I DID IT! Share your latest 1CCs/other triumphs here...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

That makes sense, thank you for clarifying!

No problem.

I forgot to mention there is (or was, might've been patched now) a problem with the release of Progear on Steam on the Capcom Arcade Stadium that's discussed in this thread: viewtopic.php?p=1492155#p1492155

Basically, they didn't realize that the JP default of 4 is programmed to be roughly equivalent to the US default of 2, and they decided to up the default US version difficulty to 4 to make it the "same"... which results in the English version being way harder with far faster bullets than intended because changing the English version from 2 to 4 puts it two difficulties higher than what the default was. So to get the proper experience, you have to play the Japanese version in the collection.

They might well have done the same thing with Giga Wing's US version in that collection, but because the slider seems to have no noticeable impact nobody's complained about it.

[stellar_light]

Cleared Deathsmiles IIX All Level 3 + Field F + TLB! Deathsmiles II is actually fairly fun for what it is but IIX is definitely a night and day difference mechanically, it's interesting to have multiple types of revenge bullets designed to keep you cycling in and out of hyper as frequently as possible while still adding threats to counter that playstyle. The Level 3 fields are fairly tame (took hits way too many times during the cramped score farming cave level though) and the carnival is a joke compared to Gorge/Ice Palace from the first game, but I had a surprising amount of trouble fulfilling the TLB requirement of finishing every boss with a lock shot. Bosses would accidentally die early, the lock-on would target random objects instead of the actual boss, setting it up safely required some planning with hypers and bombs (especially for the carnival boss who is surprisingly a menace, hardest fight in the game by far despite how easy the stage is), and sometimes I'd hold lock for too long causing me to miss my window and not be able to fire anymore. Doesn't help that all this hassle is to fight a TLB who's frankly a huge letdown, the fact that they give you two extends directly before the fight so it's even more trivial to bomb through it kind of boggles me. Fun clear otherwise.

[stellar_light]

Got a Batsugun Arcade 1cc! This was a long overdue clear for me but the game is great, strong balance of blisteringly fast patterns that still involve very deliberate and satisfying weaving paired with a wonderfully dense runtime. The execution isn't particularly demanding but only having a single extend does add quite a bit of spice to the run combined with bombs not being that great, definitely need to stay on your guard or it can go south quick. The stage 4 and 5 bosses are huge curveballs that are far more difficult than anything else in the game, I'm sure it'd go faster with the autofire cranked up higher but these are total endurance tests otherwise--at least you have a nice blind spot near the end of the Jupiter fight, but you can rarely feel safe against the final boss as it pulls out another twenty guns.

I did try Batsugun Special after and got a sloppy 2-ALL, neat version but playing them back to back definitely feels weird lol, so many dodges that I instinctively flinched at believing I had died. Doing a 3-ALL seems reasonable without requiring too much more practice but at that point you're looking at a 40+ minute run which is straying away from what I enjoy about regular Batsugun so much, which is its snappy pacing.

[To Far Away Times]

Nice one.

Batsugun rips. The audio and visual presentation is among my favorites in any shmup.

It just looks and sounds exactly like an arcade game should. GOAT level use of colors and shading.

[Angry Hina]

I recently cleared Ghost Blade HD with all three ships:
Ghost (blue) wide spread: https://youtu.be/DSAKMPj0SgA
Milan (green) lesser spread, fast, weaker laser: https://youtu.be/SUvfL8ZUe9A
Rekka (lilac) narrow shot: https://youtu.be/t6RG0sMfQ0U

I think, its a very nice game with heavy focus on slow but numerous unaimed shots.
The level design requires little memorization, but good reflexes and a steady thumb when flying through the bullet patterns.

I think it was perhaps a little harder to learn than, say, Batsugun Special, so it's fairly easy (relatively within the genre), but not a no-brainer.

With the green ship, you can evade some attacks more easily, but you're very vulnerable to kamikazes, which are barely noticeable with the blue fighter. This makes even the first levels more difficult. Also because the bosses last a bit longer (weaker laser). It's also a bit more fun to be that fast, but I think you tend to drive better with the blue ship to get in, as the kamikazes get really annoying otherwise. In levels 4 and 5, the high speed and the narrower spread of the shot pay off more and more.

Rekka was much more difficult than the other two. I think I had to practice the game for about as long as it took me to play my first 1cc. The reason for this is that Rekka has a straight shot with no spread, so you're pushed to the edge of the sreen much more quickly without being able to hit your enemies from there. This means you have to pay more attention to keeping the center of the playing field occupied, which forces you to fly through dense bullet patterns much more often.

But even here, you don't have to memorize a lot, but you do need to be skilled and nimble when it comes to flying through all the projectiles.
In DoDonPachi, the comparable red Type A ship always has a particularly high flight speed to compensate for the limited range. That's not the case here. At least the "laser" is as powerful as the one of the blue ship (Ghost).

After my successful Rekka 1cc, I realized that this one was so challenging that it probably wouldn't be much harder to play on hard with the other two (much stronger) ships.
I think I'll try that soon.

[stellar_light]

Despite being a huge fan of the genre I've actually played very few Toaplan games so I figured I'd brush up on their history some more and try to clear their early games: I've gotten Slap Fight, Slap Fight MD, Tiger-Heli, and Hishouzame 1-ALLed so far.

Tiger-Heli is mean, there's fun to be had but the slow movement speed combined with not being able to seal enemies feels like you're constantly hanging on for dear life, no matter where you look there's at least one more enemy on the other end of the screen. I am impressed by how fleshed out the bomb mechanic is by being physically attached to your craft and activating automatically if a bullet hits that part of the ship--I wonder if that would make this one of the first implementations of an auto-bomb? It's a short enough loop that you shouldn't be walled by anything for too long, but getting that last stage down consistently was a struggle and it became exhausting to redo the first level over and over again.

Slap Fight is actually quite enjoyable even though I usually don't like that implementation of Gradius-style powerups. The weapons feel distinct (and unbalanced but that's a given), you can make some surprising recoveries, and any particularly aggravating moments are alleviated by being ~10 minutes long anyway. The hidden mechanic of being able to skip a third of the game by not shooting any enemies is bonkers, they really just did whatever they wanted with shmup secrets back then. I also liked the concept of being able to double your firepower at the cost of making your hitbox bigger, something Slap Fight MD runs with and makes even better by being able to sacrifice extra wings for bombs. MD definitely has some more teeth to the later enemy compositions and it did take me some practice to figure out how to handle the last quarter of the run, but certainly still manageable and I appreciate seeing all those concepts from the original being revisited.

Hishouzame is a big jump in visual quality and general game feel compared to Toaplan's previous shmups, and while I don't think the enemy compositions are that massive of a leap forward by comparison there's still some interesting setpieces here and there like with the big ships. And you can seal enemies this time!! It is longer than Tiger-Heli and the enemies are definitely out for blood in the later stages with their dizzyingly fast bullets (if you wall yourself you are not getting out unless you bombed pre-emptively) but despite that it's a surprisingly very kind game with its constant extends, bomb drops, and end of stage bomb refills. Trying to come back from losing your upgrades is rough but you can keep the momentum going for quite awhile, so this isn't too demanding of a clear.

These have all been fairly short and easy so far with the right knowledge, but I'm glad I've still been able to get this much enjoyment out of trying them.

[stellar_light]

Twin Cobra and Kyuukyoku Tiger 1-ALLs done now. Both versions of the game are exhaustingly long compared to previous Toaplan shmups, and I do appreciate that the beefier runtime allows for easily the most intricate and complex enemy formations seen in their games so far but it's also draining as a result--endurance shmups aren't really my thing. Still, I enjoyed clearing Twin Cobra quite a bit, it's Kyuukyoku Tiger where my enthusiasm seriously started to wane. If you mess up in Twin Cobra you can almost definitely recover if you're able to play well enough and have a good resource buffer, but the checkpoint system of KT can (and often does) force you to deal with enemy compositions that are truly ridiculous without any upgrades and the slower ship speed. Just a single mistake during the latter half can have 40 minutes of a 50 minute run go down the drain as you get caught into a death loop and ten lives can suddenly turn into zero. I don't see myself coming back to this version which is a shame, but I wouldn't mind trying to push TC a bit further another time.

I ended up taking a break from Toaplan after this and got a DOJ White Label 1-ALL though! I had 1-ALLed BL years ago and was always scared off by the bigger hitboxes of WL but all things considered it's honestly still pretty generous in the first loop, so much of DOJ is about routing enemy kills to minimize that number of extremely precise micrododge situations anyway so you don't feel it too harshly. Boss patterns definitely become more threatening though and I did have an attempt that died at the stage 5 boss's final pattern, and I came back on my clear with way more bombs in stock than I needed just because I didn't want to leave anything up to that final boss again. I know it's more loop 2 specifically where the design choices for White Label start to make or break the experience but at least for this 1-ALL I had probably as much fun as I did with Black Label. DOJ's a really damn good game!!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I finally beat Esp.Ra.De after making no headway on it for years, but I'm still really bad at the game. I've cleared with all 3 characters now, settled mostly on JB or Yusuke as main, but man, I still feel really bad at the game. I can get to the final boss fairly consistently but I'm dying at really stupid spots and only beating the game with a couple hearts remaining. I suppose I could learn to milk to improve my scores but I really would like a clear that doesn't feel like it does badly on survival play... I think what I struggle most with is hitbox positioning, I really don't feel like I'm confident about squeezing through tight patterns compared to other games because the hitbox position feels really ambiguous and difficult to pinpoint when I'm moving quickly.

[stellar_light]

I finally beat Esp.Ra.De after making no headway on it for years, but I'm still really bad at the game. I've cleared with all 3 characters now, settled mostly on JB or Yusuke as main, but man, I still feel really bad at the game. I can get to the final boss fairly consistently but I'm dying at really stupid spots and only beating the game with a couple hearts remaining. I suppose I could learn to milk to improve my scores but I really would like a clear that doesn't feel like it does badly on survival play... I think what I struggle most with is hitbox positioning, I really don't feel like I'm confident about squeezing through tight patterns compared to other games because the hitbox position feels really ambiguous and difficult to pinpoint when I'm moving quickly.

That sounds about right for Esprade--it feels like a game where I know you can micrododge but it's always scary as hell to try and I'd rather not risk it. It's generous enough on resources that you can kinda fluke your way through it as long as you do the final boss OK, I didn't learn how to do the rest of it super consistently either. Clearing with each character is still impressive!

[mirkvid]

Batsugun SP 1all on a whim! Nearly cleared loop 2 as well! 5431280 points! That's my top 4 STGs all cleared now. I may go for the 2all, loop 2 isnt bad....

[Acid]

If you 1cc Esprade, you're good at the game. We don't need to compare ourselves to just the one percent of players who can get such clears. You put in a lot of work, so be proud of it. Congratulations.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, but just once I'd like a clear that doesn't feel like I fumbled my way the whole way there though. stellar_light's right though, making micrododges in this sucks compared to games where the hitbox is super clear on the sprite (DDP, Ketsui, Espgaluda 1 & 2, Dangun, Giga Wing, Batrider, tons of games really).

I got a PB but it's hilariously just barely above my other scores. Oh well. Gonna try to finally clear Espgaluda 2 (I enjoy it a lot but I inevitably try way too hard to use Zetsushikai to score and get owned in the process).

[Faith]

Hello!~ I think it is finally time I joined this forum @_@!~



Had wanted to join earlier, but this piece of torture called an STG has been... keeping me so very, very busy X_X"...

Actually got my first 1CC for it a few weeks ago, but after watching my replay, and wanting to smack myself a few times watching my own run... I wanted to polish it a bit more.

So here I am! After getting my third 1CC for Arcade Unlimited, I am happier, hehe.

Sorry no replay, I don't have YouTube ~_~"...

But if anyone wants, I can upload it to my online drive somewhere!~

[mirkvid]

Nice job, and welcome!

[stellar_light]

Grats!! That's a very spicy one to clear, especially multiple times.

[Faith]

Grats!! That's a very spicy one to clear, especially multiple times.

Thank you!! Yes, super super spicy indeed! Main reason I wanted do more than once, was because I felt, my first 1CC, had two parts which were just super pure luck. So for myself, it felt a bit bad. Of course there will always be some level of luck, but for mine, it did not feel very good for me, lol. And of course, Arcade Unlimited is crazy, so even a luckier clear is still a very well deserved clear.

Also, my first 1CC, I managed reach #10 on leaderboard. And I knew I could do better. With latest one Rank #6 now for Type-Z, so very very happy!

And finally, I like to look good :p and my first 1CC was a bit messy. But now, very happy with my run!~

Definitely not a superplay, but one I can look back with much pride!

[CIT]

I just 1CC'd Devil Blade Reboot (Steam). Damn, what a kick-ass game. Major Technosoft vibes with the fast pacing and all the metal, but it also brings a lot of unique aspects to the table.

Overall an easy clear on Normal, but I feel if you really wanna push your score it's gonna get really hard really quick.

[stellar_light]

Cleared Guwange!! I love how mechanically ambitious and experimental it is but this is such a lopsided game in terms of balance. Being given a full lives restock partway through the final stage makes everything up to that point kind of fall by the wayside--there's some trickier moments leading up to that point for sure (I always dedicated a bomb towards the first part of the stage 5 boss because of how rough it gets if you leave it alive for too long), but the vast majority of my practice was spent on just doing the final bosses correctly because grinding the rest of the game isn't that fruitful, especially given there's no score extends. Definitely has the Espgaluda thing going on where the finale is exponentially more difficult than anything prior, complete with last phase bomb shield during the final boss. I still enjoyed clearing it but I'd be glad to not have to worry about that final pattern again, being locked to horizontal movement with your ghost out makes it significantly more difficult than it would be otherwise.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Cleared Guwange!! I love how mechanically ambitious and experimental it is but this is such a lopsided game in terms of balance. Being given a full lives restock partway through the final stage makes everything up to that point kind of fall by the wayside--there's some trickier moments leading up to that point for sure (I always dedicated a bomb towards the first part of the stage 5 boss because of how rough it gets if you leave it alive for too long), but the vast majority of my practice was spent on just doing the final bosses correctly because grinding the rest of the game isn't that fruitful, especially given there's no score extends. Definitely has the Espgaluda thing going on where the finale is exponentially more difficult than anything prior, complete with last phase bomb shield during the final boss. I still enjoyed clearing it but I'd be glad to not have to worry about that final pattern again, being locked to horizontal movement with your ghost out makes it significantly more difficult than it would be otherwise.

Was this Guwange 1CC achieved on a real Guwange arcade pcb setup, on the Xbox 360 Guwange port or via Mame emulation? Congrats on the Guwange 1CC, wow!

----------
Plus there's shmupper trap15's eprom conversion hack to convert a real Cave Guwange arcade pcb from a stock one to "Guwange Blue" variant arcade pcb for posterity purposes (assuming you have direct access to a Guwange pcb to do the conversion).
----------

I recall watching the HDK Factory Guwange Superplay with super ace player Yusemi-SWY which is quite impressive in that he does a 1LC (1 Life Clear) with no lives lost whatsoever from start to eventual conclusion. I did a VHS tape conversion to DVD-R many moons ago (and was rather stumped and surprised that that particular HDK Factory Guwange Superplay actually has built-in anti-copying Macrovision scheme embedded throughout the entire VHS recording itself -- there was an alternative solution/work-around to that particular pressing issue at hand). Considering that the entire HDK Factory Guwange Superplay DVD-R conversion is presented entirely in tate, it's quite cool to watch it on an tate'd old-school CRT monitor setup with it's overall 720 x 480p format presentation for archival purposes.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[stellar_light]

Cleared Guwange!! I love how mechanically ambitious and experimental it is but this is such a lopsided game in terms of balance. Being given a full lives restock partway through the final stage makes everything up to that point kind of fall by the wayside--there's some trickier moments leading up to that point for sure (I always dedicated a bomb towards the first part of the stage 5 boss because of how rough it gets if you leave it alive for too long), but the vast majority of my practice was spent on just doing the final bosses correctly because grinding the rest of the game isn't that fruitful, especially given there's no score extends. Definitely has the Espgaluda thing going on where the finale is exponentially more difficult than anything prior, complete with last phase bomb shield during the final boss. I still enjoyed clearing it but I'd be glad to not have to worry about that final pattern again, being locked to horizontal movement with your ghost out makes it significantly more difficult than it would be otherwise.

Was this Guwange 1CC achieved on a real Guwange arcade pcb setup, on the Xbox 360 Guwange port or via Mame emulation? Congrats on the Guwange 1CC, wow!

Thank you! I played it on FBNeo through Retroarch. I am somewhat curious about Guwange Blue's gameplay changes but I imagine it'd be more fun to wait some time in-between versions. I should check out the exclusive mode in the 360 port as well but I am probably Guwange'd out for now!

[LordHypnos]

Guwange has got to be one of, if not the, nicest looking CAVE games. It's so strange mechanically, but I like that about it. I feel like there was a lot of shmup experimentation in the late 90s and early 00s.

Just nabbed a 1cc of Elemental Master normal version, finally! I was down to 0 health at the start of the final boss pattern, so I really thought it was over, but I managed to avoid getting hit even though I haven't really practiced that pattern at all. This game just oozes 16-bit vibes.

[eksratu]

I just cleared Futari BL Maniac for the first time! I cheered out loud at my TV.

I've been practicing the crap out of this one. I almost didn't do a full run today, and the winning attempt had some early deaths. But I clutched out a smooth Stage 5 and bombed the final boss into oblivion. I never thought I'd even come close to pulling this one off.

[Faith]

I cheered out loud at my TV.

lol. When I got my first Crimzon Clover Arcade Unlimited clear, my hubby was still working (but in another room) and I screamed so loud I got an annoyed text after that :p

No hard feelings of course, just natural response to work stress, and I was already done with work for the day.

We both work from home, but I end at earlier time so often gaming while waiting lol.

Congrats on clear! Really wish to get Futari on Steam some day too @_@"...

[Faith]

I just 1CC'd Devil Blade Reboot (Steam). Damn, what a kick-ass game. Major Technosoft vibes with the fast pacing and all the metal, but it also brings a lot of unique aspects to the table.

Overall an easy clear on Normal, but I feel if you really wanna push your score it's gonna get really hard really quick.

Big congrats! I really should start with Devil Blade some day. I always like an STG with a lot of PB'ing lol.

Of course that is where a lot of difficulty lies, because even with Devil Blade where you can (most of the time it seems) see what is coming... always a lot of memorization if point-blanking everything is the goal.

[eksratu]

I cheered out loud at my TV.

lol. When I got my first Crimzon Clover Arcade Unlimited clear, my hubby was still working (but in another room) and I screamed so loud I got an annoyed text after that :p

No hard feelings of course, just natural response to work stress, and I was already done with work for the day.

We both work from home, but I end at earlier time so often gaming while waiting lol.

Congrats on clear! Really wish to get Futari on Steam some day too @_@"...

Thanks! I don't have a partner to annoy but I did scare my tiny cat!

And me too on the Steam part. I was literally just thinking that an M2 port of Futari would be so nice. Imagine if they repackaged the Xbox release with all their gadgets, a remixed soundtrack or three, and maybe a cool new arrange mode to play. Or they could go the Esp Ra.De Psi route and make, like, a "Black Label Plus" mode that has a new TLB and a new playable character or something. Maybe the ghost of Aki? He could have Guwange-style spirit controls because he's dead.

[To Far Away Times]

I just cleared Futari BL Maniac for the first time! I cheered out loud at my TV.

I've been practicing the crap out of this one. I almost didn't do a full run today, and the winning attempt had some early deaths. But I clutched out a smooth Stage 5 and bombed the final boss into oblivion. I never thought I'd even come close to pulling this one off.

Nice one!

[stellar_light]

1cced all three modes in Akai Katana!! (No TLB in Slash/Shin because doing the whole game deathless would be a pretty massive leap--doing the first five stages with a No Miss feels reasonable enough but I just can't deal with stage 6 without needing to dump so many resources at Ayane & Ran, it's already stressful enough as is). Doing Origin --> Climax --> Slash makes the most sense to me as a natural escalation of the game's mechanics: you start out with the arcade mode in all its cheesy invincibility spamming glory, then you move onto zetsu for a more aggressive version of the game with an extra stage to push your resources a little more, and once you reach Shin the training wheels are taken off and you have to manage all your various tools without the luxury of on-demand invincibility for the bulk of the run.

Arcade mode sounds like a freebie on paper given that you're invincible for like 70% of it, but even with all those advantages.... gonna be honest, I greeded way too often and runs died for no reason because of it. The last couple bosses do actually require some resources if you aren't experienced with them and I mentioned it before but I swear Ayane and Ran are way harder than the actual final boss. Climax does actually feel more different than I'd expect, it's not entirely clear to me which numbers may have been potentially tweaked but it definitely feels like the screen fills up faster than in arcade--I'm guessing that might just be a consequence of the wider screen making it harder to sweep formations as quickly even with Type C, but enemy compositions I used to be able to speedkill in arcade before they got more than a couple shots off were able to swarm me much quicker in climax. I did finish my climax clear in the most on-brand Akai Katana way possible, which was being on my last life and getting a max hyper refill at the last phase of the final boss and using it to afk on top of him and outlast it before my hyper ran out.

I actually do really enjoy the first two modes despite their wonky balance, but Shin is the game I wanted to take the most seriously. I love the new amount of granularity in the phantom system, activating phantom at max meter and steel/katanas feels like a substantially different decision than going into phantom at medium meter, or even triggering it with only a sliver of meter to pause the bullets and quickly shift to a different position to make a dodge that you wouldn't be able to at full speed. Not many of CAVE's other hyper systems hit quite this same flexibility, and the mechanic of riding katanas across the screen for massive damage and score items is the perfect cherry on top, all of this together really lets all the levels and boss design shine compared to how so much of it had been obscured in the original incentivizing you to bypass as much of the patterns as possible. This might still be one of CAVE's tamer clears (at least without going for the TLB) but it certainly has some spice to it and is a great time the whole way through, this is a new favorite for me. Also absolutely love the soundtrack, both the regular version and its arrange. The way that the stage 5 mid-boss lines up with the music is soooo good.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Congrats to all the folks with recent clears! CC Unlimited is brutal, I've never been able to make a dent in it, let alone Arcade Original.

I actually do really enjoy the first two modes despite their wonky balance, but Shin is the game I wanted to take the most seriously.

Shin is by far the most popular mode. I don't even think it's a contest, it's always been super well regarded. And the Exa release includes Shin as a playable mode so you can think of it as an arcade mode now.

[Faith]

CC Unlimited is brutal, I've never been able to make a dent in it, let alone Arcade Original.

Yep >_<!~ Here is my number of attempts to clear each mode in Crimzon Clover:

• Novice Boost: 15 (0)
• Novice Original: 30 (0)

• Arrange Boost: 3 (0)
• Arrange Original: 27 (0)
• Arrange Unlimited: 13 (0)
• Arrange Time Attack: 555

• Arcade Boost: 499 (29)
• Arcade Original: 400 (30)
• Arcade Unlimited: 2555 (663)
• Arcade Time Attack: 55

Number in brackets are practice. The skill jump going from Novice/Arrange -> Arcade is huge, and then from Arcade Original/Boost -> Arcade Unlimited completely crazy. For Original/Boost all practice were TLB. For Unlimited half of practice was Stage 4 (this stage is a joke in this mode) and the other half Stage 5 Boss and TLB.

[copy-paster]

Once again, massive GG for the CC Arcade Unlimited clear! Even with TYPE-Z I still get my butt kicked on AC Original.