I took one final shot at 1942 on Saturn last night, and was sad I couldn't break 300K, or beat the first boss. Still, at least it was an improvement over my previous score.
[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/3nYEZVp.jpg[/img]
I have to say, as closing thoughts for the month, that I echo a lot of what has been said here. I applaud Capcom for what they did with the game at this point, but it was very quickly eclipsed by their own sequel, as well as by Gradius. In some ways, even Xevious, which Namco put out previously, had some advantages over this game. I appreciate the attempt at a semi-complex power-up structure, but the very rigid order in which they appear, and especially as spread out as they are (quad fire in the first stage, then smart bombs in stage 2, followed by side planes in stage 3), makes for a very measured experience that sort of clashes with the high level of random the game brings to the table. There were times that, despite a month of playing, I could still get beaten down in the first stage, before even hitting the 20K mark to earn the first extend, because of how random the game is. Granted, I'm playing aggressively, trying to keep my shot percentage up, and maximize score, but it's pretty disheartening when you can burn through 3 lives that quickly.
All that said, I still think this is an important game for a myriad of reasons. It paved the way for other military shooters, not just the remainder of Capcom's 19XX series, and helped continue to advance and iterate upon the ideas of powering up your craft. It can be fun, but certainly isn't a game I'd want to continue to hammer away at, in order to get the 1CC. I'll leave that to the more masochistic, as well as the more high level players who can deal more efficiently with the RNG than I can
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