Hey Zil, thanks for the thoughts and for trying to cheer me up. I was distraught, and typing (and rethinking, and retyping...) that post was my way of working through things. Still ended up being immature, so I apologize (to everyone) for that, but it was good for me to re-read it today. And though I didn't say it, I was interested in what you and any other PoDDers thought about it, so I appreciate the response.
Of course it has to be about getting something out of the game itself. I'm immensely grateful to now know some of the people I've met through shmups, but I sure as hell wouldn't be playing these cursed things for a pat on the head. It's simply that the pacifist realization took the wind out of me, and though it might not have been clear through the whining, I was looking for some way to resolve the issue to my satisfaction. Again, largely bitching, but I was open to anything I might have overlooked.
That said, the scoring idea is a fine approach, but you can keep it. I might stick around and score a bit like I did with PoFV, but only after I have 1ccs that I'm happy with. While both goals involve maintaining a level of difficulty, one is a number and the other is victory. No comparison in motivation factor (or in concreteness). I'll need to play a bunch of credits before I know for sure how much of a restriction will work, but offhand I think that 'not intentionally missing any enemies' would be well-defined, reasonable, and sufficient. Further, I think that 'not intentionally breaking any chains' would put a crimp on tactics and would mark the break between survival and (ideal) scoring. There might be other options, but those are the two that I'm seeing.
Regardless, I'm liking the way forward, and I'll post the 8/9 characters 1cc-ed accomplishment once I've done it to my satisfaction.
All of that makes the following seem absurd, but I'll preface it by saying that it started out of spite, and it then became a silly goal once I realized that it wasn't going to be the cakewalk I anticipated (it took almost five hours). Behold, the power of
Chiyuri cheese. Aside from the first four-ish rounds, which I played full-tilt (to retain my sanity), the dichotomy of the gameplay was almost comical: tap-dodging in a near-empty screen for about half a minute, then dealing with a relentless shitstorm for another half a minute. And I thought Ellen was hazardous to use because of reflectable bullets... Chiyuri's high speed and handicapped charge aren't even footnotes when compared to the insanity of boss battles (and the lvl2 doesn't help). Anyway, this hammered home the absurdity of playing like this and the necessity of imposing some sort of restriction, so it wasn't completely pointless. And I have a long way to go before I can get a full-tilt Chiyuri clear, or before I even decide to start banging my head against that wall, so this'll suffice as a silly trophy for the interim.
