Graze Counter - Arcade Type-2 581,654,350
3Still relying on the auto-shield. Main screw up was dying to the stage 3 boss. Part of me was actually hoping I could survive being below the ship. May bounce between type 1 and type 2 to see which I like better.
General strategy I was following here was that I was trying to focus more on canceling bullets rather than trying to kill everything quickly. I probably lost out in some areas due to not killing as much things as I could or using break mode in areas where I wouldn't benefit from it too much. I'm also kind of rationalizing the idea that I can probably get a better bonus milking for stars rather than going for the time bonus.
In regards to break mode, I mostly use it for cancels. Hitting things with the the shot while in break mode does generate red stars, but I'm not too sure how beneficial that is to do for bosses. Tried to cancel lasers with break mode, but stage 5 with those enemies at the end was particularly sloppy. Other than that, I did use it to prevent the multiplier from dropping after the stage 4 midboss (honestly that probably was unnecessary).
Something to do later is trying to destroy the small ships the bosses spawn. Those are probably worth more than just the stars alone. I'll probably need to take advantage of the invulnerability granted when laser is used at 100%.
Other thoughts to consider is timing out bosses as best as I can.
Just some rambling below.
Stage 1: 0:18
Don't have too much to say here. Think I tried to graze enemy ships more compared to my type-1 run.
Stage 2: 3:45
Similar to stage 1 with grazing enemies. A little bit inconsistent dealing with the end of stage 2 (random thoughts: maybe I should take advantage of the invulnerability to go in that circle of enemies).
Don't really know what is the best way to deal with the stage 2 boss. I suppose I could take advantage of those ice cubes a little bit more to draw out the fight.
Stage 3 8:54
Kind of taking a riskier approach with stage 3. Not sure if canceling for more stars was worth it in the long run.
Stage 3 bosses seem to be different for each ship. Should have just played it safe during the fight.
Stage 4 11:45
Main thing is canceling the lasers from the big ship. I might be able to get away with using break mode on the smaller ships. Don't know yet. This stage does make me wonder if its better to use the laser up close (like DDP's laser).
Mostly using break mode whenever the boss vomits lasers or bullets.
Stage 5 15:43
Not really sure what is the best approach to tackle this stage. I did try to use break mode to cancel the 5 laser beams, but I kind of screwed up on that when. Kind of freaked out when I accidentally hit one of the ships.
For the first boss, mostly using the laser here. Probably to get the most out of this, damaging it during the second and third pattern might be a good idea.
As for the second boss (TLB?), I kind of just focused on drawing out the fight for as long as I can.