1CC - Cardinal Sins (Judgement Silversword - Recycle Edition)

The recent Japanese Xbox 360 release of Eschatos by developer Qute, saw additional bonus included on the disc in the way of, Judgement Silversword and Cardinal Sins. The former being the winner of the, WWGP 2001 WonderWitch programming contest. WonderWitch was a development tool for homebrew WonderSwan games.

Judgement Silversword is a fan-created vertically scrolling shooter, that was an homage to Treasure's Radiant Silvergun. A full boxed retail version was released in 2004 and fetches quite a price on Ebay these days, if it appears at all.

An update of Judgement Silversword was released called Cardinal Sins - Recycle Edition in 2005, and was to my knowledge only available via download using the WonderWitch tool. It was based on the Caravan style of Japanese shoot 'em up games of having a set time to pass a set number of enemies for score.

Cardinal Sins - The game features three difficulty modes, Trial, Normal and Marathon. The ship has two weapon shot types. A standard forward shot, which I believe seems to be more powerful in a head on situation, and a spread shot that creates a cone-shaped pattern. This comes in useful when you have a barrage of enemies on both sides of the screen. There is also a shield which becomes vital (if you remember you have it) in tight situations. This replaces the more traditional 'bomb' usually found in the genre. You pass from stage to stage with increased waves of enemies and harder bullet patterns, and given an overall hit percentage at the end of each stage, amounting to higher scores.

It is a rarity that I play a shmup long enough to reach a standard where a 1CC is in sight and often with shmups, the difficulty spikes on the later levels making it only possible for true die hards or with extreme persistence, to finally be able to finish a game on one solemn credit. I've managed a few in my time but only usually with shooters which seem to be alot easier or when playing on lower difficulty settings. The true masters aim to do it in one life.

On first try I managed to clear Cardinal Sins on Normal mode on one credit. Of course, it isn't that long a game, but it is reasonably challenging, with some tougher bullet patterns later on. Slowdown can be used to your advantage in some of the more bullet hellish moments where close quarter dodging without this slowdown could become quite impossible (*note to self - "you have a shield! use it!").

There is opportunity for picking up many extends on one particluar level, where they seem to spit out lives after every few enemies. This should be taken to full advantage and wasn't until my second playthrough that I realised what was going on. The only hinderence of this is that you can shoot the life icon making it explode and disappear. These icons can be difficult to collect whilst dodging the barrage of projectiles, often leading to losing a life rather than gaining. Once the life leaves the bottom of the screen, it is gone for good.

After finishing the game, I decided to play through again to improve score. On my three subsequent attempts I failed to get anywhere near the end, and lost all my lives rapidly in the later stages. At one point I had accumulated eight lives and yet still failed to finish.

Below is my 1CC score. I most certainly will be attempting to better my score or challenge the other modes.

"A very achievable high score to beat. On a later attempt I had hit 10 million after a few stages".