I like to justify this by saying this is a continuation of the lessons learned by beating early games. We learn that not all enemies care about where we are, we learn that some Ships are stronger than others, we learn that autofire can really, really help. I would like to say that, but it turns out I just really like Blazing Star. The Shmup we all think about when we talk about the Neo Geo, unless intead of really liking Blazing Star you really like Dolphins. Because why wouldn't you.
There is a fourth, and that is to exploit the dynamic difficulty mechanics, also called Rank, in games which offer it. So I play here a low rank game, but to counter that I start on the AES exclusive Godly difficulty, with a starting rank harder than that which was offered in the arcade.
And it went okay. One life lost.
The official lesson is that playing shmups will mean you can beat other shmups. The unofficial lesson is I really like Blazing Star, in case that wasn't clear in the other three times I said that.
40