Metal Black is one of my favorite SHMUP’s along with XEXEX, Trigon, Blazing Star, Radiant Silvergun, G-Darius, Aero Fighters 2, Phelios, Dragon Saber, Ordyne, Mushihimesama, RayStorm, Strato Fighter, Batsugun, Chariot, Eco Fighters, DoDonPachi Resurrection, and Deathsmiles.
Gg! Congrats on the run and nice commentary! So my initial hunch about the beam was right, its usually not worth it to use on bosses. Better to just use rapid fire regular shot.
Really nice commentary walkthrough of a tough horizontal shmup, especially since the game is so harsh with life extends. Question: What's the difference between Normal difficulty and Very Hard? I played Very Hard a while ago and didn't notice a difference, i guess maybe faster enemy projectiles?
That's a great question! I'd have to look into it, but I'm assuming boss health would be lower and maybe bullet speed? The game doesn't have rank that I'm aware of so I'm not sure what would change.
Nice review and commentary ! Not sure Amazo has hp-based phases, from what it seems it's entirely dependent on which "lap" you're at. Hope you get to do more commentaries on other Taito shmups :)
Thanks! Hoping to do more Taito stuff, but I wonder if I have the guts to clear Gun Frontier... lol. I have some other runs where I performed a LVL 5 beam blast on amazo and it skipped the "screw dropping" phase and went straight to spawning enemies.
Just finished this after picking it up on ps4 as part of the ACA series but there doesn't seem to be any option to select auto fire. Edit i found it its in the button config menu. This makes the game much more enjoyable.
I have an Egret II mini. Metal Black is sort of in the middle of the shooters there for me. It's no Darius Gaiden or Rayforce, but I like it more than Gun Frontier. I like the difficulty curve so far as I played it. I haven't made it pass the Round 4 boss. Even with all the unpredictability of the game, I found it more fair than many other old school shmups. Of course, that might be due to my lack of memorizing routes in shooters in general. I very much like that you stay powered up after being destroyed. Recovery is also one of my weaker old school shmup skills.
Yeah, Gun Frontier is brutal haha But none of them seem insurmountable. I also got an Egret II Mini it's a lot of fun. Great that it has save slots for practise.
Does the laser duel matter that much? I'm interested in the concept of the game because Border Down is the "spiritual successor," but most of the recordings I've seen ignore the beam duel mechanic. I guess it might be stronger in the way it works in G-Darius.
Yeah, the truth is the "beam duel" mechanic is sort of unnecessary in this game. Shot level 3 with 20hz autofire is much stronger. But it looks cool and there's no downside to doing it. It would be cool if it gave some kind of score bonus like G-Darius but it does not.
