Topic: Arcade SHMUP High Score Thread

Finally starting to get my groove back here...I feel a big jump in my score coming.

Edit:

And there it is, a big jump! Now it's time to study stage 3 like crazy, even though I still haven't beaten the stage 2 boss yet.....lol. It's basically been a survival attempt for 99 seconds rather than beating it because I just can't do enough damage quick enough. I'm too scared when trying to collect energy not to hit the wrong color.

Just had my best run there,not a great score but man did I enjoy that. It was my moment where I understood why this is regarded as such a classic.

I haven’t had a chance to jump in yet this week as I’m waiting for an Eshop gift card to arrive. I’ll jump in once it does, but can’t lie that I’m a bit jealous of all this Ikaruga action!

I'm probably going to have to jump on the open leader board for this one. Booooo to work!

@OorWullie That’s awesome! I’m glad you’re experiencing that. I actually had a similar moment yesterday when everything just clicked, at least with the first stage, and I just fell in love with the game more than ever before. I think I played for about 4 hours last night and for the first time ever I completed stage 1 while maintaining my combo throughout. That was such a good feeling. This really is an amazing game that I’m just now gaining even more appreciation for by playing it again on the Switch. Plus, it helps that I have this community to push me for better scores.

@riccyjay Welcome, and great score! And thanks for the tip for the easy menu!

@CaffeinatedGamer @DashKappei Well played, guys! Gives me something to aim for. I'm still stuck in C+ territory for stage 1. It doesn't help that I've only played Ikaruga for survival in the past, d'oh!

@GrailUK And another one comes off my Steam wish list.

@GFoyle @Zkibu I'd love to do that when I get a bigger place, and lighter TV. There are rotating wall mounts available that aren't too expensive as long as it's not a curved TV.

@OorWullie I gotta look up what the limits are, but I'm thinking maybe if folks here have a Dropbox account, then I could record some replays and send them out at the end of the challenge. There's not that many of us participating, so it wouldn't be too crazy to do a one time batch. My current settings (720p60FPS, 18Gbps) makes for roughly 1GB for 5-6 minutes, so the downloads will be quite large. I can drop the quality for smaller file sizes, of course.

What does everyone think?

Chuffed with myself Next target 1.5m.

Much to my surprise, I think I won the PINBALL FX 3 challenge on SON OF ZEUS. 8 players took part, so a little less competition than the previous challenge on SORCERER'S LAIR.

My winning score was 33, 987, 731. Second was @Oorwullie 33, 885, 703 and Third was @DaftBomb 32, 339, 593.

@CaffeinatedGamer That takes some skill to finish the level with your combo intact. I haven't even made it close to the boss with it intact. Even if I could the lines of enemies right before it would end it for sure. Once my combo is gone I find it hard to get back into my groove. I'm still trying to work out how the points are scored for the boss. I've had 350k before but my last run I felt I done alright on it and only scored just over 200k.I always take out those drone things at the side and destroy the boss armour before it shifts the the next phase. Any tips?

@masterLEON That would be great and much appreciated. I don't think I have a Dropbox account,I use Google Drive but I could make one.

@Lroy Was just about to write that Well played pal,that was a great score and not easy to achieve. I come oh so close to passing it last night but fell 100k short. I'll make up the leaderboard later.

Just like last week's tournament the last place participant has been chopped off the bottom of the leaderboard. Seems there is a glitch with it.

@OorWullie Boss score is just based on time remaining. If you can arrive at the boss with a full charge, unleash it while dark as soon as his first light bullet appears to end the first phase instantly (don't even worry about dodging - his bullets won't have time to reach you). Second phase ignore the drones and stay close to his shield to absorb as much energy as you can. Third phase try to stay dark whenever possible and, if you're feeling confident, hover over grenades before they erupt to gather all their energy. I can usually finish with 60-65 seconds remaining, but I've seen replays of people finishing at about 75.

@riccyjay Cheers for that is info,that will help me big time. I've been finishing with around 25 seconds left so that's a huge amount of time to shave off.

@OorWullie I think I have the last player on my Switch friends list. Will take a look when I can and let you know who it is.

Also, any chance you could create another PINBALL FX3 tournament for that third free game most of us got. Think it is the fairground one?

I've found these pinball competition's to be a welcome change of pace. Would like to see them continue even if it means we need to invest in a table game pack soon.

@OorWullie Actually, I can't see who the eigth player was on PINBALL FX 3 - SON OF ZEUS now?! Very odd. Imagine it must be someone here. Perhaps they can let us know when @OorWullie publishes the Leaderboard who is missing.

@riccyjay Just beat the boss with 57 seconds remaining and ended the level with 1.16m and no lives lost. I fell apart on the moving container section without really adding much to my score which is disappointing. I made it past the container section and to the boss on my previous best run so know it's not too difficult. It's the opening section of stage 2 that I have trouble scoring points. I'm too busy trying to stay alive. I will practise on just stage 2 and watch your run.

@Lroy Yeah it seems to glitch once the tournament ends. When you scroll down then scroll back up ,1st place disappears too. At least it did with Sorcerers Lair.

@riccyjay @OorWullie Yeah, that info with the boss should help you out big time. I never worry about the satellites and only focus primarily on shooting the boss with everything I've got. I often finish at about 55 seconds, but have hit 60 seconds before. Your target of 1.5 should be much easier now!

Edit: Just saw your above post! Nice! I need to add you as a friend too.

I've gotten into a bad habit now as I won't continue playing if I mess up my combo in the first stage. I need a perfect run if I'm going to continue playing without restarting. I think I can do much better with a combo in stage 2 as well but still struggle a lot there. I believe I can probably hit 3 million though if everything goes right for me in stage 1 and 2. I still need to figure out the stage 2 boss though...or, get more comfortable with it, I should say. Maybe once I put together a perfect stage 1 and 2 I'll begin just playing stage 3 over and over again to get familiar with it.

@OorWullie If you want help with the start of stage 2, I'm afraid I'm not your man. Definitely a case of just staying alive. I'm not so hot with the second boss either. One thing I learned recently that's a help is when it's still displaying 'weak point' you can actually start damaging him. Edit: Oh, and congratulations, by the way - sounds like you've basically got it. Just a question of refining it from there for an extra second or two.

@CaffeinatedGamer I totally hear your trouble with overusing the restart. First stage is still where most of my points come from so I know if I want to beat my score I need to basically keep the combo going all the way - even if I miss enemies on the way, that's nowhere near as decisive as screwing up the combo.

Good thing about this version (don't think this was in the GC version, but not sure) is the option to play single levels. I think the best way for me to potentially add to my score right now is to get some points from stage 3, but the problem is I only ever get there about one in ten runs. So I guess I should join you in putting in some stage three practice there - for me at least though, that's where the difficulty takes a real jump. I feel like it'll take a lot of work to get familiar with the whole thing.

New shooter coming to Switch this week and it looks amazing. It's Space Harrier,Starfox and Tron all mixed together. It has good reviews on Steam although there's not too many so I'm guessing it never sold very well. Hopefully it'll fair better on Switch.

GRIDD: Retroenhanced

@OorWullie Grid: Retroenhanced looks great, just saw it on the U.S eShop, hopefully it'll come out in the U.K too..

I was really struggling with Ikaruga at first but I now see why it's so highly regarded within the genre, broke a million and hopefully I can improve on that!

Think I'm friends with most people within this community but will try to add everyone that's joined in recently, great to be high score chasing again😃