Gunvein (Steam) - B-Type 1CC - Intense - 4.3 Million

There's something so satisfying and so energizing about vertical danmaku shmups! They are likely the greatest genre of all time! I am starting to think this as I gain more and more literacy in them. Gunvein Intense is my 10th 1CC! It was such a blast of a clear! Steam reports 25 hours of playtime, but the truth is that I'm carrying in everything I've learned in shmups. Learning Eden's Eclipse Original mode broke a lot of limits I had previously felt when I played Gunvein in March this year. On top of that experience, there were a few specific adjustments I had to make for Gunvein! First, I had to route the stage 3 boss more carefully, especially the part where I fly to the top of the screen. Second, I had to learn how to misdirect patterns for the stage 4 boss, which was a big epiphany! Finally, I had to spend several nights in practice mode learning the final boss and especially the TLB's final pattern! Some other insights I can offer are this. Using wide shot and strafing past a cluster of popcorn is really strong. Spending a couple bombs when you see a lot of enemies and a lot of fragments usually helps without hurting! Golden fragments give you i-frames, as do the start up of hypes. You can use both of them to jump through a pattern instead of trying to dodge it! If you're a new shmup player, you might be wondering what skills are impactful for clearing Gunvein. I think my skill pretty much can be broken down into: tap dodging streaming and restreaming misdirects preemptive positioning (for speed kills and for bullet herding) Hey maybe that's just shmups though! Difficulty: Intense Ship Type: B