Giga Wing : #2

New High Score: 6,1834,64817680 - Stage 5 - Ruby

So playing ends today for Shooting Game Tournament Week #5 (actually, about a half hour from this posting). Throughout the week, I wasn't too thrilled with the game. I even had to switch back to using my Saturn pad because I wasn't skilled enough to handle all of the weaving on the stick.

Since I was using Ruby, it was a fast ship, and this game required a lot of maneuvering to collect those medals, so I felt so much more comfortable playing this game with a pad than a stick. I guess when it comes to sticks, they work a lot better for tap-dodging and pixel-perfect, precise movements against a screen full of bullets (given that your ship's speed is slow enough to allow such adjustments).

As for dodging via weaving past bullets, I am just not skilled enough with the stick yet to achieve it at the same level that I am with a controller. As for controllers in my opinion, I seem to excel at weaving through hordes of bullets like a madman (at the expense of my thumb after a few hours of it), but tap dodging is less precise, and a lot of times, causes me to die. But the kind of controls you use does not make you a better player. Whether you're using a PS2 pad, a Sanwa or Seimitsu stick, hell, or even a keyboard, it all comes down to how skilled you are with what you have. Use what you got! I must say, though, everything has its drawbacks. I am much better using controllers most of the time, but they do give me some major blisters.

Going back to the game, I managed to nearly double my score in the end. Compared to the top ranking scorers on the board (80+!), it's actually quite a shitty score, but I'm proud of it, nevertheless. This is the best I've ever been at Giga Wing, and it's my own personal victory. I'm satisfied that I gave it my best tonight and managed to break past my old score, which I was having so much difficulty reaching for some reason. Dying for the 20th time on level 1 while collecting those damn medals was becoming frustrating.

I've never liked GW that much, but after spending more time with it tonight, I have to say that I enjoy it a lot more. As for getting back to it in the future...no. I'm done with the game for a while.

Giga Wing (Takumi, 1999)

So Giga Wing was chosen for Shooting Game Tournament Week #5.

Long ago, before I ever tried Giga Wing, I remember playing rRootage, a doujin shooter created by legend Kenta Cho, and one of my most favorite modes was the "GW Mode", which was supposed to stand for Giga Wing since you were equipped with a barrier that could reflect back bullets at the enemy. All you had to do was hold the fire button down to activate it. I loved the feeling of spreading the barrier in the middle of a huge horde of bullets and watching them stab back at the enemy for some extra damage. I would do that during tight spots to save my own ass or to intentionally hurt the boss.

Anyway, when I played the real Giga Wing, I was a little disappointed because it didn't feel the same as rRootage. You used the barrier mostly to bring about these medals so you could maximize your score, and the whole game was about collecting these medals at the correct time whenever there were a ton of bullets you could reflect back. I guess this is pretty fun playing it this way, but back then, all I wanted was to feel the rush of survival and dodging bullets, so I wasn't willing to sit down with it to learn its scoring mechanics. Not only that, but the number of digits in each score is fucking ridiculous! What's a good score if you can finish the first level with billions of points? Talk about inflation. So I just played it for about an hour and switched to another game. That was years ago.

Now I'm coming back to it. Considering that I only played it for no more than a few hours years ago, I am in no position to compete with people who have played this game for years. My highest score so far today is 3,4955,42460260 ending at stage 5. This is considered to be a relatively low score compared to what can really be earned by the time you reach this stage. But I'm just taking it easy, playing it for survival and seeing how far I can get. I try to score at parts where I think yields a lot of points, but I have no clue what I am doing right or wrong. I was actually pretty pleased I was able to make it that far. Maybe I can 1CC it before the end of the week.