Hazelnut Hex ver1.1: 1cc 5.07 mil (Moderate Difficulty / Type-A)
2I'm back at it with a much more optimized run. Hazelnut Hex is one of the most fun, cute, and just crisp looking and awesome sounding shmups you can buy right now. Developed by a small indie team that doubles as a band: "The Chunderfins", this game is a joy to play. They updated the game to ver1.1 and rebalanced a lot of it, so the Type-A and Type-B shots are much better than they used to be.
Scoring mechanics are simple but hard to optimize: you get a charge shot if you stop firing for a short time. This charge shot pierces enemies, deletes bullets, and deals massive damage. Each enemy pierced multiplies the next one killed by a multiplier which scales up by 1 per kill: x1, x2, x3, x4, and so on. There is parabolic score growth if you hit as many enemies as possible with this charge shot, meaning that optimal scoring involves TAKING RISKS AND LEAVING ENEMIES ALIVE until they can "line up" with more enemies to be taken out by the charge shot. There are also score bonuses for picking up powerups without taking damage, finishing the stage with your buddy Sam alive (lost on taking damage), and a massive one based on the highest number of bullets you cleared with your bomb in that stage. Additionally, there is now a Boss Dodge bonus added in ver1.1 that you forfeit if you use a charge shot at all during boss fights, but also if you get hit. There's huge risk involved in going for this bonus, because it's way more likely that you'll get hit if you aren't hiding behind the relative safety of the charge shot. I go for it on every boss except Lamona, but I lose it on 2 of them.
Bombs recharge plentifully if you are scoring well and you can stock up to 6 of them. They give immediate large score bonuses based on how many bullets are cleared in addition to the massive score bonus at the end of the stage. You should use Bombs both to survive and to milk bullet-heavy screens: you'll be trying to get this right at the end of the boss fights. As usual, I played this on PC on an 8bitdo M30 controller, wired. It has the SEGA Genesis (and Saturn) style D-Pad and I love it for shmups.