[1cc] Tatsujin (Arcade) - 1,486,710 pts - 1-ALL

Tatsujin is a pretty cool arcade shoot em up made by Toaplan in 1988, released as Truxton in the west. I play the japanese version as it's apparently slightly harder, but not by much. It's a very memo-heavy game, but you don't have to do a lot of dodging as long as you don't die and need to recover (at least in loop 1). However, you need pretty precise positioning at the right time. It's all about anticipating where the enemies will come from and snipe them before they snipe you, remembering when enemies appear behind you, and for some parts knowing what's the best weapon. Still, one small mistake or hesitation at the wrong place will probably be very costly because recovery is pretty hard. At many checkpoints late game you'll probably die several times in a row until you manage to collect 5 power up items (they carry on from one life to the other), since your shot doesn't upgrade until then. However, once you power up even once you're a killing machine.

Regarding weapons:
- Blue is extremely good at killing small enemies but will struggle against bigger ones, and has a great range which covers almost everything. You'll want to bomb a bunch of times against the big enemies if you take them down with blue, just to be on the safe side. I use it almost everywhere starting from stage 3, except for boss 3 which I really struggle to beat with, and boss 5 (you should get a red item right before it, so it's easy to switch). However, it makes enemy shots harder to see and you may die without knowing what shot you, especially in stage 5. It's not that troublesome since you should be able to kill most enemies before they actually shoot.
- Green is the one I don't like, decent at taking down big enemies but since it's narrow and you have to be in front of the enemy, you're very exposed. Similarly, it's pretty powerful against small enemies but you'll have to move constantly. I only use it at specific places, early in the game.
- Red is the middle ground, it's competent almost everywhere but outclassed by blue for late game. You need several shots for most enemies, but it's quite spread out. It's good at taking down big enemies, at least with autofire (or if you mash the button fast enough), and is a premium choice for bosses.

This run went pretty smoothly until a blue tank decided to ruin my life in stage 5, but thanks to my many lives I was able to at least clear the first loop. After that I had no experience with loop 2 and it's pretty rude.

0:00 - Stage 1
5:55 - Stage 2
12:26 - Stage 3
18:04 - Stage 4
23:42 - Stage 5
32:17 - Stage 1 (loop 2)