27 Feb 2007
The hardest game
A few weeks ago I picked up a pcb by Cave called Fever SOS(Dangun Feveron). It’s a vertical STG. The scoring mechanic is similar to Parsec47, but instead of collecting green boxes you have to collect spinning disco men before they bounce off the bottom of the screen and disappear off the top. These disco men are released from the enemy ships when they are killed. Each enemy is only worth 1 point when you kill it, plus the number of disco men you are currently holding. So If you have 300 disco men, the next enemy you kill is worth 301 points. If that enemy happens to drop, say, 4 disco men; and you collect them, the next enemy will score you 305 points. If you let even a single disco man slip past and reach the top of the screen, the bonus is reset to 0 and the next enemy will be worth only 1 point. The scoring system is pretty simple, but the game is HARD. As much as I am obsessed with STG’s right now, I’m certainly on the suck side of mediocre at actually playing them. However, given enough time and quarters I can usually make progress with a game. I have never played a Cave, Psikyo, or Raizing game that I couldn’t get to the middle of the 3rd level or so on one credit after having dumped $10 or less into it until now. I have put at least 150 quarters into Fever SOS, and just today beat the level 2 boss on 1 credit! And I had to bomb my way out of trouble just to get that far(2 bombs just before the 2nd boss, and 2 more on the boss). What makes this game so difficult is speed. It’s just so damn fast. Bullets come at you at ludicrous speed. At the intro screen, you can choose your ship speed, but unless you choose at least the second fastest option, you’ll be losing disco men left and right. So your ship is so fast, it’s difficult to make the tight accurate movements required to stay alive. The game is fun, but I’m gonna put this one aside for now and work on 1cc’ing something a bit easier. I haven’t given up, but it’s hard to play with my head hung in shame.