Originally posted by: guillavoie

Do you always get the warp to skip stage 4?

I ask this cause I always got the warp after stage 3 this week, and I use to simply never get it when I played the game before. Any explanations?

Originally posted by: rdrunner

Thanks guys!

Just fast-forwarded through the tape.  Here are a few stats:

Score: 8,215,000
Distance: Loop 14, Stage 3
Points/Loop: About 615,000
Time: 3 hours, 20 min
Time/Loop: 15 min

My Twin Galaxies run was just over 4 hours and was also done on 1 life.  The 1-life thing is pretty much a requirement on Gradius games anyway.  On later loops, your first death usually leads to the immediate loss of all your other men, because you lose all of your powerups.  One time I died with 80-something men in reserve and lost them all without advancing any further!

Here's a sample loop from my Twin Galaxies run, which I played pretty much the same way as I did tonight.  Please excuse the crappy video quality.  This was made before I got a capture card.








I can also post a video of tonight's run if anyone wants to see it.  Would take a couple of days to capture it, but I'd be willing to.

Originally posted by: guillavoie

Do you always get the warp to skip stage 4?

I ask this cause I always got the warp after stage 3 this week, and I use to simply never get it when I played the game before. Any explanations?

Originally posted by: rdrunner

Yup, the explanation is that your skills on Stage 3 have improved.   You get the warp by destroying at least 10 of the stone heads.

There's also a way to skip Stage 2 if you complete Stage 1 with your scoreboard "just so", but it's tough to pull off.

Another warp skips Stage 3 if you beat the Stage 2 boss in less than 2 seconds, but this is bad because Stage 3 is a high-scoring level.

I almost always get the warp that skips Stage 4, though sometimes I don't have enough firepower and end up missing it.  Over a long game, this warp is actually more profitable than playing the game normally.  You get a 50,000-point bonus for warping and the enemies in Stage 4 aren't worth much.  Your points per minute will be higher if you beat the game faster too, since you get 100,000 for completing the last stage.
 

Originally posted by: ookii_risu

I would really like to see that I love watching bullet hell madness.

In Stage 5, do you get more points for killing the arms first before the cores?
 

Originally posted by: guillavoie

Hey, that's good news!

Thanks for the info man, that's always nice to know how it works out exactly.
 

Originally posted by: rdrunner


Yup, those arms are worth 1,000 points if you kill them separately, while a core is worth 5,000 points no matter how many arms are attached to it.  I tend to forget the arms and just go for the cores, due to the shortage of time each one is on the screen, but it's doable.

Cool.  I will see about posting a video of my run then.  It's a little repetitive though (the difficulty maxes out on the 3rd loop).  That said, how much of it would you like to see?

Originally posted by: ookii_risu

So, have you figured out exactly what triggers the rapid fire glitch?