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Topic: Arcade SHMUP High Score Thread

Posts 341 to 360 of 3,493

Lroy

@CW13 Welcome. I'll shoot you over a friend invite when my boy next allows me on the Switch, lol! His current gaming addiction is ARMS.

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masterLEON

@OorWullie I think it should be player's choice as far as choosing Lonly Wolf (yeah, I'm keeping the spelling, lol) or Team Battle, unless there's some distinct advantage in one versus the other. As for route, I think Jungle scores more overall in a complete run. In Caravan, the way it's set up is that the leaderboard is shared amongst the 3 routes anyway. Also, I think Mountain might be viable points-wise? (I tested it out, I did horribly, but I needed to know) Unless there's a known exploit, can we leave the stage select up to choice also?

@CW13 Welcome, the more the merrier

I think SNK*Rock is also from here, I noticed their score on the AF2 leaderboard and they added me via friend code (which here the first place I posted it publicly).

If anyone else playing is out there, post up for some recognition. Don't worry about your score, we're all here for a good time

"You cannot stop me with paramecium alone!"

Switch - 6257-7933-4694

meppi64

@masterLEON Congrats on the win!
I just couldn't keep up. Besides the first day that I played, I just kept getting stuck with a bad path, and when I finally got a good one, I messed up in one way or another.

Love the choice of Shock Troopers. It was one of my very first Neo Geo games I got when I finally got my AES in 2003, along with Last Resort and Samurai Spirits.
It's a conversion of original parts of course since the game was never released at home sadly.

Looking forward to spending some quality time with the Switch version!

@OorWullie Yeah, I love Samurai Aces as well.
Since joining here, I've all but stopped posting at the other place since everything there feels so negative.
Feels like they go out of their way to find the bad things about, well anything really.
When someone there mentioned Samurai Aces was the worst shoot em up they had ever played and a garbage game overall, I was like "yep, I'm out". No need to waste my time on things like that anymore.

meppi64

Switch Friend Code: SW-8347-9726-5976 | My Nintendo: meppi64 | Nintendo Network ID: meppi64

OorWullie

@masterLEON Yep, it's all good with me. I've edited the rules to

Caravan Mode/ Lonely Wolf or Team Battle/ any character/ any route

Really looking forward to this one. I had never played Shock Troopers before getting my Switch but it instantly became my favourite top down run 'n gun. I was a big fan of Rambo on the Master System and Mercs on the Megadrive back in the day, the latter probably being the best one I'd played before Shock Troopers.

Finally ordered my SF-30 Pro, it'll be here tomorrow. I'll be playing with the Joy-con until then as the Pro Controller's D-pad is a nightmare for this game.

Edited on by OorWullie

🇬🇧 Mr Mustard 🇹🇭
SW-6101-8403-1640

🕹️ The Nintendolife Arcade Leaderboards 🕹️

wasilewski

Before these challenges I do a little research on Youtube and various gaming forums. Here is the highest scoring reply of Shock Troopers I can find, hopefully it will give some tips:

wasilewski

Switch Friend Code: SW-4558-8602-8597 | My Nintendo: heavymetal

Lroy

Just did a single run of every character on Jungle route. I SUCK at this game, lol! Currently not even broke into the top 100 on the Global Leaderboard. Way off that in fact. ☺️Still love it though. Thanks for the video above, I'll certainly need all the help I can get.

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DashKappei

@GrailUK @everyone
Could you pass me up HAMSTER’s support service contacts? I’d love to ask them to provide a clean scanlines filter, without the (awful) mandatory blurriness that comes with it. There should be no reason for missing such a simple and yet important feature, and I’m truly baffled at ZeroDiv doing the same thing, yet NAMCO already proved there’s no technical hurdles in providing scanline filters over the “raw” feed without the added softness which destroys the fine details of the original pixel art.
If you guys hate it too, maybe we could join and send the very same request to HAMSTER’s support team... anyone else who’s interested in doing that?

@masterleon Grats man, and I’m glad you picked my number one choice (Shock T) like I humbly suggested a few pages back. And luckily you went for the vastly superior first game since 2nd Squad is a bit poopoo, praise the sun!
@retrogamerandrew
Cool, a fellow countryman (100% Italian here, tho I haven’t lived in the BelPaese for quite some time now) and a fellow lover of all things SHMUPS and retro, right on brother!
@meppi64
I heartily suggest you guys grab Read Only Memory’s books, they’re outstanding and they look the part too, it’s great coffee table material

Edited on by DashKappei

DashKappei

Switch Friend Code: SW-7921-9388-6881

Lroy

The audio-visual settings offered in the Namco Collection for Switch are really comprehensive (I got lost tinkering with all the different sliders and audio reverb options) and I like their in-game manuals explaining how to play each game and the border artwork. Just wish it had more games in the collection and that it came physical. That said. Bagged it for £15 on UK eShop when it was discounted.

Out of curiosity, who else here owns the Namco Collection for Switch? As I'd like to include some of those games for the weekly challenges sometime if there is enough of us with the game.

Back to screen settings for these arcade games. Any consensus on what screen filter setting you use? I think, off the top of my head, I tend to go with A2 or A3 for the Hamster games. And always turn on that setting which keeps the aspect ratio but allows the hidden parts of the screen to be seen. No background as there aren't any artwork borders in the Hamster releases.

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DashKappei

@llroy
I go either A2 or OFF depending on the game. Sometimes I can put up with the softness of the image but for some games I can’t deal with it, it gets rid of too many finer details.
OFF-TOPIC
Btw, speaking foreign languages is great.
I advise you to pick one where you’re also interested in the Country’s culture and try. It’ll give you more freedom, it’ll give you knowledge, it’ll give you a different pov and really it is something that you’ll cherish forever. I still haven’t got the will to finally tackle Japanese, but I can proudly say that I’ve accomplished fluency in Spanish after just 2 years and on my own... it can be done! Living the language and having true conversations is key, for example French is the language I’ve studied the most in my (past) academic life (roughly 8 years and my mom was also a teacher) and yet, lacking the means (and will... sigh) to have proper conversations, it is the one I’m worst at.... and you know what? Speaking about it is giving me again a reason, that sparkle, that I needed to pick it up again, it’ll be my resolution for the next 6 months! So thanks for that 😃

DashKappei

Switch Friend Code: SW-7921-9388-6881

OorWullie

@Lroy I was thinking about the Namco Collection earlier.Maybe we can have leaderboards for every game on that in addition to the weekly challenge but keep them always open so they're there to be beaten whenever?

As for the display settings I can't decide which I prefer. I tend to switch between default, A1/A2 & A3. Depends on the game really, Pulstar looks great with A3. Aero Fighters I had A1. I use the widen screen and widen the screen size to 110. It gives plenty of screen to look at and doesn't seem like it's stretched.

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🕹️ The Nintendolife Arcade Leaderboards 🕹️

meppi64

@DashKappei
What's actually quite funny is that I thought the same at first when it comes to the scanlines.
Yet, I've changed my thoughts on them in the past year.
Even on my Framemeister and before that my XRGB2plus, I always loved how pixilated everything looked, but I've grown very fond of the A1setting with the faint scanlines and blur, although A2 is still good as well.
I was just comparing Garou Mark of the Wolves on PS4 to the Hamster version on Switch and I vastly prefer the Hamster one with A1 or A2 set.

The pixels on PS4 are so sharp you could cut someone with them.

Now naturally, this is all personal preference, so there's not really a right and a wrong way to do things.
Well, ok, perhaps there is a wrong way to do things. ;P

The thing is, as you know, on a CRT the pixels are all rounded off a bit even if you use RGB cables. That's just due to how these TVs work. But for some reasons, emulation takes it to the extreme end of the spectrum most of the time and makes them all perfectly square and razor sharp.
Combined with a nice scanline filter, this can look beautiful, that's true.

But like I said, I've actually changed my mind a bit on this as of late.

Certain emulators do get very close to the original sets though:

Untitled

I was actually just watching this old episode of My Life in Gaming while scanning in some magazines, and I love how the actual CRT images look compared to an emulator without any extra layers on top if it.

I know it's a bit weird to spend all that money on a Framemeister to get the image to look as perfect as possible and then to lower the sharpness to compensate. lol

I have to say I don't like the overlays on the Psykio games though, besides Strikers, Gunbird and I think Sengoku as well.
Some of the others look extremely blurry and emulate the "crappy crt" look a bit too well, at try a little too hard.

I'll certainly give those books a look this summer. As for some weird reason, I only enjoy reading books during summertime as I can sit my lazy butt down in the garden and enjoy the weather as well.

@Lroy I got Namco Museum as well as it was half price.
I was holding off for a physical release, but that doesn't seem likely, so I grabbed it when it got a big discount.

Edited on by meppi64

meppi64

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GrailUK

@DashKappei Hiya. I got the email address from their facebook page. Hamster Corporation > About > then the picky of the envelope

I never drive faster than I can see. Besides, it's all in the reflexes.

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CW13

@Lroy Ok cool thanks. Have arms too, haven't played much. I have toooooo much for this console already, but that's a good thing!

CW13

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CW13

@masterLEON @OorWullie Ok thanks! Love these games, so I'll be in on all of this. Enjoying this immensely. Such a great idea!

CW13

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wasilewski

My score so far. I see that a few others on here are way ahead of me so... any tips??😁

Untitled

Edited on by wasilewski

wasilewski

Switch Friend Code: SW-4558-8602-8597 | My Nintendo: heavymetal

OorWullie

@wasilewski When you get up close to the baddies you'll perform a close range attack which sometimes makes them drop a gem that's worth 30k, that's a lot more points than you get for just shooting them. It's possible to shoot them and stab them though since it takes 13 hits for a baddie to fall. You get points for every shot you hit them with,so if you were to shoot them say 12 times and then run up and get them with a close range attack they will more often than not drop a gem as well. It isn't guaranteed they will drop a gem every time, sometimes it's a weapon or a red gem. I think a red gem allows you to take some damage, I forget. Plus a close range attack is worth double the points of a gunshot so even if they don't drop a gem it's still giving you some extra points. It can be tricky to do though and you'll get yourself in trouble if you try it with every enemy. Need to figure out which enemies are best to get up close and personal with.

Edited on by OorWullie

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wasilewski

Thanks @OorWullie. I'll have to study the scoring mechanics over the weekend and put in lots of practice!

wasilewski

Switch Friend Code: SW-4558-8602-8597 | My Nintendo: heavymetal

RetroGamerAndrew

@DashKappei hey mate! I guessed you were Italian too from you avatar pic nice to see there's someone from "bel paese" in this forum! You're not living in Italy anymore?

Back on topic, did a couple of runs with Shock Trooper and I have to say I didn't recalled it being so hard (at least score-wise)... And I agree, you have to go ninja-style, trying to stab most of the enemies on your way. On the jungle route I think the big score is on the first level, the transition is way too slow and you'd better use all of you time trying to perfect your close-range kills.
Other paths's first stages seem shorter, and there seems to be fewer enemies (which of course is a bad thing)

The original fire has died and gone, but the riot inside moves on.

RetroGamerAndrew

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wasilewski

I've been practicing Shock Troopers on MAME. Once the game starts I save the state so I can go back to the start of the level and play it again and again. The Jungle stage is definitely the highest scoring stage and the best one to pick for this challenge. As for characters, I think Milky is best, although she takes a lot of damage if she gets hit.

wasilewski

Switch Friend Code: SW-4558-8602-8597 | My Nintendo: heavymetal

meppi64

There's certainly tons of room for improvement, and this game seems to lend itself to lost of experimentation as well when it comes to score chasing.
So far I'm at number 18 with 2.890.500.
What does worry me though is that the score table on the side is starting to burn into my plasma tv from all these score attacks. lol
Been running the built in screen sweeper for 3 hours now and luckily, it's starting to disappear.

I seem to remember there being something with the ability to hit enemies with fire before stabbing them to get a blue gem.
It's been a long time, but I think that when playing the Japanese version with the blood on, you can get in more shots due to there being more animations as the enemies get torn apart from the bullets, giving you more time to go in for a knife kill as well as get more points from the bullets as well.
In Caravan Mode, this game, like others reverts to the western version without the blood, so that technique will probably not be as effective.
Still something to keep in mind when playing the regular game.

meppi64

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