![Gun Frontier [Arcade] - 1CC Full Game Playthrough (Good Ending) @psymagearcade](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vl7eh-W7bIE/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 16 minutes ago
Gun Frontier was an arcade shmup created by Taito and originally released in 1990. This was the first of two shmups produced by Takatsuna Senba, the other being Metal Black in 1991. This is one game that has haunted me for many years. Whenever I first played Taito Legends 2, this was the game that beat me down the most. Even worse, I had no turbo fire back then. But after getting a lot of 1CCs under my belt and learning more about the game's rank system, I decided to come back to this one for the 1CC and I'm glad I did.
One of my biggest shmup achievements so far, if not the biggest. Extremely proud of how this run went. I only had two deaths on this run, one on the Stage 2 Boss and one in the canyon section of Stage 5.
I may create a discussion video talking about this game in the future. Not only is this a hard shmup, but it is ahead of its time in many ways.
Autofire was used, 30HZ (technically 29HZ due to a GP2040CE bug) and 10HZ in particular. Tapping of a non-turbo fire button was used extensively as well.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Stage 1
02:16 Stage 2
05:59 Stage 3
09:30 Stage 4
12:46 Stage 5
20:19 Final Stage
21:54 Ending
Gun Frontier was an arcade shmup created by Taito and originally released in 1990. This was the first of two shmups produced by Takatsuna Senba, the other being Metal Black in 1991. This is one game that has haunted me for many years. Whenever I first played Taito Legends 2, this was the game that beat me down the most. Even worse, I had no turbo fire back then. But after getting a lot of 1CCs under my belt and learning more about the game's rank system, I decided to come back to this one for the 1CC and I'm glad I did.
One of my biggest shmup achievements so far, if not the biggest. Extremely proud of how this run went. I only had two deaths on this run, one on the Stage 2 Boss and one in the canyon section of Stage 5.
I may create a discussion video talking about this game in the future. Not only is this a hard shmup, but it is ahead of its time in many ways.
Autofire was used, 30HZ (technically 29HZ due to a GP2040CE bug) and 10HZ in particular. Tapping of a non-turbo fire button was used extensively as well.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Stage 1
02:16 Stage 2
05:59 Stage 3
09:30 Stage 4
12:46 Stage 5
20:19 Final Stage
21:54 Ending
![Gun Frontier [Arcade] - 1CC Full Game Playthrough (Good Ending)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vl7eh-W7bIE/mqdefault.jpg "Gun Frontier [Arcade] - 1CC Full Game Playthrough (Good Ending)
Gun Frontier was an arcade shmup created by Taito and originally released in 1990. This was the first of two shmups produced by Takatsuna Senba, the other being Metal Black in 1991. This is one game that has haunted me for many years. Whenever I first played Taito Legends 2, this was the game that beat me down the most. Even worse, I had no turbo fire back then. But after getting a lot of 1CCs under my belt and learning more about the games rank system, I decided to come back to this one for the 1CC and Im glad I did.
One of my biggest shmup achievements so far, if not the biggest. Extremely proud of how this run went. I only had two deaths on this run, one on the Stage 2 Boss and one in the canyon section of Stage 5.
I may create a discussion video talking about this game in the future. Not only is this a hard shmup, but it is ahead of its time in many ways.
Autofire was used, 30HZ (technically 29HZ due to a GP2040CE bug) and 10HZ in particular. Tapping of a non-turbo fire button was used extensively as well.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Stage 1
02:16 Stage 2
05:59 Stage 3
09:30 Stage 4
12:46 Stage 5
20:19 Final Stage
21:54 Ending")
![Vulgus [PSP/Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 186,600 pts (Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WZ9swkEfSnI/mqdefault.jpg "Vulgus [PSP/Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 186,600 pts (Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded)
0:07. Stage 1-1
2:33. Stage 1-2
5:59. Stage 1-3
9:15. Stage 2-1 (2nd Loop)
Vulgus came out in 1984 and was the debut video game for one of the biggest developers in video game history: Capcom. Before that, they had only made a single medal game for Japanese arcades called Little League. This game predated 1942 by about several months, with the latter being more well-known today because it did better in arcades, got home ports, and spawned several sequels.
If someone were to see a single screenshot of this game in action, it would be easy to assume that this is a Xevious clone. The ship looks kind of similar to Solvalou and parts of the second area look similar on initial glance. The levels even blur together like that game in terms of its transitions. However, this game does not use a second plane of play and lacks the ground bomb as a result. In its place is a secondary missile shot which can pierce through enemies but is in limited supply. You can gain more of them by grabbing the POW pickups. Gameplay-wise, it feels like a cross between a fixed shooter like Galaga in terms of enemy movement and scoring and a more traditional vertical shmup from around this time like Star Force or Xevious. Its not hard by arcade standards and may even be a decent introduction to classic shmups due to its fair difficulty and briefness.
The biggest way to score is killing as many enemies as you can in a row with the missile shot that I mentioned earlier. You get bonus points for each extra enemy in a row that you kill with it. Also, some enemy formations give you a nice bonus for killing them all even without the missile. Bigger enemies are also worth more points than the smaller ones. Its simple but works.
I did this run using the Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded compilation on PSP, played on PPSSPP. This version does included remixed sound, which I enabled in the settings. The alternate soundtrack is a remix of the original song but is pretty solid and preferable to me over the original. Autofire was enabled via in-game settings.")
![Gunvein [PC/Switch] - Intense 1CC 4,950,647 pts. (Type C)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xgv-hl4P-KY/mqdefault.jpg "Gunvein [PC/Switch] - Intense 1CC 4,950,647 pts. (Type C)
Gunvein is a bullet hell shmup published by NGDev and developed by Boghog, a member of the shmup community. It came out back in November of last year on Steam and recently, the game got ported over to the Nintendo Switch. This is NGDevs first time publishing an original game that was developed originally for PC, as they have been known in the past for creating games for older consoles in limited quantities.
Honestly, this has to be among the very best western shmups ever made. There was a time when Japan had an obvious stranglehold on the arcade shmup market, but that is no longer the case. This game holds its own with the heavy hitters like CAVE and Psikyo just fine. Gameplay wise, its like the love child of SDOJ, Crimzon Clover, and a Raizing shmup like Battle Garegga. This is one of the few shmups that encourages aggressive usage of bombs, as its a significant part of the scoring and not just meant for defensive purposes. The lock on shots for the Type A and Type B ships are reminiscent of Crimzon Clover, but Type C has a chargeable mini bomb in its place that makes it a very interesting ship, which Ill discuss soon enough.
You also have a hyper system that involves holding the Bomb button for a few seconds, giving you some brief invincibility frames at the beginning of it and increased damage for 4-5 seconds after activation. This is surprisingly useful for survival, but it costs you fragments that you gather throughout the stages to make your bombs. Speaking of fragments, you get those from filling up that Ready meter at the top right of the screen and using your lock-on shot at certain parts of the stages marked by a star.
As far as presentation goes, its excellent for an indie shmup. The graphics are top notch, though I did scale back the effects and darken the background slightly to maximize bullet visibility (not that it was bad in the first place though). Its also a bit more demanding hardware-wise on PC than your typical indie shmup on Steam because of the bells and whistles of the graphics. The soundtrack done by Exemia is a great fit for the game and the chaotic action that it presents.
This run was done on Intense difficulty, which is Gunveins equivalent of a Normal mode. As this difficulty, the game is quite challenging and comes close to matching the difficulty of a Cave game. The difficulty curve for the most part is pretty gradual outside of the Stage 3 Boss and Final Boss being big spikes, but the game is faster-paced than most shmups. I chose Type C because that ship does the best damage and is also the fastest, making it ideal for speed-killing enemies as soon as they get on screen. Type Cs bomb is not the best for doing damage, but it does have some extra i-frames after it is done firing off. Also, you need to be at a distance from enemies in order for it to hit them with that bomb.
While this run considering only of the main campaign, this game even has a Roguelike mode, which adds level ups granting you power-ups and messes with the layouts of stages considerably. I have not spent any time with this mode, but I may do so at some point. This may be a selling point for anyone looking for a roguelike shmup.
If you love shmups and havent played this game yet, I highly recommend it.
Also, shout outs to @morsalty and @clippa because their runs were very helpful to me early on for learning how the game worked when it first came out.
00:21 Stage 1
03:33 Stage 2
06:58 Stage 3
10:53 Stage 4
14:43 Stage 5
18:02 Final Boss
#gunvein #shmup #shmups #ngdev #arcadegames #bullethell #danmaku #steam #switch #nintendoswitch #indie")
![Alpine Ski [Arcade] - First Time Getting To Loop 8! 187,904 pts.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YhC1hQHT6zQ/mqdefault.jpg "Alpine Ski [Arcade] - First Time Getting To Loop 8! 187,904 pts.
Ive played a lot of Alpine Ski, but I would always get stuck on Loop 7. But recently, I had a breakthrough run that was good enough to get me to Loop 8 and a new high score of 187,904 points!
Ill be posting a much bigger discussion video soon about this game, so be on the lookout for that.
This run was done on the MAME Current core in RetroArch.
00:00 Intro and Loop 1
02:05 Loop 2
04:02 Loop 3
06:09 Loop 4
08:09 Loop 5
10:07 Loop 6
12:16 Loop 7
14:14 Loop 8")
![Bram Stokers Dracula [Game Boy] - No Death Playthrough](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZwukDeNMZuc/mqdefault.jpg "Bram Stokers Dracula [Game Boy] - No Death Playthrough
Bram Stokers Dracula was a popular horror movie released in 1992, based on the 1897 novel Dracula, that got quite a few different video game adaptions soon after. The 8-bit console and handheld versions are pretty much the same game with some obvious differences in terms of graphics, while the 16 bit games were all different. As far as I know, all of them were published by Sony Imagesoft and Psygnosis.
I have the Game Boy version from 1993, and Ill be talking more about this game in depth in a future because there are a ton of problems with this game. This game, like the NES, Game Gear, and Master System versions, was developed by Probe Entertainment. I did beat this game a few times with no continues on Hard Mode, including this No Death run. Somehow, even though this wasnt intended to be a speedrun, it was only about two or three minutes off from the World Record for non-glitch playthroughs on this difficulty.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Daytime 1
00:41 Nighttime 1
01:48 Daytime 2
03:09 Nighttime 2
05:58 Daytime 3
08:04 Nighttime 3
12:00 Daytime 4
13:14 Nighttime 4
17:40 Daytime 5
19:14 Nighttime 5
24:00 Daytime 6
26:09 Nighttime 6
29:30 Daytime 7
31:15 Nighttime 7
33:56 Ending + Credits")
![Tiger-Heli [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 386,550 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_ZWgdjiUjvs/mqdefault.jpg "Tiger-Heli [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 386,550 pts
Tiger-Heli was Toaplans first shmup, released back in 1985. After beating Exed Exes, this clear came about pretty quickly. I struggled with this one quite a bit when I first played it but now, the patterns are a lot easier to read and it only took a little bit of extra practice, mostly on Stage 4, to get good enough to clear the first loop. I am considering doing a bigger video on this game after the DUSK video, discussing the impact of this game because this is an influential shmup.
Played on FBNeo in RetroArch with default settings and recorded in OBS Studio at 57.274 FPS to match the games original frame rate. If you are not on a VRR monitor, you will see some stuttering.
00:00 Intro
00:21 Stage 1
03:44 Stage 2
07:10 Stage 3
11:01 Stage 4
15:31 Loop 2")
![F-Zero X [N64] - X Cup Master Difficulty 1st Place Overall (Simple64)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aMdwwCQR0z8/mqdefault.jpg "F-Zero X [N64] - X Cup Master Difficulty 1st Place Overall (Simple64)
00:25. Stage 1
02:11. Stage 2
03:36. Stage 3
05:24. Stage 4
07:09. Stage 5
09:09. Stage 6
10:54. Ending
F-Zero X will always be one of my favorite N64 games. Its definitely my favorite racing game on the system and proof that Nintendo could easily make a skill-based arcade racer. I spent a lot of time with this game growing up and decided to revisit it with this playthrough.
The X Cup is interesting because it consists of randomized courses. While there are certain course layouts that reappear frequently albeit with some tweaks usually, the order is always randomized and you dont know which course youll get until youre about to take off. This makes it hard to come up with the right settings and outside of doing some save states, its hard to practice. The AI drivers, probably due to the random nature of this cup, are not as strong as they are in the other cups on Master and are closer to Expert difficulty in terms of performance. At least they mostly stay on the course.
This run had some good performances as I won Stage 1, 4, and 6 outright, but I fell short by finishing second on Stages 2 and 5 while my lowest performance was 6th on Stage 3. However, I did manager to kill my rival on Stage 3 so that benefited me greatly. I was a little bit rusty here as this was one of my first times playing this in years, but I think I did well considering that. I still need to do more practice and figure out the right speed settings for the tracks before I can beat the other cups on Master.
I do have plans to play more N64 racers in the future. In fact, Im considering doing a Wave Race 64 championship run on Expert.
Played on the Simple64 emulator with x4 upscaling.
#fzerox #fzero #n64 #retrogaming #nintendo64 #nintendo #emulation #racinggames")
