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Grade S++. Tips, Info, Strategies!!!


Vergil

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9 hours ago, StealthMonkey43 said:

I'm not going to say your opinion is wrong or argue about it, but N++ is an extremely long game that has dozens of extremely difficult levels that are on par with many full games in terms of difficulty. And again, it is not muscle memory; there are some levels that are purely muscle memory (I don't remember any of the names because it has been over a year since I played) where you just progress through trial and error and find the exact path/strategy you are supposed to take and it never really changes, but for the majority of levels, they are very reactive. You can't just do the same thing every time because slightly different timings whether it be how long you hold jump for or the pixel where you land, it will affect the timings of various mechanisms through the level and the hazards. Each try is unique in some way or another, and while there are strategies you can use for levels, you always have to be able to react to things.

 

I think N++ took me about 80-90 hours, which if the same person who is able to do N++ (and genuinely feels it is not very difficult) in that amount of time invested it in practicing other difficult games, I feel confident that they would be able to do them quite easily in a fraction of the time (with the exception of some longer ones like Super Meat Boy, Dariusburst, Trials Fusion, that may take 50-200+ hours depending on the person). It's really just a mentality thing, you don't need to be skilled to be able to do any of this, you just need to spend some time practicing, which is not even that much of a time investment if you play multiplayer games or grindy games because those are almost the same where you are just repeat similar actions over and over. 

 

Overall, I guess my point is that it's fine to hunt trophies for fun but you shouldn't really think you are a skilled or top player simply because you can complete some difficult feats and earn some trophies; most people simply don't want to invest (waste) time practicing over and over, and I really can't blame them.  Even for the hardest games (obviously with some exceptions) they really aren't difficult because they can be brute forced through muscle memory by any average gamer, oftentimes without much of a time investment even, through practicing for dozens of hours. 

This is my final comments to this as your logic is honestly stupid. Just because you can brute force something with muscle memory that doesn't make it easy... You understand how you build muscle memory right? Thats you learning the thing because you put time into it and if they are so easy it wouldn't require you to build up that muscle memory. Instruments aren't hard because the hardest songs on them can be brute forced with muscle memory, thats your logic. 

 

You said N++ is a 9/10 but that requires muscle memory for those levels ( and don't say it doesn't as I know 2 people who played it 1 plat the others still doing it ) and is very long so using your logic N++ isn't hard it's just long and 99% of gamers don't want to waste time on it. And I agree with Kakrackle no one here but you is thinking highly of themselves. 

 

Just putting this here incase you reply. Yes you're acting like an ass and definitely making others feel worse. You're saying games that the vast majority of people deem hard aren't hard because muh muscle memory, if you try saying the piano thing is wrong well no it isn't. If you learn just the hardest song on it thats repeating the same movements thus building up your muscle memory for that song and before you say anything about reading music you don't you can just watch synthesia vids and they work perfectly. 

Edited by lilpain97
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I have been wanting to type up a guide since I plat but I always lose motivation so it's really good to see someone explain everything in extreme detail and have a video. Gl with ch 2, 3 and 4. Decided screw it and got back to the guide.

Edited by lilpain97
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You can find more videos on Ikaruga if you search for the japanese title (斑鳩 IKARUGA). There's usually some terrific japanese players on these niche games and some amazing videos, but problem is that they're very lazy with descriptions and it will be hard and a lot of time to find what you want. But there's usually a few hidden gems.

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Vergil said:

Sure why not. Its gonna take awhile for me to finish all as i'm quite busy so any help is welcome! 

Ill add your name now. Feel free to make any changes you need to it. Just read it again, are you implying you have a guide started or about this page? If you have a guide started we can maybe pick bits and pieces from the two. If youre on about this page we could turn it into a proper guide as I have one started andneed help cleaning it up.   

Edited by lilpain97
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14 minutes ago, lilpain97 said:

Ill add your name now. Feel free to make any changes you need to it. Just read it again, are you implying you have a guide started or about this page? If you have a guide started we can maybe pick bits and pieces from the two. If youre on about this page we could turn it into a proper guide as I have one started andneed help cleaning it up.   

I meant for this only actually :)

 

I may do a guide later myself. But one over at pst i'm afraid 

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Just now, Vergil said:

I meant for this only actually :)

 

I may do a guide later myself. But one over at pst i'm afraid 

Ahhh my bad. I have a guide started already and im trying to find people to help clean up/maybe explain sections better. Sorry for the confusion.  

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3 minutes ago, Vergil said:

No worries. I put it out wrong i think :)

Gl with your guide man. Quick question, should I do text explanations for everything? I have Text explanations for all bosses and ch1 and 5. Ch3 I have just started and some sections are extremely hard to explain.      

Edited by lilpain97
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7 minutes ago, lilpain97 said:

Gl with your guide man. Quick question, should I do text explanations for everything? I have Text explanations for all bosses and ch1 and 5. Ch3 I have just started and some sections are extremely hard to explain.      

Really up to you. I Dunno what demands the guide team here have. Never done a guide here :)

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I found a nice way to “cheese” S++ scores using 2 player local co-op. I have been dealing with tendonitis or something in my arms lately and was desperately looking for a way to cheat. This is the best I could come up with. I’m sure ikaruga masters out there know this mechanic but it was new to me and I didn’t see it discussed here. i put cheese in quotes because you still need to master the entire level basically.

 

When you kill a boss, you receive a bonus of 10k points x seconds remaining. A common time is 60 seconds remaining, or 600,000 points. For example in chapter 1 you need 3,400,000 points for S++, which means if you beat the boss with 60 seconds left you would’ve needed to reach the boss with give or take 2,800,000 points. In 2 player mode, both players receive this boss bonus.  One rule in the game is if you die and press continue it automatically gives you C rank no matter the score, however as long as player 1 doesn’t press continue you won’t get this penalty. You can practice the fastest method for the boss and double the score you’d get with that time. After you know how fast you can beat the boss, double the score and figure out how many points you will need by the time you reach the boss. Once you get to the point in your practice where you’re actually ready to make attempts, connect a 2nd controller and play 2 player mode. Let player 2 die at the start of the level. You might want to lower your lives to 1 or 2 so player 2 isn’t dying over and over. In most levels you need to bring player 2 down to the bottom of the screen so it doesn’t mess with chaining enemies before it gets a game over. After finally reaching the boss with your target score and killing it quickly enough, you need to bring player 2 back from the dead. In the chapter 1 example, after beating the chapter 1 boss with 60s remaining, it will give you 1.2 million so now you only need to reach the boss with 2.2 million instead of 2.8 like you would need solo. 

 

This gives you a lot of room for mistakes in some of the levels. For the most part, you still need to learn a good path for S++, but the extra points from reviving player 2 at the end helps so much. This method really helps in Chapter 4. The boss bonus is 1.3m for 1 player. With 2 players getting a 2.6m bonus, you only need to reach the boss with 3.4m to get 6m for S++. Chapter 3 is still very hard, but you don’t need to chain anything after the mini-boss. 

 

Here is a very sloppy chapter 4 if you’d like to watch an example. This was still early in my practice before I was confident in the second maze, but it shows how much the boss bonus from player 2 carried me.

 

 

edit: here is chapter 2. I got s++ before I learned a good strat for the boss. If you’re learning from these, check out other videos for the boss.

 

 

here is chapter 3. Definitely the hardest level even with the extra boss bonus. it took me maybe 20 hours of grinding and I think I got lucky early. This shows that even if you haven’t perfected the level, you should start playing with player 2 once you’ve got a rough idea of the entire level. You could clutch the s++ randomly.

Edited by nanakiisnanaki
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  • 5 weeks later...
On 28/08/2022 at 5:06 AM, nanakiisnanaki said:

I found a nice way to “cheese” S++ scores using 2 player local co-op. I have been dealing with tendonitis or something in my arms lately and was desperately looking for a way to cheat. This is the best I could come up with. I’m sure ikaruga masters out there know this mechanic but it was new to me and I didn’t see it discussed here. i put cheese in quotes because you still need to master the entire level basically.

 

When you kill a boss, you receive a bonus of 10k points x seconds remaining. A common time is 60 seconds remaining, or 600,000 points. For example in chapter 1 you need 3,400,000 points for S++, which means if you beat the boss with 60 seconds left you would’ve needed to reach the boss with give or take 2,800,000 points. In 2 player mode, both players receive this boss bonus.  One rule in the game is if you die and press continue it automatically gives you C rank no matter the score, however as long as player 1 doesn’t press continue you won’t get this penalty. You can practice the fastest method for the boss and double the score you’d get with that time. After you know how fast you can beat the boss, double the score and figure out how many points you will need by the time you reach the boss. Once you get to the point in your practice where you’re actually ready to make attempts, connect a 2nd controller and play 2 player mode. Let player 2 die at the start of the level. You might want to lower your lives to 1 or 2 so player 2 isn’t dying over and over. In most levels you need to bring player 2 down to the bottom of the screen so it doesn’t mess with chaining enemies before it gets a game over. After finally reaching the boss with your target score and killing it quickly enough, you need to bring player 2 back from the dead. In the chapter 1 example, after beating the chapter 1 boss with 60s remaining, it will give you 1.2 million so now you only need to reach the boss with 2.2 million instead of 2.8 like you would need solo. 

 

This gives you a lot of room for mistakes in some of the levels. For the most part, you still need to learn a good path for S++, but the extra points from reviving player 2 at the end helps so much. This method really helps in Chapter 4. The boss bonus is 1.3m for 1 player. With 2 players getting a 2.6m bonus, you only need to reach the boss with 3.4m to get 6m for S++. Chapter 3 is still very hard, but you don’t need to chain anything after the mini-boss. 

 

Here is a very sloppy chapter 4 if you’d like to watch an example. This was still early in my practice before I was confident in the second maze, but it shows how much the boss bonus from player 2 carried me.

 

 

edit: here is chapter 2. I got s++ before I learned a good strat for the boss. If you’re learning from these, check out other videos for the boss.

 

 

here is chapter 3. Definitely the hardest level even with the extra boss bonus. it took me maybe 20 hours of grinding and I think I got lucky early. This shows that even if you haven’t perfected the level, you should start playing with player 2 once you’ve got a rough idea of the entire level. You could clutch the s++ randomly.

I mentioned something in the scoring part of the guide that tells players that if on co-op and you kill a boss you get that bosses score twice essentially allowing you to miss chains and still get S++ ranks. As for doing it solo by letting them die then not using continue on player 1 I can add that to the guide. 

Edited by lilpain97
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4 hours ago, lilpain97 said:

I mentioned something in the scoring part of the guide that tells players that if on co-op and you kill a boss you get that bosses score twice essentially allowing you to miss chains and still get S++ ranks. As for doing it solo by letting them die then not using continue on player 1 I can add that to the guide. 

 

Oh nice! Great job with the guide!

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  • 2 weeks later...

@lilpain97 Thanks again for making the guide. While you are adding the info about killing off player 2, there is some wording that might be incorrect unless I am misunderstanding something.

Under 1CC

This is a lot easier than it sounds thanks to adding extra lives and can be stacked with the co-op trophy”

To me, this makes it sound like the One-coin Clear trophy will pop at the end of the Ikaruga & Ginkei 1cc run. I did the I&G 1cc run first and this did not stack, unfortunately. An accurate description of the 1cc trophy would be “1-player mode 1cc” i think ^^

B0-C47-A29-07-DA-4-D66-AD9-E-ADB7-FF463-

Edited by nanakiisnanaki
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On 07/10/2022 at 4:45 AM, nanakiisnanaki said:

@lilpain97 Thanks again for making the guide. While you are adding the info about killing off player 2, there is some wording that might be incorrect unless I am misunderstanding something.

Under 1CC

This is a lot easier than it sounds thanks to adding extra lives and can be stacked with the co-op trophy”

To me, this makes it sound like the One-coin Clear trophy will pop at the end of the Ikaruga & Ginkei 1cc run. I did the I&G 1cc run first and this did not stack, unfortunately. An accurate description of the 1cc trophy would be “1-player mode 1cc” i think ^^

B0-C47-A29-07-DA-4-D66-AD9-E-ADB7-FF463-

That's weird I thought it would stack and someone told me it does? Ill update it

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based on the coop strategy i found an easier method to get S++ rank. as the final bonus of the stage is based on how fast you kill the boss (and the mini bosses), if you play in prototype mode you can kill practically all bosses in less than 3 seconds since it is possible to spam special attack, it is only necessary to arrive with enough ammo, and to help just put it in double play to control the two ships with the same controller. Revive the second player in the boss fight and use the specials of the two together to annihilate the bosses, guaranteeing an extremely high bonus and leaving a much greater margin for error when making the chain points in the chapter.


I'll leave videos of chapter 2, 3 and 4 below (it's possible to use this strategy in chapter 1 and 5 too, but since they're easy, I didn't feel the need to post them)

Chapter 02

 

 

Chapter 03

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 04

 

Edited by Riku_KHX
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On 08/01/2019 at 1:31 PM, machaesthetic said:

The Sine Mora PS3 version is more difficult because it includes the challenge mode which is an additional challenge. Considering the PSV can be played on the PSTV if you want, it's the exact same thing just with no challenge mode. Additionally, I did the speedrun method for trophy unlocks which means you have to do the whole thing without using subweapons which adds to the challenge. Obviously, the "easy" difficulty of this is in context and is all relative. This is a game that was considered 10/10 hardest game ever (at a time, not so much now), but with about 50-70 hours of gameplay time, I was able to 100% it from scratch, using almost all my own methods and strategies (there was very few tips when I did it) and even using a new method to get an 11 minute leaderboard time. I mean, yes, I spent a fairly long time playing a rather short shmup game, but I am also a totally average gamer who has never been particularly skilled at games, and others can do it much faster. Even at the longest time it will take some people, it's still much shorter than many other easy, but grindy platinums (and I enjoyed the game; I never felt like it got repetitive or boring).

 

For Raiden IV, I was going to do it sometime eventually, but I played it a bit and just did not enjoy it at all, and after putting dozens of hours into Super Meat Boy, another game which I don't really enjoy (still definitely better than Raiden IV though), I just really don't feel like putting another 40-80 hours into another game that I won't enjoy a single second of just to prove a point, especially since my PS3 is packed away and I don't have much room on my desk. Additionally, PS3 trophies in general are meaningless now since people are able to just hack them with custom timestamps so there is no way to tell if they are legit (which is why the global PSN percentages are 10x higher than the PSNP percentages), and obviously the pause exploit makes the game much easier so it's really not worth it at all. I will get around to Wolfenstein II sometime in the future, and with how many resources are available, I don't see it being that difficult at all.

 

I know the game has been out for 17 years and I know the basic mechanics of the game, however, in this specific situation, you are asked to get S++ on every stage on any difficulty. First of all watching a TAS run is ridiculous, TAS is literally inputting inputs frame by frame and doing actions that are either near impossible for humans to pull off or impossible to have any kind of consistency to have for a human, even just watching a speedrun by a human player is not even that useful for many games because they frequently have hundreds of hours of experience and do actions that would be extremely difficult for someone who doesn't have their level of practice to replicate. Now, maybe in a genre where the mechanical skill ceiling is lower and the game always follows a set path, like a shmup, it might be slightly more effective, but again that is for HARD difficulty (which very likely is not the easiest to do it on since you can do it any lower difficulties) and it also doesn't tell you what the exact specifics of S++ (whether you need 100% chain only or if there is other contributing factors), or it could be doing superfluous actions that are not necessary (or doing it in a way that is harder than required) for S++

 

In regards to Super Meat Boy, yes there is a few good resources for the game (fatprinny and thanatosninja are really the only helpful ones imo), however the tips (even from thanatosninja which is by far the most thorough and useful) are much too vague and ignore key aspects of the level that will lead to frustrating deaths until they happen and you add that to your knowledge of the level. Additionally, I found many strategies myself that are much more effective that I haven't seen others use (which shouldn't be happening when a game has several million players). Sure, you can watch a video, but aside from doing a level completely and fundamentally wrong, you won't learn much because there is small factors that you don't realize are important until you run the level for yourself, or a guide may be focusing on speed over consistency, because even in speedruns, runners die multiple times as they are doing risky strategies. I intend to make a thorough text guide after I finish Super Meat Boy that I hope will help some others, but if someone took just a few hours to make some videos explaining in-depth how to consistently beat levels (which I, and anyone else who 100%'d the game, could probably do) it would make the platinum so much easier because it reduces tedium. 

To state that PS3 trophies are meaningless because some people cheat them, is such profound stupidity that I consider myself unlucky to have come across such baffling reasoning.

 

I don't know guy, they are probably meaningless to lazy people like you. I couldn't care less how many lowlives cheat their trophies. That holds no value at all towards my personal experience with the PS3 trophies. They're plenty meaningful to me. I'll cherish their memories as long as I hold awareness.

 

And I have to laugh over your definition of what's "boring". Seems to me that the moment you find some true challenge, bingo, that's your "I'll call it boring and move on cause my mind's too fragile to handle the pressure" moment. Aesop spoke  of personalities like yours via his fox character in his short fable about the grapes and the fox.

 

That's why the expression "sour grapes" got stuck to this day. Sour grapes is the theme of your message. So much so, that you had to call the trophies meaningless. Yet here you are on a trophy hunting site. Do you feel better after failing to be gracious in defeat? Yeah, I doubt that!

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