Original title: グラディウスII. Also known as Vulcan Venture in the West, although this is the Japanese version of the game. This video contains the first two loops. My proudest shmup-related achievement so far. I really wanted to give this game as much care and dedication as (realistically) possible, and this is the result. I want to address a few general strategies in the video descriptions as well as a short breakdown of each loop, it hopefully proves helpful! I thought long about the set-up I want to play with. While I knew from the start that I would want to pick Type 4 with the Force Field I was not nearly as certain regarding the amount of speed-ups and options. I used to play the game with two speed-ups for the longest time, but that setting is a bit insufficient for preemptively taking out enemy formations and dodging the massive amount of suicide bullets in later loops. Consequentially, I tested the third speed-up and after just a little while it felt completely natural. This side of the equation was solved. I did not, however, change my constellation of options. The fourth option can be immensely helpful for quick kills against bosses (you can align it so that the last option is inside the boss itself, thus point-blanking it with missiles which will do massive damage) and some dicey situations such as the fortress. On the flip side, there will be that insufferable option hunter that'll try its very best to ruin your run. From loop 2 onwards he will constantly show up at the worst opportunities (not nearly as often in loop 1). You can stall some bosses in order to get a more favourable interval, that still requires meticulous planning and a strict schedule. As such, I decided to stick with three options, due to the added speed-up (which will also increase the space between the options) I was feeling comfortable as is. Learning how to overcome certain checkpoints was also crucial. It didn't come that much into play here (although you will see me doing the second-to-last checkpoint in the game a few times, that's probably the most important one to learn), and I also discovered the hard way that there's not much use in learning the loop 2/3 variants when planning to tackle even more loops on account of the added (and delayed!) suicide bullets, but it's nonetheless important to have a structural understanding of recoveries. You don't want to end a run after 90 minutes because you have no clue how to get past a fairly manageable spot provided you know how to do so. Now for a short synopsis of the loops: Loop 1 is there for getting as many points as possible. I'm not performing every trick (there is a way to milk all four moai midbosses at once, but you really want four options for that, and it's highly specific; if you die here you'll lose out on over 100,000 points which was more than enough to prevent me from trying it) in the book and my milking/routing through the moai stage in general is fairly weak, I do end up with almost 600,000 points at the end of the first loop which is what I'm aiming for. The one death at the aforementioned penultimate checkpoint was most embarrassing, but bearable. Most important is the milking process on the moai boss. What you want to do is damage the rightmost face so that it is almost dead, this will massively increase the trio's aggression which in turn can be used for a colossal boost in score. You want to park a good distance away from the right visage (if you're too close you alter its behaviour) and wait for the sixth pattern of little moai heads before retreating to the upper left and destroying countless lithic scions. There's a different strategy for later loops, it's extremely dangerous and tricky, though, so I heavy-heartedly refrain from doing it after the first loop. Loop 2 was surprisingly great. It's not often I get past the first level of subsequent loops without dying once (you'll see what I mean in the next videos), not losing a single life at all is even better! Since the amount of suicide bullets is rather low (and no delayed suicide bullets at that) I mostly play it as aggressively as possible. From here on out you have to deal with a much more dangerous rendition of the fourth stage - you do get a ton of points for your efforts, at least. Other things to watch out for are the added lava dragons in stage 1 (which make this stage a lot more exciting and harder) and the much faster shards/blocks in stage 3. I'll go over more aspects in the next video, character limit strikes again!

• published: 25 Sep 2016
• views: 209