High Score Competition #190: Dragon Blaze

[WakiMiko]

High Score Competition Rules and Scoreboard

------------------------------
Game Name: Dragon Blaze
ROM Name: dragnblz
------------------------------



Settings:
    Defaults:
   
    Also, my BIOS is set to to "International Version B" (that's what MAME defaults to). I have no idea what the differences are, but I suggest we stick with this one.

Controls:
    Joystick: 8 Way
    Buttons: 3 (Shoot/Magic, Bomb, Use Dragon)




LINKS:
    Shmups Forum Strategy Thread
    Wikipedia
    KLOV

SCORES:

1.
2.
3.


Last day: Sunday, May 8 2016 midnight Pacific
--------------------------------------------



- Quest for the Bronze Joystick! The most successful competitor of each calendar year will possess & display the BYOAC Bronze Joystick Trophy. See this thread for details: The BYOAC Bronze Joystick.
Happy Gaming!

[acvieluf]

hmmm...this is not running well on mameosx. I wonder if thats just due to the version of mame, rather than the game itself. 

Do you know, does this game require a lot of processing power to run?  Its a 2000 game, but i can run other 2000 games, on my MBP and on my cabinet at home, running windows XP.  Those are net-geo games, though.  Just wondering.

[WakiMiko]

Hmm, I dunno. It's running fine on my ancient PC, even with HLSL.

Since it's only the 2nd day, I guess we could still switch games. My second choice would have been Air Gallet (ROM: agellet).  If that runs better for you, I'd be fine with changing games.

[acvieluf]

no no, its fine.  By now, i'm sure people have started playing with it.  No need to switch.

If it works well for you, then i think my suspicions are correct, that it's mameosx, and not the game.  I'll try at home when i get a chance.

EDIT - I never really bothered checking much, but it appears that mameosx is running mame .135. (or its version .135 of mameosx, so i'm not 100% sure)

But i'm running .159 (i think?) at home.  So i'll give it a try.

[yamatetsu]

No problems running it on .149 & .161.

[pbj]

It's on CoinOps as well.

What an odd game.  The level sequence seems to vary by your character selection.  Seems like parking your dragon at the middle top may be a good strategy for bosses?  Did enjoy the boss dragon that turned into a killer crawfish.

[yamatetsu]

I'll start with a whopping 175,700.

[popsicle]

What an odd game.  The level sequence seems to vary by your character selection. 

If I start a new game, even with the same guy, the board sequence is different. If I quit and restart, it always defaults to the same one.

[acvieluf]

Update, the ROM name is "dragnblz" not "drgnblz". It's working great on the winXP cab at home. The correct ROM will probably work fine in mameosx, I suspect.

Sent from my Atari 2600

[WakiMiko]

Update, the ROM name is "dragnblz" not "drgnblz". It's working great on the winXP cab at home. The correct ROM will probably work fine in mameosx, I suspect.

Sent from my Atari 2600

Oh woops, good catch. I edited the thread.

[/quote]

What an odd game.  The level sequence seems to vary by your character selection. 

If I start a new game, even with the same guy, the board sequence is different. If I quit and restart, it always defaults to the same one.

Yeah, in most (all?) Psikyo shmups the order of the first 4 levels is random. See the strategy thread I linked.

[acvieluf]

Well. 155,200 was an OK start. I like this one!



Sent from my Atari 2600

[harveybirdman]

You just had to pick the hardest Psikyo shooter didn't you.....

[WakiMiko]

You just had to pick the hardest Psikyo shooter didn't you.....

lol, it wasn't on purpose I swear. I put maybe 5 mins into it before picking it. Didn't know it was going to be this hard.

[harveybirdman]

I have yet to master the double tap dragon shot..... but you really need it for scoring.

[yamatetsu]

I have yet to master the art of Staying Alive ... you really need it for scoring.

[acvieluf]

I have yet to master the art of Staying Alive ... you really need it for scoring.

Sent from my Atari 2600

[RTyper56]

long time no play...

im trying to get this setup on my cab, but when i start to play it, it leaves me with a blank black screen (running from MA).
if i run it in mame directly, it tells me files are missing.
ran mameui, and it tells me im missing  eeprom-dragnblz.u44
mame on all my PCs are .167 compiled to save highscores, and mameui is also .167

[JDFan]

long time no play...

im trying to get this setup on my cab, but when i start to play it, it leaves me with a blank black screen (running from MA).
if i run it in mame directly, it tells me files are missing.
ran mameui, and it tells me im missing  eeprom-dragnblz.u44
mame on all my PCs are .167 compiled to save highscores, and mameui is also .167

THat file is inside the dragnblz.zip rom file in both my 0.149 and 0.172 romsets and according to the 0.172 set the archive has a Date modified date of 12/24/1996 10:32PM -- so it hasn't been touched in quite awhile ! you might try redownloading the rom from one of the rom sites and see if that fixes things.

[RTyper56]

long time no play...

im trying to get this setup on my cab, but when i start to play it, it leaves me with a blank black screen (running from MA).
if i run it in mame directly, it tells me files are missing.
ran mameui, and it tells me im missing  eeprom-dragnblz.u44
mame on all my PCs are .167 compiled to save highscores, and mameui is also .167

THat file is inside the dragnblz.zip rom file in both my 0.149 and 0.172 romsets and according to the 0.172 set the archive has a Date modified date of 12/24/1996 10:32PM -- so it hasn't been touched in quite awhile ! you might try redownloading the rom from one of the rom sites and see if that fixes things.

Ok. I guess the 2 sites i downloaded from didnt have it.
Ill look around on other sites

EDIT: iv tried downloading from maybe 8 other websites, and all of them do not have the required file.
i have seen a few times where it has the file, but as a .bin instead of .u44, and many other times, it didnt have it at all.

[JDFan]

It is a bin file so should be eeprom-dragnblz.u44.bin - I checked the first site you listed and it is in their package 

Are your other roms in zip packages also or are you using 7z extension for your roms (perhaps mame is not looking for zip files  )

[acvieluf]

182,600



Sent from my Atari 2600

[RTyper56]

It is a bin file so should be eeprom-dragnblz.u44.bin - I checked the first site you listed and it is in their package 

Are your other roms in zip packages also or are you using 7z extension for your roms (perhaps mame is not looking for zip files  )

The ones with the bin in them dont work either. They are just eeprom-dragnblz.bin

I have the roms of games as 7z, and the bios roms as zip. It setup that way to make it easy to add games in MA.
MA is set to scan for only 7z roms, which are the games, and i dont have to go in the game list and remove all the bios roms from the list.

[WakiMiko]

449,300



The boss in the "aerial mist" stage (first stage if you just booted the rom) is the only I can get the technical bonus on without using a bomb.

[JDFan]

It is a bin file so should be eeprom-dragnblz.u44.bin - I checked the first site you listed and it is in their package 

Are your other roms in zip packages also or are you using 7z extension for your roms (perhaps mame is not looking for zip files  )

The ones with the bin in them dont work either. They are just eeprom-dragnblz.bin

I have the roms of games as 7z, and the bios roms as zip. It setup that way to make it easy to add games in MA.
MA is set to scan for only 7z roms, which are the games, and i dont have to go in the game list and remove all the bios roms from the list.

PErhaps try unzipping the dragnblz.zip file and then repack using 7z and put that into your roms folder

I just looked again at my 2 romsets and they do have different file extensions for that file in the 0.172 set it has eeprom-dragnblz.u44 and in the 0.139 it is actually just eeprom-dragnblz.bin

SO perhaps try duplicating the file in your 7z and keep a copy with each extension (not sure which your version may be looking for so having both might fix it  ) Though going by your Mameui error it seems to be looking for a copy of the file with just the .u44 extension so that would most likely be the one it is looking for  ( Try unzipping the copy of the 0.172 rom and repack as a 7z leaving that file with the .u44 extension )
 

[yamatetsu]

278,600.

[acvieluf]

251,900
EDIT - 279900



Sent from my Atari 2600

[yamatetsu]

308,800.

[WakiMiko]

Scores so far:

1. WakiMiko      449,300 ROB   1-5
2. yamatetsu     308,800 ROB   1-3
3. acvieluf      279,900 QUAID 1-3
4. harveybirdman 156,700 QUAID 1-3

[acvieluf]

Maybe I missed it in the YouTube video, but what triggers the "coin God?" (That's what I call it at least.) Some games I get him once, some twice, (in 2 stages), and some not at all.

Sent from my Atari 2600

[harveybirdman]

As I understand it it's always a specific enemy in each level that you must kill with the dragon ahot.

[yamatetsu]

Look at this. http://www.world-of-arcades.net/1945/Dragon%20Blaze/Secrets.htm

[RTyper56]

If o my been able to come across the coin god with ianon the aerial mist level.
It is quite a difficult game until you make good use of the dragon shot. Makes quick work on a large group of enemies if timed right

[WakiMiko]

I kinda regret picking this game because its so frustratingly difficult. The scoring system pretty much forces you to be up close to the enemies all the time resulting in cheap deaths and countless restarts. I don't like the bullet patterns either. Definitely prefer Cave over Psikyo.

460,000

[yamatetsu]

343,100. I'm done.

[acvieluf]

OI.  I am stuck.  I've been able to trigger 2 coin gods, and get two Tech bonuses, and still can't beat my score.  I guess theres only one thing left to do:

   THESE ULTIMARC STICKS ARE TERRIBLE!  I CAN'T GET ANY BETTER UNTIL I BUY SOME NEW JOYSTICKS!   



 

[yamatetsu]

  THESE ULTIMARC STICKS ARE TERRIBLE!  I CAN'T GET ANY BETTER UNTIL I BUY SOME NEW JOYSTICKS!   



 

Well, at least you are still motivated. My limit of rage-quits has been reached pretty fast with this one.

[ninjabadger81]

Really liking this game.

Never played it until I saw this thread.

Not been able to get any technical bonuses or anything and my best is around 190000 but gonna keep trying.

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk

[WakiMiko]

Really liking this game.

Never played it until I saw this thread.

Not been able to get any technical bonuses or anything and my best is around 190000 but gonna keep trying.

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk

Screenshot (F12 in MAME) required if you want to participate!

I'm done.

Me too.

500,500

[ninjabadger81]

Lol. Not bothering with a screenshot until I get a decent score.

500k looks good wow.

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk

[popsicle]

291,100