It's time for me to come clean: I am bad at video games, and I mean bad. My mother managed to beat the first Super Mario Bros without warp pipes back in the late 80s while I have never managed to get past 8-3, and that's with warp pipes. I've never beaten a Sonic or Mega Man game (well, I used the pause glitch in Mega Man 1). So what is up with Espgaluda, a "bullet hell" shooter? I beat the 1st stage without dying Is this an amazing feat? No, not to most people. I'm sure everyone yawned through it with their eyes closed the first time. But for me this is a real accomplishment and I'm proud of it! I have never figured out how to improve at a game, and I mean that literally. My solution is always to grind, and only RPGs let you do that without frustration. In action games, "grinding" means dying over and over and I've never had the patience for that. I used to scream, bite my arm, and gouge my face in anger after what felt like endless deaths and absolutely no improvement. But somehow I've escaped that fate in Espgaluda. Now, can I beat the whole game 1cc? No. Fuck no! But I will very, very slowly try to work on clearing stage 2 and so on without dying, recording it, and placing it here, and in a sort of "segmented speedrun" sense, by the end I will have beaten the game without dying! It's not arcade realism, sure, but the PS2 allows free play without spending money so that's already out the window.