Response to Different course/characters.

Separating scores by character may be fine for hardcore fans of the game that want to compare scores, but as a MARP thing I don't think it's a good idea to split games up like that.

For example, let's look at Gauntlet, a game that contains four separate high score lists in-game, one for each character. Yet one score is only accepted per character. Gauntlet has 3 clones, so splitting each romset up into four different categories would make 16 scores to fight over, which is a bit too much. If we go by your idea of banning all clones and only using scores from the main romset, we lose clones that are actually vastly different in terms of difficulty. The Intermediate Releases of Gauntlet are much easier (i.e. more food) and so higher scores are possible. Because of the differences in gameplay I think it's wise to keep the clones around.

Another instance (gotta talk about games I love) is Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad. Like Gauntlet, there are four separate high score lists in the game. I've found that I tend to get higher scores with the faster characters (personal best is 14,145,770 with Lulu... what's the Gamest record anyway?), but there isn't too much difference in the final scores. As much as I'd love to see this game split into four categories, it really isn't necessary.

Now Shock Troopers 1... this game has three separate routes to start with, and then you can switch to any of the three at the "halfway" point. The total number of combinations of different stages is 9. (Valley-Valley, Valley-Jungle, Valley-Mountain, Jungle-Valley, Jungle-Jungle, Jungle-Mountain, Mountain-Valley, Mountain-Jungle, Mountain-Mountain). But the game itself only has a simple Top 5 for all routes. The route chosen can greatly change how many points you earn.... basically, if you want the highest score, you MUST pick Jungle-Valley route. Should this game be split up into 9 separate categories? Probably not, seeing how I seem to be the only big fan of the game on MARP, I'd just get a chance for 8 more 1st's. But hey, it has a clone too.... which is actually pretty different in terms of gameplay. I think the current system is just fine.

Basically, I think that unless picking a character TOTALLY changes the game, we should leave everything as it is. If we start splitting up games like King of Dragons, we'd have to do everything on a case-by-case basis (whatever happened with lengthening the sports games to full games anyway?)

-BBH, who still doesn't understand what warranted splitting up the Magical Drop games by difficulty

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