Scores are good! Youtube charlie and miles for the best score videos.
Yeah, I've watched their videos before. Some of their strategies aren't possible on the HD version though. For example, I don't think you can get the big link on Mare 3 of Frozen Bell from paralooping the snowballs. It may also be impossible to get infinite link on Mare 1 of Spring Valley. Can't say for sure since I've always been terrible at doing mares backwards.
Quick observation - you can collect chips before starting mare 1 to open the capture on the first lap (possible on all main dreams).
The only dream I tend to do this on is Frozen Bell. It's kinda questionable whether it's worth it on other dreams. Remember, the Ideya Capture's bonus starts ticking down BEFORE you dualize with NiGHTS. By collecting blue chips on foot, at best you're buying yourself a half-lap of Mare 1 in bonus time.
re: the scores. I main on the xbox (much better than my steam scores, can check and upload pics if interested) but on steam I think legit scores start on the second or third page.
I used to play on Xbox when the port was first released. I think I'm listed as RedTail86, but my scores are probably lower than my Steam ones. I set most of those before analog control was patched back in.
I prefer Steam because I can use a Saturn 3D pad to play. Raphnet makes Saturn-USB adapters which support the 3D Pad and work quite well. May want to check them out. There's also a Mayflash adapter on eBay. It's cheaper, has two controller ports, and is quite a bit more durable, but it does have a flaw that I just noticed a few days ago... While the Mayflash adapter supports the 3D Pad's analog stick, it doesn't support analog on the triggers. This makes getting dreamies more difficult. IMO, this makes the Raphnet adapter the superior choice.
it should have a 2.0 and be realistic (600-900 most, million maybe for Spring Valley and frozen bell).
It's easier to weed out the cheaters by looking at some of the lower-scoring dreams like Soft Museum, Stick Canyon, and Twin Seeds. There are a few guys on there (and I'm going from memory here) like bekpower and uzra who have what appear like reasonable scores on some dreams, but their scores are too large on lower-scoring dreams.
I personally got two 1.9's on this playthrough since I'm inconsistent with paralooping Gillwing's tail, and can't 2.0 Clawz in the HD version. I could have set the bosses to random for those dreams, but I wanted to show all the bosses off for this playthrough. Oh well!
For example, I think for spring valley Jim at number 19 is the top score that could be real while (your at 25 and I'm at 27).
Yeah, Jim's legit. There are people above and below him who aren't though.
Can Steam delete scores? Maybe make a request?
I'm not sure who one would appeal to, Sega or Valve. Either way, it doesn't fix the underlying problem, the fact that people can achieve fraudulent scores in the first place.