Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the weekly contests.  This week's game asks you to delve into the acient Japanese art of Kabuki...and kill some bad guys with your hair!  That's right, it's time to head-bang and hair thrash your enemies to death in a hair-raising spectacle that only the Likes of Hal Inc. could come up with.  So make sure you whip it...whip it good...with Kabuki: Quantum Fighter.  Here are the rules:

• Play as far into your last life as possible without getting a Game Over.  Do not allow yourself to get a Game Over or you will not be able to see your final score
• You may take your picture any time you are on your last life
• Any sort of exploit, glitch, etc to allow yourself to earn infinite extra lives to rack up points is forbidden
• Highest score wins
• GENRE: Action/Platformer

The contest ends Sunday, 4/6/14 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun

Is the trick to get extra health in the boss fights allowed? You press pause during the boss fight and then press up. You'll get one bar of life at the cost of two of your chips. Not really a cheat,more like a trade off really.

I wasn't aware of the trick and I don't see why we should ban it since it is a trade off and you can only do it so many times, but if others think it could be abused or exploited, then we can make it forbidden.

Edited since the score is no longer valid.

This is a game I've beaten a lot so I should put up a good score this week. I have no idea how it will measure up to anyone else though!

I had never played this game prior to a few days ago and of course have never beaten it so your score will be way better than mine. I really like the game,I just hate how they black out portions of the screen. I still have no clue how to get past this one section in stage 3 because I can't freaking see!!! I have no clue what I'm hitting in that area that is damaging me and preventing me from jumping on to this platform.

27960. Screw stage 3 btw. This game is pretty fun, but lots of cheap hits.

Love this game. However, I'm going to be in Germany this weekend so I won't have too much time to play it. Oh well, I may give it a go on Thursday...

136,860.  I know I can beat this score, just not sure I'll have anymore time this week.

EDIT:  I took the photo with 1 life left because I didn't get anymore points from dying on this boss with my last life.

this is actually a game i dont have

i have 500 freakin games and dont have this one

i swear i had it, but it was Burai fighter i was confusing it with

oh well, im out this week

The platforming in Stage 3 can burn in hell!

No kidding. How in the world are you supposed to know what to dodge when you can't see it? Boo HAL laboratories.

What dark section are you referring to?   I didn't run into one. I wonder if you have an error with your game. 

The platforming is a beast on its own, though.

FYI - there are a couple of inconvenient-to-kill enemies that generate 1-ups (one of the heads in stage 5, at least, and one of the boomerang hands in stage 4).

Is the official rule that you're allowed to one 1-up from each?


PS - should have known better, but wasn't paying attention to my life count on the final boss and lost my last man with 140k pts!   Planning to do better and actually beat it, but damn is that frustrating!

There actually was an error in the first ROM that I downloaded (from Cool Roms, I think) where some of one of the worlds is blacked out.  The second one I downloaded was good.  I can't remember which site it's from, but it's labelled "USA".

FYI - getting a pic after the last boss battle is tough! (might be safe to say get a pic anywhere after the boss is dead and the judges can do the math to get your final score based on time, energy, chips, and lives)

I am guessing 300k is probably close to the limit without spamming somehow, since I only had two boss fights where I didn't finish with full chips.



Score Updated:
497,350



Post-boss, lives-shot included to get the whole TV in-frame.

Thanks for the heads up. I thought it was just part of the game.

Definitely not.

I just beat it and there are no sections that black-out.

407,120

596,010 Got tired of level 3 so I just started killing bad guys. Is that cheating? 

How the heck did you get 10x what is typically available by Stage 3?

I mean, you get a 1-up every 100k pts, but did you really recycle the 3 heads for 1000pts each at the beginning of the level 450 times?


Typically this is sort of point-system-abuse isn't allowed in the contest.  (it REALLY sucks the fun out of the game... )



EDIT TO ADD:

I beat the game this morning without dying, collected the 1-up in State 2-2 (on the platform), from the boomerange hand, and from the head in Stage 4.  Reached the final boss with roughly 150k pts (so my original lives, plus the 3 I found, plus 1 for 100k --- 6 lives total).  Beating the last boss was worth 50k, so that actually did credit an additional life (for 7 -- yeilding 70k in "lives bonus").

I played that game pretty clean.  I think I only had 2 boss fights (and maybe one or two stages) where I didn't end with full chips, and only one or two stages (though numerous boss fights) where I didn't end with full life.

Ended up with just over 275k.

As an FYI to the judges, I am thinking a non-grinding maximum for a beaten game is in the vicinity of 300k. (and it may not be possible to actually break 300k without grinding somewhere, since i really don't think I gave up 25k points in health and chip bonuses over the course of the game)


If it does turn out that spamming is allowed, it is pretty clear that the per-life point-press value at the beginning of Stage 3 greatly exceeds 10k/life... probaby closer to 170k/life, so in that case, it might be possible to hit 650k, or so, if you can one-life it from there-on-out and beat it.

Wow, impressive analysis! Looks like I got my work cut out for me this week for sure.

I like to identify diminishing returns on seeking perfection in a game score

And on this one, I seriously doubt that "flawless" play is possible (i.e. never getting hit by ANY of the bosses), AND two of the bosses practically require use of the quantum bombs (so that makes two where you can't max both life AND chips -- and if you're savvy you'll pause at the killing blow and pump as much life as possible into chips to boost score).

Looking forward to getting a non-corrupted version of this game to try this out. I guess point racking/pressing is allowed unless bimmy comes on later and says otherwise. And on a side note,are you an actuary arch?

No, I'm an engineer.


But I would be inclined to say that point-racking this game is akin to "the turtle trick" (from SMB1) or the "Modusco Method" (from SMB3).

If milking 1-ups isn't allowed, the point-racking (since it generates 1-ups) probably isn't intend to be allowed, either.

(also, I thought the main thread about the competition mentioned something about how it also kills the fun-factor in a lot of games to mindlessly grind points rather than demonstrating skill at the actual game)

EDIT TO ADD: that milk-run at the beginning of stage 3 is worth around 80k per life.  It won't sustain infinite extra lives, in case anyone was wondering.