Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.01)

I played a few credits of 1.01 with Ikuo today, for the first time since I got my previous Ikuo score, and got a new PB of 425,628,890.


Unfortunately, my first loop was quite poor in this run, ending with just 212 million due to a couple costly chain breaks. In my previous 420 million run I got 224 million in the first loop. The second loop was much better in this run, though there were a few chain breaks in there as well. Anyway, 440+mil is looking more possible to me with a ~225 mil first loop, so I'll set that as my new goal.


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Pork Up! New Momo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.01)

I was very happy to meet my goal of a 400+mil ALL with Momo in Ver 1.01 today, with a score of 401,002,380.


The last boss is very difficult to score on with Momo due to her weak lard attack, and I just barely scraped through the last phase with a very lucky dodge with no lives or bombs left. Scoring with the lard attack at the end was just enough to push me over the 400 million barrier.

I also got a higher score in DFK BL with B-Strong last week, somewhere in the 470 billion range, I think (it's on the xbox live leaderboards). I do enjoy that mode but Stage 5 is such a pain, I'm not sure I'll devote enough time to it to clear it. We'll see. I've been dabbling in a variety of other games as well, but Dodonpachi Saidaioujou will be released tomorrow, so I imagine when my copy arrives (hopefully early next week, if not sooner) I will focus on that, and if the scoring strikes my fancy, I'll play it for a good amount of time.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Pink Sweets Arrange

Today I practiced DDPDFK BL's Stage 5 with B-Strong. I've gotten the first half down, but the second half is giving me a lot of trouble. The Boss is quite easy to beat without dying, though.
Anyway, I also played a credit of Pink Sweets arrange today and I'm underwhelmed with it. I don't like the following:

1)No points for absorbing bullets. Even 1 point per bullet would have been nice. Feels very un-Yagawa-like as-is.
2)No points for hitting enemies/bosses with your shot. This is a big problem for me, it just feels off. Again, very un-Yagawa-like.
3)I don't like the shield being active in front of you as you shoot. You can just plow through everything without much worries, until you meet the bullet types you can destroy with your shot.
4)Too easy, due to 3).
5)No variety of items to pick up other than roses on the ground and small roses from cancelled bullets.


I do like the following:

1)Score-based extends. (I love these.)
2)Decent scoring system based on timed chains and a maximum x64 multiplier.
3)No real rank management needed (like MMP).
4)Hadou guns!

So it's a mixed bag for me. The little problems really bug me, and sap the enjoyment out of the game as I'm playing. Yagawa didn't program this Arrange, and it shows.


Monday, May 20, 2013

First B-Strong score (Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label)

Last week I decided to pick up a new game because I've been playing Muchi Muchi Pork! almost exclusively for the past few months. I really enjoy S. Yagawa's recent games, especially his collaborations with T. Ikeda and other programmers at Cave. So, among the games Yagawa has participated in programming for Cave that are available on the Xbox 360 (Pink Sweets 1.01, Pink Sweets Arrange, Espgaluda II Arrange, Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label and Akai Katana), I settled on Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label as my next game to score attack. After fiddling with the different shot types, I was drawn to Strong style, as it is the mode that most clearly gives me that distinctive Yagawa feel of destroying enemies, absorbing items, cancelling bullets into items, and dodging bullets that Muchi Muchi Pork! does. (The way the bombs and hypers fill up also sort of feels like a combination of score extends, lard attack refills, and bomb refills in MMP.) I also really like the fully powered shot. In addition, it has little of the "use a hyper and stay in a corner absorbing bullets" that scoring in Bomb and Power styles is based on, and which I find unappealing. When using a hyper in Strong style, you generally have to keep moving in order to score and survive, you have to dodge the fast bullets that spawn from cancelled bullets, and you have to accurately time your Shot presses when lasers get near. This is a really thrilling experience, knowing that with one wrong button press you'll get killed, breaking your chain (which only breaks when you use a bomb or when you get killed while using a hyper). Strong also has the nicest, most complex bullet patterns. At times they remind me of MMP's second loop,  or even some MMP first loop boss patterns at high rank.

Anyway, my personal best so far is 408,683,127,873, up to the beginning of Stage 5.


I was doing well in this run until the Stage 3 boss, where I lost two lives. I lost two more in Stage 4, and quickly crashed and burned at the start of Stage 5. I don't normally use practice modes just because I find it boring to play the same level over and over, but I may have to dig into it to have a chance at overcoming Stage 5, which appears to be massive and quite complex. Anyway, tentatively I am aiming for a 600+bil ALL (no Hibachi or Zatsuza). Once I get consistent at that I'll focus more on expanding my scoring into the 800bil~1tril range.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Pork Up! New Rafute score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.01)

I decided to give Rafute another credit in Ver 1.01 today, and nearly reached my goal of 400+mil with a score of 395,134,670.


I got 194mil in the first loop, which is the first time I've scored so high with Rafute, but I also had a double chain break (where the chain breaks to the 1,000 medal value, you immediately accidentally die as the last 1,000 medal is falling off the screen, and your chain breaks again down to the 100 medal value) in Stage 5, which is the first time I think that's ever happened to me. I actually laughed out loud when it happened, and reached for the reset button, but then I thought, "what the heck, I'll keep playing". I'm glad I did. Thankfully the double chain break occurred toward the end of Stage 5 in a section that I get no more than 2~3 million from usually, and I had the medal value back up to 10K for the final curtain section before the boss. There were some other errors here and there so I should be able to do 200+mil in the first loop with her, eventually.

On a brighter note, I did not have any chain breaks in the second loop, and I think that's the first time I've done that as well! So this run was full of "firsts", most good, but one pretty bad.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Harahara mode Ver 1.01)

I only had time for one credit today, so I decided to try out Harahara mode in Ver 1.01 with Ikuo. It was my first credit with Ikuo in the mode, and I got a clear with a score of 202,181,060, which was good enough for the #1 spot on the Xbox live rankings with Ikuo.


I had two chain breaks and did nearly zero boss milking because it's so risky, but I think I can start to try and implement more of it in future runs. Particularly the stage 1 and 4 bosses. With that in mind, I'm setting my next goal at 210+mil, which would give me the top spot on the Xbox live rankings among all character types. If I play this a good amount and discover some safe patterns for boss milking, I'll probably go back to regular Ver 1.01 and do some more 2-Loop runs and try and improve my Ikuo score to 430+mil.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.01)

I was glad to get a score of 420,521,550 with Ikuo in Ver 1.01 today, which meets my goal of getting the #1 spot on the xbox live rankings with Ikuo (though who knows how long that will last).


The replay is on Xbox live, so you can check it out if interested. I had 224 million in the first loop with one chain break. Decent second loop, though there were quite a few chain breaks and I didn't score well on a few bosses and midbosses. Theoretically with fewer mistakes I could do 430~450million, though I am not sure I will bother, since Ver 1.01 runs take so much time (over an hour for each credit), and there are so many things that can go wrong, ruining a good run. I'm quite satisfied with this score and anything higher than this would just be icing on the cake for me.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Matsuri Ver)

I think I am now done with Ikuo in Matsuri Ver. I had what is essentially a perfect run (for my patterns), ending up with a score of 261,707,640, which meets my goal of 260+mil.


While in hindsight there were a few spots here and there I could have milked for a few more million, I got rather lucky with the boss patterns I was given in this run (including the last Pink Sweets boss, who gave me the bullet spiral pattern at least 4 times) and there is so much randomness in a Matsuri run that having it all come together and executing your patterns properly when it happens is very difficult. I put the replay up on Xbox live, as I don't think I'll be able to do much better than this and I'm very happy with my performance overall.

Now that this is done, I am going to go back to Ver 1.01 with Ikuo and try and get the top spot on the xbox live rankings (I'm currently about 10 million away). My ultimate goal is 430+ million. After that, I will probably go back and try and improve my Momo or Rafute scores.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo scores (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.01 and 1.00 Harahara Mode)

I've been dabbling with Ikuo in Ver 1.01 this past week, my best 2-ALL score is 398,289,650.


I scored 215 million in the first loop with a couple chain breaks, which is a bit sub-par for me (I'm aiming for 230 million). The second loop was a complete mess, I had at least 8 chain breaks. On a related note, I decided to give Ikuo a whirl in Ver 1.00's Harahara mode, and I got a score of 114,898,820 with my first credit.


I gameovered in the section right before the first midboss, but I had two careless deaths in stage 4 and one in stage 1, so I am thinking I could clear it. It is a good deal harder than 1.01's Harahara (which is also the second loop in a regular 1.01 run), but I think it's still doable. We'll see. I had previously gotten a score of about 90 million in this mode with Rafute, but I think it would be easier to clear with Ikuo or Momo than with Rafute (for me, at least). My reasoning for this is that it's easier to survive the first few stages with Rafute due to her long-duration bomb and quick speed, but it's harder to score with her, which means you have fewer lives to play with (which means it's harder to survive the later stages). In Harahara, you need every extra life you can get.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Matsuri Ver)

I gave Ikuo one more credit, and met my goal of 250+mil with a score of 251,996,170.


I had a stupid chain break in Stage 5 (again!), and I didn't score on the Stage 3 midboss or the second phase of the stage 4 boss. These mistakes cost me at least 10 million. Otherwise, things went fairly well. New goal is 260+mil.

Pork Up! New Momo and Ikuo scores (Muchi Muchi Pork! Matsuri Ver)

I managed to get the top score with Momo in Matsuri Ver on the xbox live rankings with a score of 243,356,550. I also increased my Ikuo PB to 248,109,010, which is just a bit short of my goal of 250+mil.



Both runs had chain breaks, 1 in the Ikuo run (in Stage 5) and 2 in the Momo run. I had a few other costly mistakes in both runs, though more in the Momo one. In the Ikuo run I had a poor stage 1 (ended with 27 million, I've gotten as high as 32.4 million in other runs), so now I can see 260+mil as possible for me with a perfect run. I'm not sure I could score that high with Momo, but I'm pretty sure I will be able to do 250+mil with her at some point. I'll mark that as my new goal, anyway.


Friday, May 3, 2013

Pork Up! New Momo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Matsuri Ver)

I decided to try Momo in Matsuri Ver again and shoot for the #1 spot with her on Xbox live, as I have the #1 spot with both other characters. My best score today was 237,248,350, which is about 5 million shy of the top score. My previous PB was 223 million, so this was a nice increase for me.


I screwed up the last phase of the Stage 4 boss as well as the second stage 4 Pink Sweets boss. Stage 5 was also below average. I ended Stage 2 with about 61 million, which is probably my best to date with any character, so that was one of the highlights of the run. Anyway, I'll keep working on it.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Pork Up! New Rafute score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Matsuri Ver)

I had time to sneak in a few more credits, so I played Matsuri Ver with Rafute. I was happy to get a new PB of 220,233,910, which is about 10 million more than my previous PB.


This run had two major errors, costing me about 6-8 million total: I failed to score on the Pink Sweets boss at the end of Stage 2 (3-4 million loss), and I failed to score on the first Pink Sweets boss in Stage 4 (3-4 million loss). There were some minor errors scattered throughout and less than optimal scoring on some bosses as well. But otherwise, most things went pretty well, so I uploaded the replay to xbox live. My goal with Rafute in this mode is now 230 million.

Pork Up! New Rafute score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.01)

Today I decided to go back to Rafute in Ver 1.01. I only had time for one credit, and thankfully I got a new PB out of it: 371,143,800.


I don't usually upload my replays because they're either full of embarrassing errors or not optimal scoring runs, but I did upload this one because the run went well outside of a few chain breaks (some are quite embarrassing, but whatever), and I thought it would be nice to showcase some of the techniques to score well with Rafute, since there are no really high scoring videos with her in any mode (except Arrange). My first loop was a bit sub par, ending with about 186 million. I usually get over 190 million.

I can see a potential max of about 390 million with my current patterns if there are no chain breaks and I score on all boss phases. More tweaks (especially in 2-2 and 2-3) and a better first loop could push it over 400 million.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Pork Up! New Ikuo score (Muchi Muchi Pork! Ver 1.00)

I got so close to my goal of 210+ million today, and yet still so far away, with a new PB of 209,652,850.



Very few errors in this run, and I scored on all phases of the last boss. From here on out I need to work on tweaking patterns, and in some cases, developing new ones. However, I'm feeling a bit burnt out on 1.00 so think I am going to take a break from it for awhile and play other modes (and/or other games).