Yeah, I've never been here before, although I would say that, wouldn't I?

Happy to dox myself if it'll help everyone relax.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/_clippa_/
https://www.youtube.com/user/clippa
https://www.reddit.com/user/clippa79

You'll have to wait for my dental records, but I can get them.

Playing some more Darius Gaiden on Saturn today. Have moved over to stick control with no issues which is unusual; but then I find hori-shooters better with sticks as a rule.  Have my level path selection set now for the easiest 1CC I can find. (This game has an Outrun style path selection scheme) Got to the last boss today but screwed up with a couple of daft mistakes. Will manage it during the week I hope..

Anyhow - I have also been watching some YT playthroughs and the variety of difficulty on offer here by selecting different paths is really quite incredible. Some bombless runs show obscene boss patterns that anyone with any sense to bomb would never see.

It makes me wonder about the wisdom of developing an arcade game with this much variety and depth of challenge. I couldn't see anyone going back often enough to see half of what's on offer here - esp. in the West.

And I find it hard to believe that even in Japan someone would get to see everything without using save states in an emulator - especially with the more difficult bosses. But maybe I'm under-estimating the devotion of 90s arcade players? It's hard not to see this game as a developer indulgence - as admirable as that is - no way this game could have made any sort of return even with a small dev team.

But then - I read about the DG Extra edition which has an upgraded weapon system and rearranged bosses and levels - and if you play a single player game as P2 you get to play all the levels in sequence. So it must have had quite a following at the time to justify an enhanced release.

1CC-ed Darius Gaiden

Normal diff, JP Saturn version. Auto rapid fire on (too old for that crap - shmups.com accept that setting).

5,963,150 on this path which I reckon is the easiest.  A-B-D-H-L-Q-V

Nice.

I've been playing some Raiden V recently on PS4. I completely suck.

Yes Davy, well bloody done you

Was tinkering a bit with Radirgy Generic on GC last night (testing my new CRT out with my consoles).  I like the cel shaded look which surprises me as for a shooter I didn't think it would be to my tastes.

I've never spent any real time with it. Does anyone know what's going on in it?

If you stop firing a front facing shield appears after a second letting you reflect bullets and they seem to be sucked up into the status area - I suspect either filling up a meter or upping a multiplier or a bonus - but there is no visual clue as to what is happening.I think each console (DC, PS2) got a slightly different variant on the game too which adds to the mystery.

EDIT: It seems the game's name is related to the console. So the it's the same game but each port gets a different extra mode. Cute.

Follow my path - I'm convinced it's the easiest. And get the auto rapid fire activated. If you don't do that it will be hard to make progress hammering on the fire buttons. Right from the off there are some pretty durable enemies such as those mid-sized blue crayfish-like enemies.

On Saturn there's a keypress sequence to activate auto rapid fire. There's a rapid fire setting for DG in the version of shmupMAME I have. There's also a official DG ROM with the autofire around too.

I really like the mid boss capture feature - shoot that orb until it detaches. Then pick it up and the mid boss turns around and starts helping you   The skill is getting the orb detached before killing the mid boss because they can go down without too many hits.

Here's the recording of my shmupMAME DG 1CC.

Lots of mistakes. My Saturn run was better but no recording so here is this one instead. I'll be working on this until I get a run I'm happy with.

https://youtu.be/Sg0hKPcean0

And Zero Ranger sneaked in at 25. Nice.

Still enjoying Darius Gaiden. I'm trying to do a no-miss run.

I have also learned that one can take too many main weapon power ups - not because of rank management but because the most powerful setting for dealing with bosses is a few levels below the maximum. There's a visual clue - when the wave weapon gets a set of 2 of the white bullets you start the game with then your main weapon is optimal.

You need to avoid powerups once you have the orange wave with these. I'm at the optimal level at 11 minutes in my recording above. I pick up 2 power ups just before the boss that I should have avoided.

This then of course makes the game force you into gymnastics trying to dodge powerups which invariably causes screw ups.

Have also been playing with some path variations. It isn't a good idea to stray onto level M...

Get in.

Finished Darius Gaiden with 1 miss - 7.7m score now.

Captured 4 minibosses and had 2 bombs at the end.

Have an inp file of it so I'll probably record it ghetto style and YT it.

Grats on the DG Davy, will watch a run if you YT it (y)

Have been toying with Samurai Aces (aka Sengoku Aces) on smart phone.

It's enjoyable but ultimately annoying as touch just isn't good enough for this sort of thing. Good for when I'm sitting in the car waiting to pick up one of the daughters though.

I still have the PS2 port of it which has a nice TATE mode. But I also tried out Tengai (aka Sengoku Blade) on shmupMAME and I rather like it. Might make that my next 1CC attempt.

Just realised I have Tengai/Sengoku Blade for PS2 as well. In my pile of shame. Even in PAL the PS2 got a clutch of nice ports courtesy of 505 games. Has a 60Hz mode and high score saves (things you couldn't take for granted then with shmup ports).

Samurai Aces on PS2 is bare bones but the Tengai port was given a practice mode that lets you pick a level to cane with an option for 1st and 2nd loop difficulty.

Looks great on my CRT   And my PS1 Asciiware stick which I also dug out and have never used before is actually quite nice and works with the PS2.   

shmupMAME is better for practice with save states obvs.

PS2 Samurai Aces (Sengoku Aces) has the practice mode too.  It also has a TATE mode as it's a vertical shooter. Nice port. Lets you set the order of the first 4 stages or have them as random. A pile of difficulty levels too. Same with Sengoku Blade.

Not as good as the modern PS4 / Switch ports but still nice to have. They might be worth a few bob to collectors as they aren't easy to come by.