Mushihimesama Futari ver 1.5

[retrojc]

Personally after recently playing this again think arrange is stupid. To To easy.

Spam, switch, spam, switch.

[AmidstStorm]

Somewhat agree but it is fun. Ultra is still a bit of a challenge

[Misery]

Somewhat agree but it is fun. Ultra is still a bit of a challenge

Not when you get the hang of it; Ultra is the easiest of the three, actually.

I gotta agree with RetroJC to a point; Arrange for this game wasnt as good as it could have been. Fortunately with Black Label added the game has quite alot of different modes to begin with even without arrange.

[weakboson]

Was playing this earlier again. I never much cared for Arrange, it never seemed like a 'proper' mode more just a bonus.

So I was trying to get back into Black Label Original scoring. My high is about 649 million and I've always wanted to push it higher. I think I will focus on God mode for now, though. Unfortunately I'm kind of rusty. I really don't play this game enough considering how much I like it. It's time I really pushed at it.

[AmidstStorm]

From memory don't the black label bosses die quicker? what's the other fundamental differences?

[weakboson]

I think in Original there are more enemies and bosses are more agressive but to counter that there is more slowdown and you have more powerful attacks. But the scoring systems are all different. In Origianl the colour changing overall counter from 1.5 remains, but this time enemies will 'shed' gems when damaged from point blank range. The rank system is also a bit different. When the stage counter reaches 9999 enemies shed big gems but will also shoot more and faster bullets. When the overall counter reaches 100000 the game goes nuts with lightspeed bullets. I really like this system but it's one big flaw is that a death reduces both counters by 30%, which is run killing later on. Furthermore bombs reduce them by 60%, the one merciful exception being in boss fights where I beleive you just get a 3000 penalty.

Never really played Black Label Maniac.

God mode uses the same system as Maniac from 1.5 but the multiplier goes up to 30000 and when it reaches 10000 you can point blank enemies to rapidly increase it. I don't know for sure but I think God's difficulty was adjusted to have more of a curve, so stages 1 and 2 have some easier versions of Ultra patterns but beyond that the changes become less pronounced. You still have more slowdown and more powerful shots anyway.

[Misery]

From memory don't the black label bosses die quicker? what's the other fundamental differences?

Differences that I can remember:

1, only one shot type per character as opposed to 2; the new shot type is sorta like the two old ones combined. I think the weapon is a LITTLE stronger.... maybe..... but it seems to me that the bosses take just as long as they ever did.

2. Original mode: Scoring changes here, first of all, the amount of gems between color-switches for the counter is changed; in 1.5 it's what, about 500? I think it's 1000 in BL, if I recall. Also, Original now encourages point-blanking; if you are really close to an enemy as you hit it with your attacks, it'll generate extra gems. These add up fast, so it's a good risk-reward system. Also, rank changes. You can get a MUCH higher overall counter in this mode, and the rank..... well..... lets just say it can get a bit REALLY FREAKING INSANE. Try going into training mode and setting the counter to 100,000.... You'll see what I mean fast. The nice part is, the rank is ENTIRELY attached to the scoring; only the very high level players are going to get the super-crazy rank, so it's not like Psikyo where you hit a certain point and the game eats you.

3. Maniac Mode: Scoring changes here are mostly based on how the chaining works. If you can call it chaining. It's still the same scoring system in a general sense, but..... well, it's hard to explain. Experiement with it. I like this version of Maniac muuuuuuuuuuuuuch more than 1.5.

4. Ultra mode is replaced with God mode. Uses MOST of the same patterns, but they're a little slower, and some things are changed (like the rocks in stage 1 dont burst, and the ice spikes in stage 2 dont become a crazed tornado of insanity). This is still a VERY hard mode.... beating it seems akin to beating Ultra in the first game, though maybe not AS hard, but at the same time, it's more accessible, which is to say, it's somewhat accessible. Ultra in 1.5 is NOT accessible whatsoever; only the best of the best need apply, and even then, they're probably gonna get wrecked. God mode has a muuuuuuuuch better learning curve and difficulty curve overall. You still need to be very, very good to beat this mode..... but you dont need to be a complete expert to get SOMEWHERE in it. The only really nasty difficulty spike is stage 3. The first half isnt too bad. The second half WILL EAT YOU. Other than that, well, the difficuly doesnt really do any other really wild leaps. God mode's scoring is also very different from Ultra, it's basically an enhanced version of Maniac BL's scoring. Max counter is 30,000 instead of.... er..... whatever max is in Maniac BL, 9999 I think? Ah, I dont remember. Scoring flow is, build up as much as you can, max that out, and then "cash it in" on screen-clearing foes when there's 8 squillion bullets on the screen. It's an interesting system, really. The only other game I can think of that focuses so much on screen-clearing is Ketsui's arrange mode. There is a "true" final boss in this mode, but good luck getting to her; you must go through the entire game and defeat Larsa without dying even once. This being a Cave game, the difficulty balance still doesnt always make a whole lot of sense. Like the bosses: The stage 3 boss is a nightmare. The stage 2 midboss is pretty freaking nasty. Stage 4 boss? .....total pushover. Stage 5 midboss is also a wimp. And then Larsa at the end will just WRECK YOU, at least they got THAT one right.....

5. Original and Maniac are easier, to a point. It's still a difficult game of course, but these arent as mean as the 1.5 versions are. Unless you get that counter really high in Original, that is.

6. Various other small tweaks that you may or may not actually notice.



All in all, I like the BL versions more than 1.5. The scoring is just SO much better, and the difficulty balance makes more sense, and if this goddamn keyboard does that ONE MORE BLOODY TIME I'm gonna rip the windows key off and throw it in a lake. Seriously, getting tired of retyping stuff because some dimwit thought that key was a good idea.

[retrojc]

I can#t seem to beat stage 5 boss final form in 1 credit on ultra. Soi guess I have a challenge left to overcome!

[AmidstStorm]

I'm exactly the same retrojc. That's always where I've fell on my arse in arrange

[retrojc]

beat her in training however, I started of with 3 lives, and used 2. So in theory i only need 2 lives and both reco and palm need around 3 bombs each. This means I need to perfect the whols of ultra with no miss.

Think it should be easy enough

[retrojc]

Just beat her with 2 lives to spare. Scored 1.6 billion overall i think. Didn;t hyper once either so the socre is quite low becuase of that. Didn't want to hyper at all due to the fact that sometimes the hyper willr un out in a area of bullets, with no where to turn, so planned ahead for them moments.

Well a nice 80g regardless!

[retrojc]

I repeat,

80G

[AmidstStorm]

Good work retrojc. I may hit this sometime this weekend though the new league game is due so perhaps have to put it on hold.

I think I might create a new high score thread for this so people can submit scores

[retrojc]

Know I can do better, in trainning I hit 1 billion on the final boss alone so there atleast a billion i can add to my score once i've perfected the game.

I actually find the first 2 levels the hardest overall, as i'm under powered and the counter is low. Will perfect this as time goes on but am more interested in achievements now, whcih are somewhat tricky!

[AmidstStorm]

Know I can do better, in trainning I hit 1 billion on the final boss alone so there atleast a billion i can add to my score once i've perfected the game.

I actually find the first 2 levels the hardest overall, as i'm under powered and the counter is low. Will perfect this as time goes on but am more interested in achievements now, whcih are somewhat tricky!

Only have about 550G i think.. Ketusi is my closest completion for a shmup.. over 900G