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Gradius | Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou | Heavy Unit | Hector '87 | Section Z | Silpheed: The Lost Planet | Star Soldier | W-Ring: The Double Rings
| Game: | Silpheed: The Lost Planet (PS2 NTSC-U) |
| Date: | 17.9.2008 |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | ALL |
| Final Score: | 7,029,436 |
| Download: | Ghegs_Silpheed_ALL.mp4 (583 MB, encoded with x264) Ghegs_Silpheed_ALL_nomovies.mp4 (360 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: This game has about 30 minutes of surprisingly cool CGI cut-scenes that tell the game's story of an alien invasion and humanity's struggle and eventual triumph. It's straight out of the "How to make a shmup plot"-textbook. Still, the cutscenes are nice to look at, at least once, so with that in mind I offer two download choices: One with all movies included and one where they as well as other loading times were cut out. It should be rather obvious which is which. The game itself is a bit weird. There's the proximity-based scoring system which I kinda like, but at the same time the game offers nine different weapons to use, of which the most powerful one has the shortest range. So even someone like me who doesn't play for score much ends up getting lots of x16's because the weapon best suited for score is also the best suited for survival. Making all the other eight weapons completely useless. They'd be useless without that fact as well, as most of the weapons are either horribly undereffective or just plain uncomfortable to use. The game is long for a shmup. ~40 minutes for a complete run even with all the movies cut out? And some of the stages have long periods of time where nothing in particular happens. Not an especially well-designed game in that regard. Well, it's not a well-designed game in many regards. The reason I played it again was mostly because it was one of the first PS2 shmups I ever played and never finished, so I just wanted to go at it one more time and get it over with. | |
| Game: | Star Soldier (PS2) |
| Date: | 16.6.2008 |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | 2-minute mode |
| Final Score: | 1,046,630 |
| Download: | Ghegs_StarSoldier_1046630.mp4 (20 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: I like caravan games. I like having to concentrate only on short, intense bursts on gameplay when it comes to really trying to reach a higher and higher score. Also the scoring mechanics in caravan games are of the kind I like: find hidden things and destroy enemies quickly. Some caravan games vary this formula a bit, but that's how it usually goes. The Star Soldier series has always been about the caravan. The recently released Star Soldier R for the Wii has no other modes at all. This PS2 iteration does have a normal mode as well (I might try attacking God difficulty one day), but the caravan modes are my favourite. At least it was so until a short while ago. A video on japanese Youtube demonstrates that the game, or at least the GameCube port of it, is broken. When Hudson made the ill-concieved decision of crippling standard autofire, forcing people wishing to avoid carpal tunnel to invest in a game controller that features turbo mode, they also broke the game by not apparently putting a proper upper limit to the rate of autofire that can be achieved. Meaning that the highest score goes to the one with the best turbo controller. Before I discovered this video I had returned to the game and was breaking my old records, purchased a new turbo controller and was hoping to pass one million points. After I saw the video I lost pretty much all interest. I went and broke 1m anyway to try out the new controller, but I doubt I'll be playing the caravan modes in this one ever again. | |
| Game: | Hector '87 (Famicom) |
| Date: | 20.3.2008 |
| Difficulty: | Hard |
| Stage: | ALL, no-miss |
| Final Score: | 2,725,000 |
| Download: | Ghegs_Hector87_ALL_Hard_nomiss.mp4 (138 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: I'm under the impression that Hector '87 isn't too viewed too favourably in the shmup community. Regardless, I quite like the game, it has a very nice pace to it. It's spiritually a part of Soldier series which I like and has many similarities to those, mainly how there's a lot of stuff hidden in the levels. In Hector 87's case there are letters of the game's name as well as "control boxes" that blow up every ground-based enemy (that is to say, turrets) upon destruction. Finding these was very fun. It's a shame the hidden items are only in the overhead stages, makes the side-scrolling ones a bit dull in comparison. Some might notice that the game's logo is yellow instead of red and the ship looks different than usual. This is because the game was played on the harder difficulty that's accessible once the game is cleared. Aside from those two visual differences the only thing separating Hard mode from normal are the slightly faster enemy bullets. Aside from finding the hidden letter tiles there's little else to scoring. Every overhead level has few "heads" that drop energy-increasing pellets that award 500 points each if the lifebar is already full. For maximizing the score I'd have to take advantage of the starting-stage-over-upon-death -feature and do stage 5 several times over and then finish the game on my last life. Not all that exciting. But I am kinda happy how my score beats the one on Youtube, where the player also no-misses the harder difficulty. And just so there's no confusion, I watched that video only after I had done this run. I did use autofire for this game. As standard NES/Famicom pads don't come with built-in autofire and the game offers no such options either, I resorted to using a Turbo Blaster. It's a third party accessory for NES that enables autofire on any NES controller and the rate of autofire is highly customizable. Very handy. | |
| Game: | W-Ring: The Double Rings (PC Engine) |
| Date: | 27.12.2007 |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | ALL (first loop), no-miss |
| Final Score: | 2,379,020 |
| Download: | Ghegs_W-Ring_1loop_nomiss.mp4 (139 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: In a stark contrast to my previous video this feat took only an hour, maybe an hour and a half to achieve. I was feeling a bit bored the day after I had cleared Gradius II and wanted to play something simple and easy. PCE's W-Ring is a game I had cleared in the past and I just felt like messing around. I ended up clearing the game on my first try. Then I wanted to see if I could access some of the hidden levels and cleared the game again. At this point I figured I might as well record the whole show and after a few attempts I had a no-miss run on my hands. As can be surmised the game's not that hard. I like it nonetheless, it's fast-paced and has some cool ideas, like how stages have alternative versions of themselves, accessible through a hidden icon ("EX") you uncover by shooting at it. In this run I access these in the first four stages and I'm not even sure they exist in the latter three. Definitely not in the last stage as it's pretty much just a boss fight, and not likely in the penultimate stage as I probably would've discovered it in this run. The game also has hidden "B" icons which just give extra points. A small thing, but really makes the game more interesting as PCE shmups aren't usually well-known for scoring opportunities beyond the "shoot X enemy for Y amount of points"-mechanic. The last hidden icon "?" activates the currently equipped weapon's alternative mode which may not always be advantageous. Like I said, the game's not terribly hard. The ring around the craft can reflect enemy bullets. As long as you can get and keep the most powerful version of the blue weapon you're pretty much set. While getting hit when carrying weaponry doesn't kill you (it just takes the weapon away) it's easy to keep losing lives in quick succession afterwards, especially in Stage 6. The bosses fall within seconds if you're well-equipped. Still, it's fast, short and doesn't have any dead moments, unlike Gradius II, so it was a nice change of pace to clear my head. | |
| Game: | Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou (PC Engine) |
| Date: | 26.12.2007 |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | ALL (first loop), no-miss |
| Final Score: | 470,600 |
| Download: | Ghegs_Gradius2_PCE_1loop_nomiss.mp4 (258 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: This took many an attempt (That Damn Walker...) but I finally nailed it. I've had the game for a long time and when I recently acquired a Gradius collectible in the form of a music box that plays this game's ending theme (I've made a video of it) I decided it just wasn't right that I've never actually cleared the game. So off to work I went. I remember I had, at some point, reached the Wall Boss in the final level, but never passed that. I'm not quite sure how I managed to get through the speed stage back then as that was the second-biggest obstacle this time. It took a while to find the easiest route (which turned out to be just going straight most of the time) and in this run I actually mess up the route but managed to get back on track without harm. The biggest obstacle was without a doubt That Damn Walker. The last hard bit of the game. I actually had to turn to emulation just so I could practice that bit, since it was painful to play for 30 minutes just so I can train a section that lasts for a minute. The training paid off, and after 7-8 attempts I nailed this run. I played with Type 4 (well, the power meters weren't called that yet...), the one with 2-way missiles and Ripple Laser while using only three options. Why only three options? Because dealing with the Option Thief is annoying and he comes out only when you've got four options. Also, I guess it kept the rank below max. I never felt like I was lacking in firepower, so it worked out nicely. Also worth noting are the odd, long pauses between levels and after destroying the Wall Boss. That's the system's 1X cd-rom drive loading up the next BGM. Overall it was a good run. I can usually deal with some of the bosses faster so it wasn't quite my best work at times, but it's still a solid run which I can be proud of. | |
| Game: | Gradius (Famicom and PC Engine) |
| Date: | 5.12.2007 |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | ALL (first loop), no-miss |
| Final Score: | 548,900 (Famicom), 536,600 (PC Engine) |
| Download: | Famicom version (135 MB, encoded with x264) PC Engine version (186 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: A minor double-treat-feat this time. I had cleared the very first Gradius game on both NES and PC Engine a good while ago, but I felt like doing that again and capturing the runs. Only this time I was playing the Famicom original as opposed to the NES one. Nothing much to tell, both of the runs are reasonably solid no-miss clears of the first loop. It was fun to see how different the ports are, aside from how much better the PCE port looks. FC one only allows two options at the same time and has some hidden 5000 point spots in the stages, while PCE one has an extra stage (the ruins) and a whole hidden stage, which I don't go to in this run. There's a video on YouTube of it if you're curious. There are some other gameplay differences as well, but overall PCE certainly got the better version here. FC version also has some level warps, but I ignored them (in fact, I had to restrain myself in the moai level because I kept activating the level warp even though I didn't want to) so that all the levels would be seen in the video. | |
| Game: | Oblivion (PC, Game of the Year-edition with various mods [Francesco's, etc.] installed) |
| Date: | 19.11.2007 |
| Information: Not really a feat, but still. I've been on a big Oblivion spree a while back. Last weekend I finished Mages' Guild quests (I had some time before finished the main quest and Fighters' Guild) after 78 hours of playtime. I might keep playing for a while so I can see what Shivering Isles has to offer, but I have grown a bit weary of the game. Here's a screencap of my character and his standings with various factions as of writing this: 
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| Game: | Section Z (Arcade version, played in Capcom Classics Collection PS2 NTSC-U) |
| Date: | 11.7.2007 |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | Section Q, second loop |
| Final Score: | 358,070 |
| Download: | Ghegs_SectionZ_358070.mp4 (193 MB, encoded with x264) |
| Information: I'm not perfectly happy with this run. It was my first clear of the game, so I'm happy about that, but I did some annoying mistakes. I didn't get the Heart and I died way more than necessary. It shouldn't be too hard to get the no-miss clear. Assuming other projects don't consume me and I keep playing Section Z I'll replace this file with the no-miss one should I get it. Even if it has a lower score. Speaking of which, it's not a terribly exciting game for score-play thanks to respawning at checkpoints. There are the spinners which can award up to 10k points each (of which there are three/loop), there are "B" icons which increase in value (500, 1000, 1500...) as long as you don't die, there are the hidden items (Head in first stage, Hand in second, Heart in third, haven't found any more yet), there's the small bonus received from destroying each enemy in a formation and there's the bonus from destroying bosses quickly. And the 10k you get from clearing the game. So the best tactic for score is to suicide near a spinner for few 10k bonuses. I'm not sure if the game loops indefinitely or if it ends after the second one. If the game would end after the FIRST one and it'd have instant respawn (so you wouldn't be able to milk spinners) it'd be great. Still, I do like this game quite a bit. It has character, the environment (Fortress Balangool as it's called in the heavily altered NES port) is the true star of the game, it's hard to find shmups with such interesting stages. But I do so hate the lasers in section W. I got really lucky with them. While normally I advocate the use of autofire, I feel I get a better level of control here without it. I would occasionaly end up missing enemies when I just hold the button down. So I started playing the game without it. I'm kinda proud about that, for some reason. | |
| Game: | Heavy Unit (PC Engine) |
| Date: | ??? Sometime in 2005, maybe... |
| Difficulty: | Default |
| Stage: | ALL (first loop), no-miss |
| Final Score: | 626,200 |
| Download: | Ghegs_HeavyUnit_ALL_nomiss.avi (230 MB) |
| Information: My first ever replay, which I guess could be called a superplay, depending on one's definition of the term. It's of the PC Engine port of Taito's Heavy Unit. The game's not that hard, the first 30 seconds of it are probably the hardest part due to the slow initial speed and lack of weaponry. Once you transform and get the shield it's mostly easy sailing to the end. As this was one of my early recordings, it's not technically at the level I could do now. This is mostly noticable in the fact that the shield, at higher levels, only seems to appear on one side of the craft. This was due to my capturing device not working optimally, but I've since discovered settings that will capture my runs mode adequately. | |