Raiden DX Expert PB (2-3) - 4,186,000 ubervirtuoso 2026-09-23 | Raiden DX Expert PB (2-3) - 4,186,000
1941 JP ALL -11,175,400 ubervirtuoso 2025-07-07 | Played on ARCADE 0.266; used 30hz for button 1 Played this for Shoot The Core's Pacific Theater Summer 3-month long event which covers 1943/1941 & 1944. Got the initial clear pretty quickly, so I did a couple of runs to get a slightly better PB.Enjoy the run!
Plus Alpha 3-ALL - 4,236,300 ubervirtuoso 2025-07-01 | Played on ARCADE 0.266; 30hz & 9hz used on button 1Who knew that Jaleco could make a half decent game with good recovery?!Enjoy the run!
Dangun Feveron ALL1 - 5.5 million ubervirtuoso 2025-05-25 | Played on ARCADE 0.266; 30hz autofire for button 1.If you like Cave but want fast bullets, this is where its at. Everything is centered around killing stuff ASAP for more enemy waves & picking up discomen for points. This is my 2nd clear & I've spent a bit of time making routes to keep the discomen chain alive per stage. This makes stage 5 a lot harder for consistency & on this run I used up too many resources before the 5th boss, so I had to use the timeout strategy. Enjoy the run!
Macross II Medium Course ALL - 3,303,190 ubervirtuoso 2025-05-04 | Played on ARCADE 0.266, used 30hz for button 1. Felt like replaying this after not playing for a few years. Biggest learning curve is the 3rd stage with its 700k point requirement which pissed off a lot of people in STGT tourneys back in the day.Enjoy the run!
Psychic 5 ALL - 6,253,400 ubervirtuoso 2025-04-29 | Played in ARCADE 0.266. Played for Calice 10Probably my fav game of the tourney; you've got 5 esper characters that can be swapped at phone booths, pick up food, beat up inanimate objects & crush satan(s) into dust. However, there's also a lot of scoring tricks with setting up secret & magical bonuses, collecting food sets in the right order while keeping track of hammer swings & using items as needed. It's a lot to juggle, but I was finally able to get this run with all secret/magical bonuses with a few close calls throughout & especially on the last satan.Enjoy the run!
Slap Fight 3-ALL - 1,457,440 ubervirtuoso 2025-04-29 | Played on ARCADE 0.266;30hz on button 1; submitted for Calice 10.Mostly re-learned this for Calice & got it fairly quickly. Most of the issues on subsequent loops are increased bullet speed ( which maxes out at loop 8) & checkpoint recovery. Some of the checkpoints on later loops only feel doable with the button combo trick on death that gives you a speed-up upon respawn.Enjoy the run!
Super SpaceFortress Macross 2-ALL - 7,431,800 ubervirtuoso 2025-04-03 | Played on ARCADE 0.266, used 30hz/15 hz auto for button 1. Played on 2P for increased speed.This run is a bit sloppier than my initial 2-all, but I got both stage 5 midboss kills this time. Had a stupid death from a rock on stage 6, but decided to play it out! Enjoy the run!
Super SpaceFortress Macross 2-ALL - 7,014,700 ubervirtuoso 2025-04-02 | Played on ARCADE 0.266; used 30hz/15hz auto for button 1. Played on 2P side for faster movement speed.Lost 500k from the 2-5 midboss despawning on the bottom of the screen. Enjoy the run!
Operation Ragnarok ALL -6,079,100 ubervirtuoso 2025-02-04 | Played on ARCADE 0.266. Used 30hz on button 1, & 2 frame buttons on down & left directional inputs.[ temp description until I can add captions]Like other high scoring runs of this game, you want to suicide on stage 1 at least once to get multiple rear/shot upgrades for tick point milking the ground/walls. You ideally want to grab at least 2R/2M/ 1 P item upgrades for stage 1 for the stage/boss, along with the stage 2 midboss. On stage 3, I max out R/M shots & the P shot on stage 4.You ideally want to milk every midboss/boss as the tick point gains add up a lot. On this run, I messed up the stage 4 boss milk & was slightly underpowered for the final boss milk but still had enough time to barely reach my 6 million goal. Enjoy the run!
Operation Ragnarok ALL (Vertical/A-S/Twin) -3,228,000 ubervirtuoso 2025-01-09 | Played on ARCADE 0.266. Used 30hz auto on button 1.Quick clear of NMK's only Neo Geo shmup. Had a couple of bad deaths earlier on ( including the 6th boss), but was able to get a better PB vs my initial clear.Enjoy the run!
Gemini Wing ALL -1,295,340 ubervirtuoso 2024-11-09 | ARCADE 0.266, used 12hz/20hz auto on button 2. Played for Calice 9.Tecmo's 1987 entry into vert shmups is a bit unique with the gumball system where you collect additional balls that enhance your shot in different ways, speed upgrades, points & extends from insect carriers. You are encouraged to speedkill enemy waves when possible, even if some aspects of the game's design work heavily against it & the final boss is pretty awful.Got a better score than my initial clear in calice, but survival was pretty bad imo. Probably could've gotten more gumballs but that last boss destroyed quite a few higher scoring runs before getting this.Enjoy the run!
Aurail ALL - 8,179,440 ubervirtuoso 2024-11-09 | Played on ARCADE 0.266; used 30hz auto. Played for Calice 9.Updated my arcane bumping strats for the 3d stages & squeezed out some more points on the 3d stages. Used the more optimal round 15 path: hard- hard to get 2 more extends & bump the no-miss clear bonus to 7 million. More points can be had if you bump into enemies on the 3d stages, but this is pretty risky as survival is already hard enough.Enjoy the run!
J.J.Squawkers 2-ALL - 2,038,100 ubervirtuoso 2024-11-09 | Played on ARCADE 0.266 for Calice 9; used 10hz for stages, 20hz for bosses.No-miss loop 1; died on 2-3 & recovered. For a GnG lite, its a pretty easy game outside of a couple spots in loop 2. Enjoy the run!
Viewpoint ALL - 1,643,570 ubervirtuoso 2024-10-28 | Played on ARCADE 0.266; 30hz auto on button 1/ 10 hz on 2 buttons for lv 1 charge shot auto Played for Calice Cup 9.This is my first clear; stole some strats from some other replays including the 4th boss. Was pretty nice to no-miss to the last boss at least; apparently you can get more points from additional double ko's. Overall it ended up being a more enjoyable clear than I was lead to believe.Enjoy the run!
Mahou Daisakusen 1-ALL (2-2) -1.6 mil ubervirtuoso 2024-10-06 | Played on ARCADE 0.239 with 20hz autofire on button 1/2.The most beautiful compile jank ever created; just wanted a quick clear to get revenge on LCC2.Enjoy the run!
JSS Hard (Special Ship, G-XACALIA) ALL ubervirtuoso 2024-08-26 | Played on Steam @ 75hz, used AHK for autofire.Did a run with the Special ship, since I just started Hard mode a couple days ago proper. Highlights are the x100 kill on Mitsuragi, and generally decent survival until the judgement silversword phase ( which has different patterns vs the original ship & is a bit harder). Enjoy the run!
Judgement Silversword Special Mode ALL ubervirtuoso 2024-08-13 | Played on PC/ Steam version @ 75 hz . Used AHK script for autofire.This mode is basically a boss rush mode, but with some additional bosses you dont get to see in the main game ( transcendence & E3) and some bosses have a mixture of normal/attack patterns. Really the hardest part of this mode is bringing enough lives for E3 because its a long fight and a lot of the attacks he throws at you are random.I didn't use AHK on the first two bosses after starting the game, which is why I lose a bit of score on the first two bosses & had to renable the script before the 1st mirror shield.Enjoy the run!
Judgement Silversword Normal ALL ubervirtuoso 2024-08-02 | Played on the PC/Steam Resurrection Edition @; 75hz used AHK 2.0 for double shot functionality.Basically the best shmup on the Wonderswan Color- you utilize a straight forward shot/wide shot alongside a shield that can reduce or cancel bullets. The shield here reduces in size w/ constant use faster than eschatos so you can't abuse it too much. Normal mode is pretty easy, but gets a lot harder in the last few areas mostly with areas 26-31. Having autofire, a lot of spare lives & a game plan to deal with the boss patterns is essential to clearing, especially with divine flow & mitsuragi rebirth.In this run, I played cleanly enough to bring a bunch of lives into the last area, and had enough resources to even get the multipler speedkill on the last phase. Enjoy the run!
Anaconda 1-All ubervirtuoso 2024-07-28 | Played on OpenMSX 19.1, used R800 cpu setting.M-Kai demo from 1998 from a magazine disk release. Pretty simple game, you mainly just want to get max shot (P) as soon as possible & use bombs to cancel all bullets on screen. Apparently the dev made this in a couple weeks, which is pretty impressive, even if it is quite janky.2nd loop is mostly the same patterns but enemies release suicide bullets when destroyed.Enjoy the run!
Eschatos Original Hard ALL (20.3 million) ubervirtuoso 2024-07-21 | Played on Steam/PC version v.1.1.2 on default settings.Cool game from M-Kai released back in 2011. Plays similarly to JSS with a front shot, wide shot w/ limited range, and a shield. Original mode is all about killing enemy waves, picking up hidden wonderwitches & F-bombs to speedkill waves & cancel patterns. Some people would say its simple, but it works pretty well.Hard mode is much tougher than normal, especially on the area 20 & 26 bosses so its definitely worth practicing those sections if you're getting stuck late game via the stage selection option.This run was mostly ok outside of losing multipler on area 17 & a few dumb deaths/ and close calls on the last two stages.Enjoy the run!
Darius Extra Version 1LC - 8.6 mil ubervirtuoso 2024-06-28 | Played on ARCADE 0.266, 5hz/10hz/30hz Route: ABDGKPZExtra version changes up a lot of things in the game from Old/New versions including increased HP on enemy ground turrets, different powerup distribution, some gold orbs are changed to grey score orbs, and lower rank increases from weapon upgrades. The final zone bosses also get shot pattern/HP upgrades.Picked top route after clearing V. Most of the run went ok outside of a few spots in G & K. Enjoy the run!
DoDonPachi DaiOuJou- 1-ALL (A-Ex) - 74 million ubervirtuoso 2024-06-05 | played on arcade 0.258A basic DOJ clear ( my 3rd, but not a PB). My future goals are to work on better survival & making it further into the loop!Enjoy the run!
Metal Black ALL - 623,720 ubervirtuoso 2024-05-12 | Played on ARCADE 0.258, 30hz for button 1. Played for Calice Cup 8 & incorporated some additional orb milking on Omega Zone for more points ( alongside milking some of the other bosses). Took out a couple of pauses due to my net crashing when screensharing this run on Discord.Enjoy the run!
Cho Ren Sha 68K ALL (Windows 2017 ver.) -20,300,518 ubervirtuoso 2024-05-12 | Played w/ the 2017 Windows version/ DXWnd & used AHK for main shot autofire.Played this for a mini-tourney, this run manages to achieve a no-miss until the last phase of the TLB & a good score increase through getting more item triples, & stages 2/5/7 boss milking.Enjoy the run!
Scramble Spirits 1-ALL (2-1)- 2,858,200 ubervirtuoso 2024-05-07 | Played on ARCADE 0.258, used seperate 10hz & 30hz on button 1, 10hz on button 2. This was Sega's answer to other military shooters of the time like 1943/Xevious-likes etc. The main gimmick is that you can pick up 2 additional options from white power up blimps, and then use button 2 to change formations ( 1st amplifies regular shot power, 2nd formation amplifies ground shot power) and button 3 can "throw" one of the options to the screen & explode to deal damage and cancel bullets upon denotation. Scoring is mostly 100% the bonus stages on stages 1, 3,5 & picking up additional options when you have 2. You get an ascending bonus of 10k that increases to a max of 80k. It is a bit risky since the options die in 1 hit & greatly reduces your firepower. On the other hand, you do get a small of iframes when changing the option formations.Honestly, most of the issues come with the really claustrophobic enemy formations, and the bullets can get lost in the background at times. But once you learn the basics, the game isn't too hard outside of the last stage, where you need to plan out a route to take care of the ground boats ( and probably manually tap so the shots actually come out lol) & the surprise turret section before the final boss. Game has a second loop but I didn't make it past the 2-1 bonus area since you need an option for the mid size plane.Enjoy the run!
Giga Wing ALL - 51.3 quadrillion ubervirtuoso 2024-05-07 | Played on ARCADE 0.258, used 30hz for button 1 for main shot rapid-fire.The OG reflect shmup where you go for big reflects, big bullet cancels, and quadrillons of puntos! Plus you get some bombs along the way. I picked Ruby since her shot seemed pretty powerful, especially on 2P side with the additional shot damage.Before Calice 8, Id only played this on cab a few times but it seemed way more approachable now. Learned a new route prior to this run, and outside of maybe too many bombs still on stage 4/5, felt good. Still lots of room for optimization imo.Enjoy the run!
Strikers 1945 1-ALL ( BF-109, 2-3) ubervirtuoso 2024-05-07 | Played on ARCADE 0.258, used 12hz on button 1 along with the default non-auto buttons.First game in the Strikers series, and as per early Psikyo, still relatively simple. You have a main shot ( 4 levels of power+ charge attack), and bombs. I end up picking the BF-190, since the charge attack is pretty powerful & easy to setup.This is also the first Psikyo game with the flashing medal system, where destroying certain buildings or ground armaments yields gold bars. These oscillate in value between 200-2000 (when flashing). For this run, my goal was to trigger the Gunbird train ( in the Germany stage, perferably in 1-1 or 1-2) and get to loop 2 with enough resources. I screwed up pretty bad on the second bit, w/ no extra lives going into 2-1, but still managed to make it to 2-3 since I had practiced loop 2 air fortress/battleship stages earlier. Enjoy the run!
Dynamite Duke ALL - 1,577,710 ubervirtuoso 2024-05-07 | Played on ARCADE 0.258, 30hz auto button alongside non-auto button 1Before Raiden, Seibu was known for their cross-hair shooters such as Empire City: 1931 & Dead Angle. This game is also a cross-shooter but with additional combat mechanics via punches/kicks with the 2nd & 3rd buttons. You get stronger uppercuts/kicks by pressing button 2/3 + up. You also get 3 D Punches that act as screen-clearing bombs on most enemies & can earn more via score/destructible scenery etc.Most of the game's difficulty comes down to speed killing enemy threats & learning boss loops. Fortunately, a lot of the bosses can get stuck in the same attack cycles which you can exploit for easier boss kills. You'll defenitely need it as the damage scaling from regular enemies/bosses jumps up considerably around stage 4/5. Scoring is mostly down to destroying scenery for points/items, not taking hits, fast boss kills, and hoarding D punches since you get 100k per each one remaining at the end of the game. The max d punch bonus is 800k. I thought this game was gonna be incredibly jank after hearing about how its sales failure led to the company to create Raiden for their next game, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I initially thought throughout the tourney. This run was mostly pretty good, outside of missing 1 gold box on stage 4 & losing some points on the life/kill bonus for stages 6/7.Enjoy the run!
Cameltry Expert Course ALL - 225,930 ubervirtuoso 2024-03-29 | Played on ARCADE 0.239.- Probably the hardest course to optimize due to some longer floor layouts & less time increases, especially if you make a mistake.Enjoy the run!
Gun Frontier ALL ubervirtuoso 2024-03-25 | Played on ARCADE 0.239, 6.66/15/30hz on button 1.Best Yagawa game. As Taito's next STG after the janky Master of Weapon, this game not onlyoozes charm & worldbuilding, but has some pretty unique mechanics compared to anything released before such as bomb fragments, dynamic rank based on autofire rate/bomb stock, carpet bomb that can be steered on direction.You kill enemy waves to power up, and pick up the bomb fragments. A full bomb is generated from 25 bomb fragments, but you can use partial bombs as well ( which don't last as long). You can pick up a full bomb/max power from the 4th stage midboss drop if you let it drive over the bank.My goal was to no-miss into stage 5, since it's much harder than the rest of the game, especially on the canyon/tank factory checkpoints. I wasted a few lives getting stuck on the checkpoint right after the canyon, but at least managed to make it to the end. Enjoy the run!
Darius II (dual screen, ABEIMSX) ALL ubervirtuoso 2024-03-13 | Played on ARCADE 0.239, Japan rev1, Difficulty B (default).Used 12hz on button 1/2 & 30hz on button 1/2. Button 1 is for the main shot/green side shots, Button 2 is for missiles. Powerups are fixed, but you have to destroy an entire enemy wave ( grey crab/ufo) for one to spawn. Red powerups- increases your main shot, orangeish- side shot, green - missile, blue- shield, 1up - get an extra life.You also get score extends at every 700k points.Shooting at the purple ufos when their core is open will trigger a on-screen bomb that damages all enemies for a short period of time. This can also be used on certain midbosses/bosses. In my experience, I only did a couple of credits on and off over the years, but could never get past Grand Octopus due to the total loss of shot power on death, slow ship speed, and a decently sized hitbox. After a bad Dragon Spirit run the other day I decided to switch routes & do a couple of credits and cleared despite a messy Yamoto fight on zone M.Enjoy the run!
Dragon Spirit ALL - 505,760 ubervirtuoso 2024-03-09 | Played on ARCADE 0.239, New Version. Used 15hz on button 1/2, & 30hz on button 1/2. OBS messed up the audio while recording, so the game tracks are appended to this run.Basically Namco's Xevious 2.0 (even moreso with the slower movement speed on Old Version), set in a fantasy setting. This version gives you faster movement speed, a reduced hitbox, area select, and a shorter Stage 1. You can upgrade your main shot/dragon with a bunch of different items for more firepower/more heads ( but slightly bigger hitboxes), a shield, small form, different shot types, & point items.There are also heart items, picking 3 of these up hatches a dragon & gives an extra life. You also get 2 score extends at 80k/180k.If you die, you get sent back to a checkpoint. Additional notes:Early stages ( stages 1-4)- Try to get your main shot to Lv.2 & avoid lv 3 ( since it does a lot of damage w/autofire & Lv 3 has gaps in its shot). - Get small & wide ASAP if possible- On the stage 4 boss, tap while shooting the boss in its skull dragon form. Otherwise, you might activate a bug which kills the boss but damages your dragon by 1 life bar ( or makes the boss invincible) with high rates of autofire.- Stage 6 boss- Only shoots when you're on the lower half of the screen.-Stage 7 boss - Destroy the small fish; you can damage the boss and avoid the spread by moving left/right while in front of it.- Stage 8: Don't miss any of the 4 light eggs ( which increase your visibility), otherwise you'll likely get killed by a spike ball or bullet from the side.- Stage 9: Long stage but you can abuse a collision bug on the walls ( by pressing down while next to a wall) to pass unharmed through it/wall spears. The wall spears can be passed on the right while extended. Last checkpoint can be milked for score/lives.- Stage 9 3 hydras- Optimally have lv 2 firepower/wide to speedkill the hydra on the left/right before they fire. Then focus on the other 2 (usually I go for far right-far left-middle). Enjoy the run!
RayStorm R-Gray 2 ALL - 9,628,300 ubervirtuoso 2023-12-31 | Played on Rayz Arcade Chronology via Steam w/ R-Gray 2 & Manual lock-on option. R-Gray 2 has a faster ship speed & more narrow main shot. The R-Gray 2 is able to lock-on to enemies up to a maximum of 16 times, x256 multipler, which makes it a good choice for players looking to score. On stage 6, you normally want the SP Attack gauge to be at max to use on the boss. I accidently used it so I had to improvise with a backup strat on the boss's first attack.Enjoy the run!
RayStorm (Neo-HD ver.,) ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-12-27 | Played on Rayz Arcade Chronology on Steam/PC w/ default settings. Used R-Gray 1 w/ Auto-lock on option.RayStorm is the second game of the Ray series trilogy, released back in 1996. Like the first game, you have a main forward shot & secondary laser shot that can target background & foreground enemies. The R-Gray 1 has a wide main shot & up to 8 lasers ( with a multipler of max x128). You also get a screen-clearing bomb that deals splash damage to all enemies on screen, but it takes a while to recharge it after usage.There are a couple places ( such as stage 4) where using the bomb on enemies gives you a ton of extra score.Game is made up of 8 stages, and while the first half of the game isn't too bad, stage 5 onwards has some tricky sections due to some difficult sections with RNG enemy placement, and bosses that require pretty optimal execution. ( mostly bosses 5-8).My goal was basically to at least get an extra life on the last boss so that I could deal with the last phase safely. Unfortunately, I moved down too soon on the 2nd phase on the last boss & lost an extra life and meant I had to use an alternate strat on the last 3rd phase, which worked out. I defenitely want to try out R-Gray 02 as well and check out the score tech for this game.Enjoy the run!
Psyvariar: Medium Unit Superplay ALL - Player:Yusemi-SWY ubervirtuoso 2023-12-24 | A re-encode of Yusemi-SWY's 46,208,750 ALL run from the Psyvariar Appreciate DVD released by Reverse Babel/Success in 2001. This particular run is from the "Full Mode" option which is a direct arcade capture vs TV mode. Deinterlaced & Encoded in upscaled 1080p in Handbrake & rotated 270°Run notes from the player can be found in the attached guidebook (in JP): archive.org/details/psyappreciatedvdguidebook2Enjoy!
Psyvariar Revision Superplay ALL - Player: GFA2-ISO ubervirtuoso 2023-12-24 | A re-encode of GFA2-ISO's 183,104,300 ALL run from the Psyvariar Appreciate DVD released by Reverse Babel/Success in 2001. 31:08: A demonstration of ISO's Stage X-D run in Replay Mode.Deinterlaced & Reencoded in Handbrake at 1080p, rotated 270°.Run notes from the player can be found here: archive.org/details/psyappreciatedvdguidebook2Enjoy!
U.S Navy ALL - 1951900 ubervirtuoso 2023-12-13 | Played on ARCADE 0.239, with 30hz auto on buttons 1/2.This is the 1.5 update to Area 88/U.N. Squadron, and makes the game a bit harder to clear due to longer missions, less leeway when you take damage, and bosses.I used the F/A-18 Hornet & mostly picked up green weapon items since it seems like the most powerful w/autofire.Score is mostly from killing enemies & not buying items if possible for a high money payout. There also seems to be a shop bug where it's possible to buy items w/o being charged $$ if you're quick enough, which is a bit silly. WR scores tend to use autofire macros for the joystick/lever in conjunction with this.Enjoy the run!
DOJ Reincarnation Arrange EX Blind ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-12-09 | These arranges are pretty imbalanced.Enjoy the run!
Akazukin Cha Cha no Chotto dake yo: Otameshi Plus Alpha Very Hard 1CC (v.0.53 Dump) ubervirtuoso 2023-11-25 | Played on XM6-Type G, 30hz auto. This is a short 3- stage demo doujin shmup from 1996 released for the Sharp X68000 & based on the shoujo series Akazukin Cha Cha. Game plays pretty similarly to Gunbird, along with the Strikers 45 medals being represented as golden eggs. Very hard mostly buffs up enemy HP as far as I can tell.There is another later version ( v.0.60) which has reworked patterns for the stage 3 boss & an additional loop, but it's still undumped.Enjoy the run!
Fantasy Zone 2-ALL ( 3-5) -12,030,000 ubervirtuoso 2023-11-18 | Played on ARCADE 0.239. Used 30hz on button 1/2.Classic hori STG that spawned a bunch of clones, mostly due to the shop system that allows you to buy extra parts, weapons bombs, and even lives. It's a bit of a different take of being able to select power ups vs its competitors like Gradius, but it works well enough.There's a total of 8 stages. In the first 7 stages, you do to different stages, destroy all the bases & destroy the boss while picking up as many coins as possible. Stage 8 is a boss rush where you fight all the previous bosses & the final boss (which is pretty easy outside of using a heavy bomb on the last pattern for most players).The clear bonus is 1 million per remaining lives & cash, so buying as little as possible gives you the most score. However in subsequent loops, your extra lives are taken away so you probably want to buy an extra life on subsequent loops, especially on loop 3 onwards. Loops are pretty much the same outside of different enemy suicide bullets in loops 2-4, the game maxes out in difficulty at that point.Since I played this for a tourney, I tried to no-miss as much as possible.Enjoy the run!
Psycho-Nics Oscar ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-11-09 | Played on ARCADE 0.239 with 30hz on button 1. Score - 333,000Cool run n gun from Data East from 1987 & apparently inspired the Turrican series. You have a Gradius-style powerup bar to select powerups; cycling through the entire bar once after maxing out gun allows you to select an armor upgrade ( +2 hits), cycling the bar twice lets you select a quick (rapidfire) option.For the early game, you want to get the 2 guns upgrades, max out jump, get a missile/grenade & get armor when possible. Some sections of stage 7/8 are easier with dual grenades. If you die, you get sent back to a checkpoint & lose all powerups ( which happened a few times). Thankfully, checkpoints are pretty recoverable, even on the last stage. You could probably milk the last stage checkpoint for more points.Enjoy the run!
USAAF Mustang 1-ALL (2-3) ubervirtuoso 2023-11-01 | Played on ARCADE 0.239, 15hz/30hz on button 1 (main shot), 30hz button 2 ( Strike Forcer).Basic WWII-themed horizontal shmup developed by NMK. Your main shot is a spread shot ( after 2 upgrade levels) along with 2/4/8 ground missiles depending on your power level. You can pick up bomb icons ( Strike Forcers) which shoots a beam of energy & grant i-frames upon usage. You don't any additional Strike Forcers when you lose a life, so you need to manage this resources in order to complete the game. You'll usually get 4 extends ( one in stage 2,4,6 & 8) in the first loop.Scoring is incredibly basic- just destroy stuff & milk destructible objects.The first few stages aren't too bad, but stages 4/5 are pretty difficult due to enemy aggression and lack of power-up drops. Ideally, you also don't want to use up too many Strike Forcers as you'll usually need 1/2 of them to quick kill most bosses, and a few on the stage 5 boss. The last stage is also a huge wall, because the only enemies that spawn are previous bosses. You ideally want to create a situation where you spawn one of the stage 5 boss planes, head to the top right & spawn the stage 3 boss. That way, you can avoid some of the nastier boss setups & allows you to dodge the bosses until the stage is complete.In this run, I screwed up in stage 5 & thought about resetting, but decided to see if I could hang on and get the extend in stage 6 since I had a good # of Strike Forcers. Afterwards, I made it to stage 8 with a few Forcers & didn't get the boss setup I wanted which almost cost the run.Got to 2-3 but afaik all I know is that loop 2 & subsequent loops have maxed out rank/difficulty.Enjoy the run!
Varth (World) ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-10-05 | Score: 6,169,500MAME 0.257; used 30hz auto/15hz auto/30hz macro for downLong ass-game released by Capcom in 1992 with 30 stages. You get a variety of weapons to chose from for your main shot/pods. Scoring is mainly from going podless ( 50k per stage), keeping bombs, picking up secret items, etc. You do get 3 point based extends as well.Bombing is very important in the game to doing a lot of damage/clearing out enemies. You can recharge your bombs, by wiggling the stick in a direction, or setting up a direction autofire macro to save your hands. This was my first time playing past stage 17, so I wasn't familiar with most of the stage layouts and took a few deaths. But the last set of stages wasn't too bad compared to stage 15-19, which have a lot of enemies that spawn on the sides/behind you. Having the direction autofire macro was very helpful as well.Enjoy the run!
Kyuukyoku Tiger 1-ALL ( Area 358, 3.2 million) ubervirtuoso 2023-09-26 | Played on ARCADE 0.239. Used 4.85 hz auto on button 1 for stages & 30 hz auto on button 1 for boss speedkills.This game shares a lot of similarities to Hishouzame, right down to the slow heli speed & tons of checkpoints. The main innovations are additional weapon types ( red missiles, green laser, yellow 4 way and blue spread), expanded stage design, bosses, and enemy patterns. The bombs especially seem like a precursor to Raiden with the slow deployment/circular explosion, along with some of the random zako spawns.Scoring is rudimentary- kill stuff, grab items/power ups, picking up Ps. You get an end of stage bonus for total Ps collected per stage. The game is pretty long at 10 stages, and also has checkpoint respawn when you die. Like most classic games you lose all of your shot power and have to recover. It is counter balanced with a ton of extends ( 70k, 270k, every 200k afterwards) but learning some basic recoveries is essential to clearing ( especially the stage 5 boss). Learning the boss 7 timeout & boss 10 safespot is also very helpful.This run went pretty well until I messed up in the stage 5 plane section. I had to use a few lives to get past that section & the boss. Thankfully I was able to fully recover and clear the loop. Loop 2 was a bit of a wash bc the enemy bullets/reload time is faster, and makes recoveries trickier. I made it to the 2-5 boss on one of my lives but I have no idea how to do the recovery there.Enjoy the run!
Over Obj ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-08-19 | Clear of this recent 2023 homebrew release from Little Sound for the Famicom. Has 6 stages plus a TLB at the end.Probably the biggest thing going for this game is the sheer bullet count (which does result in flickering/slowdown issues at times) along with the bosses DDP-esque patterns. Outside of that the game is fairly simple. You can squeeze a bit of extra points by pointblanking enemies/bosses, or by clearing a stage w/o bombing/dying. You do get extends every 100k points & an extra bomb (first 4, and then 5 for subsequent lives) if you die.Enjoy the run!
Blazeon ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-06-27 | Played on ARCADE 0.239; used 30hz for button 1. Outside of a couple of silly hits on stage 2/3, this run went pretty well. You pretty much need to avoid taking a hit with the captured Grain Beat right before & during the stage 3 boss or you'll likely game over. Tsukasa Masuko's OST (of MT/SMT fame) has some godly tracks; dude really needed to do more FM covers.Enjoy the run!
Gun Force II 1-ALL ubervirtuoso 2023-06-05 | Best IREM game ( otherwise known as Geo Storm/ Metal Slug 0 for Nazca/SNK fanboys).
Shienryu 1-ALL (2-5) -13.1 million ubervirtuoso 2023-06-03 | Played on ARCADE 0.239; used 30hz auto on button 1 for Vulcan/missile. A fine spiritual sequel to Daioh! There's still some transparency glitches even in newer versions of MAME, so those who want authentic graphical fidelity should check out the Saturn port.
