VS. Balloon Fight point pressing...

bongoben

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So I got my VS. BF roms last week and absolutely love the game. It definitely tops the NES/PC-10 version, no questions asked... and it's super addicting. I haven't had a ton of time to play it due to the fact that my kids>arcades but I figured I'd start a discussion about ideas of how to up the score. Right now my highest is 206,750 at Phase 11. I know it's nothing incredible and I could have done better but the only time I really play is in the middle of the night when my brain has already stopped. Anyways, I was playing around a bit tonight to see what sort of point pressing could be done and here's what I learned...

Say you're on Phase 1. There are 3 enemies, all of which start as the Red/White guys (i.e. the easiest enemies). Normally, when I pop one of their balloons I would try to jump on their parachute right away for those points then wait for the bubble to float up to get those points. But, if after you pop the Red/White guy's balloon you let him drop to the ground, without killing him, he will re-inflate his balloon. But the doesn't come back as the Red/White guy... instead he comes back as a medium difficulty enemy, Blue/Yellow. If you pop the Blue/Yellow guy's balloon and let him land and re-inflate, he will come back as a hard difficulty enemy, Red/Yellow (or as I imagine them, the kamikaze pilots). From here on out you can continue to pop the Red/Yellow guy's balloons and let them re-inflate and they will continue to come back as the Red/Yellow guy.

On the upside, each time you pop an enemy's balloon and he comes back as the next guy the points increase for his next balloon you pop. Well, I don't know (forgot to watch) if the points continue to increase once you have reached the 2nd re-inflation of the Red/Yellow guy but regardless, you are racking up points. I've found, if at all possible, it's best to hover right above the guy as he is re-inflating so that as soon as he lifts off you can pop his balloon and send him back to the ground to re-inflate again. Now, the downside... the longer you take to finish the level the angrier the clouds get so they start shooting out lightning bolts at you. Additionally, if you are working this cycle with multiple enemies at once (i.e. all 3 guys from Phase 1) and you miss one of them, then you have an angry Kamikaze guy chasing you in addition to lightning bolts all the while you are trying to stay near the other enemies to pop their next balloon before they escape. As I learned, once you miss one enemy you will probably miss another one and all you can really do is run (flap you're sad little arms) for your life.

Anyways, just wanted to throw this out there. On Phase 1 you can easily hit 10,000+ points before the lightning bolts become a little too uncomfortable to continue.

Anyone else have any tips?
 

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I haven't been able to play the arcade version without a keyboard yet, so my high score is 156,xxx.

I don't ever point press in games, as I think it gets boring and whats the point of a high score in the first 4 or 5 screens of the game? Does it really say how good a player is? Obviously people will take offense to that, and I don't say it to piss anyone off, but I remember the WR on Vs SMB was 3xx,xxx for a while, and the guy was only at W3-1. So, he's not that good, but could break a lot of blocks, and get a lot of coins in the first 3 worlds? Lame. Balloon Fight is tough in that you dont get any Free Men for racking up points, so once you die 3 times, you are done. The further you can get in the game, the more impressive (IMO).

Anyhoo, my HS on the NES version (well, the Wii VC) is 1,060,000 and that was just playing through to see how many screens I could get through. I dont remember which screen I ended on, but I will say that the bonus levels are important. Make sure you get perfects on all of those. Hopefully I can get my BF PCB up and running (Im having issues right now), so after that I will join in on the fun.
 
I completely agree about just trying to survive in the game... I was more opening the topic of tips for points in this game for discussion. At this point, I haven't gotten past Phase 11. My biggest mistake thus far is putting myself into a tight spot I can't get out of. Get hit by one guy then before you can get out of there another gets you. I also hate it when you get hit once then the guy bounces off an island or something and right back into you... lame. Also, I got hit once after I died before I could take off flying again... that sucked. The bonus levels are super important to complete... the bonus points you get are sorely missed when you only miss 1 balloon. :)
 
lol didnt mean to move away from the original topic but was just making sure you werent asking to maybe put up a score on TG. I play balloon fight on the wii vc lol but I am looking for a vs. cab and hope to one day own this as well!
 
is there a timer in balloon fight?? If there is no timer then its against TG rules to point press so ya know lol

There is no timer... but I also have no interest in submitting anything to TG right now. :)

I do wonder how TG would look at this "point pressing" though because although there is no timer on the levels they do get significantly harder with faster enemies and more lightning bolts flying around the longer you take to finish the level. So in a way it's like a natural timer... you definitely have incentive to finish the levels quick as you are significantly less likely to die.

(edit) I also don't believe I, or anyone else here, could submit our scores to TG because I don't think anyone has any "actual" VS. BF chips... they're all burned aren't they?
 
(edit) I also don't believe I, or anyone else here, could submit our scores to TG because I don't think anyone has any "actual" VS. BF chips... they're all burned aren't they?

Isn't every chip burned originally? I don't see why they wouldn't allow it. They are real chips, running on real hardware.
 
They are real chips, running on real hardware.

Alright... I just have no idea about their actual verification process for a game like this where there aren't any "real" factory Nintendo chips. But yes, they are real chips running on real hardware and they could even verify w/ Steph @ hobbyroms about the ROM files he uses (has anyone picked up these chips from somewhere else?) :)
 
Alright... I just have no idea about their actual verification process for a game like this where there aren't any "real" factory Nintendo chips. But yes, they are real chips running on real hardware and they could even verify w/ Steph @ hobbyroms about the ROM files he uses (has anyone picked up these chips from somewhere else?) :)

if it isnt donkey kong, then anything counts haha, verification is showing the dips to be tournament settings and then just playing
 
So I know that others are playing this game... any high scores? Any tips you want to share?
 
Finally got a working board, and played the arcade version of Vs Balloon Fight. I only played once, but got 456K. No point pressing though, just played through. The bonus stages are key...
 
Finally got a working board, and played the arcade version of Vs Balloon Fight. I only played once, but got 456K. No point pressing though, just played through. The bonus stages are key...

That's one hell of a score. I haven't played in a couple months as I've had the VS. SMB/VS. DH board in the cab for my kids. I think their time is up.
 
Awesome, JOW!

So, what's the record? Is there one?

There isn't one. They don't even have an arcade spot setup yet on the site, so I have just set the PCB to the MAME settings. Dunno if that's right?
 
Better, but still a long ways from the 1M score I want.

Vs Balloon Fight is way harder than the NES version. The vertical aspect of it makes it tough, cause you cant see everything above you, and most of the time its too late. That, and the the fact that there are no extra lives given sucks :)
 

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