SOTM September 2023: Blazing Star

[NERDtendo]

September 2023 Shmup of the Month

Blazing Star

[Rules]

Default settings, 1 credit

[Hi-Score format]

Player - Score - Stage - Character - Platform

Leaderboards:
Autofire:
1. city41 - 1,398,130 - 4 - Dino 135 - MiSTer, with autofire

No AutoFire:
1. opt2not - 11,149,700 - Stage 6 - Windina - MVS
2. daskrabs - 5,413,920 - Stage 3 - Hellhound - MVS - No Autofire
3. The Chief - 3,407,990 - Stage 4 - Windina- MVS
4. mjmjr25 - 1,643,240 - Stage 4 - Peplos - Switch
5. Dogg - 1,407,870 - 4 - Dino 246 - AES
6. ggallegos1 - 1,390,760 - Stage 3 - Windina - MVS - No Autofire
7. gusmoney - 1,367,770 - Stage 3 - Windina - FPGA
8. Johnny - 1,120,650 - Stage 3 - Aryustailm - AES
9. MmSadda - 988,410 - 3 - Dino 246 - MVS
10. kuze - 825,430 - Stage 3 - Windina (?) - AES
11. Neokobe - 785,440 - Stage 3 - Dino 135 - MVS - No Autofire
12. NERDtendo - 304,780 - Stage 2 - Windina - Neo Geo Mini

 

[ggallegos1]

BONUS!

 

[mmsadda]

What's the story with the auto fire thing? That's not available on the mvs version, is it?

 

[NERDtendo]

What's the story with the auto fire thing? That's not available on the mvs version, is it?

Last time I hosted this game someone was using an autofire PCB so I went ahead and made the two listings just in case.

 

[mmsadda]

MmSadda - 988,410 - 3 - Dino 246 - MVS

 

[ggallegos1]

Had maybe 10 minutes to just fire the cab up and see how it goes. My MVS copy sometimes stops playing the soundtrack until specific spots so it's an odd experience.

ggallegos - 351,510 - 2 - Whatever the wave shot is - MVS


I know the little angel ball helps with scores but can someone school me on how to leverage it properly? Never played BS for score before

 

[gusmoney]

https://imgur.com/nWXo739

gusmoney - 633,440 - Stage 2 - Hell-Hound - FPGA

 

[Johnny16Bit]

Tossed my first coin - there's so much shit to remember to score in this game.
It's good to be reminded that a bonus is a bonus, though.

Johnny - 1,120,650 - Stage 3 - Aryustailm - AES

 

[opt2not]

opt2not - 1,879,480 - Stage 4 - Windina - MVS - No Autofire

 

[opt2not]

I know the little angel ball helps with scores but can someone school me on how to leverage it properly? Never played BS for score before

The Angel makes your regular shot give a bonus multiplier when enemies are destroyed. Acting as if destroyed by a charged shot.

If you avoid picking up the Angel and let it fly away, the next time the Angel appears it will be a different color, and the multiplier will increase.
You can do this 9 times till the last Angel “upgrade” is Rainbow, which will yield you a x128 multiplier for every enemy destroyed during the time it’s attached to you.

 

[neo.kobe.city]

Figured I'd give this a try.

Neokobe - 785,440 - Stage 3 - Dino 135 - MVS - No Autofire

 

[The Chief]

The Chief - 1,366,270 - Stage 3 - Windina - MVS - No Autofire

Just getting started, I love this game. So glad it’s this months SOTM!

 

[Jeneki]

The other thing you can do with the angel:

Collect it at any level, but then don't shoot until it starts to fly away. Then the next one that appears will be the Special Angel. Collect the Special Angel, and while it's active every object you destroy will drop a powerup. If you have the Special Angel active in a part with lots of destructible missles or whatever, you can cause so many powerups to appear the game chugs and flickers like crazy (on original hardware at least; emulators often disable sprite limits).

Collecting mass amounts of powerups causes the rank to go up, and more point items will drop. Due to the way point items increase in value the more you collect, having more point of them appear gets a bit crazy scorewise. You can get over 10 million by the end of stage 3 by using the Special Angel multiple times and milking out the bosses.

Note that if you're preemtively holding the button for a charge-up shot, you can collect an angel, then release the charge-up shot, and this doesn't count as having fired as long as you don't push the button again before it flies away.

 

[Neodogg]

Dogg - 1,330,410 - Stage 3 - Windina - MVS - No Autofire
Why would you wanna use auto fire for score?
EDIT: wrong photo

 

[ggallegos1]

ggallegos1 - 1,086,890 - Stage 3 - Windina - MVS - No Autofire

 

[opt2not]

Improved on my score. Still can’t break that Stage 4 boss, but I’m gonna figure it out.

opt2not - 2,522,970 - Stage 4 - Windina - MVS - No Autofire

 

[daskrabs]

daskrabs - 2,198,330 - Stage 4 - Hellhound - MVS - No Autofire

 

[daskrabs]

daskrabs - 5,413,920 - Stage 3 - Hellhound - MVS - No Autofire

 

[Neodogg]

daskrabs - 5,413,920 - Stage 3 - Hellhound - MVS - No Autofire

View attachment 67930

Daaammmm someone must have gotten the multiplier?

Hold up….what does the B button do?

 

[daskrabs]

Daaammmm someone must have gotten the multiplier?

Hold up….what does the B button do?

I tried to do the Special Angel thing @Jeneki mentioned, but I only pulled it off once in level 1. It's pretty tough to do it later in the game except in select areas where there's a lull in the action, IMHO.

 

[NERDtendo]

Set up a video game birthday for my son last night and hooked up the NEO GEO mini for him. Played a game of Blazing Star on it and got my first credit score…

NERDtendo - 304,780 - Stage 2 - Windina - Neo Geo Mini

 

[The Chief]

The Chief - 3,407,990 - Stage 4 - Windina- MVS

 

[NERDtendo]

Leaderboard has been updated…

 

[opt2not]

Improved on my score a bit. Been learning how to get my rank up more for the big point Bonus items.

opt2not - 3,203,060 - Stage 4 - Windina - MVS

 

[mjmjr25]

First decent game in a minute. Will put in some runs over the weekend.