How to survive bullet hell? How to 1cc? Asking for advice.

[Jitterbug]

Hi,

Last week I bought Deathsmiles Deluxe and Dodonpachi Ressurection Deluxe. They are both awesome. I also have Radiant Silvergun and Guwange (I love the artstyle and music of this game) on xbla. Bullet hell is a gerne that was missing in my game library. The games are so easy to pick up and play but on the other side so damn complex (and so damn difficult!). Hell, I read the manuals for Deathsmiles and Dodonpachi twice and I still do not fully remember crucial gameplay and scoring mechanics. Every time I play I have to look inside the manual. This means virtually endless replay value!

Here?s the problem: I completely suck at these games. Strange thing is that although I die a lot, instead of swearing and rage quitting like I occasionally do when other games get difficult, in cave shmups I simply laugh and think: Dear Cave, how on earth do you expect me to go through all this bullet hell without dying?

In Deathsmiles I can barely manage to reach Tyrannosatan without using a continue, but then he destroys me and all my score is reset.
In Dodonpachi Ressurection (1.5 360 mode) I can get through levels 1 to 2 without using a continue but on the later levels I?m constantly dying.

You guys here in the forum seem to struggle to maximize your score. I would be dancing naked in the streets if I could somehow manage to 1cc the game so to speak. I would be happy if I could save the baby that is trapped in a burning house and get the hell outta there. You are not just saving the baby, but you stay inside the burning house after saving it and play calmly chess and thinking about strategies how to improve your game while flames rise left and right of your seat.

These are the things I can think of to help me on my quest for 1cc:

• Downloading and watching ingame replays of bullet hell gods.
• Playing defensively and not provoking the enemy (e.g. in Dodonpachi if you do certain things the enemies shoot faster or more bullets at you - so avoid doing these things).
• Practice makes perfect.
• Playing with my Street Fighter IV TE Arcade Stick instead of the 360 pad?
• Asking questions in this forum obviously.

One thing I do not like in arcade games is that it doesn?t matter if you didn?t use a continue the till the final boss. If you used up all your lives on him all the effort you put to not die before him is in vain. What difference does it make if I used 10 continues untill I got to the final boss and than have to use a 11th continue on him or I use my single continue on him? In both situations my score is reset. That is a big demotivator in trying to hi score. Or am I missing something here?

I would be glad for any other advice from you. I really think that 1cc-ing a Cave game is impossible for the mortal man. Those who can pull this of are not of this world. I mean really, for all that is holy, how do they do this? Don?t get me wrong, I greatly respect them and also envy them!

This feeling of excitement and heart pounding when I barely dodge insanely amounts of bullets and all hell breaks lose is unique to cave shmups. No other genre can give me that. Therefore I would like to get better. I?m not asking you for tips how to raise my score. Hi-Score? That is luxury to me at my current skill level. I?m asking you ?How to not die??.

Doesn?t matter how much I suck at bullet hell, I?ll buy any other new Cave release anyway. 

Some other questions:

• What is the difference between the modes ?Play? and ?Score Attack? (on xbox 360)? In both you can continue but only in score attack you can post your score to the leader boards. Is there any reason to choosing ?Play? instead of ?Score attack??
• Is a game where you used continues considered a ?lost game? in the shmup community? Do only 1cc games count? Is 1cc a game a common thing in the community or does it still remain a special achievement?

Sorry for this long posting, but I?m new in the bullet hell genre and I have many questions.
Thanks a lot in advance.

[CIB]

Have a nice read:
http://goo.gl/Fi2zE

[Jitterbug]

Have a nice read:
http://goo.gl/Fi2zE

Thank you very much! That is more advice that I could hope go get!
*turns on the printer*

[HVL]

• Practice makes perfect.

This is pretty much all there is to it.

Some other questions:

• What is the difference between the modes ?Play? and ?Score Attack? (on xbox 360)? In both you can continue but only in score attack you can post your score to the leader boards. Is there any reason to choosing ?Play? instead of ?Score attack??
• Is a game where you used continues considered a ?lost game? in the shmup community? Do only 1cc games count? Is 1cc a game a common thing in the community or does it still remain a special achievement?

Score Attack forces the default settings on, i.e. difficulty, live stock etc.

During "proper runs", when your credit ends, that's it whether it was a clear or not. Anybody can credit-feed through a game. Using continues when learning a game is a good thing, although quite redundant if there's a training mode.

1CC difficulty varies a lot depending on the game, but for the most games 1CC is not something an average player wouldn't achive sooner or later.

[lam47]

Your best bet is to start with the novice modes. They will teach you how to maximise score without having to worry so much about dying all the time.
It's also a lovely feeling to 1cc even if it's on novice.
Deathsmiles is a great first game to 1cc. You can pick the difficulty for each stage, turn it up for more points and extends and down for the harder levels.

Score attack is ranked on the leader boards. Play game is ranked locally.
I would say only a small percentage of players can 1cc harder games like ddpr. Don't feel bad if you can't clear it, just work to beat your own score! Or that of your friends.
Add us all on xbl!

Good luck.

[Jitterbug]

I just 1cc Dodonpachi Ressurection Score Attack Xbox 360 Novice Mode with rank 239 on the leader boards!! 
Can?t believe it.
I feel like I did something physically exhausting...

This is the best gaming experience I had in months (and I have many of the currently tripple a titles).
Nothing beats this. I don?t know how, but I dodged the bullets without actively thinking. Like my brain was on auto pilot. I ?knew? that ?I can make that turn? to reach the bee while avoiding the bullets.

Now its time to read the guide CIB posted and engage 360 regular score attack mode.
I guess this will take a while...

Nice to have a strategy guide here in the forum www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=704.0. Is there no ?official? game info available?
Strangely the official Cave website lacks any guide or mode information for their games. What does the Black Label dlc mode change? How is v1.51 played?

Awesome, awesome game!

[TimingTripod40]

Great to see you have seen the light, my friend. You are but a small step away from the righteous path of realizing shmups are easily the best genre ever.

[Alexfusheng]

Your best bet is to start with the novice modes. They will teach you how to maximise score without having to worry so much about dying all the time.

Solid advice for sure.

As a beginner myself with the shmup genre I kinda figured this out. I have started practicing Mushihime-sama Futari just this weekend. I am basically playing to survive while learning the basics of the scoring techniques involved (eg switching from A shot to C shot at the appropriate times) but i found playing black label normal was a bit much after about halfway through the 2nd stage. So i started playing on the novice level found in the arrange mode.

It's way easy in the first few stages but at least i have room to think about what im doing instead of just " oh shit oh shit" .. Things get pretty challenging in stages 4 and 5 enough so that i am still trying to 1cc the game on novice score attack.

Im glad you mentioned dodonpachi ressurection because i didnt know there was a version of donpachi that i could play on my US xbox so i Just bought a copy off ebay this morning!

[Orochi S]

Great that you guys are enjoying DDPR so much. Personally, I enjoy Black Label MUCH MUCH more than any of the other modes - it's harder, but so much more rewarding. It's my favourite Cave game after Futari 1.5 and Muchi Muchi Pork! I don't know if others on this board would agree about DDPR BL vs 1.5?

If you can play Japanese 360 games then you could get a disc version of Black Label that includes a super Arrange mode.

[Special World]

I'd venture a guess that a majority of people on these boards prefer DFK BL over 1.5.

[CIB]

Great to see you have seen the light, my friend. You are but a small step away from the righteous path of realizing shmups are easily the best genre ever.

If you exclude the Tetris Grand master series which is simply the best game ever 

[SomeMist]

Although I know how to score in an array of cave games, I can only 1CC Futari ver. 1.5 original. I've come close to Akai Katana Arcade mode on about 5 separate occasions, but the final 2 bosses are nuts.

I've never been too good at survival or chaining in dodonpachi (with the exception of daifukkatsu) tho I do understand how it works. It's just very time consuming to make up my own pathways tho, and I'd rather do that than watch replays to use someone elses.

As for daifukkatsu black label vs ver. 1.5, I have a lot more fun with black label. I really dislike that you can't turn autobomb off in ver. 1.5, and even though the scoring is somewhat broken I really enjoy ketsupachi (BL arrange). I agree that if you have a JPN console, that the disc-based black label is worth it.

I've sunk the majority of my time into futari ver. 1.5 original and akai katana arcade mode. I've barely ventured into modes other than the arcade/1.5 modes in nearly every game but Daifukkatsu, tho I do own black label and 1.01 for futari.

[Alexfusheng]

I 1cc'd Mushihime-sama Futari 1.5 on Novice "Score Attack" mode (xbox 360) woot!! My first 1cc ever on any shmup ever! Yea no big deal but hey "baby steps.. baby steps.." Now I'm thinking.. maybe the next logical step may be to try for 1cc Novice with ZERO deaths? Sounds like it might be fun... I guess my score would end up being alot higher by the end? My rank for score attack on the 360 leaderboard after that 1cc was in the mid 2k's. I need to use training mode for stage 4 and 5... those get pretty crazy!!

[Sapz]

If it was Novice Original, I'd recommend moving up to Novice Maniac or Novice Ultra next.

Great that you guys are enjoying DDPR so much. Personally, I enjoy Black Label MUCH MUCH more than any of the other modes - it's harder, but so much more rewarding. It's my favourite Cave game after Futari 1.5 and Muchi Muchi Pork! I don't know if others on this board would agree about DDPR BL vs 1.5?

If you can play Japanese 360 games then you could get a disc version of Black Label that includes a super Arrange mode.

I'd disagree with this. BL really feels like a flashier, but easier mode to me. The scoring is reliant on hypering as much as possible (and in BL the hypers are fairly safe, unlike 1.5), and aside from that it's nearly impossible to chain break, so the scoring doesn't really feel like you're ever actually taking a significant risk to me. 1.5 on the other hand is reliant on using as few hypers as possible and chaining everything in an efficient way, and so it's constantly exciting since one mistake will lose you everything. For a similar reason I feel the autobomb is a welcome addition - it has no effect on the scoring whatsoever since bombing is effectively the same as dying, and it's very helpful in the loop for survival, which I'd claim fires far more difficult-to-avoid barrages compared to say, DOJBL. I shudder to think of how difficult it'd be without an autobomb.

[ookitarepanda]

BL really feels like a[n]... easier mode to me...
I shudder to think of how difficult [Daifukkatsu] be without an autobomb.

You mean, like in BL?

[Sapz]

Not at all, because firstly I was referring to Daifukkatsu's second loop, and secondly because BL is easily survivable via powered up hyper spam. Hypers are both far harder to come by and far weaker at cancelling bullets in 1.5, in addition to which you'll have to use laser in many of the toughest sections (such as 2-5 laser wheels) and dodge everything properly, whereas you can use S+L at the same time in BL. BL with Hibachi is actually easier to clear with autobomb off rather than on since you have a nearly unlimited stock of hypers if you play carefully (which can tear through bosses without much trouble), and since you can cancel out of a hyper at will, each hyper can be used to save yourself from two mistakes.

[Erppo]

Having played them both pretty extensively, I agree that despite the easy start, 1.5 ends up clearly harder than BL in both survival and basic scoring. BL looks scarier but gives the player many ways to exploit the game without even sacrificing your score. In many cases, the cheesy way is actually beneficial in BL while 1.5 demands you do things the hard way. I definitely find the latter a lot more exciting.

[TimingTripod40]

You guys are really making me want to give DFK 1.5 a shot.

[EOJ]

I love watching pro players go through dfk 1.5. In the arcades or on xbox live. I'm not one for the heavy memorization, excessive boss milking, and exact timing required to score well in the game, but for those who like that, few games are better.

[Erppo]

excessive boss milking

This is more of a problem in BL, where the milking is easier due to the cancellable hypers and enters the scoring a lot earlier. To compare, the official BL C-B superplay earns over 25% of the total score from bosses (I think other styles get somewhat less but B-P milks even longer), while the 1.5 C-P superplay, which is the only one that milks the bosses extensively, doesn't even reach 10% (and 90% of his score is more than the current first place in XBL).

I agree that it's a problem in the game, but I don't see it becoming an issue before very high levels unless you really want to put yourself through all that.

[CIB]

1.5 is soooooo difficult in term of scoring, keeping the chain is really hard.
All the bullet cancelling in BL makes it even easier to my opinion.

[EOJ]

excessive boss milking

This is more of a problem in BL, where the milking is easier due to the cancellable hypers and enters the scoring a lot earlier. To compare, the official BL C-B superplay earns over 25% of the total score from bosses (I think other styles get somewhat less but B-P milks even longer), while the 1.5 C-P superplay, which is the only one that milks the bosses extensively, doesn't even reach 10% (and 90% of his score is more than the current first place in XBL).

I agree that it's a problem in the game, but I don't see it becoming an issue before very high levels unless you really want to put yourself through all that.

You're right that boss milking in 1.5 isn't needed until really high level play, and it isn't worth as much of your score as it is in BL. However, 1.5 boss milking takes much more time and is much more boring than BL. For me, it is the game's only glaring flaw, while I feel BL boss milking feels more natural in the context of the game, more Yagawa style I suppose. His games always have better boss milking than Ikeda games.

[TimingTripod40]

What is this about exact timing? I thought the hyper stuff was in there to make the chaining more lenient than DOJ and ease beginners in.

[Sapz]

Excessive hyper use is extremely detrimental to your score - you'll want to use a couple of hypers in specific spots, usually to raise your hit count, but the mode which will get you points is having a charged hyper without using it. This provides a bunch of multipliers to your chain value, but the entire chain will vanish instantly if you ever get hit or drop the chaining gauge. For example, in an ideal chain of 1-5, you'll use four hypers - two right at the beginning to raise your hit counter to 10k, which is where the multiplier for the charged-hyper mode maxes out, and one for each midboss to speedkill them and give you more enemies for afterwards. Everything else must be done in a mode where one hit or chain break will lose you everything.

The multiplier is extremely significant because it's applied twice. If you look at the 10k multiplier, which is x7, it adds 7 the enemy's value onto your chain value, and then gives you 7x your chain value whenever you kill an enemy, so doing a theoretical fully chained stage at 10k hits with the charged-hyper mode is worth about 50x as much as doing it without using that mode.

[Third_strike]

For example, in an ideal chain of 1-5, you'll use four hypers - two right at the beginning to raise your hit counter to 10k, which is where the multiplier for the charged-hyper mode maxes out, and one for each midboss to speedkill them and give you more enemies for afterwards The multiplier is extremely significant because it's applied twice. If you look at the 10k multiplier, which is x7, it adds 7 the enemy's value onto your chain value, and then gives you 7x your chain value whenever you kill an enemy, so doing a theoretical fully chained stage at 10k hits with the charged-hyper mode is worth about 50x as much as doing it without using that mode..

Well, The ideal is use only one hyper in beginning and destroy the lasers canon at x6 (you need be very good to do this.). This will sky high your accumulative counter.
High accumulative counter is really better than high combo or multiplier and after 10k the combo incrementation worth nothing. High combo is good to DOJ here it is nothing more than a multiplier and few points in end stage bonus.

[Jitterbug]

I did post in the gamertag thread, but I assume it is not that freequently visited.
Just to make sure.

Please add me. Xbl gamertag: magicdsunga