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Last time out, I was concerned that some radical route changes were going to be necessary in order to clear the Mega time for challenge #102. It seems I overstated. I got it just a few days later. I made a few minor adjustments which don’t warrant typing a description, plus I changed when I was kicking in the spider sense. Diggy-do, another insane mega in the bag.
This is the first new Insane video I’ve managed to upload in 9 months. That’s idle time not futility — a distinction I don’t find terribly comforting. The world will not end in fire or ice; it will end in dust. To validate my prophecy, my capture setup died shortly thereafter. The project is back on hold and the dust accumulates.
Guts 10. The Guts challenges have gone fairly smoothly to this point. 9 was a little puzzley, but not to the point of inducing bile like Bomb Man’s.
Been playing a clusterfokker of games lately. Let’s go over them one at a time.
DJMAX Technika – Beyond the (Near) Future
So DJMAX Technika 2 was released in Korea earlier this month and hopefully will be making its way overseas in months. From what I’ve heard, Technika “1″ players can transfer their data to T2 and use their MAX Points from T1 to buy T1 sets in T2. And that’s where the catch lies: you can only use T1 MAX. So I’ve taken it upon myself to play the crap out of Weekly and Special sets to grind 1,800 MAX per run.
Only one problem at the moment: I lost my card. My card that has 39,000 MAX saved up.
It hit me this afternoon at the arcade, when I went to get my card. I hadn’t bothered to look at it since last Wednesday, the last time I went to the arcade, which means trouble as far as whether I can get my card back or not. I still have one more card, but it’s far behind on MAX grinding (only about 9,000) or so. I’ll see about this data recovery service that I’ve been hearing about, but that means buying a new card. Rawr.
Touhou – Old and New
I got around to obtaining Touhou Seirensen: Undefined Fantastic Object (otherwise simply known as TH12 or UFO). UFO’s…well, UFO mechanic reminds me of Space Invaders Extreme, as they come in red, green, and blue (not unlike SIE’s powerup enemies).
The game itself is not bad, glad to have bombs separated from shot power again. Not a big fan of how one P now raises power by not .05 as in TH11 and 10, but now by .01, meaning you need 400 small P’s to reach max power. Even if there are way more P’s to make up for it, it still makes getting max power a daunting-looking task.
Also been playing the PC98 games. Touhou Rei’iden: Highly Responsive to Prayers (aka TH01 or HRtP), unlike the later TH games, plays more like a ball-and-brick game (like Arkanoid or Break Out) than a shooting game. Good, kinda-novelty fun; I’ve never been a fan of brick breaking due to just how much time I have to spend getting the last few bricks (or in this game, cards).
Story of Eastern Wonderland (TH02) is the first shooting game, and seems like the weirdest of the bunch. Much milder bullet patterns, enemies are all sorts of oddities, and holy shit ground enemies in a Touhou game. Haven’t played Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream (TH03) as I’m not really into the whole versus shmup thing, but Lotus Land Story (TH04) is good and is where the series finally gets good. Managed to take a 1CC on it; there’s only a few attacks that make me go wtf (namely, Reimu’s homing attack thingy, both versions of Yuuka’s Master Spark, and Yuuka’s fake explosion thing). I’ll probably get around to Mystic Square (TH05) some other time.
Patriot Dark – Mashup
Patriot Dark is what you get when you take DoDonPachi, Ketsui, and Espgaluda, breed a child out of the three, and baptise it with a little Raiden Fighters. You have DoDonPachi comboing, Ketsui‘s God-knows-what cashing in thing, and Espgaluda‘s bullet cancelling. So you’re trying to juggle two scoring systems at once; not as bad as it sounds (the combo meter is fairly lenient). You also have these spots to hover over to make point cubes show up. Thankfully, if you find one of those spots, instead of not knowing there’s something there unless you hover over it, a circle of sparks will appear, so you’ll know “oh hey, I better remember this spot for next run”. Graphics and sound aren’t that hot, but it’s a doujin shooter so I’ll shut the fuck up about that. Overall a fun number, I just might make a serious attempt at it.
Ninja Gaiden (NES) – GAI DAMMIT!
Ninja Gaiden aka Castlevania with ninjas and on steroids. I was at my friend’s house a few days ago and, too lazy to switch from my FSTE to my Saturn pad, decided to play on my FSTE. Not as bad as it sounds; I was able to play normally. Managed to finally defeat the Act 4 boss, which is a simple act of ducking under a pillar and waiting for the gargoyle dual bosses to come my way so I can stab them.
Currently on Act 5-2. I need to memorize/memorise/memorisize where all the bats are so I don’t get knocked to my death when I try to make so and so jump. This game is quite unforgiving; post-damage invincibility is near-nonexistant, bats pop up with the intention of bitchslapping you into a pit, and enemies regenerate if you destroy them the wrong way. Doesn’t make this game stupid though; just need to know how the enemies spawn and regenerate, and to try to keep moving forward.
Except this part.
This jump. THIS FUCKING JUMP.
Much more-so than my Ippatsuman play, my Saki gameplay still evolves a lot from month to month. This is because with Ippatsuman, the goal is clear: land those devastating combos. You find new ways to do so and get better on your execution and such, but the general gameplay stays similar. Saki is a zoning/keep-away character. With her, I have different goals at different times.
Goal #1: Stay the f*$# away from me! This is the basis of 90%++ of Sakis’ game out there and is usually mine as well. She easily has the best projectiles in the game and you can very nicely chip away at someone’s life, while keeping them too far away to do anything about it. The main two ways I do this are: 1 Jump-forward, C-shot, cancel into grenade. This is an awesome maneuver because it owns pretty much the entire ground level horizontally. It’s very difficult for opponents to jump over the C-shot and attack you, because usually they’ll end up catching the grenade in the face. If the C-shot does connect, then the grenade will also. I’ll also throw Ippatsuman out there every once in a while, just to further own the entire ground level. 2 Super jump, C, grenade, double-jump, C, grenade, C. I usually don’t do this too often because it kinda pushes my faith in all’s fair, but it’s a great technique that a LOT of Sakis use. Unfortunately, almost all Saki vs Saki matches immediately degenerate into this, both sides jockeying for position. All that aside, this is a great method and switching up between 1 and 2 is enough to make players want to throw their controllers through the tv. The only downside is that (surprisingly to me), I often miss either the cancel into grenade or the double-jump(for method 2). This is usually not a huge problem, but it would be really nice to tighten it up.
Goal #2: Toss the opponent around like a ragdoll! By which I mean, load up her unblockable super armor piercing shell. Hit the opponent with it and combo into the positron storm. This is, of course, not always an option as it requires 2 hyper meters, plus at least enough time to load the ammo. Last, but not least, you need to land the hit, which isn’t always easy (opponents tend to take note of a glowing rifle the size of a large child). Landing the hit can be achieved in different ways, but there are mainly 2: 1 Combo into it. Ideal since you can hit-confirm before departing with your precious ammo. The downside is that Saki is not exactly known for her melee fighting and it’s not always easy to start that combo. 2 After one character dies, the second one is a freebie on entry. Or at least it should be. I miss the opportunity too often, but I still connect more often than not and 2 back-to-back hypers on the only living character is a fantastic way to gain/keep the momentum.
Goal #3: Rush down! This is something I’ve really just started doing lately. I think all Saki players would like to be able to rush down with her, if for no other reason than so no one can call them turtles. Being TvC, the backbone of a good rushdown is the combos you can achieve from it. In Saki’s case, she gets:
Without meter: 2A,2B,3C, jump, B,B, doublejump, B, B, grenade
With meter: 2A, 2B, 3C, Positron Storm
With loaded armor piercing: Same as w/o meter, but land the unblockable while opponent falls away from the grenade(RESET!), follow up with positron storm if the meter is there
All of these combos can be slightly modified/extended
Videos linked are approximations of what I’m doing
Without meter, this is pretty so-so. With unblockable loaded, this is incredible. With meter falls somewhere in the middle. Although, perhaps the largest benefit to a Saki rushdown is just for the opponent to know it’s there. You change the game from Saki wins if she keeps you out, loses if you get in to Saki wins if she keeps you out, maybe wins anyway. Suddenly, an opponent needs to be constantly on guard, she may just dash at you.
That’s mostly it. Not that that’s every single trick up my sleeve, but these are the major tenants of my Saki gameplay. For a long time I focused mainly on Ippatsuman, while I kept my Saki game as more autopilot zoning, but she really has a ton to offer and I’m excited about improving my rushdown game. The major things I need to do at this point are, as always, to improve execution. I need to be able to cancel C-shots into grenades more consistently and to stop missing double-jumps. I’m still far from good at her combos, but they’re coming along and they really expand her options. Also, I’d like to never miss hitting surviving characters on the jump-in. Switching off between Saki and Ippatsuman via variable air raids is an extremely interesting proposition from both directions, but honestly I’m not ready to dive into that yet.
Almost a month ago I 2-ALL cleared the Arcade mode of Raiden IV. I said I would also try to 2-ALL the X360 mode which has 2 more levels. I’ve been working at it the past few weeks and have realized a few things.
First, that after about 6 or 7 attempts at clearing the 360 mode, I found I was barely scraping by to reach the TLB. This was no good because I need at least a stock of 5 bombs to successfully quick kill the 2-7 boss as well as the TLB boss. Not having the bombs simply means my doom because I can’t safely dodge the bullet sprays that occur when I don’t bomb. Inexplicably fast “fuck you” bullet sprays.
Then in my failed attempts: getting nervous and tense causing my body to heat up (plus it’s Summer) and consequentially affecting my herding dodges, dodging too much. That screws everything up. In the more difficult passages of the 2nd loop I have to pace myself with my tap-dodges so I don’t overshoot my positioning. If I overshoot, in the worst case scenario, it means being trapped by bullets.
The worst of these passages are in the latter halves of stages 2-5 and 2-6, and the ones I’ve been paying most attention to.
Since I’ve been getting nervous more than a few times, I think I’ve made a step towards forming a better calm mentality while I play. And this will be key for when I do get the clear. Though, the calmness ultimately stems from the safety of the knowledge of how to act through out the stages.
Raiden IV demands you to familiarize and memorize what the bosses do. This means having pre-planned dodge routes and methods of attack. More often than not, if you don’t know what’s going to happen next in the boss fight — you’re toast. Very unforgiving in this manner. New players to the game feel this at the boss of stage 3, who has multiple phases and bullet patterns. In the 2nd loop, this scenario occurs during the stages themselves. Bringing the challenge and level of dedication required up to snuff. Raiden snuff.
I thought the X360 mode clear would be easier to get after I did Arcade mode, but I was wrong. Stages 5 and 6 don’t mess around. The 2nd loop is a lot of fun though, if you make it past the first, do keep pressing on. Micrododging the doubly fast bullets is very satisfying. At first the speed is intimidating, but you grow to love it. Anyhow I can’t wait to clear the X360 mode as it will make me one of four people who have submitted a 2-all score on the XBL leaderboards. This fact has been part of my motivation to do it, coupled with the fact it will upload my replay. No MAME .inp shenanigans, no way to cheat, this is for real.
I’m DJ Aquazition on XBL if you’d like to see my replays. Second page of Arcade mode, first page of x360 mode. Anyway I’m getting more confident in my skills, so I think I’ll have the 2-ALL within 2 weeks for sure.
Anyone who reads or skims over my posts probably realizes that I’ve been playing quite a bit of fighting games over the last few months. Although it bothers me on multiple levels, I must admit that my hand hurts and I need a break. I first noticed pain about a month ago, but it was very slight and not much of a concern. The truth is, I just didn’t want to stop playing. I took the entire past weekend off and figured that would do me a world of good, but on Tuesday, I hurt my right thumb and realized that not taking a break would be stupid. So I went through my list of alternatives.
The first thought was to return to the game I was playing before becoming obsessed with TvC; New Super Mario Bros. I played a bit on Tuesday and absolutely loved it (beat the game before playing TvC, but still have outstanding star coins). But I realized that NSMB really isn’t the path to recovery as I always really mash that run button in Mario games. It did, however, remind me how much I love the game and I think when I’m back in health, I’d like to mix up my fighting a bit with some NSMB. But what to play in the meantime?
My next choice was a triumphant return to The Secret of Monkey Island. Always standing out as one of my favorite series, I was never able to beat the second one. I figured I would give it another go and, since it’s been ~10 years since I last played, I figured I’d start out by playing the remake of the first one to refresh myself on the inside jokes. But alas, it was not to be. I installed the game, but it’s complaining about missing .dll’s cause it wants me to install the (old) version of directx that it comes with. I remember these types of situations back in the days of like directx 2 and 3, but I had naturally assumed this type of garbage was long in the past now. Nope. I run a very tight ship when it comes to my PC and, as much as I wanted to play this, I’m not going to overwrite the latest version of directx with some random older version that MI wants. It’s just not worth it. But what to play in the meantime?
Last night, browsing through my games, I found the perfect solution: Punch-Out!! Wii. Similar to NSMB, I completed this game, but left most of the challenges unfinished before moving on. Since I play this with motion controls, it is the perfect solution for my situation. Warning: The rest of this post is personal and bizarre. Those who prefer the kind of detailed, technical posts I usually write may want to skip the remainder. I have always LOVED the Punch Out series in all its iterations and have often quoted Mike Tyson’s Punch Out to be my favorite game of all time. But I have a special connection in particular with the Wii version. I remember back when the game was new and I was showing it to a friend. “Oh, you make your own character?” he asked. “No, the main character just happens to look exactly like me,” I replied. Obviously, Little Mac is a lot more muscular than me, but aside from that, the resemblance is uncanny. I’m sorry to bother you with such trivial, soft news, but I can’t shake the feeling every time I play that I’m playing as myself. Let’s consider the facts. We are within 1 inch and 10 lbs of each other. We have the exact same hair. We have extremely similar facial structure. We even have the same basic body type; if I were a boxer and was in the kind of shape that a boxer would be in, I’d look identical. Now let’s get ridiculous. When I was a little kid, I took karate for several years. But what if I had taken boxing instead? Well, there happens to be an excellent (and free!?!) kid/teen’s boxing gym in my city. With Punch Out characters painted on the building. Did I just blow your mind? It is now blindingly obvious that I was destined to become a boxer and just narrowly missed my fate. On the other hand, I’m currently injured from playing too much Street Fighter, so perhaps I’m not really cut out for that kind of work. But still… I coulda been a contender.
I really try to not use this journal for posting interesting links around, but I’m making an exception here. I love Tatsunoko vs Capcom and I wish it got more attention. If anyone feels like checking it out, Devastation 2019 is going to be streaming TvC games momentarily.
Ages ago, I built up a Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii) save to near-completion…and then accidentally the whole file. I found myself so annoyed that I ended up barely playing it for the next few years.
Recently I’ve gotten around to re-doing my file. Whereas last time I focused on the more gimmicky drones like Ram and Snipe, this time around my main drones are Sweep and Attack. You really don’t appreciate Attack until you get it to level 6 or 7, when it starts to do triple sprays.
A high-level Sweep is still good, but Attack provides offensive power vital to clearing out thick clouds of enemies. Especially in the Bat- sages, where you can easily milk many hundred thousand points off a charliefoxtrot of mooks by sitting in a corner and hammering away.
I’m looking to get the DS version through questionable means, so I can unlock Lambda. Then I’m deleting the DS version because I don’t give a crap about a horribly watered down version of the Wii version.
As promised, I’d get around to Espgaluda II‘s other modes. Tonight I’ll be going over Arrange mode.
I’ve tried a few Cave arranges in the past; Mushihime-sama was basically just Maniac mode with 6 starting options, real-time weapon change, auto-freaking-bomb, and the TLB. Futari‘s isn’t much better: now you have to deal with a somewhat annoying tag-team mechanic (“Reco-chan, ikou yo!”) and some really boring strategies. Oh and there’s STILL autobomb.
Espgaluda II‘s arrange is somewhat interesting and seems to promise actual replay value rather than a bore-fest. My own analysis so far:
You start with 5 lives instead of 3. This is offset by the lack of autobomb and the extend requirements that are difficult to get unless you take advantage of a certain mechanic.
In normal mode, bullets come in two colors and can be canceled out, not unlike in Ikaruga. Except unlike in onechainruga, you don’t cancel bullets by running into them with the correct color on; instead you shoot them; 1P focus and 2P rapid cancel red bullets, and 1P rapid and 2P focus cancel blue bullets. Most regular mooks’ bullets will convert into gems, but with bosses, they seem to give out less gems until eventually the gems stop. To prevent constant shot switching to keep the screen free of bullets, there’s a little gem penalty every time you start to fire one of your shot types.
Kakusei Shikai is mostly same as before: bullets slow down and can only be cancelled by shooting the enemies that fired them. Kakusei Zesshikai is also similar. The main difference lies in the slower gem decrease rate and that bullets turn glowing purple (as opposed to plain purple) to show that no, you can’t shot-cancel them.
Now Kakusei Shikai Over is where things get interesting. In this mode, gold is used up and bullets turn glowing red and can be canceled out by either shot type. Shooting bullets will yield gold and, as you collect more gold, the value of each gold gets bigger until you get the max-value gold that has green crystals. This completely changes Kakusei Shikai Over from a high-risk mode into a mode not unlike Futari Arrange’s Fever mode. On burning up all gold, mode switches back to normal automatically.
Every time you 1CC Arrange, you “level up” your character. 1CC’ing on the 1P side levels up normal mode bullets and 1CC’ing on the 2P side levels up kakusei mode bullets. The idea behind leveling up is so you can summon more bullets and thus get more point opportunities. This sort of level grinding is similar to GHOST Squad‘s (the carded and Wii versions, not the horrible 4-level version or the Apology Evolution version), only instead of 16 levels, each level goes to 99. So to be able to use the highest level, 99*99, you have to clear the game 188 times with one character; thankfully I almost exclusively use Ageha so I don’t have to worry about leveling up other characters.
I’ve already ALL’d the game once with 1P Ageha, so I’m at level 1 right now. Looking to play this mode every now and then, but not so much that I spoil 360 mode. Having gone from Tetris TGM3 clones to TGM2 and Futari BL Maniac to Futari 1.5 Maniac, I know that staying exclusively in Esp2 Arrange and BL modes is a very bad idea.
I’ve cleared all 10 challenges for Mega Man, Cut Man and Ice Man. Cut 10 was a bit of an anti-climax after 8 and 9, but that set of 10 was ace. Working now on Guts and Bomb.
Bomb Man’s challenges are less action and more puzzle. Sort of a Mario vs Donkey Kong feel. Which is to say, they suck. There’s some jump timing, but it’s all slow and tedious. Here’s a rule to live by: if it’s not fun, don’t do it. Don’t slog through it just because some jackass stuck it on a checklist and you have an obsessive need to check all the boxes. That’s just OCD fucking with ya. Fuck OCD. OCD only hurts, it never helps.
Story in short, I’m done with Bomb Man’s challenges.
The other thread I’ve got going is the Spider-Man 2 challenge mega times. I’m working actively on two Insanes, on both of which I’ve passed the normal time. I’ve actually got #102 dialed in fairly close: target time is 26 seconds, I’m at 28.2. Some of that is execution; I could definitely tighten up the opening bit where I’m hopping between the awnings. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s 2+ seconds of savings there. Which means I’ve got to improve my route somehow.
If your sphincter is clenching with terror at the prospect of me laying out the entirety of the challenge in excruciating detail, you may relax for now. That post is imminent, but not today.
Dan Haigh
Ghegs
[DRZ] OTL-TIW
sikraiken
Alice
victoly
plasm0
Aquas
Raydere
szycag
BDA
bloocloud
Kollision