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And now for the Unreal engi--difficulty clear!
This step up in difficulty provides a more intense arcade-level challenge and brings out the best but also the less good in the game.

Stage 1 felt a bit overwhelming the first time i tried it but it is interesting having to find strategies to make it more mangeable. I remember my first Sayo attempts in Shiki 1 were even more rife with struggle after all. And when you get the hang of the higher bullet density, it's not too bad. Some patterns involve more micrododging, boss 2 has some damage manips to delay when the ugly yellow spread shot attack comes out (which reminds me of Shiki 1's similar 3-3 boss strats) and I get some Touhou vibes from boss 3's attacks and bullets. It's all cool.

...until you reach the Extra stage. My god, the boss puts such a damper on your enthusiasm lmao. It's not enough to ruin the game or anything, thankfully, but it doesn't feel as exciting as the rest of the game. It basically is just Black Heart 2 with its annoying random patterns and its winder attacks. But not only is there nothing to milk for juicy coinz, but the way the slowdown zig-zags is really bad. IKD and YGW should have stayed out of the devs' minds here, really.

It was already kinda bad in Hard difficulty but here it cranks it up a notch and becomes the arbiter of how your run ends up. You could be on an amazing pace and the RNG can screw you over regardless lol. Ideally I come in with 5 lives (the max you can carry at once) and try not to waste too many resources on the fight since the Least 100 seconds fight is quite juicy, but here my run had a few silly early mistakes. Stage 1 had some comedy moments there. And I am learning the hard way that those stage 2 giant balls very likely have awful square hitboxes that clip you outside of the corners of the bullet sprite WTF. And to be honest, getting cornered and bombing at the end of stage 2 was quite bad as well lmao. If I lose one life before Shiki, I can at least try and get the 500mil extend to get back to 5 lives again, but here I took a lot more hits lol.

I had 3 lives for the Shiki fight, and at least the deaths gave me bombs...that I profusely unloaded on him. Sadly, Akiha's bomb is just like Hyuga's bomb which means I lose control over my character during it and don't deal that much damage. It was still enough to make me pass this big roadblock, and as long as I didn't fuck up for this on the last fight before getting the 700mil score extend, I was good.

The Least 100 seconds went decently well overall but I needed one more HTM for maximum scoring on the waves, and I also didn't shiki-kill every crystal properly. It can be tricky at times because the shiki locks on to the much more resilient gray diamonds instead, oops. Those can actually be killed, but they take a lot more time and I doubt it's worth it with this character since focusing on those means not focusing on the boss itself nor the crystals.

I don't know if I want to try a Paranoia clear, but this is likely the difficulty level I'll explore the most for now. There seems to be milking potential in some bosses I haven't explored, and runs need to be a lot cleaner too. I am also curious to play Arcueid (the Sayo character) some more, but the learning curve is a bit higher since the shiki is much more close-range.

Side-note : I just realized this game also did the "bomb converts bullets into coins" wayyy before Alfa System did the same for Ode in Sisters Royale lmao. Though without autocollect it doesn't seem as useful.

Played on PC through DXWnd, recorded with OBS Studio
#shmup #STG