Topic: Arcade SHMUP High Score Thread

@Corneel

Galaga? I’ll definitely pick that one up!

Argh... I just fell 3,000 short of my high score on AF2. All for losing some stupid lives...

Also I've seen that the same stage is easier or harder depending on its placement, am I right? I usually beat the jungle without breaking a sweat, but if it's placed as the 4th stage the enemies come down shooting from the beginning.

I have 2 questions: what's the score in Pac-man? General or normal?

And about Metal Slug... What's the deal with prisoners? I rescued several and they thanked me, but weren't taken into account at the end of the stage...

@Moroboshi876 If you are using Namco Museum for the Pac-man challenge, you should look at the normal score. There is also an overall tab, but I have no clue how that is calculated.

The deal with the prisoners in Metal Slug is that they provide you with useful items and a bonus score at the end of the level. However, when you die the prisoner counter is cleared and put back to 0. I think that is where the confusion comes from.

For Aero Fighters stages get more difficult the further you get. I am not sure however if this is just the order of the stages you get (progressing in difficulty) or it is a result of the ranking system (not dying means upped difficulty). For me it is more obvious in the Psikyo games how the difficulty ramps up with the different boss patterns etc.

@Corneel Thanks! That clears all my doubts. So in Metal Slug prisoners count if you don't die, right? Too bad.

Namco Museum's Pac-man, yes. I thought these challenges had to be done on Switch... isn't it right? What version are you guys playing?

Rank effect in AF2 is clear, especially those super fast surprise bullets some enemies start to throw are annoying as hell, but I guess it's more subtle than in some other shmups. It's not as obvious as the difficult change from stage order, but it's there and you can feel it if you have a good run, the game starts to really punish / hunt you at some point. This is super common mechanic in arcade shmups where the goal was to make money from each credit.

I don't know what affects rank in this game except survival time, number of lives. In some games it's also number of bombs, power ups etc. In some games the rank can be lowered by powering down (later psikyo games at least) by colliding into enemies, but in some it only drops from dying (like Battle Garegga). I think in AF2 it's probably just dying which affects the rank.

In those M2 shot trigger ports of Battle Garegga and Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcer Striker) there is gadget showing the rank as a graph (these are not available for switch unfortunately). It's really cool and it helps to figure out and prepare for it.

@GFoyle You made me think about another doubt I have... I believe I noticed that if I don't use bombs with a stage boss, in the new stage the number of bombs is lower. I mean, stacking has no use. Can you confirm it? Or I'm just wrong?

Punishing a good run seems cheap to me.

You can hoard up to 6 bombs I think, after that each one just gives you score I think, not sure how much. I haven't noticed any loss of bombs at a start of the new stages I can recall.

The rank mechanic main, if not only purpose has been making money from this games designed for arcade. Its kinda in the DNA of these games, but I agree, it's a bit cheap, unfair. It's just something you need to know and prepare for (great players say that they are always aware of the rank on some degree at any given moment and how it affects things). It has a positive side too IMO, it makes the game less static and feel's to be more "alive" because there is reaction to how you do.

Well, here are my scores. Aero Fighters 2 hasn't changed sadly, I keep doing much worse I don't know why, but here are Pac-man and Metal Slug ones. I guess Metal Slug won't give my points, but still. With 5 credits I reach what seems to be the Mission 3 boss.

@Moroboshi876 I'm afraid that's not even the boss from level 3, although this Rambo dude is much tougher than the actual boss (big tank). You still get points for reaching level 3 though!

Level 3 of METAL SLUG goes on forever, lol!

Today is the final day to get your votes in for the next challenge games!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FPBWT6Y

The current challenge ends tomorrow at 23:59 CET.

My final results:

Today I slightly improved Pac-man score. And I'm afraid it's final. Couldn't improve Aero Fighters 2's score, I keep dying stupidly where I didn't before.

31,650.

I tried the patterns, but when I reach the part of "here you're on your own" it's a matter of instincts, so it didn't really make a difference to me. I deeply admire people like @zkibu, it has to be really difficult.

My final scores are:

Metal Slug: reach level 6

Gunbird: reach level 6

Aero Fighters 2: 450.700

Pac-man: 39.870

No pics for me. Sorry, in China and can't upload screenshots.

Anyway, no improvements to report. Gunbird was the multi-stage dragon / skull / fish boss. Aero Fighters is a rather weak 389,100.

I was on holiday for a lot of the challenge period so didn't get too into it. Hope to be more involved on the next one.

Edit: Hey! Love that bulletin board, by the way! Nice work - looks cool.

@riccyjay Thanks! No screenshots for this challenge is fine given the circumstance. Your scores are on the leaderboard regardless! Hope you can get some more time in during next challenge.

I posted my screenshots over at discord yesterday, but I got to the last boss in Gunbird, came second in AF2 I think and my couple of runs of Metal Slug got me to the stage 4 I think (yeah, that was a bit weak effort on Metal Slugh my part). Skipped Pac-man.

AF2 was more fun than I expected. Gunbird was ok, but it's still definitely more polished game of those two, I'm just a bit spoiled because of those later Psikyo games I find better versions of that style of shmup.

Eagerly waiting to hear what will be the next challenge games!

Oh and I'm really glad this kind of challenge format got so good start! (btw for those who aren't over at discord too are missing about half of the discussions) Hopefully the next one will continue and even pick up the pace!

Oh and huge thanks again to @Corneel for running these! That reminds me, hopefully we get the founder of the challenges @OorWullie to participate in these again too!

Yeah, come back @Oorwullie even if it’s just to say hi and talk about your amazing skills on TETRIS 99! (@naviandmii kindly shared a tweet of yours over on the Discord, mad skills).