Uploaded November 2017 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time, achieving the highest known score in Samidare Extra, one of my favourite shmup stages of all time. Plus Samidare is one of my two favourite games and I guess I can say I love the game more than I used to even. I'm really happy about this run, it beats the old highest known score by a bit over 4 million (the old one was 290,153,720 by Japanese player DXS). I actually already beat him yesterday, getting 291.0m, but I wasn't really satisfied with the run, so I continued the grind, and this is the result! Note that the game has letter scores, just like the PC-98 Touhou games, so 290m shows as T in-game.
100m is A, 110m is B, 120m is C and so on.
The full stage portion involves execution of scoring strategies, while the two bossfights (Gates and VIVIT) are mostly speedkilling their patterns to get a high time bonus. Most importantly, the aim is to get x16 multipliers on as many enemies as possible (and on the bosses, those are worth many millions!). Using the shield to cancel bullets, you activate your hyper, and the more you cancel, the longer the hyper will last (this is the strong, wide orange shot). Killing enemies with a hyper will award you x16 multipliers on them. There are also items, which increase your power (maxes at 96) and give you points. They are autocollected if you kill enemies pointblank, which is especially important on area 3 (the Touhou part), where the PC-98 ghosts cancel all their bullets into items.
Speaking of area 3, the stage portion is divided into four distinct areas, each with their own music.
Area 1 might be the most difficult to score well as it causes many resets. Especially the dash at the end is precise and my scores vary quite a bit there, ranging from having 67m to 70m at the end of the area. I have to time finishing off the midboss (which is why I wait for a bit on the first pattern) to receive optimal score from the enemy spam after it. I have memorised the kill timing on the 2nd pattern for any time bonus on the 1st ranging from 30k to 40k, which is thus what I aim for on the 1st pattern.
Area 2 is really short and the easiest part of the stage (still tricky though, and I messed up the first section a bit here). You suicide at the flamethrower section on area 2 to enter area 3 with high shield energy (dying resets to 50% and your shield will recharge immediately; without a death it will take a second to recharge).
Area 3, which must be entered with high shield energy for a good score, is also quite tricky as you need to conserve that energy very well. A bit too much shielding can already screw up the entire route. I added a suicide to the route to allow for more shield energy on the final part, which can net me extra score provided I do the movements correctly. The ghosts also shouldn't be killed too late because they will fly offscreen which basically means a reset.
Area 4 has some milking in it, where you milk lasers that enemies fire to get a massive amount of x16 multipliers. There's also a special destructible block on the right which can be hyper spammed for x16, which blocks normally never award, as they're indestructible.
Gates and VIVIT is mostly speedkilling the patterns for time bonuses, but Gates has one special pattern, namely the one that references Alice in Mystic Square's Extra, which spawns missiles that can be x16'd. What you do is repeatedly pointblank shield his fast pink bullet spam and then use it to shoot down the missiles with the resulting hyper.
My area 1 was a high 68, which was on pace. Area 2 was a bit below pace as I lost some score on its first section. Area 3 also could've been better although it was certainly not bad; in fact I did it better than DXS did on his run. I was a bit ahead of him after area 1, a bit behind after area 2 and a bit ahead again after areas 3 and 4. Area 4 was fine. Where I really got ahead of DXS however was on Gates, as I scored much higher than him on the missile milk, as I got more x16s from the missiles. I still missed two of them though. I was very nervous on VIVIT and my hands were shivering during the whole fight; heart beat was fast as well. I almost died to the semifinal pattern because of it, but gladly that didn't happen. I also died to a pattern that's normally really easily pointblank cancelled, but I accidentally shielded for nothing before it /and/ my timing was off; my energy was too low for the early timing to be sufficient. I died to Gates's first pattern too. Oh well! There's no points for lives in the clear bonus anyway, it's just scary because I'm not allowed to game over. Really glad I still made it.
With optimal execution throughout the full run, I think 300m would be possible (U in-game).
More insight: en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Samidare/Gameplay
Most people aren't familiar with this game, so I'm expecting questions about what I'm doing on this score run. If you have any, please do ask in the comments! :)
This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time, achieving the highest known score in Samidare Extra, one of my favourite shmup stages of all time. Plus Samidare is one of my two favourite games and I guess I can say I love the game more than I used to even. I'm really happy about this run, it beats the old highest known score by a bit over 4 million (the old one was 290,153,720 by Japanese player DXS). I actually already beat him yesterday, getting 291.0m, but I wasn't really satisfied with the run, so I continued the grind, and this is the result! Note that the game has letter scores, just like the PC-98 Touhou games, so 290m shows as T in-game.
100m is A, 110m is B, 120m is C and so on.
The full stage portion involves execution of scoring strategies, while the two bossfights (Gates and VIVIT) are mostly speedkilling their patterns to get a high time bonus. Most importantly, the aim is to get x16 multipliers on as many enemies as possible (and on the bosses, those are worth many millions!). Using the shield to cancel bullets, you activate your hyper, and the more you cancel, the longer the hyper will last (this is the strong, wide orange shot). Killing enemies with a hyper will award you x16 multipliers on them. There are also items, which increase your power (maxes at 96) and give you points. They are autocollected if you kill enemies pointblank, which is especially important on area 3 (the Touhou part), where the PC-98 ghosts cancel all their bullets into items.
Speaking of area 3, the stage portion is divided into four distinct areas, each with their own music.
Area 1 might be the most difficult to score well as it causes many resets. Especially the dash at the end is precise and my scores vary quite a bit there, ranging from having 67m to 70m at the end of the area. I have to time finishing off the midboss (which is why I wait for a bit on the first pattern) to receive optimal score from the enemy spam after it. I have memorised the kill timing on the 2nd pattern for any time bonus on the 1st ranging from 30k to 40k, which is thus what I aim for on the 1st pattern.
Area 2 is really short and the easiest part of the stage (still tricky though, and I messed up the first section a bit here). You suicide at the flamethrower section on area 2 to enter area 3 with high shield energy (dying resets to 50% and your shield will recharge immediately; without a death it will take a second to recharge).
Area 3, which must be entered with high shield energy for a good score, is also quite tricky as you need to conserve that energy very well. A bit too much shielding can already screw up the entire route. I added a suicide to the route to allow for more shield energy on the final part, which can net me extra score provided I do the movements correctly. The ghosts also shouldn't be killed too late because they will fly offscreen which basically means a reset.
Area 4 has some milking in it, where you milk lasers that enemies fire to get a massive amount of x16 multipliers. There's also a special destructible block on the right which can be hyper spammed for x16, which blocks normally never award, as they're indestructible.
Gates and VIVIT is mostly speedkilling the patterns for time bonuses, but Gates has one special pattern, namely the one that references Alice in Mystic Square's Extra, which spawns missiles that can be x16'd. What you do is repeatedly pointblank shield his fast pink bullet spam and then use it to shoot down the missiles with the resulting hyper.
My area 1 was a high 68, which was on pace. Area 2 was a bit below pace as I lost some score on its first section. Area 3 also could've been better although it was certainly not bad; in fact I did it better than DXS did on his run. I was a bit ahead of him after area 1, a bit behind after area 2 and a bit ahead again after areas 3 and 4. Area 4 was fine. Where I really got ahead of DXS however was on Gates, as I scored much higher than him on the missile milk, as I got more x16s from the missiles. I still missed two of them though. I was very nervous on VIVIT and my hands were shivering during the whole fight; heart beat was fast as well. I almost died to the semifinal pattern because of it, but gladly that didn't happen. I also died to a pattern that's normally really easily pointblank cancelled, but I accidentally shielded for nothing before it /and/ my timing was off; my energy was too low for the early timing to be sufficient. I died to Gates's first pattern too. Oh well! There's no points for lives in the clear bonus anyway, it's just scary because I'm not allowed to game over. Really glad I still made it.
With optimal execution throughout the full run, I think 300m would be possible (U in-game).
More insight: en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Samidare/Gameplay
Most people aren't familiar with this game, so I'm expecting questions about what I'm doing on this score run. If you have any, please do ask in the comments! :)
