. By doing this, you'll grab more of the medals while they're clumped up together and before they fly away too far. If you think about the "blast radius" of a single medal exploding into volcanon medals, you want to try to grab the volcanon medals while the blast radius is as small as possible.
2. Medals will explode into volcanon medals in the order that they were generated. So as you're keeping the above in mind, try and follow the path such that you get the medals that the order you generated them in.
3. When the volcanon medals are first generated, they will explode towards your general direction. So try not to misdirect the volcanon medals out of the path that you intend to take.

All that said I'm not very consistent with my medal collecting either. For example regarding the first double volcanon, my target is to get a multiplier over 30m or I'll usually restart. Even when I have a good run going into the stage 1 boss, I'll end the stage with wildly different multiplier numbers even though I think I'm doing the same thing against the boss every time (anywhere from 300m to 600m). It's really hard to emphasize just how much restarting I do on stage 1 lol.

EDIT: After watching a bit of one of SPE's streams, they're way more consistent at medal collecting than I am, haha. It really makes me want to sit down and really study/practice this game again to figure out what I'm doing wrong!

Also regarding Neo Stranger, she has the highest damaging shot in the game by far - it could be that's what gives her the edge over Cherry? I'm pretty sure she can destroy both of the stage 5 pods without using a bomb, so maybe you could use those bombs to milk some other bosses (which is something I never thought about before watching SPE's runs). Her stage order seems way harder to get a high multiplier with though.

[EmperorIng]

I'm so hyped up right now. I FINALLY GOT THE 1CC! I've been dreaming of this for YEARS!

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
53,966,656,786,826,610 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTGDvsiOo2w



After loads of practice, stage 1 restarts, and frustrations, I did another round of practice tonight, just hoping to get back to stage 6 and practice the boss. But I got to the final boss! And choked soon after. Then, I followed up with another run, and somehow got there again, and won!

Plenty of mistakes with volcanons but I still ended up with a 966 million multiplier by the end of it. I even managed to kill both pods on the stage 5 boss! I am so happy; I am looking forward to pushing forward - maybe even 60 quads is possible!

[Meriscan]

I'm so hyped up right now. I FINALLY GOT THE 1CC! I've been dreaming of this for YEARS!

Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
53,966,656,786,826,610 - EmperorIng - Kart (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTGDvsiOo2w

I've been lurking your progress and this 1cc is very well-deserved, congrats!

[EmperorIng]

Thanks Meriscan! I appreciate it; I too like snooping around the score threads as they slowly fill up.
Crazy to see where I was on the top of this page vs where I am now. It is a nice little chronicle. Clearly the next step is community record!

[marus]

Oh awesome job, congrats! That's a really good score for a first clear too! It's been really cool to see your progress all this time. I bet at this rate you can break 60 quad easily if you push your medal collecting just a bit more. Just so you know if you go for my score then I'm gonna have to fight back though

Btw I finally got Flycast set up (I tried Demul first but had issues getting the video to not stutter). I'm still going to keep using a real Dreamcast for real runs, but I got some save states set up and studied SPE's runs, and I figured out how to medal against the stage 1 boss better. Basically you want to position and time each reflect so that you trigger a volcannon as quickly as possible. I guess that way you ensure that the maximum possible number of medals get turned into volcannon medals. It's a little tricky to explain in words so I'll have to try to capture a comparison video at some point once I'm off vacation and I get my computer back. After figuring that out though I was able to get a 600+ million multiplier fairly consistently out of stage 1!

[EmperorIng]

Not a big meaningful update, but I figured I'd share here as a taste of things to come



At 35,930,402,913,259,190, this technically beats Kollision's Limi score by a hair (using the Neo Stranger), which was one of my goals However it's hard to feel satisfied with a score that low on stage 6, and not even a clear at that!

I've largely switched over to playing as the Neo Stranger while I pursue a high score. I figured it would be a fun challenge and her ship's potential intrigued me. If you look at the Shmups Wiki Hall of Records, the Neo Stranger has the highest scoring ceiling out of the entire game, getting 90 quadrillion! Since there is precisely no info on how she scores I figured it might be fun to experiment. Using her I have started to understand a little bit better how to collect more medals as they... volcanize. You kind of position yourself underneath the cluster, and then wiggle up as they start to explode. At least that seems to work most of the time.

Unlike the cloud stage, which is easy points for stage 1, Limi has the capital, which is much harder. Not because of the stage itself, which has seen me get 180+ multiplier before the boss (which could easily be more if I got better at grabbing medals), but because the boss doesn't really load you up on volcanons like Kart/Cherry's does. Kollision's replay doesn't really help here, so I had to do a lot of experimenting to discover at least/precisely 3 volcanons you can trigger with the stage 1 boss. I have been recording some of my progress here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRItDs0ZgaM

Leaving stage 1 with 300m multiplier is doable but a little beyond my skill (I think my highest is 292/295).

Stage 2 is the factory, and the submarine boss is pretty good for Limi. It's good pace if I leave the stage with 500+ million, but that requires some double volcanons on the boss.

Stage 3's cloud variant is the hardest stage by far, and I can't score well because the rank is so high here. But the boss can nonetheless shower you with volcanons. Unfortunately I had/have to develop my own volcanon strategies since there aren't so many to use (because no Limi replays except for a co-op one on youtube). My best here is leaving with 800m+

Basically, if I can get to stage 4 with 800+ multiplier, I can max out the multiplier by the end of the stage. That's a big IF! However, I have done this in savestate practice. Getting through the final guantlet of bosses puts my theoretical score at over 60 quadrillion, and that's with a number of mistakes along the way (especially in stage 3 and 4). Hopefully I will get a good run going and look to join you and rob in the 60quads mountain, marus! But that's still probably a long way off.

[marus]

Oh nice, that looks like a really solid capital stage 1! That's much better than I ever managed at least. I know the WR is with Limi but I have no clue what makes her stronger - her stage order seems suboptimal for all the reasons you mentioned. Neo Stranger does have the highest damaging main shot by a large margin but that doesn't seem to be particularly helpful for scoring purposes.

[EmperorIng]

Serious progress and a new milestone!



Arcade Mode (Dreamcast):
57,732,871,230,388,900 - EmperorIng - Limi/NeoStranger (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1652081641

I did not expect to even max the multiplier this run, let alone beat my previous best. That's because I died at the worst possible time during the stage 3 (cloud) boss, which is so crucial for score. Dying, as I have learned, resets the medal values (!!!) which makes quickly gaining your multiplier up from volcanons now extremely difficult. This was at the end of a long slog of two hours of practice, so when I finally made it to stage 4 I just switched to largely survival (with the exception of killing the two stage 4 pods). I luckily had a spare life going to the final boss which let me take a planned death to its first phase which I simply just cannot dodge. The second phase is easy, which let me just try and collect myself and go for the finish.

This is far from my best projected run - I have, in practice at least, gotten my multiplier into the 920+ million range on stage 3! But time and time again I keep on getting shook up, and choking on the stage 3 boss

There's no reason to stop now! I want 60 quadrillion!

[marus]

Nice run! You're so close to 60 quadrillion now! Yeah unfortunately dying pretty much anytime before you get to max multiplier is brutal, since it basically kills how much multiplier you can build up for the rest of the stage. I think if you had survived and gotten one more solid volcanon from the stage 3 boss then you could have gotten max multiplier before the stage 5 boss, which probably would have been enough to push you over 60 quad.

Keep on pushing for 60!

[marus]

You've inspired me to play some yesterday and today, and I got a new score attack PB! Neo Stranger does enough damage that she can kill both pods without bombing, which is super good for score attack mode since your multiplier resets anytime you bomb or die.

Stage 5 - 2,813,199,220,698,615,930 - marus-MPO - Limi/Neo Stranger (RF) - https://i.postimg.cc/nHbDD6cg/2022-11-15-22-04-46.jpg

Aside from that I mostly spent my time practicing stage 1. I switched from Chery/Stork to Chery/Carmine Plus, as the faster movement speed makes medal collecting a lot easier. I've gotten more consistent at the double volcanon at the start of the stage, but I'm still having a lot of trouble getting the final volcanon on the series of the mid-sized ships (1:38 on my old run). I rewatched my and SPEs runs and I feel like I'm doing the same thing that I did before with Stork (and I even got it a few times after switching back to Stork), but for some reason every time with Carmine Plus I kill it too early. I'm not sure if the faster movement speed affects the damage from the reflect force somehow - I'll need to setup a savestate in Flycast later and experiment.

I bought a new house recently (woo!), and my computer and CRT are in separate rooms now so I don't have a way to record my Dreamcast anymore. So until I figure out a solution for that I probably won't do any full runs - but that said with SPEs replays available now there's a lot for me to practice before I'd try for a new PB anyways.

[EmperorIng]

I bought a new house recently (woo!)

Whoa, hey, congratulations! That's pretty awesome! I'm a long ways from getting to that stage myself. For now and the foreseeable future, it's apartment living for me. Live it up!

Neo Stranger does enough damage that she can kill both pods without bombing

I really need to learn how to do this. Much like your run I tend to try and save 4 bombs for stage 5, which means playing the first 4 stages perfectly

I have been hard at work practicing but haven't gotten a new update... yet. It's a little frustrating because I have gotten to the final boss, or thereabouts, on a clear PB pace only to choke.

The worst of these was one in which I managed to get 299 million multiplier for stage 1 (a personal best of mine for Limi/NeoStranger), which set me up huge for the next few stages... and I entered the cloud boss on stage 3 with practically 700 million! That was a guaranteed counterstop on stage 3... but I choked early into the fight. I didn't have the heart to continue. The cloud stage's scoring potential is so silly compared to the other two stages.

Much like you I can never get that final volcanon in the stage 3 version of the stage either. I really am at a loss as to what I'm doing wrong!

EDIT: It finally happened! Stage 3 baby!


Unfortunately I didn't get a pb in this run... I messed up and didn't kill the stage 5 boss and one of its pods. Otherwise that would have been a surefire 60 quad. Hope I get lucky and pull this off again! Clearly there's more to scoring than just getting the counterstop, I'm nowhere near your or Rob's scores.

[EmperorIng]

A new milestone has been reached! Can't believe it; I finally made it to the 60 quad club!



62,143,305,601,777,140 - EmperorIng - Limi/NeoStranger (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://youtu.be/4SV6ityAnVI

This run gets the counterstop on stage 3, which is very exciting! The total score would have been higher but I made too many mistakes on stage 4, missing almost every volcanon, lol. However my biggest regret is that I didn't kill the stage 5 boss in time (despite killing the pods). Doing so would have propelled me past Rob's old score. Don't think this is the end

[marus]

Oh wow, awesome job! Honestly you would have been really close to my score too if you got the stage 5 boss (assuming you get about 3 quad points from the boss).

Keep going for the top spot! I need to start working on my own runs too now that you're getting close.

[third_strike]

62,143,305,601,777,140 - EmperorIng - Limi/NeoStranger (RF) - ALL - Demul

Baby's dream!
Beautiful, congratulations!

[EmperorIng]

Thank you guys! It's been two weeks and about 60 quadrillion stage 1 restarts but I finally got a new pb!!! And this time, a small personal dream of mine, finally beating Rob's formidable score! I honestly never thought I would get that far when I first started taking scoring seriously, let alone with Limi! I just wanted to beat Kollision's score, ha.

65,828,690,602,795,460 - EmperorIng - Limi/NeoStranger (RF) - ALL - Demul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjMGEP9AQ5I



I thought this run was doomed when I fucked up on stage 1, missing the last volcanon on the city boss. Meaning I ended the stage with a small 260ish million multiplier instead of 300 which is my goal/best.

But I decided to just use the run as "practice" and got incredibly lucky on stage 2, hitting an extra volcanon on the boss (the submarine) that I almost never get, which more than made up for it. Then in stage 3 (the sky stage) I hit the final volcanon from the mid-sized ships, which happens once in about 100 tries, and end up -almost- counterstopping on stage 3 again. But I was too nervous and accidentally speed killed the boss at 995 million.

Unfortunately I missed many volcanons on stage 4, easily my worst-performing stage. I need to figure out what the fuck to do there because I am leaving so much score on the table. But I got to the boss with 5 bombs in stock and managed to end the stage with about 21 quads.

I killed both pods and the boss this time too!

I say outside of stage 4, what cost me the most was the final boss, I panicked and bombed twice through the first phase, which meant that I lost out on a lot of lucrative volcanons. But I was shaking a little too much at the prospect of a pb so I didn't want to risk things.

But man! I am getting closer! Hope I don't have to wait another two weeks for a 1cc.
I did record this run (thank goodness) but I don't know if I'll upload it yet; it's going to take forever on youtube and I might want to wait till I have a better run to show
EDIT: I did, just in case I accidentally delete it