Double Spoiler full highscore list

Double Spoiler scores as of 2019/01/31

Scene + Character - Score - Best Shot - Shots Taken - Date (incomplete)

1-1 Aya:     262,945 - 74,838 - 4004 [2017/04/19]
1-1 Hatate: 308,330 - 87,164 - 2266 [2017/04/21]
1-2 Aya:     241,792 - 88,243 - 498 [2015/08/20]
1-2 Hatate: 281,573 - 100,433 - 614 [2015/08/19]
1-3 Aya:     157,678 - 86,580 - 636 [2017/10/07]
1-3 Hatate: 176,839 - 90,139 - 2512 [2017/10/06]
1-4 Aya:     185,748 - 63,636 - 1751 [2017/10/09]
1-4 Hatate: 217,324 - 73,440 - 833 [2017/10/09]
1-5 Aya:     190,648 - 70,899 - 675 [2016/06/12]
1-5 Hatate: 202,614 - 76,469 - 476 [2015/07/30]
1-6 Aya:     223,004 - 72,883 - 50
1-6 Hatate: 234,368 - 64,805 - 105

2-1 Aya:     287,397 - 101,641 - 1278 [2015/07/24]
2-1 Hatate: 404,217 - 124,823 - 2270 [2016/03/23]
2-2 Aya:     211,547 - 78,214 - 709
2-2 Hatate: 234,621 - 85,602 - 227
2-3 Aya:     166,464 - 48,860 - 12989 [2018/03/27]
2-3 Hatate: 190,928 - 54,097 - 1928 [2016/04/23]
2-4 Aya:     162,806 - 60,350 - 1417 [2018/03/15]
2-4 Hatate: 182,697 - 63,045 - 935 [2018/09/20]
2-5 Aya:     354,952 - 95,515 - 4399 [2019/01/25]
2-5 Hatate: 418,875 - 112,630 - 2342 [2019/01/20]
2-6 Aya:     210,155 - 58,733 - 618 [2015/08/22]
2-6 Hatate: 243,833 - 69,135 - 606 [2015/08/22]

3-1 Aya:     392,164 - 116,087 - 456 [2017/02/23]
3-1 Hatate: 415,291 - 132,362 - 453
3-2 Aya:     178,003 - 46,??? - 137 [2015/07/31]
3-2 Hatate: 229,003 - 59,486 - 296 [2016/03/27]
3-3 Aya:     306,448 - 84,695 - 1806 [2017/10/19]
3-3 Hatate: 356,812 - 98,134 - 1707 [2017/10/20]
3-4 Aya:     459,959 - 102,446 - 1834 [2015/01/09]
3-4 Hatate: 577,073 - 128,894 - 2326 [2016/09/08]
3-5 Aya:     375,539 - 80,016 - 903 [2015/08/07]
3-5 Hatate: 466,862 - 99,486 - 1946 [2016/06/11]
3-6 Aya:     230,260 - 90,088 - 558 [2015/08/06]
3-6 Hatate: 288,771 - 111,450 - 514 [2015/08/06]
3-7 Aya:     320,761 - 109,255 - 1159 [2016/03/11]
3-7 Hatate: 393,247 - 133,254 - 1215 [2016/03/06]
3-8 Aya:     300,212 - 90,755 - 5804 [2016/06/03]
3-8 Hatate: 320,404 - 93,345 - 959 [2016/06/04]

4-1 Aya:     505,120 - 128,588 - 1985 [2019/01/18]
4-1 Hatate: 553,017 - 142,172 - 609 [2016/09/03]
4-2 Aya:     348,640 - 88,179 - 745 [2015/08/27]
4-2 Hatate: 270,926 - 90,633 - 687 [2015/08/27]
4-3 Aya:     191,926 - 61,874 - 1970 [2016/11/09]
4-3 Hatate: 204,550 - 63,510 - 1965 [2016/06/21]
4-4 Aya:     279,723 - 71,751 - 2819 [2017/02/24]
4-4 Hatate: 333,143 - 84,010 - 4711 [2017/02/03]
4-5 Aya:     596,564 - 153,310 - 1360 [2016/04/29]
4-5 Hatate: 698,138 - 181,855 - 1276 [2016/04/27]
4-6 Aya:     272,978 - 58,413 - 326 [2016/06/13]
4-6 Hatate: 315,347 - 68,946 - 1337 [2016/06/14]
4-7 Aya:     359,516 - 115,298 - 3828 [2018/08/21]
4-7 Hatate: 344,960 - 98,460 - 1032 [2018/08/22]

5-1 Aya:     318,539 - 76,874 - 451 [2016/11/22]
5-1 Hatate: 367,358 - 88,051 - 532 [2016/11/22]
5-2 Aya:     400,126 - 82,743 - 4900 [2017/08/27]
5-2 Hatate: 513,066 - 105,918 - 2815 [2017/08/24]
5-3 Aya:     700,093 - 182,691 - 4616 [2019/01/14]
5-3 Hatate: 689,287 - 182,738 - 416 [2017/04/12]
5-4 Aya:     700,041 - 159,421 - 3226 [2017/03/30]
5-4 Hatate: 873,318 - 193,755 - 2368 [2017/04/07]
5-5 Aya:     420,282 - 84,412 - 4702 [2017/04/17]
5-5 Hatate: 549,799 - 108,815 -2805 [2017/04/30]
5-6 Aya:     487,608 - 121,343 - 1802 [2016/02/16]
5-6 Hatate: 573,679 - 148,909 - 1731 [2017/04/07]
5-7 Aya:     444,312 - 112,243 - 1149 [2017/04/11]
5-7 Hatate: 543,697 - 137,042 - 456 [2017/04/11]
5-8 Aya:     575,732 - 143,933 - 161 [2016/04/14]
5-8 Hatate: 715,230 - 180,689 - 404 [2016/04/14]

6-1 Aya:     603,014 - 149,730 - 231 [2016/09/11]
6-1 Hatate: 626,292 - 153,935 - 753 [2016/09/11]
6-2 Aya:     403,818 - 95,352 - 686 [2016/11/21]
6-2 Hatate: 509,430 - 118,146 - 1243 [2016/11/18]
6-3 Aya:     299,446 - 64,148 - 3389 [2017/10/27]
6-3 Hatate: 389,579 - 84,884 - 2554 [2017/11/01]
6-4 Aya:     898,789 - 324,474 - 5246 [2018/03/11]
6-4 Hatate: 960,526 - 360,493 - 10563 [2016/03/12]
6-5 Aya:     659,973 - 170,233 - 1239 [2016/09/10]
6-5 Hatate: 720,120 - 180,361 - 751 [2018/02/27]
6-6 Aya:     473,143 - 110,665 - 739
6-6 Hatate: 637,458 - 155,087 - 478 [2015/08/31]
6-7 Aya:     726,190 - 150,319 - 2263 [2018/12/23]
6-7 Hatate: 931,872 - 194,806 - 6382 [2018/12/28]
6-8 Aya:     746,201 - 191,599 - 738 [2015/09/02]
6-8 Hatate: 742,915 - 200,212 - 2248 [2015/09/01]

7-1 Aya:     1,010,186 - 188,216 - 1342 [2016/03/01]
7-1 Hatate: 1,224,103 - 230,693 - 2453 [2016/02/29]
7-2 Aya:     475,249 - 83,122 - 866 [2017/01/13]
7-2 Hatate: 521,579 - 92,388 - 241 [2018/05/24]
7-3 Aya:     945,905 - 196,362 - 3093 [2019/01/06]
7-3 Hatate: 1,205,687 - 247,613 - 786 [2019/01/20]
7-4 Aya:     293,819 - 82,494 - 656 [2016/03/01]
7-4 Hatate: 328,628 - 95,038 - 6361 [2018/06/03]
7-5 Aya:     725,405 - 145,846 - 2679 [2019/01/31]
7-5 Hatate: 723,949 - 147,034 - 5521 [2019/01/29]
7-6 Aya:     1,832,273 - 388,845 - 3622 [2017/10/16]
7-6 Hatate: 2,002,607 - 410,623 - 5041 [2017/10/14]
7-7 Aya:     1,028,104 - 208,039 - 632 [2015/09/10]
7-7 Hatate: 1,189,200 - 239,229 - 448 [2015/09/10]

8-1 Aya:     860,894 - 156,171 - 1421 [2019/01/07]
8-1 Hatate: 935,587 - 172,420 - 90 [2015/08/27]
8-2 Aya:     914,050 - 225,814 - 1588 [2016/02/23]
8-2 Hatate: 952,963 - 245,442 - 1629 [2017/07/16]
8-3 Aya:     3,051,703 - 634,695 - 2940 [2017/02/07]
8-3 Hatate: 3,828,363 - 805,247 - 1308 [2015/08/17]
8-4 Aya:     300,661 - 90,611 - 396 [2015/09/12]
8-4 Hatate: 404,189 - 114,338 - 614 [2015/09/12]
8-5 Aya:     2,284,161 - 389,613 - 9971 [2019/01/08]
8-5 Hatate: 2,119,955 - 366,126 - 4712 [2017/02/22]
8-6 Aya:     858,992 - 201,781 - 3094 [2018/12/31]
8-6 Hatate: 1,089,635 - 255,333 - 7112 [2018/12/31]
8-7 Aya:     661,871 - 127,180 - 3281 [2017/09/20]
8-7 Hatate: 768,382 - 149,052 - 3714 [2017/09/08]
8-8 Aya:     652,333 - 135,556 - 664 [2016/11/19]
8-8 Hatate: 801,704 - 168,238 - 1083 [2016/11/19]

9-1 Aya:     1,055,436 - 271,148 - 4610 [2016/02/28]
9-1 Hatate: 902,548 - 205,026 - 2858 [2016/02/27]
9-2 Aya:     1,400,492 - 306,968 - 3996 [2018/02/14]
9-2 Hatate: 1,770,386 - 394,933 - 5990 [2018/02/21]
9-3 Aya:     3,258,460 - 669,771 - 969 [2017/02/06]
9-3 Hatate: 3,766,834 - 786,656 - 2257 [2017/02/06]
9-4 Aya:     1,041,887 - 157,538 - 628 [2016/04/17]
9-4 Hatate: 1,386,033 - 244,725 - 1025 [2016/04/17]
9-5 Aya:     640,267 - 198,821 - 213
9-5 Hatate: 684,293 - 231,572 - 180
9-6 Aya:     2,148,047 - 418,490 - 2359 [2015/08/04]
9-6 Hatate: 2,342,238 - 461,516 - 2321 [2015/08/04]
9-7 Aya:     671,761 - 258,732 - 7674 [2019/01/22]
9-7 Hatate: 844,197 - 317,684 - 4619 [2017/08/16]
9-8 Aya:     690,649 - 222,269 - 1242 [2015/08/09]
9-8 Hatate: 738,470 - 204,192 -  649 [2015/08/10]

10-1 Aya:     1,003,120 - 252,964 - 13771 [2018/09/21]
10-1 Hatate: 1,081,945 - 276,783 - 20970 [2018/10/06]
10-2 Aya:     1,548,738 - 362,480 - 3998 [2018/02/06]
10-2 Hatate: 1,290,535 - 351,561 - 5285 [2018/02/03]
10-3 Aya:     908,622 - 145,941 - 534 [2017/01/17]
10-3 Hatate: 1,011,354 - 172,851 - 2819 [2017/01/18]
10-4 Aya:     655,413 - 148,858 - 288 [2015/02/07]
10-4 Hatate: 628,575 - 183,827 - 511 [2015/02/07]
10-5 Aya:     5,152,386 - 1,068,516 - 10832 [2018/12/18]
10-5 Hatate: 5,110,838 - 1,035,770 - 5171 [2018/12/22]
10-6 Aya:     959,834 - 183,194 - 5754 [2018/01/31]
10-6 Hatate: 1,068,792 - 210,655 - 3249 [2018/01/19]
10-7 Aya:     3,580,900 - 552,532 - 5577 [2018/10/13]
10-7 Hatate: 4,116,249 - 652,915 - 10266 [2018/10/08]
10-8 Aya:     1,298,391 - 278,111 - 1647 [2017/01/22]
10-8 Hatate: 1,613,411 - 341,599 - 1121 [2017/01/22]

11-1 Aya:     1,514,918 - 304,942 - 5985 [2017/05/17]
11-1 Hatate: 1,740,186 - 352,574 - 3738 [2017/05/08]
11-2 Aya:     1,167,845 - 225,311 - 992 [2017/02/22]
11-2 Hatate: 1,136,759 - 210,805 - 1371 [2017/02/22]
11-3 Aya:     190,465 - 58,433 - 470 [2016/03/02]
11-3 Hatate: 229,150 - 68,538 - 410 [2016/03/01]
11-4 Aya:     352,289 - 91,361 - 1517 [2016/04/14]
11-4 Hatate: 380,685 - 100,777 - 916 [2016/04/20]
11-5 Aya:     807,035 - 139,807 - 892 [2016/04/16]
11-5 Hatate: 1,058,111 - 184,273 -1703 [2016/04/16]
11-6 Aya:     1,352,193 - 311,141 - 778
11-6 Hatate: 1,278,249 - 376,939 - 275
11-7 Aya:     414,219 - 88,592 - 1866 [2018/04/24]
11-7 Hatate: 486,786 - 103,990 - 3132 [2018/05/21]
11-8 Aya:     1,938,360 - 511,734 - 2049 [2019/01/07]
11-8 Hatate: 2,048,452 - 563,521 - 2275 [2019/01/11]

12-1 Aya:     2,469,222 - 678,662 - 440 [2016/03/12]
12-1 Hatate: 2,749,564 - 777,353 - 624 [2016/03/12]
12-2 Aya:     848,896 - 236,175 - 3174 [2017/09/27]
12-2 Hatate: 969,694 - 277,035 - 1648 [2017/09/28]
12-3 Aya:     1,776,617 - 390,374 - 3294 [2018/09/19]
12-3 Hatate: 1,827,790 - 414,355 - 2607 [2018/09/19]
12-4 Aya:     1,412,926 - 310,897 - 6580 [2018/04/08]
12-4 Hatate: 1,398,372 - 280,842 - 14190 [2018/04/08]
12-5 Aya:     3,118,859 - 626,638 - 402 [2016/03/14]
12-5 Hatate: 3,659,433 - 602,274 - 1367 [2016/04/07]
12-6 Aya:     1,551,898 - 415,572 - 582 [2016/04/19]
12-6 Hatate: 1,974,466 - 535,760 - 3690 [2016/04/25]
12-7 Aya:     1,812,676 - 328,034 - 3050 [2018/09/11]
12-7 Hatate: 1,987,172 - 364,238 - 4521 [2018/09/17]
12-8 Aya:     3,019,404 - 399,900 - 11877 [2017/07/08]
12-8 Hatate: 3,457,116 - 468,656 - 14843 [2017/07/07]

EX-1 Aya:     509,179 - 139,037 - 1008 [2017/02/12]
EX-1 Hatate: 623,015 - 140,822 - 1014 [2017/02/16]
EX-2 Aya:     896,097 - 282,522 - 504 [2018/04/18]
EX-2 Hatate: 931,772 - 285,245 - 908 [2018/04/20]
EX-3 Aya:     717,656 - 217,999 - 1568 [2018/03/22]
EX-3 Hatate: 825,277 - 242,566 - 2120 [2018/04/18]
EX-4 Aya:     1,643,936 - 482,697 - 173 [2015/02/05]
EX-4 Hatate: 1,828,776 - 525,046 - 141 [2015/02/05]
EX-5 Aya:     932,806 - 210,435 - 749 [2017/02/12]
EX-5 Hatate: 1,242,550- 276,834 - 1860 [2017/02/12]
EX-6 Aya:     1,239,180 - 408,300 - 13472 [2017/11/29]
EX-6 Hatate: 1,405,537 - 468,231 - 17920 [2017/11/23]
EX-7 Aya:     814,623 - 168,272 - 787 [2016/04/23]
EX-7 Hatate: 898,330 - 185,968 - 1136 [2016/04/22]
EX-8 Aya:     1,273,373 - 427,205 - 511 [2017/10/10]
EX-8 Hatate: 1,297,690 - 405,162 - 559 [2017/10/10]
EX-9 Aya:     4,145,294 - 917,422 - 2524 [2017/05/21]
EX-9 Hatate: 4,969,680 - 1,097,540 - 325 [2017/05/21]


SP-1: 152,164 - 152,164 - 56 [2015/08/26]
SP-2: 669,649 - 173,272 - 414
SP-3: 521,095 - 186,199 - 90
SP-4: 932,695 - 173,677 - 596 [2016/05/18]
SP-5: 189,944 - 189,944 - 78 [2015/08/26]
SP-6: 383,853 - 109,721 - 95
SP-7: 429,311 - 292,001 - 130
SP-8: 519,506 - 112,274 - 81
SP-9: 1,568,906 - 277,744 - 4337 [2016/11/17]

Aya score: 99,827,354
Hatate score: 106,065,230
Playtime: 1450:29.29

https://www.mediafire.com/file/9yimy8ird8z301s/2021_may.rar/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/75r3g2ffcmq44xv/2021_may.zip/file

StB return and FW things

Last month I made some attempts to reach 100 million in FW Extra. I gave up pretty fast, and went to StB, which I've been playing a good chunk the last 30 days... and I got some pretty satisfying scores, as well as finally reaching 67 million total score. 68 million in 2016? We'll see!

Anyways, the new StB scores are as follows, in chronological order:

6-5: 373,350
10-1: 2,129,740
EX-8: 1,811,200
8-1: 822,140 
8-8: 3,112,980
2-2: 115,440
2-4: 141,130
6-2: 232,760
6-8: 523,890

Thoughts on the runs/future prospects of the scenes:

6-5: I am very happy how this turned out. The luck was fantastic on the last two photos which allowed this score, but I really like how you can choose to bide your time in this scene. The time is obviously not unlimited (in fact, you really aren't given much time to stall) but there's enough time left over that you don't need to feel forced to take the pictures if you can tell that there's not enough pellets for a good photo. Despite that it's still a matter of luck in the long run because the timer is limited and, at least for me, it's not possible to know the outcome of a photo before I take one. With a lot of experience in this scene you can learn to use your intuition and see roughly if a photo will be good or bad.

There is definitely room for more luck, but this should still prove to be incredibly hard to beat. I have no intentions of improving it, but it's a fun scene, so you never know.

Lastly, surviving in this scene is definitely far from trivial, but I suppose I'm pretty good at it. I felt pretty comfortable dodging the barrages although the deaths were somewhat frequent, certainly not unbearably so.

10-1: In my opinion this is the best score I have in this game. My 6-5 and 9-6 scores are comparable, but this is the one that seems hardest to improve right now. For the first 6 photos, you want frame perfect photos. 1 frame early or 1 frame late costs a lot of score. In addition, I figured out great composition on the first 3 photos, but I only used the best composition on the 3rd photo in order to save time since it takes a long time to set up for. Photo 4-6 can be optimized further by getting the optimal movement patterns, but that's not something I want to stall for. The last two photos are RNG, the base value of the photos vary wildly, but it's also very tough to survive and get 2.0/1.9 boss shots and self shots.

In my run I got great luck on the last two photos, as well as 2 or 3 (I can't remember) of frames total mistakes, which is around 20,000 loss or so. My sum of best for this scene is roughly 2,188,000.

I will never try to improve this score.


EX-8: Sloppy run and with a compromise photo as the finish because the last two photos are almost impossible to take optimally... The compromise still aims to take a self shot and a nice shot but drops majorly from the boss shot multiplier.

I want minimum of 2 million out of this scene in the future, but it is so insanely hard... 

8-1: I don't enjoy this scene because of the stalling in the first three photos, but this is a pretty bad score so I'll improve it eventually.

8-8: Around half the time I simply die right after a photo because of the leftover butterfly bullets. Since there's 4 photos, that means that there's 3 such times per run, which means that around 7 out of 8 runs just die. That's pretty brutal, and in addition, the runs take a long time, the scores are all over the place, and it's just weird, subtle optimization to try to set up for good photos. I started grasping it more and more eventually, but it's still a bit hazy. Nonetheless, this was a pretty satisfying score, although I would like a 3.2 some day! 

2-2: It's one of those easy luck-grind scenes. I feel pretty satisfied with the great luck I got, 116+ is just too tight for me, so probably not playing this one again. 

2-4: This is another luck-grind scene but I actually like this one. There's a cool approach in Fisty's run that I started sort-of copying (but with my own, simpler techniques). In the end I got a great run which is only 30 points behind Fisty. I kept playing another day after that but couldn't get close to that luck again, so I moved on. Maybe in the future I will go for the record, but it feels kind of silly to aim for 40 points improvement... and I don't feel strongly about a personal score, my ego just wants the record lol.

6-2: This is an unique scene in how the photos are taken, and in the end I settled on the unfocus - dash - aim up-right technique. I use my mouse cursor to tell where to stop, and both a part of the screen-border background and the mouse cursor to tell which horizontal position to start from. I try to find the right vertical position during the little time to get, then I count to 3 when Youmu slashes, dash up at 2, and aim up-right at 3 and let go. The composition is fairly consistent (Youmu sometimes ends up outside the picture, but that's ok, since you can just retry with no penalty except time. I never really get Youmu too far right/down in the picture, which is important.) but the timing is hard, so missing the frames leads to a lot of restarts. In my run, the first photo was bad, but the last one was really high!

6-8: This scene is a luck-grind but it's more based on skill than 6-4 and 6-6, and I think I just now got to the point where I actually need to be lucky to make improvements. I think this is my favorite Youmu scene. I don't think I can take the record, but perhaps if I ever get a superb final photo we'll see about it... I think that around 540-550k is pretty realistic for me if I work hard at it.

Right now I want to make improvement son 6-4 and 6-6 in addition to 6-8, to give Youmu some love. 6-4 and 6-6 have been stuck for a long time, though. They are major luckgrinds, particularly 6-6 seems nearly impossible to improve at this point, and I'm actually pretty fine with the score staying where it is, but I've been pretty close to the record on 6-6 since summer last year, and I definitely have a chance...

As for other scenes, I have been playing a good chunk of 2-3 as well, another luckgrind but honestly quite tough to get the photos right in at the end. Still, getting the luck is super important, particularly on the second photo where you get a blue shot like 1 in 10 runs, and without that blue shot, it's almost hopeless. A few other scenes have been part of my rotation but they aren't particularly on my radar right now. Maybe next month?

Picture of my current overall score.

 

-

In addition, played a good bit of FW, mainly Extra and some Easy B1.

I improved the Extra score to 98.9 million, and Easy B1 to 35.6 million. Easy C1 was also improved to 36.5 million, although that one is a work in progress. Extra is a work in progress as well but because the competition is at such a high level, it's hard to make improvements... I think that realistically, 102 million might come out, but I'll leave that to someone else... 100 million is enough for me and, possibly the record, but that might never happen...

Easy B1 is good as it is.

Total score should be 1.791b now, so another 9 millions worth of improvements to make. That should be doable. 

I also got 360~ million in PoFV with Reisen, but I think I can get higher than that... 

Recent efforts

Updates for May and June.

Highscore list is updated

Normal A1: 57,459,930 > 58,945,400 [+1,485,470]

Normal A2: 68,041,970 > 69.7 > 70.5 > 70.57 > 71.0 > 71.1 > 72,022,590 [+3,980,620]

Normal C2: 57,884,340 > 58,542,010 [+657,670]

Total score: 1,782,005,240 > 1,788,129,000 [+6,123,760]


I will go over the contents in the Normal A2 replay, it being the more notable accomplishment this time.

The C2 replay is also quite good, and A1 is a work in progress, so I will try to raise it. How much I don't know. All the same, Gasoline's A1 replay is absolutely amazing, so I may not try to score higher than, say, 60 million.

On the Normal mode, I am also very interested in improving B1, and want to raise my current score (55,881,900) much higher as well. Aside from this, I am probably going to tackle the Extra stage next, when I feel ready.

Anyways, going over the A2 replay:

Stage 1 before Lily: poor. I get the first 30% area, but afterwards, freeze is messed up and kills extra fairy, removing points from the next freeze.

Lily White: Nonspell 1 is passable, with 3 out of 4 30% area. however, 4th freeze killed lily, so the 5th (small freeze) is excluded.

Nonspell 2 is OK, but I don't understand how to get highest score on the last freeze without losing frozen items.

Second half of stage 1 is fair.

Luna Nonspell 1 is terrible, with the first 6 (smaller) freezes being far below average, and the next 3 (bigger) freezes all below 30% area. However, the second nonspell is OK,  which is pretty important for the run. Two 30% area freezes on Luna Cyclone, this is important to make stage 2 better, but otherwise Luna Cyclone gave me some terrible movement luck which removes score. Overall a bad stage 1 score, but enough PF for stage 2.

End stage 1 with 7,590,570 score, 253%PF, 567% motivation. Keep in mind I do not use PF on Luna Nonspell 2, instead, I use it on stage 2.

Stage 2 pre-Lily Black:  Fine. The PF nets me 309,600 from the freeze, and an additional 133,480 (items, damage) totaling at +443,080. Worthwhile, in my opinion.

Lily Black:  Nonspell 3 luck is what is truly important here, but Nonspell 2 is also rather easy to mess up.  Nonspell 2 was good, but Nonspell 3 luck was just OK.

Stage 2 post-Lily:  The Knife-Ring Fairy 3rd freeze was wrong, so I lost a 30% area. However, I got all the frozen items from the three duos at the end. Besides, I didn't end up needing the extra PF from a better knife ring freeze, so it's not that bad.

Start Sunny with 13,368,600 score, 230%PF, 780%motivation. A decent start.

Nonspell 1: Close to an early defeat, but this is ordinary. Final PF position was weak.

Prism Flash: Good. I actually want to defeat it on the last wave, but doing this with ice without losing the SCB is hard. So this works.

Nonspell 2: It is important to start this with high enough PF to avoid having to use 3 suicides. Thankfully my PF was easily high enough for this. I do a little bit of milking at the end to ensure I have enough leftover PF for a smooth stage 3. PF positions were good.

Diamond Ring: This is the bane of all runs. In order to get awesome scores, you want to get good luck here. At the very least, avoid bad luck. The difference between terrible and awesome luck is something crazy like 2.5 million. Not counting the last freeze which is always lower, I average around 550,000 per freeze. This is good luck.

Blue Deflection: The point here is farming enough PF  and then using PF at the end. Sometimes I would hardly get enough time, so a lot of runs almost died here, or actually did die here. I prefer to start stage 3 with at least  136%PF. I need 200% by the time I use two bombs, and I can easily get 64% on the way. However, in critical situations I can make do with 135 or even 134%PF, but this is very risky. The PF you gain on stage 3 before the 2nd bomb goes as follows: 20%+PF>20%+PF>20%+PF,2-3%+PF>2-3%PF. 2-3 depends on those very tiny freezes you do. If I know I have to get 3%, I will make sure I get that, but it may delay the timing of the bomb, kill a fairy, or some other stupid thing like that, in a worst case scenario.

Anyway, stage 3 is started with 27,756,100 score, 144%PF, 671% motivation. This is a very good start.

Right at the beginning, I make a little mistake with the 2nd freeze, which is smaller. However, other than that, no big complaints before midboss, but notably the very last freeze was really high.

Star Sapphire midboss. In my opinion, this is hardest part of the run. The nonspell is pretty easy generally, but may be hard to optimize. Her spell, on the other hand, ended many runs.

Going over the nonspell, this is a major source of points, and luck is also a big component. The strategy is 4 suicide freeze, 3 bomb freeze (not necessarily in this order) and hopefully enough health left over for a final, smaller (but still 30% area freeze). If Star moves too close to the side, you cant go through two rings like you are supposed to, losing you points. However, there is an upside to a movement pattern like this, which is that if you bomb freeze, the regular freeze will not hurt Star, and so you are guaranteed to have enough leftover health for the final freeze. My movement pattern went something like this. Star generally hung close enough to the middle (but not always in great spots) that I could go through two rings, but at one point she went too close to the side, losing me points. However, because she had taken so much damage, this ended up being OK. I didn't gain back the points I lost compared to good luck, but I did get 20% extra PF, so it's not a terrible trade. So, the luck was good enough, but not amazing.

Moving on to her spell, it was extremely scary. Before second freeze, my point-blanking was not good enough, and I get only about 60% ice power. A mistake like this will often spell doom, but somehow I recovered. I quickly noticed my charge was too low, go back under side for a split second to shoot her, and then end up with around 76% ice power instead, which makes it more feasible to recover. There were still many bullets in the way to try to pointblank for the 3rd freeze, but I made it. Even so, several of the dashes to pointblank Star were close calls. I'm lucky I didn't die on this.

Stage 3 second half: Clean.

3 Fairies (Star leader) start: 41,234,110 score, 118%PF, 605% motivation. This is the highest score I've had at this point. I've had multiple high 40s runs before, but never started with over 41m prior to this. Both PF and Motivation is good for executing my strategies.

Nonspell 1, Spell 1, and Nonspell 2, all go well according to plan.

Ice Dissolver was a little scary, but it went well. The plan is to milk it for a higher PF, so I can execute my strategies. Although some points are dropped from SCB, overall this is worth the extra points I can gain from using an extra PF and suicide.

Nonspell 3 is immediatley a mistake. I pointblank Star and get only 60% ice power. I do a suicide freeze at the start, and without higher ice power, I lose score. Around 100,000 dropped.

Next, strategy is to alternate between these 4 things, not necessarily in order.
Very big Freeze without damaging Sunny. Use this when you respawn from a suicide. Calculate how to freeze depending on all the fairy positions as well as your own, for maximized score without damaging Sunny. Sunny is the major source points. You can get 300,000+ with good movement luck for a freeze like this.
Smaller freeze without damaging Sunny. If you can, pointblank Star Sapphire and you may be able to use a bigger freeze. Otherwise, You can try to nudge Star+Luna with your shot to up your ice power further and you may be able to even reach 30% area freezes.
PF. With my strategies I can use 3PF here, with only 2 suicide. Very important to make sure 2nd PF does not kill Sunny, it will kill her if you damage her with your regular freezes.
Suicide Freeze. Do at least 2 of these, but possibly 3.

Unfortunately I only got to do 1 suicide freeze, because I lost the second life on accident instead of suiciding. This cost some score as well, but I didn't need to spend a 3rd life because my PF% ended up high enough for 3 bombs. Luck was also not so good, so many points were dropped here compared to a great score.

Orion Belt: I had some trouble adjusting to the RNG, but I did manage to keep Luna alive for a long time. Unfortunately, this attack was defeated one wave early. Dropped a little score, but not a terribly huge amount.

Nonspell 4: First freeze is a nice trick to gain 20% PF without actually damaging Star. It segues right into a bomb. I can't complain too much, but this really could have gone way better. On the second to last freeze, the 3rd ring is completely unfrozen! This is horrible, and I tried to adjust, but then the last freeze defeated Star without me wanting. She must have had just barely not enough health to survive that freeze. Lame! But, good enough to not kill the run.

Fairy Overdrive:  Fair. Resource farming was as good as necessary, and I got the sidefairy frozen items. SCB is pretty much always going to be low on this, and at least I did cap it in time. I didn't get Star's items, so that's 60,000 dropped.

Final Spell: This was scarier than it has any right to be, but nothing majorly wrong.

(Ignore #1, it was ultra patch)

A very good run in my opinion, but I can't stress  how important Gasoline's 71.3 million run is. The research Gasoline has done to make this score a reality is amazing, and I simply followed most of their strategies with only a few changes and improvements. FW, with its lack of practice modes and the like, is not an easy game to research, and especially not because of its depth and organic nature. A2 in particular is very very much based on luck. Patience and consistency is huge to have that luck in a well executed run.

I will abstain from writing commentary on the C2 run bit by bit, but I will say that it was also quite well played and is worth watching for those interested in FW. I feel it is a little worse, because I have not spent the proper time to truly polish all the strategies to that level of optimization. plus the luck could be much better. But, it may be hard to beat all the same.


On a sidenote, with a total score at 1.788b, 1.8b is getting closer and closer. Perhaps I can reach it before 2016.


Other games: I did play some Batrider and managed to reach letter score (10 mil) on Special Course with Solo Carpet. However, I did not clear the game... Which is a shame, since a clear would have been something like 10.6 or 10.7 mil. I believe 12 million is possible if you are willing to grind out incredible luck over the course of the run.

April overview

I played Lunatic only in FW. The following scores were updated:

B1: 101,082,530 -> 102,109,460 (+1,026,930)
B2: 100,524,840 -> 100,981,660 -> 101,401,960 -> 102,935,550 (+2,410,710)
C1: 100,164,660 -> 100,950,740 -> 101,185,780 -> 102,247,660 (+2,083,000)

+5,520,640 to the total score.

I think the C1 run is the best score I have gotten so far.

Stage 1: C1 is definitely the easiest stage 1 on Lunatic for optimization, mainly because of the simplistic boss fight. The luck elements just aren't severe in the stage portion or boss fight, and the challenge level is generally low.

That's not to say that it's trivial, the first 30 seconds of the stage in particular is difficult to get past with my patterns.

Pre-midboss, the score variances when things are going "relatively" right aren't too severe, but I still demand above average luck on the very first portion.

The opening spam is done with two freezes, and I restart if I don't have 330,000 after this, I estimate around 40-45% chance. In addition, you may die at times, so maybe 2 out of 5 runs pass the spam. Note that with super luck you can get over 400,000 from the spam, so in eventual future attempts I may up the bar a bit.

The next section with the 4 corner fairies is much tougher. My pattern is to be near the bottom left when the 2nd spawning fairy (in the top left) starts shooting the 4th set of aimed bullets. Exactly as it starts doing this, you sprint through the mayhem towards the bottom right and freeze there. Do this correctly for around 140,000 and without killing the 3rd (top right) fairy.

My pattern is still somewhat lenient, because I keep going if the 3rd fairy dies. It only removes a small portion of your score, so no big deal.

The rest is routine including the midboss. However the largest mistake in this stage 1 was at the end of the midboss, the last freeze was complete shit. 100-150,000~ loss.

Post-midboss has two sections, the first section is easy, but the second is tricky. Let's call this the knife ring section.

My pattern can get just about as much out of it as I can even think of being possible, but it is tough to optimize despite 0 RNG. Your positioning and timing needs to be spot on, before and after every freeze, but FW isn't so simple that that would be all. You have to adjust your positionings and timings according to your ice power and, if any freeze should be slightly different from the ideal pattern, the rest of the pattern also must be altered.

In this run it went well enough except that one freeze didn't follow the exact pattern, resulting in some freaky readjusting strats for the next freeze, quite difficult.

Star Sapphire is by far the simplest stage 1 boss, and I'd say my fight was okay. The nons really aren't worth mentioning, but the first spell is quite tough to optimize since the luck element is relatively high and the danmaku is difficult. My strategy includes a planned bomb for this which is better than capping it if you can get some good milking done, besides, there's not really much you can do with that bomb.

The last spell was bad, but it's actually not a big deal at all, so I can move on safely. A death anywhere on this stage is an instant restart, but thankfully most of the deaths happens at the start, and not on Star.

Stage 2: C1-2 is pretty difficult and the luck element is fairly severe. The pattern is half-assed along the way to the midboss, missing two 30% areas. Lily White is so luck based and difficult to optimize but scoring  wise I have little complaints, decent RNG on the first nonspell, 2 suicide 1 PF is used on the 2nd nonspell, the last freeze on the 2nd non was a bit low. The main issue here is the accidental death at the end of the 3rd nonspell. My suicide patterns are on the strict side so accidental deaths in the wrong place at the wrong time can completely kill a run. In this case the death shoots me up to 300% PF during the chaos section and I've lost a potential suicide later.

Important to keep in mind that with Sunny Milk as the stage boss, PF usage on Lily and the stage portion is less worthwhile. Due to this, spend only 1 PF on the second half of the stage. I reach 2 out of 3 30% area at the end, It's ok, because I still start Sunny Milk with 279% PF and I don't need any more than that. It is not the best idea to bomb the very first wave of the first non, better to wait at least until the 3rd wave and hope Sunny moved back to the middle (and downward) for that wave. If she doesn't, you may want to sit at 300% PF for a short while while waiting, or just fire away the bomb. This is totally just preference. I prefer just firing the bomb before I reach 300%. You need all the PF you can get.

Fatal Flash wasn't the best luck and I botched the final freeze I was supposed to do. The second nonspell was a little wrong, main issue is that the second suicide was timed too late, eating up bullets from the wave after. Cross Diffusion was completely wrong. I was trying to follow a new pattern I had just developed but the very first freeze ended up being messed up so I had to do some crazy dodging as a result. Yellow Deflection is quickly killed off for high SCB and enough PF to bomb the stage 3 ring fairies without any more suicides. In the end, the scoring on Sunny Milk was really just passable, but I still consider the fight good because there were no accidental deaths at all and that is a difficult feat in a scoring run, and I can follow a solid resource route on stage 3 without spending any needless lives.

Stage 3: Opening section is low and the very first bomb is mistimed. I counted 1 extra ring for some reason (You are supposed to bomb on the 6th shot, I bombed on the 7th). At least I adjusted on the second bomb. I didn't hear the first ring, so I counted to 6 but bombed on 7... Stupid.

Luna Child's nonspell was great, it can go higher but it is extremely difficult to optimize. It is just one of those things where the base strategy is pretty simple, but getting the most out of it is just ridiculous. I followed the pattern on Silent Flower successfully, and the luck was good. However, my execution was lacking. The first bomb can be better and one of the last freezes was low, neither of these were due to bad luck. But, still, I consider the midboss a success overall.

The second half of the stage goes well, with a freeze hitting exactly 420,000. I was not high during this run. Anyway, the time based fairies went well, and thankfully because this is C1 and not A2, I don't have to worry about an optimized bomb at the end which can be such a tough bomb to get right. NB patterns are smoother.

I start the Three Fairies with 589 motivation, 167 PF, and 39.58m. This is pretty much exactly enough to execute the kind of boss fight that I want, so overall, if things go well, one accidental death is all that is really allowed over the course of the run (aside from some odd instances in the final boss, where you can maybe "accidentally" die on the 4th non for example)

First nonspell: Goal is to quickly get the frozen items (very difficult) and then get 30% areas from Luna (also difficult). Each second you spend trying to get the items is penalizing. If you take too long you can kiss the run goodbye. Even if you do it quickly, if you can't milk Luna well, kiss the run goodbye. So this part of the run is very dramatic. I missed a frozen item set, and scored not even a single 30% area, so overall it was a poor nonspell and I was very very close to losing the run due to that.

Full Moon Light: Goal here is to be able to use 4 PF, with 1 suicide. No problem if your PF% is high enough at the start, but since my PF% was low, it was a big problem and I was half-expecting the run die right here. You must score the maximum number of regular freezes without killing the side fairies. Then you must get 30% area from the side fairy suicide bullets. Then you must get 30% area on the suicidefreeze and then you can farm up the final bomb with tiny freezes. I had 101% PF when I used my bomb, so it was very close.

Second nonspell went according to plan. Ice Dissolver was excellent. I used to have a 2PF pattern for it but I've since switched to 3PF. Third nonspell was good execution but poor RNG, regrettably. You can't get everything you wish for even in a good run like this. On Triple Light, I do not do a speedkill, but that's not just because speedkilling is harder, but I actually need PF now to score 1 bomb for the 4th non. I milked the 4th non very aggressively without dying, it was crazy, and a single death couldve easily ended the whole run too. I start Fairy Overdrive with less PF than what I would prefer to have (114, I want at least 120). If I had had 1 less life, I would've wanted 145. FO is milked pretty well so I have 219 PF (244 after the suicide) for the final spell, which is really cutting it close. I'd say 220 (245) is the absolute least you should ever have and anything less than that is scary. My motivation was also at 890 (so 790 after the suicide) which is the minimum you should have without losing the maxed clear bonus.

The run held together throughout the boss fight somehow but it was so, so close to not making it, even a single minor freeze difference anywhere in the fight and the run would've ended, and a single accidental death would've ended it too. 102 million on C1 is very satisfying and I never thought I could reach it when I played last year. With some skill improvements, some pattern changes here and there and a new mindset, I somehow managed this. C1 can still go a bit higher, at least 103 million is fairly possible and 104 is certainly not impossible. But, this is the most "finalized" of my Lunatic scores and I will not beat this score anytime soon.


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Next, let's talk about B1 and B2 briefly.

B1 first.

Stage 1 stage portion was cheap, this is probably the worst aspect of the whole run, but Sunny Milk was a success.

Star Sapphire was very shaky, with a poor first nonspell, and 2 accidental deaths in the fight. Still, the score was actually not so bad overall. A regular freeze on Comet Stream somehow scored 500,000, which is hands down one of the most confusing things I have ever managed to do in this game.

Stage 3 stage portion was excellent, and the boss fight was good overall, but there is room for improvement. In particular, there is a better pattern you can use on Break Canopy, but I consider it so hellish that I didn't want to include it for 102m attempts. If I ever try to improve this run, I will probably start doing the difficult Break Canopy pattern, but I don't expect to ever finish with that pattern...

As for B2, I collected the most major losses (compared to an estimated near-ideal)

Sunny Milk nonspell 1: big freeze -150,000, bomb -200,000

Lily nonspell 3 bomb: -400,000 (probably less with my RNG) Knife ring fairies: -200,000 (brain freeze)

Star Storm: -500,000 (dead) Great Triangle: -400,000 (dead & subpar freeze pattern) Nonspell 4: -400,000

Fairy Overdrive: -250,000 (frozen item loss, low SCB) Big losses totals: 2,500,000

No extra PF could be enabled by avoiding accidental deaths, nor did I miss any meaningful suicides.

The run was pretty uneven but the amazing luck on Sunny Milk and solid milking on Ice Dissolver among other successes really makes it a good run overall even with how horrible some of the mistakes were.

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I spent a lot of time playing Etrian Odyssey 3 this month, but sort of lost my motivation in the 5th stratum. I want to beat the game so hopefully I'll get back to it. My party is Hoplite/Ninja, Princess/Ninja, Arbalist/Gladiator, Zodiac/Arbalist, Ninja/Zodiac.

I still play Money Puzzle Exchanger and I've finally started to crack a million points sometimes. My best score now is 1.4 million.

I've played some Batrider and upped my Normal Course score to C.9 (12.9) million. In the advanced course I've done mostly Carpet solo runs and also a few Garegga/Carpet runs, however, nothing but Game Overs so far. If I can finish a good Carpet run I should be getting at least a H or I (17-18 million). Teams are iffy for me, I prefer playing Carpet until I have a better run at least.


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For future FW, I want to improve the Lunatic A2 to at least 117 million. After that, I am unsure. Either I will battle with the Extra stage, or I will start working on Normal, I think.

March overview

The score posts for Shoot the Bullet (link) and Fairy Wars (link) have been updated.

The following scores were produced for Fairy Wars:

Normal B1 - 55,881,900
Hard A2 - 87,425,610
Hard B2 - 76,905,060
Hard B1 - 74,603,130
Hard C1 - 75,333,510
Normal C1 - 59,624,220
Lunatic A2 - 116,199,330
Lunatic A1 - 103,423,130
Hard A1 - 74,349,760
Lunatic C2 - 105,483,820
Lunatic B1 - 101,082,530

The Lunatic scores are the most satisfying.

Sum of all categories (all routes, all difficulties, and the extra stage) is currently 1,776,484,600. Slowly inching closer to 1,800,000.

Abstain from blogging about any particular play because there were just too many. Although I am still playing Lunatic B1, so I may dedicate a post to that sometime. Like if I reach the 102 million score.

There's still many categories that feel obscure, however. My understanding of Extra and many others is limited. I want to do the absolute best I can in every category. Every single one. It may not seem like it, since I play mainly Lunatic, but that's how it is. The journey won't end until my motivation runs out (ha ha)

While I am working on the Fairy Wars for the most part (at a modest pace! don't want to burn out on my favorite game) I occasionally play other games, and below are some other runs I recall having done.



In Shoot the Bullet:

9-4 - 723,580
6-5 - 361,840
9-7 - 1,054,770

Reasonable score with bonkers luck feels like around 730k for 9-4 and 375k for 6-5. 9-4 crazy score is deliberately put as a little lower due to a higher difficulty of finishing. Both are highly reliant on luck after certain thresholds (around 715+ and 350+)

I still want to push the 6-5 score higher, until I feel that the run is so lucky that it is almost impossible to beat. Play occasionally and hope for a miracle.

9-7 is not well understood at all, as such, my score isn't very high. I may try to understand it better in the future. I don't think there's a luck factor in 9-7.



In Ten Desires:

I achieved 2MNBNT on 3 separate occasions.

All 3 runs died in different spots.

Because the game is mostly very boring, I feel it is a waste of time and effort to play much more NBNT. Originally I wanted LNNN, but I am already sick to death of TD, so probably no more attempts.

There is still the will to achieve LNN(N) in a mainseries game. EoSD is my favorite mainseries game for LNB, but achieving LNN in EoSD feels like a pipe dream at the moment, with how terrible my consistency is for the books. And I really can't feel satisfied with a 1MNB or something. As far as NB is concerned, I can only be satisfied with NMNB at this point. Because of this I don't play EoSD LNB at all since the PB sits comfortably at 3MNB and improving it to 2M or 1M wouldn't be satisfying at all.



In Metal Black:

Score of 582,160. It is low because I was playing and learning very little, and haven't even properly memorized the stage layouts.

Although impressed with the aesthetic and soundtrack, there is no will to improve the score because scoring in Metal Black is rather boring.

Maybe want to try another Taito Hori game for score in the future, such as Darius Gaiden. We'll see.

Overall: my most fruitful month so far for Fairy Wars, it seems I am still improving and understanding the game more and more. I suspect there's many more FW updates to come!

#2: B1 Normal, 6/6 LNN

B1 Normal score was pushed to 55,8 million points.

It was a bit rushed and isn't one of my better plays, but I'll still go through the run  to give a rough idea of the contents.

I don't plan on improving the score for now, but I want to improve it significantly in the future.

Stage 1: Pre-Daiyousei is routine, but the entire stage portion, including Dai's third nonspell, was very good. I got every 30% area, and start Sunny Milk with 289% PF.

Sunny Milk: Execution a bit shaky on the second nonspell, but the luck was good during the fight. Overall a great stage 1.

Stage 2: Start with 7,31m, 363 motivation, 165 PF. I somehow start stage 2 with a higher score than the B2 run, despite having 2 less suicides and 1 less bomb! Unbelievable, it was truly the best Normal B1-1 I've had in my life.

Stage 2 is much worse. The entire first half is full of freezes that are below my aim.
Just to get this out of the way first, Lily White is the most difficult midboss in terms of balancing damage distribution with score gain. Greed is of course important to reach the highest scores, and greed has caused the 1st and the 2nd nonspells to have been defeated early so many times. On the 1st nonspell, there is a strong luck element with damage, whereas in the second nonspell, you're forced to get lower freezes the lower on the screen Lily goes.

Lily White nonetheless went quite well. 2 suicides and 2 bombs are distributed, and my PF is far above the minimum.

Star Sapphire: I find that Star is the make or break it part of this run, particularly the second nonspell. Let's fast forward to that. Star's second nonspell is intensely luck based and difficult to optimize, some of my freezes being only ever so slightly off resulted in very high score loss. However, I did get fair RNG.

Stage 3: Start with 24,94m, 556 motivation, 123 PF.

I think clock started with 25,6m and Star's second nonspell is the cause for this disparity. I do use less suicide on it, since reducing the damage dealt isn't necessary, so I have more motivation.

There is little to say about most of the stage. It went well enough, up until the Knife Ring section, which I botched pretty hard. While it could have been possible for me to save a life here and still reach 100% PF for the end of stage spam, when I completely missed a 30% area I went with the suicide plan instead, which was more than fine considering my motivation was so high.

3 Fairies: Start with 30,94m, 710 motivation, 11 PF.

With these resources, I can distribute a non-essential suicide, that is nonetheless an useful suicide for reaching the maximum number of bombs. This suicide is non-essential because reducing the damage dealt on any of the attacks in the first of half of the fight is unnecessary, but I need to spend the life because otherwise I'll get to 1000% motivation.

First Nonspell: Smooth, I get the items quickly and spend most of it gathering that delicious Luna milk. Life is spent here.

Bright Night: I milk this card. It is highly based on luck, since the longer Star and Sunny are kept alive, the better the milk. At the end of the milk, I spend a bomb.

Ice Dissolver: life is lost on accident here, rendering the previous suicide quite useless.

3rd nonspell: I use my "keep Sunny alive" strategy but I don't manage to get the big freeze at the end so she is kept alive for longer than planned . That is not a run ender, and I gather her items from Break Canopy instead.

4th nonspell: I want to milk this efficiently but I am completely unable to. This is where the run "fell apart". I kept dying on accident, but somehow the route was still intact!

Last mistake is on Fairy Overdrive, where I only get 1 frozen item set.



-



LNN was achieved on A1, B1, B2 and C2.

Because A2 and C1 were already achieved, that means all routes were completed. For non-weebs reading, LNN means clearing without dying or bombing. I am not the first to achieve this feat, EOH had already done all the routes, but my replays (being rather different from his) are still worth the watch for anyone interested in FW survival play.

Here is how I would rank the difficulty of the routes for LNN: B1 > C1 >>> C2 = B2 >> A1 > A2

It was an enjoyable challenge. However, despite being enjoyable, it lacks contents in the challenge. LNN can be achieved fairly effortlessly if you already have a high score, and how can you "improve" an LNN, other than going for a higher score (redundant) or add more challenges (arbitrary) ?

It is still satisfying accomplishment.



86,3 million was achieved in A2 Hard.

This was a highly shaky run, where I do almost everything as well as my knowledge allows me to. There are very few "conscious" mistakes. The score loss is almost entirely lack of optimization knowledge. The score is not a world record, but the aim is to at least overtake the WR, and maybe push a bit further. 88 million may be reasonable, but it does sound a bit high.



Lastly, 868,000 was achieved in Money Idol Exchanger's solo mode. I play this pretty regularly, for little chunks at a time. The goal is a million.

#1: B2 Normal

Because there is currently the motivation to do so, I have written a bit about the plays of the last week.

Whether or not this will be a monthly, weekly, sporadic, or one-time thing, I don't know. Here goes.



60 million was achieved on Normal B2.

Overall it is among the better scores I've managed for Fairy Wars.

Now, a little bit about this run.

Stage 1: The play should be roughly the same every time along the way to Daiyousei, meaning roughly the same score, PF and motivation.

Because I accidentally damaged Daiyousei with the last freeze in the first half of the stage, I follow plan B of my suicide placements. If she had been undamaged, I would suicide on the first nonspell. Plan B is to suicide at the end of the stage portion. Plan C, which I decided against using, is to spend that life on Sunny Milk's first nonspell.

Each placement of this suicide has its own pros and cons, and I am still uncertain which placement is actually better. The reason why plan B is good, despite not blocking the damage dealt by a freeze, is that I start Sunny Milk with 100% ice power and don't bomb the first wave. Later waves have a higher potential for bombs, so freezing the first wave is ideal.

First bomb is distributed on Daiyousei's last nonspell, depending on luck this is worth mid 400k to high 500k. Since a normal freeze on the first wave rarely exceeds 100k (30% area), I think that the bomb is fairly used. It leaves time and health for a big 30% area freeze after.

However, this bomb comes at a high cost. I have to use at least 2 suicide extra, but that's the ideal. In this attempt, I've had to use 3 suicide extra. this lowers the potential on stage 3.

Moving on, I reach all four 30% area on the lone fairies and use my first suicide. After the second suicide and I start Sunny Milk, I have 203 motivation and 202 PF. I use two more suicide and have 9 motivation left, but the freezes are both 29% area. This creates a problem with the PF, but after using 2 bombs, I managed to farm up the third bomb in time. So the first hurdle has been passed. However, I know while playing, that I can most likely not avoid the extra suicide on stage 2.

Sunny Milk is sufficiently milked with little complaints. Direct Sunlight was a little stingy with the luck, though.



Stage 2: start with 7,27m, 166 motivation, 186 PF.

There is nothing in particular to mention until I reach Lily Black's second nonspell. Here, because my PF is below the quota, I use two suicide. Along with those, one ordinary big freeze and 3 bomb. because this leaves Lily with very little remaining health, the small freeze milks is delicate, and I could've handled that a bit better. The reason two suicide is necessary is to reach the 200% PF quota when I beat nonspell 3. In addition, it does let me use 3 big freeze on nonspell 2, rather than just 2.

Nonspell 3: I start this with 56% PF, which is 16 above the quota. Ideally, I would only just barely reach the quota, and skip the extra suicide on nonspell 2, but that has yet to happen in any attempts. Anyways, the goal for this nonspell is to not miss any 30% area freezes. a single miss would often mean I lose out on a bomb. In this run I would be able to afford one miss because of the excess PF, though. Thankfully the nonspell is splendid with great luck. Lily Black hung around the middle area of the screen and gave me lots of free extra points that way.

Second half of the stage was full of errors. The first bomb can't be timed too late, since then that kills fairies meant to shoot fireballs for the 2nd bomb. Instead, I use it a tad earlier than optimal. The real issue starts with the knife-ring fairies. I still feel a bit shaky with this version of those fairies. There's supposed to be two 30%+ area freezes at the end, but I completely failed the first one due to killing one of the fairies on accident. The last freeze was 29,9%. Sad. Missing some freezes like this just means I'll definitely skip out on bombing Dark Stillness, which isn't a very lucrative bomb anyway, so not a huge deal.

Next error, the last few spammy fairies on the stage all need to be defeated with ice. Because my ice didn't kill two of them, I lose around 80,000.

Luna Child is a difficult boss fight for scoring optimization, and my fight was just okay. There's certainly a lot of room for improvement.

Nonspell 1: Very delicate. You have to be spot on with your rate of damage (shoot only the very side of the hitbox, and not for longer than necessary), timing of your freeze, position of your freeze, and your ice power (since you won't get enough from shooting, grazing is important). The strategy is to do 1 freeze per wave on the first 3 waves, and then start to do bigger freezes every other wave, since her rate of spawning these waves increases at that time. I had to skip the third freeze because my ice power and position was so bad that freezing would've just backfired, but the upside to this is that a milking the timer all the way down is practically guaranteed, and I only missed a smaller freeze. The bigger freezes are more important.

Dark Stillness: Since I skip the bomb on this, it is less crucial to do a full milk. It's easy to reach 300% PF by nonspell 2. I end this spell a few waves early since that's safer since you can't control where Luna Child is moving, and lose maybe 30,000. Nothing too big.

Nonspell 2: This nonspell creates a dilemma because I sit on this with 300% PF for a while without using any bombs. There's not much choice, honestly. Bombing the first waves is just pathetic so I have to wait some cycles before I can bomb. This could've gone a lot better. One bomb was used despite poor movement RNG and I was hesitating about what to do, since there's not enough time to wait forever. The freezes weren't very good either.

Moonlight Wall: 30% area plus freezes are crucial here, and somewhat strict to pull off. In order to get the most out of this spell, I have to be aggressive about my grazing, limit my shooting, and use the freezes very properly. It's pretty easy to die while trying to optimize this spell, honestly. Most of the spell went well, it was all 30%+ area until the last three freezes which were all below 30%. That is fine, though.

Night Fairies: Nothing much to say about this. I do four freezes, no more than that really benefits me.



Stage 3: Start with 20,99m, 453 motivation, 175 PF.

First half was quite fair with only minor faults.

Star Sapphire enters: My score has gone up to 24,34m, with 563 motivation and 126 PF.

Because of the extra suicide in stage 2, I cannot permit myself to use a 4 suicide 3 bomb pattern on midboss Star Sapphire nonspell. 3 suicide would be redundant, and without 4 suicide, 3 bomb will kill her. The only reasonable conclusion is to use a 2 suicide 2 bomb pattern when you don't have enough lives for 4 suicide.

I executed the nonspell okay, but the RNG was pretty bad.

Star Storm: this spell is used for farming a little bit of extra motivation to make sure all remaining lives can be used if necessary. Milking it backfires in terms of score, since the SCB drops at a faster rate than you gain score, but the motivation is crucial, so I milk it just enough to get almost 500 motivation.

After the midboss, we have what I call the "chaos section". This had huge mistake. I died while doing the first big freeze. I still got to do the second big freeze, but the loss of a life is a problem because of how it affects the boss fight later. I also lose some items because the death kills fairies on the screen. Everything else after the midboss is fair, with the last freeze being 30%.



Three Fairies (Star leader) start: 31,92m, 493 motivation, 124 PF. The resources means that the ideal route might not actually happen, but I somehow surprised myself in this run.

Nonspell 1: Fair RNG, but I thought (and still think) Star was too damaged on one of the last few freezes. To adjust, I did a worse freeze to damage her less. 100,000~ lost.

Extensive Meteor: My strategy for this is to go up when Star is merely a few frames of shooting away from dying, to guarantee that a freeze will finish her off, since there's so few bullets to freeze. However, I stopped shooting too late, so the excess shot finished her off. The items are worth 80,000, but because finishing with a freeze also drains more of the SCB, the strategy gains less than 80,000.

Nonspell 2: The first freeze was timed too late, resulting in 50,000 loss and a time loss, resulting in less/worse freezes at the end (unknown loss).

Ice Dissolver: Something unusual happened, I felt that the RNG was constantly pushing me down. This is supposed to be an aggressive speedkill spellcard but I spent most of it near the bottom of the screen which is very dangerous. Thankfully I pulled it together and got the frozen items without wasting too much time.

Nonspell 3: This is the most complex and luck based attack in this category, rivalled only by Luna Child's first nonspell in terms of score variance through complexity and luck (as opposed to some attacks where the variance is all luck). Explaining everything I know would be too hard and take too long, so let's just say that I am very happy with how this went, because Sunny Milk was just barely left alive for me to get one final huge freeze in (308,000) this was utterly crucial for this run to finish, since I really needed that 20% addition to my PF considering a later mistake.

Great Triangle: I milked this, but not as well as it could be milked. In addition, Luna Child is taken out prematurely, resulting in slightly worse freezes towards the end duration of the milk.

Nonspell 4: I am extremely happy with how this went. I managed to squeeze in lots of big freezes without Star Sapphire dying, this is practically a miracle. I got to use the bomb without having to worry about not reaching the quota for the final spellcard. I even managed to keep her alive and reach my quota without suiciding!

Fairy Overdrive: The biggest fault of the run is here. So far, the run is pretty exceptional, but Fairy Overdrive was beyond terrible. Not only did I die and lose SCB (which is fairly low with a fully milked FO anyway) but the loss of a life ultimately led to enough loss of time to miss out on Sunny Milk's frozen items (200,000) I still managed to get her normal items, though. I am really grateful that the rest of the fight was good enough to let me skip 1 suicide, to allow me this mistake.

Final: In a split second of idiocy I made a huge mistake. Before I move down to the bottom after having milked and blocked fire walls for a while, I'm supposed to use 1 more freeze to block the pattern a bit longer. I suppose I was nervous because I went down and as I went down I immediately kicked myself over not using the next freeze (if you are even half a second too late with this freeze, it was a bad idea to use it.) As punishment, the first bomb is worth less (860,000, compared to the average good bomb at 930,000) but at least I got the frozen items from the side fairies, which is more important. And, I reach 1000% motivation merely seconds before clearing! If the number could exceed 1000, I probably would've finished with around 1006 or 1007 motivation.

Overall a satisfying run because I reached the goal and played mostly well. With the pattern I used, the reasonable limit would be around 61,5-62m. With the theoretically best patterns I can think of (which would require quite a few miracles) a reasonable limit would probably rather be around 63,5-64m.


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LNN was achieved on C1. This took around an hour of attempts, in addition to some prior run I did last year.

There is not much to say, but my mentality was mostly "safety comes first". For instance, I used a safespot to time out Yellow Deflection, and I pacified the chaos section.

Because LNN is so much less challenging and interesting than scoring, I only play LNB on rare occasions. However, doing the 4 remaining routes is still a goal to be completed some day, and playing FW for survival is still enjoyable.

The next scoring goal is to get highest B1 Normal score. At this point I don't have a higher target in mind, and I don't have my routes entirely planned out yet.

I barely played anything other than Fairy Wars lately (a few rounds of Money Puzzle Exchanger now and then) and I will most likely keep playing Fairy Wars for a good while longer.