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).