shmups.system11.org

Topics to cover:

1. Auto-fire rates (Rapid Shot, Rapid Full-Auto)
2. Hitboxes (player AND bullets)
3. Arrange Mode
4. TrueFinalBoss strategies (especially the big blast of doom at the end)
5. Score systems for Original, Maniac, Ultra, and Arrange modes

Add more topics as this comes along.

I don't own the game (yet, at least), but I know I've seen a few people asking about how exactly the score systems work for each mode, maybe that would be a good one to add to the list.

I need some of the info in the ST put into somewhat more practical terms. Basically- what buttons should be used in which situations.

-when I'm just flying around chaining, what button should I be firing with?

-when should I use A+? Anything other than A+ and C for big damage?

- are there any opportunities for counter banking in stage 1? How about the boss?

-where can I skyrocket the counter first in stage 3? I have only managed to do it once on the center of the bug just before the 1up. I am not consistent at all with this.

So far I am just chaining by tapping A, holding it down when necessary for the speed decrease. I am using W-Power because I found chaining next to impossible with the others. I have managed to get the counter on the stage 2 midboss up to 26k, 20k on average though. I tap A until the first pattern is over, then hold C+ until it seems to level off.

BER, have you found a recommended setting for Rapid Full Auto? I currently have both A+ and C+ set to 2, although I don't know when I need to use A+.

DEL, if you can add anything about how to play this thing I'd appreciate it.

Finally MrMonkeyMan: can you describe how you got your posted Maniac score in general? I'm clearly missing quite a bit.

Thanks in advance.

I guess DEL can best answer the questions that you've bulleted with hyphens.


No one gave me any definitive settings, but I was planning on setting both A+ and C+ to 2. I decided on using these settings after skimming through this:

http://game10.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/gamestg/1122138395/

Check messages 153 and 270 especially.

I don't remember the use of holding down the A+ button alone. But if you hold it and the C button down simultaneously, your shot is supposed to be stronger. I don't know what this does to your counter in any mode, though.

edit- I'm getting it.

Has anyone figured out the RANK system yet? I no-missed up to Stage 5, and got my ass kicked... something I do fine with in practice mode. Seems if you restart, your rank is reset.

I think rank increases once the counter hits over 10k, although this could be purely psycological.

Also, has anyone maxed the bomb slots yet? Your stock of bombs could well lead to increased rank and/or some kind ddp bonus.

MANIAC MODE

cigs - No problem, I can answer your questions despite not having the PS2 port yet -

-when I'm just flying around chaining, what button should I be firing with?

= This is not as straighforward as it sounds, I offered to provide a stage by stage 'button-switching' guide on click stick, because each stage requires switching even when you're not banking (for best results that is).
Ideally you need to be flying around chaining with a well-set A+. The C button is reasonable for this also. However you should also be using the powerful C and A+ combo in certain parts of all maniac mode stages except Stage 3.

I could list the whole button switching rundown, but that may spoil your learning enjoyment.
So here’s a basic rundown of Stage 1 only:-
ST1 – Start with ‘C and A+’, switch to ‘C only’ just before the 2nd large yellow bug, switch back to ‘C and A+’ for the rest of the stage including the End Boss. (Look to be chaining 9,000+ by the time you reach the ST1 Boss and scoring more than 4.5mil for the stage).

- are there any opportunities for counter banking in stage 1? How about the boss?-

- = Not to my knowledge, no. Plus the end Bosses can’t be banked, you can make the counter flicker red, but no banking effect seems to happen. Hence, end Bosses should be dispatched rapidly with ‘C and A+’ power shot.
-
- When should I use A+?
-
- = If your A+ is at the best setting (we assume ~2 for now) /or if you’re playing on a cab with synchronized on/off 10 or 12Hz autofire, then you should be using it for large parts of Stages 3,4 and 5.
- Its my opinion that the Japanese players are using A+ for the 1st quartile of the Stage 4 and 5 Midbosses. For example, my non-syncronized A+ in Casino arcade only builds up 20,000 chain in the 1st quartile of the Stage 4 Midboss, whereas player Sinmoon builds up 80,000 chain 'just by firing' before he banks in the 2nd quartile. This means that the firing rate he's using is 4X more effective than non-syncronized autofire . I'm assuming that he's using his syncronized A+?!? - The big question arising from this is:- Do the PS2 A+ settings produce the same effect?
I won't know the answer until I get my copy .

- Where can I skyrocket first in stage 3?

= The only true skyrocketing point in ST3 is the 1up head. Hint: Don't trigger the C+ until you see the bottom childcounter read 700+ .

Sinmoon triggers the first mini C+ jump on the rear of the giant stage bug. (my autofire circuit won't allow this to happen - maybe the PS2's settings will ).

There's quite a lot of button switching to be done on ST3, including slow Tap A banking on the two large sacks.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Other Notes:-

- The 'C and A+' power combo is fastest for chaining the ST2 Trees (as confirmed by RAM).
- If you're having trouble with ST5, then use the 'C and A+' combo for most of the stage.

More on the Two Types of Child Banking

Slow Tap A Banking is easier to trigger. The A banking jumps are smaller than C+ banking and can be said to jump at an arithmetic rate. Like with C+ banking, the child counters need to reach a certain level before the jumps are triggered.

C+ Banking is generally trickier to trigger. For instance, RAM stated that the ST2 Midboss child counters have to reach 2,000 plus in total before you should attempt to C+ bank them.
C+ banking is what you should aim for if possible. Once triggered, its like an opening of the chain floodgates, with the chain increasing at what seems like a geometric rate.

I'll add more and correct my mistakes when I get hold of the port. If the port's A+ and C+ settings produce a similar effect to the autofires rigged to the Japanese cabs, I'll be looking to put up some Japanese-type scores.....If not, then its back to the 250mil range .

Regs, DEL

I don't bother with those rapid fire buttons, so this is all done with just A and C.

Small things that are very important seem to be point blanking enemies as they enter the screen since they're invincible at first (great for racking up a couple hundred points in your chain), and those midbosses. You've got to keep those guys alive until the next batch of enemies are ready to appear on the screen. If you kill them too soon you'll lose that giant chain that those guys produce. I can have a 50,000 to 60,000 chain coming out of the 4th and 5th midbosses if I can survive it.

And then there's stage 3. Learning to hold your chain here can give a giant boost in your score. Chaining stage 4 and 5 are important to, but stage 3 is more straight forward since there's lots of large chunks with tons of health. I can grab around 80-90 million points from this stage (it's where most of my points are coming from).

Easiest way to show some basics is with a video, which you can download below.

Mushihime - Stage 3 Demonstration

I tend to keep things alive by just tapping C so that my lasers don't shoot, but I can still maintain my chain. I'll let you guys figure out that whole rapid fire hack thing.

Oh, and those plants that open up on the 2nd stage are great for your chain since they're invincible when they're closed and they won't open up when you're on top of them. I can go to the 2nd midboss with over a 20,000 chain, coming out with around 30,000.

This is probably all common knowledge though.

I am still having trouble understanding the basics of the who child/parent counter thing on the mid bosses. Here is what I think everyone is saying, maybe someone can tell me if my line of thinking is correct.

1) Any time a midboss is hit with an option shot, it drives up the child counter. The higher the child counter, the faster the parent counter increases when the boss is hit with your main shot. question: does it matter if A or C is used to drive up the child counter?

2) Hiting the boss with your main shot only will ADD the child counter to the parent counter, resulting in a huge counter. You can fire a bullet only with no options by either tapping A and C together, or use rapid full auto set to 2.

Assuming the above is correct, when is the right moment to switch over from driving up the child counters with your options to hitting the boss with just your main weapon? I keep trying this out and I'm not having much luck.

Cheers for taking the time to make and post the video mr.monkeyman

Is it possible to continue the chain fully to the 1up head, as I seem to still find gaps on the way up to the head

Well, I died, so I didn't really care for the chain, but you can keep that huge bug alive a lot longer (the one I kill just as I come back to life) by hitting him with the edge of your spread and tapping C. Not dying is important for this to make any major difference though.

For your amusement, I have listed all of the Arcadia records for Mushihime. For each mode, I have noted the presence of rapid-fire hacks, the score for each control setup, the player's name, and the Arcadia issue number for each score. All scores are ALL clears unless otherwise noted.


Note that any ALL clear score will still beat the "No Rapid" score for Ultra mode, because Arcadia ranks by the highest stage reached first for this game.

My references are:

http://esprade.hp.infoseek.co.jp (see the 7/30 entry)
http://esprade.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hiscore.htm

Also, I'm curious about the names of the arcades in which the "Rapid OK" scores obtained.

With rapid-fire hacks, it's possible. (Without them, I don't know, but I would imagine so.) To convince yourself of this, see this movie here:

http://sinmoon.sakura.ne.jp/movie.html (see the link below 3面)

By the way, the best players can drive the overall counter to over +600,000 in this stage. [Reference.]

Thanks very much for the explanations guys. I've made some progress, but my best counter on the stage 2 midboss is only 60k. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

kawaijb has posted in the score thread that he's reached 120k on the stage 2 midboss, so he seems to have figured it out. He's using 5 for A+ and 2 for C+.

The replays on the page BER just linked are very helpful. He seems to be getting much higher chains during the stage trip than I can, I think a properly set A+ may be the reason. I haven't noticed a significant difference between A+ and tapping A.

MrMonkeyMan- I can't get your video to play; what codecs do I need?

Really? I was just using DivX.

Also, I'm curious about the names of the arcades in which the "Rapid OK" scores obtained.[/quote]

Maniac Mode Rapid OK = Haitenai Reko-tan ni White Day Okaeshi
Ultra Mode Rapid OK = Dame KK Yatto Tsunagarimashita

They're more sentences than thames, the maniac mode is "Returning the favor on White Day to Reko-tan" or something like that. There's a verb acting as an adjective before Reko-tan (Reko's "nickname") which doesn't work out so well in English. White Day is backwards Valentimes days. Valentines = chics get guys chocolate. White Day = guys get chics chocolate... with a little luck, a piece of ass on both.

For the last one. Dame = "no good". Not sure what KK means. "Yatto Tsunagarimashita" literally means "I finally connected it". Basically I think he finally strung everything together.

And the Rank's I was referring to wre in original mode. Bullets seem faster than others at times.

Just wanted to add my thanks as well. I'm amazed at how much work has already gone into understanding this game.

GaijinPunch, your transliteration of the player's names was rather interesting, and I appreciate it. However, I am more curious about where these players set their records. (I think one can get the locations from Arcadia.) Maybe one day, I'll get curious about these arcades and visit them!

Ask MonkeyMan... he's obviously got the article. Perhaps they're in there. I've seen some weird Virtua Fighter ring names. Best one I saw was something along the lines of "Lost my main card - this is my 4th".

I just got the game today and haven't played much yet.

Setting C+ to 2 seems to work fine, but I need to get more consistent to see if it's the best setting though.

A+ I've found is best set to 4 for use as the extra power shot, and just tapping A like RAM said on click-stick is fine for A banking/ building up child counters.


[EDIT]

You don't need to be consistent, C+ setting 3 and upwards is too slow (maybe works if you're close, but you can't have two C+'s.) and 1 is too fast for C banking.

I was thinking that maybe the numbers represent On and Off settings for the auto-fire.
For example setting 2 would be "2 On and 2 Off" and 3 would be "3 On and 3 Off" and so on.
So it should work out that setting 2 is 15Hz and setting 4 is 7.5Hz.

Also I think the Banking Score Mechanic is intentional and not a glitch now that I've played the game first hand.

Ughh... I just figured out what the guy means. Basically, his name means, "returning the favor on White Day to Reko-tan for not wearing panties". O_o

I think I know what the auto-fire settings mean now.

To find the frequency of one of the settings use F = (60/n)/2 where n stands for the auto-fire setting.
I think this is right, but I can’t capture video to count the bullets.

Also I think the settings are always 2 On and (n*2)-2 Off.

I don’t know if this is useful for anyone.

maco, that sounds reasonable. I've had a couple of other thoughts on the timings, but that seems more likely.
I'll keep it in mind the next time I experiment with the autofire rates.

Thanks.

Just looked on http://sinmoon.sakura.ne.jp/diary.html and he says to find the frequency use the following:

a = (n+1)2
f = 60/a

That’s probably more likely to be right than mine.

I got my copy and can confirm that maco is right:- C+ set at 2 is fine for C+ banking. (Its good to finally be able to C+ bank the midbosses! Our non-syncronized autofire circuit never could produce C+ banking in our arcade ).

Two small things I've noticed:

1. The slowdown doesn't seem as pronounced as the arcade.

2. The 'C and A+' power combo still works on the PS2, although I'm not sure if its working at +50% power

I'll try the A+ setting at 4, thanks.

DEL

Ps. I'm running the game on a 19" NTSC Tv, which is kinda crap compared to the arcade cab I'm used to (no SCART on my NTSC Tv ).

i'm sorry but beginner questions follow.

can someone offer me a vocabulary primer for "child/parent counter" and "banking" (i.e. explain what they are).

thanks.

It's in the strat by Icarus here, he probably explains it better than I can.

In a nut shell, the parent is the one on the top left of the screen that goes up when you hit stuff (and is also on enemies as you hit them) and the child is the smaller ones that appears on larger enemies just behind the main counter (like at the stage 2 mid boss)

And banking is complicated - see strat

I confirm that C and A+ hold makes better counter on the trees of the stage 2
my A+ is set at 5,
I can get 32000 before the mid boss
I start the mid boss by tapping A slowly with always the lasers on him trying to do as less damage as possible
then, at the end of the 3rd shot of laser I hold C+ set at 2
my best is now more than 130000 on this boss, the coming out counter depends if his first form is beaten or not
my high score in stage 2 maniac is now 49.7mil (with nearly 100000 counter after the mid boss)

*reads strat*

shit, that is more complicated than i would have expected. i'll have to print that sucker one of this days. i'm very happy that they integrated a rather flexible system though. looking forward to trying that child banking technique when i get home.