Any shmup fan out there should definitely learn this game. It’s similar to senkou no ronde the vs arcade shooter you see videos hosted of at acho and other places. If anyone wants to give this great vs shooter a try, hit me up via AIM or PM. It does have a unusually high learning curve for a shooter but if anyone has any questions I’d be glad to answer. Hope to play some of you soon.
Now you’re speakin’ my language, lux.
Forget PIM, and get ready for a beat down!
LOL Nice, but hate to break it to you…I’m korean.
LOL! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while^^
Anywho… GGs earlier. Everyone should try this out!
Few things on basic (really really basic) strategy. When you’re on top (lol), you build meter by shooting and damaging, however if you hold A then you’ll build meter faster, even if you don’t hit anything.
Normally in manic shooters, holding down shot to move slower is helpful, but ships are really slow in this game so holding A down seems to be a hindrance so far.
While shooting basic shots, you’ll have to ‘reload’ after a while. This happens automatically and causes a slight pause in your fire. So, while on the bottom, i tend to shoot less, gather powerups, and wait for when I think his reload may happen. Then jump in and open fire with hold A.
Bump.
good find indeed. I’ll see you guys around on kaillera some day soon to play some games 
Being on top seems to be way better. If you Bomb when you only have 1 or 2 meters you’ll dish out bullet spam which can be better than the boss mode 'cause you can set them up (until i figure out boss mode better). You also get first pick of stuff when you’re on top but as a trade-the bottom has more time to figure out what to grab. You can’t be insta-killed on top like you can on the bottom.
One thing that the bottom has going for it is that it’s alternate weapons (the ones you pick up) are stronger.
Another other thing is that even when you use lv1 or lv2 bombs on top, they’re still pre-programmed bullet patterns so you have a better chance at dodging. The bottom has pretty linear, but much faster weapons. This is a benefit in my mind.
More basic strategy…
When the match starts your main goal is probably to get powerups instead of directly damaging your opponent.
If one of you is holding A you’ll be going slower, so the faster one can weave in and out of the orange bullets while tagging eachother, this will cause some items to drop. When the bottom gets hit, the items fly up to the top of the screen then drop.
When the top gets hit, they simply fall from the plane.
When the items do fly up, this creates a little mixup game. If you’re on bottom and notice the item, you can do two things. One is to line up with the other ship only slightly left or right towards the item, if you both go towards it while shooting, the guy behind is gonna take all the hits. The second option, is to just get to the item first, however you can only travel to the middle of the screen vertically speaking, so, for this example, the item is still on the upper half. When you’re lined up, use hold A and they’re gonna take some solid hits. This will likely reward you with several powerups at the cost of him receiving one. Otherwise you get that first item.
Another thing at the start of a battle, is that the bottom will have a full bomb ready to use. The top plane will have no meter (maybe 1 i can’t remember). If the bottom bombs right away, they can get some big damage in. Once the top has full meter, there is a stale mate until the bottom gets another bomb. This is because the top can cancel out the bottom’s bombing with a lv3 bomb (boss activation). So if the bottom bombs, then the top can cancel it into a boss form. If the top activates a boss form, the bottom can (depending on the ship) beat it easily with a bomb. This is still better for the top as they take no damage in boss mode, however they give out powerups when they’re defeated.
Although rare, the ‘change’ powerup is interested. It forces the two players to switch sides. This deactivates boss mode and stops all bombs and bullets. Even if you’re on your favored side… it can be beneficial to change based on what the opponent has stocked, how good their plane is on the top or bottom, and because whoever got the ‘change’ item gets a full second to dish out attacks while the other can only dodge.
The bomb is one of the strongest things the bottom player has. If they lose a life bar without using it, they are at a great disadvantage.
There are some elements such as how much time is remaining/how long you’ve been fighting and other I have no idea about, that increase the manic-ness of the boss forms.
Breakdown of Top and Bottom…
TOP~
+Has a meter which can be built by shooting so it becomes more powerful without powerups
+Can’t die from insta-kill bullets
+Takes no damage in Boss mode
+First pick on powerups
-Pre-programmed Bullet patterns
-Weaker Alternate Attacks (excluding the ship summon one. This one is very strong for the top as it summons a bunch of enemies that aborb damage and can yield powerups that the top has first picks on)
Bottom~
+Powerful, more flexible regular attacks.
+Longer time to receive powerups.
+Powerup items activated from the bottom’s actions can only be obtained by the bottom
+Bombs are very very strong
+Alternate weapons are very strong
-Can die easily
-Starts behind (think of terms like go, chess or magic when you go second)
–Being on Top is like having Denjin Hadouken. It has a lot to do with what the opponent can do about it. Though there are many means, like denjin, to make it tougher and unexpected.
–Being on the bottom is like having any comboable super. Straightforward and about getting into a position of using it.
Specific Ship/Boss breakdown and hopefully more in-depth boss mode stuff coming up next.
Ya’ll need ta start playin’ dis!
Little something you forgot to mention…if you’re in boss mode and get destoyed, i believe it leaves the top player open for a second for a barrage of anything you got. I still need to test this to make sure. Also each boss mode has around 10+ diff atks.
Twinkle Star Stuff… (everyone needs to play this too. the lag isn’t bad at all online either. I was way surprised.)
http://www.age.ne.jp/x/pi/GAMES/sprites.html#memory
It’s in jap, but they’ve got some kaillera replays on there.
The replays seem to start out fine, but i’m pretty sure they’re desynching (i even tried their emulator and all sorts of settings… )
http://nmt.cside.com/twinkle/index.htm
another site for twinkle star sprites
http://nmt.cside.com/airblade.htm
another page from that site… all about Change Air Blade. Has two vids at the bottom. The top one is a sweet, sweet match, the bottom is the thing lux was talking about where you have time to own up on a player who just lost its boss mode.
Nice vid! I’m not even going to ask how you found that.
Well… i’ll tell ya anyways, 'cause some other people may find the technique useful.
First I head to www.google.co.jp that’s the japanese google. Select the bubble on the right (nihon~blah blah) so it searches japanese sites.
First I search the name of the game in english. Twinkle star sprites turned up stuff right away, but change air blade did not. So I look for a site that has change air blade’s japanese name. It was still change air blade just… chienji ea buredo. So from that I copy the kana or kanji (in this case kana) and paste them into the japanese google again and search around.
I use it whenever I find out a new game I like or if I just want shmup vids 'cause they can be hard to find anyways (though they seem to be getting more popular).
TSS? hot damn, and i thought i was the only one who played this … it’s so fucking sailor moon though.
i play it often on poporu, although i doubt the majority here uses it despite it never lagging ever. it’s too much of a hassle to get an account, and i haven’t tried the mame(?) version. but i do know a few other people who play it if you guys need some opponents in that game.
haven’t touched CAB in netplay yet though!
You should give it a shot on Mame sometime. Have an AIM sn I can hit you up on?
lol, i think you already have mine dude.
corelkun, if you don’t. haven’t been on aim lately because random errors i’ve been getting with that thing, but i’ll try and get on more often.
Nevermind, off topic.
I like this game but I’m rarely on Kaillera. My nick on there is DandyJ so if you ever see me just yell at me and I’ll play some matches. 99% of the time I’d be on GW or The New X.
…