So-so balance. I always keep telling myself that SA scoring isn't my thing. It's a lot of pressing X and hanging around certain spots for extra graze. Oh, and there's the whole restart syndrome-thing, which I seem to have with this game: it forces immense amount of restarts out of me, even compared to the other games. (I restart a lot in the other games too, even more so in this one, though.)
So, when I do the first run of the day and it clears, it's pretty unique. Kind of ironic that it's also the run that reaches the target, I guess.
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Normal - ReimuA
Seppo Hovi - 820,301,760 - C - 0.090% -
Replay-
SA stage 1 is hugely important for the score. (Every stage 1 is, I guess) Especially on normal, where you can't let your BpV drop afterwards. So, it's forming a base for the run, and I must say that lots of the supergrazing that's going on in there causes me to restart... quite a bit.
Failed the starting portion, netting in less than the 120 graze that's available from those things. I could stream them more accurately, but eeeeeh, I'm not overly focused on it. Maybe some day I'll learn something proper and good, for now this is good enough (I do get 120 occasionally with this tactic too, but it's not consistent).
Pretty O.K. Midboss Kisume grazing. I'm not
entirely sure how you gain graze from the final phase, I once left it with 700+, but usually it's around 650. Entered Yamame with
1109G, it's okay for me. As long as I'm past 1000, it's ok for me. Did a bit unoptimally on the first card (it's really hard for me), went from
1335 to
1723. Getting beyond 1800 would be nifty, and I've done it for couple of times. (the best grazing run after the first card ended in me crashing into Yamame just afterwards, I found it funny and tweeted about it). The rest of the stage 1 is sitting in a spot and occasionally pressing X, at least on normal. The second nonspell is a bit tricky to graze (at least on Reimu), must be interesting on Lunatic where you might also run into the red things more commonly.
Left stage 1 with 4429G and 64,890 BpV. Could be better, but I'm satisfied with this!
Stage 2 is hard. I don't do anything optimally and gather a ton of items below the PoC. I'm too used into MariB during the post-midboss portion. Lazy. Oh, and the final card is hilarious. I'm being a huge wuss.
I'm doing the pre-midboss portion of stage 3 in an awful way. I really need to watch Atu's run more and practice if I wish to play again. Oh hey, gained
about 300 graze from the post-midboss. Awesomeeeeeeeeeee. (not really, though. Practice, practice. It's static you lazy bastard.)
Yuugi's second boss non... is a trainwreck for my graze. I can't get the safespot right in it (not enough practice), so I do it really unoptimally. Oh, also finished it too soon. Oh dear..
Finished with 9860G. Awful performance on the bubble-grazing, I guess. I need more stage 3 practice, really, and I've been repeating it enough in this post to bore everyone to death, so, let's move on.
Collecting items below the PoC during the opener-Orin. . . I can't really say much about this, aside from the fact that I'm bad at it.
Missing a fuckton of fairies, too. Static stuff, practice awaits.
Stage 4 lasers, too hard. Or, well, at least too out of practice on my side. I'll need to consult some replays here. But that would be effort, and I was not ready for that kind of stuff. Rest of the stage portion is missing both fairies and graze. Entering Satori with
13,110G and 69910 BpV. Milked 1st spell (unoptimally), bombed DBDB (the WR does it too!), and
used a bomb in order to get into the position with the final card. The timeframe for not losing either of the spell bonuses is surprisingly lenient. I was afraid of it at first, but then it turned out to be nothing too hard. (it's just pressing X at the certain point, after all).
16806G leaving the stage. Yeah, I'm fine with that. 18k would be a nice target for future, I guess. Nice number, too.
Being a coward in the final wave of the exploding wisps (saving power), after which I mess up the bomb on the ying-yang orb portion. Grazing midboss Orin unoptimally and leaving one bomb for myself since
I want to be certain and leave some wiggle room in the case I fuck up the popcorn bit, which did happen on this run. Entering Orin with
21720G and 79390 BpV, which is pretty nice for my standards. Fucked up the second non as usual (hurr) and ended up bombing.
Grazed the penultimate card unoptimally and saved power, after which I ended up using a bomb on the finished since I'm dumb. That meant entering midboss Orin of stage 6 with only 3,xx power. Bad.
Oh, well. Bombed the shit out of Utsuho and finished with
a quite nice score. I'm content with it. Content enough to make my first Royalflare submission, actually!
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SA has nice music, and the gameplay is not
that bad. Actually, it's a pretty neat game. I should play it more, maybe I'm just too bad for it at times and end up avoiding it due to that.
We'll see.
Time to slack off for the weekend.