Lol, I haven't confirmed it yet. 

See post below.

I found this. Guess that solves the issue.

http://tcrf.net/Dragon_Spirit:_Th...

Just completed it again with a slightly better score, and pressed select about 50 times but no money shot...

Score updated. I only got to play the game once per day, and yesterday was my last shot for the week.

ALMOST broke 390k, but died like an idiot on the last boss because I was fully un-powered (my last run through the final level was REALLY unlucky -- all skulls and speed)


So my first death was mid-level on Level 9, leaving me with 4 times to play through the final sequence and gather points.
I was unlucky enough NOT to see EITHER in-level 1-up appear, at all, so evidently those are random, along with the fairies.


I can confidently say that with a LUCKY game where you acquired every 1-up, AND made it to the last boss on your 1st life, 450k is definitely possible.

With a REALLY LUCKY game (where you get an unusual amount of 5k-pt items), I'm betting that 500k is not entirely out of the question.

107,130

292,110

Lost my last life on the final version of the boss. If you are not powered up when you face him,it's going to be a long battle. I did beat the game on the ensuing continue. I'll try to beat this and crack 300k before the week is up.

I finally got to LVL 9, but I got my ass handed to me by those hammer throwers. Seriously, they can go suck a dick. My score was shit anyway. And fuck those things that pop out of those holes and shoot huge flames at the end of LVL 7. Currently, I can get to 200K/LVL 8 consistently, probably going to beat it tomorrow

Broke 400k. I think Arch's assessment is pretty much spot on. I had a total of 6 lives going into the last stage but died twice before reaching the bosses... If I hadn't died before then I'm sure I would've been pretty close if not over 450K with those 2 extra live to waste. This was the 2nd time I was able to get up to 6 lives, I haven't gotten more than that though.

The boomerang guys that pop out of the ground?  Or the big statues that throw morning stars?


You can shoot the boomerangs to make them disappear.

There are at least 2 "life upgrade" items (luck dependent, apparently, since I didn't see either on my good run) and then the 2 fairies.

So 6 in reserve may be the maximum, unless there is a 1-up I'm not thinking about.

It seems to be really random for the "life upgrades" because on one of my runs I ended up getting three of them.

Definitely a lot of RNG when it comes to what is dropped by the enemies 

OK, so we're looking at a known 3 available 1-ups and 2 possible fairy-1-ups, for 5 total (or 7 possible in reserve when you get to the last boss on a lucky run)


Yeah, it's a bit disappointing that for excellent play the final score is so RNG dependent :/
(not for this contest, but thinking more about if one ACTUALLY wanted to craft a definitive world record)

Definitely hate that most everything in this game is based off randomness. And the scores of your runs vary so much even though you play them in the same way. Oh and for anyone who may be having trouble with the level 6 boss,shoot his head while his tail is off screen to avoid the fragments since they won't appear off screen. Probably going to give this a few more tries before calling it good since so much of your score is determined by chance than actual skill.

Unless you are reaching the final boss on (or near) your first life, SKILL is the determining factor. (+/- 30k pts, maybe, based on pt-item spawns)

Once you can get to the boss without dying, THEN some luck comes into the picture, since the point item spawn randomness of the final stretch of 9 becomes more important. (though the two sub-bosses on that section are worth more, in general and make up most of the level points).




On a 1-life contest (like when Guillavoie had 305k a few years back) THAT calls for some luck regarding the point items, though, at least based on my experience. 

But with a full stack of lives to play, don't blame this one on luck, unless you're stuck between 400k and 450k





 

Well the 2 lives you are awarded by the fairies are chance as you have a 50/50 shot. There is of course skill involved in having to complete the stages to get the chances for extra lives but the actual event as to whether you get them or not....zero. That's a lot of potential points you can earn (or not) determined on whether you are shown their image or their silhouette. On my best run,the only fairies I saw were the first and last,so I lost out on a lot of possible points due to chance. Same goes for the stages. (I did get two 1ups in stages to help offset that.)

For example,I've had no damage runs on stage 1 where I scored 15-17k and others where I've scored over 30k-35k due to the occurrence of the 5k powerup drops. That's a lot of non-skill based variance. Extrapolate that out for the entire game and....yeah. Bleh. It just sucks that a good portion of your score is at the mercy of chance.

How many points do you get for the final boss?

On my lastest run I essentially no deathed the game and had a total of 5 lives. At the final boss I was at 249k and was just curious what my one life total would've been assuming that I had beaten the game then. I ended up at 417k...

I believe that the final boss is worth 20,000 points

I feel like the 2 fairies that give you lives is more like a 10% chance of showing up. Out of all my attempts I swear I have only seen them once or twice. 

I also agree about how different your score can be on the first stage. There have been some attempts that have landed me in the high 30ks but it all depends on the enemy drops.

The winner this week will most definitely have the best drops as far as points and lives.

I can get the end without dying almost consisitently now but unless I have the lives or the drops it was just a waste of a run

And that's pretty much what I was saying in my comments.In regards to shooting for the top score this week,if you don't get the extra lives or get many 5k drops then you may as well hit the reset button. Just sucks that there's so much randomness in this game that influences your score. It still is a great game though and I definitely want to get the cart.

Yeah it's definitely a great game. I even played through the "gold dragon" campaign just to see the ending for that as well.

I found that mode by wondering what would happen if you died during that opening part. I actually like the easy ending better.

Haha that's how I ended up finding it as well. I must say I also actually liked the ending for it better.

It took me a while to realize that other than the obvious gold dragon that there were two life bars instead of the one

At first I thought that maybe you could earn the extra life bar in the normal version of the game by some sort of achievement.

For the longest time I had no clue what each power up did and some I still dont have a clue.

The 1-up drop I originally thought gave me some life back but whenever I picked it up I was like wtf