Game:

Vulcan Venture (1988)

Duration: 31:35

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2

A 1-credit clear of Gradius II, arcade game played with MAME 0.203. Taking the new arcade stick on a journey through space to murder some evil Moai statues! Description of stages (with timestamps) below.

0:17 Character select! Gradius 2 adds four ship types to choose from. I choose type 4, by far the most popular judging by the high score lists on Restart Syndrome and the shmups forum. Firing missiles at both floor and ceiling is invaluable for sections where guns are placed above and below.
0:22 Stage 1 start: "Destroy them all!" Each stage starts with some light waves of enemies and the chance to get "money" to buy power-ups. I play with 2 speed-ups. Having speed-up pickups is a shmup game mechanic that thankfully didn't stick around.
0:50 Fire dragons and solar flares - a really cool theme.
2:48 Stage 1 boss: Fire bird. Hover at neck height, then like the voice says, "Shoot it in the head!"
3:08 Stage 2 start. In this stage you fly through a base and a design that could have come from H.R.Giger. There are creepy walls you can blast through one square at a time; the path I take is chosen to give a safe route.
3:35 "You shall never return alive!"
4:00 Some egg-hatched aliens (like the movie Alien) show up late in the stage, but I kill them before they can do much
5:24 Stage 2 boss: Eyeball and tentacles!
5:51 Stage 3: The crystal stage.
7:22 This starts my least favorite section of the game because of heavy RNG. Crystals bounce off each other at unpredictable angles like demonic billiards. Mashing just the laser (not missiles) through the later part of the stage, so that crystals near the bottom *don't* break apart, is part of the strategy.
8:44 Stage 3 boss: "You shall be crushed!" I use a cheeky safespot that destroys your shield but is low-risk if you can position yourself just right.
9:05 Stage 4: Volcano stage.
9:44 The Option Thief swoops in from the left side of the screen. He can steal one option (or more, if he grabs one closer to your ship!) I let him take exactly one of my four options so he'll go away and not come back.
11:11 Stage 4 boss: Missile launcher / laser launcher. Easy once you know the pattern.
12:05 Stage 5: Moai stage. An iconic Gradius stage, maybe my favorite of the whole game.
13:26 The stage kicks into high gear: The moai turn red and start vomiting out tons of bullets, and the music speeds up.
14:40 Mid-boss: Quadruple moai heads. The route I take is a low-risk way.
15:10 Stage 5 boss: Three giant heads. "You can't go any further!" Parking here and mashing is cheesy but effective.
16:08 Stage 6: High speed stage. Totally unfair to the new player but pretty fun once you've learned a route. It's hard to keep the force field here - you can blast a narrow path through the "beads" but you lose your shield as you pass through..
17:17 Stage 6 boss
17:50 : Stage 7 - the boss rush. Starts with an ambush by lots of Zubs, who spawn at random spots. Parking at the bottom left and mashing seems to be safe...I'm always tempted out by power-ups, since having a force field is handy for some parts of the boss rush.
19:30 Tetran (the four-armed boss) is one of the more difficult mid-bosses. Like some others, he first off a spread of revenge bullets as you damage him. I've had to time him out before but this time I got him!
21:34 Covered Core, the final stage 7 boss, is quite difficult and RNG-heavy. Staying at the far left of the screen makes life easier, since you need to dodge less often...even if that means your shots are blocked some of the time.
22:34 Stage 8 - the fortress! In this stage especially, your force field is not just for defense, it's also to give you the ability to go on offense. You want to spend much of this stage near the right side of the screen, placing options so you can take out enemies on the floor and ceiling ASAP even when you have to duck back to the left.
24:07 Stage 8 midboss - gun wall. Fighting him fair and square is incredibly hard, so I use the usual safe-spot. You can either kill him (if your option placement is good) or time him out (after about 15 spawns of walkers from each door)
22:48 Stage 8 midboss - Crab (or "Club"), the 6-legged walker. This is the climax in terms of difficulty, though it's a little unsatisfying that you don't defeat this boss, you only endure him. I take a safe-ish route.
26:50 Note that you need to head to the right before the door closes, or you're trapped! I buy a fourth option at the end, because why not?
27:20 Stage 8 boss: Gofer. He doesn't attack (and self-destructs even if you don't attack him). As in Gradius 1, the twist is that the final boss is defenseless once you reach him!
27:40 Final escape-the-exploding-base cinematic. Then, roll the credits!
28:28 Loop 2 begins! I wasn't remotely prepared for it, and I lose all my lives on 2-1.

This was a 1-life clear. Most checkpoint recoveries in this game are BRUTAL, so your first 1CC of Gradius II is probably a 1LC...