This thread is always a blast! Also I loooove the little prelude stories that have nothing to do with shmups lmao.
(1) Personal Favourite Achievements of 2021:
-Man, if there's only one game I have to mention for the year 2021, it has to be
Castle of Shikigami! While this is a game I already cleared a bit less than a decade ago with Kuga, it is only recently that I played it again for serious scoring.
And what a wild progression it was. Starting semi-fresh with a new character (Sayo), struggling to find routes and strats with her seemingly meek shikigami, getting a very tense and exciting 1CC, getting those 2.99XXX bil scores, practicing consistency for the Shmup Slam run, and then pushing the scoring more and more while climbing the Steam leaderboards' ranks.
All the efforts that went into playing this pretty cool game were rewarded with a 4.49bil score which is both Steam record and non-JP record! And there's still more potential for higher scores too. The world record is still 2bil away after all lol.
I can't really remember the last time I went so ham on a game like this, it feels cool.
-Playing Shiki 1 also made me come back to
Shiki 3, which I already scored in before, but not as high as I wanted. I'm still not past the 9bil mark but I got closer and closer which is satisfying. One especially cool thing is finally getting a good charge timing for Batu2's spin. This finding should help my consistency in some of those later stages a lot more.
-Getting the 1CC on the
Shiki 2 New Entry mode during the 5-way blind Kumite we did with the Alfa System players. It was very fun diving into this new mode alongside fellow fans of the game!
-Getting some good scores and performances in Milestone shmups : During Shoot the baguette practice, I managed to get a 138mil score in
Radirgy (Arcade mode) which is the highest non-JP score. When practicing
Karous (Hard mode) for the Score Art Online event, I got a 3.4bil score which is also the highest non-JP score!
And on the 1CC side there's the two remaining Milestone shmups I didn't clear before :
Radirgy Noa and
Chaos Field. I was thinking about clearing Noa some time ago but the final stage+boss were always a big wall. I finally took the time to set up practice savestates and boost my familiarity and confidence in order not to get crushed there in full runs. It worked!
Chaos Field on the other hand I haven't even really explored beyond the halfway point of the game, but learning the boss fights with save states not only gave me all the knowledge and strats I needed to get a clear with a decent Ifumi score, it also made me appreciate and like this game a lot more as I wasn't just stuck to stages 1-2 all the time anymore. Cool stuff. And after Arcade mode, I also got the Original Mode 1CC 'cuz why not.
-Writing some detailed articles on shmups.wiki for Radirgy and Shiki 3 :
https://shmups.wiki/library/Radirgy and
https://shmups.wiki/library/Shikigami_no_Shiro_3
-Finally understanding
Hellsinker and even going as far as clearing it with best ending and all. This game caught my attention some years back but the first contact was pretty bad due to the confusing menu and those damn invincible coffins in Stage 1 Behind.
It took two Shmup Slam showcases + the Steam release before the game intrigued me again enough for me to give it a more serious try. The experience went a bit more smoothly this time and when I unlocked Kagura4 and made the game play like Radirgy, I was hooked. The cool weapons, the excellent music, the variety in situations, the fun boss fights, the helpful stage/boss select feature, the elegant interconnected web of mechanics that interact with one another in some interesting ways to make your journey more manageable, all these things finally made sense to me and I had a blast playing and learning this game.
- A bunch of misc. 1CCs : Some Sagaia V2 routes, Psyvariar MU, Macross 2 Expert, Down Load 1&2, Recca, Deathsmiles 2 all characters (I really enjoyed this game), Cabal 30Hz, maybe some more too.
(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2021:
-The ending of the run that could have been my first
Shiki 1 4bil :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en-62JAbYBc
The run itself was promising until the end of the 5-1 milk, and then there's silly deaths all over the place, culminating in a game over on the last enemy in the game and barely a frame before I bomb to save myself. Very good comedy lol.
Thankfully this non-livestreamed run gave me an opportunity to actually stream the later attempts for a live 4bil!
-The last second 5-3 chain drop in my
Chaos Field Original Mode clear lmao :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKJ8aNaKqJQ&t=22m35s
I don't know exactly how many points I missed out on in an instant, but I bet it's gotta be at least 10 million lol
-Not playing enough
Illvelo. I put decent time into all the other Milestone shmups that year but this one not so much aside from the Score Art Online event practice. As a result, no new PB here.
-Playing but failing to clear both
R-Type Leo JP and
Vasara 1 during some French forum tourneys. Despite liking both games a lot, I haven't invested enough time and effort into them.
-Not getting
DDP 2 Bee Storm TLB 1CC before the end of the year, despite focusing on the game a decent amount. I'll get it soon hopefully! This is a flawed but pretty decent game overall, its TLB will have to go down eventually.
(3) Favourite Achievements by Others of 2021:
-I mentioned Shiki 1 earlier, and none of those accomplishments would have been possible without the other people who were new to the game and pushed it before I started playing it again :
Mishi, EmperorIng, Rezardi, AlvaLynsis. These guys went all out on the game and their efforts in clearing and then scoring this game were very motivating. We all learned a lot and made pretty damn good progress thanks to each other's insights, tips, and new hiscores. Mishi specifically held the nonJP record for a while and was the second player after me to get past the 4bil threshold, on top of the Shiki 2 Fumiko progress as well.
This friendly competition between us to put our names on the leaderboards was so fun. And having those Shikigami efforts shown at Shmup Slam was a good reward, congrats to all of you guys for the cool showcase, also thanks to
CJ Iwakura for helping with commentary!
-Still with Alfa System's games : Sisters Royale.
EmperorIng's Ece Hard mode progression was fun to watch, especially because the category is not played a lot and this means he had to create his own strats and routes. The WR score that resulted from those efforts as well as the fun Ultramania relay runs are a very nice accomplishment in my book! This character is not easy to use which makes all that performance even more impressive.
It was also very entertaining following
Herr Schatten's Sonay Normal progression. Aiming for the 3bil, but having soooo many scores reaching 2.99XXXXXX points was both tragic but also very funny. He finally managed to get over that threshold. Very nice!
-All the events and their organizers. Shmup Slam, Calice Cup, Score Art Online, Shoot the baguette, Ultramania relay, Shmup Junkie's caravan tourney, etc.
-Blind Kumites in general as well, as they are a very entertaining take on the Kumite format that Mark MSX pioneered in his own event. Instead of going for less resources used on a game that's already known and practiced, the goal here is to get as far as possible on a game the contestants have barely or not at all played before. Even when the games themselves are not fun (So anything Toaplan we tackled lol), it's cool.
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GOTYO for pushing the Karous WR even further! It's always so wild seeing what the bullet converter does to this game's scoring balance haha.
-
TwilightEX pushing the potential on Hellsinker's FSO Spirit score with Deadliar, and breaking the 170k barrier for a nice WR number!
-Donpachi HK 2-All by
Plasmo. A clear on a mode nobody cared about, and one that's very challenging to boot, is very nice. Also Plasmo beating the previous Pink Sweets WR by Plasmo lmao
-
Chinopolis, Rezardi, and wabbylegs going ham on the 1CCs in general. There's probably too many to list but the most iconic gotta be the triple SDOJ where they all cleared it very close to one another, almost the same day :
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1183101033
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RadiantAnsel being 2nd in the DariusBurst tourney that Degica organized. Not letting the usual JP superplayers get all the glory must have taken some effort and dedication.
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InFireX's Gundemonium Demonic mode 1CC. A rather obscure shmup that looks pretty fun and challenging! Nice dedication for the clear, as well as for making custom practice tools to help him learn the game more efficiently.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1104736139
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QuakeDoomNukem for clearing Sapphire super fast. For a console shmup, this game packs some challenge, and not a lot of people seem to have explored it beyond just the music and aesthetics. It's cool to see how quickly he beat this game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3zVeiRDk1g
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DMC's Brave Blade replay :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AQkLy1FEa8
This shmup is the most fun I've had with a Raizing game so I appreciate him uploading a high scoring replay with his commentary and insight as well!
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wltr3565 clearing Cotton 2 on the Saturn Tribute version despite the truckload of input lag lmao :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBSjgHCrn-w
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MAZ playin' Ikaruga and pushing his potential in it. There's just something to seeing someone really explore a game a decade after most other people stopped actively playing it.
-Speaking of Ikaruga,
Juju Kenobi's myriad of high scores and clears. He almost makes it look so easy to do a 2-ALL on a Psikyo game or something lmao.
-
Milestone/RS34 for releasing a new Illvelo game
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Taito for pushing M2 to release Cozmic Collection (and G-Darius soon) on PC lol
(4) Goals for 2021:
-Keep on having fun
-Shiki 3 - Batu2 9bil
-Play some more Shiki 1
-Try to play some games I like but haven't explored enough like Psyvariar, MMP, Cotton Boomerang, etc.
-Score some more DeathSmiles 2 because the game is very fun! Top-tier CAVE shmup as far as I am concerned.
(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
-Have fun
-Play games you actually like
