Topic: Arcade SHMUP High Score Thread

Ok guys count me in the circle of "I fuc**ed up and hit Start" on my best run. Had 150k+ with more than 30 seconds to spare, phone rang and without thinking I went to pause the game... what an idiot

@meppi Nice I forgot there was a tournament there, I'll see what I can do with the GB table
It'd be cool to do an highscore shmups/ACA challenge thread on R.E. too

Uff...
Managed to up my personal best to 144880. Quite satisfied so far, yet I see there's still room for improvement - skipped land bots after the twin reactors at the very start of the 1st level, because tbh I still haven't figured out what would be the best sequence there.
Anyway let's call it a day, gonna add some of your friends code, then maybe a quick match with NeuroVoider and I'm done.
Good night

Well, I managed to push myself up to 3rd overall, and there's still a tiny bit of room for improvement! I think I know what I need to do...

@OorWullie I'd be down with either method. Though, I lean more towards separating the planes.

@Lroy Just a little more and you can get into the 14X,XXX bracket! Use the Force! Like, literally use it, because it's indestructible and it helps out with the 1-hit "popcorn" enemies.

@meppi64 That's an insane score to me! I'm still down in 1B territory and I'm playing my heart out! It's a good table, I feel, but I just wish there was a little more warning when the flippers switch (Mass Hysteria mode, I think). I'm never prepared for it when it happens and I drain almost immediately, lol!

@RetroGamerAndrew When we're dealing with a finite amount of points that Caravan mode constrains us to, at some point those bots are gonna have to die

@masterLEON Incredible score! Well done.

What is this Force shot you refer to? I thought the little option/drone thing attached to the front of your ship was fixed? How do I pull this move off on Switch. Is it two buttons pressed together?

All I can seem to do is hit the button to fire as fast possible or hold it down to do a charge shot. None of the other buttons seem to do anything. I'm probably missing a really obvious invaluable tactic, lol!

@masterLEON Ah, great score!
Guess I know what I'll be doing today.

And yeah, I got the same issue with Mass Hysteria. lol
It doesn't really matter much that you lose your ball since the multi ball starts anyway, so I think they factored that into the game. And it really does work as it give you a little jolt every time.

Now I know how to counter this, and all that's needed is to keep a closer eye on the playfield.
You start Mass Hysteria when you capture 100 ghost, so up till then you see the 4 white lights in the bottom centre burning (20, 40, 60 and 80 ghosts). When you hit the 100th one, these go out and the same moment the 100 ghosts light starts blinking . It's a little subtle, but it's there, and the actual callout is delayed, most likely to give you that panic effect.
Just something that needs to become muscle memory over time I guess.
Keep en eye out on you ghost count and when you get close to 100, pay special attention to the 100 ghost light.

@Lroy I think he meant he Voyager that can attach to the front of your ship like the Option in R-Type.
Regular bullets get cancelled by it and small enemies can be destroyed when it comes into contact with them. So you're a bit less volatile from the front.

Also when picking up in I (IO) item, you can lock it in place with B. Otherwise it fires at the opposite direction of the way you last moved your ship.
Don't forget you also have a bomb, although it'll blow your Voyager up, so realise that you'll be extra vulnerable afterwards. Use it in extreme situations by pressing A+B.

@meppi64 Thanks for the clarification. I had no idea there was a bomb weapon, lol! I'll try and squeeze in another couple of runs before the deadline this week and remember to use the Voyager bumper to destroy enemies more and drop the bomb if needed. 👍

As much as I appreciate the invitation and give my best wishes to this wonderful endeavour, I’m afraid I will have to decline the invitation to partake (at least in the specific game challenges).

Having just started a new job and moved to a new area, gaming time is limited plus most of my stuff is packed away in storage. I have my Switch with me but mainly playing through my backlog. I’m also not a competitive gamer so never have any drive.

However I will report I beat my previous high score on Zero Gunner 2 during lunch break today. Couldn’t take a photo but can post the rankings later tonight. Any more personal bests will also be posted in time.

Wishing You All fun challenges and Shm’up Love!

@OorWullie @masterLEON
I couldn't leave it like that so here's my new score.

I honestly think I'm at my score ceiling there though.
Perhaps with a perfect run, I could add maybe 2 or 3000 extra points on top, but I'm not even sure I'd get that far really.

@meppi64 Sterling work there.

@Lroy I had to stop trying to better the score as my wrist was starting to kill me.

Time to face the facts. I'm a broken old man... ;P

@meppi64 An old man, showing us other old men how to do it on PULSTAR, lol!

Must say, I've really enjoyed having little runs throughs of this game due to this little challenge. I'm unlikely to ever crack a top score on these weekly challenges but I'm having a blast playing along. It really offers an incentive to get a more in-depth appreciation of these arcade games. I can't believe PULSTAR only scored a seven on this site and that it isn't regarded higher in general. It is a brilliant maze-puzzle shooter with a truly fantastic soundtrack.

@Lroy haha, exactly!

Yeah, I have to admit that I've started looking a bit differently at Pulstar as well.
Loved the game before although horizontal shooters have never been my favourite overall.
Obviously never played this way on the Neo Geo, so it's helping in bringing out all kinds of little touches, both the graphical detail as level design and overall cleverness of it.
(And yeah, that soundtrack does start to become a thing that keeps playing in the back of your head for the rest of the day and into the night. I've said it before and I'll repeat myself, that level 2 track is heavenly!)
A bit like how you can play Mario Kart as long as you want normally, but once you get deep into Time Trials, the game starts to really open up and show you a different side of it which might not have been very clear if you stuck to the regular modes.

It might also be a problem of having way too many choices nowadays. Instead of getting really deep into a game like back in the day when you only got one game every couple of months or so, today it's easy to just throw another €7 at an arcade game and put the others aside.

That's probably one of the things I miss the most about the arcade days. Being able to see others do certain things and then try and better them.
Simple online leaderboards just aren't the same since it's just numbers without any context or character behind it.

Really hoping this kinda thing catches on here and we're able to keep doing this with more and more people.

@meppi64 Yeah, that kind of learning by watching and then sharing in terms of how knowledge, discoveries and expertise was shared between people actually standing around the arcade cabinet - in a nutshell, how many of us actually got good or near mastering a game through conversation and shared practice - is something I really, really miss.

YouTube playthroughs with personable and detailed commentary go some way to replicate this but I can probably count on one hand the instances when I've actually found a video of this quality on YouTube.

@meppi64

Great score!!! Well done, I'm at 136,000 or so, still not being able to break 140,000. I got to say, this is a great game though...enjoying it quite a bit.

@meppi64

Well said on not being able to see others play...I wish this was one game where we could create videos for others to see, given the competitive aspect. I used to hang out at the arcades quite a bit as a kid and that was one benefit, seeing the high score guys or gals and how they got there. I also agree that with this challenge, I played this game much more than I normally would've. I enjoyed it though, reminded me quite a bit of Super R Type on the SNES.

I've been playing this in handheld more, mostly because my wife is hogging the TV playing Persona 5, and I too had to give it a rest due to cramps in the old hands!! But it actually makes me feel young again!

This was fun, hopefully we see the real NL leaderboard soon and plan for the next game challenge.

Not moving from here: just did 3 successful run tonight but I always end up in 145.XXX...

@OorWullie, but also @meppi64, @Lroy, @masterLEON, @DashKappei and anyone involved in this contest:

For clarity sake I think we should try to find a way to better manage each round of this competition (and keep this thread from going wild in the meantime ).
I was thinking we can keep a separate forum thread for each round (i.e. game): the first post will show the current standings and will get updated each time a user posts a new screenshot with his/her best score.
I volunteer to keep those threads updated, I know we're almost done with it but we could even start right now with PULSTAR.

What do you guys think about it?

@RetroGamerAndrew I'm cool 😎 with how ever things get organised. Thanks for volunteering. Imagine the forum admins might dictate whether we stick to one single forum thread or several? Worth a thought.

Anyways, be great to see an actual NL community Top 5 or Top 10 for PULSTAR so far. I've lost track of how many of us are actually actively taking part in this week's challenge, lol!

I hope as many people as possible submit a score even if they only do a single run or don't feel they have scored near the top. It's not about ultra competition or anything off putting like that. It's about playing along together as a community and getting more fun from these games. It has been a blast too 👍

Just updating, I'm that 160,940. But now I've hit the weekdays so most of my time is dedicated to sleeping for my night shifts, and actually working the night shifts. I don't really bring my Switch out because my work is physical and I don't really get much downtime to get a good game going (breaks are basically eat then right back to work because we're under a tight schedule). I'll try to wake up earlier so I can take a couple more stabs at it, and I really want to try out a couple more ideas, so we'll see how it goes.

@Agent721 @Lroy No doubt I can post my highest score run once I've run out of time (more because the run's not perfect, and I haven't exhausted every idea yet, but I'm almost done). I'd like to hear of other people benefiting from the work put in here. But you guys are right, that's the part about arcade culture that I miss from the old days. Playing a game, seeing someone's initials up on almost all the games and wondering how they did that. Then one day you actually come across them, and you finally see what they're game is about. Then you take that knowledge and eventually squeeze into a spot on the hi-score board. It may be up there like a week before it gets bumped off, but now you know you got what it takes to make it up there again! Ah, nostalgia!

@meppi64 Congrats! I'm right behind you, though. I know where my missing points are Thanks for the tip on GB! I'll pay more attention to the ghost counter next time. I'm usually conscious of it up to a point, then I seem to just blank out until Mass Hysteria starts up, lol.

@RetroGamerAndrew Sounds good. I hope we're allowed to do that, though. Keeping this to one thread would be too much!

What if we 'check-in' at the beginning of each challenge week? (along with our NNID's, so we can see the rankings in-game) And everyone with the intent to post a score does a first post. Then copy/paste the members so it's easy to make a new post towards the end with everyone involved tagged?