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.

Progear no Arashi : Day #11

Current High Score: 8.658.400

It's been a couple of days since I've last touched this game. The highest I was able to pull off was that 8.4 mill score. I literally had to grind my way to those scores above. I must have played for over four hours nonstop, clearing out all of my remaining old scores off that board--except for the highest one. At least I've been becoming more consistent at being able to make it to stage 4 at the least, and I'm improving at scoring. I just suck at survival though.

My performance for the earlier stages have been getting better, since I just cannot keep myself from trying to find new ways to vacuum those gems and milking that first boss. I felt so good when I was able to pull off that continuous gem vacuum on the first boss's trident-shaped line of bullets. The second stage is still tricky though, and I always die when I'm trying to milk that large plane in the middle of the level, and sometimes the second boss pulls off a pattern I can't dodge for some reason.

I've noticed the game begins to rank up, as in enemies begin to throw a bit more bullets at you, and bosses which seemed easier before are suddenly a little more difficult. Fuck. Just when I get better at scoring, the game begins to make it harder for me to traverse a level. At least it makes it easier to pull in more gems.

As for Omega Fighter Special, I wasn't able to spend any quality time with it. The team was able to pull through with at least three scores anyway, so my contribution wasn't required. I thought the whole idea of changing it to special mode to make the game easier was a bit lame since that made the game all about suiciding at the boss to get a 1 million pt bonus or something. I didn't quite like that, since scoring was supposed to revolve around point-blanking enemies to get a proximity bonus, which would have made it more interesting, even though that made me play terribly at first.

Progear no Arashi : Day #10

Current High Score: 8.658.400

It's been a couple days and still no change in my score. I've been playing in a more experimental way lately, trying new, riskier things and dying early in the process. And in other runs, I've simply credit-fed and just allowed myself to die and perform badly to allow myself to relax, which has helped in places where I would normally panic bomb at the first sight of a difficult pattern.

I've played this game enough to anticipate when and where certain enemies will be appearing, especially in the later stages, and have been noticing certain areas where scoring can be maximized. If only I can string them together, though. The scoring mechanism is so reliant on anticipation and timing, that it can seem nearly impossible at first. It just seems to feel incrementally easier as each day passes, but it is still daunting to say the least. I'm not surprised at all when I read about Japanese players taking years to get as good as they did at this game. Maybe it's time I took a few days off this game.


I've also been caught with the duty to play Omega Fighter Special for the 'Shooting Game Tournament 2007' being held at the Shmups.com Forum. I'm a member of the 'California Dudez'. I already made it clear to my teammates that I most likely won't be participating for this 'Hidden Gem Week', but since we need at least three scores submitted before the deadline or else we'd be forfeited, I'd like to get in some kind of a passable score just in case our other members don't go through with their part in it.