Topic: Arcade SHMUP High Score Thread

Yeah. I think the randomness in this game is also going to kill my willingness to chase. I can tell you right now, the #1 spot is a perfect jungle run w/ 95% bonus gem drops. Ugh.

My score was nearly 80% bonus gem drops perfected and I’m already not willing to reset as often as I have to.

Like, if you don’t get all bonus gems in the first 30 seconds of a run you must be resetting. So it sucks. I kinda hope I win this week so to not get a game next week with any potential random score mechanic. Otherwise, I might take a week off. @DashKappei

@Qualitybeats What game do you have in mind then, a game without a random element to the scoring as you suggest? Well done on your score by the way.

Been catching up reading the thread. I'll need to look into these SHOCK TROOPERS resources. Well done on the impressive scores posted so far. As mentioned before, I don't tend to play much at weekends but will get some gametime in with SHOCK TROOPERS in the coming week. I'm well off the pace, having only managed 1.6 million thus far ☺️

Have however, taken delivery of my newest game book purchase: Hardcore Gaming 101's Guide to Shoot-em-ups Vol. 1. See link and details previously in this thread. Already had a little flick through and it is making me want all the PC-Engine and SEGA Mega Drive shmups to be on Switch virtual console, ha! ha!

Hope you're all well and enjoy the rest of your weekends 🍻

@Lroy I was thinking something like Graceful Explosion Machine, Blazing Star, or Last Resort...having thought about it tho, I'm not sure many of these NEO GEO games don't have RNG considering. I'm also not sure I remember the RNG being an issue as much before, seeing it more now that we're involved in this competition. More importantly, I'd like to shift genre a bit and consider something completely different...

Games I'd like to consider: Thumper, Knight Terrors, Sengoku, Volgarr, Gonner, Pac-Man CE2+, Mario Bros, Super Mario VS, Double Dragon, Dimension Drive, Robo Army, Metal Slug, Burning Fight, Retro City Rampage DX, Kamiko,

What do you think about some of these considerations?

Well, I'm stuck at 2.843M using the old strat (melee-ing through everything and steamrollering through the level), now I'm trying to let more enemies run onto the screen but it hasn't been going well with the time limit. Needs more work, I guess.

@wasilewski That is some hardcore milking going on there in the 2nd video, which is also from LordBBH (the 1st video from a recent Twitch stream, the 2nd is his Mame Replay uploaded by someone else). I can't recall the first time I heard LordBBH, it could have been from one of the old NEOGEO or Turbografx mailing lists from back in the mid-90's. But yeah, he's been around forever, though I didn't know he's been doing score chasing and such lately.

BTW, the Shock Troopers site you linked, guess whose it was? Yup, same guy, lol. Interesting stuff, too. I didn't know there were 2 versions. The Arcade Archives version is "version 2" it seems. When I get the time, I want to sit through the entirety both videos. Thanks for posting all that!

@Lroy I have Namco Museum as well. I wouldn't mind doing challenges there. Also, I've recently switched to no filter, which looks better in the replays, IMO. If it's casual/not recording/handheld I'll usually go with A2 or A3.

@meppi64 On my plasma, too, I gotta watch for image retention. It's an older 2006 42" Panasonic so it probably missed the built-in burn-in protection by about a year or two. So after playing a while on an ACA Caravan, I have to switch to something else that uses the whole screen for a while, like STERN Pinball Arcade (and now that I think about it, I can use ARMS' attract mode, too).

@OorWullie I'm all in for no continues!

@Qualitybeats So sorry, man. If I knew more about the game beforehand, I'd have probably picked something else. But great score so far! Metal Slug, Blazing Star, Last Resort, maybe Zed Blade and Alpha Mission II may be other safe non-RNG NEOGEO games, as far as I can recall. Makes me wish we had CAVE, Raizing/8ing, Taito, heck even Capcom shmups coming to the Switch.

@Qualitybeats i feel you man. RNG takes away part of the fun. Still having fun tho, as ST is a game I didn't play for quite a long time. And to be true, I'm not the greatest fan of aerial H-SHMUP but if no RNG is involved I'll be in, no problem. And I second your suggestion on Metal Slug(s), Pacman DX2 (it would hurt my wallet so bad... but heck, I'd be getting it the same sooner or later ), Mario Bros (I used to be good at it, at least on the GBA version embedded in SMA3), Sengoku... Volgarr make me want to crash my head against the wall till I fall unconscious every single time I play it, but we could try...

My best score:

It’s not a problem with the pick, it’s more about not realizing the rng was so important to how these chases shape up. Not your fault. Still really love ST as a choice. @masterLEON

I think it would help push this leaderboard past just neogeo classics and maybe start getting non-shmup fans into the chase as well. As long as we set the rules for the week properly, we should be able to chase on any game we like as long as there’s a score/timing mechanic. @RetroGamerAndrew

This brings me to another question...

Do we maybe want to keep this season of leaderboards strictly Neo Geo, and then maybe take a break to figure out how to implement other games, standardize rules and stuff like that? I’d be ok with this. Maybe have a neo geo season run 6 weeks and hen take 2 weeks off?

I think non-shmup games would be good, like Magical Drop II or III, stuff like that.

@qualitybits @retrogamerandrew

Honestly the RNG in ST is not that bad imo, more or less it evens out in the end. Def far from the RNG in Videosystem/Psykio’s stuff.

Anyway, I’m up for any challenge, just let’s try to pick games where it’s easy and short to have a go or where there is mode of play which is similar to Caravan or others.
Namco Museum; Metal Slug, Gunbarich, Pac-Man, Pac-Man CE2+ for example

I think the Psikyo shooters will be fine as even though the first 4 or 5 levels are presented in a random order, it's possible to make it through most of them on one continue. It's tough but achievable. More importantly though, they don't have online leaderboards so no other players with their out-of reach scores always in sight, it will just be our own group. I think we can all trust that each other will play fairly and set continues to zero and leave the lives and bonus life score at the default settings.

@Qualitybeats Sorry for late reply. I'm up for trying most arcade games to be honest. Unless a certain game is too price prohibitive for me and in that case, I can just sit out that week's challenge. Happy to try most genres too.

Also happy to go along with any decisions made about including NAMCO MUSEUM titles or any other games for these challenges. It's all good fun even when a game comes along and highlights how poor you are at it (e.g. My performance on SHOCK TROOPERS ☺️). Think I'm just inside the top 200 now with a score of 1.7 million. Ha! Ha!

Finally, there's probably enough games to keep this exclusively to Nintendo Switch for the foreseeable future but if people do ever fancy picking a game off MAME or console emulation/original hardware to do a weekly challenge on - count me in for that.

@DashKappei Of course. But it's there anyway... Imagine every in game drop being a blue gem instead of a mix of items (some of which are not only useless, but also detrimental - i.e. red gem)... Once we factor out this randomness we can compete on a common ground and let our skills (or lack of ) talk for ourselves.

That said... I made a great run a couple of hours ago on the train back home: 361k! And then all of a sudden my internet connection drops and I can't register the score. Ehhhhhhhhhhh

Speaking of great scores (😉) I just managed to break the 2 million mark - 2, 060, 000 - Am I being dense, reading the figures wrong? SHOCK TROOPERS scores are in the millions, not thousand as others have said? I'm genuinely having an old man moment 😂

Anyway, that puts me at 136 on the Global Leaderboards. I honestly don't know how much more time I'll bother to put in to improve on that. Just can't seem to get into this one. I like the game but clearly have been playing it wrong in the past and spoiled myself by credit feeding. Just can't seem to grasp the playing style required to score big in this game.

Can we get a NL Community leaderboard up? It might help motivate me (or not) to see how far down the pack I am and whether there is any competition for us folks at the back to battle it out. Most of you are already way, way beyond what I can manage in this game.

@Lroy yeah my mistake! We're talking about millions, so I meant 3.610k

@RetroGamerAndrew Fantastic score by the way. Well done!

@RetroGamerAndrew
It's not just me then. I wasn't able to upload my last couple of scores either.
First one a 3.450.000 or so and then this one

I can go to the online board at the end of a good run like I always do, but it just remains on my previous score.