[ストライカーズ1945II/Strikers 1945 II] Normal Flying Pancake Stage 2-2 (Score: 1,282,800) [CC Commentary]

Psikyo bullets. It's a moniker given to bullets that are unspeakably fast and complex that to survive it, you have no choice but to see the future. Or the closest thing to it: MEMORIZATION. Memorization isn't a new thing in shmups. It always had been there for decades. It was also in Toaplan games! But Psikyo took it to an even further step with complex choreographies and the reason the bullets are as speedy as they are, are unexplained by many, but a sinister one. RANK! It's always Rank System, isn't it? Memo patterns and Rank are the worst combinations ever!
Strikers 1945 II is Psikyo at their peak: It's the culmination of what they have done the best and it's where they started to stall. Their graphics work, the stage design, the overreliance on old-school pattern design veiled with modern bullet curtains coat of paint! It is as what it is, an expertly crafted game with mediocre scoring system. But in the period where other shmup developers were following Batsugun's footsteps, even Treasure shrunk their hitbox, Psikyo refused for the last time! When you learn how the game speaks, that's when the game grasps your brain with very quick high dose dopamine hits of quick successive destructions and satisfying macro dodges. I LOVE and HATE this game a lot!
A reverse of the first game, Strikers 1945 II is the older sibling of Gunbird 2. You can shoot, bomb, and charge shot. Shots are the usual Psikyo affair, the bombs have their own complexities regarding their defense function. The main thing about the bombs are it summons shield ships. These HAVE THEIR OWN HP, by the way! So at high count bullet patterns these go away very fast! Some make your shop do a loop de loop, which grants i-frames, others not. Interesting. The charge meter is not interesting at a first glance, but I think it was pretty innovative at the time. Before Daioujou’s Hyper, there was this thing. On some ships at Lv. 3, in most cases, it CANCELS OUT BULLETS AND EVEN GRANTS I-FRAMES. Yep, it’s ONE OF THE EARLIEST ITERATIONS OF SECONDARY BOMBS! Sadly in practice the Lv. 3 bombs are too risky to prepare since the lower charges are more reliable for quick DPS work. But it’s something! Depending on the ship the charge time varies too. This makes the ship selections notably diverse! The ones with long charge time usually have potent bullet clearing charges. While another can do it at any charge level but the bomb sucks despite the loop de loop i-frames.
The thing that makes Strikers 1945 II stand out is its stage design. Memo, memo, memo! Its precision rivals R-Type, at times! Couple that with insane bullet speeds, and BAM! The only things that you can reliably read ahead of time are the bullet sources! At least in terms of visual distinction. With this approach you have no choice but to scramble and find a way to DPS the targets before they kill you! Remember, this game was in 1997. It was the vogue to follow Ikeda's formula! In a way, it's admirable, and the benefit of this kind of design is macro-dodges are uniquely satisfying for its era. You read the enemy movement, you react accordingly. Read where the turrets are aiming, what the boss is doing, etc. Old-school flavor. As satisfying as the charge shots are, it only bolsters its memo-heavy design.
As if fast bullets aren't enough, the enemies are thick and often you're demanded to pointblank for survival alone! Not to mention, the way damage registers is kinda tricky too! For the normal shots, there seems to be Garegga-style i-frames for the enemies. When there are more than 1 normal shots hitting the enemy, then the damage only counts as 1. This is to ensure that on power downs, it primarily affects the shot width, not the DPS itself. This design is underappreciated and I don't hate it, but I wonder if it was done more as a rank control red herring than a part of rank control meta.
Oh, Rank! This is the primary reason for the notorious Psikyo Bullets! The longer you survive, the faster the bullets get! Bullets that are by default, slow, are not that affected. The ones that are already fast, though, becomes ridiculous! Contrary to popular belief, I do think excess Power Up pick up will upset the Rank, but no, under-powering yourself won't make the Rank any kinder either! Max 4 Power is the way to go! The only way to really lower the rank is by dying! Thankfully the rank down is very tangible! So it'll be tempting to try to no-bomb some patterns at lower rank!
There are other nasty stuff too like the random 4 starting stages, constant popcorn spawning that makes ships with homing shots notably safer and some bullet blending, but with its super fast 15 minutes per loop pace, this game is just hard to put down! If you wanna try the game, if you're ready to taste its harshness, you'll have a great time! But for its difficulty, wouldn't it hurt the port dev to add Stage Practice!?
This is the ZeroDiv port on Nintendo Switch.
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[@julianseph842gamez5]

Psikyo never jokes around with their games and difficulty style. 2-ALL 1cc clears on Psikyo shmups are meant to be achieved by pro players who know how to deal with patterns and manage resources properly, as well learn scoring mechanics to set score records