Crystal Castles high score #2

Been working at this again as there is a tourney comming up in October for the CAGDC and I'd really like to beat Donald Hayes!

I completed a game again, for a high score of 767,983. I'm going to work the levels more and try and sweep up as many gemeaters as possible, using some of Mark Alpiger's patterns from his CC DVD and some of my own (especially on 9-4).

I'm hoping to break 800K soon and try for a high of 850K, which is my goal for the tournament. Just don't let Donald know...

Mushi Futari - Maniac - Reco high score #2

Maybe I should just stay away from posting high scores for a while! I have learned a lot in this game in the past two days and its really starting to come together. 200mil is right around the corner...

Days here in Chicago in the middle of July at 70 degrees are fairly rare and this day couldn't have started out nicer. I woke up next to my lovely girl, went for a run, came home, leveled up some of my Disgaea characters and threw a few credits into Futari for a new high score - killing my old one - for a high of 145,282,315, finally giving up the ghost on stage 4, where I have absolutely zero experience.

I started out by wanting to work stage 2 and the boss's second pattern, which EOJ from Cave-STG recommended (for good reason too - HUGE gains, just on the one pattern). I got to stage 3 without dying and got the first extend with my stage 2 end bonuses, so I turned it into a high score run and went from there.

Stage 3 is probably my fav so far, with awesome music and such a good pace of enemies, that you really get drawn into in the game. I haven't spent much time at all on the later stages (4 and 5) and may start credit feeding to work on them a bit.

Mushi Futari - Maniac - Reco high score #1

After playing a few credits with Palm/abnormal, I decided to try Reco and see what the differences are. I had been mostly playing with Palm just for a change of pace from Mushi and enjoying it, but found him a bit too fast and slightly underpowered for my liking.

Reco, on the other hand, is excellent. She's just the right speed for me and although it took me a few credits to adjust to her speed and timing, I started to see higher scores on the first and second stages immediately. In fact, my patterns were totally thrown off and more than once I had a full counter, just waiting for a suitable enemy to cash in on.

I beat my old Palm high score with 114,745,125, which, frankly, isn't anything spectacular, but I still found Reco slightly liberating and just the right speed for me. I may go back to Palm later, but for now, I think I am Reco all the way.

I made it to the stage 3 boss and died twice on stupid mistakes. I really don't know the stage 2 or 3 bosses well enough to tackle them without dying or bombing. I did have about 68 mil on the stage 2 boss and never once cashed in a multiplier as I just kept holding A through the battle, so I know there were a sh*tload of points I missed.

Futari has yet to really grab me however and I find myself playing alot looking for patterns and trying different things out, only to find that there are so many different ways to attack a stage that almost anything works. Except for flying into bullets, which I seem to do alot on the stage 2 while waiting for the screen to fill up with majestic purple bullets. I know that once I get a few workable patterns down to keep a good, consistent high score, I'll get really into it.

It's just going to take more credits.

ESPrade high score #2

First credit I have played on this in a little over a week and I get past the midpoint of stage 5, for a new high score of 7,627,570. Not a huge jump, but I'm making good progress in stage 5. Stage 4 hasn't given me much trouble, but I do have to use the shield late in the level for safety and really tap it out on stage 5, so I have a lot of learning to do there.

I'm still blown away by Joker Jun's art style and really, really dig this game. It is certainly the best $40 I have ever spent!

DS RPG's, Space Invaders Extreme, STG's, etc.

Portable gamers have had the run of things lately and there looks like there's no stopping the deluge of quality comming out. Certainly an excellent time for DS and PSP junkies and especially so for any RPG fan.

Just this past month I picked up The World Ends With You, a quirky but addicting DS RPG from those guys at Square Enix. I was seriously bummed out by Crisis Core (boring gameplay, laughable story, characters you could care less about - even Aeris. Yup, I said it...) but figured Square was due and after hearing so much good feedback from the guys on the Joystiq podcast, I just bit the bullet and went for it. Especially as it was getting realy hard to find.

The game itself is a fresh take on RPG's in general, set in modern day Tokyo in the Shibuya district (where all the cool fashionistas hang out). The characters are interesting, even though there is a bit too much depressing emo-ishness going on (think Neon Genesis) with the main character, but its playful and kind of a self-parody, if that's possible with the first game of its type.

The battle system is very active and more like Zelda boss battles than traditional Final Fantasy fare (pick the right 'weapon', get some patterns and win) and they are really fun. I only have about two hours into the game, but its already impressing the hell out of me.

The biggest reason I haven't put the hours into The World... is because I have been playing the hell out of Etrian Odessey II. I played through the first one in two weeks, loving every dungeon drawing minute of it and the sequel is no exception. The game play is the same, with a few new character classes, and the dungeon difficulty seems to be fairly even across the board. I haven't flown through any sections like I did in the first installment where the difficulty dropped off in the mid-teen floors. In fact, on the 8th floor, theres a mid-boss that you don't even fight (for now at least) - you just need to sneak past and get the stuff hidden in its lair to pass the Quest (he'll one shot your whole party if you try and lock horns with him).

I seriously cannot put it down. Atlus, you are beautiful.

On my PSP, I have been investing time into Space Invaders Extreme and have been enjoying it, but really haven't been blown away by it. The game play is a significant step forward from earlier Space Invaders sequels and even has a big, blue lazer ala DoDonpachi to mow down scads of enemies. I found the game fairly easy once you understand the scoring and how to get weapon upgrades, so I kinda put it down for the time being. I imagine it will get a good workout on the road later this summer when I am away from home and craving some STG goodness.



I did play a bit of Shippu Mahou Daisakusen (Kingdom Grandprix). I'm considering selling it to get some spending cash for my NYC trip later this year as I'm taking the girlfriend for our first vacation together. I played two credits and 1CC'd in again on the second, not really trying, for a score of 662,261. It's a fun game, but I think not nearly challenging enough to warrant keeping it.

I have been dabbling in a few pcb's recently, namely Mushi Futari 1.5 and ESPrade, but no high score at the mo. I'm really working for score on the former and the clear on the latter, so hopefully there will be some updates in the weeks to come.