[AC] Gunbird / ガンバード - 2-ALL Clear - 1,451,300 (Marion)

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Gunbird came out in the arcades in 1994 and was one of the first games developed by Psikyo.
Psikyo being one of the most renowned developers for arcade shmups. Psikyo always makes very good shmups. They cut right to the chase, their stages are very short, but there is never a dull moment, nothing gets repeated and it's full of variety. Another Psikyo trademark are the very fast unforgiving bullet patterns. All their 2nd loops are very nuts, one of the most unforgiving things I've seen in a video game. Since it's a very early title, the game is somewhat rough around the edges, but it's still quite good. The 2nd loop in this is still pretty nuts, but not too bad comparatively.

Marion is quite a good shottype. Her shot, her charge shot and her bomb are all very powerful. If you're at max power and sit on top of an enemy or boss, it will die very quickly. Her bomb is also extremely powerful if you drop it on top of something.
The worst thing in the game by far is the power loss upon death. You usually only get one powerup back upon death and with the way how Marion's shot works, you lose like 80% of your power output.

The first three stages in both loops are randomly chosen out of a pool of four stages. Which means you'll always skip one stage, but which stage is random. Two bosses in stage 6 are also randomly chosen out of a pool of six bosses.

All the early Psikyo games had a weird power system in a way that you have limited ammo for your maximum power level. After you shoot a bunch you'll drop down to power level 3 if you don't pick up another powerup in that time. Which means conserving ammo and conserving ammo by using the charge shot a lot is very important. The power difference between level 4 and 3 is very substantial.

There is no scoring system in particular, so it's mostly just optimizing kills and milking. No end-of-game bonus either, unlike later Psikyo games.
You do get 10k bonuses for each bomb you pick up when you're at full capacity though, which is something to keep in mind.

The 2nd loop is about three times harder than the 1st loop. Bullet speed is significantly increased, and many enemies and bosses have new and harder patterns and shoot suicide bullets. The popcorn that randomly spawn during some bosses are an extreme annoyance too. If they reach the bottom of the screen they will start sniping you, which will usually kill you.

Now lets's talk about the 2nd loop ~~Train Stage~~
I've said before how the first three stages are randomized, the train stage is one of them. The train stage is absolutely ridiculous nonsense. Every stage in the game can do be done with like 1 bomb or less, but the train stage takes a minimum of 8. It's like three times harder than anything else in the game and it's ridiculously unbalanced. As you can probably tell, clearing is significantly harder or easier depending on if you get the train stage or not. It's like playing Russian roulette hoping you don't roll it.
I managed to still clear while getting the train stage, which is pretty awesome. However I did lose pretty much all my resources to it.
There is a way to decrease the chances of getting the train stage though, and that's by getting the train stage in the 1st loop. The first stage in the 2nd loop is always the stage you didn't get in the 1st loop, so you only have to roll the dice on 2-2 and 2-3.

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