Shmup of the Month Club 2013 (Giga Wing)

[mjmjr25]

Ok, now we have a game that has scoring mechanics beyond "shoot stuff on screen".

This game has max hits, chaining, secret items, change bonus, tech bonus, speed bonus, tea time bonus, level up bonus, revival bonus and others.

I'd suggest playing a few runs just for fun - trying to figure out enemy and boss patterns before focusing on actual scoring. Once you focus on scoring, the bullet patterns go from very manageable to quite hard as you try to keep chains or max hits going.

Some things to note (maybe I should've done a write-up, but i'll just post here instead).

There are yellow gems; yellow gems power up the character you are using. Yellow gems come from gold pots and will stay on screen as long as you are shooting it and keeping it active, just like Bells in the Twinbee games.

There are "Barriers", these are rainbow colored orbs, that come from the same gold pots. These give you a force field and will reject enemy hits.

Both yellow gems and barriers come from random gold pots, however repeated shooting of the gold pots brings them faster.

Main shot (tap for repeated fire); hold for mega-shot. When you kill an enemy with mega-shot, he will be put in a bubble, keep shooting the bubble to get a max-hit chain going. It will stay active as long as you shoot it...try and shoot it in the dead center to keep it from going off screen to the top or bottom.

There are bosses whom encircle you, for this use button 4 (whichever that is on your setup) to shoot in reverse directions.

Button 3 is your change button. You start with (2) changes, meaning you can swap out to your other character. Think of vs. fighting, but the character swaps are limited. When you change, it will bomb the screen. You can earn additional changes.

Enemy chaining - self explanatory, killing entire chains of enemies, string it along for big bonuses. Max-hit is completely different than chaining.

Boss health meter is on the bottom and they damage as you would expect; more heavily from mega shots and bombs.

At the end of each stage is a tea time bonus. Each tile is worth 1K, white tiles are worth a varying bonus amount - I think like 50K for the first one. Also, if you have lost a character, instead of point bonus, it may be a revival bonus, bringing to life one of your dead characters.

There are also air bubbles which I don't recall how they score. Don't confuse them for bullets, they are good - grab them. They are worth points based on their size and I think shooting them makes them bigger, but i'll have to get some runs in to remember that part.

This game is more old school play mechanics with new school scoring. Really fun sprites, just a pretty game to watch, a shmup where your lady might enjoy actually watching the game and not just be nervous watching your crazy shmup face.

[noiseredux]

Button 4???? I guess I can't use my V7 on this game...

[dsheinem]

this doesn't play nice with MAME and the Saturn port runs $100+

Guess I'm out this month.

[mjmjr25]

Button 4???? I guess I can't use my V7 on this game...

You can map it to button 2. I "think" button 2 is a "pick your enemy and throw him" option, but I never use it.

I guess I need to go play to figure that part out for sure.

Luckily the menu is in english in this game iirc.

[noiseredux]

this doesn't play nice with MAME

I'm not gonna troll you on this.

and the Saturn port runs $100+

Wait, what?

...well damn. Ebay prices have gone up just in the past year it seems. Glad I grabbed mine when I did.

[dsheinem]

this doesn't play nice with MAME

I'm not gonna troll you on this.

and the Saturn port runs $100+

Wait, what?

...well damn. Ebay prices have gone up just in the past year it seems. Glad I grabbed mine when I did.

What did you pay for yours? I'd bite on most any SOTM for half that price, but I don't generally like horis or cute-em-ups so $100 is a bit much to take a gamble on maybe liking it...

[mjmjr25]

Dave, just resell it if you don't like it? I mean, $100 is high, but I bet if you put a WTB for $80 on shmups you'd get a quick hit, and then might have to resell at $70 if you want to move it fast when yr done.

I sold Brad his for I think $55 and $20 trade.

[dsheinem]

Dave, just resell it if you don't like it? I mean, $100 is high, but I bet if you put a WTB for $80 on shmups you'd get a quick hit, and then might have to resell at $70 if you want to move it fast when yr done.

I sold Brad his for I think $55 and $20 trade.

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. I'll put a WTB over on shmups.

[mjmjr25]

Ok, first run was squadoosh, couldn't get my buttons figured out in my noggin, but 2nd run was decent, 3rd boss and had a really good stage 2. Notice the effect chaining / not dying / max hits / bonuses can have on an individual stage score.

1,339,000 - mjmjr25 - Stage 3 (boss) - Chain 17 - Hit 149 - SATURN

[noiseredux]

yeah this is why I like knowing what games we're playing for the year ahead of time. I generally make a list of all the TR/SOTM games I need for the year. Jan-May games I make top priority to buy with any X-Mas $ I get, and Jun-Dec games I buy in May using any bday $ I get.

EDIT: just checked option menu. Shot/Action/Change are always A, B, C buttons. You can change what (if anything) X,Y,Z,R,L do but can't map them to A,B,C. I guess I'll use my PS2 stick instead.