Ketsui Death Label

[Frederik]

Once you get all the techniques down, the Ketsui DS bossmodes stop being challenging - there's only a few ways you can deal with the bosses. I only ever play Doom and Extra now, with occasional Death Label and Very Hard to keep strategies fresh and experiment.

Yeah, and sadly I realized that many of the "WHOAA" moments you have when you play it start to wear thin after some playtime. Take the "lasso" pattern of Evaccaneer or that last "clockwise chase" pattern of Cinderella. First time those pattern catch you completely off-guard, but once you understood them they are pretty much one-trick ponies and never change in any significant way.

Not to say that all Cave bosses are boring or anything, but in Raizing games bosses feel like real beasts, actually reacting to what you do. Attack certain bosses the wrong way and they will bring you down with almost undodgeable patterns (Not fully destroying the helicopters on Boredom from Batrider, for instance). With their huge variety of enemy-spawners, dozens of turrets, mechanical arms and all that, they seem much more like intelligent beasts.

I mean, the first time I watched this one Batrider superplay on Super-Play.co.uk it was so immensely entertaining to see the player do stuff like using the charged Garegga options to milk popcorn enemies on Boredom - it isn´t just about how he pulled it off, but that he INVENTED such a funny strategy. It think this is what keeps these game so fresh after all these years - there are just so many different ways to be creative with them.

/fanboy mode OFF

[Icarus]

Well, the difference is in the construction - Cave bosses are governed by their lifebars and have cycling attack patterns; while Raizing bosses have no life bars visible, of course, and attack patterns that are governed by attached weapons, rank, and elements of randomness. Which is why I think MMP and Ibara would be fun Death Labels, as they'd still be challenging even after you beat them the first time.

Guwange, Progear, Futari 1.5 and Espgaluda 2 would be other good candidates for Death Label play, too, for those wanting a more traditional Cave-styled DL fix.

[EOJ]

Pink Sweets would be a good idea for a Death Label. Its bosses have the most randomness and diversity of attack patterns of any game Yagawa has done for CAVE, not to mention the best bullet patterns (though you can probably thank Yuji Inoue for some of that). It also has the most bosses (7) and midbosses (over 12).

[Icarus]

Pink Sweets would be a good idea for a Death Label. Its bosses have the most randomness and diversity of attack patterns of any game Yagawa has done for CAVE, not to mention the best bullet patterns (though you can probably thank Yuji Inoue for some of that). It also has the most bosses (7) and midbosses (over 12).

Pink Sweets is evil even without the use of a Death Label difficulty injection. But yeah, in some respects I agree it would make a good DL as well, as it has some pretty fun bosses (st6 and 7 are the most fun bosses I've ever played against).

But only if they somehow stuffed Time Attack: Extra Version on there, too. (￣▽￣)

[Leroy]

If you press left and right on the ship select screen you can swap between five different colors. (:

[Icarus]

I could swear that bullets seem to move slower as Type A in all modes.
(The fact that my best in Very Hard with Type A is 400mil higher than my best with Type B, with about 6 less deaths is another thing...)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Evac Report #24 is interesting. It shows a clip of the arcade version stage 2, right before Gem&Ini, where the player seems to bomb a powerup carrier at the very bottom of the screen. The (what I assume to be) released (but not exploding) bomb keeps bouncing between the left and the right side of the screen and the ship keeps being invincible due to that.

IKD then keeps talking to one of the games characters and holds his head in his hand. Maybe he´s ashamed that this is a bug in the game?

Also, after being a bit burnt out on this game the scoring is starting to grow on me. But man, the Vinogradov really bumps down your multiplier if you kill the small ships and the main ships parts with the lock on shot

For Frederik,

What is the requirement to unlock this Evac Report #24?

I do know that to unlock Evac Report #36 (shows a FMV clip of second loop 2-1 "Special Round" of arcade Ketsui PCB), one has to complete on "Hard C" setting.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Frederik]

Take a look here:

You could try running a translator over that Japanese wiki.

LINK

I think it says you need to beat a boss in 15 seconds. Not really sure.

Some requirements are a bit hard to understand because of the machine translation, but this one say "Go to the top corner of the screen". I guess I did that when I thought I discovered a safe spot in the Sphinx sideways spam pattern... but sadly it didn´t work

In any case, some of these unlocks are pretty crazy. For instance, you´ll unlock panels for using each color for each ship at least once - which, if you´re not a sucker for optical gimmicks like me, is very unlikely. It has some sort of RPG-touch to it, where there´s stuff you simply couldn´t figure out without the help of a FAQ.

Or checkout panel 66 - miss more than 1000 popcorn enemies. Shhyea, right I´m glad that the panels and the "Ask IKD" section are gimmicks, imagine having to unlock more modes with stuff like this. It would feel like grinding for rare souls in a Castlevania game - in a shmup!

I could swear that bullets seem to move slower as Type A in all modes.
(The fact that my best in Very Hard with Type A is 400mil higher than my best with Type B, with about 6 less deaths is another thing...)

If I had an at least moderately acceptable camera, I would love to test that. I can´t really see the difference when I switch between the modes, so a side-to-side comparison would be interesting.

[henry dark]

stoopid question- is 19 the max number of lives in any mode? Seem to remember hearing it was 20.

Still can't unlock Extra...

[Frederik]

19 plus the ship you start with, so technically 20 with 19 in reserve.

And about Extra mode - I stopped playing once I realized there will be a super-pissed off Doom at the end of it that you can´t even practice in any way (as Rob nicely pointed out in his review). It also basically just keeps repeating the same five enemies over and over. At first it was a lot of fun, but the crammed screen quickly becomes a real hindrance, plus the fact that some enemies spawn in different places each time is really annoying. Oh yeah, and two lives...


You can spoil it here if you want - he makes it look easy:

If you want footage of Extra, there's an all-clear vid at http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm5159921

Hatena link:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm5159921

What randomly crossed my mind lately is that Mihara should have added a visible hitbox option, given how small the screen is, more like in Shikigami than in, say, Mushihimesama - something that´s bright and can easily be seen. I usually don´t need things like this in shmups at all, but it would have been really helpful here. It´s a standard in Cave games now anyways.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

It sure would've been nice if Arika did include an option to turn on or off, such a visible hitbox on your fightercraft. Perhaps, on another future Cave Death Label release for the NDS will that feature become a reality.

Is there a site to suggest Arika such helpful suggestions for their upcoming games?

I like the little touch of the ability to listen to the sound EFX and BGM tunes in mono just like how the original Ketsui PCB is presented in mono for completeness. The other sound option of "Surround" on this KDL port sounds quite interesting on the NDSlite's speaker setup. ^_~

Fired up the cool Ketsui Death Label Superplay DVD...just an awesome and jaw-dropping performance from the likes of ace Japanese Ketsui PCB player SPS. Has ace player SPS done any other WR runs on arcade shmup PCBs besides just this particular KDL DVD?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[KindGrind]

I've browsed 5-6 pages from this thread and could not fin the info. Should be here though... Anyways. What's the advantage of using the regular shot? I know in the actual game finishing off things with the regular shot will net you more chips... Is it the same with Death Label?

[kengou]

I've browsed 5-6 pages from this thread and could not fin the info. Should be here though... Anyways. What's the advantage of using the regular shot? I know in the actual game finishing off things with the regular shot will net you more chips... Is it the same with Death Label?

I could be wrong, but I think that killing popcorn enemies (such as the boat midboss stage) with regular shot will give you some sort of multiplier. I haven't quite figured it out yet.

[Frederik]

I've browsed 5-6 pages from this thread and could not fin the info. Should be here though... Anyways. What's the advantage of using the regular shot? I know in the actual game finishing off things with the regular shot will net you more chips... Is it the same with Death Label?

It keeps the multiplier from dropping when you finish off enemies. Try the Vinogradov stage with just the lock shot and you´ll notice that the multiplier will take quite a rollercoaster ride. Ideally you should kill the popcorn enemies with the shot and milk the small boats and the single elements on the big one for chips with the lock-on and finish them off with the shot (good luck getting the timing right).

To be honest, I find this mechanism very annoying and it is one of the many reasons I stopped playing this game for score. It just makes things needlessly complicated. I didn´t even know that this was in the original game as well. Maybe I would find it less annoying if the speed wouldn´t vary between the two shot modes, because quite often I switched to shot too early and end up running into bullets because I´m not used to the faster speed.

[Icarus]

To be honest, I find this mechanism very annoying and it is one of the many reasons I stopped playing this game for score. It just makes things needlessly complicated. I didn´t even know that this was in the original game as well. Maybe I would find it less annoying if the speed wouldn´t vary between the two shot modes, because quite often I switched to shot too early and end up running into bullets because I´m not used to the faster speed.

Actually, this mechanism is really easy to get used to, as all your doing is switching to Shot when you get the boss's health down to a change marker - you can still follow all your regular techniques up to that point. The trickiest part of the game is Vinogradov as you have to negotiate the whole stage with Shot, but Type B has a much easier time of it than Type A does.

If anything, it's the "tapping lock-on button" scoring method that I find annoying.

I did have a 2.2bil Type-B Very Hard replay ready for YouTube which demonstrates these techniques, but I need to cut it in half first, as it's 16min long. -_-;;

[Frederik]

If anything, it's the "tapping lock-on button" scoring method that I find annoying.

Yeah, that always seemed like an oversight to me

[KindGrind]

I did have a 2.2bil Type-B Very Hard replay ready for YouTube which demonstrates these techniques, but I need to cut it in half first, as it's 16min long. -_-;;

I'm interested in watching this in the future. Amazing score!

[MSZ]

I just reached extra mode this morning, and I couldn't believe how hard this stage is.

[brokenhalo]

did have a 2.2bil Type-B Very Hard replay ready for YouTube which demonstrates these techniques, but I need to cut it in half first, as it's 16min long. -_-;;

oh wow. can't wait to see that. good job icarus!

[KindGrind]

Who's the player on the replay bundled with the game? My Japanese skills being somewhat limited, I failed to notice it.

Amazing gameplay.

[Icarus]

I'm interested in watching this in the future. Amazing score!

The two parter is up.
pt1: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ws_65NY73VY
pt2: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aXaj3W1Kjjg
Strategies need refining. -_-;;

[Frederik]

That was surprisingly fun to watch

[kengou]

That was awesome, Icarus, thanks.

I'm wondering, when you got to Doom, and had so many lives left, you would use up all your bombs for 5-chips, and then try to dodge stuff until you died. How come, when you ran out of bombs, did you not immediately suicide so you would get your bomb stock refilled and thus get more points? You could have potentially used all the bombs for all your remaining lives, but instead you killed Doom with all those extra lives left. Am I missing something? Is there a bonus granted for remaining lives? In which case, wouldn't you get more points the more lives you've 'unlocked' after playing so long?

Just curious, really, that play is a lot better than I could do right now, I'm still struggling to survive very hard, let alone score at all.

[Arvandor]

You lose a crapton of your bonus when you die.

Much more than you could ever regain from using the extra bombs you'd get.

[moozooh]

pt2: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aXaj3W1Kjjg

Stuff at 4:57 = roflawesome!

[Icarus]

I'm wondering, when you got to Doom, and had so many lives left, you would use up all your bombs for 5-chips, and then try to dodge stuff until you died. How come, when you ran out of bombs, did you not immediately suicide so you would get your bomb stock refilled and thus get more points? You could have potentially used all the bombs for all your remaining lives, but instead you killed Doom with all those extra lives left. Am I missing something? Is there a bonus granted for remaining lives? In which case, wouldn't you get more points the more lives you've 'unlocked' after playing so long?

First, what Arvandor said. You lose a percentage of multiplier on death, and at high multiplier counts, the amount is far more than you could ever regain from strategic bombing. Second, the bombs I use when fighting Doom are for defense, not scoring. I have confidence with only a few of Doom's patterns. Finally, all forms of Doom time-out if you take too long. There's not much point in getting there with a 40k+ multiplier if you don't destroy each form, and to receive a very healthy boost to your score, you have to destroy all forms of Doom with Lock-On. And since you lose a lot of multiplier on death, the idea is to destroy Doom as quickly as possible, with as few mistakes as possible.

On a related note, Very Hard Mode's Doom (which is equal to the third Doom you battle in Doom Mode, and is a slight modification of the arcade difficulty TLB) is no-missable with a bit of practice and strategy refinement - on previous runs I've managed to clear V.Hard with only two deaths total, all deaths on Doom's last pattern. I believe that well over 3bil can be managed from this mode - MrMonkeyMan already has 2.6bil.



EDIT:



One miss. One auto-bomb on the last pattern too, just before the first death.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Who's the player on the replay bundled with the game? My Japanese skills being somewhat limited, I failed to notice it.

Amazing gameplay.

It would be none other than ace player SPS...he does enter his intials on the high score intial entry screen on the Ketsui Death Label Superplay DVD. Over five-hundred million on a 1CC. Just insane and sick. Glad that Arika was nice to include this particular DVD as a bonus. I had to rip it to Region 0 DVD-RW to be able to play in on my Region 1 DVD player even though the KDL Superplay DVD is Japnese Region 2 format only.

It's nice to be able to watch SPS's KDL Superplay on the PSP's screen as well. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Frederik]

You lose a crapton of your bonus when you die.

Much more than you could ever regain from using the extra bombs you'd get.

And that´s a good thing. Imagine having to exploit the bomb-refills on NINETEEN lives

[brokenhalo]

that replay is sooooo good icarus. only thing is i wish i could see your second screen as well to see how you score on each boss. fantastic work though, i'm working on beating the 700 million mark myself now on very hard

[DMC]

I would like some help to get a grasp of the basics of scoring in this game. I would suspect that you have already mentioned it a few times, I hope it's okay anyway.

It seems to me that:
1.Each time you die, you lose 1/4 of your multiplier.
2.Each bomb you have in stock at the end of a stage will add 100 to your multiplier.
3.If you dont die at a stage you start next stage with 4 bombs, otherwise three.
4.1-chips will add 1 to your multiplier, 2-chips will add 2 and so on.
5.The multiplier will simply multiply the enemy default score, all enemies no exceptions?
6. Bombs will hurt doom.

Is this correct?

Then, what are the differences between the weapons when it comes to scoring? It appears that you can only get 1-chips from the primary weapon. If so, when is it useful?
What are the differences between the ships. A has wide spread and B has centered primary shot. B is also a little bit faster? any more?
What about the different colors of the chips, blue, yellow, and red - any difference?