Guardian Force

[blackoak]

blackoak - 6,391,120 - Stage E

some more stupid mistakes, but i am getting the later stages and bosses down now

[EmperorIng]

Cool. What's your strats/favored weapons on Boss B and C?

[blackoak]

for boss B, I saw Emuser's video where he uses Red and bombs it right away, nearly killing it, but I haven't been able to replicate that. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it's something changed from the arcade to saturn version. Instead I use the Green yoyo, which is what I use for the stage as well. I stay in the lower left corner... it's not so bad, though those pink homing lasers still sometimes mess me up. They have a weird rhythm that is just slightly more delayed than I expect. I sometimes have to bomb once the pink spread starts... not because the spread is so difficult to dodge itself, but mixed up with the orange shots from the turrets, things can get hairy.

boss C actually became really easy once I switched to the Yellow weapon for that boss. it takes him down very quickly, and it's easy to avoid shooting the large pink bullet.

boss D is the one I'm still working on. I use Red, which gets through his first half pretty well (you need to destroy one of his claws ASAP so you can dodge the crazy spread he does). I'm thinking to try Yellow though, because Red takes way too long for the second part.

boss E (the stupid orb) i haven't figured out yet, died on him pretty quickly last time. I don't think Red is the way to go with him...

[Emuser]

for boss B, I saw Emuser's video where he uses Red and bombs it right away, nearly killing it, but I haven't been able to replicate that. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it's something changed from the arcade to saturn version. Instead I use the Green yoyo, which is what I use for the stage as well. I stay in the lower left corner... it's not so bad, though those pink homing lasers still sometimes mess me up. They have a weird rhythm that is just slightly more delayed than I expect. I sometimes have to bomb once the pink spread starts... not because the spread is so difficult to dodge itself, but mixed up with the orange shots from the turrets, things can get hairy.

boss C actually became really easy once I switched to the Yellow weapon for that boss. it takes him down very quickly, and it's easy to avoid shooting the large pink bullet.

boss D is the one I'm still working on. I use Red, which gets through his first half pretty well (you need to destroy one of his claws ASAP so you can dodge the crazy spread he does). I'm thinking to try Yellow though, because Red takes way too long for the second part.

boss E (the stupid orb) i haven't figured out yet, died on him pretty quickly last time. I don't think Red is the way to go with him...

Boss B could be an autofire issue, not sure how fast it is on saturn, but I played with 20hz, point blanking missiles add up quickly enough to kill it a bit faster.

Boss C yellow really is best IMO as well.

Boss D I went red all the way. Not too terrible once you get a couple things down.

Boss E is hard, I personally stick to Red, not sure how to fight this thing otherwise.

Honestly, I used Red most of the time because of it's consistency and dealing with 7 frame input delay. Can't reliably use purple at times, blue is iffy when red exists unless you're on 2p side, yellow is situationally good, green I never found much of a use for but it is helpful for stage F turrets on walls. Red is accurate and consistent and decently damaging against most things for the 1p side.

[blackoak]

blackoak - 6,837,240 - Stage F

small improvement... really stupid death right before some good scoring opportunities too, argh. I went yellow on D, and red on E this time.

[blackoak]

blackoak - 7,382,600 - Stage F

more stupid deaths. the end is near tho, i can 2cc this... later bosses arent too bad now

[Kino]

I've been neglecting this one as of late. Should have at least gotten a true ending clear by now. Oh well.



Kino - 8,288,530 - Stage G

[blackoak]

blackoak - 7,955,500 - Stage G

to die just before the extend, at a really stupid point on the stage... ugh
by stage G my memoskillz are at their limit. hit by a stupid laser that i forgot was there

[Emuser]

Wow, I decided to turn it on again and check the 3rd boss with and without autofire. For some reason if you hold shot with no autofire, it will have an artificial "bullet limit" when shooting from a distance showing noticeable gaps in vulcan's shot. Tank shoots slowly enough at point blank for the difference to be noticeable compared to autofire as well. I was able to rapidly tap shot (not necessary to go too fast though) and get the same effect both shooting from a distance and point blanking the boss as though I had autofire enabled. Not sure if this was known but it is clear that rapidly tapping the shot does make it shoot faster rather than holding it. Maybe it will help.

[blackoak]

blackoak - 9,264,230 - ALL



after many botched runs this morning, i took a break, had a beer, and then it finally came together. decent score, not my best on certain stages, but all around good. i could probably get a few hundred thousand more with my current approach and some luck (the timing on the 50k black powerups is always a little random). to get up to 10-11m though, I think ill need to use the purple weapon for more of the game, especially on certain bosses. there's a no-miss run on nico douga that doesnt seem too crazy to emulate, since I can mostly nmnb all the bosses now.

Emuser's tip on tapping helped in a couple sections, though it was an extra level of distraction to contend with, so i generally only did it in very safe situations. yellow turned out to be a surprisingly good choice for the last stage, btw. there's a lot of obstacles in the first half that block your shots (and leave tanks alive), but with yellow it was a breeze. switched to blue for the boss of course.

love this game, will have more to say about it in the future...

[Emuser]

Nice job on the clear, you even topped my score a bit as well. Now that you've cleared, what is your opinion on all of the weapons for 1p? IMO:

Red: Past level 5, best weapon overall due to ease of use, decent damage, high ROF.
Blue: Despite never planning any use for this, the weapon itself isn't bad but you lose out on points relative to other weapons. Good option for the final boss.
Yellow: Good for C boss, pretty good for the last level as well it seems.
Green: I legitimately cannot find a use for this weapon, the bomb does seem to be powerful from what I recall.
Purple: Best weapon until level 6 after which it becomes possibly one of the worst thanks to the slowed ROF.

I say 1p because 2p has completely different weapons and manages to have nearly worse weapons all around relative to 1p. I should get back to this to try a 2p clear or get more points :O

[blackoak]

blackoak - 10,368,710 - Stage G



darn, so close to the clear. died stupidly with bombs in stock, trying to be a badass. this was an all-purple run btw, though i made a couple mistakes. i now think all purple is the way to go for scoring, and what ill be using on future attempts. here's my thoughts on the weapons...

red: pretty good, easy to use, decent bomb
yellow: good for C boss, and on the last level imo. i used it a lot actually, in my initial clear
green: i really like this weapon for stage B and stage F. the bomb is pretty good
purple: supercedes all others once you know the stage layout, imo. keep it at lvl 5 or 6 though--later spreads are pointlessly large and slow the rate of fire
blue: never used this except for the last boss (all japanese guides say to use it for the last boss, or purple)

[blackoak]

oh, and i can see how using purple would be harder on MAME with the large input delay. using it the whole game gives things a very 19xx feel--you actually need to aim shots to stay on top of everything in the later stages. really fun tho

[Kino]

Kino - 9,406,590 - ALL



Probably could've met the requirements for the TLB, but I was down to my last life and didn't want to test my luck. I'll keep at it.

[EmperorIng]

TLB? Do you mean destroying the engines on that last rocket in time?

[Kino]

Yeah, I have yet to pull that off during a 1cc run. Either I can't destroy the engines on time, or I'm down to my last life and don't want to risk it (extra lives are a necessity for me, since my only real strategy against Blind Fury is bomb-spamming him into oblivion.)

Also, as I came to learn on that last run, Keiji Haino wasn't joking. Using purple the entire game is a most entertaining proposition indeed. I don't think I can ever go back.

[blackoak]

The last boss isn't so bad, I actually find the previous form (after you destroy the boosters) harder. Most of his patterns are dodgeable and with 3 bombs you should be fine... take advantage of the invincibility window after the bomb to point blank. If you have an extra life in stock you're golden. But yeah, the problem is that you can't really practice that boss. No stage select in the saturn/st-v, and MAME is so input laggy I think the dodges would be hard to pull off even with practicing. But it's no hibachi, that's for sure.

[blackoak]

and yeah, it's so fun to play with purple only. definitely not what i'd recommend to beginners as it takes the stage memo requirements to the next level, but its like a multidirectional 19xx. connecting with the aimed shots as you zip around the screen trying to collect medals and one-shot zako (or point-blank large enemies) is thrilling, even on stage A.

kino or emuser, what's your high scores for the practice stage? i've gotten lucky and collected all three end-stage 50k bonuses once, getting around 930k. Generally i'm around 850-900 though.

[blackoak]

blackoak - 10,933,820 - Stage G

decent all-purple run ruined by some early deaths. had a good dodging run on the last boss, just needed one more life to finish it, which would have brought me to about 11.5m I think.

[Emuser]

Damn, yea usually I only get 1 50k bonus, ~850k is the norm for me.

[Kino]

Kino - 10,217,800 - Stage G



Got more 50k orbs than usual, and didn't drop any chains up until the final stretch of stage G. Couldn't quite get the clear due to a series of stupid deaths, though.

kino or emuser, what's your high scores for the practice stage? i've gotten lucky and collected all three end-stage 50k bonuses once, getting around 930k. Generally i'm around 850-900 though.

That sounds about right. 820-870k is my average. I recall that I managed 900k+ once from getting the 3 50k orbs, as well.

Speaking of which, is there any formula for getting the 50k orb every time? I'll assume that's where the last million of KDK-Takeyuki's score comes from....

[blackoak]

blackoak - 11,816,110 - ALL



bellowed with delight on getting this score this morning. just one of those runs where everything was going right, came into stage F with 4 lives, 4 bombs... but then i stupidly lost two lives in a row on the stage F boss, and had to manage a really scrapey run on stage G. had some inspired dodging on the boss, stuck with purple the entire time (including final boss--see no reason to go to blue really).

with a better stage G, I could probably have got another 300 or 400k, so maybe i will shoot for 12m. i should also consider using bombs on diff midbosses, but the purple bomb isnt necessarily faster than connecting with shot+missile... plus you lose out on the chip points. im a little mystified over how KDK-TAKEYUKI gets those last 3m, since you cant really milk the bosses--they time out. maybe they have more destructible parts than im aware of, or he just had the perfect run with black orbs. my route is scrappy and far from optimized, but enemies themselves give so few points, i cant see it making a huge difference...? really, i need to think about getting a capture device and analyzing my runs if im going to investigate these things.

i dont think there's any way to assure getting the 50k orbs, because the direction they fly out in is random. the best you can do is delay spawning the orb so that it will turn black at a relatively safe time, something im sure we're all doing already. still no guarantee it won't spin off screen before touching down tho.

[Emuser]

Damn, almost 12M. Lots of improvement over a week.

What was the score on the japanese nicovid?

[Kino]

Kino - 10,785,860 - ALL



Finally got a good ending clear. Dropped my chain 3 times on stage G, and I wasn't as lucky with getting the 50k orbs this time, so there's still plenty of room for improvement.

i dont think there's any way to assure getting the 50k orbs, because the direction they fly out in is random. the best you can do is delay spawning the orb so that it will turn black at a relatively safe time, something im sure we're all doing already. still no guarantee it won't spin off screen before touching down tho.

I don't know, I'm not convinced they'd leave such a big part of scoring to chance. Even if manipulating it involved something crazy like killing the mid-bosses at the right millisecond, and shooting the enemies that contain the orbs at a certain time (or even at a certain position), there has to be someway to get the orbs to follow a trajectory so that they touch down on-screen every time. It'd be something to analyze if you do get a capture device, that's for sure.

You're definitely right about there being other stuff at play besides getting all the 50k orbs with that WR score. I tried playing with lvl. 1 purple the whole game to see if you could milk the bosses longer, doesn't seem to make a difference. Apart from obvious stuff like maximizing the chain value as early as humanly possible, or some glitch that allows you to kill timed mid-bosses immediately, I don't know what else it could be...

[Kino]

Kino - 11,423,130 - ALL



Did a little experimenting on this run. I ignored the mid-bosses at the beginning of Stage B and focused on the spawning tanks instead, in order to max out the chain values earlier. Not sure if that helped or hurt my score...

I'm also thinking switching weapons for certain timed mid-bosses could be a good strategy. The bonus from speedkilling them (quicker than you could with purple, anyway) might make up for sacrificing 2 black orbs. May have to test that theory out next time.

[blackoak]

Nice score. I've been experimenting in recent runs too, basically trying to figure out where a bomb speedkill outweighs the chip damage. Without mame or a capture card though, its pretty hard to judge, since my runs arent totally consistent, and I can't remember&compare the math in my head that quickly during a run.

My guess is that rather than change weapons on midbosses, using the purple bomb is just as effective. [[EDIT: I thought you needed to time the detonation around the shell, but I think it just comes out at a fixed point in front of you?]] The main purple "black hole" will do a lot of damage, combined with the two orbs that rotate around your ship. Plus, about halfway into the bomb you can start firing again. I've had some success with this but not pulled it all off on a full run yet. There's no endgame bomb or life bonus so I think the game really wants you to use your bombs like this, once you get good enough to NMNB the bosses etc.

stage G is still a weakpoint for me too. Too often, I die in E or F and then don't credit feed, when I should be doing that to try and get better routes down. More fool me... also, about the orbs, I'm pretty sure they're random. That's what I've read on every jp strategy guide/review. Of course there could be some super arcane secret that no one has divulged publicly...

One boss who you can milk, though its very hard, is the desert tank boss (stage B). The key, I think, is killing his axe very quickly. Since the purple weapon's aimed shot shells do the most damage, what you want to do is line yourself up almost vertically with the axe, just dodging the twin orange turrent fire. Doing this I've killed the axe (and got the 50k bonus) before the first homing pink lasers even come out. Then you can putz around while item planes come in. I believe the order of items they drop is: orb, missile, bomb (very helpful!), orb... i havent tried milking him past that. It's actually not too hard to collect the black orbs on him during his first phase, provided they fall to the left or right.

[blackoak]

blackoak - 12,454,160 - ALL



Proud of this one, as it took many runs. Probably could have been 100-200k higher, but good overall. I did a lot of things right: no deaths up until stage D, used a lot of bombs for speed bonuses on midbosses, 900k practice stage, 4.2m by stage B end, and probably got about 75% black orbs throughout (that's mostly luck). I did a lot better on stage G, and I realize it could be further optimized, but generally one has enough bombs to handle the difficult parts. Optimizing the beginning would be good though, since that would yield many more 12800 medals (bombing through that part is effective but sloppy). Sadly, without a capture card and shitty input lag on mame, I don't think its something I'll spend time doing now.

hanging up the spurs on this one for awhile, i think...

[Jeneki]

You guys are awesome. All this action is getting me pumped to play it again.

[blackoak]

you should! Guardian Force needs more love. It's an actual hidden gem rather than just an obscure game.

I've hit a wall with scoring recently, though I know 13m is possible with the right run.

[ancestral-knowledge]

I am going to revive this old thread because I have been playing this game for about 3 days now.

What the heck? This game is hard. I get completely destroyed by the stage B boss and this game has Stage G as far as I know. Holy crap. I need some serious advice on this game concerning boss and stage strategies.

For practice stage I take the purple weapon and stay with it until stage B for quick kills on the first 2 bosses. On stage B I take the red powerup which seems to take care of most of the enemies but I am not able to kill the boss without using 3-4 bombs.

I watched Emusers replay on youtube which seems to be the only good resource available there. Does anyone know anything about this game? I thought this game would not be as hard as it is.