So my next S&M partner is going to be Gigawing.

I was close with this one a couple of years ago. But got distracted when my Asteroids Dx cabinet arrived. I had a few issues with it and had a bit of mini-meltdown but it was sorted. However during that period I went off playing any game. There was also a lot of other shit going on at the time - had a bit of a life crisis....daughters were a severe source of stress at the time and had a few financial worries too. Each thing wasn't that big a deal but they all added up.

Anyhoo..behind me now. I've decided Gigawing is unfinished business. I have two options - shmupMAME which was the main facilitator last time, and the Dreamcast version which seems highly accurate compared to what I was experiencing on MAME but felt a bit more difficult,

The PC I was using was elderly which might explain it but I was getting 60fps so maybe not. The shmups forumites agree that the DC version has slightly less slowdown so that would account for it.

The big selling point of Gigawing (and controversially it made Edge's top ten shooters ever in its "10 top 10s" item a few years back) is a rechargeable shield that returns enemy bullets with interest and generates heaps of coins that feed into a nutty multiplier which accounts for the 16 digit scores). To activate you hold down fire and wait for it to work which garners criticism from many but means it requires a fair bit of judgement. It also makes planning for more important for it to be of any real use. There's a period of recharge which can feel like an eternity sometimes.

So this weekend I've been getting back into it. 

Dear oh dear oh dear.

There are 5 "proper" levels, followed by a final level which is a huge multi-phase boss fight, followed by a TLB fight which is a small ship armed to the teeth. You can see my last good run of the game earlier in this thread. In the DC version you unlock this ship as a playable character if you 1CC the game. So it will be worth getting a 1CC on the DC at some point (though I think there's a cheat code for it).

Three lives and no 1Ups - unless you are down to your last ship. In that case there is a secret one in level 4 but for a 1CC you have no chance if you are relying on that. The same secret gives you ginormous gold coins if you have >1 life. You have 3 bombs per ship and you can pick them up too.

People used to sacrifice a ship in level 1 as it lowers the rank for the whole game but I'm not good enough to play like that. Also - the player 2 ship has slightly higher firepower - didn't know that until recently so will be playing on the 2P side.

There are 4 characters - each quite different (I'm playing Ruby - fast movement concentrated forward firing pattern) and the order of the first 3 levels depends on which character you are playing. After Raiden III having fast movement feels great but means I'm a bit clumsy too.

Level 5 is a real monster requiring accurate routing. So my visits to that level have been short lived. I need to go back to my replay to see what I was doing to get through it.

shmupMAME gives me save states but I think I'll start with the DC version for a while. My new PC doesn't have mame on it yet. I could get my old PC set up and use it as a dedicated MAME box I suppose.

I have the DC stick which is lovely and a Hori 360 for the PC so I'm set control-wise.

My skills have degraded quite a bit - some frustrating times yesterday. Here we go again.

Does that front end MAME?

Level 5 grind from back then...listen to that old Mayflash stick getting hammered.   This was during route formulation so my run video I posted previously will show what I ended up doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNbD5MjFp3E

Raiden V on Steam for <£6.

Bought.

I still haven't tried yet, but I'm pretty certain that even lvl 2 is a long way away from me

I got shmupmame the other day after you mentioned it.  Tried DDP but playing that on a 12" laptop screen seems like a recipe for blindness so I had a go at Gigawing with its friendlier aspect ratio.  Feels weird after so much Ketsui, especially the fast ship speed.  I'll plug away at it, I've just about got used to the reflect now.  At first my brain was equating it to a bomb which is something I never want to do in Ket.  How come you go with the red ship, Davy, is it because its bomb looks so cool?  Pink and green seemed more suitable for beginners, at least.

The red ship moves faster and has more firepower as it's more focussed - similar to the the A ship in DDP I suppose.  The bullet patterns don't get that tight so the fast ship movement isn't a huge issue - especially with the reflect - though the TLB is a tight bullet spewing nightmare. The only way I'll beat him is by having a couple ships and bombs.

The default P1 ship (pink) is probably the worst - it just doesn't seem to have the firepower and moves more slowly. 

Green is really fiddly as it has a pair of options that need wrangling - would be a great option for someone who has beat the game already to extend replay value. Its weaponry requires you to approach large enemies from the side once it's at max power.

The blue ship with the homing missiles looks like it could be a good choice but popcorn isn't that much of an issue in this game - so I've found the red to be the best. I haven't spent a lot of time with blue to be honest. My gut feeling is it's between this ship and red for starting out.

The other factor is level order - each character has his/her own sequence of the first three levels. This also extends play value as meeting the bosses at a higher level introduces you to new tricks.

Yeah - that shield - it's very much part of the game @Dubs- you need to separate it from the bomb as a tool - you could equate it to a short lived hyper.  It's also the key to scoring as its secondary use is gold creation. I really don't think this game will trouble you that much. Level 5 is a doozy though.

However - there's some madman over at shmups.com that has done a shieldless run. Insane - way beyond anything the designers thought was possible surely.....if I remember right he just waits for bosses to time out but it's still an impressive display.

cockbeard wrote:

I still haven't tried yet, but I'm pretty certain that even lvl 2 is a long way away from me

It feels that way at the start....I first played this game on the DC back in the early 00s!!! I put it on the shelf for a decade before going back to it... back then I was very much on the old school shmup side of the house. I always had these games written off as coin munchers.

It's pretty intimidating from the start but once you figure out the reflect shield and get a route then the levels start to lose their teeth. The first three can be learned close to rote - the only section I have trouble with is the train as its patterns are pretty much random. You can run out of room quickly as whilst the bullets are largely aimed they are fired in spread patterns. You need to keep moving in that section to keep misdirecting the enemy aiming. I'm playing for survival so I tend to just try and take out the head of the right hand train as quickly as possible. That's level 2 with my choice of ship.

There's enough going on to make scoring interesting - there's a few nice tricks for generating large gems and the general gem creation and collection makes the first 3 levels enjoyable enough once you learn them. It's not Cave level clever but it's still entertaining.

fountains of gold

That's right, green gets lava, train level then nighttime air base level.  Stage 4 and 5 bosses are troublesome.  Tried to figure out some cheap safe spot strategy for the former but it seems more effort than it's worth.  5's boss is just mean and takes a long time to die once the core is exposed.  Difficult to get in close and land the grenades with that one.

Tried a few credits with green last night. Is a lot friendlier than I remembered. The stage 3 boss has some surprises for me because of the change in level order but nothing that that can't be handled. Interesting.

Did some level 5 training too but stuck with red. It was late and I was tried - I felt good but kept making dopey mistakes. I'm close to getting my route back but I need to be able to no miss it.

Finally got stuff working, cleared out a bunch of moves as I'm sure they're on streaming sites. Grabbed a new romset, am waiting for Launchbox to grab all the metadata but can play on mame alone while it does that

Cannot decide which ships to use, am realising I need a stick, just getting warmed up, only ran about 7 credits so far, juggling around ships, and reaching almost to Stage1 boss. I seemed to get furtherest with Purple and Green, but ship movement isn't that important at the minute because keyboard cursor keys. Love the reflect option, but need to sort the timing out, and I seem to trigger a little early, it runs out just as a mid boss starts spewing orbs of pain. As is my usual I always forget to use bombs, but I always do that

My usual port of call when I'm looking to improve on a game.

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=4749

Can any of you lads dropbox the install I need to join the mame fun? I cannae be arsed rooting around the internet but if there's just a zip with the client and the roms you're playing I'll fire it up