Ghegs' Vault - Replays

Ghegs' Vault

Video game replays. Occasional displays of skill. Gamer life.

Game	System	Difficulty	Stage	Score	Date
Contra: Shattered Soldier	PS2	Normal	ALL, no-miss	S-rank	1.12.2009	Info Like with the R-Type Delta replay there are some..."anomalities" from my usual runs that make this replay look a bit unrefined (like almost letting an enemy slip by me before Mission 3 boss, and not destroying the first boss in Mission 6 during its first pass), but I managed to avoid deaths while still keeping the 100% Hit Rate so it's all good and I'm very pleased I got the All S-rank clear without resorting to retries. To compensate for the small imperfections there's some slick stuff in there as well. The battle with Lance is nothing short of epic, he did his quite annoying bouncy ball attack and the way I dodged it is a beautiful combination of pattern recognition, reflexes and creeping panic all working together. Though it was the game's PAL version I was playing, I was using the 60hz mode to play it at the proper speed.
Cyber-Lip	Neo Geo	Arcade	ALL, 1-miss	345,800	15.7.2010	Info Played using a consolized MVS with a modded Saturn controller with autofire capabilities. Japan region, arcade difficulty. Cyber-Lip is Neo Geo's pre-Metal Slug run 'n gun title and, if Wikipedia is to be believed, some members of the game's development team even went on to create the far more well-known, appreciated and polished 'Slug series. Cyber-Lip feels rather clunky, the roll/slide move has no good use that I've found, the boss battles are simple, the random in-between-stages sections in the sewers are an odd inclusion... All that and I still find the game pretty fun to play. I guess the genre was still finding its footing back then. You can choose between the many different weapons at will once acquiring them., I always like that function in games. There's maybe a bit too many weapons though, I sometimes accidentally go past the one I wanted to switch to. Still, I find all the guns useful, which is a good thing. Except for Fire, that's bit of a pointless weapon. And the only reason I don't use Auto is because I'm using autofire anyway. Also, the game has an ending that still manages to creep me out a bit though I've seen it several times. Freaky. The boss battles are the most underdeveloped part of the game. In all but one the best tactic is just stay on the far left and occasionally dodge an attack. Incidentally, the one boss this isn't a viable tactic to (Stage 3 boss) strongly reminds me of a boss in Contra: Shattered Soldier. And you can also change between weapons at will in C:SS. Hmm... There's one death in the run and I'm willing to accept that. Stage 4 boss is very random with its shots and everything else went nice 'n smooth. Thanks to glowsquid for giving me some tips over at Gaming Journals.
Gaia Seed	PS1	Hard	ALL-1	717,100	14.4.2008	Info This video is only available on Youtube. The video was mainly made because there wasn't any (or very little at best) footage of the game available on Youtube at the time, yet because Gaia Seed is one of the PS1's most rare and expensive games, people were curious about it. The purpose was to show off the game in its entirety, but I never got around to playing and recording the third ending, which I assume to be the best. Even on Hard difficulty it's such an easy game thanks to the regenerating shield. I've since sold the game and have no intention of picking it up again.
Gradius	Famicom	Default	1-ALL, no-miss	548,900	5.12.2007	Info 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.
Gradius	PC Engine	Default	1-ALL, no-miss	536,600	5.12.2007	Info 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.
Gradius	Game Boy	Hard	1-ALL, no-miss	146,200	22.3.2009	Info The two Gradius games for the original Game Boy are odd beasts. Maybe I'll do a video of the other one as well. They're simple spin-offs of the Gradius series, though this one even has original bosses, which are kinda cool. The "level" option on the configuration menu at start is the difficulty, 1 is Normal and 2 is Hard. This game actually usually goes by the name of Nemesis. But on the Konami GB Collection Vol.1 cart for Game Boy Color I'm playing it on, it's Gradius. On the same cart is the GB Contra, but its name is Probotector, even though the main character is a human instead of a robot. Go figure. I played this on my Game Boy Player and removed the framing at post for a nicer video. Oh, and the reason I switched to lasers at 11:53 was because I accidentally pushed the wrong button. Whoops.
Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou	PC Engine	Default	1-ALL, no-miss	470,600	26.12.2007	Info 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.
Gunners Heaven	PS1	Default	ALL	783,800	18.8.2010	Info Gunners Heaven is a very early PS1 run 'n gun (the game's PAL version called Rapid Reload was, in fact, a launch title in Europe) that sports some very lovely spritework and lots of bossfights in a style that's not totally unlike Treasure's Gunstar Heroes. Only this one isn't easy as pie, as there's no ultimate weapon combo to cheese your way through with. Aside from the odd [G] weapon every weapon has its use and the two characters' weapons even act differently. To make a rough split between the two, Axel (the character I used here) has a great homing attack while Ruka has a great fire attack that'll make short work of bosses. The similarities between this game and Gunstar Heroes go so deep some have speculated that instead of the former being simply inspired by the latter, Gunners Heaven actually had some Treasure staff working on it. Nobody's been able to confirm this though, maybe I can get one of the japanese-speaking individuals I know to translate the credits list. The run succeeded decently enough, I made a few goofs here and there but nothing critical. Even though the bosses are very much pattern based I still managed to fumble occasionally. At 19:13 against the Stage 3 boss you're supposed to jump over his treads-of-fire and then jump again to avoid the machinegun fire but I just couldn't pull it off this time. And for some reason I had difficulties in returning to the other side afterwards, even though the jump is much simpler. And at 20:54 all you have to do is to dash twice to avoid the blast from above, yet I kept failing at it. Don't know what was up with that. The last boss fight went very smoothly, I'm happy to say. He can be a real pain in the ass even when you know what he's going to do. In the last attack pattern at 45:30, when he fires the four orbs and I climb on top of the platform, you're supposed to jump far towards the other side so you don't get hit by the explosion's tip. But the timing is a bit tricky to pull off, as you can see here. Still, that was one of my best fights against him overall, didn't get hit once until that last pattern.
Harmful Park	PS1	Score Attack	Score Attack	1,104,700	29.3.2009	Info Harmful Park is one of rarer PS1 shmups. The company responsible, Sky Think Systems, hasn't done much anything else and seems to have disappeared off the map. Which is a shame, as the game is extremely well-polished. The game's most well-known for being extremely easy, even newcomers to the genre can usually clear it in few attempts. This is because the game's default difficulty is "Easy", ramping the difficulty up to the hardest "Very Hard" makes a very different beast indeed. Not many seem to play the harder difficulties, but remain content in having cleared the default one. I have managed to clear the "Hard" difficulty. However, this replay's not about the Normal mode. The game has an abundance in extras in the form of minigames (one's sorta like Pong) and a very addictive Score Attack mode, which is what I'm playing here. It's a caravan mode, which I enjoy greatly, but instead of limited time or aiming for a specific score the mode takes place in a stage exclusive to the mode. The goal is, of course, to collect as much points as possible. Score Attack mode's difficulty is independent from the Normal mode's difficulties, and is always constant. The stage is designed to have plenty of scoring opportunities but it's also quite difficult. A quick run-down of the different ways to score in Harmful Park: Destroying enemies in quick succession gives you a multiplier, but the time window here is extremely small. Green jewels increase in value whenever they're collected (starting from 500 and ending at 5000), but the value resets when one is missed. Lastly, there are hidden items to be found. I was unable to find any previous replays of Score Attack, even on japanese sites. I would love to compare my score to theirs, but I feel it's pretty good. I could still probably squeeze a bit more (pay attention at the end of the run and you can see where I miss a few points) out of it, but now I need to rest a bit. If anybody knows of a higher score or even other replays of the mode, do let me know.
Heavy Unit	PC Engine	Default	1-ALL, no-miss	626,200	0.0.2005	Info My first ever replay, 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 a high level. 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 of the time not working optimally, but I've since upgraded my capturing hardware and software to the point where I can capture anything at least adequately.
Hector '87	Famicom	Hard	ALL, no-miss	2,725,000	20.3.2008	Info 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.
Omega Five: R.A.D Omega Five: Tempest	XBLA	Arcade	ALL	3,604,690 2,353,460	8.6.2009	Info I love character based shmups like Forgotten Worlds, Section Z, Final Mission...I like being able to control where the character fires and it gives possibilities for some really interesting stages. Omega Five is the first of this type of shmup to be released in a long time so when I got my japanese XBox 360 a while back it was one of the first XBLA titles I purchased. And it was created by Natsume who also made some excellent Famicom games (including Final Mission) so I was doubly interested. It's not the greatest shmup ever or even the greatest XBLA shmup by a long shot, but I still found it enjoyable enough to clear it with all four characters. C'mon Natsume, make a sequel that fixes the hard-to-see enemy bullets and is harder on defaults and you've got a winner. Somebody also asked me to make a replay of the game using Tempest so they'd get off their ass and clear the game themselves. I was only too happy to oblige.
R-Type	XBLA	Default	1-ALL, no-miss	381,700	3.2.2010	Info The original R-Type is one of those games I very much disliked back when I got into shmupping. Couldn't stand the strict memorization. At some point I started to look at the series differently and now I find the R-Type games as one of my favourites. Go figure. The Dimensions port is pretty nice, and the enhanced graphics which I use here really give a nice boost to the normally barren backgrounds. The port does, however, suffer from the same problem that plaques many XBLA games - no customizable controls. It took a while to get used to that. Also the autofire in the port is a bit crippled, so in a totally falsificare move I used a controller-enabled autofire, as I played the game using a PS2 pad via an XConverter360. It got the autofire on par with the one in R-Types for PS1. The game doesn't get much easier with autofire anyway (aside from the last boss) but it saves wear and tear on my controller, fingers and wrist. And that's a good thing. Thanks to sgronblo for inspiring me to get the first loop clear on the game with his own clear of it.
R-Type Delta	PS1	Normal	ALL, no-miss	744,078	5.7.2009	Info Played using the RX Albatross ship. Why is it that often when I manage to hit a no-miss run I do other mistakes that make the replay look so unrefined? While I surprised myself by no-missing R-Type Delta the first time I even saw Stage 7, the run has a butt-ugly fight against the very first boss. Usually I destroy both the thrusters when its back is turned, then when it turns, destroy the lower turret with a second-level charge shot, move to the top of the screen before the huge laser attack and destroy the upper turret, then swiftly take out the core. It looks damn smooth. But here for some unfathomable reason I don't manage to destroy the thrusters and it's just downhill from there. Good thing I didn't ram myself into the machine while at it. Well, at least the rest of the replay is more pleasing to watch. Like said, it's a no-miss run and also a no-bomb run, at least until the point where the "story" requires it. Stage 6 went very smoothly, even though the boss fight was a close call. I destroyed Dobkeratops' first form surprisingly fast, while the tail was still doing its easy-to-avoid movement and it went straight to the more deadlier variant with no chance for me to go outside the circle. Luckily the ship's hitbox was much smaller than I thought and it is indeed possible to survive inside the circle. Stage 7 was really unknown to me. I had played (and creditfed through, if memory serves) the game's PAL version years ago, but I didn't remember anything about it other than it was pretty dark. Turns out it's one of the easiest stages of the game, very slow-paced, nothing really threatening until the final boss where you have to dodge lots of stuff without the help of the Force.
Section Z	PS2	Default	Section Q, 2nd loop	358,070	11.7.2007	Info Arcade version played in Capcom Classics Collection PS2 NTSC-U. 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. Section Z is 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.
Silpheed: The Lost Planet (no CGI movies)	PS2	Default	ALL	7,029,436	17.9.2008	Info 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. 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.
Star Soldier	PS2	Default	2-minute mode	1,046,630	16.6.2008	Info 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.
W-Ring: The Double Rings	PC Engine	Default	1-ALL, no-miss	2,379,020	27.12.2007	Info In a stark contrast to my previous video (Gradius II) 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.