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In the midst of my studying for final exams, I decided to pick up a neat little “casual” game known as Fruit Ninja.
The game consists of cutting up fruit thrown onto the screen for points by swiping across the touchscreen–somewhat like cutting enemies in Mazan: Flash of the Blade or possibly whipping enemies in Castlevania: The Arcade. Swiping 3 or more fruit in a single quick stroke yields a combo bonus. In two of the three 1P modes, bombs also pop onto the screen to hinder the player; a cut bomb in the standard mode yields an instant game over, while a cut bomb in arcade mode removes points.
I’ve been mainly working on Zen mode, a 90-second mode with no bombs and infinite lives. Seems like the more balanced of the two “caravan” modes; Arcade mode has the hazard of bombs (which I miss seeing in Zen mode), but the existance of status buff bananas tend to make this mode somewhat luck-based, meaning that equal performance across several rounds may not yield consistent scores.
Maybe I’ll try the standard mode, but it being an endless mode, it’s hard to play when I’m pressed for time.
My current Arcade record is 475, and my current Zen record is 228, and I play on a Motorola Atrix. It being widescreen, the game forcily stretches itself to fill the screen, an effect that really grinds my gears, and the Atrix’s touchscreen is prone to derping at times (twisting lightly on the phone seems to fix this). Anyways, if you play this game, add me on OpenFeint! My (current) username is Raydere no Bousou.
Almost nailed a 1CC of Battle Bakraid‘s Normal course. I was “sight-reading” Gigamanta, so when I saw its 5-way machinegun spread I was expecting it to swivel a la Black Heart. Instead? The spread shrinks up and my head asplode.
Despite attempting to play this game mainly for survival (ignoring medals, not suiciding with the express purpose of getting more bombs, etc.), I have a tendency to bombspam or chargespam clusters of large enemies just so I can see that shiny x64 multiplier.
I think Bakraid is rivaling Batrider for my favorite game involving Raizing and Yagawa. Battle Garegga is still kinda bollocks to me–a good game, but Bakraid feels like that on steroids.
So after one month of restricting myself to just three shooting games, I’ve taken the liberty of re-exploring some Caravan games.
First stop? Blade Buster 2 minutes.
I managed to improve my old record of 468k by about 20,000 points. Key points include the boss milk at the end and in general just trying to speedkill every air enemy to make the next wave of enemies appear (same strategy as almost any other Caravan game).
Dunno if I wanna tackle 5 minutes, but now that I no longer have a score that nets #1 on Shmups Forum, perhaps I’ll look into it.
Recca and Super Star Soldier will be dealt with another time. Is it wrong that I only play SSS for the Caravan modes, yet not give a care about the main mode?
It’s been a long time, Gaming Journals.
Strange Journey — Hee-Ho!
I’ve been making strides in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey–currently in the 7th sector at Level 56 and locked into the Lawful route.
One particular boss was giving me a hard time–he had a powerful Gun-elemental attack, and a healing move that restores up to 1100 HP and removes stat debuffs. Stuck at a wall, I took the underhanded way out, using a couple password demons I found on another board. (No, this isn’t Action Replay black magic; summoning demons via passwords is an in-game feature.) One is a Pallens Athena with Makarakarn and Mortal Jihad, the other being a Doppelganger with Charge, Luster Candy, and Mortal Jihad, among other abilities. I was able to wipe out said boss, as well as a few later bosses, with the help of these two folks.
Currently working my way towards Level 75 so I can summon Demonee-Ho.
Perhaps once I complete SJ, I’ll move onto Persona 3 Portable, or I could be a jackass and try out the first two SMT games.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX — Dot Diet
Another game I’ve been devoting myself to is Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. Championship II and Highway are simple enough maps; currently trying to refine myself at Manhattan. Score attacking doesn’t look too bad, but Time Trial has a number of shortcuts involving eating non-trailing power pill ghosts, and that’s where I stumble. It’s not like earlier maps where Time Trial is simply about following paths of dots at maximum speed without making wrong turns–some serious strategy is necessary to figure out the optimal path here.
Current time on Manhattan TT is about 2:45. I can certainly do better. TT’ing it seems like it’ll be much more enjoyable once I map out a good path here.
For STGT 2019 week 3, the game is Mars Matrix. I’m rather terrible at MM, so instead I’ve been doing a Darius score attack duel with a friend of mine’s.
I finally found a way to overcome Fatty Glutton, the ever-so-annoying boss of Zones G through J (basically, the 4th Zone on any playthrough). Normally at this point I have maybe a level-2 or 3 laser. The laser, while useful on stages for shooting through lines of enemies, quickly becomes total crap on bosses; their pass-through property makes them fire even slower than the missile. So instead, I keep my maxed-out triple red missiles; not only does this make fast work of FG and its annoying sharpnel fish attack, it’s also useful on stages because it’s a pretty wide shot.
I was able to blitz through Zone K just fine, when I started to notice something odd. At one point in the stage, my ship, for no reason jerked to the right. Thinking of it was maybe a stage feature, I ignored it. But when I got to Zone P, things got worse. Due to the stage being tight I ended up involuntarily upgrading to laser; not really bad considering the waves of enemies (coming from front, back, and below). And then my ship jerked again, this time into a wall. I lost my remaining lives this way.
Was it the ROM itself (I was using the World version, not the Japanese one)? Or my emulator? Or my Seimitsu-modded FSTE? I’ll have to test what’s causing this problem later.
At any rate my high score stands at 2.6 million, nearly 1 million higher than my previous best. Hoping to see a counter-record from my friend soon.
So today, I went to Sunnyvale Golfland to get my DJMAX Technika and my Beatmania IIDX on.
DJMAX Technika — It begins: COOL ATTACKING
I had a few runs on Technika while I was at SVGL today (technically yesterday). I went for the Heartbeat high scoring set (Remember [TP], Melody [TP], Blythe [TP]) and I was able to clear Colours of Sorrow [TP] without bleeding so much life on the repeats. I’m cherishing my poor accuracy right now because soon I will have to do Cool Attack (getting Cools instead of MAXes) to avoid Area 7 [TP]–don’t get me wrong, it’s a good song and it’s a fun chart, but it’s not high scoring. :(
…and in thinking that, I jinxed myself. I did Customizer (SSSS [PP] -> TCBS [TP] -> Y [TP]), and just as I was getting pumped up for Son of Sun [TP], I noticed that I had gotten enough MAXes to get Sin [TP], which I promptly failed. FML
beatmania IIDX 17 SIRIUS – Getting “sirius”
Had some runs on IIDX as well. Played a bunch of semi-oldschool songs (Abyss, Monkey Dance, and Colors, just to name a few). Also did some 9′s and 10′s (Elisha [Hyper] doesn’t count as a 10) for the hell of it, the majority of which I failed:
- Colors [Hyper] – dat “what am I supposed to do?” part
- Setsugekka [Hyper] – dat scratchfest at the end
- Spica [Hyper] – dose scales
- RISLIM -Remix- [Another] – Okay this is actually an 11 but I just had to do it because summer, meme thingy, etc. Even if I could do most of the song, well, dat ending (which I mashed like hell on because I was gonna fail anyway).
Also played a few rounds with a friend of mine’s, and this was were being able to play on separate difficulties came in handy; said friend was willing to play whatever I played even if it was hard, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her so I picked several sub-4 songs. One of the songs was 5.1.1. [Normal] (the only song my friend passed), and although I got a AA I was far from happy with it because it’s not an AAA. I had gotten one freaking point from it on 8th Style (PS2) ages ago, and was unable to repeat it since, not unlike the case with clearing V [Hyper], which I now see as a fluke so big that I don’t even consider it passed anymore.
Next week will be my last time at SVGL for Arcade Mania; I hope to clear Technika‘s Customizer Set by then. (And NOT get Sin [TP].)
Been playing a shitload of Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Been enjoying it but holy shit it is hard. As in, “it’s like an arcade rail shooter but way longer” hard.
Since I’m at a wall on the Stage 6 Infant Keeper boss, I’ve been doing random stage select BS. I can almost consistently 1CC Stage 1. Stage 2 is somewhat easier just because it doesn’t have a bitchy endboss like Stage 1.
Stage 3 is weird. I didn’t like sidescrollers with railgun aiming when I played S&P1 Stage 3-2, I don’t like it now. Then you go into a tunnel and it’s like those parts of StarBlade where you have to shoot doors, only you dodge doors instead of dodging them. I think I got to the endboss once, and timing counters is like trying to AAA something in IIDX.
I’ll probably finish the game the credit feeder way later.
So I got (the North American release of) DeathSmiles last week and since then it’s been about the only Cave shooter I’ve been playing.
I’ve been working mainly in 360 mode, using Broken-Tier Slut Rosa. Unlike many other bullet hell shooters, 360 and Arcade modes are less harsh on mistakes. Whereas Espgaluda II is almost as restart-y as Raiden Fighters Aces, and bombspamming your counter away Mushihime-sama Futari Original can make your face turn beet red (you throw the stick against the ground and start swearin’), vanilla DS allows you to make some errors and still keep raising your score at the same rate. DS’s scoring system may come off as totally dumbshit to people who like their games DOJ-strict or Garegga-strict, but you still need to survive if you want to get far enough to reach your goals.
Up until now I’ve mainly done level 3 only four times to avoid Death Mode, so I can see the entire game. However, I’ve started experimenting with Death Mode, in order to train myself to tame those damned suicide bullets. Having suicide bullets to eat changes the game up quite a bit, forcing you to herd the bullets so you don’t trap yourself into an “IMA DA, HIROW!” situation, while using your familiar to suck up the bullets, which like skulls and crowns add to the counter. If I can master Death Mode, I can turn out much higher scores than I’m capable of without it.
I’ll probably delve into Mega Black Label another time. As for Ver 1.1 (both vanilla and MBL), if I want to be able to easily move my familiar without risking slamming into a bullet (which I’m guessing makes up a majority of the gameplay), I have to ditch my Seimitsu’d FSTE in favor of a 360 controller. And I don’t like using the 360 controllers for shmups. FML.
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.
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.
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