What shmup are you playing now?

[dunpeal2064]

Are you able to get the fixed extend from the tanks in Stage 3? That might give you enough umph to make it to the 2nd score extend.

In practice the Stage 4 boss doesn't seem to bad, but Stage 4 itself just eats me up. I try to dodge everything instead of taking advantage of cancels.

[mjmjr25]

I've actually gotten much better at canceling.

Stage 4 used to seem insane to me - but, dunno, I seem to play it rather well now. I do get eaten up a bit the last 30 seconds, but the first 90 seconds I coast pretty well.

Those big helicopters, there are 4 of them, 1 comes, then another, then both gone, then 2 more come. If you center directly under them, the wide patterns don't come near you, so you're only dodging lazer type bullets right at you, pretty manageable. That took awhile to figure out.

Also, as you start the stage - it will sorta "force" you to the far right - then a big tank comes on the lower right and now you're buried. About 2 seconds before that tank comes on screen, if you can think to (and manage to weave) your way back, you have a ton of real estate and can actually clear that tank and the whole screen rather easily. It went from a sure death every time to a really easy / safe spot of the stage.

You mentioned the stage 3 train extend before - I never bomb there, but I never get an extend either...what is the trick again?

[dunpeal2064]

Its these two tanks. The trick is to kill the one on top first, and then kill the one underneath before he can scroll offscreen. You can't kill either of them with a bomb.

[mjmjr25]

ahh, ok. That's stage 4 though, right? Stage 3 is all red background.

[dunpeal2064]

Maybe thats why I am so bad at getting the extend.

Yeah, its in Stage 4.

[alienjesus]

Dodonpachi Resurrection.

It seems like the only reliable way to stay alive in most of this game is to never be out of super mode. It's a fun game, but I dunno, it feels a little cheap compared to Deathsmiles.

And yes, I know Deathsmiles is quite easy for a Cave game, but I stand by my statement.

Also, Assault helicopter and Boost mode represent yo.

[BoneSnapDeez]

DeathSmiles is the only Cave game that doesn't seem super cheap to me.

[dunpeal2064]

I always thought Deathsmiles was cheap. Isn't it only $15 for a brand new copy?

What shot style are you using in DDP Res?

[mjmjr25]

DDP DFK / Resurrection is the most forgiving of any of the DDP games and feels anything but cheap to me. I don't think any CAVE games feel cheap - but certainly some are harder than others. DDP DFK I found to be 3rd easiest of CAVE games.

[Erik_Twice]

All right, I can beat Gradius II fourth stage without a problem but the boss (Death MkII) gets me everytime.

Some of the game's designers say that the main draw of Gradius is how the enemies always seem to be watching you and reacting to what you do. Well that's what Death Mk II does. He has a missile-based typical Core attack which is very easy to run into by mistake and a quick-firing big laser that he fires after locking on you, which he does at random intervals, so sometimes he locks on quickly and sometimes it takes a while. This means you have to constantly control your movement to know where to run.

Really interesting for such a simple boss, let's see how I manage to beat him