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

[Jonster]

After getting the Mushihimesame Original 1CC last week I've been giving the 1.5 mode a run through. I was noticing the S-shot was really struggling in the part on stage 3 after the first power up collection, so I gave M-shot a try instead and got the clear first go. Now to decide if I go for maniac or play something else instead.

Also got a no miss in Omake on Espgaldua 2 last night, there's just something really fun about that mode that has had me run through it a few times recently.

The same for me. Very stange, that you all of the sudden needed the M Shot but its nice you have to adjust a little bit. I dont want to but the game aside just jet and therefor will try to beat Maniac for 1.0 and 1.5.

Congrats! I find the W shot too slow after playing so much S shot, so that's why I gave M a try. I should probably just play W more to get used to it though. Taking a very short break from Mushi atm, but I think I'm in the same boat as you and will also try for the 1.0 and 1.5 Maniac clears.

[Starfighter]

Dodonpachi Resurrection! (B-Strong 1-ALL)
After reading things like "braindead easy" and "got a 1CC first try" I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, but it turned out I had to practice for 6 hours (6 hours on the minute!) to get my 1-ALL. As far as Cave games goes, sure, it's the easiest one I've cleared (for me it was easier than Deathsmiles), but it still was pretty hectic at times. Phew!

[Angry Hina]

I think its a bit harder compared to Deathsmiles and both are harder than Deathsmiles 2 but they are all for the most people that hard, that they will never seriously try a 1cc^^

[To Far Away Times]

I settled a long time grudge with Hyper Duel today.

Hyper Duel is not quite Technosoft at their best, but it's still a good time. Difficulty wise, it's a game of peaks and valleys, with some spots being brain dead easy and other spots being quite difficult. As an old school horizontal shmup, it's uncommonly generous with it's instant respawn, and it's fairly easy to get powered back up to boot. Still, some planning and route memorization is needed. The last boss' final phase is a huge difficulty spike, definitely gets the heart racing. I had a no miss run going into the final boss, and died twice on the final phase.

I do want to mention something about the presentation that kinda bugged me. This game looks good at times, but it's noticeably lower budget than Technosoft's console games of that era. Thunderforce III and IV had already been released on the Genesis by the time Hyper Duel had been released for arcade, and you'd think the arcade hardware would let them kick it up a gear, but it appears like the opposite has happened. Hyper Duel lacks the polish of their earlier titles. It's especially noticeable with the parallax scrolling, usually having none at all. The soundtrack is forgettable, something unimaginable coming from Technosoft. Tsukumo Hyakutaro's Thunder Force V soundtrack fucking slaps, but here his music is mostly background noise. Even things submerging your space ship underwater looks lame in Hyper Duel but it looked fantastic in Thunder Force IV which was released earlier and on console hardware.

I'm probably sounding more negative than is warranted, I had a good time with the game, but this is a 7/10 game from a studio that was regularly dropping 10 out of 10's.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

As far as Cave games goes, sure, it's the easiest one I've cleared (for me it was easier than Deathsmiles), but it still was pretty hectic at times. Phew!

I found DFK (Bomb Style) easier than Deathsmiles too. The main thing is learning the laser wheels in Stage 5 I find, but I found learning the game was less complex than having to learn Deathsmiles where enemies rush in from both sides of the screen, and your familiar's movement can be a bit unusual to manage.

[Starfighter]

The main thing is learning the laser wheels in Stage 5 I find

100% this. All my practice time was spent on those.

[Creamy Goodness]

I found DFK noticably harder than Deathsmiles. Granted when I cleared Deathsmiles I did all stages rank 3 except for 2 of them to avoid death mode plus I did not do the canyon. And for DFK I did bomb style. Nonetheless I found it to be more difficult than Deathsmiles.

[To Far Away Times]

I cleared Kamui today.

I have a bit of a history with this one. I cleared it a few years back on one of the doujin copies in Japanese, but since I couldn't decipher the menus I didn't realize the settings weren't at defaults until later. Ultimately, I couldn't count the run towards my 1CC's.

So I had to practice up the game again and relearn it so I could clear it on default settings. I tried a few times before but ultimately got frustrated or lost interest. Anyway, I got inspired and was able to push through for the all defaults clear tonight.

This time I played the Steam version. The Steam version is nice, and it looks a little sharper than the doujin copy. Might be higher resolution or something like that, and it's in English. On the Steam version you can see what percentage of players have which achievements, and only ~2% of the people who buy the game have a 1CC on the Steam version, so that was pretty cool.

[locoBro1196]

I cleared Kamui today.

I have a bit of a history with this one. I cleared it a few years back on one of the doujin copies in Japanese, but since I couldn't decipher the menus I didn't realize the settings weren't at defaults until later. Ultimately, I couldn't count the run towards my 1CC's.

So I had to practice up the game again and relearn it so I could clear it on default settings. I tried a few times before but ultimately got frustrated or lost interest. Anyway, I got inspired and was able to push through for the all defaults clear tonight.

This time I played the Steam version. The Steam version is nice, and it looks a little sharper than the doujin copy. Might be higher resolution or something like that, and it's in English. On the Steam version you can see what percentage of players have which achievements, and only ~2% of the people who buy the game have a 1CC on the Steam version, so that was pretty cool.

that's quite a feat! Kamui has been in my to-do list for quite some time. I love that game but it's a tough one for me. Roughly how long would you say the grinding and training took you?

[ratikal]

I settled a long time grudge with Hyper Duel today...
... The soundtrack is forgettable, something unimaginable coming from Technosoft. Tsukumo Hyakutaro's Thunder Force V soundtrack fucking slaps, but here his music is mostly background noise...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxAFRPbH-M
God-tier track. Let's not forget Cosmo Babylon, Count Down, Night Sweeper, Name Entry screen, and Full Burner. Some tracks are eh but definitely not forgettable.

You should check the game out on the Saturn. I personally don't like the new, arranged OST. But, the graphics are highly improved. Congrats on the 1cc, that last duel is still filtering me.

[To Far Away Times]

that's quite a feat! Kamui has been in my to-do list for quite some time. I love that game but it's a tough one for me. Roughly how long would you say the grinding and training took you?

Thanks! I have about 10 hours in the Steam version, but I had some knowledge from playing the doujin version years ago. If I revisit an old game I tend to remember the system mechanics very well but forget the level layouts and strategies, and that happened here as well. I made pretty quick progress when I stopped doing full runs and started using the stage practice. I memorized when to use the regular shot and when to use the lock on shot and this made progress much easier. It’s quite difficult to react when things are in the background layer or not. Using the wrong attack is rough because enemies swarm the screen quickly and things can snowball. Also, hammering the lock on shot rapidly when enemies are in the background layer deals a lot of damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxAFRPbH-M
God-tier track. Let's not forget Cosmo Babylon, Count Down, Night Sweeper, Name Entry screen, and Full Burner. Some tracks are eh but definitely not forgettable.

You should check the game out on the Saturn. I personally don't like the new, arranged OST. But, the graphics are highly improved. Congrats on the 1cc, that last duel is still filtering me.

Perhaps I’ve been a bit tough on the game and it’s OST, and I do like the name entry tune a lot. I still need to check out the Saturn version. For the last duel, the final form has a laser attack that goes to the bottom of the screen the first time. After that, I found it easiest to stay at the bottom third of the screen, since the boss fires destructible missiles from underneath. Those missiles can take nasty angles towards the underside of your ship if you’re on the upper half of the screen. As for dodging the barrage of green lasers, that part is really tough and I can’t do it clean. I probably need two lives at minimum to tank through it. The game gives you five lives in total, so the way I looked at it was I had up to two mistakes until the final boss.

[ryu]

I got the no miss in R-Type Final 3 Evolved on R-Typer 3!

Whatever it may be worth though since I did it on a custom campaign.

[To Far Away Times]

I got the no miss in R-Type Final 3 Evolved on R-Typer 3!

Whatever it may be worth though since I did it on a custom campaign.

Nicely done. I would love to play this game someday.

--

I got a 1CC of Pocky and Rocky tonight! Clearing this game was one of my 2024 shmup goals.

Pocky and Rocky has a bit of cache with of some of my non-shmup friends. I think it's the lovely sprite work, animation and music. It's a very inviting looking game. But it can also be a brutal game when you lose your shot power on hit and are swarmed by aggressive enemies. Kind of a weird one difficulty wise, because you definitely need a plan and some prior knowledge to get through it, but the health system makes individual hits not matter too much, unless you power down. Going into certain sections powered down is devastating. One of those games where prior success begets future success.

I wanted to play this first before really diving into Pocky and Rocky Reshrined. Might be experiencing a bit of burn out though, I went pretty hard at this one until I cleared it.

I also managed to get a video , but it's getting pretty late so I'll upload it tomorrow.

Edit: Video has been uploaded.

[To Far Away Times]

Got a quick clear of Pocky & Rocky Reshrined last night. Fun little game, and quite a bit easier than the SNES Pocky & Rocky. This is more of a sequel than a remake, with entirely new level layouts and most of the stages are 100% original. Once you realize how to manipulate the shops you can stock up on lives and clear the game with no problem.

I finished this run with nine lives.

That's two of my three shmup goals cleared this year.

[ryu]

Good job!

Pocky and Rocky has a bit of cache with of some of my non-shmup friends. I think it's the lovely sprite work, animation and music.

Putting its presentation aside I'm sure the health bar and lack of auto scrolling play a big role in making it accessible to the casual crowd. But the cartoonish visuals definitely helped to get parents to buy this for their kids. Didn't Pocky & Rocky sell quite well on SNES actually?

[BEAMLORD]

Well, after putting an ungodly number of hours into a DOJ White Label 1-ALL grind that has yet to bear fruit, I decided to try out Black Label this weekend. Managed to nab a humble 1-ALL in about 30 credits or so. It's worked wonders for my rapidly crumbling shmuppers' moxie

The cumulative effects of interminable stage 4/5 fuck-ups in White Label was really starting to wear me down. Maybe now I can go back to that version with some renewed confidence.

A true survivalist run, although I can full-chain stage 1, I didn't manage it this time. Ah, well. A foolish death coming out of the stage 4 opening section really stung, but I'll take my lumps as far as the other deaths are concerned during stage 4 boss and stage 5. Finished with one life in stock, one more than I expected.

https://youtu.be/cL5Fq4bWyuo?si=GF32IwE1F2MvH1T5

EDIT: It's Type-B Exy

[To Far Away Times]

^^^^
Nice, clearing DOJ BL is quite an accomplishment.

I 1-ALL'd Sorcer Striker today. This game kicks ass. Great visuals and art direction, great music, lots of little details in the backgrounds and tons of destruction, all the good stuff. Bornnam's wide shot has does good damage and has tremendous reach, and with the frequent popcorn enemies and huge explosions, this game's offensive firepower reminds me of Mushi Futari in some ways, which is about the highest compliment I can give for offensive balancing.

I had the hardest time playing consistently though. On paper it seems like a fairly easy game with four extra lives and a boatload of bombs, but like many games from this era, it can kill you in unexpected ways even when there aren't a ton of bullets on screen. And the bomb is terrible - it can only really be used offensively or preemptively. I can't count the number of times I got the bomb off but didn't get the delayed invincibility in time.

I thought I needed a near flawless run to go into the Stage 6 boss gauntlet, but it turns out that wasn't the case, and I could have avoided a case of restart syndrome. I had one death in stage three, and dropped a ton of bombs on the stage five boss, and died twice on stage 6 and once on stage 6.5. I finished the run with two lives. I had no idea what to do during the second loop and died quickly on 2-1.

This was the last of my 2024 goals, and I was trying way too hard to push through for the clear, grinding runs over and over. And despite that, once it was done, I was just happy for it to be over with. When that happens its usually time to take a break from shmups for a while. No fault of the game really, it's pretty great, but I just think it's time take a break from shmups for a few months.

[locoBro1196]

I managed to clear the first loop of Sonic Wings (JP version). This has been in my bucket list for a while as I really enjoy all the franctic no non-sense action the title has to offer.

System: NSW and MAME
Time taken: ~15 hours shared between MAME for grinding and NSW for the actual runs
Controller: 8bitdo SN Pro 2
Ship: Kohful
Score: 682.300

I had a hard time figuring out how to approach the last few stages. Made it all the way with no-miss to the last stage but by that time the bullet speed was insane and I couldn't recover enough power ups to make it through the mid stage boss. The fact that I couldn't find any good written strategy online (aside from YT videos) didn't really help. In the end, the below strategy worked well for me and I can consistently beat the first loop:

- No-miss stages 1-4, this should be easy to do after just a few hours of practice.
- Suicide in stage 5 or 6 to lower the rank. The key is to die somewhere where subsequent attacks won't crush you without any chance for defensive moves. I find the very early part of stage 6 seems to be the sweet spot for this.
- Master the stage 6 boss, but it's ok to use 1-2 bombs.
- Do your best to survive stage 7's mid boss, bullets should be slower due to lower overall rank. After that, it should be straightforward to beat either Osaru or the rocket.

I don't think I have it in me to go for the 2nd loop or to attempt Sonic Wings 2/3 as my next 1cc. Hopefully I can finish Akai Katana before the end of the month, been at it for a long while now.

[To Far Away Times]

I know earlier I said I wanted to take a break from shmups but as I was playing some AAA games I felt I was just going through the motions and was getting bored. I think the main thing is to just not grind a shmup until it's not fun anymore.

Got a quick clear on Air Assault today. This one's a Raiden clone released by Irem in the arcade. Despite all that it's a very easy game, I did it on my second attempt. My first attempt was a 2CC, so this is about as easy as arcade clears can get. Generally low amounts of bullets to dodge, CAVE bullet speed, generous hitbox, strong firepower, decent (but not full screen) bombs, instant respawn, and enemies that won't fire from offscreen... everything is stacked in the player's favor. I did like some of the simple zig zag bullet patterns, since the bullet speed is fairly slow for this type of game and the ship speed is player friendly, I always felt like I had a fighting chance dodging through the middle of a spread.

Many of the sound effects are lifted straight from R-Type. I guess you don't pay per use. And the end of stage jingle sounds like it was shamelessly lifted from Contra before resolving differently. I did a double take the first time I heard it. I think the water background gets reused three times across the game's eight stages, making the stages feel a little incomplete. Still a decent time if you just want to clear an arcade game quickly. IREM was obviously capable of much better and did so earlier in their history, so this game kinda feels like a B-Team effort.

[Angry Hina]

Sounds very nice. Why is there no ACA release?

[Steven]

Just got Hishouzame 5-ALL 3.2 million no autofire. My arm is very, very tired from mashing for about 2 hours straight. Why do I do this to myself when I have autofire? I really don't know.

[blazinglazers69]

I know earlier I said I wanted to take a break from shmups but as I was playing some AAA games I felt I was just going through the motions and was getting bored. I think the main thing is to just not grind a shmup until it's not fun anymore.

I'm taking a break myself too. I was grinding at DDP which is challenging for me since I never play bullet hells, and when I was save state practicing I started at stage 4 one day and beat the first loop from there. So I thought, "cool, I'm ready to clear this one." And just like that I keep getting stupid deaths at the 3rd and 4th bosses and psychologically cock-blocking myself when I die "too early." Having that outlier good 1/2 loop victory actually screwed with my head and frustrated me so much that I had to put down my stick for awhile. IRL I managed to lose 5lbs this month too which is kind of making me question some of my life choices and how much focus I give to video games and especially shmups

I can't stay away from my dear shmups forever though. When I come back I'm gonna tackle Batsugun first and work back up to DDP. In the meantime I'm having a blast going through the original Doom for the first time as well as Doom 64. Very comfy games with lots of charm.

[locoBro1196]

I finally managed a 1CC on Akai Katana (Origin) after over a month of on and off grinding.

System: NSW
Time taken: ~20 hours
Controller: 8bitdo SN Pro 2
Ship: Type C
Score: ~80 million

I've really grown to like this one, though at first the only thing that kept me going was the amazing soundtrack. I struggled a lot at first as I was completely lost with the gameplay and it took me a long while to figure it out, even now I'm not entirely sure how some of the phantom mechanics work. The bosses also kept crushing me mercilessly. I think stages 1-2 can be handled as a typical shmup (just shoot at whatever is showing up on-screen) but stages 3 onwards, particularly the final bosses, really require a decent understanding of how phantom mode works. Anyway, at some point the game really clicked with me, and I had a great time trying to get the 1CC, it didn't really feel like a chore. I would rank it quite high now in my list of all time fave shmups, and again, to me that OST is the best Cave has ever produced.

Having said that, I'm not thinking of staying for the remaining modes (Zetsu/Shin). I find zetsu too similar to origin, and while Shin is admittedly good fun, I think I've grown too used to the "push back bullets" feeling I get when activating phantom in origin. The additional one stage is probably an unsurmountable barrier unless I put in several more hours of grinding and I don't want to get burnt out, I'd rather keep the good memories with me.

[locoBro1196]

I know earlier I said I wanted to take a break from shmups but as I was playing some AAA games I felt I was just going through the motions and was getting bored. I think the main thing is to just not grind a shmup until it's not fun anymore.

I think this resonates a lot with us in this forum...it took me like 6 months to wrap up Final Fantasy XVI because I kept going back to shmups grinding. I've been playing Alan Wake II for several weeks now but I'm only really a few chapters in, again because I keep going back to MAME and Switch to overcome my "addiction"

[locoBro1196]

I know earlier I said I wanted to take a break from shmups but as I was playing some AAA games I felt I was just going through the motions and was getting bored. I think the main thing is to just not grind a shmup until it's not fun anymore.

I'm taking a break myself too. I was grinding at DDP which is challenging for me since I never play bullet hells, and when I was save state practicing I started at stage 4 one day and beat the first loop from there. So I thought, "cool, I'm ready to clear this one." And just like that I keep getting stupid deaths at the 3rd and 4th bosses and psychologically cock-blocking myself when I die "too early." Having that outlier good 1/2 loop victory actually screwed with my head and frustrated me so much that I had to put down my stick for awhile. IRL I managed to lose 5lbs this month too which is kind of making me question some of my life choices and how much focus I give to video games and especially shmups

I can't stay away from my dear shmups forever though. When I come back I'm gonna tackle Batsugun first and work back up to DDP. In the meantime I'm having a blast going through the original Doom for the first time as well as Doom 64. Very comfy games with lots of charm.

Doom 64 is amazing!

I know the feeling with DDP, I spent a really long time grinding the latter half of the game and getting frustrated at stupid, totally avoidable deaths. Though my personal nemesis was stage 5 boss, that guy gets all my hate. Keep going back at it, once you get the hang of proper routing in stages 4-5-6 you will be able to no-miss those and just bomb your way out of the stage end bosses.

[blazinglazers69]

Doom 64 is amazing!

I know the feeling with DDP, I spent a really long time grinding the latter half of the game and getting frustrated at stupid, totally avoidable deaths. Though my personal nemesis was stage 5 boss, that guy gets all my hate. Keep going back at it, once you get the hang of proper routing in stages 4-5-6 you will be able to no-miss those and just bomb your way out of the stage end bosses.

That's definitely the plan. Seems pretty much designed for an average player to use up those bombs. Also congrats on that Akai Katana score. That game's got some big brain mechanics.

[blazinglazers69]

Ayyyy speaking of clearing Batsugun special.

[wiNteR]

Well something weird happened for me. Regarding the above discussion about DDP, I have seen it a few times here in a past two or three years. So I thought I would make a quick replay showing a first loop clear (as a reference). It would also serve as a good excuse to learn about making a replay video. So I thought I would first record a replay (in emulation) and then ask about how to post a video (for dummies).

However, I have noticed something really strange. I loaded up dodonpachi and somehow there seems to be something weird with controls. It is a bit complicated to describe but it essentially goes something like:
"the diagonal movement doesn't seem to work about half of the time"

Something like this more specificially:
(1) If I am holding left button and then I try to press up/down then (quite often) the ship just doesn't move in diagonal direction but instead just keeps moving to the left. If I release the left button and then press down then it would work.

(2) Similarly, if I am holding the down button and then I try to press left button [which is quite useful for slower movements in this game, when at the lower end of screen], the left movement somehow doesn't seem to get registered most of the times.

The above might also happen with the right movement too (but I will have to check to make sure).

=====================================

The set-up on which I played dodonpachi 3+ years ago hasn't changed at all. I also used another version of emulator and the issue seems to persist. The other thing is that for the game that I am currently playing (strikers-2), I just have never noticed anything like this at all.

The only thing that is changed from my set-up in past few years is keyboard. I used to have a very old style keyboard (where you had to use some force to register a button). About 3.5 years ago, while playing dodonpachi, I switched to a wireless keyboard (logitech, if it matters). Now, from a half an year or so, I have been using a new wired keyboard (hp, if it matters).

So, in summary, I suppose keyboard could be the only plausible reason for it (perhaps?). I do have my older wireless keyboard available. However, I will probably stay with my current keyboard for now at least (since the game I am playing currently seems to be working fine on it). But I suppose I will give a rest to the idea of recording a replay for dodonpachi.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The only thing that is changed from my set-up in past few years is keyboard.

You're experiencing keyboard ghosting.

Effectively, older keyboards and some USB keyboards intended for office use rather than gaming will fail to register inputs if a lot of keys are held at once, depending on the keys. This has been the case even back in the 486 / Pentium days before PS/2 and USB keyboards became the norm. As someone who enjoys playing on keyboards and has used them for a long time, lemme tell you that ghosting sucks, and it's wonderful that nowadays there's gaming keyboards designed to eliminate it.

Spacebar is generally not good to use for a shoot button as it tends to result in this with diagonal inputs and thus you can't move diagonally up-left when holding spacebar unless you're playing on a gaming keyboard with anti-ghosting features. This is why a lot of doujin arcade games use the Z key and X keys for shot and bomb rather than Spacebar, as you can hold both of them at the same time while moving in all directions even on older keyboards. I'd recommend C shoot, X laser, Z bomb for keyboard. I think ASD is also usually safe on older keyboards?

For a test of if your keyboard does this, see here: https://www.microsoft.com/applied-scien ... sting-demo

The easiest way to test this is to hold all three buttons at once (shot/laser/bomb) and then try moving. If your movement doesn't register in a certain direction, you are experiencing ghosting and likely won't be able to bomb while moving in that direction.

This explains how anti-ghosting keyboards work:

https://landing.coolermaster.com/faq/anti-ghosting/

[wiNteR]

Your explanation seems to be quite plausible (actually most plausible explanation). I don't really use the 'space bar' button for STGs. My set-up is the standard: (i) keys for movement (ii) Z for shot and X for bomb. If there is a need for an extra auto-fire button then I use 'left-shift' for that. If the game has still an extra button [gunbird-2 is a good example with its melee attack] then I use the 'A' button for that.

Interestingly, I also ran progear and it seems to have the exact same issue. Since I hadn't played (or even loaded) dodonpachi and progear in quite some time, obviously I didn't see this issue after switching to a different keyboard. For some reason, this issue just doesn't show up in strikers-2.

But anyway, it is good to know that (most likely) it is merely a keyboard issue.