IESU SHINKEN WA MUTEKI DA (■`W´■)
Rygar is infernally compulsive.

Green Beret on horse steroids. Nailing default 1CCs, but still can't quite stick the no-miss. It's a long odyssey for our nameless man of buffness! Got to write up a nice big meaty post for this one. For now, a few scattered observations:
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ACA ver includes both Argus no Senshi (Japan) and Rygar (World). Having cleared both on defaults, they seem mostly identical, barring Rygar altering/removing some buried items. Japan's Round 14 extend is a star in Rygar, while Japan's Round 21 Tiger Power seems AWOL. A would-be Rygar 1LC, which carked it in the rapids after, saw me hopping around like a March hare trying to unearth the bastard. Not worth any points, is bout prestige.

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The flying Gremlins' occasional "transformation spark," first seen in Round 7, isn't just for show. It's a warning that gremlin is a shooting type, and will be pelting you from above. (this game's telegraphing is
so good 
)
GET DOWN MR PRESIDENT (■`W´■)
AFAIK, shooter Gremlins can't divebomb you at will, the way their non-shooting brethren randomly do. Instead, they'll make a few strafing runs, before finally divebombing, then leaving the screen (needless to say, you should just kill the fuckers ASAP). NB you can freely stomp their projectiles. You can stomp anything in Rygar, even Death!
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Round 17's
Ultra Beastman Army, which can be milked to
astonishing extremes if you've got the Death-defying skill, works as follows:
Tower spawn. (wait)
Tower spawn. (wait)
x3 Crawlers spawn. (wait)
Tower spawn (wait - repeat cycle)The Antmen spawn from set points in the stage - the burrows, roughly. It's also possible for them to materialise out of solid rock, particularly if you've had to backtrack, so don't get complacent. After you've whacked the current screen's Antmen spawns, it'll be just you and the Towers, and you can go ham.
The Cross Power advertised at the Round's intro doesn't always appear in the same place - much like the game's first, in Round 7. UNLIKE Round 7's, though, it seems it sometimes won't appear at all.
HELP ME JEBUS! Nah it's cool boss, R17 ain't much.

Anyhoo, this is how the game's centerpiece scoring trick works. AFAIK, if you want world-shattering scores, you wanna burn all your reserve lives here. NB there are no "trick towers" in Round 17 - the kind that collapse into a charging horde when approached. In other rounds, tower types are hard-coded; you'll need to memorise which are which. The first tricker appears at the outro of Round 11, it's all good up to there.
Round 12 midpoint: a treat, and a trick. If by "treat" you mean "snakes tryna eat my muhfuckin head off" (■`W´■)
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For a
10k stage clear bonus, hit the "finish line" with your score's hundreds digit identical to your timer's singles digit. If you're holding [down/left] as the shrine scrolls in (the timing window is very generous), you'll get the 10k.
Note that if your timer is zero, the game will happily award the bonus, provided your hundreds digit is also. This can basically offset the time bonuses lost by running out the clock.
Hanging around trying for this bonus is responsible for most of my deaths.

The "finish line" is invisible, unlike in Mario, and enemies will typically keep attacking to the very end. Takes some rehearsal and nerve.
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As shown in the Gremlin GIF above: even if you're in jump ascent, your foot will stomp anything beneath it - stomp dead, if you're packing Tiger Power (rawr!
POUNCEH 
). Only a couple flying enemies - Rocs and Owlbats - can survive Tiger; you'll bounce off them, instead. (you'll very likely die afterward, vs Rocs; but you have to work very hard to get above them in the first place. not a likely event)

Note your jumping frame - see how your foot points sharply downward? You never want your foot's edge to be below your intended target's head - you may well be killed via contact.
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This established, the
50k bonus for decapitating midbosses with Tiger Power is most easily done by getting in their range, baiting out their hop, then jumping straight up - causing them to smack face-first into your foot, as they attempt to land where you were standing. (note their invaluable
"Hey WTF RU doin?!" startup, as you approach for the lure - they can be "cooled off" by quickly retreating, if need be. don't run too far away though, you'll de-spawn them!
WHAT DO YOU MEAN "GOOD" YOU COWARD FUCK 
)
Their head's hitbox is moderately picky, though very consistent.
The Burning Red Sky Tells Of The End. And a midboss.
NAO BACK DAT PUSSEH TEASE A MUHFUCKA (■`W´■)
This strictly vertical "counter-decap" is much safer than leaping in. If you miss it, they'll simply retreat to their starting position - a clean reset. An advancing attack creates extraneous horizontal motion - and if you miss, you will be in
deep shit, with the midboss immediately launching followup attacks, and zako likely closing in.
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The end of Round 12 puts a trio of crabs in front of its midboss.
The nearest to him demonstrates the perfect spacing for a counter-decap. Plus, not only do you have ample time to hop free of the waking crab - you're forced to, in order to score the decap! I wonder if this was deliberate? Tecmo are some rad chaps (cf thread title

). At any rate, despite the menacing surroundings, this is IMO one of the easiest decaps, thanks to Mr. Crab.
Be merciful to all God's creatures, OR a crab teaches geometry (■`W´■)
At this point, I get all decaps with no complications 90% of the time. Trickiest is Round 20's, since Gremlins and Lavamen tend to amass. Ala the far safer Round 8 (giffed above) - I like to rush straight in from a distance, my stride as unbroken as possible, jump-striking Gremlins that dive at me (Lavamen can be hopped over). Stopping will only allow more zako to gather. If things go utterly to shit here, I'm not above an escape - the screen-nuking finish line is abnormally near the boss's turf.
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The collision on your lower body during the rope segments is pretty lenient. This is good to know during the descents, where the Chameleons have a terrain advantage.
FUCKING TONGUE MY SWEATY BUNG YOU ARSEHOLE-LICKING TROGLODYTE (■`W´■)
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Occasionally ITT, we've mooted a "sidescrolling Garegga" - meaning something with deep and idiosyncratic scoreplay (the Metal Slugs' milk-a-rama is not idiosyncratic

). I think this one's a decent candidate, though it would need some tweaks for me to really vouch it. AFAIK, item drops are random - I don't know if there's a "master list" that randomly distributes them, but otherwise, some runs give way more stars than others (individually worthless, but granting a beefy
70k bonus for every seventh). I'd prefer a Garegga-style set item order, if not a master list.
The XTREEM Round 17 milking I could do without, but tbh... I'm happy just stipulating no-miss conditions. I've always liked the subversive element of deliberately burning through your reserve lives, then carrying a massive milky haul over the finish line with no safety net.
The more general milking - loitering around whacking enemies until Death arrives and beyond - I'm ok with. It's pretty addictive, with the game's super-tight handling. Currently I run out Round 1 until I've gotten the first Power and enough kills to break 70k - this generally ensures I'll have Tiger by the first midboss, in Round 4.
Maybe make Death speed up faster, if anything.
At any rate, like Garegga, I see myself returning to Rygar to brush up on PBs many years from now. Not often I get that from a manual-scrolling action game (time attack being a different matter entirely, of course). I think six million is entirely doable without resorting to any extreme milking/suiciding; currently getting 4mil with generally nubby, risk-averse play in the game's latter half.
As with Garegga, the pace, intensity and inherent compulsion of whacking enemies/grabbing goodies makes even moderate scoreplay remarkably compelling. A brilliant scrolling action game even in straight survival terms.
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THE BADNESS 
I've noticed a couple bugs/glitches here and there - nothing debilitating, but definitely to beware in serious runs. It seems the game can consistently drop your weapon's hitbox when attacking [left] at a couple points, namely Round 12's ending plateau (particularly when attacking Beastmen and crabs), and Round 13's Star Tree (versus headless Drones, who rush you en masse here). I learned the hard way to always double-tap these crowds. I need a bit more research to be sure, got some GIFs cooking up.
The Drones' invulnerability may be more of a feature than a bug... I suspect they have iframes on their wind-up animation. This might be a separate matter from the Round 13 issues - again, more research needed.
Backtracking left seems to discombobulate the game slightly. See also Round 17's Antmen, who can bust straight through solid walls, KoolAid Man-style, as mentioned previously. Backtracking seems to exacerbate this.
Incidentally, Rygar wouldn't be the first top-class sidescroller with "side-dependent" glitches that I've seen. Saigo no Nindou's shuriken are aim-lagged on one side, instant on the other. Dracula X: Rondo lets you super-backflip in one direction, but not the other. Both instances having been noted ITT, but I can't recall the specifics off the top of my head. holler if you need dem deets. ;3
Also, the "whip arm" enemies - the zako who march up before unfurling a nasty tendril attack - are
glitchy as hell for head-stomping. It can work - but seemingly half the time, I'll falling straight through them to the ground, with a split-second to kill them before they score a fatal bump. Thankfully, it's just these enemies with this nasty glitch - I wonder if it's some complication, owing to their uniquely long reach. It's a snap to just crouch-kill 'em, anyway - they can't hit you while you're ducking.
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Blimey, this was meant to be short.
TOO FULL WITH LOVE 

Anyway, main reason for posting is that
ACA Guevara is out tomorrow. PREPARE FOR WAR 
I wanna nail a no-miss before this year is out.
Balls hard tactical rotary shooting from Obada-san.