It took a long time but I finally settled on 9 PCBs for my CAVE collection:
Espgaluda 2
Pink Sweets ~ Ibara Sorekara
Muchi Muchi Pork!
Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (Japanese)
Deathsmiles Mega Black Label
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label
Akai Katana
Dodonpachi Saidaioujou
I have found I do not do well with a large collection of PCBs (or anything else, for that matter – I am somewhat of a minimalist). Due to their high monetary value, I feel compelled to play each of them regularly (otherwise, I cannot justify owning them in a psychological sense and continuing to own them causes me more uneasiness than pleasure), and that cuts into time I could be spending getting better at a smaller number of games that I enjoy playing for score and have scoring goals I have not yet met. In order to reduce my collection to the essentials, I decided to go by a rule: only pick one game from each series and only include games on CAVE’s SH3/CV1000 hardware. As you’ll see, I made two exceptions to this rule, but my reasons for those exceptions are valid (in my mind). Anyway, this is how I made my decisions:
DEATHSMILES series: I had to choose between Deathsmiles and Deathsmiles MBL (I excluded DSII because the hardware is crap and difficult to connect to my setup). I now find Deathsmiles to be rather dull, and if I ever feel the desire to play a credit, the X360 port is excellent. In contrast, I was surprised to discover DSMBL really pulled me in this time around, so that is the game I chose to keep. It is a very deep and interesting game with a scoring system I love. I have several goals I want to meet in this game, particularly with Windia.
ESPGALUDA series: this was easy because I’m not a fan of Espgaluda, so Espgaluda 2 was the only choice for me (it’s also the only choice on the SH3 hardware!). It is a fantastic game and I have a long way to go in learning more advanced scoring techniques.
IBARA series: I really enjoyed playing Ibara Kuro, Ibara and Pink Sweets over the past year. I decided to sell Ibara Kuro because I felt like I reached my limit in the scoring in the game, and I wasn’t having much fun trying over and over (and over) again to beat my old score. It is a good game in some respects, but ultimately, I don’t feel like it is as well-crafted as most Ikeda or Yagawa games. On top of that, it is extremely expensive. My reason to sell Ibara is somewhat different. I am happy with my B-score 1CC, and I feel like I could probably score a bit better, but the more extensive randomness in the game makes it a bit frustrating. A lot of runs feel a bit too much like pulling a lever on a slot machine and hoping you get lucky, and because you need to keep a low life stock most of the game, one random mistake can end a credit too quickly. Another thing that bothered me about the game is that at high level play over half of the points in the game come from milking the ST3 and ST6 bosses, and once again you need a good deal of luck here. I also decided to only keep one game in which you have regular point-based extends, bomb shards and regular suiciding, and Muchi Muchi Pork was the clear winner for me. (In terms of gameplay MMP takes everything good about Ibara and pumps it up with steroids, making it the pinnacle of its gameplay-type.) So that left Pink Sweets, a game I really enjoy playing for score, with several fun modes and four different characters. It is also one of CAVE’s deepest and most eccentric games, with nothing else quite like it. I have several scoring goals I want to meet in the game and I feel like I can (realistically) achieve some of those in the coming years. I also want to beat it without the infinite lives trick (but also while playing for score). The port is not an adequate replacement because it does not give you the option of playing with the infinite lives trick or the harder-mode ranking insert coin glitch, both of which are necessary for WR-level scores.
MUCHI MUCHI PORK and AKAI KATANA: The only commercially sold arcade games in their respective series, and I love playing both for score. MMP is one of my favorite games of all time. Both X360 ports are quite horrible too. So, it was a no-brainer to keep these. I did not have the option of choosing the home PCB Akai Katana Limited Ver, due to its rarity and price, but from what I have seen of the game I really doubt I would choose it over the original Akai Katana.
MUSHIHIMESAMA series. I had six games to choose from here: Mushihimesama, Mushihimesama Matsuri Ver 1.5, Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.0, Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5, and Mushihimesama Futari Black Label “Another Ver”, and Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (original JP version). These are all games I have enjoyed a great deal over the years, but I am not interested in playing Mushihimesama for score anymore. Same story for Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.0. Mushihimesama Matsuri 1.5 is broken in the arcade, with a counterstop doable before the end of the third stage (they fixed this in the port, thank goodness). It is also ridiculously rare and expensive. And here is the first exception I made to my rule: I settled on both Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 and Mushihimesama Futari Black Label (original JP version). I love at least two modes on both of these PCBs, and unlike most other BLs Futari BL feels more like a set of extra modes than a reinvention or reinterpretation. Plus, the price I paid for the pair was less than I paid for Muchi Muchi Pork alone, so from a monetary standpoint it was easy to rationalize.
DODONPACHI series: I had four SH3 games to choose from here (DFK 1.0, DFK 1.5, DFK BL, SDOJ). DFK 1.0 was easily dismissed because the scoring is terribly broken with the counterstop doable before the loop begins, so that is not a game I would ever enjoy playing. I actually really do love DFK 1.5, though. It is a game I have tremendous respect for, and I have great admiration for players who can score in it on a high level. Unfortunately, as has been the case since I started playing STGs over 16 years ago, I am just not adept at DDP style two-loop chaining, and because I wanted to pare down my collection to only those games I intended to continue playing for score, I sold it and I do not regret that decision. In the end, I settled on DFK BL and SDOJ. In my view DFK BL is one of Yagawa’s finest creations. The stricter chaining system of DFK 1.5 is removed, and replaced with a system that is much more congruent with my play style. All three modes play very differently, and Strong style is my favorite. The slowdown differences are quite apparent in the PCB compared to the port in Strong style, with the port being significantly easier overall, and this also weighed heavily on my decision. So, you could say I chose one game from the DFK “series” and then also SDOJ. Why SDOJ? I wanted one game with CAVE “chaining” in it, and SDOJ is the only one I wanted to keep because it doesn’t have a loop (I don't like loops), the chaining is more lenient compared to other DDP games, there is no wacky, hand-crippling "tapping-to-score" like Mushihimesama, it is CAVE’s last game on the SH3 hardware, it has a great difficulty curve, and I just really love the way it looks, feels (and sounds). As with several other games on this list, the port is also horrendous. Importantly, I also feel like I could realistically get better scores with a lot of different ship/shot types and I will enjoy doing that in the coming months/years.
Another thing I like about this collection is it gives me an even split between Yagawa and Ikeda CAVE games, with four from each (Ikeda=DSMBL, ESP2, MF1.5, MFBL; Yagawa=PS, MMP, DFKBL, AK). And then SDOJ is a combined effort between Yagawa and Ikeda (as well as a few other programmers), rounding things out.
Anyway, that’s my story! I plan on keeping these nine for a loooong time.
Would love to hear how other people finalized their CAVE PCBs collections. Are you a completist? A minimalist? Somewhere in between? Why?
