Arcade High Score Challenge - Round 11

Hit the 12 digits. Green ship. Think I've got the scoring system down - less about how far you get (this was only midway through stage two on green) and more about racking up insane multipliers.

LOL ended up having another quick round or two before bed. Getting there!

For anyone still sussing out the score system:

The level multiplier increases the longer you stay alive. So if you survive for a full level, the gold tokens you collect will be worth much more than if you'd died midway through. Basically a level-long combo is the way to rack huge scores by increasing the multiplier. It resets at the start of each level so you'll need to start building up again.

However, the game multiplier does not reset when you die or enter a new level. This determines how many points you get from each enemy kill. Hence the longer your level combo, the more your game-long combo will jump up and up.

Bombs do not reset your combo AFAIK, but do factor into level end bonuses. Not killing enemies - especially big ones - can be leaving points on the table though so worth thinking of it as a way to grab some points you'd otherwise miss as opposed to pure survival fallback. However, it does mean you're missing out on level end bonuses, so it's a trade off.

Bullet cancelling is the way to go. If you see a stream of bullets, you want to reflect them back - when they hit an enemy, they'll change into gold tokens. Key is learning when to use these in each level (sometimes you're better to wait a second or two after it reloads for the big tanky enemy to appear or a busier boss pattern) - have got it down for one and two, but still figuring out three :P

FYI from reading online the default rank (i.e. intensity of the bullets) is different in Japanese vs Euro / US versions (lower AFAIK), just in case anyone is playing the former - had accidentally switched to it at one point!

The shield is king. You need all the gold tokens you can muster to get your combo up, and you need to use the reflect to cancel ALL the bullets (and do damage to the enemy in the process).

There's points when you need to stop shooting at all to wait the five seconds for the next recharge, or desperately trying to dodge just until you hear that 'OK' and you're free to unleash hell.

Had a dream run of level one but a fumbled death on the level two mid boss meant my multiplier didn't get up as high as it needed to in that level. Got to the level three boss at least.

At that stage though your multiplier is so high every 15 seconds of extra survival time is crucial as your score is just leaping upwards with every enemy killed or boss part destroyed.

Finally broke a trillion! Not even a lousy 1up for the occassion!