Congrats on beating Ninja Gaiden Bone. It took me a long time too - I eventually beat it by grabbing the windmill blade attack thing on 6-1 and carrying it all the way to 6-3 to one shot the middle form of the boss
Anyhow, I started another one of my Summer Games today - the long overdue Super Aleste, AKA Space MegaForce.
It's been on my summer list since 2014. This is the third year running I've put it on my list, but the first year I've actually played it. And damn, I was missing out. This game is awesome. Compile definitely make my favourite old-school shmups.
I'm loving the weapon system where you get 8 different weapons to choose from and they basically all have at least 1 alternate firing mode, if not more. Like, weapon 1 is a spread shot, but hitting R changes the pattern of the spread so you can shoot all different directions. I was a little worried that there was no 'shield' subweapon like in Blazing Lazers at first ( I found that to be a must in that game) but the game is liberal with powerups to keep your weapon topped up, and if you get hit with a weapon level of 4-6 (the maximum) then you just lose 3 weapon levels rather than dying.
My tops 3 weapons are:
3. Weapon 7 - This gives you options which follow you around shooting. Pressing R locks them in position though, allowing you to spread them out or focus them in. It's useful to put them at the side when going round corners. The best thing is the options take hits for you too, so you can form them into a sheild that can basically cover like half your ship!
2. Weapon 5 - This gives you missiles, which can be locked to spread and fire straight forward (useless) or allowed to home in on enemies (amazing). Not a lot of variety to using this one, but one of the most useful in all situations.
1. Weapon 2 - The laser. Works basically how it does in Blazing Lazers in normal mode - spreads out in crazy patterns covering loads of the screen and forming a sort of shield around you as it fires. It's even better though, because pressing R makes the middle laser home in on enemies. This is easilt the most useful weapon overall because of this - the outside lasers block you from the sides, the middle ones home in and kill enemies before they shoot, and you can focus on dodging.
And the losers:
3. Weapon 4 - This shoots in the direction you're moving, allowing 360 coverage. It's focused though, so it doesn't cover your flanks nearly as well as basically every other weapon. Holding R just locks the shot in place. Weapon 1 can shoot in basically every direction too, and that also covers multiple directions at once. This isn't great.
2. Weapon 8 - This shoots shotgun like shells which scatter when they hit something and shoot bullets in all 8 directions. Unfortunately, as it only shoots upwards, when it hits an enemy they soak up the 3 upwards directioned bullets and so you only get the 5 bottom ones. This means the scatter is useless unless you're shooting at the furthest enemies, which are the least threatening. Not much coverage from the sides either. Blargh.
1. Weapon 6 - This is one of the cooler weapons, but also the least useful for me. Whilst holding down shoot, it just shoots straight ahead with a fairly narrow spread. Whilst holding shoot though, you charge a MASSIVE laser which you can let go of shoot to unleash. It does great damage and looks awesome, but I find it hard to stop myself getting hit enough to make decent use of it.
Anyhow, I got to the boss of stage 10 (of 12) before losing my first continue and getting stuck in game over hell. The game offers infinite continues by the looks of it, but due to the lives system (you habe normal lives which reset you to a checkpoint, but can earn 'gold lives' which respawn you instantly upon death) I think it would be worth me restarting tomorrow and getting to the stage with more resources in stock now I know what the earlier stages will throw at me. The difficulty hasn't been too bad up to now, so barring a shocking difficulty spike in stages 11 and 12 (I do expect a boss rush...) I think I'll beat this before long.
