Battle Garegga 1CC 12 Hour Challenge

1/18/2021

Today, I have decided to embark on a journey I have been intending to undertake for many years now. That journey is 1CCing Battle Garegga.

I have been a shmup fan for a long time without ever doing anything more than dipping my toes into the cold water. It's a genre that appeals greatly to me, and is near and dear to the heart of my gaming sensibilities, but is something I have just never set aside the time for until today. There are always too many things to do, and if I was going to devote precious time and energy toward skill-gaming pursuits, I'd be more behooved devoting it to lowering my Rockman 2 time by 8 more seconds. Right?

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My arms-length obsession with Garegga began when I first watched Kamui-san's previous high score record of the game, using Gain, of 20,836,870. The raw game footage was overlaid by shmup community member Icarus onto an attractively minimal layout with English commentary annotations by Kamui-san. You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VisS7_ROmYw

Before stumbling onto this video, I had nurtured a multi-year obsession with the soundtrack of Armed Police Batrider, the game that Raizing made after Battle Garegga. I had also listened to Garegga's soundtrack a decent amount, but it didn't hold me in an obsessive grasp like Batrider's soundtrack did. And long before this, when I was growing up, I would always get excited when I entered an arcade and saw a shmup cabinet. I never paid attention to the titles of those games, but they were always what I gravitated to out of all the games in the arcade. There was something about the immediacy and simplicity of them, the metallic-ness and the purity of conflict. They didn't conceal anything from you - it was your lone airborne unit against a horde of enemy airborne units, and there was nowhere to run or hide.

So, shmups have always been near and dear to me, but I always enjoyed them in passing and from a certain distance. Kamui's 20.83mil video didn't immediately change that, but it planted a seed within me. It also swallowed me whole, and has yet to let me go. I quickly realized that the genius of Garegga's soundtrack wasn't -really- in the songs themselves, compelling as they may be in all their Detroit techno glory - the genius is in the songs' interplay with the game's sound effects and the ferocious intensity of the gameplay. And, oh, what gameplay it was! Watching Kamui-san's play was entrancing, rapturous - a divine ballet dance of complete destructive mastery.

I need to spend a little time putting the gameplay of Kamui-san's 20.83mil video into perspective. I have been speedrunning since 2010. In my past decade of existence, it is probably the one effortful pursuit that I have put the most time and energy into. I have speedrun many taxing games, including several that many people might regard as especially difficult games to play at the highest level. However, upon watching Kamui-san's 20.83mil video, I immediately knew that what I was watching was on a completely different plane than anything I had personally partaken in. There was clearly a planned route through the game, but there were so many moments featuring the kind of masterful improvisation that speedruns rarely tap into - particularly in Stages 6 & 7. In that video I witnessed a kind of killer instinct that to this day I have never seen in any speedrun.

Kamui-san's 20.83mil video became a totem in my life. I would lift weights while gutturally yelling at the pounding cacaphonous ecstasy of Stage 6. While showering, I would soak in the aural choreography and start hopping and dancing in place when the Stage 5 boss began its assault. Garegga became my lodestar through life, a reliable way to get pumped up and ready to take on the world.

4 years later, Kamui-san surprassed her 20.83mil score with a 20,959,490 (which stands as the current Battle Garegga score record). You can find this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4fnxn4xeBE. The timing was uncanny, as unfortunately, the subtitled commentary on the 20.83mil video had been erased due to YouTube wiping all video annotations. Icarus gave this new score the same generous treatment as the previous video, complete with new commentary from Kamui-san herself. I am someone that has, whenever a new record has been set in a game I care about, near-religiously watched said new record, even if the improvement is by only a second and no new strategies have been found. I always love finding out the particulars of the new best in town, whatever those particulars may be. I was excited beyond belief to be able to watch a new record in a game that had become such a defining element of my life's very fabric.

The gameplay was, of course, marvelous. The audiovisuals still constituted a sensorial feast. But what really got me was Kamui-san's new commentary. She discussed having taken a 4 year break due to burnout, but then having returned to score attempts after traveling to gaming events and inspiring others with her Garegga play. Seeing the positive effect she was having on so many people, she was inspired to resume that lonely road into the wild unknown, and she started grinding high score attempts again. The parallels to my own gaming journey were uncanny. I don't want to regurgitate her entire personal narrative here, because frankly it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever beheld during this life of mine. Anyone who appreciates skilled gameplay, the long and difficult road to greatness, the pure love of one's craft, and the even more pure desire to share that love with others - anyone who appreciates these things should watch Kamui-san's current record.

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Even after watching the 20.95mil video, which I regard as the single greatest video featuring skilled gameplay I have ever watched, I dragged my feet about actually diving into Garegga myself. Thanks to some inspiration from my friends Zoast and cleartonic, this changes today. I will be attempting a 12-hour challenge to 1CC Battle Garegga. I don't expect to actually achieve this goal in a mere 12 hours, as Garegga is a complex beast and my raw shmup skillset is lacking, but I will try my hardest. In time, if it ends up feeling right, I may even start on my own high scoring journey. But for now, I want to experience for myself the electric determination needed to prevail in Battle Garegga.