Plasmo said I should post this here. Some of the general differences apply to other modes.

*Note from Mark* Plasmo is a friend of the website, he helps a lot with the video index.

Written in anticipation of the upcoming Stunfest 2019 demonstrations.

General

– Ultra mode has a much smaller hitbox in 1.01 compared to 1.5 (which has a 2×4 pixel hitbox) It’s possible to get away with more extreme dodges where you would die in 1.5. This is unique to version 1.01, the original version 1.0 has the same standard hitbox size as 1.5.

– Bombs do much lower damage in 1.01 compared to 1.5. While the damage in 1.01 is not completely negligible bombs are used much more defensively than in 1.5.

– The counter penalty for bombing is larger in 1.01, and only the stage counter is penalized. In 1.5 both counters are penalized by a smaller amount.

– In 1.5 you lose 980 for bombing as Reco, and 840 as Palm.

– In 1.01 you lose 1540 as Reco and 1320 as Palm.

Reco’s bomb is active for more frames than Palm’s, which explains the greater decrease in both versions as counter is lost at a fixed rate per active bomb frame.

– If the stage counter depletes fully it will be set to 1 in 1.01 and 0 in 1.5.

– In 1.5 dying reduces both counters by 1/3. In 1.01 dying reduces the total counter by 50% and the stage counter by 25%.

– In both versions the counters constantly decrease during boss fights. In 1.5 the rate of decrease is slow if you are currently shooting, and fast if you’re not currently shooting (and in Black Label this is reversed). In 1.01 the rate of decrease is always slow whether shooting or not.

– In Original Mode the total counter changes colour after each increase of 500. In 1.5 Ultra this was raised to 2000 to balance the rate of counter change in consideration of the increased rate of counter gain through large bullet cancels. In 1.01 Ultra the counter changes colour after every increase of 500 just like Original Mode. This means the colour of the counter at any moment is wildly unpredictable in 1.01 as it can be affected by very small discrepancies in the size of bullet cancels.

– The collection radius for airborne gems is smaller in 1.01. As collecting gems with the green aura relies on entering the collecting radius as soon as possible after the gem’s creation, this means the proportion of gems that can be collected with the green aura is considerably reduced, particularly with gems produced from large bullet cancels where the gems are widely distributed throughout the screen.

– In 1.5 green aura gems double the amount of counter you receive when collected, and also double the amount of points you receive when collected. In 1.01 the green aura only doubles the amount of counter you receive and doesn’t affect the point value of the gem beyond the small increase in base value due to the extra counter received. This means before any other considerations your score is automatically cut in half in comparison with 1.5.

– In 1.5 ground gems can be automatically collected from anywhere on the screen by holding A. This feature is absent from 1.01.

– In 1.5 ground gems can be collected with green auras either by manual or automatic collection within a certain frame window after creation. In 1.01 automatic collection is impossible and manual collection does not produce green auras regardless of how quickly it is done. This greatly reduces the value of ground gems and changes the optimal order of collection. For optimal scoring gems should ideally be collected in descending order of counter value as gem type does not affect their base score value in either version, only their base counter value.

– Abnormal Palm moves much more slowly in 1.01 and his laser is considerably weaker, making him a very poor choice for 1.01, so Normal Reco is typically used instead. Normal Reco’s laser seems to be identical in power to its 1.5 counterpart but the shot may possibly be slightly weaker.

– In all versions holding A does not fire the laser immediately, but there is a small delay. In 1.5 nothing is fired during this delay, but in 1.01 you release a small burst of shot. If this burst of shot kills an enemy the enemy is considered to be killed with shot as you might expect. This is unlike 1.5 and Black Label where the game only distinguishes the type of shot used based on whether or not A is currently being held – If you release A before the laser hits an enemy in 1.5 the game treats it as a shot kill as you weren’t holding A when the enemy died.

– There are waves of zako enemies in stages 3 and 5 that appear alongside the larger enemies at fixed times. In 1.5 some of these will appear only on the condition that the large enemy has already been destroyed. In 1.01 these zako enemies will always appear at their scheduled time no matter what. This adds some extra difficulty to these stages.

– The stage no miss bonus is 10 times larger in 1.5 than 1.01. In 1.01 Ultra you receive a bonus of 500,000 x stage number, while in 1.5 Ultra you receive 5,000,000 x stage number.

– The points awarded for destroying forms of bosses always consist of a static amount plus a bonus which is normally equal to the Stage Counter x 100. In 1.01 this Stage Counter is also used as the bonus multiplier for the very last bosses at the end of stage 5 but in 1.5 the larger Total Counter is used as the bonus multiplier for these bosses instead.

Stage 1 Boss

– The Stage 1 boss’s second phase opening attack is considerably easier in 1.01. The claws shoot their aimed bullets separately meaning it can be easily avoided by horizontal tapping. In 1.5 both claws fire simultaneously requiring vertical downward tapping to deal with.

Stage 2

– In 1.5 the large lobster enemies stop firing when they reach a certain vertical position on the screen as the stage progresses. In 1.01 they continue their attack cycle all the way down the screen.

– Icicles have twice as much HP in Ultra 1.5 compared to Ultra 1.01

1.01 Ultra: 4032 HP

1.5 Ultra/BL God: 8064 HP

All other modes: 5376 HP

– There is a bug with the stage 2 midboss. In 1.5 you optimally wait until the midboss is about to time out before killing it as this allows the prolonged bullet cancel to catch as many bullets from the following groups of enemies as possible. However, in 1.01 this is not possible as killing the midboss at such a time that it’s still performing its death animation when the bullet-cancelling Manta enemy that follows the midboss is supposed to appear actually causes the Manta not to appear, costing you an additional bullet cancel and thereby negating the score advantage you receive from delaying the midboss. This bug was fixed in 1.5 so there is no disadvantage to delaying the midboss cancel. Consequently the midboss must be killed quickly in 1.01. Allowing the midboss to time out does not prevent the Manta from appearing.

– Manta enemies in the second half and the large jellyfish they spawn shoot fewer bullets in 1.01 than 1.5.

Stage 2 Boss

– The rings in phase 2 do not cancel bullets when destroyed in 1.01. This means that the midboss cannot be milked by looping the attacks unlike 1.5. The individual objects that make up the rings must be destroyed separately in 1.01, whereas the rings themselves are destroyed in their entirety in 1.5.

– The final attack of phase 3 is significantly easier in 1.01, even disregarding the smaller player hitbox, as the bullets are much slower, and are of the narrower stick bullet type compared to the needle type used in 1.5.

Stage 3

– The giant beetle enemies are not bullet-cancelling enemies in 1.01, unlike 1.5. This makes the stage significantly harder.

Stage 3 boss

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 1 Attack 2 – in 1.01 the triangles are larger and contain more bullets, making it harder to navigate around them.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 1 Attack 4 – The angle of the rotating pattern shot by the bit is different between the two versions.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 1 Attack 5 – This attack is much harder in 1.01, the large red bullet layer is much denser and the lanes between the purple bullets are much narrower.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 1 Attack 6 – This attack is extremely difficult in 1.01 as the orbs that shoot rings of bullets from the sides of the screen continue shooting rings constantly as they travel down the screen. In 1.5 they shoot one ring only soon after they appear. This means that in 1.01 the screen gets extremely cluttered with bullets

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 2 Attack 1 – This attack is completely different between the two versions. The 1.01 version is much more difficult as the purple bullets constantly try to pincer you, while the 1.5 version can be easily avoided by circling the boss.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 2 Attack 2 – This attack is easier in 1.01 than 1.5. In 1.01 the red spread is denser and fires more erratically but it always shoots straight down regardless of your position. This means it can be avoided entirely by staying close to its point of origin. In 1.5 the red spread will also shoot upwards if you are above the point of origin so it must be dodged between the bullets.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 2 attack 3 – The purple enclosure bullets restrict your movement much more narrowly in 1.01 than 1.5

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 3 – Very random and difficult in both versions but much more so in 1.01 as the red spreads normally stay far to the sides in 1.5 but will come much closer in 1.01 and often trap you completely. The spreads of the preceding attack also contain more rows of densely packed bullets that are tricky to dodge as they are influenced by the boss’ random movement. This phase usually requires a pre-emptive bomb in 1.01 where you bomb at a specific time to manipulate the damage stacking so that it allows you to time a lucrative cancel without killing the boss prematurely. (see stage 4 boss notes for more details on this).

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

Stage 4

No stage differences in Ultra but this is the highest scoring stage in 1.01. In 1.5 it is the second highest scoring stage after stage 5. In 1.01 original mode the towers do not cancel bullets. In every other mode including 1.5 original they do.

Stage 4 boss

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 1 attack 3 – The spread of round purple bullets is denser in 1.01 than 1.5

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 2 attack 1 – In 1.01 the sprawls of purple bullets are much longer and the red enclosure bullets are denser.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 2 attack 2 – The purple bullets are much denser in 1.01 making it much more difficult to dodge the enclosing red bullets.

In 1.01 the normal safe strategy is to allow Phase 2 attack 2 to trap you at the bottom of the screen and then bomb out of it as late as possible so that the bomb hits the start of attack 3 when the orbs appear. This takes advantage of a strange property of enemies in this game because the orbs all have their own individual hitboxes that contribute to the damage dealt to the boss. Aiming the bomb so that it hits multiple orbs multiplies the damage the boss receives by the number of orbs hit. Since bomb damage is much higher in 1.5 this kills the second phase instantly, but in 1.01 it simply brings the second phase very close to death allowing a good bullet cancel to be performed without dodging the extremely dangerous third attack.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 2 attack 3 – This enclosure attack is extremely difficult in 1.01 as the orbs shoot three times as many lines of red bullets which overlap and leave almost no space to work with. In 1.5 they shoot single lines of red bullets making it quite simple to dodge.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

– Phase 3 – in 1.01 the red bullets form densely packed blocks of bullets that must be dodged around completely. In 1.5 there are very sparse individual red bullets that are trivial to dodge.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

Stage 5

– The lanterns in 1.5 Ultra cancel bullets when destroyed within a 16 pixel window in the centre. In 1.01 they don’t cancel bullets at all which significantly reduces the scoring potential of this stage, to the point where stage 4 is much higher scoring than stage 5.

– The lanterns are blue in 1.5 and grey in 1.01.

– In 1.5 the points awarded for destroying lanterns rises with the total number of lanterns destroyed. In 1.01 every lantern gives only 100,000 points.

– In 1.5 destroying a lantern causes gems to continuously pour out of the destruction crater. If a cancel was successfully performed with the lantern the gems will be large. If not, the gems will be small. In 1.01 the lanterns only leave behind a single small ground gem in the crater.

– The location of the hidden 1-up is different. In 1.01 it is in an earlier house. The midboss kill must be delayed to reach it as just like the stage 2 midboss its death animation will prevent one of the following groups of enemies from appearing which would otherwise block you from collecting the 1-up item.

-Throughout this stage in 1.01 small enemies will continue to fire at you while a large bullet-cancelling enemy is onscreen. In 1.5 small enemies stop firing at you until the large enemy dies, allowing you to deal with the large enemy’s attacks more easily. However there is a nasty bug related to this in 1.5 as if you die the enemies will stop shooting for a while as intended, but when they start shooting again this actually overrides the specific property of some small enemies to not shoot in the presence of a large enemy, making it very hard to recover at all.

– The dinosaur-like medium-sized ground-based enemies fire more frequently in 1.01, and like the lobsters in stage 2 continue firing at much lower vertical positions than in 1.5.

– The large red bullet-cancelling ‘turtle’ enemies have a much more difficult second phase pattern in 1.01. This pattern was simplified in 1.5 by removing many bullets.

– The medium-sized dragon enemies in 1.01 shoot lines of needle bullets in four rows. In 1.5 there are only two rows.

– The medium-large bullet-cancelling dragons’ first attack has three times as many rows of the red aimed sprawling pattern, and the second attack has denser spreads of round purple bullets.

– The two giant bullet-cancelling dragons have a nearly undodgeable second phase pattern in 1.01. In a survival based run the safest strategy is to minimize damage dealt to the first phase until the enemy leaves the screen so that second phase is avoided completely. The bullet cancel triggered by destroying these enemies lasts for an extremely long time in 1.5 allowing you to gain a large amount of gems from the surrounding enemies. However in 1.01 the cancel period is very short, reducing the scoring potential of this stage even more.

video: 1.01 version 1.5 version

Stage 5 boss

– All bullet patterns are identical between both versions. The increase in difficulty in 1.01 comes solely from the much more limited damage output prolonging the fight.

– The True Last Boss is somewhat easier in 1.01 due to the smaller player hitbox. The reduced bomb damage is irrelevant here as the boss cannot be damaged by bombs in either version.

Written and edited by SMC