Other notes... it's really hard to see the enemy's bullets when you're exploding enemies right on top of them. Also, the hit radius vs the 3rd boss seems too large. Basically, there are a lot of features making this game overly hard for what it should be. It's of my opinion that it should have some tweaks to make it slightly easier. And I speak as an excellent flash gamer. Unless it's meant to be this difficult.
Also... to the game creator... I think calling Reckless "easy" is a big misconception to the commentors... Reckless is easy over a long period of games. But in a 1 game setting, Reckless can be the hardest opponent... as he can easily get points very fast. He also can go 6+ zilches in a row. High variance. Cautious is the most predictable.
As someone with 110+ awards and well over 100 games played... the AI is not fixed, even if it seems like it. You're just getting unlucky in a small sample set. Play 100+ games... I only have about a 50% winning percentage, but that's because I'm either losing on purpose or getting to 9950 and going for 15,000 and wind up losing. If I tried to win every game, I'd probably win 75-85% of the time. I do have to say there are too many awards though. 50 would have been plenty. 120 is just excessive... especially the Gold Plated Zilch Machine.
Fun Touhou game... hit detection should probably be a bit tighter though, I was hit ~10 times total in the entire game, and I'm pretty damn bad at these types of games.
If anyone is having trouble with a level, or with finding easter eggs... here is a complete walkthrough video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzmllqsj81A
Kinda annoying to win but only have 5021 gold, yet not be rewarded for the 45 lockpicks or 12 tonics i had left. I'm guessing those with higher gold totals had less pics/tonics. Also, it's pretty easy to not die. There should be more unseen obstacles or obstacles that deal more than 1 damage.
Controls are delayed, music is about a 4 second loop, action is really slow moving, AND... your 10th frame scoring is incorrect. I opened in the 9th for a 193, then went XX9 in the 10th for what should have been a 222, yet I was scored as a 241. I think your algorithm is reading it as 3 separate frames, when it's only 1. You get 10, 10, 9 for it. not 29, 10, 9.
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com for a well made flash DDR... issues with yours: the up/down arrows are backwards, you have no music, it's weird to have the receptors be solid like that, poor graphics, etc.
beat the game... fun, but it'd be a LOT better if the hit detection wasn't so finicky. made it way too hard for what it should be, and became about pixel perfect placement instead of solid strategy / puzzle solving.
Just set the #1 score... 18690. Few pointers/bugs: Music stops after it loops once, you should fix this... maybe have more than 1 song. I'd recommend doing something to increase the difficulty as time goes along. Once it hit about 3000, it was the same difficulty until I died, which was partially out of boredom. I would increase death dice as time goes along, increase normal dice as time goes along (or score), possibly increase/decrease the speed of some dice, so they aren't all falling at the same speed. I would also doing something with pills over time... either decrease frequency (I always had plenty of extra pills) or make it so you get more and more addicted as time goes on, and you need more and more pills to survive. Hope these tips prove to be useful for you. Maybe you could incorporate them all into a "hard mode" and keep a "normal mode" as the game currently is.
Controls need to be MUCH better. Game goes all haywire if you leave the swf window, and you can't really tell if you're going to because you don't know where your mouse is.
Serious glitches in this game... at the final boss and the 5th sequence or something, a left/right tap quickly... isn't responding at all. aka, can't beat the boss.
 "Flash Beryllium")
 "Shore Siege!")
 "Zilch")
 "Frantic")
 "Tactical Assassin Substratum")
 "Run")
 "Karoshi : Suicide Salaryman")
 "Flash Dance Flash Dance Revoloution Remix!")
 "Necropolis")
 "Ten Pynn Bowling")
 "Flash Dance Flash Dance Revoloution")
 "Perpetual Motion")
 "Death Dice Overdose")
 "Pop Pirates")
 "Typing Ninja Hunter")