Scoring while fighting a boss enemy.

[psoslayer]

You guys like complex scoring for boss fights, or pure boss fights? For me technical bonus is alright, but sometimes I wish shooters would require more scoring techniques for boss enemies.

[Erppo]

I strongly dislike all sorts of boss scoring mechanics that make the fight last significantly longer. If the game has boss milking, the bosses should time out pretty quickly. I find that a lot of the beauty of shmups comes from the concept of maximizing your score in the given time interval and delaying the game by several minutes goes against that.

Otherwise I don't really care. In some games with really intensive scoring in the stages it fits the game well to have the boss fights as some kind of breather after that.

[Udderdude]

Cool: Destroying certian boss parts that makes the boss get really angry but also gives you more points when you destroy the parts/when it dies, shooting the boss closer to get more points.

Not Cool: Killing missiles the boss fires for a few extra points for 1 1/2 minutes straight. >_>

[Blackbird]

Good:

- Rewarding the player for destroying the boss as quickly and efficiently as possible, a la Raiden DX, Under Defeat, etc.
- Rewarding the player for destroying the boss in a somewhat specific and/or challenging manner, a la Strikers, Crimzon Clover, etc.
- Blowing off a bunch of boss bits. This can make the boss either harder or easier, both sides have their merit. Battle Garegga, DoDonPachi, etc.

Bad:

- Milking/farming. Incredibly counterintuitive, boring, and tedious. If I wanted to do the same thing over and over for 15 minutes, I'd play an MMO.
- Grazing. Often a component of farming. See above.
- Scoring mechanics that make waiting for the boss to time out the optimal route. Time consuming and boring -_-.

Yeah, farming is probably my least favorite shmup mechanic.

[Vamos]

You guys like complex scoring for boss fights, or pure boss fights? For me technical bonus is alright, but sometimes I wish shooters would require more scoring techniques for boss enemies.

Garegga , Bakraid , Batrider and ibara have enough boss scoring techniques to keep you occupied for a long time .

[iconoclast]

I think games like Espgaluda 1 & 2, Akai Katana, and Futari (Maniac/God) have the perfect boss formula; you can go straight for a kill ASAP and miss out on a lot of points, or you can dodge a few more patterns and cash in on the highest scoring attack possible. Anything more than that quickly becomes tedious.

[Zaarock]

I find the boss milking in Garegga and Radiant Silvergun to be pretty fun (latter could use far earlier timeouts though). Like the espgaluda system too. Futari could really use a warning sound for when boss forms are about to change like the galudas have IMO.

[LtC]

Kamui is probably my favorite on boss scoring. The bosses have a lot of parts you can destroy and they time out relatively quick so you'll be in a hurry taking down all the parts you can with as high multiplier as possible. Multiplier works similar to Crimzon Clover where you want to use full lockon which leaves you more vulnerable to attacks.

[psoslayer]

Yeah milking sux. However, for a odd reason I enjoyed green train milking on Cyvern. Rocket milking was horrible though.

Scoring mechanics that make waiting for the boss to time out the optimal route. Time consuming and boring -_-.

Never heard about this one, actually. What game does this?

You guys like complex scoring for boss fights, or pure boss fights? For me technical bonus is alright, but sometimes I wish shooters would require more scoring techniques for boss enemies.

Garegga , Bakraid , Batrider and ibara have enough boss scoring techniques to keep you occupied for a long time .

I will have a look at Batrider bosses because it's my fave from those.

[Estebang]

The first boss of Garegga is very fun to milk, and there's lots of ways you can modify its attack patterns.

The rest of them, not so much. It's probably just because the first boss is so easy.

[Spyke]

I shouldn't have looked at this thread. I'm still at the "Avoid those bullets and stay alive!!!" stage...

Ant

[shmuppyLove]

I think the only game I have managed consistent effective boss milking is Blazing Star. I don't find it tedious, it seems to be a really good balance of difficulty / time / reward.

[Estebang]

Is Darius the first game with boss milking? As in, lots of optional parts to destroy for extra points?

[BIL]

Kamui is probably my favorite on boss scoring. The bosses have a lot of parts you can destroy and they time out relatively quick so you'll be in a hurry taking down all the parts you can with as high multiplier as possible. Multiplier works similar to Crimzon Clover where you want to use full lockon which leaves you more vulnerable to attacks.

Seconded. It's intense fun juggling the multiplier, time limit and laser in Kamui's boss battles - and also the boss's health, since accidentally killing it at low multiplier will dent your score. Lasering while maintaining multiplier during the stages is a similar balancing act: the bullet-cancelling, enemy-obliterating laser drains the lockon multiplier, and vice-versa. Kamui's resource-juggling system transitions perfectly from stages to bosses.

And besides the obvious score boost, it gives an authoritative sense of destroying with measured, powerful strikes rather than frantic weaker ones, while evading enemy attacks rather than simply cancelling them. So there's a real visceral payoff, too, something I greatly appreciate in any type of scoring game.

[zaphod]

SO to sum up.

Taking bosses apart piece by piece when you can just go for the weak point=good.

Destroying stuff produced by the boss over and over again for more points and ignoring the boss itself=bad.

[Estebang]

I believe the line-of-tanks trick when fighting Batsugun's Jupiter is the absolute best example of boss milking.

[KennyMan666]

Not a fan of milking. If it's just parts to destroy, that's one thing, but stuff like the first boss in Cyvern is just horrid.

[Battletoad]

Scoring mechanics that make waiting for the boss to time out the optimal route. Time consuming and boring -_-.

Never heard about this one, actually. What game does this?

I recall Gokujou Parodius, stage 1.

I'm not such a fan of boss milking. Like most people said, it depends on what you have to do and I could mainly just repeat what has been said already. Time-consuming, repetitive milking is just tedious.

Milking is done just right in Homura and the Giga Wing games. Very fun to execute, changing bullet patterns and the bosses don't take that long to time out. On the other hand boss milking is one of the weakest features in Psikyo shmups. Those popcorn enemies that keep appearing are just annoying, screw up the bullet patterns and don't add any fun to the boss fight itself. There are exceptions though. Gunbird 2 don't has this popcorn, just the boss and sometimes destroyable parts, thank god... and milking the stage 6 mecha boss in Zero Gunner 2 is one of the coolest parts in the game if you ask me. Only when playing with the Hokum though.

[Estebang]

What's everyone's stance on Border Down's boss fights? The goal is to kill them exactly when the timer runs out. The developers wisely recognized that staying alive for a long time in a boss fight is harder than killing it fast, and gave you a score incentive to stick around.

[Drum]

The Best:

Space Harrier - score endlessly increases, boss never times out. On the first boss you just travel in a figure-eight dodging his fireballs and you can max out your score (if you have nothing better to do on a rainy day). Puts hair on your chest.