Mars Matrix Impressions

I've been playing for a couple hours a day, so I'll comment on your comments. Once you buy the gallery, there's 64 pictures to buy (1 of those is free), and they're pretty cheap.

And in the stage 6 demo, the ship DOES get destroyed, which surprised me. But on the stage 6 boss, it manages to slip between bullets at a pace that I don't think I could manage (at least as a skill; maybe if you timed it right, then you could do it).

And I like the Elite mode, too, especially for score attack. Try to unlock score attack stage 5 ASAP. In elite mode B, it's amazing. There are enemies that, when shot, turn all onscreen bullets into experince cubes. And there are a LOT of those enemies. It's crazy; for nearly 1/2 the level, the screen is filled with cubes. It's possible (although I haven't done it) to get combos of 4000+. When not score attacking, I spend most of my time playing arcade mode.

And I can tell by the ending that the goal of this game is to get a high score. But that works for me, in a StarFox 64 kind of way. Most of my enjoyment from SF 64 came from trying to top my score and figure out new techniques to get them (FJ would cringe at that!).

Anyway, unlike the games I rented, Mars Matrix is good for a couple 1 hour sessions a day (for me, anyway), so I won't get bored with it for a while. All in all, I don't regret buying it at all. But one DC space shooter is enough for me (so far).

I must have been confused about the background graphics. I need about the same number of points. (This still isn't as ridiculous as the quantity of points you need to buy stuff in Capcom vs SNK)

I SHOULD be able to clear both stage 1 and 2 without dying. And keeping a combo going through the stage. But I still don't think I get as many points as the demo player - I think the difference is, he's converting more bullets into gold cubes with the mosquito. So, that's something for me to work on. He must be playing on normal, which actually might be "easier" to get a high score. I notice those missles near the end of stage 1 shoot bullets which he converts to gold cubes - they don't shoot bullets on the lowest difficulty level. I don't really study or try to emulate the demo play; that's just one thing I observed.

The hardest stage for me is still stage 6. I should probably practice that for survival some time.

I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!!
Crawl and 1000

Author	Comment
Crawl Registered User (5/5/01 9:57 am) Reply	Mars Matrix Impressions Okay, I've played the game for a few hours, so here's my thoughts so far. First, I really do like the idea of the shop, and how it works with having limited continues. Yeah, when you play a game like Giga wing, you might say to yourself, "Okay, I'll only give myself 2 contiues" (or something) but eventually it's easy to get the feeling of "Oh, the hell with it!" and credit feed. I'm also GLAD that stuff costs so much. One thing I could be worried about would be Radiant Silvergun-itis, where stuff gets unlocked faster than your skill increases. If it takes a long, long time to unlock lots of continues or whatever, at least that means you're playing the game a lot, so you have an opportunity for your skill to increase, through repetition. (As a side note, I'd like to praise R-Type Delta some more with how it handled unlocking bonus. When the game starts, you have something like 6 credits, and after playing for 3 hours get 9, and 3 more hours gets you free play. The limited credits at first means you have to repeat the first few stages a few times, so you'll be good at the early stages before you get to the hard stages. Plus, unlimited credits does NOT take the challenge out of beating the game, like it would for many other games. Also, to unlock the stage select, you have to beat the game with the first 3 ships. Unlocking the stage select in Radiant Silvergun was ridiculuously easy.) The one thing I might change about th shop system in Mars marix is to have more, cheaper things to buy that don' affect gameplay. When I look at Soul Calibur's shop, only about 1/5 of the pictures you can buy unlock gameplay elements. Being able to buy more stuff might increase motivation to keep playing, and it also could deciding what to buy or what to save up for more trick. Obviously, Mars Matrix is very intense. Even in a genre known for being difficult and intense, Mars Matrix is notable. However, most of the time the bullet formations seem dodgable, but it takes a lot of staring at the screen to do so. It literally hurts my eyes to play this game much. I like the stage demos. If you ever think a bullet pattern is undodgable... wll, you can see it being dodged. On the other hand, even the superplayer uses a lot of skill. There were a couple of moments I noticed the player staying mostly still and the enemies shot bullets AROUND it, but most of the time, even the demo player is dodging all around. I noticed while watching the demos of Radiant Silvergun that the player moved as little as possible, and I think that's how you're supposed to play THAT game, like a Zen exercise. I also like the idea of the one-button interface. I think the idea for leveling up your ship, especially with points that are increased with a combo multiplier, probably came from Radiant Silvergun. But, hey, if a game doesn't innovate, at least it borrows so it doesn't fall behind. I also like the few different play modes like elite and score attack. When you use the piercing shot in score attack, it releases a bunch of little experience cubes, so it's easier to get a huge multiplier, and to keep the combo gauge full. I do kind of like how the difficulty levels are similar. It means the game is balanced to be played in one way. When I look at the ridiculous spread in Gunbird 2, I think, how are we SUPPOSED to play this game? Did they even bother to balance all the difficulty levels, or did they just make one, and then add more or less bullets to the higher or lower levels? It does seem like it takes a long time for the mosquito attack meter to refill (longer than Giga Wing). On the other hand, it's (eventually) possible to by an option to make it refill faster. I heard someone say that the reflect system destroys the difficulty in these games. I sure don't think so!! Edited by: Crawl at: 5/5/01 10:01:51 am
Facilitypro Moderator (5/5/01 3:03 pm) Reply	Re: Mars Matrix Impressions I've been playing for a couple hours a day, so I'll comment on your comments. Once you buy the gallery, there's 64 pictures to buy (1 of those is free), and they're pretty cheap. And in the stage 6 demo, the ship DOES get destroyed, which surprised me. But on the stage 6 boss, it manages to slip between bullets at a pace that I don't think I could manage (at least as a skill; maybe if you timed it right, then you could do it). And I like the Elite mode, too, especially for score attack. Try to unlock score attack stage 5 ASAP. In elite mode B, it's amazing. There are enemies that, when shot, turn all onscreen bullets into experince cubes. And there are a LOT of those enemies. It's crazy; for nearly 1/2 the level, the screen is filled with cubes. It's possible (although I haven't done it) to get combos of 4000+. When not score attacking, I spend most of my time playing arcade mode. And I can tell by the ending that the goal of this game is to get a high score. But that works for me, in a StarFox 64 kind of way. Most of my enjoyment from SF 64 came from trying to top my score and figure out new techniques to get them (FJ would cringe at that!). Anyway, unlike the games I rented, Mars Matrix is good for a couple 1 hour sessions a day (for me, anyway), so I won't get bored with it for a while. All in all, I don't regret buying it at all. But one DC space shooter is enough for me (so far).
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (10/3/01 9:24 am) Reply	I LOVE FO! I wish there was a page of Mars Matrix highscores somewhere. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
Facilitypro Moderator (10/3/01 2:12 pm) Reply	MM Here. It's a fan site run by Mode 7. There's also an official Capcom site, I think. I've seen it a long time ago. It's in Japanese, and has some insanely high scores.
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (10/4/01 10:30 am) Reply	I LOVE FO! Thanks for the post, but that wasn't quite what I was looking for. Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was playing Elite mode B score attack two nights ago, and so I was looking for some scores in that mode. I think that site has arcade and elite a and b, but no score attacks. (I actually found that site with Google). I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
Facilitypro Moderator (10/9/01 2:33 pm) Reply	Mars Marbles After playing R-Type 2, I've gotten the shooter bug again. Before finishing R-Type II, I played some more of the 2nd quest of R-Type a little, and beat levels 2 and 3. (It took all of 2 lives to beat 3.) Anyway, the point of this post was to say I've been dying to play another shooter, so I think I'm going to hook up my DC again after tomorrow's midterm. I want to give Mars Matrix another shot. If you want me to post (or e-mail) you my scores for score attack Mode B (which is mostly what I've played) I will. The only one I have any remote memory of is stage 5. I think it started off with 0375 (the red numbers). BTW, if you beat both quests of an R-Types game, do you get an FMV ending?
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (10/9/01 3:52 pm) Reply	I LOVE FO!! My stage 5 elite b score attack score was something over 300 billion. So, it might be close to yours. You do get FMV endings for beating the second quests. Sadly, I've only seen the one for R-Type 1 =( I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
Facilitypro Moderator (10/10/01 9:24 pm) Reply	Re: Mars Matrix Impressions Here are my score attack mode B scores. All options are set to whatever setting benefits me the most. Level 1: 00071571185640 Level 2: 00070367836730 Level 3: 00138967894780 Level 4: 00259867162600 Level 5: 00292626996190 Level 6: 00391562634090 If you want to see any others, let me know (I might not do the color thing though). EDIT: Updated my scores. Edited by: Facilitypro at: 10/14/01 6:55:51 pm
Flying Omelette Registered User (10/10/01 10:36 pm) Reply	Re: Mars Matrix Impressions These are my Smoosh's Mars Matrix scores, he wanted me to post them: Elite Mode B Stage 1 - 00063881138490 Stage 2 - 00064010121420 Stage 3 - 00107581548840 Stage 4 - 00188573361550 Stage 5 - 00324567560240 Stage 6 - 00125692027680 I Crawl and 1000 "If you've ever thought much about freedom You might find yourself caught in some door With somebody you love holding you homeward and you'll be weeping, but you don't know what for" -JD Souther Flying Omelette's Kitchen Admin of: The Game Pond
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (10/11/01 7:59 am) Reply	I LOVE SNUGGA! Thanks for posting that, Snugga! I beat my stage 2 score. It's now 00071101105030 For my stage 5 score, I kept the combo going throughout the stage (well, it died just before the boss, but I don't think anything can be done for that) but I don't think I reached a multiplier of 4000. It was definitely over 3000, though. During the boss, it's probably possible to get another 2000+ combo (don't really remember what I usually get). As for settings, I like to keep the initial level at 1. I like to see my level go up during a stage. It also might help me pace myself. I bought everything now except the background graphics. Damn, I had to save the most expensive thing for last. >:( I'm only about 3% of the way towards earning it. I remember Facility said months ago that he had everything but the gallery pictures (I think?) but earning those would take forever. I actually thought earning those went quickly. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
Facilitypro Moderator (10/11/01 8:22 am) Reply	Re: I LOVE SNUGGA! I realized after I had made that post I have the level set at 1, too, for the same reason you stated. I have all the gallery. Are you sure I wasn't talking about BG Graphics taking forever? That's the only thing I need. I only need about 96 trillion more points! Starting last night, I'm working on score attack for arcade mode, trying for both survival and score. (Only stages 1 and 2 right now.)
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (10/11/01 10:46 am) Reply	I LOVE SNUGGA! I must have been confused about the background graphics. I need about the same number of points. (This still isn't as ridiculous as the quantity of points you need to buy stuff in Capcom vs SNK) I SHOULD be able to clear both stage 1 and 2 without dying. And keeping a combo going through the stage. But I still don't think I get as many points as the demo player - I think the difference is, he's converting more bullets into gold cubes with the mosquito. So, that's something for me to work on. He must be playing on normal, which actually might be "easier" to get a high score. I notice those missles near the end of stage 1 shoot bullets which he converts to gold cubes - they don't shoot bullets on the lowest difficulty level. I don't really study or try to emulate the demo play; that's just one thing I observed. The hardest stage for me is still stage 6. I should probably practice that for survival some time. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
Facilitypro Moderator (10/12/01 9:59 pm) Reply	Re: I LOVE SNUGGA! After playing some more, I remember how I felt about MM when I put it away a few months ago. It's not the type of game that I would get enjyoyment out of trying to finish. I have more fun with the score attack modes. I've been playing for survival the last couple days, but it's nowhere near as fun as going for the big combos.
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (10/14/01 1:48 pm) Reply	I LOVE SNUGGA! I guess it depends on what you mean by "finish". I don't really feel like trying to clear the game with one life. But, so long as I don't feel like I'm totally credit feeding, playing arcade mode is okay. I like seeing the number of lives it takes me to finish the game decreases with some practice. But, I think usually the only way to care about completing a game flawlessly is to put in restart points, a la R-Type. Then, even if you make a mistake, if you beat the game, all the parts that you finished successfully add up to a flawless performance (well, with the R-Type games, there's an expection: You usually don't need to be able to play through the part where the midpoint is. If you never, ever can get through those parts without dying, you can still beat the game). Not only that, but repetition is perhaps the only key to perfection, and restart points are the only way to attain that. I could play Radiant Silvergun 10 times a day and not get any better at it because by the time I finished the game I would have forgotten what came an hour earlier in the game. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
Facilitypro Moderator (10/14/01 2:07 pm) Reply	Re: I LOVE SNUGGA! What I meant by "finish" was beat the game on the default settings. I set the game at 5 ships and 5 credits when I began playing again, but I haven't tried to finish it on those settings yet. And I don't think playing MM in freeplay will help me get any better. I prefer to practice stage by stage for the same reason you mentioned. Getting back to strategy, I've been watching the demo beat the first boss. It does a GHB that almost doubles his score. I wish I knew what the GHB scoring system was. I beat a few of my scores; I'll update them later tonight. If you want, Crawl, I'll edit your improved scores into FO's post.
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (11/6/01 10:35 am) Reply	I LOVE SNUGGA! More Mars Matrix scores, this time for Elite Mode A score attack. As of last night, my scores were Stage 1 - 00131383896790 Stage 2 - 00066784038230 Stage 3 - 00171013789220 Stage 4 - 00201373253560 Stage 5 - 00063651623400 Stage 6 - 00303810642190 Shop ---- 21010511446261 Total - 0038647511446261 I say as of last night because I beat my stage 3 score this morning. I didn't write it down, but it's over 250 billion now. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (11/7/01 8:01 am) Reply	I LOVE FO! My stage 4 scores - both A and B - and now just over 440 billion. I also played through all of elite mode B, and had one more credit left than the last time I finished it. I also realized I was mistaken about the way scores were calculated. I thought your base score was multiplied by the combo counter. It's actually multiplied by your experience total. I'm still not sure how your experience total figures into the end of level bonus.
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (11/8/01 11:46 am) Reply	I LOVE FO! I think I'll give up Mars Matrix now, at least for a week or so. I believe that last night's headache was probably due to playing that game too much. But, at least I beat my stage 1 B score (over 80 billion). And in case you're wondering, no, my stage 6 score is still not anywhere close to yours, despite having bettering my own a bit. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (11/11/01 9:51 am) Reply	I LOVE FO! Well, that didn't work very well. I know I said I would give up this game for a while, but what can I say? I'm addicted. I beat several of my high scores, but my new highest is for elite mode b, stage 4. The score is 00599994348200 Very nearly 600 billion. I wonder what will happen first: Will I master Mars Matrix about as much as I ever will or am capable of, or will I unlock the background graphics?
Facilitypro Moderator (11/11/01 5:10 pm) Reply	Re: I LOVE FO! Man, I bet that was a heartbreak. Well, not really a heartbreak, but it would have been nice to cross the 600 billion mark. But that score is pretty insane. I think mine is now somewhere just over 300 billion. Is there a way to keep your combo going during the lag between where the big blue warship leaves the screen then comes back? If there is, don't tell me how. Anyway, I think the BG Graphics will come first, especially if you keep getting those big scores. (My shop is at about 20 trillion.)
CRAWLand1000 Registered User (11/13/01 10:10 am) Reply	I LOVE FO! Yeah, after I got that score (I went right from my 420 billion score to blowing it away with the above score), I tried a couple of times to crack 600 billion. The time I played right after that score, I got over 500 billion. Lately, I've just been (relatively, anyway) sucking. I might be getting burned out on it. I played some Ys 2 over the weekend for variety. One of the last times I played, though, I had some inspiration on how I might be able to get an even higher (much higher, hopefully) score. I haven't been able to put that idea into practice with a good run yet, though. Since you said to not tell you if there is a way, I think I can safely tell you that so far I think it's impossible to keep your combo from ending at that point. As for the shop, I played enough lately to get it over 44 trillion. That's more than doubled what I have since I last posted my shop total. I figured out that the BG graphics cost over 85% of the total price of everything in the shop!! A couple of times I tried playing without a memory card to see how long it would take to unlock the "important" stuff (all the score challenges, and the elite mode enhancements, mostly). Well, I didn't unlock ALL that stuff, but I played long enough to know it could be done pretty quickly. I think my "mistake" the first time through the game was to unlock stuff like extra lives and credits, and the strategies, first, while unlocking the score challenges probably makes everything quicker (then again, it does help to watch the score challenges). BUT... even with over 44 trillion points, I'd have to get my highest score about a hundred more times to get the bg graphics! And since it's my highest score, I haven't even gotten more than once, yet. Not only that, but I sort of prefer to play the score challenges like an R-Type game. That is, if I screw up (at least if I screw up early) I'll start over. Points from aborted missions aren't saved. So, if I keep trying a stage over and over I might not make any progress for my shop at all. I've also kept a combo going from beginning to end of several stages, and am doing quite well (imho) in others (stage 4, for example). The only two stages I really need to work at a lot are stage 5 A and stage 6 B (grr). Then, I guess I could work on arcade mode... Well, I don't know. I think whether I'll bang against my asymptotic limit or get the bg graphics is an open question. I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!! Crawl and 1000

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