Game:

Barrier (1979)

Duration: 10:22

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2

Barrier Girl is the latest borg I've worked on soloing Story Mode with. Although she doesn't have much firepower, her melee helps make up for it. Her airdash melee has extremely high knockback; if all the hits connect, any borg that can be sent flying will be (at least there are no exceptions I'm aware of). Her ground dash melee is also pretty effective. The combination of her melee attacks and her barrier gives her a unique playstyle. Whereas most borgs are safer while fighting from afar, Barrier Girl is often better off getting up close and personal. That way, her slow-moving bullets have a better chance of hitting their targets, and her melee can neutralize much bigger and badder borgs.

Managing the health of your current barrier and your X ammo is key; without a barrier up, Barrier Girl is pretty fragile. When your barrier is weakened, there is always a question of whether or not to refresh it to full strength, which depletes your ammo. On the one hand, if you can avoid enemy attacks long enough, you'll have both a full barrier and full X ammo, which is the ideal state since it provides maximum protection. On the other hand, if the refreshed barrier breaks before your ammo refills, you'll be defenseless. The best course of action depends on the circumstances. When the enemies are easy to dodge, it's typically better to refresh your barrier. But when it's tough to avoid enemy attacks, it can be safer to let your current barrier run out (or nearly run out) so that you can absorb the maximum number of hits before taking damage.

While this battle wasn't one of the hardest ones so far, it demonstrates some useful strategies with Barrier Girl. In a tough battle, I tend to save hyper mode until I'm in a tight spot. This is typically when my barrier is broken, my X ammo is nearly empty, and I don't think I can avoid the enemies' attacks. This time, I waited until the trio of Beam Gunner, Cyber Girl Hyper, and Cyber Ninja came out. I knew they could wreak havoc on me, so I activated hyper mode before they could break my barrier and deal a bunch of damage. Later on, I had to fight Ruby and Sapphire Knight. In every other battle, I activate hyper mode to help me survive this deadly pair, but I wanted to save it for Cyber Mars and Cyber Atlas this time. Fortunately, I was able to stay alive with some help from Sho.

Because Barrier Girl deals damage fairly slowly, it was pretty much inevitable that the enemy would have plenty of time to attack Sho and fill their hyper meter, thus guaranteeing that Cyber Mars and Cyber Atlas would fuse. The fight against Cyber Machine Suzaku showcases the awesome power of Barrier Girl's airdash melee. I was able to knock down Suzaku again and again, preventing him from launching too many attacks (any one of which can break my barrier, as happened a few times). I also executed a well-timed dodge to avoid his charge beam, one of the strongest attacks in the game. After the fusion ended, I still had to deal with two dangerous borgs: Cyber Mars and Cyber Atlas. The coward's way--taking cover and letting my ally handle them--was unlikely to work, since they most likely would have refilled their hyper meter and fused again, leaving me little chance of surviving without hyper mode. So, I had to get into the thick of things, even though I only had 2 HP left. With a little luck and a hyper meter that filled up just in the nick of time, I squeaked by.

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