VG Thought

Note: on stock settings, you get your first extend at 70,000 points, and subsequent extends for every additional 150,000 points.

I did!! I quarter-fed up to the stage 4 boss.

Made it to stage 3 on one credit today. I'm giving myself one credit per stage, and I ended up using all three credits in stage 3 and wiping out on the boss. reminds me of .

That stage 1 boss still scares me with the missile attack though. It feels hard to see.

Fastest time on bonus stage 1 is 7 seconds remaining.

I find I can reliably beat the stage 2 boss only if I use the megalaser to kill his mini moons. Spacing just gets too wacky otherwise. The reflecting laser isn't bad, but there are times where space is just tight--he's all over the place sometimes. I also can't tell what's shooting missiles at me. Is it a mini moon, the snake boss, or the mini snake?

Last night, I got partway through round 3 on one credit, reached the beginning of the round 4 boss on +1 credit per stage. Still dumping multiple credits on the round 3 boss.

I worked my way to midway stage 3 and I feel that's enough for now. I feel like round 1 was a fair intro level for showing me how things are going to be from now on. While playing I sort of had the feeling that I was running through a rhythm game. In particular I was reminded of Bit.Trip.Beat, where the tune isn't really going anywhere, but there's a certain rhythm to it and once you're in tune with it everything else sort of falls in place. You get more predictive of where future enemies are coming from and how to respond. Might just be me, but I think it's a worthwhile analog.

That kind of rhythmic feeling applies to all shmups to some degree (they are auto-scrolling, after all), but Darius in particular plays on that. Metal Black is in the middle, it's a kind-of-rhythmic game.

The beginning of round 2 especially has that. The way enemies spawn at different heights on the right border reminds me of moving the paddle up and down in Bit.Trip Beat.

I've started and played the first two Rounds. Minimal story it seems, but that's to be expected for an Arcade game. I sure am glad I'm not playing this in a real arcade, as I'd be blowing so much money on this. First impressions though is that its' fun, but I can see how it'd be a bit of a stamina thing to play through the whole game in one session likely, as just from the two rounds my fingers were aching. I don't know how long the game proper is, but I would never try to do the whole game in one shot.

Also I really like the whole power-up deal, and it's just fun as hell to use those specials. The bosses seem pretty challenging so far, while the main levels proper aren't too bad. I'm sure the difficulty will ramp up later on though!

It is worth mentioning that you don't need to rapidly press the button to shoot! You can hold it down for a second or two and get a steady stream before having to press the button again.

Oh, I was actually doing the opposite - holding the fire button down through the entire level. I see it's now apparently better to keep a rhythm going. I'll have to try that out the next time around.