Can anyone give some tips on a good strategy for Catch mode? I can't even get to 2 million. The pieces start falling too fast and my core looks like crap. What's the best way to get a high score? Try to get really big cores before detonating? Try to kill lots of metroids? Thanks!
Here's some advice: -Start at level 15. I find anything higher to be just too fast. -Don't feel the need to catch every piece. If something doesn't fit, just let it go past. -Try to build two large areas, avoiding 4x4 on both for as long as possible. Once you activate one, join them together by filling in any gaps between them, creating a very large detonation area -Uness you're going to "die," never detonate early. Add as much size as you can during the detonation countdown. I'm not sure exactly how scoring works, particularly with metroids. I always just did my best to have the largest area upon detonation. My top score is just over 12 million (avg 300k per detonation), but I think a great run will net 20 million (500k per detonation). The biggest problem is that one misplaced piece can totally screw up your game.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with this. Level 20 felt "too fast" to me for quite a while, but if you really want a high score you need to get used to it. It just takes time. Eventually it'll be manageable. I don't recall the scoring details exactly, but it's something like this: - detonation score is 100 * (det. area)^2 * level - each piece you hit with the explosion is worth 100 * level - each metroid you hit with the explosion is worth 1000 * level I agree that 20 million is well within the realm of possibility.
This may be for another topic, but has anyone experience a bug in catch mode where you have no center piece? I have experienced this once and couldn't catch anything.
As I understand catch's falling algorithm, it's supposed to put the center piece back after gravity happens.
I've played a bunch of Catch and I score a lot higher on level 15. I've had detonations worth 800k+ before on level 15. Maybe I just need to practice on level 20 more, but I doubt I'll ever be able to build surface areas as big as I do on level 15. As for newer Catch players, I think jumping right into level 20 is foolish. You've got to get a good grip on the gameplay before playing at that speed. Heck, I consider myself to be pretty good and I can't score for shit on level 20. As for scoring, Metroids can add 20k max? Hardly worth detonating early. It's clearly all about detonation area.
