Accidental pic of my messy old shmup floor..

Have a level 6 save state now so need to hammer that. It's a pretty relentless level and the boss is a nightmare - not getting anywhere near to that though.

I've found myself falling into the trap of point pressing in Layer Section. At the start of this I was getting my 1st 1UP at 500K when I killed  the level 2 boss.  I'm getting over 800K now at the same place and was close to 1M (and 2nd 1UP) the other day.

The price for that is rank-a-gogo. So I need to ease back on that a bit.

Have ordered the Raiden Project for PS1. I'd like to get Raiden DX but the prices are nuts. I'm going to leave it for few week and watch prices to see what the average is. Best price I've seen is £60 which isn't too bad but not impulse level either. It's pretty much at my limit re justifying things to myself and I can get my Raiden kick from Project which has Raiden 1 and 2 on the same disc for £30.   DX is supposed to be superb though.   I mean I can get 1 & 2 on MAME so this is more of a collecting thing.

Maybe you mean point blanking? With some games like Raiden III you get more points for that. It's also a technique with some other games for getting rid of larger enemies more quickly. The bosses in Samurai Aces require point blanking for a quick kill if you are going to stand a chance.

Well with Layer Section I just mean trying to squeeze as many points as I can out of a level. Once you are powered up to the max, powerups start to give you points and the amount increases as you pick them up. 

And the game has a link combo system for the homing weapon that is really compulsive (it's the game's main hook really) but draws you into risk taking. It can make a really big difference to scores.

But as the score climbs and you don't lose lives the rank goes up quicker than normal. This game starts to add enemies, increase bullet speed and make certain enemies more aggressive. There's a mini boss in level 3 that will come right down the screen into your face if your score is too high for example.

Heh.

Few more level 5 boss runs on Layer Section after taking a break for a couple of days. But I felt good playing it.

Started this evening's session with my 2nd level 6 run and a 1.91m high score.

2nd run - got to level 4 with no loss of life. Then it all went South. Usual issue with rank. The patterns were a bit different. Lost a life and didn't recover.

Few more mediocre runs after that. I might have to think about suiciding at the start of level 4 to calm it down - certainly if I get there with all 5 lives intact.

Starting to think about resources now.

So if I suicide at start of level 4 on a good run, I reckon I can do that level with no life loss. Level 5 isn't actually that hard once you get past the first section. So I reckon I could get to level 6 with 4 lives.

Plan is to keep trying to achieve that on the Saturn while doing some level 6 practice on the emulator. Will try doing that alternative nights and see how I get on.

It was a lot more appealing when their releases were more limited, i.e. a fixed edition size, rather than open preorders.  I will buy this, though.

URA PROGRESS REPORT DAY 390

Getting the no-miss no-bomb clear more often lately.  Twice in one day!  One credit ended at the TLB.  I think I can see the light.  Another six months and I'll have cracked it.

Yep, no-miss, no-bomb, then the TLB which only appears in Ura.  The run was already over because I lost my composure and died four times on the final stage.  Must stay calm and remember my training.

HaHa...tried playing with music on in the background instead of the game sound....another level 6 run. Broke 2m. Got some way into it too. Lost a stupid life just before the level 5 boss otherwise I could have got deeper.  Screenshot 'cos why not?    I love the old sci-fi font on the high score screen.



Thinking about resources. I need to get to level 5 with 4 lives (that's 1 loss). Then allow myself to lose a life on level 6 (which might help with rank) to give myself 3 lives at the final level...

Bumping along. Have cracked 2m 3 times and nudged my hiscore up a bit now and getting to level 6 more often. Getting a great deal more comfortable with all the bosses too.

Credit fed a bit to have a crack at the level 6 boss. It's hard to tell what it will be like during a run though since I expect the rank to be higher but it's not as terrifying now.

Cleansed my palate and toyed with Raiden IV a bit on Steam. It's a hell of a score chaser this version - you can keep shooting enemies after they are disabled to generate bonus pickups (called overkilling) and there's a great risk/reward thing going on with that. Plenty of modes to mess about with too. 

Also played a credit of DDP DFK on Steam. I accidentally selected v1.51 which seems to chuck you into the secret route more or less by default. 

In v1.5 you have to kill certain large enemies near the start of level 1 before they blow up large fuel tanks that are part of the level - achieve that and you swoop over to the secret route that has copies of the normal levels with mid-bosses from original DDP and there seems to be slightly different enemy patterns. I'm not exactly sure what is going on with v1.51 though.  DFK has a bewildering number of options and modes. One of the "biggest" games out there for content. 
It also has a Black Label Arrange mode that seems to be a hybrid of DDP DFK with Ketsui chips and scoring...very odd. Very entertaining though. The 360 port of this (which I also have - it got a UK release and was dirt cheap when I first got my 360) doesn't have the BL Arrange mode which is why I doubled down on the Steam version.

The different ship styles in DFK add another layer of variety....you have the classic red,green,ship choice but then you the bomb,power,strong style as well...

The depth of the scoring system is head spinning. I've read several articles about it - how anyone has figured it out is beyond me.

Some of the special modes confine you to certain ships but even then, the amount of play value in DFK is astounding. The UK disc has everything apart from BL Arrange aka Ketsuipachi. Comes with a soundtrack CD. I got mine brand new for less than £10.

Video showing the quality of the new G-Darius port. M2 still the masters - Switch or PS4 - don't matter.

Going to order an older 360 console so I can get it hooked up to my CRT so I can get the most of Futari et al with RGB SCART.  My 360 is the last revision and it has no AV port - HDMI or composite jacks only