You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2009.
Started up Lightening Force Thunder Force IV. Starting stage: 4 (Daser). Bullshit deaths partway through. Restart.
Starting stage order: 3 (Air Raid) -> 1 (Strite) -> 4 (Daser) -> 2 (Ruins); I wanted to do something different and go into stages 1 and 4 (both of which only have Blade and Rail Gun) with a Free Way. I wore out my shield from stage 3 within the same stage, leaving me shieldless for all of stage 1. Died on Gargoylediver with Blade equipped, but oh well, Blade is kinda crap for having ALL OF ITS HITSPARKS RED (as opposed to blue for non-damaging shots and red for damagin) anyway. Stage 4 is once again me getting and losing my shield within the same stage.
For some unexplained reason, I had quite a bit of trouble with Stage 5 and the lasers that, while sudden, never really gave me much trouble. Stage 6 was where it all went downhill, up to the boss and its dividing large bullets.
As the Hotel Mario version of Mario would put it: “It’s been one of those days.”
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On another and less related note, I’ve been taming the Wave Rider 02R and 03 in RayCrisis. Somehow, I score higher with these ships. Even though WR03′s scoring is DoDonPachi comboing meets RayForce lock-ons and requiring, and I can barely hit 100 combo (which is pretty low considering it only nets x100 multiplier and I’d need 156 more hits to achieve max multiplier) I manage 2.9 million. WR02R enabled me to get a little over 3, despite, again, taking more lock-ons (a lot less than 03, but still double that of 01R) for x256. “02″-style thunder lasers remain superior to “01″-style laser missiles in my book, even if it’s harder to get Hyper Laser with them.
Something I neglected to bring up in my last entry: RayCrisis‘s Special Mode. This is such a silly mode. Instead of starting at 50% encroachment and minimal firepower, you start at 0% and firepower maxed out. Items are now these purple things that reduce encroachment, blue things that are 1-ups and appear frequently (thus allowing you to amass 9 lives easily), and these rare green things that double your score. Encroachment is even sillier: it fluctuates wildly; it could be <10%, then spike to 100% in about thirty seconds, and believe me, it’s gonna cross itno the 90% range A LOT. (“Encroachment over 90%! Encroachment over 90%! Encroachment over 100%!”) And at 100%, instead of a bad ending, you just get a score drain; of course, this means that in order to prevent exploitation of this (through dying before the point decrease takes place), you can only rank in if you clear the game.
Speaking of clearing, thanks to the plethora of 1-ups that puts Thunder Force III to shame, it’s quite easy to 1CC the game, up to and including the TLB, somewhat like Mushihime-sama‘s Arrange Mode (Bombs = extra lives!), only the TLB is actually managable, unlike the Cave bullet mania found in Mushi’s TLB. As I finished off Infinity, I couldn’t help but feel empty inside, having bullshitted my way up to a boss that, in Original Mode, is never seen by anyone except the best players. Only, this is a legal form of bullshitting, not creditfeeding.
I don’t think I’ll be playing Special Mode seriously anymore.
STGT ’09 is over! It was the first STGT in which I tried to play as often as possible and actually tried to get a good team-ranking. Individual ranking sadly had to be irrelevant, since I had to miss the second week due to university stuff. Nevertheless, I thought the game selection was just splendid and I had great fun playing and talking about the games.
After the STGT I wanted to go back to Batrider, but because of a completely surprised last week that was Garegga, I’m hooked to this one again. I was able to regain all my strategies during the STGT and now it’s time to actually improve my score by more than just 30k. If I stop playing Garegga now, I maybe never come back to it again, because it just takes a lot of time to get into the game after a longer break. I have to count after how many bullets some targets die, so you can put your options to back formation in the very last second. I have to listen to the music to know when some enemies selfdestruct or when bosses time out. I have to know exact screen positioning for correctly placed bombs. There are so many little things I just don’t want to learn again. Sometimes I just wish I could record replays…
So I just had my best credit in Garegga ever. The result is a new highscore, F,5mill, but I’m not really happy, eventhough my first next goal I set myself indeed was F,5. So why am I frustrated instead of jumping through the roof? That’s mainly because this credit was perfect in every aspect (for me). I didn’t make a single mistake and I died on Glow Squid’s first form. Both of Glow Squid’s forms together give you around 500k…. 500k! That would’ve been a G score…a G score!
I didn’t break my medalchain even once, got both Mad Ball’s more or less perfect, got 3,1mill after the flamingoes using the suicide game over technique, milked Black Heart mk2 and…. died on Glow Squid!!!!
Score progression was as follows:
Stage 1: 580,000
Stage 2: 4,500,000 (3,1 after the flamingoes)
Stage 3: 6,000,000
Stage 4: 7,800,000
Stage 5: B,500,000
Stage 6: D,500,000
Stage 7: F,567,320 (E before BHMKII)
I had at least three stupid and avoidable deaths: One at Junkey Monkey, one at the many turret section where Glow Squid bursts out and a last one at BHMKII’s first form. I always am so nervous when my score is high and I reach the last boss, but this time, it was another level of nervousness, I could already feel G!
The main problem I have with replicating such a run are the damned flamingoes. Sometimes I get only 2,5mill from them and only like 1/20 of the time I have over 3mill, which I’ll definitely need for a G score now. It’s just so damn random and makes it overly frustrating. On top of that I break my medalchain there very often, it doesn’t seem controllable to any extent.
Anyway, I’m just a bit pissed atm, it’ll probably take months to get that kind of credit again, if I haven’t already stopped playing again by then.
Beatmania iidx Empress got released a few days ago, but I don’t want to start somwething new, when I haven’t finished this one.
We’ll see if this story gets a happy end.
I still love you Garegga!!!
xxx
-Plasmo
So this Saturday, my copy of RayCrisis arrived in the mail. I’ve been playing it during whatever downtime I can get. This is to RayStorm as Raiden Fighters Jet is to RF2; short, with variable stage order and a few new scoring gimmicks thrown in for good measure. I mainly use Wave Rider 01 since it’s easier to pull of the Hyper Laser with it, it having only 8 lock-ons instead of WR02′s 16 or WR03′s 24.
Speakinf of WR03, I noticed an interesting observation today. In the clubroom I hang out at regularly, there is a TV with a GameCube and PS2 hooked up to it. Taking advantage of periods of time when the clubroom wasn’t playing Super Smash Bros. Melee, I decided to play some RC. Some of my friends took notice, and started watching me play. I had a couple others want to play, so I let them have a shot. Both of them chose WR03. I’d think that since WR01 is the simpler ship, that they’d choose that; I guess they chose quantity over quality ease of use. I don’t blame them; when I started playing RayStorm, I found myself using R-Gray 2 for the longest time.
I wondered how a. they were able to tame the WR03, and b. able to score decently with it, when I’m not so good with WR03 myself. I just realized this now. Now normally, them spamming the laser button would be detrimental to their scores; with WR01 and 02, the only ship type in RayForce, and R-Gray 1 and 2 in RayStorm, getting multiple enemies locked on before firing will reward the player with score multipliers that go all the way up to x256; thus, it is disadvantageous to mash the laser button, as it prevents the multiplier from being employed. But with WR03, spamming–which is what those two were doing–is encouraged, multiplier isn’t based on enemies locked on at once; it’s based on consecutive killed enemies; 1 hit is x1, 10 hits is x10, 50 hits is x50, and so on, all the way up to x256 for 256 hits. I’m having some second thoughts about this, as it seems to encourage mashing the laser button instead of waiting to get a large number of lockons before firing lasers; scrubby play is thus encouraged. So by laser-mashing, my friends were able to get about 40-50-hit combos going, while I, more used to RayForce/RayStorm-style chaining, had trouble getting my combo up because I would let the combo expire.
I’ll have to test this mash theory later.
ALSO, NO PENALTY FOR CREDIT-FEEDING. THAT IS JUST GROSS.
UPDATE (10/14): I have tested my theory. Yes, spamming = higher combos = higher score. Thus, Wave Rider 03 can burn in ship hell.
…
approaching huge anti-body: sem-slut
Well I picked up on my third run of Mother 3 from the end of Chapter 3 to the start of Chapter 7 now. I really like the game, I really do. I’m a huge MOTHER fan, you know, EarthBound and shit. I’ve got a history with the series and with a lot of people I’ve met on the internet because of Starmen.Net. This is besides the point, however. Mother 3 is really a feel good game for me. When I play it I just feel good, simply. I love all the stupid dialogue, all the little personal rants and tangents of the NPC’s that ring home a feeling from Mother 2 / EarthBound where the NPCs all had lives of their own that you actually wondered about, and whose lives help create the mold in which the world is formed. Mother 3 is a bit more modern in this respect, a pig will tell you about an exceptional croquette roll shop in Japan and go on about them. And then the occasional breaking of the fourth wall, well, more so used in EarthBound where people in the game were playing “EarthBound.” A couple of the instances in that game is a Shark Punk who guards the backdoor of the Arcade that leads to Frank. He asks if you want to join the Shark gang and if you say < yes > he tells you to beat EarthBound first, what a jerk! And then the police chief of Onett also comments that he’s been having some trouble with EarthBound.
All the care in the dialogue really makes me feel warm, I guess. The series creator / writer of sorts, Shigesato Itoi, speaks most of the text in the game before it’s used. Blah blah blah.
For Mother 3, Chapters 1, 2, 5 are probably my favorite parts of the game. I like the smaller sized parties or single character parts. The mystery that builds up about the evil of the game is fascinating, and most RPGs can disappoint me in that beginning realization process of having to save the world.
I’m still at Tales of Phantasia, it’s got a bit more content than I expected, at about 35 hours and I’ve got a ways to go I think. I’m now farther than I was when I played the SFC translation like 5 years ago o_O so it’s getting a bit interesting but all in all, its got its roots in RPG tradition when it comes down to being a remake of the first Tales Of game. Say, did you know there’s a Tales of Vesperia movie in Japan out right now? I don’t have to think too much when I play ToP, so that’s nice.
And Persona 4, well, I game over’d for the second time in the Game Dungeon. But now I’ve got a vendetta against that place! I’ll resume, eventually.
Flying Shark is still fun as hell, Air Gallet blew my socks off, Battle Garegga is not battling me, Mushihimesama kicks ass. Yeah, Mushihimesama. Been playing this a fair amount lately. Working on a No-miss or lx4 clear of original mode, and also beginning to tackle Ultra mode. I gotta say, Stage 5 is probably the best stage of any shooting game I’ve played. Because of it’s length, it gets super epic blast the fuck outta all that colorful shit! I was thinking and what makes me really love the game are the different modes and fantasy setting. This is why I MUST PLAY MUSHIFUTARI WAAAAAAAAHHHH ;_; Arrange mode still eludes me a bit. Huzzah! Look at this big wad of text!
Perfect score on a song.
Alternate Stage 4 on a Technical chart.
Also, I’ve, for the past month, been playing NetHack. I recently decided to play as a Wizard instead of a Knight, and I find the former to be more fun because I get to do more besides run into enemies to do battle with them. I’m still not very familiar or good with this game; it’s to RPGs of any kind as I Wanna Be The Guy is to 2D platformers. I keep skimping on armor and weapons because they often do little and in some cases are cursed, magically gluing themselves to my body to ensure that I don’t get such crappy equipment off. Being the assholish non-casual gamer that I am, there shall be no save-scumming or other such shenanigans in my years-long quest to ascend.
Just in time for the upcoming RayStorm HD, I’ve ordered a used copy of RayCrisis, which should be somewhere in transit in the general directon of Santa Clara, California as I type this. Having heard crappy things about this game (even moreso than RayStorm, and yes, I like RayStorm more than RayForce, shut up), I will employ the same tactic I used to enjoy Gradius ReBirth‘s 5 stages: use low expectations to crank out as much enjoyment out of it as possible.
Dan Haigh
Ghegs
[DRZ] OTL-TIW
sikraiken
Alice
victoly
plasm0
Aquas
Raydere
szycag
BDA
bloocloud
Kollision
