Gradius 2 - Boss Recovery (NES / Famicom) - Part 1
42In what is clearly an effort to inflict the most pain possible on myself, I've gone and done the insane thing of attempting... recovery runs against Gradius bosses.
What's a Recovery Run?:
Here's the basic idea: Get to the boss, and then die. Then beat the boss (and.. what parts of the stage it forces me to do.) with the few power-ups you get from the pre-boss checkpoint.
The hardest part about the Gradius series is, when you die, especially to one of the bosses, it's extremely difficult to continue. This is what makes the Gradius series amongst the hardest shoot em up's around.
From looking at other videos on youtube, you might assume that the bosses in this game were complete pushovers. That's only true if you've got full power ups. ;P
This is the Famicom (NES) port of the arcade game Vulcan Venture, it's had alot of changes from it's original version, including new bosses, altered level layouts, and a few things removed. (Presumably because the Nes couldn't of handled the game's bigger Core designs.)
Boss Notes:
Stage 1:
Stage: Just enemies. Nothing special. The boss itself is pretty weak, a single laser will kill it quickly.
Pheonix: Not much to note, but I used that particular recording due to how incredibly lucky I was. :D
Stage 2:
Stage: Here we go! The biggest threat, funnily enough, is the face huggers. These have to be taken out ASAP. The egg's don't continue to respawn them after the first batch. Thank god for that! XD
Big Eye : Get the option if possible. This makes it easier to eliminate the major threat here: The tiny shots.
Giga : What happened here was, the option went inside the boss. Meaning major, major damage.
Giga Post Big Eye Checkpoint: Now that's much harder! Try not to die here, as this battle is hairpulling without a speed up. Just pay attention to the boss's simply pattern, and make sure he doesn't trap you in. Not terribly hard.
Stage 3:
There isn't really a boss, since they removed Death Mk II for some reason... I guess the volcanoes are the boss(es)? You can destroy them (!), but at this low power level, it isn't worth trying.
Stage: Ok, this is where the game's biggest issue comes into play - as far as standard bullets go - the hitbox is bigger than the sprite (How'd you manage to do that one Konami?!).
This means they can still kill you, even if they are no-where near you! This means you have to really watch and stay far away from the enemy bullets. This makes this area far harder than it should've been. This is probably one of the hardest to recover sections in the game. The main focus is to destroy things before they get very far into their firing pattern.
The missile and double is the way to go here. Don't get too many speed ups either.
Cryovolcano: Getting past the volcanoes is all about timing. Got to be quick about it to, or you'll be trapped in.
Stage 4:
Stage: I'm glad they put the checkpoint after that ridiculous crystal segment. The hard part here is nailing all the orange enemies.
Crystal Core: Get double if possible. Again, the hitbox for the bosses' bullets are much larger than the sprite. This is somewhat frustrating as you can't stick close to it. This is actually harder than the arcade counterpart.
Stage 5:
Mini-Boss Moai:
YOU STILL HAVE TO PLAYTEST GAMES KONAMI. Sheesh, talk about a colossal screw in in the checkpoint department. The area preceding the mini-boss actually has power ups! For some reason, the checkpoint is directly afterwards. This means you get no power ups what so ever. And that makes the boss nothing short of a nightmare.
The strategy I use here also works without turbo, it just takes much, much, longer. You can probably see why.
It blocks most of your bullets. ARGH.
Ok, fortunately theres a checkpoint after this thing, and at least that gives you power ups.
Stage: Kill the little hopping.. things.. before they manage to start shooting. If you don't have a power up in the power metre when you die, get one now, and then kill yourself.
Big Moai: I haven't found anything that works here beside the back-shooting double shot. Maybe something else might work, but I haven't found it.
I'm also not sure how I survived in this recording, but what the hell. Spread bombs aren't as effective as you'd think they'd be.
That's the end of Part 1. Part 2 will hopefully come soon, providing I don't get much trouble with the later stages. (Hah.)
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