Strikers 1945 III / Strikers 1999

[Sapz]

Nice job, man. Ground Skater is nuts, haha. I've only no missed the first loop once so far so you might overtake me if you get more familiar with the loop's stages.

[Sapz]

SPZ - 1,665,500 - 2-5 - X-36

A breakthrough! One miss per boss from 2-2 onwards. Making any progress past here will be tough, but I'll keep at it.

EDIT: Anyone else had a problem with .inps desyncing in shmupmame 2.2 for this? My .inp for this run gets a game over on the 1-2 boss.

[Necronopticous]

Giving me a run for my money! Keep at it!

[Sapz]

Will do. Whether or not I could reach 2-5 was a test of sorts I set myself to see if I should go for the full 2-ALL, and now that that's done, I guess I'll be continuing to spend a lot of time with this game. The main problem right now is my consistency with the loop's bosses, but I figure that's largely a matter of practice from here on.

[Necronopticous]

Hilariously, most of the difficulty of the second loop, I find, comes from the timed popcorn formations. Since they come out on a timed interval, any inconsistency on virtually any section of any stage can completely change the stage and boss from that point forward because now you've got guys flying out and shooting suicide bullets in places you never planned for them, which often results in barely-dodgeable boss patterns becoming completely undodgeable, and starting a domino effect of required bombs to get to the tech bonus. It's one of those things that you'd never really know from watching a superplay, but the more you practice and study the second loop the more you realize that something like a single misuse of a charged shot that kills an enemy half way through a stage a second earlier or later than usual can render all of your practice against the boss completely useless since the timing is now totally fucked.

[azinth]

Azinth - 1,451,800 - X-36 - 2-3

1-missed the first loop due to the dumbest Shadow Blinder fight ever, omgwtf. But then I got lucky on the second loop by not getting Russia for the first three stages. Got to the end of 2-3 with one spare life and then Thanatos wrecked my shit.

[AeroCityMayor]

Hi Guys,

Long time Psikyo fan/collector (15 arcade titles) but this is the first shooter I've given any serious time to. I'm a lot more comfortable with 23 buttons than three

I've been playing this now for around two months and not watched a vid yet but I'm getting to 1-5 reasonably frequently and sometimes 1-6 if the planets align. I've recently been practising taking the TBs without bombing and I scored my best chain of 27 today. Best score at the moment 654K so I'm not quite ready to post for the high score table here.

This game is addictive like caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and other "sundries" never were and I find that I am developing "1999 Tourettes" but I am fortunate to have understanding neighbours

My immediate goal is to post a score worthy of this thread, but not being a natural gamer, I'll have to put in a whole load more hours.

Thanks for giving this game the respect it deserves.

Cheers for now.

Ralph.


***edit*** Forgot to mention that my mate who live 3 miles away (who also has a pcb) and I are going head to head, maintaining the interest

[Necronopticous]

Welcome to the board, Ralph.

My immediate goal is to post a score worthy of this thread, but not being a natural gamer, I'll have to put in a whole load more hours.

Scores are worth posting even if they don't make it on the truncated board. A 1-6 score is certainly worthy of posting, and I would encourage you to do so.

[AeroCityMayor]

Thanks for teh welcome d00d.

I'll post a score as soon as I've wiped that mofo's high score from me board

Cheers,

Ralph.

[Sapz]

Yes!!



SPZ - 1,785,500 - 2-6 - X-36

I'm so glad I didn't restart that run. Misses were on 1-6 stage portion (?!) with 7 bombs, 2-1 with 9 bombs, 2-5 boss with 0 bombs (to that really fast attack) and 2-6 boss during the dual flies form with 1 bomb. Consistency during the loop is improving quite a bit, but I still need to tighten things up for sure.

Man, this game is such a thrill ride, I can't remember the last time a shmup felt this exciting to me for this long. I'll keep trying to improve this.

Nice to see new faces playing, too!

EDIT: Also, agreed about the second loop popcorns. It seems learning to time the boss phase kills is a must - I had to use a bunch of bombs on the 2-5 boss in that run to tech it because of all the little fighters flying around making a mess of everything.

[azinth]

Awesome job, Sapz. How are the later loop stages? Just from some runthroughs, they seem a little bit easier than the randomized ones, 2-7 aside.

Azinth - 1,577,900 - 2-4 - X-36

Doesn't bump me up, but it looks prettier so whatever. Game-overed at Ground Skater with 2 bombs. I seriously just had to dodge one more of those fucking aimed blasts and I would have been in a good position to Tech it, ah well.

The first loop is starting to become a real chore to sit through.

[Sapz]

Thanks. 2-5 is mostly not that bad, aside from the part with a large plane + popcorns everywhere which is pretty nasty. Boss isn't that hard either, although the fast attack is still tough and the tech is nasty if you get popcorns there. I'd go as far as to call 2-6 the easiest stage of the loop (maybe even with America), from the looks of things - the death there was basically due to panic (though the instalaser attack could be easy to mess up on). 2-7 has a pretty hard stage section as you've noticed, and the boss seems pretty easy to mess up on despite not really being that much harder than before. 2-8 looks like it has a pretty easy stage section, but the boss is pretty horrible, especially combining the second form with the loop popcorns. The first form opener seems deceptively easy to screw up, too, I mess it up pretty often in practice. The taps for that need to be really precise and regular to get you through. At least the final form doesn't seem any harder unless you're looking at the medals.

Good job on the new score! I still haven't really tried working a second loop Ground Skater tech into my runs, he's hard enough as it is, haha.

[azinth]

It's really just its last two phases you have to worry about for the most part. The second-to-last one is pretty batshit and always costs a bomb/life. The one right before the core is revealed I can sometimes do, but I often get screwed over by popcorn on it so I just safety-bomb if I have one. Everything before that I can usually do unless I mistime a tap on the aimed blasts and get clipped by one, which is exactly what happened here.

[Sapz]

Out of random interest, how are you dodging those spreads? I've been going between the outer bullet and the main body of the spreads, but the way you describe it sounds like you're tap-dodging near the middle. Interesting if that's the case.

[azinth]

I meant tap in the relative sense, lol. For the first time it does it., I start high up on the screen hugging the left wall, and dodge the first wave vertically. For the next two waves I move horizontally from the left corner to the right corner, minding the pellets, then for the fourth wave I jump back to the middle and dodge to the right again, which puts me in line to safespot the following spray pattern. From the superplays I've seen, that seems to be the standard method. Then for the next wave I do the exact same thing, but bomb right as the spray pattern comes out.

[Sapz]

Ah, fair enough. Similar to what I do, but you seem to have a concrete method down better than me, haha. I'll keep that path in mind.

[azinth]

Azinth - 1,685,550 - 2-5 - X-36

I'm glad I decided to do one more run for the day. Aside from one stupid death with 5 bombs, this was easily my most consistent run so far. I got all the Technical Bonuses for the randomized loop stages and got to 2-5, two goals that I really wanted to achieve in a real run. I thought I might be able to take out the 2-5 boss's first form since I got to it with a bomb, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.

No top 5 yet.

[Sapz]

Sapz - 1,923,000 - 2-7 - X-36

This was a really awesome run. No misses or bombs on the first loop! Just a couple less stupid mistakes needed...

Misses on 2-3 (Australia) boss, 2-5 boss, 2-6 stage section and 2-7 stage section.

[azinth]

Azinth - 1,785,200 - 2-6 - X-36

God knows how much better my scores would be if I'd stop dying with 6+ bombs all the time. And it's almost always to something really stupid too, not something I have legitimate trouble with. At least I'm getting more and more comfortable with the loop stages. I'll catch up to you one of these days Sapz.

[Necronopticous]

I've been playing a little recently, inspired by the revitalized interest in here. Today I fully chained the first loop--something I've often come close to, but have never quite been able to pull off:



I let myself die after I accidentally died trying to continue the chain on 2-1 Russia, fumbling to grab my camera so I could take the picture in time (barely got it!) Sucks that they don't show the max chain on the actual scoreboard.

[Sapz]

Monster chain, man!

Here's the obligatory 'FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF SO CLOSE GOD DAMN' run.



SPZ - 2,133,300 - 2-8 - X-36

NMNB first loop again, death immediately on 2-1 with 9 bombs, two deaths on Thanatos (?!), and no deaths from there until my final one on the opener of the 2-8 boss, first form, with two bombs. God damn it, that could have been it.

[Necronopticous]

You're so close, man. Get in there.

[azinth]

Azinth - 1,931,100 - 2-7 - X-36

Steadily improving. One miss at 2-4 Ground Skater and two derptastic misses at Green Bender. No-missed stage 6 somehow, even though my performance on it kinda sucked. So, what strategy do you guys use to dodge that laser attack? I'm attempting the 'one tap to the left' method, but the timing is hard to get down.

[Sapz]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.



SPZ - 2,519,400 - ALL - X-36

This run, I used every single bomb I had, and it got me to 2-8 before missing. The most intense run in a shmup I've ever had, holy shit. This is the best game. The only mistake that I made in this run compared to practice was on the 2-8 boss, since I had no bombs left and wasn't quite in my right mind by that point.

I recorded a .avi of this run, so it'll be up on YouTube later today, hopefully. Now excuse me while I go and have a heart attack. Thanks a lot to Necronopticous for the constant encouragement, and Azinth for the excellent competition.

[Battletoad]

You guys are sick. Congrats Sapz and good luck azinth! Encourages me for my planned 2-ALL in Zero Gunner 2. Will be easier than this, but still hard as nails.

Seeing your results now I might even consider trying out the 2nd loop in 1999. Well not now, rather in a few months or years.

[Necronopticous]

New western record! Congrats, man. That's an amazing score, and I'm sure you can do even better. Go for 3M! It's just a matter of using less lives and bombs at this point.

I'm not sure that I will be able to up my score to compete with you easily. Part of my problem is that I can't get myself to sit down and do save-state practicing on MAME, so 95% of my second loop practice only comes after looping the game in normal play. I'm still not really sure how to handle the 2-8 differences much at all since I've only played it a handful of times. I also restart too much.

[Sapz]

Thanks guys.

Battletoad - go for it! The loop looks intimidating, but gets easier every time you play as you get used to the high speed.

Necronopticous - I think I'll take a break before trying to push the score up, haha. Any bomb removed from that run in itself would add a lot of risk, and that was already by far my most consistent run in this game. As for the 2-8 boss, I found a fairly reliable strategy for killing it with two bombs (based on the idea that since you get 2 bombs in the stage, the game would be clearable even entering the stage with no resources) you might find useful.

First form: Use a bomb immediately through the opener (you can remove the bomb if you're confident about this, but I often screw it up), then dodge the rest normally using a few lasers, and ideally this will kill it just before it uses the opener again, near the left edge of the screen.

Second form: Dodge the initial fast spray while using any laser you have left, then immediately go to the top corner above the familiars while shooting at Chaos Queen. Use your second bomb as it starts up the spray again (I find it very hard to dodge the spray going into it sideways rather than from the bottom; if you're confident you could forego the bomb and dodge this). After this, go above the familiars again and unload whatever laser you have at the boss; ideally this will kill it off just before it uses the spray a third time, but late enough that the familiars won't be a problem as the boss enters its final form. Once you're there, you're basically home free. I think the bombs are during the toughest parts of the fight, but if you're more confident about those attacks you could certainly modify the strategy a bit to do it bombless. Good luck!

The strategy is in the video too, so after it's done uploaded you can see it and maybe have a clearer idea, although I did screw up the last step by killing the second form too late and getting hit by the spray at point-blank range. It's definitely the hardest boss for me, even moreso than Ground Skater. Thank God you don't have to tech the thing.

[Necronopticous]

Maybe I'll buckle down and do the MAME thing. I'm so spoiled by the PCB that every time I load it up on MAME I get irritated within minutes and go do something else...If I could cut out the input lag I would be a lot more inspired to practice. What version of MAME are you using?

[Sapz]

I've been using Shmupmame 2.2. It removes a lot of the lag present in other MAME versions, and doesn't do the annoying text box thing during Chaos Queen like 3.0 does, I'd highly recommend it. .inp files seem to desync sometimes though - I had to start recording .avi files while playing it to get runs saved.

[Necronopticous]

I'll check it out...Maybe after I finish playing Ogre Battle.