In Rank We Trust

Getting back into some Raizing goodness takes a bit of getting used to, as noted in my Ibara post last month. Confronting rank is like running into a brick wall at 100 miles an hour. You think you can bash straight through it, only to have your ass handed back to you just as quick. This is what makes Raizing games so much fun to play, as you really need to plan your objectives, be that 1CC with low rank, or scoring with high rank, or in some cases - a very fine line in between. Yagawa is a master at making this all too apparent with his games.

So this weekend I focused some time on Battle Bakraid, the arcade only successor to Battle Garegga, with some interesting differences in rank based scoring. I won't detail the differences in this post, but point out that in Bakraid you can actually ignore rank if you are not gunning for high scores, and focus solely on the 1CC in Normal mode. Combining this with an auto-bombing Training mode, makes the game accessible to beginners.

So where is the rank? Well if you want to play for score, you better get ready for some very unorthodox style of play. Imagine a game were bombing and committing suicide with your ship every 10-15 seconds is required to score high! Quite the opposite of Cave (and any other) style shmup, yet Yagawa's genius shines through. Even in Battle Garegga, where players were first exposed to suicide techniques to lower/tame rank, Bakraid takes this to the extreme with a 64x multiplier leading to amazing scores, amazing amounts of extends (extra ships), and an amazing amount of rank. Some people might think this "breaks" the game, and that such an unorthadox style of play must not have been intentional. The same thing was said years later of Yagawa's Pink Sweets. All I can say is that Yagawa's games truely innovate outside the norm of repetitive Cave style shooters, causing the player to plan/think rather then simply react with twitch reflexes.

And with that, I give you my latest Normal and Advanced course scores. Basically I temped fate by scoring large in the first two stages, and then play it safe from there on out. I've been able to 1CC Normal mode before but with only a 5M to 6M score. With this in-between strategy, I've been able to double my score, and still complete the 1CC. I tried the same technique in Advanced mode, only to learn that once you get 4 ships in stock, the rank gets so pissed, that there is now way in hell you will get past stage 6. I literally had a chain of missiles heading for me that I could not shoot down fast enough, even with forward facing options pointed straight at them.

My scores below are ranked #3 on my PCB, since I didn't bother resetting Rastan78's scores the last time he was over (a real master at this game). The last screenshot is the special Boss only mode, where I made it to the second form of Gollum.

DJK - 12,390,280 - Saber Tiger [C] - ALL - Normal (SE)
DJK - 12,416,350 - Saber Tiger [C] - Stage 6 - Advanced (SE)
DJK - 10,832,250 - Flame Viper [C] - Gollum - Boss

Ibara is hard as nails

Finally the holidays are upon us, and this long Thanksgiving Day weekend means I get to spend quality time playing through some of my collection which hasn't been booted up in awhile.

The first board I dug out was Ibara, and let me tell you this game is not friendly to occasional play or beginners of any sort. Ibara's crazy rank, small hard to see bullets, mixed with massive amounts of debris should be expected of Yagawa/Raizing, but being his first produced game working for Cave, you'd think IKD would have taught him something about accessibility route of play style for the less than godly. It seems that conversation between IKD and Yagawa didn't happen for Pink Sweets either, being the pinnacle of rank manipulation. Although I haven't playing Muchi Muchi Pork, I hear that game is much easier to get into with one or two of the characters.

Anyway, back to Ibara. Without a rank or scoring strategy, its just not fun playing when you get owned by the bosses. Perhaps playing the PS2 port would be better as I could restart quicker, and practice particular sections until I get them down. It seems that to make any real headway in this game, I'd have to study the replays and put in a concerned effort to memorize their strategies. Oh well back on the shelf you go, for another rainy day/weekend.

Vimana highscore

:P

DJK - 582,868 - 66%

Shienryu highscore

DJK - 4,568,990 - 5-7

Box of panels

Bee Storm: DoDonPachi II highscore

Bee Storm: DoDonPachi II gets little respect due to it not being made by Cave, but rather licensed for use by IGS to attempt their own arrange version to the seminal DoDonPachi. Trying to compare the two, as any sane game reviewer might, would make Bee Storm look like a complete piece of crap. You've got the same graphics, sounds and stage layouts, which make it appear like DoDonPachi, but thats where the similarity stops. Kaneda/NTSC-J had written an excellent review long ago on the clickstick forum, which unfortunately was lost when the site was deleted. Since the IGS hardware Bee Storm runs on is still not fully emulated, due to security encryption which has still not been cracked, it may be awhile before another review comes out.

I think this game is extremely fun, and pretty damn hard even on the "combat" (normal) setting. If I can 1CC combat mode, I may try writing a review. Until then, I've only made it to the 4th boss, which has the coolest intro music ever.


DJK - 367,326,600 - Stage 4 - Combat - Energy

Planet Harriers highscore

Played one credit today and had only a slight improvement. I really need a strategy if I'm going to get past stage 3. There are some guided missle attacks which are just unavoidable if you can't takeout a majority of the enemy before they fire.

DJK - 464,177 - Stage 3 (Lavaa) - X

Rayforce highscore

I can't believe Rayforce was released in 1993. I mean, this game is in a league of its own in terms of advanced visuals and tremendous soundtrack, and thats not even mentioning the ground breaking mechanics of shooter and layer lock-on system. To bad I really stink at it. Best I've been able to do is finally reach area 4.


DJK - 1,274,400 - Area 4

Double Wings highscore

Double Wings is a Raiden clone, but with ships that move at modern shmup speeds. This makes the game a lot easier, and (in my opinon) more fun. As such, it only took a couple days to clear the first loop (with the aid of an autofire board). The second loop contains a strange combination of the same levels plus some new sections if you do not die. The moment you die, the rest of the level returns to the same as the first loop.

Here is my best score, the star indications second loop, stage 3 section 2 (there are 4 sections to each stage).



DJK - 1,857,100 3-2 (2nd loop)

Mushihimesama ALL (original mode)

Done (for now). No bombs left, and two lives in stock to get this score.


DJK - 30,229,811 - ALL - S-Power - Bx0 Lx2

Mushihimesama ALL (original mode)

I'm not a big fan of Mushihimesama, but started playing this again after a long run on original Raiden. For some reason training on Raiden really quickened my reaction times.
So this is not a big deal to most, but I 1CC'd Original mode recently with W-Power. If I can adjust to S-Power's speed, I'm sure I could end with at least 1 life in stock adding another 10M.


DJK - 10,553,274 - ALL - W-Power Bx? Lx0

Things slowly returning back to normal

Well its finally over! Months of planning still didn't prepare us for all the work that goes into a wedding. Anyway, my only advice to anyone who may be about to go through this, is to pay for a wedding coordinator to take care of as many of the details as possible (and not just "day-of" coordination), it will be worth every penny!

Lack of updates

The good news is I'm getting married this summer. The bad news is any available free time is going towards the planning of this "once in a lifetime event"...so don't expect any blog/gaming updates until the fall.

Side blog

With all the copious amount of free time I have (yeah right!), I started a small side blog to document my thoughts on "Dual Play" also known as "Double Play". This alternate way of playing certain shmup games has rekindled my interest in older (early 90s) shooters, and has given me a new appreciation for some games I got burnt out on (i.e. Viper Phase 1). I find it quite challenging and exciting to be able to pull off some cool looking runs with symmetrical patterns. Of course I'll never be as good as VTF-INO and his awesome Ikaruga double play, but I never try to emulate superplays either.