I think I'm done testing catch... the leveling up is pretty much the same as with mission marathon:
- Make 4x4 grids to clear blocks, this will also increase your health if it isn't at its max and shoot beams of light. You will lose health if blocks reach the bottom, if you rotate into blocks, or if you hit a metroid. If your health is empty, it's game over.
- Scoring works as follows (I think): For each block that sticks to your main block, you get 10 points. If you have a 4x4 block or bigger, you will get N*N*level*10 points. N is the amount of blocks that are part of 4x4 boxes. Note that it's quadratic. Using the light to kill a metroid also gives points: 1000*level.
- Once again, you can only select levels 1-5 at the start. Similar to mission marathon, after clearing blocks twice, you move on to the next level. So after clearing 10 times, you are at level 6, and 38 times, you reach level 20. After clearing 40 times, the game ends, and you get the credits. When returning, you can pick level 1-20, and it's also finite, so once again 40 clearings.
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This mode will take significantly longer. My slowed down test which got 40 clearings twice was about 18 minutes. A TAS should be a LOT faster though. Normally, you will get 10 seconds after you get a 4x4 grid, to add more blocks, but this can be skipped, by triggering the light instantly. A run which unlocks the level would probably do that often.
If it is possible to make a 112 combo 40 times at level 20, the total score will be maxed out to 99.999.999. (For reference, at cyberscore, the record for biggest combo is 102) This is most definately possible, so I guess the goal would be to get that as fast as possible and then die.
I'm curious to see how this mode will look when properly TASed... will it be interesting and short enough to see it cleared by forming 40 combo's twice? My guess is that it will be.
Maybe, if all these modes are completed twice (once to unlock the levels, once for high score), should they be done in a more random order (as in, unlock levels, then do some other mode, then come back to set highscore)?
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Edit: Oops, when making this post, I thought the combo score was maxed out at 999.999 (see charge at the bottom):
It turns out however that more will be added to the score though, which should make it possible to get 99.999.999 and aim for fastest time getting that. I changed the above post accordingly.
(Also note how nicely the above and bottom screen connect. It's as it is one big screen instead of two.)