@sirhenrythe5th I'd really like to see the high score table :)
Tangent intro: a few years back, after noticing that I had a lot of MAME games that I should like but ended up not playing them very much because the process wasn't fun enough, I read an article which is no longer online that made me understand why: https://web.archive.org/web/20181120043643/http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/
I ended up learning that this author seems to have some strong opinions on some topics, and tends to write in a controversial tone, but this specific article I save to this day because it changed the way I played MAME games - and made them so much better as a result - precisely because of what you just said very subtly, "don't play anything with continues".
As such, I set up a collection on RetroPie where I'd keep some games that I'd just play over and over again, 1 credit at a time, to see how far I'd make it. In the beginning they were Final Fight, Contra and DoDonPachi - I don't think I had any others in my "regular" list. It took me a while to consistently get to the first @mitu score, and afterwards making it to the high score list was an extremely rewarding achievement - that's why I want to congratulate @IanDaemon and @mitu on their scores during just the MAME ROW period! I certainly didn't get to have a score in the high score table in the first week.
These days I get to the end of level 2 boss consistently, and the majority of the time I get to the 3rd level and lose somewhere around there.
My top score is 8.5M, 4th level - I don't think I ever made it past it with 1 credit.
Still, a lot to learn, but it's one of my favorite games from these past 2-3 years that I've played it. I didn't take part in MAME ROW because I didn't have time, but I'd love to try it out and submit a new score if I get to the high score table again.
But do share your score, really - impressive achievement 1cc'ing this game :) Hope to get there one day.
