I'm still trying to understand why there is a 2 life limit for Gradius III. The game does give a lot of lives but it's also pretty hard to recover on death if you die in the wrong spots, especially in later loops it becomes nearly impossible unless you are an absolute master at the game. Personally I'd just get rid of the 2 life limit. Gradius III also has timeouts on the bosses so there is no way to infinite points farm (at least I've never figured a way to do it).

TDLR: Gradius III should just be highest score on 1 credit IMO. Recoveries are a big part of the game, limiting lives ruins this aspect.

If recoveries are a big aspect, why is that ruined by saying you get one more shot to get your big score... but first you have to recover? Doesn't limiting it to one credit ruin the aspect of recovering?

I'm not sure what you are asking.  It may take multiple trys to recover in difficulty sections, there is no point in artificially stopping the game after 2 deaths, that's not how the game was designed.  But whatever, I'm not running the contest.

 

Well you said recovery was a big aspect... so I figure you die once and then you get another shot to get back on your feet and still get a high score. Wasn't sure what you meant by having 2 lives ruined the aspect of recovery. But what you're saying is that it takes longer than your next life to get back on your feet.

I welcome all feedback in the manner pegboy is providing it, from everyone. I don't anticipate changing the Gradius III rules (unless it's found to be inherently broken in some way), but I will be constantly evolving the contest to make it the best it can be.  Which means the thoughts here could impact how the next shmup is done.

Didn't mean anything negative about his feedback. I was just unclear as to what he meant.

What about the code that gives you full everything instantly? Not saying anyone here is gonna cheat, but just saying... You can input a simple code while paused to make dying basically meaningless. Not to mention the 30 lives code, and the ample free lives from bonus levels.

What I'm saying is I think 2 lives is fair. To open it to one continue would make it way too easy IMO.

I'm a purist when it comes to these sort of things, that's why I stick to the in games rules. If the game is broken, I don't find it to be worth playing competitively (i.e. most console games to be honest). Gradius III however is not broken in any aspect with the scoring, that's why I object to adding additional rules ontop of what the game itself allows.

Eh... we kind of have to rely on the honor system.

Edit:  Sometimes more knowledgable people can tell if there has been any tampering.  Just go check out the Street Fighter II competition from last year.  People knew exactly how scores would look if you weren't playing by the rules.

And this was my 1000th post.  

Well those are cheat codes, so no.  As far as the bonus stages I say go nuts.  All the extra lives in the world won't help you if you can't recover on death.  You will just keep dying over and over again until you get a game over.

 

Like the NES contest, there is a certain degree of faith in fair play here.  People have been caught cheating in the NES contest a few times, which is where their involvement permanently ends, and the shaming begins

Plus if winning a contest put on for fun is that important to someone they should probably seek help or begin some introspection.
 

That was more just a general address to everyone

 

As an event director on another forum (playstationtrophies.org), I am so happy to see you say that lol. About half the people I deal with on a daily basis could really use some of that introspection, as cheating happens almost every major competitive event we run.

 

How do you guys tell who is cheating on the PS board?

All of our competitions (or most anyway) are trophy related. Sometimes it's odd timestamps on trophies (i.e. hacked trophies or account sharing), and sometimes other participants report their own teammates in team events when one or more of them admit to cheating. Some of them are stupid enough to mention that they are cheating in semi-public places like Skype or Discord.

I hear you on this.  As someone who also really enjoys the Gradius series and this genre in general, I'm not against the two lives thing for the same reason that you are.  If you're stuck in a hard area (speed stage comes to mind) then it may not matter if you had two lives, full credit or 100 lives, you may never go beyond that point.  Another aspect that you mentioned is on multiple loops you can get stuck by all the stuff going on.  So two lives gives you one chance to redeem yourself.  Otherwise with a full credit there would be some of us, of which I know you're one, that would loop out until likely you either fell asleep, got bored or just made a mistake.

 

Onward to loop 2! No deaths yet. Maybe the second loop will get me. @_@




On to loop 3! I died once at the very beginning of loop 2 - forgot they started to shoot at you more lol.




EDIT: HAH! AHAHAH! In my boredom I was kicking around under my desk, and turned off the power bar with my foot. Oh my god lol. xD

Oh well, I'll do it all again sometime. @_@

@Gloves, wow, just wow. I think hysterical laughter is about right. If you can do it once ...  

Oh I know I can do it more than once lol. My dumb ass didn't take any photos of the 1.1m score, just the end credits lol. Derp! Aaahhhhh I'm still laughing.

For what it's worth it's had me laughing at different points today each time I read your post.  Glad you can also laugh at the ludicrous nature of it all  

 

If I can't laugh I'm not having enough fun. I like Gradius, and while it's not the bullet hells I'm used to these days, it's super fun to go back and revisit these games from when I was young. 

In the mean time, I need to get a cover or something for that damned power button on the power bar. xD
 

Hate the flashing score on bust a move when you get a high score. Its hard to picture.

Updated my Gradius score. If anyone's interested, I'm current broadcasting my attempts on Twitch, here: [moved below]

EDIT: 1LC'ed the first loop, then died twice right at the start. I keep doing that lol... should really practice the first level on hard a few times.

Posted up a score for Bust a Move (edited into my first post, and here).  




EDIT: Updated again. After playing a bunch of 1v1 with my wife, I now understand how scoring works lol. Can now obtain much higher scores much more easily. xD

^^^ its official. This month isnt fun snymore lol