I have finally legitimately made it to the second loop a few times with the red character ship.
The difficulty goes up by 10x as there are more enemies and yes, the suicide bullets are in abundance… indeed it is hectic. I got to stage 3 in loop two before I couldn't manage. Artful dodging got me through
But, I guess it still feels traditional even in loop 2 when compare to the latest Cave offering…
Well, it's not danmaku, per se, but I think when people groan about the lack of difficulty, it's mainly to do with the first loop, as there is certainly no lack in the second.
For Kiken,
did you enjoy Otomedius? I know you are a high level player as well as a member held in high esteem in the community. I am curious to how you honestly felt about this game (as well as TF VI). These games have got alot of negative criticism and I am wondrous if it is because they may be too "old school" or if they lack intricate score mechanics. Thank You for your time.
I like Otomedius... it's no Gradius Gaiden or Gradius V, but I think it's a fair game. The game's biggest strengths are it's multiple ship selection (each one has a different Option ability) and the diversity of the weapon cards. There's a fair amount of customization as a result. What I don't really care for is that Gorgeous Mode forces 16x9 (I'm using an SD-TV) and that Original Mode feels incomplete.
That being said, I've played through with all 6 characters and have spent time purchasing all the weapon cards for the first 2 ships. I'm going to give the game a break for the time being, but I will return to it later.
As for TF6, it improves as you crank up the difficulty. Really, playing at Maniac is the way to go (it's the one mode that really rewards No Miss play). As for the scoring.. well, there's a really good system of checks-and-balances in play in TF6 that really come to bare when playing in Maniac. The biggest being that for every full Over Weapon slot you have at the end of a level, you get 100,000 pts per. That really starts to add up, especially when you consider that the game's score ceiling seems to be around 36 million. Since you start out with very little OW in Maniac, and the refill rate is very slow, it really forces you to intelligently use it. So I think the game does have a fair bit of substance, but only if you're willing to aggressively pursue high-scoring.
I also happen to appreciate the fact that we were given a selection of 3 ships to chose from.