Yet another superplay-grade demonstration with A-L:
http://www.nicozon.net/watch/sm18182260 (stages 1-2)
Gets 227 million on stage 1 and ends it with
eight hypers in stock. I called the possibility, but didn't think it would allow so much room for imperfection. Actually, now I'm wondering if having two hypers at the time of activation and more aggressive aura-ing of the mid-boss would be beneficial in any way. Nine hypers still seems out of the question. Stage 2 finished with 1.44 bil and eight hypers in stock.
http://www.nicozon.net/watch/sm18182630 (stages 3-4 from a different session)
Starts stage 3 with 1.40 bil, ends with 4.81 bil and seven (pretty much eight) hypers in stock. Uses hypers twice in the stage, at levels 10 and 1, both times not attempting even a minimal recharge at the closest opportunities. Thus, most likely improvable. Ends at the end of stage 4 upon taking an unfortunate hit with over 10k chain and rank 20; the final score was 6.3 billion with a clear potential to reach 8.5+ billion after the tally on a no-miss scenario.
That paints the following picture for the reference A-L scoring with perfect survival, assuming current knowledge:
≈1.45 bil (stages 1 & 2) +
≈3.5 bil (optimal stage 3) +
≈3.7 bil (optimal and complete stage 4) +
≈11 bil (stage portion of stage 5 + Hachi, as per the earlier vids, including the no-miss and full chain bonuses) +
1 bil for killing Hibachi's first form +
5 bil for killing Hibachi's second form +
6 bil for remaining lives +
0.3 bil for remaining bombs
= 32 billion.
Now I don't expect anybody to actually max out the score, but we may well see Arcadia scores roll over 30 billion not before long?in fact, I strongly suspect the current top scores to be around 25 billion already, at the very least. If these replays, at least stages 3 through 5 are inoptimal, then it's likely there's some 2-3 billion more to take advantage of.
At the same time I don't really see how anybody would no-miss/no-bomb this game under high-scoring conditions, not with this TLB and the rank system anyway. The best stage 5 replay seen so far starts it at rank 5, these vids suggest it would start at rank 20+ under optimal conditions, and the TLB would be reached at around 40.
