April 2020 Shmup Club - Steel Vampire

[MetalFRO]

[img width=670 height=384]https://igg-games.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Steel-Vampire-Free-Download.jpg[/img]

The Japanese shooting game scene has long been plentiful with doujin titles. Single developers, or small studios, lovingly craft games they care about, often for little or no profit. One of the more unknown doujin developers is Akiragoya. That may be due to the fact that most of his games, like Galshell, or the Yakouga series of shooters, were released only in Japan, and are of a more "adult" nature, often with nudity, body horror, and grotesque designs inspired by the likes of famed German artist H.R. Giger. To date, only two of Akiragoya's games have come to the West officially, and commercially. One of those is the more traditional shooting game, Steel Vampire.

Five hundred years have passed since the last war. Humanity has succeeded in eliminating all forms of war, disease, and poverty, bringing about an era of perpetual peace. However, calamity soon strikes! The sudden arrival of flying objects known as Steel Vampires threaten the entirety of mankind's existence. On the brink of extinction, the fate of mankind has been left to a single person; a man deemed far too dangerous to sustain humanity's serenity. He was cryogenically frozen--his existence nearly erased from history. His name is... Yoshino Sakurajima.
Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in April 2020, as we play Steel Vampire, available on Steam!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
SaturdayDevelopment
zoydo
Smakificator

[zoydo]

Steel Vampire? 🤔

[MetalFRO]

Indeed it is!

[SaturdayDevelopment]

Looks good, I'm in.

[zoydo]

Cool, got it on Steam. Haven't played it too much yet, so that's a good opportunity to give it a closer look. I'm in. 👍🏼

[MetalFRO]

Welcome back to both of you!

[zoydo]

Did a few runs during the last days. I played mostly for survival and kept the rank moderate in the later stages, so i got a clear in Very Hard for the first time yesterday.

[img width=500 height=281]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49734010331_1e2efe75b5.jpg[/img]

Also played the Extra Genocide mode (It's unlocked when you finish the game on Very Hard and has 5 Loops). Made it to stage 1 midboss of the third loop (1-13 / 3-1).

[img width=500 height=281]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49734335717_b375d26a3d.jpg[/img]

This is a lot of fun!

[MetalFRO]

Great job on the clear, zoydo! Does Very Hard have more than 1 loop? I assumed so, because of the 1-# format of the stage numbering, but maybe not? I've managed to make it to stage 5 so far, and nearly made it to the end of 5 last night. I'll have to drop my photo in a bit later, when I can get it downloaded off my phone.

[zoydo]

Thanks.
I don't think Very Hard has more than one loop. I checked the online leaderboards and they're all 1-All in every mode. Even Genocide Extra which has 5 loops  says 1-13 instead of 3-1 on the leaderboard.....makes no sense to me.

[Smakificator]

Greetings Earth Humans!   I'm joining in this month officially for the first time.   I've been watching Shmup players on Twitch for a long time.   And watching the Shump club plays by 'Fro for several months.   Usually I dont' have a chance of getting a decent score.  But Steel Vampire is a different beast.   There's a decent chance I can compete.   Here's my scores so far.  Game on!   

[Smakificator]

Update:   Zoydo you da man.   Nice scoring there.

[MetalFRO]

I managed to clear Steel Vampire tonight, on the default Very Hard difficulty!

[zoydo]

@Smakifikator: thanks and welcome to the club.
 Good job so far, keep pushing.💪🏼

@MetalFro: congrats on the clear. 👍🏻

I reached Stage 5 of the third Loop in Genocide Extra yesterday.
Still trying to improve in "Genocide Hard", Stage 1-4 is the best i could do so far.

[MetalFRO]

Smakificator - Please forgive me, I forgot to officially welcome you!

zoydo - there's quite a divide between your Very Hard score, and my own. What are you doing, from a score perspective, as you run through the game? Anything in particular you would recommend?

[zoydo]

I'm still figuring out what's  good for scoring. At the moment i try to play stages 1-3 on a high rank, but not too high so that i still can dodge and don't get hit too much so i can keep my medal chain. In stage 4 i try too keep the rank moderate for the same reason. In stage 5 my rank and medal chain usually drop in the speed trap section. So i try to keep it up as good as possible and build it up at the boss battles again. In stage 6 i try to play on full rank and point blank all enemies. I also try to destroy the different Parts of the bosses and bigger enemies to get more medals and bonus points. But this becomes more difficult the stronger your weapons get, because you literally nuke them away.