March 2023 shooting HSC: Zero Wing

[Steven Pendleton]

Steven - 529,760 - 1-5 - Retro-Bit

 

 

I died at that one spot on stage 5 where I always die and couldn't recover this time. I am terrible at this game.

 

I have asked Al for editing permission so I can add a poll to the OP so everyone can vote for next game. I will abstain unless there is a tie, in which case I'll vote. Choices are Koutetsu Teikoku or Battle Mania.

 

While I am here, here is the Pipiru Seijin secret that you'll want to get some good scores. This is on the super glitchy PC release of the arcade version. You are not supposed to be able to see the locations of the ones at the top of the screen, but because it doesn't work properly, they are not hidden by the HUD and you can see them. The sound is also super broken in general, as well, but that's not really relevant, so...

 

 

If you want to take a risk, you can suicide after picking up the last one, which will send you back to a point where you can pick up 4 of them. I don't recommend this unless you know you can recover against the boss with only a single red powerup, but if you get a 10UP before reaching this point and know you are okay recovering against the boss, it would be beneficial to abuse the hell out of it if you know you don't need those extends for the rest of the game.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Steven Pendleton

[Trinity32]

Xe what now?

[Madwindoman]

On 3/2/2023 at 5:57 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

Yes, these are entry-level games. That's why I chose them. Hard games come later; Kyuukyoku Tiger is up in December and it might be the single most difficult game on the system in any genre.

I decided to give twin cobra a go. Man you weren’t lying. It’s tough right outa the gate. I can’t beat the 2nd boss. It’s bad enough he parks right in the middle of the screen so his bullets are tough to dodge and then they throw a couple choppers in the mix

[Trinity32]

When someone plays 1943 arcade after being raised on the NES version:

 

[Trinity32]

[Trinity32]

won't be able to get any further without resorting to game genie

unless that's ok with you

[zylon]

181,760 1-2 on 1998 Genesis 3w/1992 stock 3-button

[+jgkspsx]

I was thinking, man, that’s surprisingly easy… until I realized it was literally easy. Lol. Back to the drawing board.

 

[zylon]

16 hours ago, Madwindoman said:

I decided to give twin cobra a go. Man you weren’t lying. It’s tough right outa the gate. I can’t beat the 2nd boss. It’s bad enough he parks right in the middle of the screen so his bullets are tough to dodge and then they throw a couple choppers in the mix

without using a bomb, I never get past the 1st green copter, lol. There's a reason copies of this one are still affordable. Hard A is the default, and I range 5k-25k, depnding on my luck with 1st green one

[+jgkspsx]

To be perfectly honest I did not notice a single difference between easy and normal.

 

jgkspsx - 360650 - 1-3 - Retro-Bit

 

[Steven Pendleton]

I have added a poll to the OP, so go ahead and vote for whatever you want to play next month! The poll will automatically commit suicide on the 1st at 0000 GMT (provided I made it correctly lol), so be sure to vote before then! Like I said before, I will abstain unless there is a tie.

 

16 hours ago, Trinity32 said:

won't be able to get any further without resorting to game genie

unless that's ok with you

Yeah no. Just keep practicing. This game is pretty easy, to the point where most of the people that I talk to who play shooting games find it so incredibly easy that it is boring, so they don't play it.

 

23 hours ago, Madwindoman said:

I decided to give twin cobra a go. Man you weren’t lying. It’s tough right outa the gate. I can’t beat the 2nd boss. It’s bad enough he parks right in the middle of the screen so his bullets are tough to dodge and then they throw a couple choppers in the mix

lol that's what I was talking about~

 

I recently got a 1CC the brutal arcade version, which is pretty legendary for savagely beating the crap out of players, and it's probably the hardest game I've ever beaten in my life, but I find the MD conversion to be even harder than the arcade version. I normally game over somewhere on stage 2 on this. This is considerably more accurate to the arcade version than the PC Engine version, but they didn't really adjust anything to compensate for the change in screen size, so you'll get pointblanked by pretty much everything. Wait until the Otakebi on stage 5 show up...

 

44 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

To be perfectly honest I did not notice a single difference between easy and normal.

Yeah, there really isn't a noticeable difference at all. It probably makes a difference once you get to stage 6 or 7, and even more likely once you finish stage 8 and play the second loop, but it's pretty much the same otherwise as far as I have seen.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Steven Pendleton

[zylon]

I just bought a copy of Twin Cobra, it was cheap enough, lol. I'll use it as decoy, or torture of those pestering me to play the Sega.

[Trinity32]

10 minutes ago, zylon said:

I just bought a copy of Twin Cobra, it was cheap enough, lol. I'll use it as decoy, or torture of those pestering me to play the Sega.

really, I applaud your deviousness here.

[Trinity32]

here's hoping we never have to play it

 

hopefully

[zylon]

19 minutes ago, Trinity32 said:

here's hoping we never have to play it

 

hopefully

One good thing I can say about it, is you don't move ludicrously slow. Unlike the Slapfight games, your plane doesn't handle like a '76 Electra on the original spark plugs.

[Steven Pendleton]

10 hours ago, Trinity32 said:

here's hoping we never have to play it

 

hopefully

December. It's coming. There is no better way to test how much you have improved over the course of the year than to play the hardest game on the system and see how far you get.

9 hours ago, zylon said:

One good thing I can say about it, is you don't move ludicrously slow. Unlike the Slapfight games, your plane doesn't handle like a '76 Electra on the original spark plugs.

I measured the horizontal speed of the helicopter in arcade Kyuukyoku Tiger recently. I forget exactly, but it's like 1 pixel per frame for 2 frames and then 2 pixels on the third frame. The helicopter in Twin Cobra is significantly faster, but Kyuukyoku Tiger is way better than Twin Cobra is to such a ridiculous extent that I don't really have much of a desire to play Twin Cobra.

 

As for Slap Fight, just grab a few speed powerups and the time it takes for you to move across the screen will be measured in frames instead of seconds. If you don't play those games at max speed you're not going to survive beyond loop 4. I really need to start playing the arcade version again, but I do have a mission to get the 1CC on MD Zero Wing on normal, which I do not think I have ever done. Best I ever did on normal was to game over on the final boss.

 

BTW I hope nobody has to recover at the beginning of stage 8. Recovering on stage 7 is harder, especially at a few checkpoints before the halfway point, but the beginning of stage 8 is an extremely bad place to die.

[zylon]

6 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

December. It's coming. There is no better way to test how much you have improved over the course of the year than to play the hardest game on the system and see how far you get.

I measured the horizontal speed of the helicopter in arcade Kyuukyoku Tiger recently. I forget exactly, but it's like 1 pixel per frame for 2 frames and then 2 pixels on the third frame. The helicopter in Twin Cobra is significantly faster, but Kyuukyoku Tiger is way better than Twin Cobra is to such a ridiculous extent that I don't really have much of a desire to play Twin Cobra.

 

As for Slap Fight, just grab a few speed powerups and the time it takes for you to move across the screen will be measured in frames instead of seconds. If you don't play those games at max speed you're not going to survive beyond loop 4. I really need to start playing the arcade version again, but I do have a mission to get the 1CC on MD Zero Wing on normal, which I do not think I have ever done. Best I ever did on normal was to game over on the final boss.

 

BTW I hope nobody has to recover at the beginning of stage 8. Recovering on stage 7 is harder, especially at a few checkpoints before the halfway point, but the beginning of stage 8 is an extremely bad place to die.

Actually, in playing around with TC, I found my older tv=real Genny, was the best combination. So the hackbox is now out on the main room tv, but using RF for less lag. The oe box controller finally got too sloppy on d-pad, so I tossed it. Now using a decent Madcatz, I had around. I have TC on both, so it was good comparison. Fire Shark was better.

[RuySan]

This is a nice game with a killer catchy soundtrack. People who say it's crap should be have been raised on Euroshmups like me:P

 

I'll post a score later on.

[Trinity32]

that little red bastard is tough. anyone have any tips?

[zylon]

1 hour ago, Trinity32 said:

that little red bastard is tough. anyone have any tips?

if you have the homing weapon, or at least the two wing ships, you can ride low and get two streams of shots on it, as it comes out. No collision detection on the wing ships. I won't get anywhere, but like this game. It's deceptively slow, until it suckers you in with something. Memorizing where stuff appears, and being positioned, goes a long way in being able to get rid of those type quicker.

Edited March 7, 2023 by zylon

[Razzie.P]

On 3/4/2023 at 6:38 PM, Trinity32 said:

won't be able to get any further without resorting to game genie

unless that's ok with you

 

If using game genie was ok, wouldn't we all just end up tied with maxed out scores?

[RuySan]

515820

 

This is a game that's not exactly addictive to restart, since the first couple of levels are a bit slow and easy...

[Madwindoman]

32 minutes ago, RuySan said:

515820

 

This is a game that's not exactly addictive to restart, since the first couple of levels are a bit slow and easy...

I agree 100 percent. And it’s hard to practice the later levels cause it takes so friggin long to get there

[Steven Pendleton]

Yes, long game is long. I think it's going to take about 45 minutes to beat the game, although I forgot if that is the no miss time or not. Best thing to do is to use a bunch of continues and stuff to get there if you need to and then make save states to practice. Stage 7 is the hardest one in the game, with stage 8 coming in a pretty close second, followed by stage 5, and then stage 6.

[Trinity32]