Topic: Arcade SHMUP High Score Thread

@OorWullie And the legend returns!

Glad everything is all-right. Life does get in the way sometimes, does it?
The email thing seems to be widespread. Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't.

@OorWullie

Hey, it was a good game and I'm glad it was selected, I would have never even tried it otherwise!

Anyway, I wrote my suggestions earlier. The very least I think this DK challenge should last until next week's friday.

@OorWullie Great to hear from you bud. Appreciate you're going through a busy and stressful time so thank you for responding at all. Just nice to know you're doing okay, relatively speaking.

No worries about not checking this thread or keeping things turning over as promptly as you usually do. Big ask of us of you and I'm happy to chill my boots until you feel you want to be active again.

Also like I believe @gfoyle said - please ask if you would like any help with the organisation and admin of these weekly/bi-weekly Arcade challenges.

As for the next challenge, I'm cool with it being for a week, two weeks whatever. Or if folks want us to have a summer break for a few weeks. Cool.

I like the two week idea, at least during the summer with vacations and all. I've been sort of MIA with work nonsense since Ikaruga myself. Is DK Arcade the game we're doing right now?

Donkey Kong is harder than I remember, lol. That was the game that first started my interest in score-based games. I remember first playing it through the GCN Animal Crossing and it was my gateway to shmups.

Donkey Kong, yes!!!

So how does this work? Do we do Hi Score Mode or Caravan Mode? Early/Later/International Version?

Until today, the game displayed my high score at the top of the screen but for some reason it reset. But you can still see the score down below (181,000). That's from the Early Version of the game, btw.

My body is ready!!!

@meppi64 Yeah, I'm having the very same problem since... forever it seems, and it's really annoying, sometimes I'm assuming a thread is quiescent, only to find out I'm pages behind instead. Someone should really look into it!

@OorWullie Nice to hear you're well mate! Feel free to ask for help in keeping up the contests, I'll be more than happy to lend you a hand! Speaking of which, I think we really could use a short summer break... you know, between the heap of new releases, ongoing World Cup matches and (hopefully) summer vacations I bet a good portion of the usual player-base (i'm including myself) would not participate.
Again, let's discuss, here or on Discord

@bezerker99 Hi-score mode. As for the version, I guess International if that is the most common version.

I definitely would think summer break after the DK challenge would be good thing (winner still would select the one which is next after the break). Maybe continue in August or start of September at the latest? Besides summer vacation, I at least have limited time for games and there are tons of games in backlog to play as well.

Good luck with the DK challenge, I hope it get's good participation! I recommend posting some scores during the challenge period to keep things active.

Sine Mora ex is apparently on sales at $12 on the e shop. Is the game fun and worth the money in your opinion since I already bought Danmaku on sales recently and haven't even bought ikaruga yet so I'm not hurting for a shmup to play

@CroRock It's hard alright... not sure is it harder than Dragon Blaze or Strikers 2, need to play a lot more. All of those are super hard in any case and require a lot of hours to get somewhere (in normal difficult).

I used to also play using easier difficulties initially, but I'm not sure does it actually even help as it doesn't really prepare you that well for the normal difficulty enemy, bullet patterns, which you need to learn and remember to do well. When I'm playing these games on easier difficulty, it always feel's wrong somehow. I think those other difficulty levels have been more like afterthought, which sometimes harms the game balance, flow and feel.

@nitake92 Sine Mora is definitely worth grabbing at that price if you like shooters. It isnt in the same league as Ikaruga in terms of level design, but it is stunning graphically (very smooth framerate) and highly varied; plenty of bosses to fight with lots of modes and character set-ups.

And yes, it is fun 😃

It's not just that.
For some reason imgur images stopped showing up a couple of weeks ago on this board:

So there most be something with the software that's not quite right. Possibly an update that screwed something up.

@meppi64
you know what's funny? I've just received a notification mail for this thread, and the mail is showing the linked image correctly... while the board doesn't.

@RetroGamerAndrew What is going on here as of late? lol

@nitake92 That is a pretty fantastic price, so in that respect it's definitely worth it. And the game is decent. However, I wouldn't say it's any more than that. I honestly haven't really touched it after completing the campaign. Not that it lacks for options, it's just there are always other games I'd prefer to be playing.

It's a weird one in a lot of ways. It looks amazing and the time mechanic is worked in well. Hard to put my finger on what makes me not so keen on it. There were quite a few sections that required manouevring through tight spaces that I didn't like and, even though you can fast forward through them, there were too many bits where you're taken out of the action for my liking.

Still, at $12 I'd go for it. Might not get that price again.

@GFoyle
Yea, I agree that playing at the lowest difficulty vs normal or the hardest is like playing different games. I usually start with lower settings to learn stages and enemies first. Then I go up slowly to learn bullet patterns.

But for Ginbird 2 I think normal difficulty is actually hard one.. like they screwed graduation. I played it on iPhone for many hours before Switch version and on iPhone is much easier to play, specially because touchscreen and partner you can buy. On iPhone there are 3 difficulty levels and easy on iPhone would be named semen or maybe fetus here (baby is lowest on Switch). I’m not a pro but I can easily finish Gunbird 2 on iPhone without losing life, using bombs and continues. On Switch I can only dream of that and I put over 10 hours in it already. Maybe even more.
My highest atm is 300 000 on normal without continues. On baby I go over million.

Love the game very much and I’ll definitely play it much more to get better but those numerous and speedy bullets on normal are killing all the fun for me.

I feel like Dragon Blaze is easier on normal because bullets are much slower and you have dragons to strategize about what enemy to kill faster then the other before bullet spreads. Then you have two different special attacks with each character, dragon release and bombs. In Gunbird you have one close attack (which is practically useless on higher difficulty), one special and bombs.

... and Zerodiv really outdone themselves with leaderboards again. You can’t even see your highest score on game over screen if it is lower then first 10 on scoreboard LOL!
For weekly contest I’ll need to reset all my scores to take a screenshot for scores played on normal.

If anyone here has made the mistake of hesitating to buy Just Shapes & Beats, please rectify your error and get it now. I'm almost gonna go as far as to say I hold this game in the same regard I have for Ikaruga (one of my top 3 games ever)...

Guess what... initializing GUNBIRD2 or resetting scores from settings do what?!
NOTHING!!!
I swear I’ll never buy any of Zerodiv games again.. even if the port all Cave games!
That company is a joke.
How should I post my score for challenge in a week or two? Looking 2 seconds in to the future when I’m about to die and take screenshot?

Thank god I’m on meppi64 ignore list because he would write a novel again about how thankful we should be for slave-working people in horrible environments that bring us a bit of joy.
That’s like we should be thankful for Nintendo charging us for Mario remakes but without jump ability.

@CroRock

Seems to be a bug yes with the reset not working, I'm sure they will fix it as it has worked in other of their ports. It seems the whole game has been taken out of eshop at least here in Europe, not sure why. I doubt the difficulty is a bug, though it seems to be on same level as the other Psikyo shooters on Normal or close enough at least (very much like Strikers 2). I'm sure the iOS version was made easier and different on purpose.

btw. what character are you using? The close attack is essential with some characters IMO to do well (kill the bigger enemies).

Did the previous challenge winner, whomever that was, pick another game? Or are we on a break right now? Cool with me either way.