Shmup of the Month Club 2015 (Completed)

[DocHauser]

Time to give Ultra a go, I think...

[mjmjr25]

I thought I was playing well AND I thought I understood the scoring - clearly you are doing something more than I. I'm hitting stage 4 mid-boss with 30 mil. You're hitting stage 3 w/80 mil. What else is there to it?

[DocHauser]

It seems slightly different than Original. I think you have to build up the multiplier, then 'cash in' with it at certain points where it lands you tons of points. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, really, but I think it involves using the hold-shot when the multiplier is high. Probably best to check a strategy guide...

Meanwhile, is there supposed to be a 1UP somewhere in this game? Maybe in Stage 5?

(Yeah, I'm too lazy to look up the strategy guide.)

[dunpeal2064]

Yeah, in Maniac, killing things with shot raises your combo meter and gives you normal gems. When you have killed enough, the meter will be in the red, which will give you large gems (Still of the "normal" variety).

If you laser enemies, your combo meter drops. if you kill things with laser while the meter is empty, you get the shiny blue, or "cash-in" gems. Those will use up your stored normal gems and apply them as a multiplier to the cash-in gems.

1.) If you can get your meter to max, and kill with laser, you get MORE normal large gems than you normally would. However, since you are using lazer, this also lowers your meter.

So, you get into a tempo of

--Kill with shot to raise meter

--Kill with laser to get the most gems

--kill with shot again once meter is below red

--repeat until gem amount is sufficient

--kill something that will drop a ton of gems (bullet-canceling enemies, midbosses, bosses) with your laser and with no meter.

When you do cash in your multiplier, its good to let as many Cash-In gems spawn as possible before sucking them in, since each one that spawns gets the multiplier applied to it. So, if you kill something with 9k multiplier, but start sucking in gems before they have all spawned, you will cash in and lose multiplier, making the back end of gems have a lower multiplier.

Black Label is essentially the same, except your combo meter goes up just by hitting things at all, whereas 1.5 requires you to actually kill things, ala DDP.

Hope this helps!

Meanwhile, is there supposed to be a 1UP somewhere in this game? Maybe in Stage 5?

Almost missed this. yeah, the 1up is in Stage 5. After you fight the midboss, you start scrolling in a bunch of directions. You'll fight one more of the larger dragons, and pretty soon afterwards there will be a house you can destroy the roof of. The 1up is here, but like most Cave games, if you destroy it with a bomb, you won't get the 1up.

[dunpeal2064]

1.5 - Original

Dunpeal2064 - 179,195,932 - Stage 5 - A. Palm - 360

1.5 - Maniac

Dunpeal2064 - 120,161,410 - Stage 3 (Boss) - N. Reco - 360

First credit at each mode. :V

[noiseredux]

got a few runs in tonight. Hit 40M. Chest pounding. Remembering why I chose this game. So so good. I'll post a proper score tomorrow night.

[mjmjr25]

Chaz - what's the trick in original - my guess is that you no miss / no bomb the first 3 stages?

[noiseredux]

btw, Mushi Futari has to be the same composer as Deathsmiles. Songs have such similar qualities.

[dunpeal2064]

Chaz - what's the trick in original - my guess is that you no miss / no bomb the first 3 stages?

Yeah, in that run I No Missed up to the Stage 4 boss. I think I dropped one bomb on Stage 3, but otherwise didn't bomb until the Stage 4 boss (Which is where the run went to shit, since I died immediately after).

I don't remember the exact numbers, but when I'd bomb with a 30k+ counter, I would lose around 2k from the counter. When I died, it dropped 30%, so I lost 10k off the counter, which is really difficult to come back from.

I think a good goal is to really push the first two stages. You can come into the Stage 2 boss already having the first score extend and around 14k counter. From there, just try to live, ignore your counter, and just shot all popcorn and laser big enemies. Even with a counter in the 20k range (which you will get just killing things on Stage 3), you can net a decent amount of points.

[ExedExes]

Dunpeal's description of Maniac mode scoring sounded very much like Deathsmiles.

I'd really like to see some more scores - particularly in Maniac; from any other normal people. (ie, not Doc).

What he said.

I'll try the other modes

What I said.

I'm gettin to it maaaan hang on