CAVE-STG

1.0. General Stuff
Score Attack: Hold A and B whilst pressing Start. Lets you play Stage 6 with a 5 minutes limit and infinite lives.
Harder: Hold Up whilst pressing Start. Lets you play a more difficult version including suicide bullets and a smaller hitbox.
Extended: Hold Down whilst pressing Start. Lets you play the slightly harder game than the regular one followed by a loop similiar but not identical to Harder.
Reset Command: Press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, Start. Resets the game anywhere and returns to title screen.
Stage Select: Go to the Test Menu -> Dip Switch settings and set "player count" to Invincible or Multiply. Now you can select all regular stages and the bossrush stage by pressing Left and Right on the title screen. Unfortunately the Stages are a bit out of order:
Stage 1=Stage 1
Stage 2=Stage 3
Stage 3=Stage 4
Stage 4=Stage 5
Stage 5=Stage 6
Stage 6=Stage 2
Stage 7=Stage 7
Stage 8=Bossrush



2.0. Controls
A: If your charge meter is full you fire your Rose Cracker. It refills after not pressing A for 3 seconds. While your charge meter is refilling, your Shield builds up. If your charge meter is not full, you fire your basic Shot.
If you tap A very quickly you can raise your Shot frequency. Once it is raised, you can not lower it down again, even if you die. There are five levels of Shot frequency: #10-#12-#15-#20-#30
B: If you have collected at least one Rose Hip item you can let your Rose Hip(s) fire by holding down B. Tap B to change your Rose Hip formation. The five formations are: Front-Wide-Back-Reverse-Turn.
A+B: Changes your Speed. There are four different levels of speed.



3.0. Enemies
There are four different types of enemies:
Type 1: Enemies in the sky with 1 hitpoint (Popcorn enemy)
Type 2: Enemies in the sky with more than 1 hitpoint
Type 3: Enemies on the ground
Type 4: Midbosses and bosses*

One thing about enemies is that you get a different amount of points from destroying them depending on how you destroy them. It usually does not matter, if you destroy a type 1 enemy with Shot or with Rose Cracker, but it is important to know about all the other enemy types (except 3), that you usually only get 1/10 of the score, you would get from destroying an enemy with Shot, if you destroy it with your Rose Cracker. Check this Link (http://www.cave.co.jp/gameonline/pinksweets/stage/index.html) for a complete list (S=Shot, R=Rose Cracker). Note, that you do not get any points at all for destroying an enemy with your Rose Hips. To prevent your Rose Hips from accidentally destroying an enemy, you should definitely have your Rose Hips fire backwards, especially towards the end of bossfights.

*One exception is the stage 2 boss, because you get an item for destroying it, so it is technically a type 2 enemy. See section 4.0. for more information on item appearance.

List of all Midbosses (in order of appearance)
Stage 1: Scramble Egg
Stage 2: Scramble Egg - Melon Blizzard
Stage 3: Scramble Egg
Stage 4: Scramble Egg - Strong Strawberry Churros
Stage 5: Scramble Egg
Stage 6: Mint York - Cheese Korone - Scramble Egg
Stage 7: Scramble Egg

List of all boss enemies
Stage 1: Maple=Pink&Caramel=Pink
Stage 2: Socie=Soar
Stage 3: Harmony=Humming
Stage 4: Uni=Ulysses
Stage 5: Freesia=Freedom
Stage 6: Super=Nova
Stage 7: Big=Burn



3.1. Bullets
There are three types of bullets:

Type 1: You can absorb them with your Shield, but you can not destroy them with your Shot.
Type 2: You can not absorb them with your Shield and you can not destroy them with your Shot.
Type 3: You can not absorb them with your Shield, but you can destroy them with your Shot.

Note that your Rose Cracker destroys all bullets, no matter what type they are.



4.0. Items
You get an item for destroying eight type 1 enemies and for every type 2 enemy, aswell as for every type 3 enemy. You only get Roses from type 3 enemies, all the other items appear from type 1 and 2 enemies in a fixed order (see section 4.3.), that is NOT resetted after ending a credit or using the reset command. The only way to reset the item appearance order is to power down the PCB.
Another important thing to notice, is that type 1 enemies do not count as destroyed if you either point blank them or destroy them at the edge of the screen. However they still count as destroyed for the 1 Up requirement. This has no effect on type 3 enemies.



4.1. Item types
Rose Hip: Adds a Rose Hip next to your ship. You can have a maximum of two Rose Hips. Surplus value is 1000.
Shot Power Up: Increases your Shot level by 1. You start every life with Shot level 1. The maximum Shot level is 4. Surplus value is 1000.
Rapid Fire: If you already have Rapid Fire it increases your Shot level by 1 up to a maximum of Shot level 4, if you do not, it changes your Shot to Rapid Fire. Surplus value is 1000.
Wide Shot: If you already have Wide Shot it increases your Shot level by 1 up to a maximum of Shot level 4, if you do not, it changes your Shot to Wide Shot. Surplus value is 1000.
Medal: The medal values are: 100-200-300-400-500-600-700-800-900-1000-2000-3000-4000-5000-6000-7000-8000-9000-10000. You get the next value by collecting all the medals on screen with the current value. If you miss a medal and there is no other medal on screen, the medal value resets to 100.
Rose: The Rose values are: 100-200-400-800. The Rose value depends on the enemy size.
Special Power Up: Instantly raises your Shot level to 5. See section 4.2. how to get the Special Power Up item. Surplus value is 1000.
Search Rose Hip: Changes your Rose Hip formation to Search. See section 4.2. how to get the Special Rose Hip item. Surplus value is 1000.
1 Up: Gives you an extra life. If you have more than 5 lives in stock you get infinite lives. See section 4.2. how to get the 1Up item. Surplus value is 10000.



4.2. Special Item Requirements
Special Power Up: Miss four items of the following types: Power Up, Rapid Shot, Wide Shot. The next item of one of these three types spins faster than usual, collect it to get the Special Power Up item. However, if you miss a Special Power Up item, you first have to collect one of the three item types before you can start missing the next four on purpose.
Search Rose Hip: Miss four Rose Hip items and the next one spins faster than usual. Collect it to get the Search Rose Hip item. However, if you miss a Search Rose Hip item, you first have to collect a regular one again before you can start missing the next four Rose Hip items on purpose.
1 Up: There are three ways to get a 1 Up item:
1) Let one of the big tanks roll over a standing tank. This is possible in Stage 3 and twice in Stage 7. Damage the wheels of the first tank and then let the second one roll over it.
2) Destroy all 12 towers in Stage 5. The 1 Up item is in the last one if done correctly.
3) There is an invisible counter that goes +1 if you destroy an enemy or a type 3 bullet with Shot and goes -1 if you destroy them with your Rose Cracker. Everytime the counter reaches 2500 a 1 Up item will appear and the counter resets. It doesn't affect the counter at all, if you destroy an enemy with your Rose Hips.



4.3. Item Appearance Order
1. Power Up
2. Medal
3. Rapid Shot
4. Medal
5. Wide Shot
6. Medal
7. Rose Hip
8. Medal

After the eighth item has appeared the order starts out at 1. again.
If you trigger the Special Power Up, it appears instead of the next Power Up, Rapid Shot or Wide Shot item.
If you trigger the Search Rose Hip, it appears instead of the next Rose Hip item.
If you trigger the 1 Up, it appears instead of the next item.



5.0. Rank
The dynamic ingame difficulty that makes the game harder if you play well is called Rank. In Pink Sweets you get by far the worst Rank system in any Shooting Game up to date. The lack of regular score based extends makes it even worse.



5.1. How to control Rank
An important task besides scoring well is controlling the Rank. Basically everything raises it and nothing lowers it. The only way to "control" it, is not to let it raise to quickly. Let us start with the worst thing you could ever do, the Rose Cracker. Simply never use this thing, because if you use it once, the Rank raises, the bullet patterns get more dense and then the second time you are forced to use it. By the third time you are already game over. Other stuff that raises Rank (not as much as the Rose Cracker though) is:
-Pressing a button
-Survival Time
-Collecting items (including roses and medals)
You can not do anything against the first two points, so just ignore them. For the third one, I would suggest only collecting medals and maybe one Special Power Up at the start/after a death. Try to avoid Rose Hip items, as you do not get any points from killing an enemy with it anyway. Another very important thing is your life stock. The more lives you have in stock, the worse is the effect of the stuff that raises the Rank. The best way to keep Rank down is to play with an empty life stock the entire game.



5.2. How Rank affects the gameplay
-All enemies except type 1 enemies get more hitpoints
-Enemies shoot more bullets
-Enemies shoot faster bullets
-Some type 4 enemies use their regular attacks combined with suicide bullets
-The time between type 4 enemy attacks gets shorter



6.0. The Characters
Meidi&Midi Rose: Her shot is very weak and gives close to no points at all.
Kasumi Rose: Her RP is stronger and gives you some points. Her WS is weak but does search the enemy automatically.Good for beginners.
Shasta Rose: Her laser is not too weak and gives you more points than Kasumi, however it is hard to get out of a corner, if you are caught in it, especially if you consider, that her Rose Cracker is also straight forward.
Lace Rose: Very strong piercing shot that gives you the most points. Best used if you are trying to get a highscore. The only problem are the gaps between her shots that take some time to get used to.

Meidi&Midi and Shasta are a bit faster overall than Kasumi and Lace.



6.1. Character types
Each character has four different types that affect your Shot. Shot level 1 is the same for each type. The type depends on which button you press when you select your character. The types for each character and their Rapid Shot (RP), aswell as their Wide Shot (WS) at shot level 3 are as follows:

Meidi&Midi
A: RP: Six shot streams to the front.
   WS: 5-way shot to the front
B: RP: Four shot streams to the front. Two shot streams to the back.
   WS: Wide 5-way shot to the front.
A+B: RP: Four shot streams to the front. Two shot streams to the back.
        WS: Even wider 5-way shot to the front.
Start: RP: Two shot streams to the front. 3-way shot to the back.
         WS: Two shot streams to the front, aswell as a one streamed shot at 45? each side. A one streamed shot at 45? each side.

Kasumi
A: RP: Six rockets to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1.
   WS: Six search rockets to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1.
B: RP: Six rockets to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1.
   WS: Six search rockets to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1.
A+B: RP: Six rockets to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1.
        WS: Regular Shot from shot level 1. 3-way search rockets from each side.
Start: RP: Six rockets to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1.
         WS: Four search rockets from the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1. Four search rockets from the back. One search rocket from each side.

Shasta
A: RP: Two fixed laser beams to the front.
   WS: Two laser beams to the front, if you move to one side you can shoot up to 20? to that side with one laser.
B: RP: One fixed laser beam to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1. Single streamed shot to the back.
   WS: One laser beam to the front, if you move to one side you can shoot up to 60? to that side with the laser. 5-way shot to the front.
A+B: RP: One fixed laser beam to the front, aswell as the regular shot from shot level 1. 3-way shot to the back.
        WS: One laser beam to the front, if you move to one side you can shoot up to 80? to that side with the laser. The laser locks on, no matter what enemy type. 6-way shot to the front.
Start: RP: One fixed laser beam to the front. 4-way shot to the back.
         WS: One laser beam to the front, if you move to one side you can shoot up to 90? to that side with the laser. The laser locks on, no matter what enemy type. 6-way shot to the front.

Lace
A: RP: Three lightning streams to the front.
   WS: 3-way lightning up to 30? to each side.
B: RP: Two lightning streams to the front. One lightning stream to the back.
   WS: 3-way lightning up to 45? to each side.
A+B: RP: Two lightning streams to the front. One lightning stream to the back.
        WS: 3-way lightning up to 60? to each side.
Start: RP: One lightning stream to the front. Two lightning streams to the back.
         WS: 3-way lightning up to 90? to each side.



7.0. The Stages
Stage 1: Rosebase
Stage 2: Ocean
Stage 3: Ruins
Stage 4: Waterfall
Stage 5: Desert
Stage 6: Clouds
Stage 7: Hall



7.1. Walkthrough
Score estimations only go for Lace.
Stage 1: Immediately raise your Shot frequency to #15 or #20 and kill yourself right at the first enemy that comes on screen. Get the Special Power Up throughout the stage and do not collect any Rose Hip item. Milk the Midboss for type 3 bullets. Fulfill the Special Power Up requirement, so that the first item that appears in Stage 2 is a Special Power Up.
Stage 1 Boss: 1.Phase: When he shoots type 3 bullets, try to destroy one arm. The second time, try to destroy the other arm. 2.Phase: Only shoot during the type 3 bullet attack to destroy the main cannon. Once it is destroyed, kill yourself and destroy the boss.
-Score should be around 750.000-850.000 after stage 1-
Stage 2: Get the Special Power Up. Milk the enemies before the second laser tower and the second midboss for type 3 bullets.
Stage 2 Boss: 1.Phase: Nothing special. 2.Phase: If you have milked enough type 3 bullets during the stage then you get an 1 Up item here.
-Score should be around 2.050.000-2.150.000 after stage 2-
Stage 3: Try to concentrate on shooting down all the type 1 enemies instead of taking down the four big tanks beside them. You should definitely get the first 1 Up item by now. When the two big tanks roill in from the left, try to damage the first tank, so it can not go on and let the second one roll over it to trigger another 1 Up item. Do not collect this one. Milk the Midboss for type 3 bullets.
Stage 3 Boss: 1.Phase: Nothing special. 2.Phase: It is possible to destroy the two arms but I have not figured out how to do that yet. 3.Phase: Nothing special.
-Score should be around 3.900.000-4.000.000 after stage 3-
Stage 4: Do not destroy the two boats, before they have reached the end of the two rivers. You get around 250.000 from both boats together. Do not destroy any of the round type 3 enemies next to the second river, if you would have to use your Rose Cracker. Collect two Rose Hip items during the stage.
Stage 4 Boss: 1.Phase: Nothing Special. 2.Phase: You can destroy both arms while they shoot the big blobs that absorb you. Try to milk the boss for at least one type 3 bullet attack.
-Score should be around 5.800.000-5.900.000 after stage 4-
Stage 5: From now on you can use your Rose Cracker (you should not have used it before). The second variable 1 Up item should appear during the first half of the stage, collect it. Only damage the midboss with your Rose Hips set to Reverse. Finish him off with your Shot.
If you have destroyed all the towers you get another 1 Up item. Only collect it, if you have less than two lives in stock, otherwise trigger it and miss it.
Stage 5 Boss: 1.Phase: Set your Rose Hips to Front and try to destroy the swinging orb as soon as possible with using your Rose Cracker twice and shooting. Once it is destroyed, a new attack with green type 1 bullets fills the screen instead of the orb attack every time. Stay above this attack and shoot the boss. 2.Phase: Try to use the Rose Cracker as little as possible. If you have more than one life in stock, suicide at the end of the bossfight.
-Score should be around 6.900.000-7.000.000 after stage 5-
Stage 6:
In progress.



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Please excuse my bad English. This is my first ST in English and you'll probably find lots of weird sentences and mistakes. Please correct if necessary.

Awesome guide! Thanks for posting it.

You should mention that using the Special Power-up raises the rank really fast as well. In the Arcadia mag I have they say you should never use the Special Power up if you want to control the rank.

maybe you could add this Link (http://www.cave.co.jp/gameonline/pinksweets/stage/index.html) that shows the points for each enemy and boss of every stage.  it's surprising the difference in score between shot and bomb, and sometimes bombing is worth more  ;)  (S=shot and R=rosecracker bomb)

Fantastic guide Plasmo!  :righton:

rtw

Thanks for the link jpj. adding all the stuff would be too much so the links just perfect.
@EOJ
Collecting the special power up item raises the rank more than collecting a regular item but it doesnt constantly raise rank if youre having the special power up activated.

Wow awesome guide, thanks a lot Plasmo. :righton:

Really nice guide Plasmo!

I found a good strategy for the second boss (using Lace) is milking the white discs she shoots out in her first form for points. This, coupled with trying to destroy as many discosaucers in the second form as possible without killing the boss, will leave you at around 2,6-2,8 million after the second stage (maybe even higher if you're lucky with the second form). Uploaded a video at http://www.megaupload.com/se/?d=OBBUFAWS just to demonstrate (end score is around 2,6 million, image quality sucks and is really dark sorry). I'm guessing the other ships can get a much larger point increase from the second form (since it's easier not to harm the boss by mistake when you're destroying the saucers), but they on the other hand wouldn't be as good to milk points from the first form with.

Nice one! Thanks Gakidou! :)

That's a great vid, Gakidou. I have done the disc-milking before, but never the whole boss so thoroughly. Very nice.

Alright, if we're going to get anywhere with this game, let's start strategizing about the quickest, best way to trigger the infinite lives trick.

Is it possible to get the 4th extend before stage 5? When should I be aiming to get the previous 3 extends?

Midi& Meidi should be the easiest due to their shot. Then Kasumi, Shasta, and Lace, from left to right?

I just figured something out: the thing that raises the rank the fastest is tapping the B button (changing the rose hip formation). I always wondered why Galford said he used "rapid fire for the B Button" on his 19.8mil run. Thankfully my Sigma stick has rapid fire built in, and I flicked it on (the max, 30hz). It makes your rose hips change position in a crazy fashion, but if you hold it down all through stage 1, you will see an INSANE rank on the stage 1 boss, far greater than you will ever see without this method. Beat it (actually not too hard thanks to all the slowdown), and Stage 2 is like DDP DOJ's stage 5. :shock:  But interestingly, it seems possible to get through. You just have big waves of bullets to dodge, Ikeda-style. There is a lot of slowdown, which helps.

So why is Galford using this? One theory is it jacks the rank up at the beginning of the game, which gives all enemies more hit points, which allows him to score higher and get the infinite lives bug sooner. The other would be he does not use the B-rapid fire until after the infinite lives bug, maybe not until Stage 7, as just a means of skyrocketing the rank in order to milk the last boss.

Anyone else try this? It's pretty wild.

PS-He said he used this on his score attack runs as well. Could this be the key to jacking up the rank on purpose in order to milk the bosses more thoroughly in SA mode?

I just triggered the first extend at the very beginning of Stage 2 with Shasta. :shock: I think I may have figured out the secret to high scores in this game.

Whoa, that sounds great.
One Question though: Why would you get the variable extends faster if the enemies have more health? You get the extends after destroying enemies not hitting them...?!
And getting an extend at the beginning of 2 is insane! :shock: I'll definitely give it a go today.

Yeah, I'm also gonna try this. Sounds amazing. Such a strange and different game.

Maybe the enemies that fire destructable bullets fire a whole lot more when the rank is insanely high, and that's why EOJ got the extend so early? That could mean you should be able to get the second variable extend a lot earlier too, maybe in the third or beginning of the fourth stage? If enemies get more hit points, wouldn't this also mean that Lace particularly could score a lot higher on the enemies?

Also, just a quick question: Is it possible to destroy the wing cannons on the second boss? I've noticed that it seems as if they are separate hit areas from the main body of the boss, but have never accomplished destroying any of them.

Tried to hold B down the whole time and i didn't work for me. I still get my first extend at the beginning of stage 3. :x

@Gakidou
They look like you can destroy them but it's definitely not possible

About the infinite lives bug: If you play low rank with Kasumi the last live should be the fixed one in the towers in stage 5. Another strategy would be an aggressive high rank play so that the third midboss spews out an insane amount of bullets. This way you should gain infinite lives before the third boss.

QuoteTried to hold B down the whole time and i didn't work for me. I still get my first extend at the beginning of stage 3. :x

But do you have a high autofire frequency on the B button? I've also tried this and it's amazing how high the rank is on the second stage. The whole screen is covered with bullets. One time I got the extend just before the midboss of the stage (the one after the ufo egg), but I'm having a lot of trouble just surviving at this point.

Oh ok i thought holding B down (no autofire) would be more effective than pressing B very fast or having autofire on.

awesome work EOJ.  especially as i have the same set-up as you!

 :righton:

This is how I get the first extend at the start of Stage 2:

Use Shasta, hold rapid-fire B the whole time in Stage 1, get the special power-up, milk the midboss normally, collect all items you can, then start the boss fight (Make sure you have a straight shot, not a wide shot). Hold rapid-B the whole time during the boss fight, but don't do any damage to the boss with your shot. When those arms open up to shoot the destructible bullets at you, press A (this automatically changes your speed and starts firing your shot). There are so many bullets that Shasta cannot do any damage to the arms, her shot only reaches halfway through the destructible bullet mess.  :shock: Repeat this until the boss times out, at which point you need to bomb to survive (this is a bit tricky). Maybe there is a way to destroy the boss at the end of the milking sequence and avoid the time-out part?

Then at the start of Stage 2 you get the 1-up after the second or third wave of enemies.

I don't think this works well with Lace, as her shot does damage to the boss.

Been experimenting with this a bit today, and have concluded that maxing out the rank early on indeed is good for getting lots and lots of destructible bullets, but also makes survival so hard that it isn't really worthwile. I could see however how increasing the rank a little bit on the first stage (without making it skyrocket) may be very useful for getting extends earlier. The trick I guess is balancing the rank and knowing when to stop changing the rose hip formation, so that the game gives you lots of destructible bullets while still being manageable. I bet that this, and raising the rank through the roof before the last boss, is what Galford uses the rapid fire on the B button for. Anyway, great find EOJ!

I think you're right, Gakidou. Unless you need to bomb your way through Stage 2, then raise the tick counter on the boss, then get an extend in Stage 3, plus the fixed extend, and milk the midboss for the final extend?? That would trigger the infinite lives trick at the end of Stage 3.

And what about Score Attack mode? Anyone have any ideas when to use the rapid-B in this mode? Galford uses it here too, remember.

i was literally just about to say that...!   :lol:
damn shame i read all this stuff just as i have to leave for a couple of hours.  he probably uses it for a lot of score attack, as it's quite easy.  and would help to explain how he can get 6 million points before the boss.  i wonder how that would affect the lightning attack...?  or the midbosses...?  

damn, i gotta go   :evil:

I tried out SA with the B-rapid fire. It makes a huge difference. :shock: The game becomes much harder, but there are so many more destructible bullets, it makes your score increase a lot faster. I got 600K after the first midboss, which is about 250K more than I usually get. :shock:

QuoteAbout the infinite lives bug: If you play low rank with Kasumi the last live should be the fixed one in the towers in stage 5. Another strategy would be an aggressive high rank play so that the third midboss spews out an insane amount of bullets. This way you should gain infinite lives before the third boss.

I've looked at Tsumanne's old videos, and I see he triggers the infinite lives on the 3rd boss with Shasta. In Galford's Stage 3 Harder mode video (the only video we have from him, AFAIK), he triggers it before the stage boss. So it looks like you really need to get it by the end of Stage 3. The low rank play is probably worthless - not worth it for the score, and too easy to mess up and have to start all over again.

So, I am thinking perhaps I'd need to start using the rapid-B towards the middle of stage 3, to jack up the rank for the midboss. This would give me an extend on the midboss, and one right after it, like in Galford's video.

BTW if anyone needs Galford's vid, let me know. It is not available from his site anymore.

EDIT: I just noticed Galford starts using Rapid-B right after the midboss, until the boss appears. :shock: He does not use it anywhere else in the level, as far as I can see. But then again it is harder mode, so he probably uses it less than in Normal mode.

are there any high scoring Score Attack videos available on the net somewhere?
or any Score Attack videos at all?

There was a SA 1CC vid with Kasumi awhile back, but I seem to have lost it.  Anyone have it?

nope, never seen it   :?

what was the score?

It's quite frustrating that I actually can't do the infinite lives trick because of the wrong setup.(i don't have autofire)  :cry:
About the replay: never heard of it before.

Plasmo: I think it's still possible by the end of stage 3 (or beginning of stage 4) without autofire. At least with Shasta. I played a run today and got the first 1up on the stage 2 boss, then the fixed extend. Unfortunately I messed up the ST3 midboss.

You can try to just press B really fast sometimes to increase the rank, maybe right after the 2nd boss, and in the middle of stage 3?

I had a run where i pressed the WHOLE stage 1 autofire as fast as i can. at least #20. It had close to no effect on the rank.

Are you talking about Rapid-B or Rapid-A? Sometimes I change the Rapid-A autofire to #30 (with the autofire on my Sigma stick). It doesn't have much effect on Stage 1, but it makes a difference in later stages.

i was talking about auto B pressed as fast as rapid A at #20 if you would have to press it manually.

Update on my PS infinite lives trick progress:

Just had a run where I got the first extend on the stage 2 boss, and the second extend was the fixed extend.
Then, right after this extend, I held down Rapid-B until the midboss, and kept holding it through the midboss fight.
After about 20 seconds the rank increased enough to where the boss looked exactly the same as in the harder mode
vid by Galford. At this point I let off Rapid-B. I milked the bullets for a bit and got the 3rd extend on one of its satellites. :righton:
Unfortunately I died foolishly after this, otherwise I would have milked it a bit more and hopefully gotten the fourth and final extend right before the
stage 3 boss.

Anyway, with a bit more practice, I should have a 1CC coming soon. :D

Is this Galford video you speak of available for download somewhere?

No, but I'll put it up on megaupload this afternoon.

Okay, here's the video:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B279L7O0

Galford's Stage 3 Harder Mode vid.

Thanks EOJ!

I was looking through some Arcadias today, and noticed there is a commentary page after the hi scores that talks about some of the best runs.
There is one for YOS.K's 20mil Pink Sweets run with Lace. They state he "did things such as skillfully utilize the brief invincibility right after a death in order to cancel enemy bullets and gain points". Is there some trick to this I'm not aware of?? Must be something you can due after you trigger the infinite lives trick.

They also give his scores at the end of each stage:

Stage 2: 3.7mil
Stage 3: 6 mil
Stage 4: 9 mil
Stage 5: 10.8 mil
Stage 6: 17 mil

How the heck do you get 3.7 mil at the end of stage 2? Wouldn't you have to jack the rank up to max with the rapid-B in stage 1??

Also, Arcadia calls the infinite lives trick a "condition (to be reached)" not a "bug". So it's clear it isn't a bug. They say you should aim to get this condition in Stage 3 (which is what we already assumed).

very interesting.  any other info at all?

i'm surprised at how few points are scored in stage 5 though   :?  perhaps he lost the medal chain, or ballsed something else up?  

i'm also stumped by the invincibility comment...  do you think they just mean hitting A to release a bomb as you're in the death animation?  (dying whilst bombing a pattern still nets you points)

That's all the info in YOS.K's run. In a previous issue they say " a key to high scoring is using the rapid-B to max the rank out - this produces more enemies and more items dropped in each level. It also produces more bullets on the bosses, which allows you to milk them for more gains."

Chapter 5 doesn't have a lot of points in comparison to the other stages. You can't milk the midboss, for example. I guess the boss can't be milked much either.

As for the invincibility after dying, I think it has to be something with bombing at the right moment. Not sure how that could be very profitable though.

sure, it's like bombing the boats on stage 4 isn't really *key* to a good score   :?

FINALLY I've figured out when the non fixed 1 Up item exactly appears. Read 3) under section 4.2. for more information!

ah, i already knew about this.  i think myself and icarus talked about the 2,500 number in one of the shmups threads.  thought you knew sorry  :(

1) How did you get the precise number of 2500?

2)I don't see how this helps matters much, as without any visual counter you still have to just rely on "a lot of bullet-milking" on bosses and midbosses.

some japanese bloke counted it!  :lol:

it's on the japanese stg wiki site.

It was indeed news to me lol. I know that it doesn't really help you, but for me this bit was the last one i didn't fully understand about the game.

Quote from: jpjsome japanese bloke counted it!  :lol:
it's on the japanese stg wiki site.

Indeed. We (and a number of others) discussed the game system in one of the two main Pink Sweets threads at shmupsforum. When you think about it though, 2,500 sounds about right given the amount of actual milking and Shot destruction you have to do to trigger a variable Extend.

FYI, the STGWiki is here (http://magus.main.jp/cgi/wiki/pukiwiki.php?%A5%D4%A5%F3%A5%AF%A5%B9%A5%A5%A5%A4%A1%BC%A5%C4), for those interested.

have you experimented with an auto-B set-up yet icarus?

Quote from: jpjhave you experimented with an auto-B set-up yet icarus?

Haven't had the chance, since my time has been invested elsewhere. I might give it a look tonight as my Hori RAP allows me to set up B+, however I'll lose manual control over the Rose Hips temporarily with it.

By the way, I found another amusing bug in the game a while ago, accidentally. Even got it on video. Not sure how it happened, though.
I'll post it in the PCB glitches thread later.

if it's triggering infinite lives, i know that one too  ;)

Quote from: jpjif it's triggering infinite lives, i know that one too  ;)

Not quite what I was referring to. (http://bigcore.rsdio.com/icarus/pinksweets/ps_noplayercraft_icr.avi)

what is it sorry?  (i don't have the necessary codecs on this pc for .avi files)

It shows the demonstration but theres no player craft...Weird stuff.

The part in Plasmo's guide about destroying enemies with the rose cracker lowering the hit counter by 1 must be wrong, as if you watch Galford's ST3 harder mode vid, he gets the last 1UP to appear by bombing a group of enemies - he never touches any with the shot. This would be impossible if the rose cracker only lowered the counter.

Also I found out the source of the 2500 number - a Japanese dude didn't count it, it was taken from an issue of Arcadia (who got the info from Cave).

Some interesting info about the extra modes from Cave's official page for the game (http://www.cave.co.jp/gameonline/pinksweets/system/kakushi.html) that I somehow overlooked until now:

-In HARDER mode the hitbox on your ship and the enemy bullets is smaller (ONLY in Harder mode).
-In EXTENDED mode the first loop is slightly harder than the normal game's 1st loop, and the 2nd loop is harder still, but it is different from HARDER mode.

Might want to add this info to your guide, Plasmo.

More info on Extended mode:

The rank starts high in the second loop, but there are no suicide bullets like in Harder mode. The boss fights are harder. There's no TLB.

When you get into the second loop, your high score shows the stage as a number between 8 and 14. If you 2-ALL it, it shows 14 as your stage, with your score in Green.

Apparently the fixed 1up in stage 5 is not there in the first loop of Extended. Not sure about in the second loop.

I watched Tsumanne's ST3 midboss vid with Lace again. I noticed he enters the midboss with 2 lives in stock (and 4.2mil). This could mean he only has 2 lives, or it could mean he triggered the infinite lives BEFORE the midboss. In the vid he gets to the midboss at an insane rank level, one higher than I've managed to experience even after holding rapid B through most of ST3. So now I'm wondering, maybe it is possible to trigger the infinite lives before the ST3 midboss. Maybe it's only possible with Lace though. If so, the rank would probably need to be jacked up in ST2, and I'm guessing the midboss would need to be milked there.

This would also help explain how YOS.K got 3.7mil by the end of ST2 in his 20mil run with Lace.

Thoughts?

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. By experimenting with using rapid B through the first half of the first stage, I've managed to consistently get the first variable extend on or right before the second midboss (using Shasta), with the rank still being managable. So I don't find it unlikely at all that you could get the first extend even earlier. Wasn't it you EOJ who managed to get the first extend from the first wave of enemies on the second stage? You can milk the second midboss for quite a lot of bullets (the large white ones mainly) even without raising the rank too much, so I don't think it's impossible that you could get as much as two variable extends on the second stage with high rank tactics (especially since the flying saucers the second boss releases also fire destructible bullets).

EDIT:
Also, Plasmo you should get a HRAP.

My quest to trigger the infinite lives on default settings w/ Shasta (A) continues. I am making progress with the rank manipulation needed to trigger the 6th extend before the ST3 boss. The strategy I am using now is to hold rapid-B from the end of the ST2 boss fight until the fixed 1UP in ST3 (I let off here, destroy the tank, hold B a bit to get through the section with all the bullets firing at you), then I hold rapid B-again until the midboss fight, and let go of it after destroying the first two drones on the left side. If done correctly, I'll have jacked the rank up enough to where the bullet stream is the same as in Tsumanne's ST3 harder mode vid. Then I just have to milk the thing without dying. I've gotten one 1up off of it a few times, but I keep messing up the end.

Also, I always get the first extend right after the second ST2 midboss now. I milk his destructible bullets for 4 turns.

I keep reading Pink Sweets threads archived from 2ch. One interesting tidbit I found is a guy who said he got a 10mil ALL with Midi/Meidi without the infinite lives trick. So it is possible to get a high score ALL without the trick.

if only galford would release that video (or any of the other top players for that matter)  :whyioughtta:

One thing Galford mentioned on his blog, which may be of interest, is that he basically doesn't use the shot at all on ST5 because the rank is so high. So I guess you need to bomb your way through the level.

Just got an awesome idea: dont press any button at all in stage 5. you lose some points but the rank will stay manageable I THINK. I really have to start playing PS again.;)

I don't know how well that work would with those homing lasers. You'd have to do a bomb from time to time.

I'm starting to think that getting 5 extends by ST4, then getting the fixed 1up in ST5 may be an easier way to get the infinite lives. I nearly got through ST4 without dying in my last run, and it was pretty much at max rank. There is so much slowdown on those snakes and trains if you use Lace with a special power up, it's really not too hard. You can get through the tricky parts with a bomb as well.

I'd just have to practice a safe path through ST5, perhaps just holding B most of the time, and bombing when necessary, but still taking out all those towers.

completely forgot about those damn homings....stage 5 is such a nightmare

what did galford say again about part of good scoring involving exploiting your abilities after a death?

and is it worth firing an email off to the gamebox2 website for a copy of galford's dvd?  (as i take it this is where it was recorded, and he said something about giving his friends copies)

Quote from: jpjwhat did galford say again about part of good scoring involving exploiting your abilities after a death?

That was YOS.K in Arcadia, not Galford. He was pretty vague about it.

I guess an email to Gamebox2 wouldn't hurt, but I doubt you'll get a reply.

after thinking about it, i thought maybe it was just the infinite lives trick he meant, and he worded it badly or whatever.  ie "i exploit the technique to carry on after a death" or similar.

i may bug someone on gamebox2.  hopefully they're unscrupulous  :lol:

So, I'm playing a lot of Pink Sweets these days, for some weird reason. I nearly triggered the infinite lives with Kasumi today, which gave new life to the game.

I have been looking back on old 2Ch PS threads again, and noticed some interesting stuff. First, one guy got 16mil without the infinite lives. So it seems you don't need the infinite lives to score high - you just need skills. Also, GER's high score on his Stage 5 lace scoring run was a C score/12mil (not a clear), which is also pretty damn good for a non-infinite lives score.

It's clear that there are a lot of hidden scoring tricks in the game that we aren't aware of yet. Most, I think, are based on using the rose cracker on certain enemies. I described how you can get 600,000+ using the rose cracker on the ST7 midboss, for example. The ST 6 boss's lightening attack is another clear example of how the rose cracker can net huge points. A final example is the swarm of ships at the very end of stage 2 - use the rose cracker on them and each one is worth 2000 points. There must be more stuff like this if people are getting 16-20mil in the game.

Interesting stuff EOJ! Too bad I sold my PCB but without an autofire stick it wouldn't be possible to improve my score anyway...
Clearing the game without the infinite lives bug AND getting 16mill is unbelieveably impressive. It's fair to say that it's nearly impossible and probably on par with a 2-ALL DOJ.
I always had no lives in stock, didn't use my rosecracker at all and tried to keep my rank low, but it's not possible. Clearing stage 5 is VERY difficult and once you enter stage 6 you're just hitting a wall.
I don't get this game and have officially given up. :oops:
Try some non infinite live bug credits if you want a great challenge! I can imagine that it would be pretty boring if you have infinite lives. Just suicide 30 times on each boss to lower the rank to 0 again and it shouldn't be too hard to get 14mill at least.
Oh how I wish there would be a proper superplay.....

I don't think the 16mil is on par with a DOJ 2-ALL - this guy got that score in May 2006, about a month after the game was released.

So far, scouring the 2Ch PS thread archives, I've discovered quite a few people who have cleared the game without infinite lives, the most impressive being the 16mil w/ Lace, and the 10mil with Midi/Meidi. I'll keep looking (it's a lot to sift through) and post more details when I find them.

PS-it's not a bug!

Well then try it yourself.
The problem is that you can't lower your rank at all during stage 6 (you only get one/two lives) and you need to be fully powered up and even need to use the rose cracker from time to time if you want to destroy the enemies and get the medals.
Clearing the game with 5-6mill and completely ignoring all items like in GER's replays is the only easy way to clear the game without infinite lives.

I didn't say it was easy. But it took the Japanese like 6 months to 2-ALL DOJ. The Lace score took under a month. I'm just saying they're not comparable.;)

I just found a funny post on 2Ch, where a guy rates what each class of player can do in this game:

Beginner - Stage 4
Average - Stage 5
Pro - Infinite lives triggered
Freak - Clear without infinite lives

:P

QuoteI'm just saying they're not comparable.wink

You're probably right, comparing Cave and Raizing like games is not the best idea...
At least we can safely assume that it's the most difficult Raizing game.

Okay, just found a guy back on June 2006 who posted details about his Midi/Meidi ALL without the infinite lives on 2Ch. He apparently played for score and medalled throughout. His advice:

-For stages 1-6, keep your default 2 lives, and try not to die. Let ALL the 1UPs fall down off the screen. This keeps the rank stable throughout the game, moreso than suiciding. He only died twice in Stage 6's laser/snake hell section.
-For stage 7, try and suicide 4 times before the midboss to lower the rank for the midboss and last boss fights.

The following are listed in order of rank reduction:

Letting a 1UP fall off the screen: Large reduction
Continuing: Medium reduction
Suiciding: Small reduction

Lol I didn't know that the effect of suiciding was that small. Maybe I was playing PS the wrong way for the whole time...

EOJ, is there any interesting info on galford's message board?  also, i'm wondering if i should try bribing him again :laugh:

There are some tidbits on Galford's page, but nothing too interesting, iirc. I'll have another look.

My newest 2Ch archive finding is a guy who cleared the first loop of Extended mode without the infinite lives, but his game ended in the second loop on the stage 1 midboss. He said there were so many destructible bullets on the screen he couldn't avoid them, and his game ended here. He thinks it's absolutely impossible to 2-ALL the game without the infinite lives.

Keep in mind the Extended first loop is harder than Normal mode.

Here's my quick guide to getting the Infinite lives by the start of Stage 4, using rapid B:

-Keep your A shot at #10 throughout. Pick up the rose hips at the start, but keep them on the back. Get a Special Power up at the start of Stage 1, collect all medals and items, only avoiding those power ups that change your shot to wide or rapid, if you want to stick with what you have. You should stick with rapid (straight) with Shasta, and never change. Milk the stage 1 midboss's and boss's destructible bullets as much as possible to raise your hit counter.

-Milk the stage 2 midboss for 4 turns. You have to get lucky here, if you get one or more turns without destructible bullets, it'll be hard to get the 1UP right after. You have to hope you'll get 1 or 2 turns where both arms are firing destructible bullets. Stay on the left or right the screen destroying the bullets, while avoiding damage to the body. destroy the midboss at the 4th or 5th turn. The 1UP should pop out of one of the enemies right after.

-Milk the Stage 2 boss if you want. Not necessary for the infinite lives, but it helps your score a bit. When the boss starts its final phase, hold rapid B (@30hz) until you destroy it. Continuing holding it to the start of stage 3.

-Keep holding rapid B in stage 3 during the first 4 waves of enemies, then let off and put your options forward, while using your shot. Watch Galford's harder mode stage 3 video. Duplicate his run, bombing the tanks in the same way. This helps raise the rank to the level we need for the midboss. After the fixed 1UP pops out of the tank, hold Rapid B until the start of the midboss fight.

-At the midboss, let go of rapid B before the boss starts firing, then destroy the two drones on the left. Keep your rose hips forward, and milk the bullets exactly the same way as on Galford's vid. If you do it perfectly, you'll get 1 UP on a drone, then another immediately after midboss fight. Otherwise you will have to milk the stage 3 boss a bit, and hope a 1UP pops out on one of the bombs. If it does not pop out on the bombs, it should pop out at the very start of stage 4.

That's it! Shasta is the easiest. Lace is harder due to the space between her shots, as when there are a lot of destructible bullets she can die easily if you're not careful. The stage 3 boss milking is easier with Lace, however, so it's a tradeoff.

Hope that helps! Looking forward to some other players getting the infinite lives triggered soon. :righton:

thanks  :righton:

still trying to figure out what the hell people are milking on score attack stage...

plasmo, with the 2nd midboss, do you mean killing him and tose red orbs with the shot?  with shot or bomb, i never really got much points from there (with kasumi).  and using bombs, you kill him much quicker..   :-\

the guy on gamebox2 playing SA mode with kasumi (AB) had 8.8 mill  :o that's the same as galford's score he recorded to dvd with lace.  he must've made about 5 mill from the level, if not more.  best i can do with kasumi is maybe 3+.  i just can't see where the hell these extra 2 mill come from.  he doesn't state if he's using auto-B but i'm assuming he does

sorry, it was 8.7 mill with kasumi.

here's an interesting list of records for pink sweets from the french forum

YOS.K ? Normal Mode - Lace ? 20.614.480
Galford ? Normal Mode ? Shasta ? 19.816.910
ポン酢シャワー ? Normal Mode - Midi&Meidi ? 14.499.610
Nakano Ryuuzou (中野龍三) ? Normal Mode ? Kasumi - 14.327.490
AFO ? Harder Mode - Lace - 21.059.020
CHA - Extended Mode - ? - 34.069.890
DGN ? Score Attack ? Lace - 10.251.870

Score game center Game Box Q2 (nagoya):
Score attack mode / 9,462,910 / 逸般人GAL＠思い出はおくせんまん / ALL (16/07/07)
Score attack mode / 8,870,670 / 逸般人GAL / ALL (15/04/07)
Normal mode (Shasta) / 19,816,910 / 1プレイ80分（笑）通りすがりの逸般人 / ALL (21/01/07)
Normal mode (Shasta) / 17,927,260 / 通りすがりの逸般人 / ALL (17/12/06)
Normal mode (Shasta) / 16,487,860 / ↑↑↓↓←→←→ABS / ALL　(19/11/06)
Normal mode (Gloire de Midi&Meidi) / 14,499,610 / ポン酢シャワー / ALL (15/10/06)
Harder mode (Shasta) / 12,054,630 / 通りすがりの逸般人 / ALL (15/10/06)
Harder mode (Shasta) / 4,189,520 / 残機無限バグは集計上問題なしですか？ / Stage5 (20/08/06)
Normal mode (Gloire de midi&Meidi) / 10,565,980 / ローズヒップティをおいしく味わう会会長 / ALL (20/08/06)　
Harder mode (Shasta) / 3,900,250 / バナナスパサンニンマエ / Stage 5 17/07/06)
Score attack mode (Kasumi) / 8,700,580 / モモコマチニコイリ / ALL (17/07/06)
Score attack mode (Gloire de midi&Meidi) / 5,426,750 / 山奥からの使者 / ALL　(18/06/06)
Score attack mode (Kasumi) / 6,224,090 / 雷ゲーの予感 / ALL　(21/05/06)

Quoteplasmo, with the 2nd midboss, do you mean killing him and tose red orbs with the shot?  with shot or bomb, i never really got much points from there (with kasumi).  and using bombs, you kill him much quicker..   :-\

You really need to learn to play with Lace. Your score should skyrocket by a few million points and you should get farther with her. She's not only the highest scoring character, but also the best one overall. I milk the midboss with Lace's shot and get a few hundred thousand points from him with just shooting him. The good thing is, that you can't destroy him with your shot but nevertheless milk him, that's why I think that the secret about the high scores maybe is this midboss.

you are right, i should use lace.  but i'm confused that the kasumi score is also so high.  i tried milking with shot for kasumi, and milking the destructable bullets as well.  and in 1 minute, i got a huuuuge 60k  :rolleyes:

i don't know, i still think to have over 6 mill during the stage there is something important we are missing.  and if it's tied into driving the rank up with auto-B, it would be something to do with either more bullets, or more hit points.

looking at that list above, there are *two* world record holders in gamebox2  :oogle:  maybe i just need to find a contact in nagoya  :cool:

with you, EOJ, and icarus having sold your boards, it's tough staying interested  :-\  i will try some runs with lace though  :righton:

also, did anyone elaborate further on the secret menu?  is it pressing the test button whilst holding down A+B+C ...?

Icarus sold his too? I thought he'd hold on to it.

I may buy the game again. I've owned like 4 or 5 of them over the past 2 years.

As for score attack, I think it's just higher rank = more hit points = more points. The problem is you can't really die, at least not until the snakes. Galford died twice in the snakes in his 8.8mil run, iirc.

I wonder if holding rapid B from the start, and NOT killing things quickly (until the first midboss or so) might be helpful. This would let you raise the rank higher before the midbosses, which might let you milk more points off them. You'd lose a bit of time in the beginning, but the score gains in the second half of the stage would make up for it. Something worth trying, I'd think.

sold it to kiken, i believe.

trouble with that is running out of time before you get the pay-off sections.  at the moment, i'm just experimenting with anything and everything, but always keeping an eye on the score counter to see if anything rapidly bumps it up  =D  that's how i found out about the lightning   :lol:

i'm also gonna try for the infinite lives by stage 3 with shasta.  i just got a variable extend on the last wave of enemies on stage 2  :righton:  but it's been so long since i played it that i need to get back in the flow.  had about 20 runs where something somewhere always goes wrong..   :whyioughtta:

Quote from: jpj on February 25, 2009, 04:51:39 PM
sold it to kiken, i believe.

Ah, then he probably still has the game. He only sold it to Kiken because he bought another kit in better condition.  ;)

I found Normal Mode to be more entertaining than Score attack, so that's what I mainly played. Good luck at it.

Pink Sweets Highscore History

(08.2006)
Arcade:
15,932,380 - Lace - 中野龍三

(09.2006)
Arcade:
17,434,530 - Lace - 中野龍三


***from 10.2006 onwards, Arcadia started to list Arcade mode scores for each character seperately and also accepted scores for Score Attack, Harder and Extended.***


(10.2006)
Arcade:
14,327,490 - Kasumi - 中野龍三
15,223,780 - Shasta - 中野龍三
13,491,320 - Meidi&Midi - 中野龍三
18,932,690 - Lace - 中野龍三

Harder:
3,900,250 - (Stage 5) - バナナスパサンニンマエ

Extended:
18,164,810 - Shasta - プチてんしシャスタS

Score Attack:
8,700,580 - モモコマチニコイリ

(11.2006)
Arcade:
20,614,480 - Lace - YOS.K
14,355,010 - Meidi&Midi - 中野龍三
15,271,220 - Shasta - 裏行けず？そんなの認めませんわぁ～

Harder:
4,189,520 - (Stage 5) - 残機無限バグは集計上問題なしですか？

(12.2006)
Arcade:
16,065,870 - Shasta - あ！？あぶない！！

Harder:
13,981,500 - YOS.K

(01.2007)
Arcade:
17,142,180 - Shasta - DGN
14,499,610 - Meidi&Midi - ポン酢シャワー

Extended:
20,381,240 - プチてんし誰かやって下さい！ （><;）

(02.2007)
Arcade:
18,623,900 - Shasta - DGN

Extended:
23,496,290 - なかなかや

(03.2007)
Extended:
23,652,350 - 巧信神流＠ベル狭すぎ！！

Score Attack:
8,716,830 - DGN

(04.2007)
Arcade:
19,816,910 - Shasta - 1プレイ80分（笑）通りすがりの逸般人

(05.2007)
Extended:
25,422,210 - 巧信神流＠ベル狭すぎ！！

(07.2007)
Arcade:
16,538,810 - Kasumi - しょこたん

Extended:
34,069,890 - しょこたん

Score Attack:
8,870,670 - 逸般人GAL

(09.2007)
Score Attack:
9,735,850 - DGN

(10.2007)
Harder:
18,271,820 - AFO

(11.2007)
Harder:
18,513,380 - AFO

(01.2008)
Score Attack:
10,251,870 - DGN

(02.2008)
Harder:
21,059,020 - AFO

(04.2008)
Harder:
21,168,020 - AFO


-----------------------------------------------

This is probably more something for the Cowboy hideout, but I decided to post it here. Maybe someone finds it interesting.

 :righton:

and WTF at those Harder Mode scores  :o

 :-\ i just thought of something...  arcadia (don't ask me why) will always list scores based on their progression through a game.  so an ALL is always better than a run which isn't, regardless of score.

this probably explains why the game was so badly received and why there are so few decent replays out there.  we all know the game is an absolute bitch when you're playing it properly.  what's the point of grinding out a 7-8 mill score where you die on stage 5 or 6, when someone else can clear the game by missing all medals with a score of 2-3 million, and be listed as a better score !?  which i guess is why there are so many low-rank clear videos  :-\

People were doing the infinite lives trick like a week after the game was released (judging by the posts in 2Ch archives), thus ALLs were piling up left and right. All of the Normal mode scores in Arcadia used it, and they were very high within months after release. So I don't see your point really.

"Playing this properly" means triggering the infinite lives. Extended mode is impossible without it, for example.

not all boards have the infinite lives though.  and i'm not talking specifically about score submissions  :rolleyes: rather the ethos that a clear is always better than a non clear regardless of score

The only boards without the infinite lives are the May 2006 revision, and very few of those were made (try finding one today, good luck at that).

If you're going to play the game seriously, and submit scores to Arcadia, you know you have to play on the same field as the rest of the guys.
Thus the infinite lives are a must. But that is also why the game wasn't received well. Many Japanese players very much dislike this feature of the game, and its necessity of use in order to compete with the top scorers.

according to plasmo's list arcadia hadn't even published any pink sweets scores until august

my point is that if it weren't for that system, would people like GER and others go to the effort of comprehensively making such boring low-rank clear videos?

So, you're saying the whole Ethos of "clear is better than score" can explain stuff like Ger's vids? Quite possibly. I think Ger was playing on the May 2006 revision though, which lacks infinite lives, and he apparently couldn't clear it when playing for a full-on score (I think he got a C score, but no clear). So that was his only option really.

Getting an "old school" clear on this game is indeed an achievement, and I think that's what all those vids show, even if they have to keep it at low rank. I think it's viewed as a different achievement from the "WR scores" in the game, as those basically involve turning over half of the game into score attack mode.

We also must keep in mind there are some in Japan who enjoy "beating the game the easiest way possible" or "with the lowest score" possible. I saw ABI released a vid of him going through Stage 2 of Espgaluda with a score of like 20,000, the lowest he could possibly muster, and he was quite proud of this achievement. Not sure if that's related to the PS vids though.

Personally I find the "old school" low rank clear harder to do than the infinite lives triggered clear just because it's so freaking boring. I've tried it, but I always run into something and die, because it's so boring I started to daydream.  :oogle:

exactly.  i don't think i've ever gotten past stage 4 doing one of those runs just because it's so damn boring.  why would you go to the effort of making a video of you doing that through the whole game, and then once for each character? 

even interviews with other players, you usually hear them say they don't even really look at scoring until they can clear a game.  and from what i remember of galford's blog, it wasn't too clear if arcadia would or wouldn't be accepting bug scores straight away.  this game really got off to a bad start  :-\

This game, indeed, got off to a bad start. It was misunderstood, they released a revision which totally messed up the playing field (and was quickly withdrawn), and so on. But look at what the Japanese players have accomplished. Like any Yagawa game, it takes a great deal of time to come to terms with the intricacies of the system, and it can take years to master. I still see new scores pop up in Arcadia, 3 years later! And I think we'll keep seeing them for years to come.

Wouldn't it be a surprise to see a vid of YOS.K getting a 20mil ALL w/ Lace, and see him use rapid B to max out the rank on stage 1?
Actually, I wouldn't be that surprised. ;) I'm pretty sure this is exactly what you need to do (compare Tsumanne's Stage 3 midboss Lace vid where he has 4.2mil, the infinite lives before the fight starts, and the rank is crazy insane).

I have to say, it seems like Arcadia should have split "rapid B" from "no rapid fire" scores into two different tables, a la Mushihimesama. I don't think it's possible to get the same scores without rapid B.

the mystery of how those scores are achieved, specifically SA mode, are driving me to distraction.  especially if you think yos.k's normal mode lace score is beatable..  i guess it just irks me that such a heavy impotus is put on getting a clear, not many people would have been motivated to play for score.  they were the same with DOJ, with 600-700 mill scores being listed higher than 1.5 bills just because the player died on hibachi  :-\ 

i'm gonna mess around with invincibility turned on in the test menu, and then i think i'll sell my board

i shouldn't post at 3am..  :whyioughtta:

Quote from: jpj on March 22, 2009, 10:50:00 PM/i guess it just irks me that such a heavy impotus is put on getting a clear, not many people would have been motivated to play for score. 

Well again, anyone (in Japan) seriously playing for score knows if they don't trigger the infinite lives it's time to enter the reset code and start again. This game actually has less of a problem with the whole "Clear is best" mentality, compared to something like DOJ, because you can trigger the infinite lives in stage 3! Thus you don't have to worry about a death late in the game ruining a good score. A skilled player can gain very good consistency in triggering the infinite lives, letting him focus on score planning for the rest of the stages.

I will have this game again tomorrow, and I'm going to jack the rank up and see what I can do. :righton:

word.  the may revision yeah..   ;)

did you get any further with the secret test menu?  (holding A, B, C while pressing test??)

i'm just in a bad mood because i've spent four hours playing the same two levels in doj over and over  :-X

Quote from: jpj on March 22, 2009, 11:01:02 PM
the may revision yeah..   ;)

No one plays it, you can't buy it, CAVE basically doesn't want you to know it ever existed. Yeah.  ;)

Quote
did you get any further with the secret test menu?  (holding A, B, C while pressing test??)

You just have to hold A+B. I fiddled with stuff but never saw any effect. Weird.

Quote
i'm just in a bad mood because i've spent four hours playing the same two levels in doj over and over  :-X

That doesn't sound fun! Reminds me of late nights practicing a level of Ikaruga over and over.

cool. well i'm interested to see how you get on with it  :)  hopefully i'll hear back at some point from the guy in nagoya.  i'll probably find out galford commited suicide and took his dvd to the grave  :laugh:

Can you imagine the bidding war if someone put Galford's DVD up on YAJ? I shudder to think how much I'd bid for it.
INH needs to realize what a great potential product they're missing out on! They release shit like a Radilgy superplay DVD and not this?
Give me a break.  :whyioughtta:

i got a response about a year ago from INH when i emailed them about making a pink sweets dvd  XD  said it was a good idea, and they'd look into it.  RAM only knows of the vids on nico, and KHD only knew of GER's vids  :-\ he even used an online translator (jp -> english) to send me a reply  :)  my email (in japanese) to galford ages ago was an offer of 10,000 yen if he would put it up on the b.board tracker  :o

radilgy isn't that great for a superplay, but TZW is a bit of a legend in the street fighter 2 community  =D

We'd probably have better luck tracking down YOS.K. He recently (well, 10 months ago) released a vid of his DDPDFK 1.0 counterstop on nico. If someone paid him to record a PS run, he might do it.

Did you manage to trigger the infinate lives trick jpj?

Seeing as I can't sell my kit, well I don't want to knock the price down uirther as it's going to be stupidy hard to replace I'm going to start playing this again.

How should I start out playing this one, low score / low rank, or just go for an all out attack & jack the rank up?

I've read the strat guides, but It's still an utter bastard hard game.

I really regret, that I've never played it with the infinite lives trick. After all, it seems that it's supposed to be played with this trick.
Maybe I'll buy the game again + an autofire stick. I like the game's style and music very much, but playing it "the old school way" felt like running against a wall, more like Mushihimesama Ultra. (I should've made a replay showing you how crazy the rank is in stage 6 even if you've played a LOW RANK game with no lives in stock the first 5 stages!) Everytime you insert a credit you KNOW that you're going to fail, because it IS impossible to win. It's a very demotivating game, I kinda understand all the hate it recieves. :-\

Quote from: jpjaccording to plasmo's list arcadia hadn't even published any pink sweets scores until august

The list isn't quite complete, I'm missing issues exactly around that time. I'm sure they've listed more scores before august.

i got very close the last couple of times i played it.  using shasta, i had a few goes where i just needed one more extra life to do it, but always *something* would go wrong.  other times, because you're trying to milk everything destructable, i'd get nuked by a stage 2 midboss  :whyioughtta:

first thing though dude, you'd need to set up an auto fire button for B weapon.  i don't know if you'd really wanna go to the hassle, but ideally, you'd want
A, B, B+

my advice would be to play score attack with a fast character with a good spread shot (i used to use kasumi by selecting her with start).  that's a lot of fun, and it's basically just old-school medal-chasing ... but the level is massive!

reset code is the best thing ever

Nah, your right it's too much hassle setting up an Auto Fire. Especially when the game kicks my ass so bad.

The board I have, has been cleared a few times. I guess I'm giving it an early retirement seeing as I can't clear L3 all the time & L4 never!

So Score attack is the mode to play then

Quote from: markedkiller78 on March 23, 2009, 09:27:40 AM
The board I have, has been cleared a few times.

1CC'd?  or do you mean the settings?  :)

1cc'd. I'll check tonight as I can't remember the score for the life of me.

I really have such mixed emotions about this game. I like the art, music, enemies, don't mind the mechanics, but knowing that I will never clear it grates with me.

I'll see how score attack feels

nice one  :)  score attack is a lot fun.  moreso than the main game  =D

god, can you imagine if there weren't an infinite lives trick..?  we'd be looking at top scores where people never collect anything and get 4-5 mill but get listed as top because they reached the end  :-\

Quote from: jpj on March 23, 2009, 11:06:34 AM
god, can you imagine if there weren't an infinite lives trick..?  we'd be looking at top scores where people never collect anything and get 4-5 mill but get listed as top because they reached the end  :-\

No, a few guys in Japan could score well without the infinite lives, so we'd still be seeing some impressive scores. The best scores I saw were a 16mil ALL with Lace and a 10mill ALL with Midi&Meidi. These were lower than the infinite lives scores at the time, so they never made it into Arcadia.

We'd never see any Extended mode scores though, and probably Harder mode scores nowhere near the level they are with the infinite lives.

What do you need B+ autofire for in this game?

It jacks up the rank (really fast). You need to use it to get the rank high enough to get the number of destructible bullets you'll need to trigger the infinite lives by the end of stage 3.

AFAIK I'm the only westerner who's done the infinite lives - I did it 5 times (4 in Normal mode (2 w/ Shasta, 2 w/ Lace) and once in Extended mode).

Quote from: EOJ on March 23, 2009, 01:47:46 PM

Quote from: jpj on March 23, 2009, 11:06:34 AM
god, can you imagine if there weren't an infinite lives trick..?  we'd be looking at top scores where people never collect anything and get 4-5 mill but get listed as top because they reached the end  :-\

No, a few guys in Japan could score well without the infinite lives, so we'd still be seeing some impressive scores. The best scores I saw were a 16mil ALL with Lace and a 10mill ALL with Midi&Meidi.

are these scores you actually saw, or just posts on 2ch?

Yeah, posts on 2Ch. But they were detailed, discussing aspects of the runs, how to maintain a manageable rank, etc, so I'm inclined to believe them.
There was a time in 2006 when a lot of posters there really took a stance against the infinite lives "bug" (as they called it), and worked together to discuss strats on how to beat the game with a high score w/out the infinite lives. There is a lot of great info there, and I've posted most of the juicy tidbits in previous pages of this thread.

Remember, just because you can't do something, doesn't mean some wickedly talented dude in Japan can't.  ;)
But as I've said before, it seems like clearing this game with full scoring without the infinite lives is on par with a DDPDOJ 2-ALL, in terms of difficulty. How many westerners have done that? Zero. No one even close really.

BTW the guy who got the non-infinite lives 10mi ALL with M&M is the one who stated Extended mode was impossible without the Infinite lives, so he gave up on the non-infinite lives (and I think the whole game) after that. He got to stage 2-1 in Extended (w/out infinite lives) and said the rank was so bad it was a complete joke.

i dunno.  i'd need a twin galaxy referee to authenticate  ;)

Quote from: EOJ on March 22, 2009, 10:12:19 PM
The only boards without the infinite lives are the May 2006 revision, and very few of those were made (try finding one today, good luck at that).

If you're going to play the game seriously, and submit scores to Arcadia, you know you have to play on the same field as the rest of the guys.
Thus the infinite lives are a must. But that is also why the game wasn't received well. Many Japanese players very much dislike this feature of the game, and its necessity of use in order to compete with the top scorers.

i think that's about right, because you would know that you could never beat the arcadia scores, so why bother?  some players do things like double-plays, or Ino's giga wing 2 0 point play, but if you're doing it to show off, surely you would make it shown  ???  i can understand people not being fussed over recording infinite lives replays, because it doesn't show much merit (if you play with the sensibility that first and foremost, your objective is to clear the game).  but a non-bugged ALL - *with* a decent score, would have a lot of merit, don't you think?

Quote from: jpj on March 23, 2009, 02:22:43 PM
but a non-bugged ALL - *with* a decent score, would have a lot of merit, don't you think?

Indeed it would. The problem is almost no one can do it, and not many people play this game seriously to begin with. I don't think there's more than a handful of Japanese dudes who can do it (or who bother to do it, since they know the infinite lives will help them get a higher score). And apparently none of them have recorded anything. I also doubt any of them play the game anymore. We can always hope some guy will pick the game up again, turn on a recording device, and share it with the world, though.

These guys DID give a lot of details about their runs, so I know what they did in order to manage the rank during their runs. I just lack the skill to replicate it.

GER tried hard, and released one vid (stage 5 w/ Lace) that shows full scoring without the infinite lives. Again, his best seems to be a C score that just came short of a clear. But he's not in the same class as the top scorers in Japan.

Same thing with many Raizing games - a couple guys tore the game apart in ways we can barely imagine to be possible. But no vids, so it largely remains a mystery. Heck, even look at the 300mil MMP 2-ALL scores. I can't imagine how those are possible really. The Rafute guy said he got 168mil on the first loop. That's without dying once! Not to mention the 130mil he got on the second loop (where you no longer get score based extends).

yeah, LAOS has a 29 mill on batrider and i haven't seen anything close to that.  a 17 mill surfaced a year or so ago, and before that the highest i'd seen was 13-15 mills on some team scoreboards.  the only info i could unearth was that he had the previous record of 21 mill, but it wasn't a clear, and it was something related to the rank being so high it's virtually impossible.  he also has a 900k on super puzzle fighter, and i can only get about 250k  :-\  it sucks when there's only a handful of people who know how it's done, and they keep the secrets to themselves

i heard back from nagoya: no joy  :(  not really a surprise, but i gather they weren't very friendly because of the gaijin factor as well  :-\

i guess we've figured some stuff out already, but it would be nice to speed up the learning process.  all i can think is there's an area before the last boss on stage 6 where's it's possible to get over a million per minute with leeching, hence how you can have over 6 mill in SA before the last boss with two minutes on the clock (it's about 9 minutes usually to that point, but 5 mins + 6 minutes of score-based time extends, minus two minutes of leeching).  2 mill from the first couple of forms, which takes about 2 mins, and then 2 mins for another 500k+ for the clear.  i just can't see what that leeching point is

it's a shame YOS.K doesn't have a blog, because like you say, he's still currently active in the STG scene..   :)

Quote from: jpj on March 23, 2009, 02:43:28 PM
it's a shame YOS.K doesn't have a blog, because like you say, he's still currently active in the STG scene..   :)

Yeah, also he was pretty active on the 2Ch PS thread back in 2006-2007, posting his progress. I'll have to check, but I think he was the guy who got the 16mil ALL w/ Lace without the infinite lives.

YOS.K is a beast, he was an awesome DDPDOJ player as well.  :righton: I think Kaneda saw him playing PS at Hey one day, the full run actually.

DOJ eh ..   =D  i didn't know that

i remember kaneda saying he saw a K,xxx,xxx score at HEY.  if that's the case, then that was the world record run  :oogle:

Quote from: Yeah, posts on 2Ch. But they were detailed, discussing aspects of the runs, how to maintain a manageable rank, etc, so I'm inclined to believe them.

That makes me curious, link plz.  ;)

Quote
Same thing with many Raizing games - a couple guys tore the game apart in ways we can barely imagine to be possible. But no vids, so it largely remains a mystery. Heck, even look at the 300mil MMP 2-ALL scores. I can't imagine how those are possible really. The Rafute guy said he got 168mil on the first loop. That's without dying once! Not to mention the 130mil he got on the second loop

I don't know anything about MMP, but since we have that 250mill 1-ALL replay, I think 168mill without dying doesn't seem THAT much of a mystery? I think that much higher 2-ALL scores are possible (350mill?), but it's too dificult to one life the first loop and not many are even trying. The first Rafute 2-ALL score in Arcadia was only a few months ago!

The PS 2Ch archives (and archived threads for all the other games) are here:

http://stg.arcadeita.net/main.html

You have to sift through all the crap yourself though (and remember, I've already done that and posted most of the useful info from there in this thread).

Quote from: EOJ

I don't know anything about MMP, but since we have that 250mill 1-ALL replay, I think 168mill without dying doesn't seem THAT much of a mystery?

It's a 240mil replay, and it's with Ikuo. To get close to that score you have to suicide A LOT on the bosses to milk them. Getting 168mil with Rafute with NO suicides is hard for me to imagine. To put this in perspective, ISO only gets like 115mil at the end of the first loop on the superplay DVD. Watch that and try and figure out where another 50mil are coming from if you can't suicide.  ;)

Quote
I think that much higher 2-ALL scores are possible (350mill?),

I really doubt that, since you can't suicide-boss milk.

Quote from: EOJ on January 30, 2008, 02:50:18 AM
I was looking through some Arcadias today, and noticed there is a commentary page after the hi scores that talks about some of the best runs.
There is one for YOS.K's 20mil Pink Sweets run with Lace. They state he "did things such as skillfully utilize the brief invincibility right after a death in order to cancel enemy bullets and gain points". Is there some trick to this I'm not aware of?? Must be something you can due after you trigger the infinite lives trick.

They also give his scores at the end of each stage:

Stage 2: 3.7mil
Stage 3: 6 mil
Stage 4: 9 mil
Stage 5: 10.8 mil
Stage 6: 17 mil

How the heck do you get 3.7 mil at the end of stage 2? Wouldn't you have to jack the rank up to max with the rapid-B in stage 1??

I just played a full run on "invincible", and my final score was P,309,890 (25,309,890). My end of stage scores were:

Stage 1: 900,000
Stage 2: 3,300,000
Stage 3: 5,700,000
Stage 4: 9,000,000
Stage 5: 12,000,000
Stage 6: 22,000,000
Stage 7: 25,309,890

Note how similar my scores are to YOS.K's stage 2 to 4. What did I do? I held rapid B all throughout Stages 1 and 2. I don't think it's possible to score this high without doing that. From Stage 5 on my score beat YOS.K, but I'm sure he died many times during that, losing the Special Attack over and over (which adds to your score a good deal).

Also note the 10mil on Stage 6 - full max rank is the answer we've been looking for, in order to get 9+mil scores in Score attack. You just need the skills to pull it off.

i knew putting it on invincible was a good idea  ;)  just didn't wanna wipe my scores just yet  :-[

so where's the video?   :-*

what effect/differences did you find playing on invincible and max rank?

One thing I noticed is the rank maxes out a point, and doesn't go any higher. Basically, by the middle of Stage 2, I didn't notice any additional rank increase, even though I kept holding rapid B throughout the stage. I held it in various parts of subsequent stages, but again, no further increase. If you use Lace and a Special Attack power up, this is definitely manageable. But expect a similar challenge to figuring out Mushi's Ultra mode.

I got the 4th extend (in essence, triggering the infinite lives) on the Stage 3 midboss, but got the first 1up to pop out of the Stage 2 midboss. The interesting thing is there is so much slowdown on the Stage 3 midboss if you have the Special Power up and Max rank w/ Lace, it's actually not very hard at all. The nice thing about invincible is that you flash every time you take a hit, so you can use the mode to plan strats. I got through the fight with only a couple hits, but those could be avoided if I were more careful.

You also definitely need to bomb all of the snakes in Stage 4 when you are at max rank - even a special power up shot won't be enough to take those out without getting hit.

and what about stage 6?  did the max rank + special weapon yield any more significant points from the first three midbosses, do you know?  obviously in SA mode your medals start at 100, and it will take a while to get max rank as well.  but then again, there are some enemies which are worth more if you bomb (not many) and i guess you probably held down A for most of the stage?

additionally, try some credits in Harder and SA and see what happens...   ;) =D  i am very curious to what a max score could be.

if you missed it, there's a link in the opening post to cave's official site which shows what point values you get from an enemy depending on shot/bomb.  interesting to see what the theoretical max scores are  :o

I'm way ahead of you - I purposely let a medal drop at the very end of stage 5, resetting my medals to zero for the start of stage 6.  :righton: I did already have the special power up and max rank, so it's not perfectly comparable (but it's close).

I got at least 2 mil on the last midboss pretty fast, just milking his first pattern over and over (to the side, so my shot won't hit his body too much). There are so many bullets at max rank, it's just a boatload of points. And I don't think i got hit at all, due to all the slowdown, it made it fairly easy to position myself.

I know about the enemies you need to bomb, and I tried to bomb all of them in this run.

I really need to try a score attack run in invincible, to see if I can pull off similar scoring with a time constraint.

nice touch.  you get double the cred because your avatar is on point  :-*

why oh why did i borrow deathsmiles...  my tv is yoko and i've only played a dozen credits on it, when all i wanna do is play pink sweets and doj  =D

i know it's an ask, but i think it would be great if you could make a video of this perhaps.  while it is a cheat, i think a vid showing pink sweets at max rank is sorely needed.  counter-balance all the boring shite videos out there, and i imagine all the crazy bullet patterns going on, it's pretty wild

edit - shit, i'm blind.  it's time to bring that PS avatar back out of retirement  ;)

Just did a SA run with Lace on invincible. 6.3mil before the boss, 8.8mil final score with over 1min left on the clock.  =D

It really is all about the max rank. I just held Rapid B throughout the whole stage (felt like the rank maxed out around the last midboss).

Mystery solved.

Pic of the score attack run (managed to get a pic before the complete screen faded away):

(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/blueskied/ps_sa_test.jpg)

haha i was hoping that's why you briefly went  =D

you should take a snap of the P score replace IKD for the main page  ;)

why do you imagine the harder mode record is higher by the way?  obviously it would be a lot more difficult.  maybe YOS.K didn't have any motivation to play normal lace..?  

Alright, I did Harder mode, and pulled out a Q,5 (26.5mil) score. I don't think much more than 27mil is possible. So consider it the theoretical max.

Pic right after the final boss:

(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/blueskied/ps_hr_test3.jpg)

The complete screen:

(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/blueskied/ps_hr_test4.jpg)

And a couple pics of Harder mode at max rank. Isn't it lovely?

(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/blueskied/ps_hr_test1.jpg)
(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/blueskied/ps_hr_test2.jpg)

I like the last one so much I think I'll make it my new avatar!

Seems like the mystery indeed is solved! Thanks very much EOJ, fantastic work!

The top score on my pcb is a Cxx,xxx,xxx.

I've managed just over 1/10 of that lol. I dont like score attack very much :(

Having played the normal mode again I think I've got better in general. I Managed the Stage 3 boss on my first credit. I've yet to trigger the L3 tank 1ups (I'll practice the stage later) but I think I've got a L4 / L5 in me yet :)

Is it even possible to trigger the infinite lives on L4 without auto B?

It's certainly possible to get 5 lives on stage 3 without auto B, but how far away is that second score / bullet extend :?

that first pic of harder mode looks pretty hectic, but still do-able.  then i realised that underneath that purple pattern, was another dense pattern of bullets in dark green..  =D  dear god

so the whole 80 mins per run thing wasn't so much about excessive boss-milking, but more about mass slowdown  :o

are you gonna experiment with other characters at all?  i still hate lace's ship design and can't bring myself to abondon shasta  ;)  shasta's bomb would be much better at absorbing boss patterns for small gains, but i'm sure her tick damage is lower, so galford's 19.8mill is somewhat more impressive than YOS.K's 20 mill, just because i imagine it's closer to shasta's theoretical max

what's your plans now?  Pink Sweets Max Rank Demonstration Video ??   :righton:

mark: you basically need to get four 1ups without a death.  with no auto-B you can get the first, with some heavy milking of destructable bullets, around the end of stage 2/early stage 3.  then get the one in the tank halfway through stage 3.  then one from the midboss, done by destroying his arms, and cancelling tons of destructable bullets.  as for the last, you *may* get it at the end of stage 4.  the trouble is, at this point the rank is very high, and stage 4 doesn't have any enemies that spew lots of destructable bullets.  and stage 5 is the same.  however, there is one fixed extend towards the end of stage 5, if you destroy all of the egg turret things; and again, still be on your first life.  before the auto-B was expounded upon, most of were chasing the infinite lives by the end of stage 5.  very very tough

Are there not 2 tanks in stage 3 that give lives?

I gan get the fixed extend (type thing) in the first half of level 3.

The game is mental hard

nah, only three fixed extends in the whole game.  stage 3, by making the one tank roll over the other one.  stage 5 egg turrets.  stage 7 (same technique as stage 3)

and yes, mental hard.  funnily enough i had tried a lace run with auto-B from the start, but couldn't make it half-way through stage 2 without a death.  it's like ultra, but with a fat hitbox  :laugh:

Quotenah, only three fixed extends in the whole game.  stage 3, by making the one tank roll over the other one.  stage 5 egg turrets.  stage 7 (same technique as stage 3)

Wrong.
Since there are three tanks in a row in stage 7 you can get 2 extends from them. It's very difficult to pull off, but possible. I already said that in my first post btw.

Quote from: jpj on March 24, 2009, 09:45:09 AM

mark: you basically need to get four 1ups without a death.  with no auto-B you can get the first, with some heavy milking of destructable bullets, around the end of stage 2/early stage 3.  then get the one in the tank halfway through stage 3.  then one from the midboss, done by destroying his arms, and cancelling tons of destructable bullets.  as for the last, you *may* get it at the end of stage 4.  the trouble is, at this point the rank is very high, and stage 4 doesn't have any enemies that spew lots of destructable bullets.  and stage 5 is the same.  however, there is one fixed extend towards the end of stage 5, if you destroy all of the egg turret things; and again, still be on your first life.  before the auto-B was expounded upon, most of were chasing the infinite lives by the end of stage 5.  very very tough

You can trigger it at the *very beginning* of stage 5 without rapid B. You just have to milk the st4 boss for awhile, it spews out a lot of destructible bullets in a few of its patterns. Still pretty hard to do, though.

i stand corrected said the man in orthopedic shoes.
cool, try a low-rank run then, without milking destructable bullets and bosses, and trigger the infinite lives in stage 7  =D

I enjoy this thread a lot, thanks for all the investigative work.

Quote from: jpj on March 24, 2009, 09:45:09 AM


so the whole 80 mins per run thing wasn't so much about excessive boss-milking, but more about mass slowdown  :o

I think it's a combination of both. He (Galford) must be doing more milking than me because my runs are only about 60min long. I guess you also have to add in all the time added due to lots of deaths after you trigger the infinite lives.

for real.  and using shasta, it probably takes a couple of minutes longer to kill each boss

for practicality, does it save scores when you use invincibilty?  who does the score table for PS here, is it me?

No, it doesn't save scores done in invincible or multiply. This is quite a nice programming feature.  :righton:

Yes, you're in charge of the PS thread here.  ;)

Quote from: EOJ on January 30, 2008, 02:50:18 AM
They state he "did things such as skillfully utilize the brief invincibility right after a death in order to cancel enemy bullets and gain points".

any more idea what that was referring to? 

Quote from: jpj on March 25, 2009, 08:37:08 AM

Quote from: EOJ on January 30, 2008, 02:50:18 AM
They state he "did things such as skillfully utilize the brief invincibility right after a death in order to cancel enemy bullets and gain points".

any more idea what that was referring to? 

Yes, I recently figured this out. It's quite helpful on bosses - you gain points  (a surprisingly large number of points) by hovering on top of bosses during certain attacks (especially those with the big lasers), using the few seconds of invincibility you get right after you die. You need to time it right so that you move away from the boss right before your invincibility wears off.

Interesting find!
So how many points do you roughly get from, let's say stage 5 boss laser attack?

I haven't calculated it, but in my last run I milked the st5 boss almost exclusively with this for at least a few hundred thousand points. A lot more than you get from just bombing or using your low power shot. You have to make sure you don't bomb on the boss too much, otherwise the fight will end prematurely. You also really need to milk the bosses until they timeout when you use this technique.

It's quite effective on the stage 7 midboss too.

YOS.K has a new replay with Lace up on the Xbox live leaderboards - 5.5mil up to the snakes in stage 4. Basic summary of his strats: use the rose cracker over and over from the start of the game - use it as your primary weapon; Milk bosses with the rose cracker, bullet aborption, and by hovering your charged rose cracker aura over the boss for tick points; milk midbosses with shot on destructible bullets and use the rose cracker as defense mechanism; max out rank by the start of stage 3; use rapid A+B to start the game, and then when you get rose hips use rapid B to jack up the rank. Other than that it's medal/item collection and good dodging skills. I don't think any of his deaths were intentional, so don't suicide. A death drops the rank meter so insignificantly when you're at max rank, you want as many lives in stock as you can get.

I've also been testing the 1UP item requirements in training mode and while you must destroy 2500 enemies/destructible bullets with shot for a 1UP to appear, I'm pretty sure using the rose cracker does not LOWER the counter, but it definitely doesn't add to the counter (like the rose hips).

I rarely use Xbox Live.  For the leaderboard videos, do you have to be on a matching region gamertag?  I tried to watch adverse's run and one of yours EOJ.. but I got some text I couldn't read.

Do you have an Xbox live Gold membership? Maybe you need that to watch replays - I haven't tried a silver account so I don't know for sure. I use my US gamertag to watch replays from all over the world, no problem whatsoever.

Quote from: EOJ on March 01, 2011, 09:21:36 PM
Do you have an Xbox live Gold membership? Maybe you need that to watch replays - I haven't tried a silver account so I don't know for sure. I use my US gamertag to watch replays from all over the world, no problem whatsoever.

US one I was using is gold.

I'll screenshot the next error message.  Once I switched to my JPN gamertag it was fine, but by then I had to be elsewhere so I watched level 1.

Needless to say, I played level 1 exactly the same as you do.. except your score was like 5x higher.

I've been watching replays on my UK silver account no problem - I'm currently lurking around the bottom of the leaderboard :laugh:

Thanks very much for the tips from the replay. I'd still love to watch it myself someday.

QuoteI'm pretty sure using the rose cracker does not LOWER the counter, but it definitely doesn't add to the counter (like the rose hips).

I'm not entirely sure where I've gooten that information from and it quite baffles me now. I guess I have to check certain Arcadia issues again. I'll definitely do some investigation about the exact requirement.

The highscore topic here (and on shmups.com, too) is way too silent, seems like noone is playing 1.00?

I did a quick google search and this link (http://www23.atwiki.jp/ksgmatome/pages/513.html) says:

"破壊可能物(敵・及び破壊可能弾)を2500個、自機のショットで破壊する毎に1UPアイテムが画面外から降ってくる。ただし、ボムで破壊した破壊可能物・敵弾1つにつき前述の破壊カウントが1下がる。"

That information is probably taken straight from Arcadia. How can we know what's true now? Are you 100% sure that rose cracker doesn't lower the counter EOJ?  :-\

I tested the rose cracker thing in Training mode. I set the 1UP to drop after the first 10 enemies destroyed, killed five with the shot, then five with the rose cracker. Only took me five more with the shot to get the 1UP, not 10, which shows the rose cracker doesn't reduce the count. Also, YOS.K uses the rose cracker all over the place (on enemies, and to milk destructible bullets) and still gets a 1UP to drop in the end of Stage 3 or in Stage 4 in his replays, which wouldn't happen if the rose cracker kept reducing the 1UP drop count toward zero. Dying definitely reduces the 1UP count, but I'm not sure by how much. Maybe 500?

Speaking of YOS.K, he has a new replay up - 9.3mil up to the the end of the first 1/3rd of Stage 6. He drops his medal chain on the snakes in Stage 4 (quite tragically), which really hurt his score. He also flubbed a lot of Stage 6, but he makes so much of it look so manageable. From watching his replays, I get the feeling of someone relearning the game after not playing it for about 4 years. I doubt he kept playing it much after he got his WR in 2006. The arcade probably removed the PCB soon after. Considering he jumped from 3.7mil to 9.3mil in about a week, I expect a 13mil~16mil clear from him in the near future. He just needs to keep everything together in one run.

IIRC his end of stage scores in the 9.3mil run were:
St1: 1.1mil
St2: 4+mil
St3: 6.2mil
St4: 7.Xmil
St5: 8.7mil

In comparison, here were his end of stage scores for his 20+mil WR run on the PCB version (2006, with the infinite lives trick used):
Stage 2: 3.7mil
Stage 3: 6 mil
Stage 4: 9 mil
Stage 5: 10.8 mil
Stage 6: 17 mil

I should add that so far YOS.K only plays Ver 1.00 on the port, never 1.01.

QuoteI tested the rose cracker thing in Training mode. I set the 1UP to drop after the first 10 enemies destroyed, killed five with the shot, then five with the rose cracker. Only took me five more with the shot to get the 1UP, not 10, which shows the rose cracker doesn't reduce the count. Also, YOS.K uses the rose cracker all over the place (on enemies, and to milk destructible bullets) and still gets a 1UP to drop in the end of Stage 3 or in Stage 4 in his replays, which wouldn't happen if the rose cracker kept reducing the 1UP drop count toward zero. Dying definitely reduces the 1UP count, but I'm not sure by how much. Maybe 500?

Thanks very much for further testing. I didn't know, that you can change the 1UP condition in training mode, that's quite helpful. I'll change the main post accordingly.
Also very interesting to know, that dying actually lowers your counter! I guess further research needs to be done regarding this matter.

I have a few questions about YOS.K.'s replay: Does he raise rank intentionally to let more enemies appear or does he try to hold it low? When does he suicide or does he suicide at all? Does he pick up the 1UP items or let them go off screen?
1,1mill on stage 1 alone is insane! AZI got 250mill from milking the boss with the player ship, but only had 800mill after the stage. Where does YOS.K. get that extra 300mill? More aggressive boss milking with the same strategy or something new? Does he exploit this trick at other bosses, too?

On a personal note, my copy of PS arrives today or tomorrow and I'm very, very hyped and motivated to the max. The quest begins anew!

Quote from: Plasmo on March 07, 2011, 07:52:45 AM
Also very interesting to know, that dying actually lowers your counter! I guess further research needs to be done regarding this matter.

This is just my assumption. Every time I die, it seems like it takes noticeably longer for a 1UP to drop.

Quote

I have a few questions about YOS.K.'s replay: Does he raise rank intentionally to let more enemies appear or does he try to hold it low?

Intentional raise. He uses rapid B in the first stage to jack up the rank. It's maxed out by the end of Stage 2.

Quote
When does he suicide or does he suicide at all? Does he pick up the 1UP items or let them go off screen?

No suicides. Picks up all 1UPs. When rank maxes out at the end of stage 2, there's no point in suiciding as a death lowers the rank just a sliver and a few rose crackers push it right back up to max again. A suicide at the start of the game is also pointless as it lowers the rank so insignificantly. You'll see when you get the port and you can play with the rank gauge on the screen.

Quote
1,1mill on stage 1 alone is insane! AZI got 250mill from milking the boss with the player ship, but only had 800mill after the stage. Where does YOS.K. get that extra 300mill? More aggressive boss milking with the same strategy or something new? Does he exploit this trick at other bosses, too?

Lace's special power up shot is worth more per hit? Also more rose cracker usage? Seems to be a combination of those two factors.

He does some very interesting midboss milking. For example on the stage 3 midboss, he doesn't shoot AT ALL, he milks the laser blasts (every time they shoot, your ship gets points if it's close to the lasers) then uses rose crackers (that don't touch the midboss) during its shooting phase to milk the type 2 bullets. He does this until it times out.

QuoteLace's special power up shot is worth more per hit?

Of course! How could I forget this...

Btw, Pink Sweets get!

New YOS.K replay is up : 9.6mil ending at the stage 5 boss. A better stage 4, but he still drops his medal chain there. Really nice stage 5 pattern.

I've figured that this is the better place for Pink Sweets talk.

I've been messing around with the 1UP condition and Arcadia was indeed right, the Rose Cracker lowers the counter by -1! Try to set the 1UP Zan count to 1 and start stage 1. Bomb through halfway the stage and then shoot. You won't get the 1UP in stage 1 anymore. Now restart and use Shot from the beginning. Your first item will be the 1UP.

There's a new Score Attack replay uploaded by me (5,4mill, All Clear). It's currently first place if you don't count 1.01 scores.
It's quite bad, but shows the basic strategies.

Also: The snakelaser section is driving me crazy! I'm practicing stage 6 with Rank meter 60% and it's so damn difficult. I've been able to do it once (!) without dying. This will never happen during a full credit... :-\
Does anyone have any good ideas for the first midboss of stage 6? I'm doing a very risky strategy atm (shown in my 8,5mill replay), where I don't have to use the Rose Cracker, but I'd rather like to have a safer strategy for him.

Sorry, late to the party here.  =D  I meant to tell you about this awhile ago Plasmo, once I found all the debug counters in the Special Ver on the PCB.  Rose Cracker does not decrement the zan counter, at least not on the PCB I have (original 2006/04/06).  I have no idea about the port or other PCB revisions, as they seemed to have messed with all the versions to some degree.

BTW: the accuracy is really not very good with respect to boss bullets.  Even the first boss when he shoots the blue clusters of bullets, and in the last form the green rings of bullets, there is zero slowdown in the port, while the PCB has lots of slowdown.  Its so apparent I don't know why nobody ever mentioned this before...maybe I'm the only one left with the PCB?

Quote from: Dave_K. on March 15, 2011, 01:13:31 AM
Rose Cracker does not decrement the zan counter, at least not on the PCB I have (original 2006/04/06).  

Port is the same. I don't know what Plasmo is smoking.  :P In fact once you reach 2500 on the zan counter you do not even need to kill the next enemy with a shot to get the 1UP. You can use the rose cracker and still have the 1UP pop out (I've done this many times, particularly on the bombs in the last phase of the stage 3 boss). This, of course, would be impossible if the rose cracker reduced the counter.

Quote
BTW: the accuracy is really not very good with respect to boss bullets.  Even the first boss when he shoots the blue clusters of bullets, and in the last form the green rings of bullets, there is zero slowdown in the port, while the PCB has lots of slowdown.  Its so apparent I don't know why nobody ever mentioned this before...maybe I'm the only one left with the PCB?

Yes, I noticed this at the start, but it's completely unnecessary slowdown in the PCB version, so its omission in the port is no big deal.

And the story continues.  ;)

QuotePort is the same. I don't know what Plasmo is smoking. :P In fact once you reach 2500 on the zan counter you do not even need to kill the next enemy with a shot to get the 1UP. You can use the rose cracker and still have the 1UP pop out (I've done this many times, particularly on the bombs in the last phase of the stage 3 boss). This, of course, would be impossible if the rose cracker reduced the counter.

If the 1UP is already triggered, It'll appear either way, probably even if you've destroyed the enemy with your Rose Hips (need to test that). Keep in mind that the 1UP follows the basic rules for items and will appear instead of the next item. Every eighth destroyed enemy will release an item.
Example time: If your Zan count has already reached 2500, but you need to shoot four more enemies for an item to appear, the 1UP will appear even if you've used the Rose Cracker on these last four enemies. These four enemies will NOT count at all, because your Zan counter has already reset. Technically it should be -4 for the next 1UP then, but I don't think it can fall under 0.

As I said, play stage 1 in Training mode and set the 1UP to appear as soon as possible. Use RS for a time and the 1UP will appear much later, use Shot right from the start and it'll appear immediately.

Quote from: Plasmo on March 15, 2011, 04:47:24 AMThese four enemies will NOT count at all, because your Zan counter has already reset. Technically it should be -4 for the next 1UP then, but I don't think it can fall under 0.

Actually the zan counter goes over 2500, and typically does for me while milking the stage 2 second mid-boss.  It resets once the 1up pops out, but you are right in that anything that shoots the enemy down after this point for the next item drop will release the 1up.

I'll do more research into the rose cracker, as I believe there is a separate counter for that in the debug screens.

Found out another major difference between Pink Sweets 1.00 and 1.01:

You can actually control your rank not only by dying, but also by missing max medals. Missing a 10k medal significantly decreases your rank. So every now and then, especially when there are tons of medals on screen, you should miss some and pick up the very last one that's on screen to still maintain your chain.

Compared to 1.00 this is really Novice mode.

Quote from: Plasmo on March 19, 2011, 08:42:10 AM
Compared to 1.00 this is really Novice mode.

So you've 1CC'd 1.01?

I really hate the Novice mode comparison as it's not even close to being accurate - have you played a Cave "Novice mode" before? The difference between PS 1.0 and 1.01 is more like the difference between Futari 1.0 (hard as hell) and 1.5 (much easier compared to 1.0, but still no Novice mode).

Of course Futari Novice was a joke, PS 1.01 isn't that easy.

But PS 1.01 really looks more like a beginner's mode to me. I'll see if I can get the 1cc when I'm in the mood next time. Maybe I'm wrong and this mode is actually difficult, but I highly doubt it.

I think you could do it with Lace. Also try some other characters.

I don't suicide, I use the rose cracker when I need it, and I do full medals, and the rank maxes out in Stage 4. It's pretty much the same as 1.00 from there on out except the boss hit points don't increase so much with the rank. It's definitely not a beginner's mode, but it's probably on par with Ibara's difficulty if you don't keep too many lives in stock.

Oh hi replay time.

Arcade Ver. 1.01

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13897233
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13897410
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13897576
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13897764

Notes: A good demonstration of how to keep rank at around zero (!) throughout the whole game. Looks very manageable this way.


Arcade Ver. 1.00

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13884311
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13884549
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13884680

Notes: The score is shit and it starts out as a boring low rank replay we've seen tons of in the past. But this one is actually quite important, because the player maxes out the rank by stage 5/6 and shows some very nice strategies surviving the game at max rank. Check out the crazy snakelaser section and the absolutely godlike performance at stage 7 midboss. Highly recommended watch!


Arrange

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13842227
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13843040
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13844597
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13844627
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13844682

Notes: Score is over 500mill and IIRC that's the replay from the top score of the leaderboards. If you're into Arrange, you definitely need to watch this. Lots of milking going on. Not the kind of arrange mode I would enjoy, but a nice watch nevertheless.

QuoteIt's definitely not a beginner's mode, but it's probably on par with Ibara's difficulty if you don't keep too many lives in stock.

Tried a few credits 1.01 and reached the last boss' last form with A,4mill I think. I didn't really know how to deal with the last boss in general. I did so many bad mistakes and died all over the place. Next time I sit down, I'll get that 1cc, promised.

It's nowhere near as difficult as Ibara! You really need to miss more max medals, that's the keypoint of maintaining a low rank and being able to breeze through the game. Maybe it's just me, because I had some good training lessons with 1.00 and Score Attack, but I wouldn't even say 1.01 is as difficult as DOJ (first loop). For me it's maybe comparable to DDP (first loop).

Yeah, I'll have to try that "let 10K medals drop off the screen" thing to keep the rank low.

Alright, in PS 1.01 I got to stage 6 with the rank about halfway full, and five spare lives (no miss). Really cruising. I started letting medals drop in Stage 6 and the rank slowly lowered. Then I broke my medal chain. This is where the pain began.  :facepalm: Apparently only the 10K medals lower the rank when they drop off the screen, so I had to try and get the medal values back up to max, which can take a long time in stage 6. In the process, the rank maxed out. I got to the snakes section and lost almost all of my lives one by one in almost rapid fire succession (deaths do little to lower the rank), and broke my medal chain again - those damn lasers are so fast with max rank. Anyway, it was game over soon after.

Moral of the story: don't break your medal chain in 1.01, especially in stage 6.

I've been playing the PCB again and with Lace I can get 900k~1 million on stage 1 consistently (which is far more fun than it sounds), and about 3.5 million at the end of Stage 2. Still need to work on the rest of the game, but this is better than I was doing 10 years ago!

Anyone (PLASMO???) care to share some tips for milking bosses after triggering the infinite lives? Just time out the bosses, use invincibility for points, bomb at the right times, or something more? I timed out the Stage 7 boss, maybe for the first time, and I saw a cool final pattern I don't recall seeing before (shooting out those swords in all directions over and over) which I milked with bombs for an extra 500k.

Trying to get a hang of the counters to get that second item-extend.
Just noticed that the rose hips doesnt add to the counter, facepalm for that.

Now, in the shmups thread, it is said that the Normal/special ver handles rank differently.
Anyone experimented around this?

Im trying to get the non inf lives 1cc and noticed that what really raises the rank is grabbing power ups and keeping the rose-cracker fully charged.

QuoteAnyone (PLASMO???) care to share some tips for milking bosses after triggering the infinite lives? Just time out the bosses, use invincibility for points, bomb at the right times, or something more? I timed out the Stage 7 boss, maybe for the first time, and I saw a cool final pattern I don't recall seeing before (shooting out those swords in all directions over and over) which I milked with bombs for an extra 500k.

After you get inf lives, just milk everything to the max. Time out every boss and midboss for this. The swords on the last boss are his timeout pattern and it's very lucrative indeed. If you time it really well, you can actually survive that pattern without the boss ramming into you and milk it with your RC. This is very tough to do but essential for scoring. The exact movement for this is kinda tricky to explain, but it basically involves letting the boss sweep horizontally, while dodging him as late as possible. If you start your movement too early, he will be able to home in on you and kill you.

QuoteNow, in the shmups thread, it is said that the Normal/special ver handles rank differently.

With Special you mean that beta version on Mame? Rank behaves the same there. I think this was debunked some time ago.

QuoteIm trying to get the non inf lives 1cc and noticed that what really raises the rank is grabbing power ups and keeping the rose-cracker fully charged.

Power ups and charged RC are both not too bad for rank. Check out this link for some exact numbers: http://archerstg.web.fc2.com/pinksweets/bitterrank.htm

What's your approach to the non inf lives clear? Do you plan to max out the rank eventually? If yes, then don't worry about it at all and let it max out around stage 4 or 5. If you want to go low rank non inf lives, then try to copy the routes you find on youtube (plenty of videos available), which in short means: don't pick up anything at all.

Thanks for the tips! I'll have to practice the last boss some more. Also that link on Archer's site is great for the rank info.  :righton:

Quote from: Plasmo on April 25, 2019, 05:59:39 AM
With Special you mean that beta version on Mame? Rank behaves the same there. I think this was debunked some time ago.

Power ups and charged RC are both not too bad for rank. Check out this link for some exact numbers: http://archerstg.web.fc2.com/pinksweets/bitterrank.htm

What's your approach to the non inf lives clear? Do you plan to max out the rank eventually? If yes, then don't worry about it at all and let it max out around stage 4 or 5. If you want to go low rank non inf lives, then try to copy the routes you find on youtube (plenty of videos available), which in short means: don't pick up anything at all.

It was more about activating the special ver. (Dip switch 2 and the hold A+B to start vs not starting the special ver.)
Not sure what he means.

I do study that page but when going full power up and having the RC fully charged I get max rank sooner in my route.
In my route (Non inf live clear) I max out at st6 boss. If I max out earlier the cone assault at end of stage 6 is impossible.
I pick up one spread shot and then get homing RH in stage 4, yesterday I reached st7 midboss with 4 lives. (And then I missed the easy 1up in st7 tank....)
So getting closer.

Trying now to optimize my route so I get a second item extend at start of st7.
Just noticed that absorbing bullets with the charged RC increases the -counter for item extend. (That is subtracted from the + counter.)

QuoteJust noticed that absorbing bullets with the charged RC increases the -counter for item extend. (That is subtracted from the + counter.)

Where did you get that info from? I highly doubt that this is the case.

Quote from: Plasmo on April 25, 2019, 08:17:50 AM

QuoteJust noticed that absorbing bullets with the charged RC increases the -counter for item extend. (That is subtracted from the + counter.)

Where did you get that info from? I highly doubt that this is the case.

Its from the shmups PS secrets thread:
https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=43152 (https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=43152)

"in 1UP item release involved two counters:
- number of enemies killed by Main Shot (shown on screenshot in 1st post)
- number of enemies killed by Rose Cracker (shown below of ^^^)
then (Main_Shot_kills - Rose_Cracker_kills) becomes bigger than specific constant, which is 2500 in 2006/04/06 versions and 3000 in XX/XX version - next spawned item will be 1UP.
so, if player used Rose Cracker a lot and killed a many enemies using it - he will get 1UP much later, if ever."

This counter can be found above the item counter in the debug menu and it increases when absorbing bullets with your charged RC and when your RC destroys bullets. (Counter does not increase when RC does not hit anything.)

I wondered why I didnt get my second item-extend, even when I milked st4 boss and used almost no RC on stage 5 boss and then milked st6 boss.
I checked the counters and I clearly passed 2500 (9C4)...though I had also used the RC heavily in st5 and st6 and that counter was also high.

Will do some more tests.

It's probably a mistake or at least not present in the regular version of PS. Absorbing regular bullets with the aura of your RC is totally fine. Otherwise I would never get the extend after fully absorbing the timeout patterns of st4 and st5 midbosses.

I have never read about this anywhere in the Japanese strategy guides as well (Arcadia mag or online).

What do you refer to as Regular ver?  :)
Im testing this in the four dot ver in Mame, will check this at home too on the pcb.

Im not so sure that only the +item counter gives you the 1up, Ive passed 2500 but dont get my second item-extend.

It's easier to conceptualize as is stated in the main post. Even if there are two counters internally, simply view it as one counter that goes +1 for every enemy/bullet destroyed with Shot and goes -1 for every enemy/bullet destroyed with your RC. Once that counter reaches 2500, a 1UP pops up.

The four dot revision apparently has a slower rank increase compared to the other 2006/04/06 versions. That's what it says on the Arcadeotaku wiki anyway. (I did not notice this when I owned it, but if someone tested the rates of rank increase and compared them across versions, then I cannot argue with that.) It may have other changes as well.

I don't know if this affects the 1UP appearance rate other than lower rank = fewer destructible bullets = longer wait for 1UP to appear, but it is something worth considering.

Anyway, I wouldn't practice on that version in MAME.

Plasmo is correct about everything else discussed in regard to the normal 2006/04/06 one dot master ver.

Quote from: Plasmo on April 25, 2019, 10:12:32 AM
It's easier to conceptualize as is stated in the main post. Even if there are two counters internally, simply view it as one counter that goes +1 for every enemy/bullet destroyed with Shot and goes -1 for every enemy/bullet destroyed with your RC. Once that counter reaches 2500, a 1UP pops up.

Maybe so, but I am interested in the actual numbers. (Its also kinda what I work with daily.)
Also confirmed on the one dot version that the - counter increases when absorbing shots.
Now to test if the 1up is set when the 2500 value is passed or if it needs to be active when getting the 1up pick-up. (Not passed with the -counter.)


EOJ:
I also red about the slower rank increase on AO, we debunked that earlier with the RC, I can test some more in the one dot version and see how the rank behaves on other parts.

I'm not very sure about this "-counter", but absorbing bullets with the RC has no effect on the +counter, unlike killing enemies/destructible bullets with the RC, so it is not of any importance for 1UP appearance.

Quote from: EOJ on April 26, 2019, 01:27:46 AM
I'm not very sure about this "-counter", but absorbing bullets with the RC has no effect on the +counter, unlike killing enemies/destructible bullets with the RC, so it is not of any importance for 1UP appearance.

No, the +counter only increases with killed enemies/shots, though it doesnt Decrease (Just not affected) when killing enemies/shots with the RC. (That is added to the - counter above, though the RC fired is also added to some other counter below the + counter. Absorbing bullets is not added to that one)
Just tested it in the one dot ver.

I recently discovered the harder-mode insert coin trick described by YOS.K in this twitter post from 2014:

https://twitter.com/YOSKQ/status/490862055470006272

If you insert a coin while the harder mode ranking is on the screen (during the demo), and press start, you get some extra bullet patterns on the bosses in Normal mode (which you can milk for more points than in a regular run). Some of these are new swarms of bullets, others -- like the Stage 4 boss's 360 degree blue bullet attack -- become much denser. I don't notice any difference in the stage patterns yet. I didn't know about this before my latest 15.2 mil score. I'll start doing my runs using this glitch. I haven't played Extended mode in over 10 years but I do remember it had slightly harder bullet patterns than Normal mode. Maybe this glitch just gives you the patterns from Extended, without the loop?

I have tried doing this in FREEPLAY mode (just pressing start on the harder mode ranking page) and it doesn't work. You actually need to insert a coin. :o

It sort of reminds me of the tutorial bugs in Espgaluda 2 and Deathsmiles, both of which are needed for WR scores.

I got 3.3 mil in Harder mode today just goofing around and winging it (which is a lot higher than my old score), so if I put some effort into it I wonder what I could muster...

Triggering infinite lives in Harder mode has yet to be done by one of us. Sounds like a great goal for 2020? :righton:

If I remember correctly, the Harder mode WR score was done with Shasta. Galford's stage 3 video might be a great reference.

Harder mode WR was with Lace. That's who I have been playing with. Triggering infinite lives with Lace in this mode is something I can't wrap my head around. I have to bomb so much the zan counter never gets near 2500.

Quote from: EOJ on January 01, 2020, 04:36:46 AM
Harder mode WR was with Lace.

This is very useful to know! Did Arcadia state that somewhere? Triggering infinite lives with Lace in Harder is even more ridiculous. I'm not even gonna try. Wtih Shasta it looks kinda feasible at least.

I don't have the Arcadia issue. Checking online, I found a Japanese site that listed the score, but not the character used. I could only find this Korean page that lists Lace:

https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%A0%84%EC%9D%BC%EA%B8%B0%EB%A1%9D/%EC%BC%80%EC%9D%B4%EB%B8%8C

Same story with the Score attack score by DGN. I know that was done with Lace, but most other sites don't mention that (except the Korean one). The Korean site does cite this forum for info, so it is possible the data is circular.

The Harder mode score was published in the April 2008 issue of Arcadia. If anyone has that perhaps they could check for us.

I played a few more credits of Harder mode today. Best score was 3.8 mil, game over before the ST3 midboss. Next credit I did a no miss to the ST2 boss, but lost three lives there in the hectic final phase, ending my credit with 3.2mil. It's a really fun mode! I can consistently end ST1 with 850-900k.

New goal is to make it to ST4 and get over 5mil.

HARDER MODE update: Got up to 4.22 mil (ended at ST3). Still haven't made it to ST4, but I am getting close. I also got 987k at the end of ST1, my best yet in this mode.  :righton:

I tried playing this on the port today and it was horrible. Slowdown missing about 50% of the time makes it very difficult. I got a bit over 3mil, but couldn't make it past the ST2 boss. I don't think I'll play the port anymore.

Quote from: EOJ on January 01, 2020, 04:18:39 AM


I tested out Extended and Harder modes today. Neither has the same bullet patterns as Normal mode with the "insert a credit on the Harder mode ranking page" trick. A good way to test is to play through until the Stage 3 boss. Only Normal mode with the trick produces blue suicide bullets from the bomb explosions in the last phase.

Well, I played another credit of Harder mode, made it to the ST3 boss at max rank, and the blue suicide bullets were there. However, I inserted a credit on the Harder mode ranking page for this run. So, it may be that you can use this "get extra bullet patterns trick" for Harder mode as well? Either that, or my previous run wasn't at a high enough rank. I'll do some more testing.

EDIT: Yep, this "insert a coin on the Harder mode ranking page" is definitely a glitch. You just get the Harder mode bullet patterns in Normal with this.

Current hypothesis: I don't think you need infinite lives to get a very high score in Harder mode, and you don't need it to clear the game. Moreover, playing a route without infinite lives may lead to higher scores in this mode. If AFO did use Lace, I bet he didn't trigger infinite lives, or if he did it was in stage 7 and only done with fixed 1ups.

I have a strong feeling you might be wrong on that. But I don't have the supporting proof either, as I have only very little playtime with Harder.

The thing is that even with my no infinite lives route, the score wouldn't even remotely come close to 20 million. Harder has more bullets, sure, but this simply doesn't add up for me. Also, due to the suicide bullets, some valuable enemy formations would need to be killed with RC instead of Shot, which would make you lose a lot, particularly on stage 6.

On the other hand, doing the math for Harder 21 million with infinite lives is easily possible. The only problem is triggering it with Lace. Even if the Harder mode WR was done with Lace, Shasta can probably get it easier while having the same scoring potential more or less. That's why I was so surprised you said it was done with Lace. It's an odd choice.

Now that I think of it, you could trigger infinite lives with Lace in Stage 5 if you got two 1UPs from the ST3 midboss, as Galford does in his video. So this is probably what AFO did. It is more difficult with Lace (than with Shasta) to do this on the ST3 midboss, but I've done it several times in Normal mode, and Harder is not much different on this midboss.

I still think Lace must have been used by AFO. If you watch Galford's video with Shasta, he only has 2.2 million at the end of ST3, which is not enough to reach 21mil at the end of the game. With Lace, I can no miss to the ST3 boss with nearly 5 million at the same spot (and surely a WR-level player would have at least 500k more at this point). The problem is with Shasta I don't think you can milk the ST2 boss at max rank like you can with Lace. Its final pattern is crazy in Harder, with two fast drone drops and two laser blasts each round. Lace can manage with her large bomb blast, but with Shasta it would be a lot harder to kill the drones.

Also, with Shasta, if you are playing at max rank by ST3, you need to trigger the infinite lives by the end of that stage, or at the start of ST4 at the latest (in Normal or Harder). Otherwise you will get destroyed at the snakes in ST4 for sure. Her bomb can't handle it, and neither can her shot. But if this is the requirement, you can't milk the ST2 midboss or boss properly, losing a few million points in the process. See the problem?

The thing about Harder is, at max rank, even if you try to kill the bosses you'll usually time them out, or very near, because they have so many hit points.  This gives you a lot of opportunities to milk the larger number of bullets in this mode (something like 2x Normal mode, I'd estimate).

You can use shot for scoring, even in ST6, if you use bomb blasts as temporary shields. This is a technique I use in different parts of the stages to maximize score.

Also, see this post for the original source that mentions Lace as being used in Harder:

http://cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=66.msg8569#msg8569

That link also shows the best score Galford got in Harder mode with Shasta was 12 million. If that's the best he can do, I don't think anyone else would do nearly double with Shasta.

Quote from: EOJ on January 03, 2020, 02:22:29 PM
Also, see this post for the original source that mentions Lace as being used in Harder:

http://cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=66.msg8569#msg8569

That link also shows the best score Galford got in Harder mode with Shasta was 12 million. If that's the best he can do, I don't think anyone else would do nearly double with Shasta.

I came upon this scan (https://www.high-scorer.net/entry/2021/12/18/053652) of Arcadia February 2008, that includes AFO's 21,059,020 Harder Mode score (Just a bit under his WR of 21,168,020). In the comments it says he played as Lace.

(https://i.imgur.com/NfjnaPV.jpg)

It also says he finished with 2 lives left and doesn't mention the infinite lives trick was used. Hmm.... (http://cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=66.msg32687#msg32687)