I'm SO late - I really wanted to play this but I never got a chance to. I'm going to put in an order tomorrow and get in on the action. I still need to repair my Wii, Jibber kindly donated a drive so it's just a case of swapping them over.

Sounds absolutely brilliant. I really miss this kind of stuff.

Done. VGI had a Japanese copy in stock for 30 sheets. Hopefully I'll get it by the weekend ^^

You will not regret it . I've just been going over and over stage zero on Normal. Must have been through about 20 times now. I'm up to 15million, which puts me in the top 100 in Europe/Americas region. Shame it doesn't do global rankings, not sure why, maybe there's a difference between the wetern and JPN release...? OR is it tied to the location of your Wii.

Anyway. Stage zero I've now figured out 3 of the 5 secrets, I'm still missing something absolutely huge though as the top score on Normal has a destroyed # of 299 (I'm around the 250/60 mark). The only thing I can think of is there's some additional way of rinsing the boss, I've already worked out one of the secrets of the boss that yields loads of medals

Also continuing to bash through on Easy using multiple continues, up to stage 5 now, so far I think the flying fortress stage has been the highlight. So many great sections in that, it's phenominal. Basically you need to rinse through all the difficulties using continues to unlock stage select, then hone down skills in each stage, before trying to string a compelte run together.

If I have 1 complaint it's that the game is just too damn long, for me Rez was just about the right length for this sort of game. Here you have 7 stages and each one, with the exception of zero, feels like Rez stage 5. There's a heck of a lot to remember. For that reason I think it works better as a stage by stage score attack game (at least initially).

Only other slight niggle is the parry window for incoming projectiles 'feels' odd. Don't get me wrong the window is large, but if you try to leave it to the last possible moment to parry, you're going to get hit.

Also ISA's hit box (you've got to use ISA right!) is the little backpack thing that he wears. Useful bit of info that especially on the side scrolling bits.

- I don't even know where to start O_o

I'm camping out on Stage 0 just as you suggested. Why on earth aren't people blowing up about this game? Been trying to figure out the secret bonuses, check out this replay - this guy gets them all!

This game is worth it's weight in crack.

Right, a day in and I'm still 100% happy camping out on Stage 0. Way behind you on score so far, but I'm starting to get where the secret bonuses are. I'm still not 100% certain the exact conditions but I'm getting 4 of them.

It proper took a whole to get used to the multitasking, the target cursor and character are two completely different things and I really love the way this feels once it clicks. It's a damn shame this genre isn't explored more, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk feel they were designed for exactly this style of play.

I only just started using A button to Lock-On when it gets busy, especially for the deflection/counter mechanic. Love how you can counter enemy rockets, the mess you can make with this is epic stuff. Noticed that there is an area damage effect when you aim your countered rocket at a surface rather than a specific enemy. Found this makes the section with the big round robots in Stage 0 easier as you can aim at the floor between two of these units and destroy both at once.

I badly need to work on not taking damage. The damage penalty to scoring is absolutely brutal, there's no way you're getting a half decent score on a stage if you take damage.

I saw some of those scores you mention with hits of around 300. No idea how they're getting so much either, a couple bits I have been working on though are the laser gate section and the Contra style locked doors. During the green laser gate section you can destroy pretty much all of them when using the girl. You melee attack through the laser emitters on one side while using the charged shot on the other. The melee attack range is really wide, so when passing between a pair of gates, use the attack dead in the middle to destroy both.

Also during that Contra style section, you get around 4 waves of enemies off each of the first 2 doors, then on the 3rd you get 5 waves (I think). Another bit was when a door opens and you get a single soldier behind a box, shoot the box then side evade his attacks 4 times - then immediately kill him for a bonus.

There's a damage penalty for using the lock-on, so I've been trying to avoid it other than sections where you are deflecting incoming balistic attacks. Didn't twig that you could take out multiple enemies using splash damage. Will try to work that into a run. Should significantly reduce the time on the second set of large robots.

It's also variable. Take damage from one of those small walkers spin attacks and you take an enormous penalty, take a single hit from a gun and it's less bad. Still looking for a perfect run on stage 0.

You have to rinse those locked doors, my current meth' is to release a charge shot once the turrets and small robots have emerged, then work away at the turrets and robots as they pop out (sword attack is good for the robots) . This maximises the multiplier. You can also tickle the gate a bit inbetween times to reduce it's energy, but you don't want to destroy the gate until all of the turrets and robots have been destroyed.

With ISA I've not been able to get all of the lazer gates. I picked up on the melee attack early on, but there seem to be too many gates where I would need to charge shot one side whilst melee on the other. I tried to melee evade melee, but I don't think there's a big enough window to get across in time for the second attack.

Ah, yeah, I got that once, but didn't twig the criteria. Will have to work that in

The real key though is the final boss on Stage 0, what you need to do is get him into the grenade bouncing stage and then deflect those grenades at the crates mounted on the ceiling. These drop doing massive damage and release medals for pointage. It's bloody hard to do though.

Not played with the girl, she has a different lock-on mechanic that sounds a bit easier to contend with, but not setup for score. Iirc her stage 0 scores are less than ISA's on the leaderboards.

I have resisted vids thus far, but might have to take a peek soon.

The sick thing is all of this is Stage 0, which is basically an extended tutorial. Just imagine how totally sick the other stages are for scoring. My head is exploding just thinking abou it. I still have not completed a run through on Easy to unlock all the stages for practice. The flying fortress stage is my favourite thus far

Oh and

Exactly! It's phenominal.

Assuming the PAL version isn't crocked in some way, I just ordered it.

The idea of using the Wii remote as a pointer in this genre of game, I immediately assumed it would be slightly whack, since obviously you are not restrained in the Panzer Dragoon style cursor speed way, which is effectively the game. Memorising the patterns and optomising cursor placement and movement to get where you need to go the most efficiently.

You guys are saying this actually works, then I am onboard. It looks and sounds like the movement of the character in the foreground replaces this cursor restriction cycle, mentally, although there was an element of that in Orta hey.

Watching that YouTube I was a little freaked out you couldn't 100% all the enemies?

They've got something very interesting going on with the controls and the mechanics. I'd go as far as the say it's closer to classic Contra than Star Fox or Panzer. The character itself can do stuff. Like jumping, crouching, deflecting and melee attacking feels just as natural as in a 2D shooting game. The game 100% works as a side-scroller and always offers the same level of involvement, they've taken that dynamic and made it 3D (properly). They're constantly exploring ways to represent enemy shot attacks in 3D, while still allowing the player to properly read and evade them just as well as they would in a 2D shooter.

I'm over the moon, everything I ever imagined would be amazing in a new Star Fox game is here! Epic scenes, huge bosses, consistently stunning use of 3D space and attacks, masses of control over the character and the ability to turn attacks back on the enemy.

Mads - thanks for the tips. I had no idea that the Lock-On has a damage penalty - another little bit to manage. I hear you about deflecting shots back at the ceiling mounted boxes during the boss battle, it scores loads but I'm nowhere near reaping the benefits as I keep taking so much damage T_T

I have had a blast on Stage 1 and 2. It's just amazing, I know exactly what you mean about the huge jump in complexity, Stage 1 alone is totally overwhelming for tactics. I don't want to waste it and blunder my way through, I want to take each stage and train up on them individually before I even think about trying for a run through the game.

Yeah,

I can't get it down either. I tend to get hit by a stomping leg as I'm too busy concentrating lining up the deflection and timing the melee to evade at the right point. You have to love it though as you can't Lock-on to the boxes, so they're teaching you to deflect without the lock-on!

I need to look into the differences between the characters. I hadn't realise that Kachi (sp?) has a multiple lockon. ISA doesn't have that.

Incidentally have you found a use for jump and crouch yet? I've not really felt the need for them, but the fact they've bothered with a jump button leads me to believe there's a genuine advantage to using it in certain situations, just can't figure out what that might be???

You have to take a run at the flying fortress stage - Stage 2 or 3, can't remember which. Your Contra comments come right in to play then and it totally blows your mind as it's both a 2D and 3D shooter at the same time!!!!!!!!111111111111

I saw it in a video - but jump does very much come into play as another tool in the box for evading shots. It's faster compared to Evading up and then down, plus when your character is stationary, crouch is also used during certain encounters. The first time I started using jump was at the start of Stage 1 (teefed it off that vid) when you're running to the left and passing by a series of towers. You need to keep your fire focused on the enemies in the background as there are masses of them, so leave the cursor there and use jump + Melee as you pass by each tower to quickly take it out.

I've been watching some of the Hard Mode superplays on Nico Nico. It's absolutely amazing, nobody does the crazy inventive enemy attack stuff like Treasure! Love the way you can blatantly see the Contra, the Gradius V, the Ikaruga - all that win is rolled up into one fat joint for you to hit! XD

Gotcha

There's a stage later on which has a maze of falling boxes a bit like Ikaruga stage 3 iirc.

I know graphics are secondary, but it's a really impressive game visually. The intro cut scene looks total arse, but once you break outside in Stage 1 the jaw drops . Loads of stuff flying all over the place.

There are tweaks for the PAL and US versions, which is typical Treasure. Some scoring opportunities have been altered and I know that one of the previous bosses is now just a regular enemy, to name but a few.

GAH . So Saur is playing a different game. Explains the leaderboards. So irritating when this happens.

Looks like I will need a JPN copy then....

That's weird how they've changed around the versions, don't see why they bother considering the audience. Mind you I've seen Japanese players racking up thousands of kills during certain sections, I bet it's those that got changed.

I'm up to around 20 million or so on Stage 0 now, and ranking in the 30s. I've properly got the large egg-like robot section down. You need to destroy the first set as the rocket launcher enemies in the background get into position. I find that if you leave the enemies to execute their routines, you always have to deal with machine gun fire from the large robots as you try to deflect rockets back at them.

But if you destroy the first set of them, the second set will appear just as the rocket guys in the background start firing. This gives you a clean run through both sections without having to deal with any machine gun fire at all. The trick for both instances is to wait a little before destroying the first set, kill them just before the rocket guys take their positions.

I've (almost) got the laser gate section sorted too. If I can just manage to scrape through without taking damage I reckon I'll break 20 million!

Stumbled across this utter garbage earlier, wish I hadn't;
http://4playerpodcast.com/2010/08/13/review-sin-punishment-2/

- and people actually agree with this knob. Complete fucking muppets.

Tell you what the problem is these days; all the losers with no Heroness who used to stand around awkwardly in the arcades and couldn't get anywhere near the cabs now have the loudest voice. They don't deserve a voice, they didn't earn it and all they do with it is bitch when confronted with a challenge.

I'll get a US version in, I think I can borrow or acquire a copy no problem.

His suggestions would severely limit scoring, these involve not shooting and dodging frequently without taking advantage of it.

Also, the game makes it very clear what's going on in a mesmerizing fashion - I love it! You can always distinguish enemy bullets from the effects, there are aural and visual cues everywhere!

Damn, that's good. I will try that method. I've been unleashing my charge shot too soon it seems as I always have to contend with machine gun fire. Are you still playing with Kachi?

You've spurred me on to go for the 20 Million barrier

His observation is correct in that they do change up the enemies and attack characteristics, but that's all part of why this game is awsum. Basically he's made an observation, but steered it to an incorrect conclusion. YOU HAVE TO LEARN THE GAME! Also no mention of scoring. His 'technique' will almost certainly result in terrible scores. I've found no need to spam evade at all, everything is cued as Pizzadude says so you have ample warning when the shit is going to go down.

Sweet. Sounds like they've closed up a few loopholes in the time between releases. See you on the leaderboards!

The guy talks a load of bollocks. He writes with the attitude that the entire genre is so beneath him, with no appreciation as to what Treasure are doing. What people call "rail shooters" is not a dead genre. They don't call vertical or horizontal shooters "rail shooters", just because the viewpoint has shifted round doesn't mean this is within a completely different genre. This is a shooting game, STG, "shmup" or whatever people call them now. What Treasure have done here is create a system which is consistent no matter what the viewpoint, and 3D enemy attacks/obstacles which can be read just as easily as in a 2D game.

Regarding this version - I've seen so many places where you can just sit there and rack up ridiculous scores, I understand why they made the changes for the overseas versions. The way to go in this version is to sit in one of these sections (usually during a boss), and kill the boss with "0" displayed on the counter for the "Just 0" kill.

I've found a new home, Stage 3 is the most amazing thing I've played. While keeping the controls and mechanics 100% consistent all the way through, they still manage to make this thing feel like a different game each time they present a new stage.

I know everything is going to go pear-shaped once Marvel VS Capcom comes out(It's MAHVEL baybee!), but if I can just achieve a good run on Stage 3 I'd be content in that I'd just played gaming perfection!

Stage 3 - The floating fortress is my favourite stage in the game so far. It has everything. It's like a horizontal scroller, but you can also shoot enemies in the background. It's completely mental. Plus you have proper melee fighting sections. Those large machines that you have to manipulate to protect you from those exhausts, the cog style gun emplacements. The list just goes on and on. Someone was allowed to completely go to town on it. It has to be up there as one of the greatest shmup stages of all time.

Incidentally the Commander part way through Stage 3 - I've still not been able to get a good pattern going with her. I can evade through her charge attack and then counter with a melee, but this is tricky as the evade typically plonks you out of melee range, my solution has been to either do a quick wiggle of the stick during the evade, which allows you to travel less distance, or execute a second evade. I clearly need to rethink this, maybe I should evade on the spot? Not sure that's possible.

ALSO! There is a way to stun her, but I've not worked out what the criteria are to accomplish that. Once she is stunned then you can deal some serious damage with the sword.

I could look at some vids, but for me part of the fun is figuring this stuff out

If there was an award for the single greatest stage of all time - it has to go to this one!

The bosses are utterly bonkers too! When I first got to that bit when you're pretty much fighting against a bank of giant sub-woofers pumping out laser death I nearly died of awsum! XD

I NEED the videos. For me this is what replaces the arcades. I always relied heavily on bouncing ideas back and forth and watching how others played. I need a framework, a starting point - clocking just one good idea changes the entire game.

Different folks, different strokes. I see where you're coming from. There's no doubt that vids would enhance my enjoyment and appreciation of the game in a different way. I'm a problem solver at heart though, so I just love that element of this game.

It means I make slower progress, but I love the fact that the designer is presenting the player with so many problems to solve. I don't want to plunder all of the secrets in one go. Sharing tips and info on forums is fine, because that feels more like a team effort at unpicking the game (to me). Vids show too much of the end game too quickly.

We'll do that - this is pretty much what we do when working on the guides too. Everyone throws everything they can into the mix to make sure we're all on the same page. Need to be playing the same version though, I'm pretty certain I know which sections they've changed because what I was watching yesterday on the later stages was just silly.

There aren't many vids on Youtube anyway - to find the good ones these days you have to go to Nico Nico Douga. The stuff on there is just ILL!

OK cool.

Nick of Time or 0 time bonus is now making me think ill thoughts. For example on the contra style gates of stage 0 I've been trying to rinse all the baddies and polish off the gates as quickly as possible. An alternative strategy would be to rinse as before and then wait to get the nick of time bonus (doable with a charged shot). Not sure if the nick of time bonus is bigger than the maximum time bonus you could get off these whilst still rinsing all of the smaller enemies?

I just know I am going to boot this up. Have the remaining tatters of my ego shredded... and feel like a perpetual idiot for a few days.

Sounds like fun.

In the vid above I liked how the hover board was like upside down and stuff innit.

I have a feeling I'll just be watching it, vs playing it. The kind of awesome creativity I'm not getting from say RE5 atm.

That's a weird one - probably have to get the calculator out. It's like juggling between taking your time and scoring headshots in Vanquish, or blasting through really quickly and achieving the maximum time bonus.

From what I've seen, people are going for the Just 0 bonus after rinsing sections where you can gain loads of points off of endlessly re-spawning enemies. Against certain boss battles in the Japanese version you can raise the number of kills up to the thousands in these sections. I'd like to play the US version before exploring this.

Just you wait till you play Stage 3! I've never been as bowled over by the sheer creativity in a stage before. A lot of the time I was just watching what was going on in amazement, the level of depth and strategy in there is enough to make your brain explode! It's not just a screen full of crazy attacks, each and every obstacle you come across you can actually play around with - it's like loads and loads of layered mini games. During the boss battle they're throwing Radiant Silvergun, Bomberman and a falling block puzzle game at you all at once.

Nah you'll be fine. It's totally accessible, once the control clicks in. I reackon you'll need about 30 minutes before it does click. Just stay on Stage 0 initially as that takes you through the fundamentals in a very structured way.

Hope you like it Jib. Personally I couldn't get passed the girl commander on Stage 3 on Normal, so took the decision to drop to easy for a first run through. There's no shame in that as the difficulty layers the game up. i.e. easier difficulties remove some of the boss loops, so you still have something fresh to come to on the harder settings. A lazy dev would have simply increased the damage you take from hits or some other simple parameter change to set the difficulty, but here you're getting significant differences at each difficulty level, which is ace!

Madbury, that's brilliant And this is the only fault I can find in Gradius V, to get to the point where the bosses open up their arsenals you have to reach the second loop. I wish I could start playing at that setting from the start.

You know me, I just get frustrated when so many games tend to be grounded or are relatable to reality... so anything that just ignores normal is fine by me. When those rules are bent even further, in just a superficial way, like a dude on hoverboard flying upside down, its great!

@Pizzadude I found Gradius V to be completely bastard hard on the first loop. I couldn't get much beyond the bit early on when you and the other Vic split up through that tunnel section . I didn't really play it that much truth be told.

@Jib. You're in for a treat then as this game laughs in the face of reality. It's all sorts of bonkers.

The problem I had with Gradius V is the same problem I see myself having with this. I can't keep up a decent level of play over a long period, I get mentally drained. Psyvariar was the perfect length for me, it's about 25 minutes from start to finish, but that still doesn't stop Gluon from feeling like 3 hours worth! XD

I LOVE Gradius V, I really do. But try as I might, by the time I hit the stage with the masses of asteroids I'm a complete mess. I have no hope of ever being about being able to play through the whole thing, stage by stage though I cannot fault either game.

Yeah I can see that problem. S&P2 is just too much. I think I commented earlier on the length being a negative. At least you can break it down stage by stage. I find it much more entertaining playing it that way, treating each stage as a game almost in its own right.

A single difficulty setting of this game alone has tons more game than the entirety of what most other stuff we get now offers. I do really enjoy playing it stage by stage, especially as this game presents a completely new play style for each stage.

Here's an impressive Stage 0 normal run, 22m points!

That's the one I've been watching on Nico-Nico Douga, didn't realise he had a Youtube account XD

There's a full run on Hard Mode posted on there, think it's the same guy - it's insane.

Broke this out last night. Haven't the foggiest what is going on. Really like the hold to shoot, tap to melee idea. Not sure on the benefits of running vs floating... and I've had no inclination to use the smart bomb thing but then I am busting out on Easy.

Not looked at any vids, I have no idea how the people on the scoreboards have over 250 downs, I guess that's patience and milking certain areas.

The premise to me seems to be, build the multiplier to the max and try and maintain that to the various bosses for maximum pointitude.

I see on the EU version you only get to see EU and US boards, so the difference must be pronounced.

Time to read what you guys have written now its in context.

(Having been so humiliated by the game I booted up Sega Rally 1995 to appease my ego)

Use of the charged shot is pretty essential. Working out when to use it is the trick, Stage 0 certainly has a rythumn for this, but yeah your focus has to be on building multiplier. Keep looking around for stuff to shoot. It's not always obvious that there are destructible items that can boost multiplier. Don't worry too much about time initially, focus on shooting as much stuff as possible whilst taking no damage.

one tip is that the centre of the targeting reticule will go red if you pass it over something that can be shot and will take damage.

Am I right in thinking that you deflect missiles to the reticule location? That's a bit multitasky.

Intersting at 4:30 he's getting a bunch more enemies than I normally get? I don't get the small robots after destroying those crates. Also I've been shooting the ceiling mounted boxes on that screen to boost multiplier. I'm not sure if that means there are less boxes for the Commander, which is maybe why he's saving them?!

I've been sticking with ISA, so some of the strats in that video for the laser gates won't work.

You do, but you can lock it to a target first using the A button then worry about deflecting with melee (tab B). The guy in the vid uses this method on the larger egg robots (around 4:45). Having said that aiming deflected missiles without the lock-on is something you will need to do to get the big scores.

So yeah it's a bit multitasky as you have to 3 things to worry about all at the same time.

I can see the concern about the length. With Stage 0 being so fulsome, the actual stages are epic! I struggle with remembering the best routes in Sega Rally 1995. I guess, like you say, its finding a rhythm and going with the flow, that way you find interesting things as you go. (and not quitting and restarting on the first botch)

I'm planning on trying the stages until I'm happy to choose one to camp out on and learn in it's entirety. The forest level with all the ghosts and Tengu is a massive NO already, it's too damn long.

It's between Stage 3, Stage 5 and Stage 6 so far, loving the F-Zero action of Stage 5 and the boss is nuts. Stage 6 is masses of rocket deflection in order to keep things manageable, you really need to make a solid plan regarding the order in which you take enemies out.

Mads - the extra set of robots always appear for me just after I've destroyed the set of boxes on the ground when you first enter that section. I still have no idea what triggers the bonus, but I use a charged shot to destroy the boxes, then the robots appear and I do the same again to earn a medal.

Hmm, interesting. On some of my original run throughs I was charge shooting those, but then switched to using the charged shot on the suspended crates and then taking the floor standing units out with normal shot. Will have to give your suggestion a pop. It will explain why I'm falling well short in the shot down stakes.

I've been trying to work out what the bonus condition is there and can't make sense of it. All I'm doing is shooting a few of the boxes as I run into the room, then launching a charge shot when she stops running to take out the remainder. Then the little robots appear, I shoot a few of them, then mop up the rest as soon as the charge shot is available again - this gives the bonus.

But no idea why! T_T

Maybe it's time or health related?

If you charge shot the crates on the ceiling they fall down and knock over the stack of boxes on the floor. They go everywhere, which is really cool, but you still need to shoot them.

I'll try your method tonight and see if I can yield the bonus. Perhaps it's a difference between the JPN and western release? If so seems like a silly change as there's no way to rinse that section in a meaningful way...?

It very well could be that the bonus is time related. I have been awarded the bonus at different points through that section, now I mostly get it after the destruction of the small robots. At first I thought it was a reward for using the charge shot against the boxes on the ground, but it's not that..... man this is only the first stage and it's already making my head hurt! XD

Coolio, the deflection of missiles really steps the game up a notch. Alot more interesting. Now I am feeling it more. Got 200+ downs, but was goofing on retaining the multiplier. So those elements are fusing together into a proper score chaser. Still missing 50 enemies. I'll read above at to what is going on there.

I get that melee gets you a bigger bonus vs just shooting. Are you guys smart bombing the laser beam sections at the most appropriate parts? I feel like I am losing alot of ground in that area.

You can melee about 80-90% of the lasers. I've still not got a meth down with ISA to clear this getting all of them. It's a bit easier with Kachi as she has the multiple lockon.

Wierdly I hadn't considered meleeing LASERS!

I guess you are aiming for the base of them.

In the Kachi vid, the multi lock looked interesting. And the tactic seemed to be speed, except at various points. Interesting. I also noticed a different sequence on Commander, so I guess that is the difficulty level? And the lasers were moving too.

I've only got 2 out of the 5 specials. Is that denoted by the medal that pings down onto the screen? The game feels slightly more embracing than Ikaruga, at least I don't feel like my brain is melting playing it.