I had to use the code so I can learn the stages faster. I obviously wont for the contest, but I cant get over how tough this is and I love shmmups lol. It's humbling.

Don't have Life Force. Guess I'll be sitting this one out.

Man, the top 3 on this one must be ruthlessly efficient.

I was 1 Moai head away from reaching the final boss without dying, and I think that would have only gotten me to 262k or 265k. (and I don't think I really missed much to kill throughout the game -- ended up with a shade over 259k).

Is the secret to somehow completely wipe out all of the "neurons" in that stretch of the first level?

NM...figured out the secret... I think I missed some stuff in the lava level, but surviving was a higher priority.

305,150





What is a theoretical max for a single runthrough?  320k? 330k?


Also, definitely enjoying the contest getting me to play games I've never played before!

Nice score there, I'm sure someone is going to find the score limit by Sunday.

Stage 3 used to give me all sorts of trouble as a kid to the point I needed the Konami Code to survive just that stage. Now I can breeze through it with little trouble.

You've got me worried this is going to be like last week and this score is going to land me in 10th!

Tom will most likely have a max or near max score when he posts,that's why I was hoping he was participating this week. I'll finally be able to resume this tonight as I've been itching to improve my score since sunday.

Any guess on the max?

I think I had 4 speed upgrades, so maybe with higher speed you can get 100% of the Moai heads and all of the miscellaneous fireballs in the lava level.... but other than that and the bonuses in the lava level, I really can't imagine what else I could have killed...  (unless there are bonuses beyond the lava level)

maybe you could wait longer to kill enemy generators, so you kill two waves of guys plus the generator.

I'm not sure on the max quite honestly. I'm definitely going to experiment tonight and see what I come up with. I would guess in the same range as what you said though.

Updated score
298,700

I know i can get a little better as i hit a rough patch in the lava level and missed some points, but i think this is it for me

I LOVE this game and dont want to ruin it by beating a dead horse

I am satisfied with this score and know it will get me a top 10 slot

263,890

Edit:  Small Improvement!

Well, here's my submission. This is another game I have owned forever but also haven't played in forever, so pretty much like a new game to me. All things considered I was able to beat the game so I did very well! I don't know any real score strategies and I died a lot (Eff the lava stage!) so there's room for improvement. I don't think I'll have much time to spend on marginal improvement, but we'll see.

Updated my first post, new score of 312780.

I know I can get a higher score than that.

Update!

Nice run here Gutsdude!

Thanks! It was actually my first run since sunday. Was surprised I did it on the first try. Been trying to improve it since then but have made some stupid mistakes. So I think I'll take a break for a bit and try to complete a game or two in the "can NA beat every NES game in a year thread." I'll come back to it before I go to bed.

Taking a break can definitely  help your performance, playing to much might get on your nerves an then you start making stupid errors.
I need to get my thing straight up to do some neat scores on this one. I did a 296k run Yesterday with a lots of room to improve, I think I'll need 1 or 2 more speed to be able to pull more stunts.

Yeah,I'm considering upgrading speed to the max even though I only power it up once and am used to that speed but I think to be able to kill the max amount of things possible I'm going to have to increase my ship speed.

If the use of the Virtual Console on my 3ds is allowed then I may have hit damn close to the max possible score, possibly within a thousand or so.

Honestly I think this is probably the best I can do in this game ever in one loop.

If the Virtual Console is not allowed then please disregard this score of  336260.

First is the 3ds + name, second is a close up of the score and third is a shot showing that it is a US 3ds.





Yes those are TMNT sheets/pillowcase and blanket on my bed. Why? Because GO NINJA GO NINJA GO!!! I miss the 80's and early 90's

Man, you guys are tearing it up!

I am seeing how I can make the leap to 320k-ish, but it remains to be seen if I can pull it off!

Edit:  I think I was mistaken and actually had received one of the lava-level bonuses on my 305k run, since i KNOW I got one this time and only ended up with 307k...   the other two bonuses get me to 317 if I nail it... not sure where the rest comes from since I only missed 2 Moai heads, total, on alternate paths.

I got to the second boss. We'll see how far I get by the end of this challenge. It seems like this is a game that you have to play through on a single life because it is too hard to recover from losing all your upgrades.

241.990

Keep the awesome scores coming guys! Seeing them pushes me to try to do better.

yeah, I hear ya...I might have to try and find sometime this weekend to squeeze a game in. But, my liver says otherwise lol.

Damn you guys are awesome at this game! This is my first time playing this one and honestly I think I'll be lucky to break a 100K.

You're a really good gamer man,I have faith you'll put up a great score. 100k,pssh please...you got this.

Thanks dude, I'm just looking to have fun playing really. There are a ton of games on the contest list that I've never played before and those are the ones that I'm looking forward to playing the most actually...even though my scores will most likey suck major ass! Lol