Battle Garegga (ARC/SAT/PS4/XBONE)

[CloudyMusic]

Nice work. From my limited experience I don't think I would ever call those ships "easy," but you may make it look that way

Plasmo, I think the overall top 10 board is pretty out of date at this point.

[Eaglet]

Nice work. From my limited experience I don't think I would ever call those ships "easy," but you may make it look that way

Thanks! I think starting out with a ship that's pretty tough to score with and keep rank low gave a pretty good understanding of the game.
GB will probably still be my main but i'll focus a bit more on other ships from now on. Once you learn how to do the birds, Mad Balls and BH2 with every ship it's all pretty universal.

[Eaglet]

A,475,870 - ERM - Stage 7 - Chitta (ABC)



Fucked up on all of the Mad Balls and died on BH2. Would have easily been a C otherwise. Maybe a D with a clear.
Definitely not going to try to beat KET's score (Mission Impossible) but will probably return for a clear and a new letter.

[Eaglet]

B,530,790 - ERM - Stage 7 - Shatter Star



Something a bit less embarassing with Shatter Star. Died on Glow Squid. Would have been a C with a clear. Dodging tight patterns feels really awkward with the weird hitbox. No missed all of stage 6.

[Eaglet]

B,615,740 - ERM - Stage 7 - Diving Fox



Final credit of the day. Died on Glow Squids last form. Very close to a C clear.

[CloudyMusic]

Not really the score I've been hoping for, but an increase is an increase, I suppose. Messed up milking Junky Monkey, I guess my nerves just got to me. Hopefully I'll get something bigger soon.



A,648,430 - C.M - Stage 6 - Gain (C)

[Eaglet]

Good job!
Milking Junky Monkey can be very intense. Try to keep as many lives (so long as they're not more than two) as possible for the fight itself. The last section of the stage is easily the hardest but one thing that works pretty consistently is causing sprite overload by not shooting anything when the last set of tanks roll in. This will cause only 2 of them to spawn. Keep to the right of the screen and don't fire.
Once the two tanks are on screen, start shooting and bomb the left side tank hatch both to act as a shield for eventual bullets and to help in keeping the medal value. Should give you ample opportunity to clear out the screen of enemies and collect all medals at your current value.

[CloudyMusic]

Watching my replay, it seems like his arm actually rammed into me. I'm not sure if I knew that he could do that.

The last section of the stage is easily the hardest but one thing that works pretty consistently is causing sprite overload by not shooting anything when the last set of tanks roll in. This will cause only 2 of them to spawn. Keep to the right of the screen and don't fire.
Once the two tanks are on screen, start shooting and bomb the left side tank hatch both to act as a shield for eventual bullets and to help in keeping the medal value. Should give you ample opportunity to clear out the screen of enemies and collect all medals at your current value.

Yeah, I've seen that trick, but I thought it required your rank to be somewhat high to get the on-screen bullet count high enough. If not, I'll try to go for that more regularly. And that's a good extra tip about bombing that hatch to help keep your medal chain!

[Eaglet]

D,860,340 - ERM - ALL - Bornnam (ABC) [PCB]


Shaky as all hell. Blaming that on the hangover.
Figured i should give Bornnam a go. Rank was pretty much nothing all throughout the run.

Yeah, I've seen that trick, but I thought it required your rank to be somewhat high to get the on-screen bullet count high enough. If not, I'll try to go for that more regularly. And that's a good extra tip about bombing that hatch to help keep your medal chain!

Nope, you don't need to take the bullets into account. The small tank sprites are enough to cause the overload and it can be done with any ship, so long as you don't bomb the hatch prior.

Junky Monkey also can't ram you with his arms. I'd guess a grey bullet was camouflaged by one of his arms though. That tends to happen a lot.

[Shepardus]

Watching my replay, it seems like his arm actually rammed into me. I'm not sure if I knew that he could do that.

If you look closely, it was actually a grey bullet that happened to be moving with the arm. Quite an unfortunate end to an otherwise solid run.

[CloudyMusic]

Watching my replay, it seems like his arm actually rammed into me. I'm not sure if I knew that he could do that.

If you look closely, it was actually a grey bullet that happened to be moving with the arm. Quite an unfortunate end to an otherwise solid run.

I wondered, but I looked closely and still couldn't see any. Good eye.

[CloudyMusic]

Rank got pretty high this time due to some early deaths so I played it really safe on Junky Monkey.



A,979,490 - C.M - Stage 7 - Gain (C)

My consistency is improving, I haven't restarted nearly as much as usual lately. I can feel it...the run is close.

[ProjectAKo]

I never thought the BH2 vulcan attack would be the hardest part of the entire game. It looks so easy when everyone else does it.

[Eaglet]

What ship do you use?
The attack is much harder to get used to with fast ships, but then again they can bypass it completely with proper planning.

[ProjectAKo]

I went back to using Diving Fox which is... not very fast.

I guess I should hardcore grind it with savestates, but I swear my hitbox gets bigger when im standing in that thing.

[Eaglet]

Haha i sure know that's what it feels like. There's a weird kind of sway when he moves the vulcan around which can sometimes catch you unaware. Just make sure that you make small incremental tap dodges. About 2-3 taps to either side works fine with the slower ships. Know your hitbox.
Have you worked out scoring on the Mad Balls yet? They're pretty easy with Grasshopper types.

[ProjectAKo]

For mad ball 2 I fear dying around there so I pretty much try and speedkill him. For mad ball 1 well, still not that great at farming him either. The youtube video I watched does some pretty tricky looking stuff there with reinforcer. I've mainly been practicing stage 6 survival and made surprising amounts of progress with that. Currently my whole game clearing strategy is to get as much easy score as possible (currently ignoring stuff like shooting the st3 boss body for 2 minutes because it seems to raise rank quite a lot and only gives what, 50k score?) while keeping 1 extend, and suiciding just before I'm about to get the next extend, which should give me the best rank lowering benefit while also keeping a safety buffer of 1 extend in reserve.

[Eaglet]

For mad ball 2 I fear dying around there so I pretty much try and speedkill him. For mad ball 1 well, still not that great at farming him either. The youtube video I watched does some pretty tricky looking stuff there with reinforcer. I've mainly been practicing stage 6 survival and made surprising amounts of progress with that. Currently my whole game clearing strategy is to get as much easy score as possible (currently ignoring stuff like shooting the st3 boss body for 2 minutes because it seems to raise rank quite a lot and only gives what, 50k score?) while keeping 1 extend, and suiciding just before I'm about to get the next extend, which should give me the best rank lowering benefit while also keeping a safety buffer of 1 extend in reserve.

Try to keep 2 lives and about 10 bomb fragments minimum for Nose Laughin 2 and suicide one life on the boss (preferably when you're about to kill him).
Use the same strategy on Mad Ball 2 as on the first one (have close to a full bomb worth of fragments before, suicide when the boss opens up for the first time and bomb him whenever he's in the bottom/middle part of the screen). A full bomb should suffice with low enough rank, otherwise you can use the remaining fragments to bomb the rest of his outer ring.
It's not that tricky honestly. On stage 2, save up all fragments after the birds, trigger homing on the last tank section and suicide when the boss opens up his outer ring for the first time. Homing will help you pick off the inner turrets more efficiently once the outer ring has been bombed. The timing of the bomb is easy once you get it down.

Sounds like a good strategy, but remember to keep more lives (2) for the parts you're having trouble with. So long as you don't bring Autofire above 12hz prior to Nose Laughin 2 you shouldn't have any trouble with rank. From the end of stage 6 and onwards; keep all of your lives for BH2 and Glow Squid.
Try to bomb the shrapnel when Glow Squid appears. With proper timing you get about 400k from it. Place yourself at the middle top of the screen and fire off the bomb right before the hatch starts exploding.

[Eaglet]

D,282,590 - ERM - Stage 7 (Glow Squid) - Miyamoto (C) [PCB]

[Eaglet]

Haha, just cleared with Reinforcer but only improved the score by 65k. Pretty worthless run.

[ProjectAKo]

Whoa, you should make videos Although, it seems you're actually playing on a PCB.

Edit: Actually forget the vulcan attack. Just fuck everything about BH's third form.

[CloudyMusic]

Got the full milk from BH2 phase 2, but he still ended me in phase 3. Dropped medals in stage 4



B,757,700 - C.M - Stage 7 - Gain (C)

[Eaglet]

Whoa, you should make videos Although, it seems you're actually playing on a PCB.

I would've streamed if I had the equipment. Will probably record something in the future though.


Good job, Keres! You're improving fast.

[CloudyMusic]

Thanks! It's a shame that this really ought to have been a C run if I hadn't dropped medals stupidly in stage 4. But that's always how it is, I guess.

My big personal goal of a D is looking increasingly attainable assuming I clear the game, don't drop medals, and don't have any dumb avoidable deaths. I also only bomb the first handful of platforms in stage 5 currently, so if I can reliably start bombing everything and suicide twice before MB2, that should help even more. I also temporarily took Earth Crisis milking back out of my route to help with late-game rank, but I'm not sure what I want to do about that just yet.

I've been playing a lot lately because I'm going to lose my ability to play much for a while in a couple weeks. Gotta get in what practice I can!

[CloudyMusic]

9,410,420 - C.M - Stage 6 - Bornnam (ABC)

[ProjectAKo]

Just played Gain for the second time ever. Guy just vomits out score all over the game.



And BH2 really needs to get lost, although I forgot I should've been saving bombs for him because I don't really bother to with grasshopper.

[Eaglet]

Haha, so I take it you've decided to switch your main then?
Here's a great video from a WR-holder showing off some low rank "Boin".

You shouldn't save bombs with Grasshopper for BH2, no. Just use the fragments to get medals and shit in stage 6.
Shrapnel when Glow Squid appears i stage 7 is very important too.

[ProjectAKo]

Not switching just thought it was funny how I shattered my old score and almost cleared when I randomly decided to try Gain. I forgot to save bombs with Gain, but I did manage to hit the shrapnel in stage 7 about perfectly. I had multiple chances to farm BH2 grenades and was primed to get extends to carry me to the clear, but alas I was empty. I'm actually going for the grasshopper clear because it seems to be one of the hardest to clear with and also a very unpopular ship.

[Eaglet]

Not switching just thought it was funny how I shattered my old score and almost cleared when I randomly decided to try Gain. I forgot to save bombs with Gain, but I did manage to hit the shrapnel in stage 7 about perfectly. I had multiple chances to farm BH2 grenades and was primed to get extends to carry me to the clear, but alas I was empty. I'm actually going for the grasshopper clear because it seems to be one of the hardest to clear with and also a very unpopular ship.

I honestly think it's a good ship to start with! Not that hard to clear with either. So long as you keep your autofire under control, rank will always be nice and manageable.
If you want to go for a guaranteed clear just; use 10hz AF until Nose Laughin 2. Increase to 12hz on Nose. Raise AF to 15 or 20 (depending on how much you want to milk) on Junky Monkey and keep it at that until Glow Squid where you max it out - and - never keep more than 2 extends until you're at the last stage.

All of those things combined with regular play (not breaking medal chains all the time and picking up unnecessary power-ups) will lead to very gentle rank.

I honestly don't know why it's so unpopular. Probably the shitty bird gain has something to do with it. Mad Balls are easy mode though.

[CloudyMusic]

Not switching just thought it was funny how I shattered my old score and almost cleared when I randomly decided to try Gain. I forgot to save bombs with Gain, but I did manage to hit the shrapnel in stage 7 about perfectly. I had multiple chances to farm BH2 grenades and was primed to get extends to carry me to the clear, but alas I was empty. I'm actually going for the grasshopper clear because it seems to be one of the hardest to clear with and also a very unpopular ship.

I think with Gain in particular, it's almost always a better idea to skip the stage 7 shrapnel and instead save that bomb for BH2. At least, I've never really been able to consistently get over 150k there, and with BH2 you can usually get at least 200k per bomb. You'll see big results if you learn how to approach BH2 for maximum score (when to prolong phases, when to push, etc). The ST has lots of info about that.