You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2019.
So after a few months’ hiatus, I’ve been getting back into DJMAX Trilogy, which isn’t really the revival of DJMAX Online so much as it is a PC port of DJMAX Portable. Go go recursive ports.
As before I use 6 key. 4 key feels too simple for me, 5 key is stupid (there’s 2 keys for it like DJMP, hence my mini-rant about this game being a recursive port), and 7 key with autocorrect is too idiotic to learn, and I have yet to unlock 8 key (which will probably be slightly less bogus than 7K). It’s certainly less stressful playing on a keyboard with six fingers than with my thumbs.
I’d bother with Fever if it weren’t for the silly way it was implemented in Trilogy; it now drains over notes rather than time, which means it’s easier to keep a fever chain going on easier sections instead of the other way around. While I like that this system encourages accuracy, it does it in a rather harsh way; get to a cluster of notes that you can’t 100% handle and you’ll lose your fever chain. Thus, I care not for score or the score-based grading system; I am a percent player.
I really hope that if Pentavision makes yet another DJMAX game, that they remove autocorrect or at least make it optional. If its implementation is over copyright crap, that’s a pretty stupid reason to implement it; making the game register a press of any key as correct as long as a note is hit doesn’t change the fact that it still looks a lot like Beatmania. Also, I’ve seen countless newbies and professional reviewers get thrown off by this feature when they got DJMAX Fever, thinking that now they don’t need to hit the right buttons. Way to be, Pentavision. I bet DJMAX Technika 2, if there ever is one, is gonna have this feature too.
Inspired by sgronblo I’ve finally found the groove to work on R-Type, which is something I’ve wanted to do since I finished Delta and I’ve had a clear of the game on my list of gaming goals to achieve for a while. I was actually making some nice progress on Last Resort before this, but then I got sidetracked into Borderlands for ~40 hours. No doubt I’ll be returning to Last Resort though, I made it to Stage 4 (out of 5) on a credit and after checking out Stage 5 with creditfeeding it looked pretty damn crazy awesome fun. And hard.
But R-Type. Even though it’s a fairly short game, it’s still annoying to practice the later stages when the tactics change completely depending on if you’re properly powered up or recovering from death on a checkpoint. Solution, emulation. But the game doesn’t support savestates in mame, using them actually crashed my computer. Luckily, the R-Types collection for PS1 works far better in this and I’ve been using a PS1 emulator to practice the stages with savestates. Both R-Types and the Dimensions port have actual stage select modes, but since they just start you at the beginning of the stage without any power-ups whatsoever they’re a bit useless, especially since I’m aiming to no-miss the game. Scoring via checkpoint abuse in Stage 7 be damned.
And so, I’ve now cleared every stage individually and have started doing full runs. I’m actually going to clear the game on the Dimensions port, at least for starters. If I feel like taking on the second loop I can always just play my R-Types. The early stages are a no-brainer, though Stage 4 boss still sometimes catches me by surprise. Stage 5 is probably the easiest stage of all as long as the ship’s properly equipped. Stage 6 sort of feels harder than Stage 7…it’s not as hectic, but in many places you’re confined to very small spaces where it’s easy to accidentally manuever into a wall.
Stage 7 is the one I spent the most time practicing. I had already gotten good enough to clear the first six stages just from normal play but Stage 7 had eluded me and it was the biggest reason I felt the need to practice with savestates. Not a terribly hard stage as such, but many little things that can go wrong…like getting caught by a blast of steam from a wall, which ended my latest no-miss full run. sgronblo prefers Blue weapon there, but I’ve found Yellow to suit me best. And Yellow allows me to abuse a safespot right in front of the boss which I couldn’t get to work with Blue. Here’s hoping the Dimensions port doesn’t differ here. If it doesn’t, I should have the clear soon-ish.
101/128
Latest addition was the exit from F27 to F36. That’s what, 18 new ticks in the last 2 months, 6 in the last month? Zipping right along.
Progress will only slow further, as the feats remaining are yet more daunting. The third exit of F27, for instance:
Umihara Kawase presents merciless skill checks. “To reach this door, you’re going to have to master long toss swings*. You’ve used long tosses a bunch, and you were able to muddle through on stages where you could retry repeatedly on failure, or take 20 swings back and forth to build up momentum. But now you’re going to do it right, on the first try. Master the skill or die.”
This is something that goes on in most any deep action game, but I feel like it’s more discrete in Umihara. THIS is the spot where you need to learn the basics of boost jumps, and THAT is the spot where you need to master them.
* Don’t try to find a definition for “long toss swing.” If there’s a lexicon for UKS, I’ve never seen it. I make up all the names I use for techniques. If this were something anyone actually discussed, we could hammer out common definitions.
[PARAGRAPH REMOVED.]
YouTube shmup superplays have got me thinking: are bullet hell shooters that much harder than shooters that don’t throw out 100,000,000 bullets? I’ve crossed four out of six stages on DoDonPachi, all of Touhou Komakyou: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on Normal, 3 1/2 stages out of 5 of Mushihime-sama Futari ver 1.5 Maniac, and five stages out of six on Giga Wing. To compare, I can’t even clear the second stages of Raiden or Truxton II–you’d think that they’d be easier since they’re “ordinary” shooters, but you’d be dead wrong. Older games tend to rely on aimed “sniper” shots to kill you instead. Whereas bullet-dense shooters are about analyzing patterns and finding gaps in them, older shooters are about being alert at all times; blink and you’re very likely to get hit out of nowhere.
And with that said, I’ll probably get in a round of Raiden right now. (I’d try its sequel except that it’s impossible to “emoo”late.) Maybe it’s just me not getting enough practice in.
EDIT: Barely made it to stage 1-3. Now, in a ypical 6-stage “danmaku” shooter, stage 3 wouldn’t be too bad, but here, I’m already on edge when I get halfway through stage 1-2. It certainly doesn’t help that the player ship has a delayed-detonation bomb, as opposed to the instant-invincibility bombs of newer games.
I bought Persona 3 FES back when it first came out but, for some reason or another, I never got around to actually playing it much. I had already sunk about 80 hours into the original P3, and while it was a great game I guess I didn’t feel particularly motivated at the time to play through it again. A few days ago I hit a gaming lull, having just beaten a couple mediocre old FPSes I had never gotten around to beating, and figured it was finally time to dig out FES and give it a try. Maybe I’d try out this Hard mode thing. I mean, it’s a JRPG. How hard can it be?
See the title for the answer to that one. When Atlus says “Hard” they aren’t fucking around (ask anyone who has played Nocturne on Hard and brace yourself for ranting.) Enemies now do something like 4-5x their original damage and you can be killed by random mooks in three or four hits. Bosses and strong normal enemies can one-shot characters easily with critical hit, or sometimes even with a special attack that hits normally. Dumb or unlucky moves are almost inevitably disastrous, and your party members no longer get automatically revived after a battle.
Funnily enough all of this doesn’t make for a radical change in your playstyle. P3 was always primarily about exploiting your enemies’ weaknesses while doing your best to safeguard your own, and Hard mode simply reinforces that by not letting you get lazy and tank hits if you don’t feel like playing strategically. I’ve always enjoyed how combat was generally a fast-paced, high stakes affair in SMT games, with both you and the enemies doing large amounts of damage to each other rather than grinding away. Since Hard mode just heightens that feeling, I’m going to press on with it.
So I ordered an FC Mobile II, which is essentially a portable NES, after having heard about it from a friend and reading up on it. I got it today.
At first it seemed like a pretty cool concept—being able to play NES games on the go, as well as being able to hook it up to a TV within 5 seconds (thanks to A/V connectivity). But as I gave this a shot, my opinion of it rapidly dwindled.
The screen’s 2.5″ across which is pretty small, especially for a system whose resolution is 256×224 (a bit larger than a single DS screen’s 256×192), but I could do with that. My main problem lies with the ergonomics. For one, the system is thick. I’ll excuse it somewhat since it needs that thickness to accomodate NES cartridges, but good God, five minutes of playing, say, Zanac has caused my hands (which are huge by the way; my right hand spans about 25-27cm from pinkie tip to thumb tip when spread out) to cramp. Even 7 hours after initial runs, my right hand still hurts.
Even without that issue, the D-pad feels cheap. For one, it’s a PlayStation-styled D-pad, and I greatly dislike those, preferring instead round Sega-style D-pads and Nintendo-style cross-shaped D-pads. Also, the D-pad piece is split in half diagonally. This has a habit of throwing me off, especially in games where there is plenty of action happening. On what little plus side it has, it allows me to press left and right at once to execute Zelda II‘s LINK DORIFUTO glitch.
As for game compatibility, it seems to work fine with most of my games, except Castlevania III (which already has issues with other NES clones anyway).
I thought the wired controllers would solve my problem and essentially turn the FCM2 into a battery-operated NES that I can hook up to a TV in 5 seconds. As wireless devices, they’re okay, just as long as neither of the IR ports are blocked. My main beef is, again, the D-pad. Whereas the D-pad on the FCM2 itself feels like a PSP-100x D-pad (poor manueverability), these are the inverse, feeling more like 360 D-pads: tendency to press the wrong direction. Great. I get not one, but two shitty input devices. It’s like deciding between burning to death or freezing to death.
The A/V cables are okay too. No annoying humming like on my NES, but I’ve noticed that The Legend Of Zelda, for instance, has jerky scrolling going up or down.
Overall, I kinda regret wasting $60 on this piece of crap, and I kinda want to punch my friends in the face for somehow not noticing these shortcomings. It’s similar to the disappointment I had with Ketsui Death Label (portable Bullet Hell game? Sounds good. Boss Game with odd scoring system? Eww.) I think I’ll stick to firing up the old NES if I wanna play my NES carts.
I’ve been taking a break from Mushihime-sama Futari to work on RFJ, however prone to restart syndrome it may be.
I’ve been practicing to the point where I can consistently get out of Sim 01 with gold medals enabled. Sim 05 is okay I guess, getting more comfy with the turret Micluses, but I still need to practice my DX Bonuses. And then after that, it all goes downhill:
Sim 15: I get into the habit of dropping bombs once I’m past the waves of quick-shot bombers, lest I die and all 7 of my bombs go to waste. Regardless, there’s usually a random death here or there.
Sim 20: Many opportunities for DESTROYED AT A TIME! bonuses, and there’s a lot of medals here. There’s a Miclus here, I’m guessing, since this is a ground stage, but I don’t know where it is.
Sim 30: In RF, my rule with high-speed sky stages is: FUCK THEM. The clouds and the enemies that swoop in fast and their explosions make the bullets particularly hard to see, so if I don’t die in Sim 15 and thus make it here, I die here instead.
Sim 40: More QUICK SHOT! goodness, and more bombspam. I usually end up here on account of being an idiot.
Sim 45: Rarely do I get here so I can’t really discuss it
Real Battle: MORE SKY STAGE, MORE FAST PLANES + BULLETS. I always die in RB1, not that it matters because I’ll be dead either at the boss or a little into RB2 anyway.
My record so far is 65 million, with Ixion Slave. I try to do some runs with Judge Spear’s slave, but I end up fucking up for unrelated reasons, and I try using the Flying Ray or the Ixion but I can never be bothered to make serious runs with them.
I’ve also been doing score attack. Thankfully, I can trigger more than 1 Miclus on Sim 01, so I can finish the stage with a higher score. I always manage to miss a turret Miclus or two in Sim 05, drastically reducing the extra time I can get from getting gold medals. Since I’m out of time by the time I hit the Sim 05 boss, I just bombspam it in hopes of stopping the timer and taking my stage bonus. Current record is 22 million; hoping to one day get into the first page of the leaderboards.
On a somewhat-unrelated note, I’ve recently learned to take apart the stick part of my FSTE. Seimitsu LS-32-01 replacement to follow as soon as Lizard Lick has it in stock again.
I have been enjoying Mushi Futari 1.5 Original mode right off the bat. I tried Ultra once or twice and was annihilated before the end of Stage 1. Haven’t touched Maniac or arrange or novice stuff really. When I got into Mushihimesama 1, I tended towards the Maniac mode. It was the first Cave game whose scoring system I learned and got good at. I shuffled Original mode off to the side for the time I spent nailing down a better Maniac route.
It was only untill long after did I play and 1cc Mushihimesama’s Original mode. And I’m glad that I did, it’s great fun. It may have been because of the other shooting game experience I got in the meantime that let me appreciate Original mode more-so. Because now I see how Mushi1 Original feels like a Toaplan game. The systematic sweeping mechanic is put well into play — when you get to the edge of the screen and have to carve back through the bullet patterns. That hypnotic sweeping of aerial destruction. And to be honest, Futari’s original mode feels like that but on lots of steroids.
I was trying to clear Mushi1 Orig. with Lx 4+ but hit a wall at getting Lx4. I think I was pretty close, if I had just focused and pinpointed my run a bit more. Soon after my curiosity of Futari, followed the wait for the game. I decided on getting a US Cock-Box 360. Pretty glad I did to be honest. I got most of the retail shmups, RE5, Tales of Vesperia and Star Ocean 4. AND FUTARI, BITCH.
I hyped up Futari to myself a lot and I’m really enjoying it. I jumped right into the scoring system of 1.5 Original. My initial plan was to play the first two stages with the scoring mechanic in mind, then the rest of the stages for survival. It didn’t take long for me to start playing the whole game with scoring in mind, pinpointing parts where I needed to ignore it. I started using the practice mode fairly soon and it’s pretty damn handy, running St. 4 and 5 alternatively and their bosses with the rank at an ideal run setting. Been hitting the first extend right before the last set of icicle blockades in st. 2. The first two stages remain fun because of the scoring, unlike Mushi 1′s first 2 stages.
The game has been pumping the adrenaline a little bit too which is always good for playing a shmup. All the stages are pretty cool. Been trying to play maybe a half hour+ a day at least. I’ve already cleared with all the character types except for Abnormal Reco. Abnormal Reco is actually pretty fun I think, but hard to score or survive with. Her A-Shot Option Lock is really powerful and if you know the enemy positioning you can just take care of business close range. Some patterns are hard to fight close range, though.
Tonight I had a pretty crisp run, not dying untill right before Larsa. Then once again for Lx3, 324mil. Beating my last score by 30mil. It might be hard to get those extra points, the top score on the shmups board is 400mil but I’m gonna go for it. Still having a lot of fun with the mode.
I still have to create my Live account and get some scores on there. >_>
It’s 2019, marking not just a new year but (depending on your perception on when decades, centuries, etc. begin) a new decade as well.
I came up with a variety of new year’s resolutions for my gaming endeavors:
Tetris: The Grand Master
- TGM1: Reach GM
- TGM2+: [Master] Reach S4, [T.A. Death] Reach 500 regardless of time
- TGM3 and TGM clones that simulate it: I think I stopped caring for Ti modes.
- TGM4: Play it.
Shmups
- Mushihime-sama Futari: [1.5 Original, Maniac; BL Original, Maniac] 1CC, [BL Original] Exceed 400 million.
- Truxton II: Reach Stage 4.
- Gradius Gaiden: 2nd loop 1CC.
- Thunder Force VI: FUCK THIS GAME
- TH06 – Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: [Normal] 1CC, [Hard] 1CC.
- TH9.5 – Shoot the Bullet: Clear all stages.
Rhythm Games:
- Pop’n Music: Clear a level 38.
- DJMAX Technika: Clear Customizer.
Other Games:
- Shin Megami Tensei – Devil Survivor: Clear it, any route.
- Mother 2 / Earthbound: Clear it.
- Mother 3: Clear it.
I’ve also ordered an FC Mobile II with my Christmas money; hope to play some NES cartridges on the go and at a particular place I normally hang out at soon.
Dan Haigh
Ghegs
[DRZ] OTL-TIW
sikraiken
Alice
victoly
plasm0
Aquas
Raydere
szycag
BDA
bloocloud
Kollision