Shmup of the Month Club 2014 (Completed)

[ExedExes]

So many pros and their scores here already. But I knew this was the game that would bring you all back, even when Dunpeal pitched it to me last year.

I thought I'd do terrible at this, not playing this DDP entry before. But my experience on the original served me pretty well.

ExedExes - 6,162,290 - Type B (Expert) - Stage 3 - MAME



I was able to do the Hyper mode twice -- so cool! I can most definitely improve here.

[TSTR]

I can't score for dick in this game. Farthest I've gotten is the Stage 2 boss, can't even crack 3 mil. I guess I need to spend more time learning enemy patterns/bee locations for chaining purposes if I wanna rack up. Might just play survival for a while to get more and more familiar with the game.

On a separate note, the sound/music on the PS2 port is SO much better than the crap coming out of MAME.

[Nyukki]

Agree that there's something wrong with the sound in MAME, but I usually game pretty quietly since the boy is sleeping in the next room.

What do the bees do apart from extra points?

[TSTR]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they fill your chain gauge as well as add bonus hits to your counter.

[noiseredux]

What do the bees do apart from extra points?

sorry to quote myself, but

I *think* it goes like this:

You obviously wanna kill stuff before it kills you. But, best way to think about it is don't get killed before you kill stuff, if that makes sense.

So there's chaining of metals. This applies to metals (shiny), metals (flickering), bees, golden eggs and sparkling eggs.

Sparkling eggs only happen if you hold down C (or "unused button") at the right time on the right stage. (I might be wrong on this though).

Bees happen only when sub-bosses sparkle and you're score has an even number in the 3rd integer (meaning you can have it be 33,200,000 or 15,450,000 but not 12,300,000). If they sparkle and you HOLD shot for long enough then you should hear a chime. When the chime happens wait (3) seconds (or count to "3 Mississippi") and then hold the stick hard left which opens up the alternate 'sparkling bee path.'

Sparkling bees chain differently. Whereas most stuff chains 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 64x, and so on, the sparkling bees do a weird algorithm. I haven't actually confirmed this yet, but I'm *pretty* sure it's something like 4x, 9x, 19x, 37x, 69x and so on. (If you want to help me confirm, keep the Calculator program open on your desktop and play this in MAME with a screen small enough to fit on your desktop. Like this:




Now the other thing is this: chaining enemies. Small enemies go 10x, 25x, 50x, 100x, (then 100x 5x) until maxing at 100x. But here's the real meat and potatoes: You wanna miss (literally let the enemy off the screen) every 17 times. If you do so then the 100x will still display as 100x but will tally as 1,000x secretly. It's hidden, but will tally at end stage as long as you meet 3 conditions:

1. Don't die on boss.
2. Don't bomb on boss.
3. Don't shoot the boss's 2nd form on the left side of the screen.

But milking bosses is important. You gotta do it the right way. The best way to do it is not do it wrong. Shooting him in the mouth is wrong. Shooting him on the right side FIRST is wrong. Shooting him when he's re-positioning himself is wrong. Shooting him when he's shooting his homing gun is wrong. Shooting him when his bullets go double-speed (or quad-speed, but not triple-speed) is wrong. And of course shooting him as he transitions from 2nd to 3rd form is fucking stupid and you should just restart your run or save-state.

Mid-bosses are different though, as are larger enemies. Mid-bosses you MUST shoot only left side, while larger bosses you have to only shoot if you suspect a hidden sparkly egg is hidden by their sprite otherwise just dodge their attacks and let them leave the screen. They won't count against your chain but any bullets they shoot will so absorb those.

The fairness of Autofire, I'm still not sure of. Maybe we should take a vote on that?

[ExedExes]

What do the bees do apart from extra points?

What the bees *really* do -

Collecting these icons help raise your Hyper Meter (when your combo is over 20 hits).

In addition, to get access to the 2nd loop, you will need to collect all 10 icons on at least 3 stages, without dying.

If you get all 10 in a stage, you will get a large X2 multiplier which creates a special score - 1,000 x # of combo hits x 2

[Nyukki]

Well well, better keep an eye out for those bees then.

[ExedExes]

First week's update -

White Label - Arcade

jepjepjep - 46,901,200 - 1-ALL - Type A/Expert - PGM
Kidpanda - 21,398,760 - Stage 3 - Type B/Laser - PGM
DocHauser - 14,947,950 - Stage 3 (Boss) - Type B/Expert - Shmupmame 4.2
Nyukki - 13,771,200 - Stage 3 - Type A/Expert - Shmupmame 4.2
ExedExes - 6,162,290 - Stage 3 - Type B/Expert - MAME

Black Label - Arcade

jepjepjep - 69,542,720 - 1-ALL - Type B/Expert - PGM
DocHauser - 27,204,930 - Stage 4 - Type B/Shot - Shmupmame 4.2

[EllertMichael]

EllertMichael - 25,210,240 - Stage 3 - Type A/Shot - X360

So brutal. So awesome!

[DocHauser]

White Label
DocHauser - 25,974,630 - Stage 3 - Type B/Shot - Shmupmame 4.2



Black Label
DocHauser - 40,426,570 - Stage 4 - Type B/Shot - Shmupmame 4.2

Starting to get some decent-sized combos now, usually on the 2nd half of Stage 2. Missed the 1up on Stage 4, though. I should probably try and practice that part...