No kidding. This one was tailor made for point racking with the constantly respawning enemies. I really like Karnov. I remember as a kid thinking it was sort of stupid,but after replaying it a couple of years ago and beating it,I found that I really enjoyed it. The game is honestly not that hard although a couple of the bosses can be a pain if you aren't powered up or don't have the right items....like the caterpillar woman creature.

I don't mind if someone wants to sit and just point rack since we have done it in the past with games like Ninja Gaiden.

you will def run out of time if you sit too long

clock on this game is short and fast

I think with the short clock, racking can be allowed, but is ultimately kept in check by the clock

Okay comrades, I made an update to the rules (more like suggestion) about capturing your score before heading into the final battle. A big thanks goes out to Comrade mattyjmania for this

I also fixed the spelling of Ivan Drago in the first post for those who pointed it out to me. You know who you are

5770

We both appreciate it too

Karnov approves this message.

No official comment on point-racking versus 1-lifing?

I guess since points don't provide extra lives it limits you to 100k - 120k without making progress...

Thanks Arch.  I forgot to mention it.  Point racking for this contest is okay since there is a timer and you can only rack up so many points before time runs out.  However, if allowing point racking creates a situation where someone could conceivably rack up extra lives, then it will be forbidden.  I don't think there's any spots in the game where this could happen, but if someone knows of any, please mention it here.

Okay, so something is messed up with high score tracking on this game. Last night I had a score somewhere in the 75K-78K range, and when I went to take a picture on the high score screen, it shows up as 59,670! Why!? Anyone else experience this?

yes

it doesnt count your score from your last life you played

Well, that's a hilarious oversight!  I guess if this happens to everyone then it's not worth complaining about.  Thanks for the info!

I played a bit of this game last night and got to about 7K. Never played the NES version as a kid, only the Tiger LCD version that my cousin owned. Should have a score to post tonight.

question about the last life thing on the game over screen. Are we allowed to take a pic from actual gameplay to get our score so it counts our last life? or do we have to wait until game over screen?

543,050 (Game Completed)

I grinded on every level except the last two. I guess you could grind on the flying eyeball things in stage 8 and on the green birds for a bit on stage 9,but at 30 and 50 points a piece respectively,it's not really worth it.

Damn, that's a helluva score.

I'd say we can take the screenshot on our last life to register our score. It is quite stupid the game does not remember your score all the way to your game over.

6390
Not my best, but I don't have much time to play this week.

It saves your score when you finish a level, as well.

I kind of thought it added to the strategy, to force you to at least complete the first level or piss away your last life.


I'd ask you to reconsider, since otherwise a lot of people will have no compelling reason to ever leave Level 1...

Like it was pointed out earlier if you dont leave level 1 your max score is around 120k which i dont think will be top ten when this is done so this should be an issue

My per-life max on Level 1 is closer to 50k... I've seen as high as 52k on a single life.

You can definitely break 150k on Level 1, if you lost all of your lives there.



If you are going to clear Level 1, though, it isn't really possible to leave the level with much more than 130k, though, unless you are really lucky with your timing. 

Making up that differential takes a couple of levels, from what I can tell, since the point-racking is SOOO much more lucrative on Level 1 than anywhere else in the first 3 levels (there is a good spot in Level 4 that I know of...not sure if it is better than Level 1, though, since it is further into the level... bears testing, i suppose)




Either way, I like the strategy nuance of forcing you to "lock in" your racked score.

I agree with the above but i havent been able to clear level 8 yet and when i die for instance my differential was like 25 grand seems kid of silly to rack up all those points for nothing haha

I feel like that should just be part of the challenge, since it retains the importance of the strategy of finding the best point racking locations while placing a premium on the skill required to complete the next level.

Since we're not making a strict 1-life challenge out of it, it seems to me like this keeps it more interesting.

Actually...if you kill off your first 2 men grinding and grind until about 50 seconds left on the last one,you should be able to get over 200k. You can get 65k if you don't grind until death,75k if you do. Level 1 has that sweet grind spot which also appears in level 6. There are some decent grind spots in levels 2-5 and 7 as well. I didn't try to grind much in the last 2 levels but I don't think there are many lucrative grind spots but again I didn't really try. I can say that most of my score came from levels 1 and 6.

I know there is room for improvement of my score as I didn't maximize grinding in a few places as well as had a couple of stupid deaths to bosses. You have to really watch it when turning away to gain distance while equipped with the shield.

75k per life??? Wow, you're hitting that one faster than I am, unless you've found an even better spot.