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There are several facets of Hisa-Chan's recording that strike me. The first is that he is able to sustain an incredibly rapid rate of fire. I will never be able to shoot that quickly except for very small bursts for short periods. This factor accounts for many of the "Special bonus" (big ship bonus) and "Great bonus" (vertical line of arrows) that contributed to Hisa-Chan's mammoth score. Well done!
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The other striking factor was the ease which which Hisa-Chan was able to dodge myriad bullets and enemies. Many times as I was watching I would be saying "there's no gap, he's f#@*ed", only to watch in amazement as he managed to find a gap somewhere.
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I did notice some similarity between our gameplay styles. I noticed that Hisa-Chan lost his space ships usually in the same areas where I lose mine when I play. Basically we both find the same areas difficult (trapped by a mass of bullets with no way out), however Hisa-Chan simply outplays me through better dodging, faster firepower and a cooler head.
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Note that Hisa-Chan lost all but his last life in a small interval of the game, basically the last quarter of the entire enemy pattern (usually levels 18-24, known as the "hard quarter"). This is typical. You can't overemphasise the difficulty of this section of the game - it is wicked. I have only completed this section twice after many years of trying.
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He was able to make a mini-comeback after the hard quarter to regain 2 lives. Of course they went quickly when he hit the hard quarter the 2nd time.
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Some miscellaneous notes of this awesome recording:
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1. Every free life from question marks obtained (never seen it done before)
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2. All Special Bonuses obtained.
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3. In the 3rd section of Great Bonuses he dies through being greedy for another bonus. Nice to know even Hisa-Chan can make mistakes
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4. He wraps the background map 1.75 times and enemy pattern 1.5 times.
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5. He obtained 2 Cleoptatra's (1 Million bonus). Never seen this done before.
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6. He dies just after starting the hard quarter for the second time.
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I urge everyone to check this fantastic inp out.
--
tjmorrow@bigpond.com
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