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http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=540027#p540027
Mmfph. I’m certain I nearly made it to the area 4 boss, while also finally making it past the beginning of that stage.
I never play DonPachi. Normally, I wouldn’t want to. As usual, it has to be the most arbitrary times when I get into that mood, and then get farther than I ever have. Completely unrelated to what I say I want to do or what I practice on. The times of practice that I would spend years ago suddenly all collide together and then I just jump ahead.
It was relaxing. I was barely thinking about the game, but about how these moods work. Somehow that makes it relaxing. Somehow that makes the process seem more like fun than work, which is how I sometimes feel if I try to practice so (apparently) dilligently; a “burning out”.
So being good at games has nothing to do with straight-forward and arbitrary rules per se. It’s just simply playing when you want to, so that it’s enjoyable, so that you want to keep playing until you feel ready to quit. That’s different for everyone.
Maybe that’s why I was never good with “long games”, such as RPGs or adventures or the like… yet, somehow, if I really cared about the particular game, any gap in time makes little difference because I’ll either already remember everything relevant or will soon do so. And if neither, I’ll just restart the game. Speaking of which, that also helps for me when I’m having trouble. I’ll either think I missed something or I just want to experience again what happened before, so I restart the game. Quite often do I get farther than I originally did.
But all of this will not exactly work for “short games”, such as shmups or any of the genres that came from the arcades. The same thing happens, but it’s not the same process; I’ll quit and come back later, and sometimes I’ll do odd things and get odd progress that I had not before (which is the only reason it is odd). Taking these moments up for all their worth doesn’t always work because it doesn’t usually last for more than that one playthrough, or maybe a second.
Though, there are times where “constant” (the way I’m using it might be different than the way you would) practicing helps. It feels better than practicing and failing, but it still doesn’t feel as good as these odd, one-shot moments.
Of course, none of this will make not-even-5,000,000 points very significant, comparatively.
…
…After typing this (on the 31st), I tried three more credits at DonPachi. The first two were ruined from the start, and I died right before the area 1 boss on the third.
Theories only hold if they either cannot be proven true or false, or are proven true again and again. In the case of the latter, it becomes something close to a fact, if not one.
…
I’d like to say that certain “practice” runs are just as amusing as one-shots, especially if they aren’t quite one-shots but a couple of runs leading up to a somewhat one-shot-ish run (i.e. good progress, higher score, etc). If I’m “talking to the game” (“oooOOOOOH I DODGED THAT SHIT”, “hey this boss isn’t so bad hey what new patterns”, etc), I enjoy that too!
This could apply to any game. I did this a lot when I was playing Final Fantasy IV (DS).
As of about 2 hours ago, it is Christmas here on the Pacific Coast, so Merry Christmas to all.
I went out and bought a VGA cable for my 360, looking to put my nearly-3-year-old secondary monitor, an Envision H170L with a native resolution of 1280×1024, to good use. After a little setup, I decided to use Mushihime-sama Futari as a guinea pig. Even in yoko mode, playing Futari in 360 mode was mindblowing–everything looks much clearer.
And, I can more easily tell the difference between the pixel hell that is Arcade mode and 360 mode (or as I like to call it, Futari HD) than I can on a horizontal CRT.
I’d like to put the LCD in a vertical position and experience true vert awesomeness, but I have no easy way of doing it at the moment, and I bought my monitor with no regard to tate. *sigh*
In the midst of playing around with my new setup, I, about an hour ago as of this writing, decided to kick off Christmas by taking a 1CC on Black Label’s Original mode, using Palm; I’ve always been more of a fan of fast movement coupled with concentrated firepower than slower movement with a wider spread.
I could’ve easily no-bombed Stage 5 (Cave, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but Raiden had some of the best fast bullets of all time!) up to the indoor area like on a previous run, but I have trouble replicating the lines I made that made bombing unnecessary. This was also the run where I finally had the scoring system under control (A-shot with blue counter, and C shot with green counter); I was able to pick up two extends (and the Stage 5 1-up) and finish with a little under 210 million and a life left (lol, Larsa bomb spam).
Next up: Figuring out how to make playing for survival and playing for score go hand in hand in BL Maniac. And maybe more 1.5 because it’s starting to collect digital dust.
p.s. The record for Rez HD Area 5 is 9 million. I have the replay file, and it clocks at over 99’59″999 and I stopped watching about 1 boss form in, so maybe it’s not really a falsificare so much as GOOD OLD FASHIONED HOURS LONG MILKING geez fuck this game
I hadn’t “blogged” here in a while, but I did indeed clear Star Ocean 4 and play some other games and stuff. I want to write a review for Star Ocean 4 once I finish up with the bonus dungeons, and perhaps play the game again. Here’s a monologue from IRC a bit about what’s going on.
—–
[12:48:54] <Aquas> yeah, i beat star ocean 4 recently
[12:48:59] <Aquas> almost done with the first bonus dungeon
[12:49:27] <Aquas> but i have to synth some stats to weapons and accessories in preparation of the boss and the next and last dungeon.
[12:50:31] <Aquas> doing that will require farming of sorts by revisiting a planet repeatedly to harvest bizarre fruit which can generate potent stat seeds when used.
[12:51:02] <Aquas> then use those atk / def seeds on weapons.
[12:51:55] <Aquas> = mega buff character with maxed atk and def stats eventually
[12:52:42] <Aquas> gotta fully maximize for any remaining “final bosses” as well, but I’m not sure how many there are besides one for this next dungeon.
[12:54:09] <Aquas> i brought a party with wrist and neck accessories with bonus exp status and gained a fuck load of levels like euphoria leveling up. all the exp bonuses from each persons equipment topples, reaching about 400% extra plus any bonus gauge exp bonuses
[12:54:33] <Aquas> ive got some fol equipment to make, too.
[12:54:46] <Aquas> to make tons o moneys so i can buy from santa claus
[12:55:05] <Aquas> the celestial dealer of goods
[12:57:15] <Aquas> but since i have to do that item creation shit, i’ve just been playing mushi futari instead.
[12:57:20] <Aquas> which is really damn fun.
—–
The cleaer took roughly 50 hours, but I’ve already tacked on nearly 20 hours extra from the first bonus dungeon content.
From that, I’ve been playing Futari! I’ve been really excited for this event and it’s just a great gaming experience overall. Enjoying Original Mode. Can somewhat consistently get around 170 million and can reach Stage 5 boss so far. I’m gonna try my best to get on the boards at shmups. I also tried Raiden IV and Raiden Fighters Aces. Good stuff. Wartech has also been acquired… will get to it eventually.
But a little thing, but a little thing…
So after a nearly-four-week wait, DJMAX Portable Clazziquai Edition arrives at my doorstep.
Right away I get into the “campaign” mode of the game, Club Tour mode. Okay, tutorial thing, skip. Proceeded to go into music clubs to unlock songs, while dealing with mission clubs that have Thunder Force III-easy missions and repetitive repertory clubs that just aren’t fun.
The mission clubs made me lol. Nearly all of them were percent missions, with maybe a scoring mission or combo mission here and there. But the game wasn’t about to let me steamroll through the missions. No sir, there’s a hidden requirement to challenge each opponent: the difference between my rank and the opponent’s rank must be less than 30. So while I didn’t need to defeat every opponent in a mission club to move on to the next club or area, I more or less had to eventually, unless I wanted to bore myself so hard from grinding 1 rank at a time on already-beaten opponents (vs. beating new opponents for 2-5 rank) that I wanted to kill myself. This is particularly bad in the last mission club, the Maximum Club: 21 opponents, 11 of which must be defeated, but due to the <30-rank-difference requirement it took me a long time (must’ve been 2-3 hours total) to eventually go through enough opponents to make it to the next area (which thankfully is just one club: a music club consisting solely of songs by Clazziquai).
Well I suppose grinding is better than missions that are stupidly hard and throw all notions of game pacing out the window.
The songlist is pretty nice I guess, a good intro to Clazziquai; I may use whatever Christmas money I get to get one of their albums. Charts are very easy but then again this is a game geared towards beginners, not assholes like me who want songs in the level 9-13 range, though the Extended patch fixes this by giving songs some more difficult charts. However, a major reason I came to buy this game was it’s the last DJMAX game with no autocorrect! I don’t need an un-disableable feature that hits the right notes for me; even non-beginner modes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band don’t do that! Pentavision just keeps making stupider game design decisions with each new DJMAX game, from autocorrect in Black Square to DJMAX Trilogy‘s new Fever system and timing window-changing equipment.
Speaking of Christmas money, I might get pop’n 11 and hold out onRaiden IV since PS2 Pop’n versions are becoming increasingly harder to find and more expensive to purchase; I just went on Play-Asia and YesAsia and neither of those sites have copies of any PS2 Pop’n in stock. Plus I’ve neglected my Desktop Arcade controller for a while and hopefully a new Pop’n game will breathe some life back into it. Pop’n 13′s unlock method is silly; I don’t want to complete some irrelevant minigames to unlock new songs and harder charts. Raiden IV‘s US version is still relatively new, so I’ll be able to find new copies for a while. Or I’ll wait for someone who bought it and got fed up with it because “durrr it’s only 30 minutes this game is ghey” to trade it in at a GameStop so I can get it for reduced price and show that idiot the meaning of replay value.
admittedly, i’m getting pop’n 11 because it has alphonse michel in it
Umihara Kawase Kanzenban: 95/128
I note that I last posted at 83/128 and was about to start tickling away at F45. I suppose I went back and unlocked some alternate paths after that, because my counter was sitting at 87 for a spell. Had a burst today and cleared F45 then 46, 53 and 54 in the same game. Worked out the trick to F55 in practice mode, so I’ll be able to pass that in my next full play too.
Progress updates are a pretty tedious way to read about a game. A bit of trivia about the way exits and clears work does not rise much above that level. It’s kind of a crime to have written more than a paragraph about Umihara without reference to bounce.
The big factor that separates Umihara from your other various ninja-rope action games is that Umihara’s fishing line is elastic. That’s completely confounding at first, since your initial ineptitude gives the impression that the swing system is weak. Experience overcomes, fortunately.
With a little practice, the bouncy rope means new tricks are possible, unseen in other wire-action games. I mentioned that I had to dust off my boost jumping for F45. The stage starts with a pit filled with glass shards that is wider than you can leap. There are no ledges above you to anchor to, so swings are impossible.
The trick is to anchor your hook on the ground, then walk away from the pit, stretching your fishing line. Use that spring to speed up your jump, almost doubling your distance and clearing the pit. It’s actually pretty easy to time, and once you’ve got it down, you can work boost jumps into other stages where it’s not actually required. Just fun.
Combining a stretched line and the momentum gained from reeling in creates a lot of speed, allowing for all sorts of slingshot moves. Only once you have those under your belt will some of the alternate exits begin to seem possible.
And that paragraph is the kind of condescending pablum that means I need to stop writing for today.
Finally!
After something around 40 days Empress has arrived yesterday. Been playing it, enjoying it loving it.
The best thing is, that I finally got a stoic [L7] – Clear! After two tries which both ended at 76%, my third gave me the needed 84%. I’ve heard that this one’s probably the most difficult L7 Clear, which means that I can concentrate on Hyper now. I still don’t have a Clear on G2, but I feel that one coming aswell in the near future, fingers crossed!
Also: Cleared One more lovely on Hyper. Every diff 9 song still is a wall for me.
The game itself is fantastic and beyond all my imagination. It’s time to sell all my other mixes, because this one has simply everything. The only song I miss is Cradle from 9th style. It wasn’t really popular (thus it’s not on Empress), but I love it to bits.
With Empress in my hands I don’t feel the urge anymore to buy a 360 + Futari. I’ll save that purchase for next summer I guess. Would’ve been nice to play with all the shmups.com guys while the game’s still new, but oh well…It’ll never be too late to grab that first spot on the Ultra 1.5 table. ;)
So this past week two of the three games I’ve ordered online have arrived: Mushihime-sama Futari Ver 1.5 and Thunder Force VI. (DJMAX Portable Clazziquai Edition appears to be nowhere in sight.)
Mushihime-sama Futari – TFB means “True Final Boss”
I’ve been whoring out Futari (known by casual players and non-players of Cave shooters as “that game with the really hard final boss”) whenever I can (in fact, last night, I was up at 4:30AM playing this game right before going to bed, because dammit, TFVI left a sour taste in my mouth).
I mainly use Palm-Abnormal. Reco-Normal is great for hitting all over the place, but feels a bit slow. I refuse to use Reco-Abnormal on the basis of her hold-down speed being faster than her normal speed, which goes against bullet hell tradition. Palm-Normal is okay I guess, but his (Dear character designers, please refrain from giving male characters breast tubes. It makes him look a little too trappy for my tastes.) hold-down shot is hard to control (move up to spread out his lasers…eww). Palm-Abnormal feels just right, somewhat like Ship A-* from DoDonPachi and Ruby from Giga Wing–concentrated shots and reasonably fast movement.
My progress reports:
1.5 -> Original: Up to Stage 4. Since the scoring in this mode is simple, I can simply focus on scooping up gold and blowing shit up. I start to choke around Stage 3, where I sometimes fail to quickly destroy a bullet-canceling enemy and have to fire a bomb to escape out of a snag. This is also where I start to make idiotic deaths with 2-3 bombs left.
1.5 -> Maniac: Stage 2 or 3, I think? Take my Stage 3 stupidity from 1.5 -> Original and apply it to Stage 2, and you have how well I’m doing in this mode. Just now started to learn the difference between killing a large enemy with hold shot and killing it with tap shot.
1.5 -> Ultra: I got to the warning screen that asks if I’m ready to die, then picked “いいえ” (“no”). Does that count?
Novice -> Ultra: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I normally have an aversion to easy modes, but Novice actually makes them fun. I’ve only given Novice -> Ultra a serious shot so far. You get thick bullet patterns (thicker than 1.5 -> Original, maybe as thick as 1.5 -> Maniac), but they either have very visible patterns or are conveniently placed around a bullet-canceling enemy. And just to make life easier, it has auto-bomb. 1CC’d twice, second try being 5 lives left. Maybe I should bring some lesser-skilled friends over (or bring my copy to campus, where I have a couple friends with 360s) and have them give Novice a shot.
Now, me lacking common sense, I’ve been neglecting Futari a bit to play…
Thunder Force VI – TFB means “Thunder Force bullshit”
Got this two days after getting Futari. I’m not sure why I bothered to order this, knowing that this game would be disappointing. Perhaps it’s the soundtrack?
At any rate, Normal is a joke. 1CC’d it with Phoenix and Rynex-R. Phoenix and Syrinx violate Thunder Force tradition by having all weapons available right away and not taking away any of them when you die. Rynex-R has a broken Twin Shot Over Weapon (hi, I give bosses like five seconds to live) and Syrinx has the same Wave shot from TFV only stronger (hi, I cancel lots of bullets and eat everything in front of me for dinner).
I do like some of the stages, however. Stage 2 plays similarly to Thunder Force III‘s Gorgon stage, but with a little twist: some of the tunnels will abruptly and and you shift from one tunnel to one running roughly parallel to it. Stage 4 drops you into the midst of a battle between the Federation and the ORN Forces, then takes you into a city. Stage 5 is like R-Type‘s stage 3 Thunder Force III‘s Cerberus stage, only in three dimensions, sadly followed by a so-so encounter with ORN Faust and a 3-part Vasteel Nocht battle that would be awesome if it weren’t for the clones of Styx, Rynex, and Gauntlet going down pretty fast (RYNEX-R. TWIN SHOT OVER WEAPON.).
But stage 6?
“So with all the cool stages in Thunder Force history, you pick this piece of crap? You kiddin’ me? This is the final stage, this is what you’re buildin’ up to? Thunder Force V‘s grimey box factory? I don’t think so!“
–xoxak, Thunder Force VI PRO REVIEW
also lol @ final boss
Last time, I was working on Hard difficulty. Syrinx = easy 1CC. But Rynex-R? Game actually getting frustrating + me being pissed that I can’t beat an easy shooting game = RAGEQUIT.
Dear Futari, sorry I cheated on you with the cheap whore that is TFVI. Love, Ray.
I got the no-miss ALL S-rank clear in Contra: Shattered Soldier.
It’s been three weeks since my last journal entry, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been procrastinating with my gaming. After I got the S-rank clear with retries I’ve done a run of the game almost every day. I decided early on I wouldn’t succumb to the restart syndrome but would play all runs to their completion no matter where or how I died. I didn’t quite adhere to it completely, but enough that I got comfortable with the later stages. In fact, most of my deaths actually happened in Missions 2 or 3. Lots of little random things that can go wrong in those. I ended up re-learning the first four missions almost completely, so much have my tactics changed since I got the first S-rank clears on them.
The no-miss ALL S-rank clear run went pretty good. There are little flaws in it (fight against the first form of first boss in Mission 6 is fugly), but some cool stuff as well (EPIC battle against Lance). It’s really a testament to the game that even after so many runs I still learned new quirks; I had never before seen the Mission 4 boss do an extra across-the-screen-jump like it does here. It threw me off my game for a moment which is why the fight takes longer than usual.
According to my journal entries I started playing the game on October 18th so it took me about a month and a half to get this run. The in-game clock says my Total Battle Time is 16 hours, 25 minutes, but there’s some weirdness in the way the game saves that data plus it doesn’t count the time spent in Practice mode either, so I’d estimate the actual time it took me is around 24 hours.
Video of the run available at http://www.ghegs.com/movies/Ghegs_ContraSS_1LC_ALL_S-rank.mp4
Dan Haigh
Ghegs
[DRZ] OTL-TIW
sikraiken
Alice
victoly
plasm0
Aquas
Raydere
szycag
BDA
bloocloud
Kollision