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I picked up a copy of Night Raid, and, damn, this game is insane. I can hang with Giga Wing, and to a certain extent Mars Matrix, but I cannot crack what I'm supposed to be doing in this game to succeed. It all seems fairly easy up through the first three stages, and then it just unleashes hell.

I do like that all the bosses are super intense but also quite short, making for great duel-to-the-death encounters at the end of each stage, but I can't seem to find routes in the last few stages. Enemies are coming in from all sides, flooding the screen with wild shot patterns, and it all feels kinda random.

Any help appreciated!

Night Raid's a tough game.

Unlike many Takumi games, you've actually got two shot types based on whether you're tapping or holding the attack button. Use the spreadshot as needed, and the focused shot for bigger targets. Bombs are instant full invulnerability, as with Giga Wing.

The hug grapple, your main special attack, fires a forward claw that latches onto enemies and allows you to bounce around enemies with full invulnerability. The more enemies on screen, the longer you can make it last, and you extend the timer by mashing or spinning the arcade stick/d-pad aggressively. To clear bullets, it sometimes helps to stop shooting to make sure you have an enemy in front you can latch onto, even if it's a popcorn enemy, because if your grapple misses, you waste the chance until it's recharged.

The last few stages are quite tough and I'm not sure there's any real "trick" to them. I'm certainly not good enough at Night Raid to know if there is. Good luck!

Also keep in mind that like other Takumi games (sans Twin Cobra 2 and Giga Wing) there are no enemy collision deaths, so you have a little bit more room to maneuver than you think.

I've never gotten past stage 4 myself on a single credit, so I can empathize with your struggles. While Roo explains it well I don't really understand how the hug launcher works, in terms of racking up enemy combos. Sometimes it travels all over the screen, sometimes it only gets a few enemies before returning.

Thanks Roo for the tips! I didn't know about the two shot types or that the hug launcher was interactive in any way. I can get to the stage 4 boss on a credit, but getting any farther is feeling fairly unlikely atmo. The late-game shot patterns feel like a bully throwing handfuls of gravel in my face. Shit just comes in from all sides with no real routing to be found.

I'm no expert on the game, as much as I enjoy it, so forgive me if I'm wrong here. Hopefully someone else will chime in to clarify. As far as I know, the Hug Launcher will keep bouncing between enemies as long as a) there are enemies within a certain proximity of the last one you grappled (the radius is quite large), and b) as long as there's still meter left on the Hug Launcher meter, which you can increase by rotating/mashing directions on the stick frantically (mashing shoot/bomb during the grapple does nothing as far as I know).

The strategy guide for this game by Randorama suggests that it may be based on the angle you hit enemies that determines the next ones that are/can be hit. It also says something about the C button and how you can hold it down to delay the chain. It looks like you can latch on and delay the initial release, but I can't find a practical reason to do this as the grapple drops and wastes the meter if you delay too long. You can't can't pause/delay it once you're already bouncing around.

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I'm glad it's helpful, I was worried I might be saying rudimentary stuff you were already aware of, but I figured it's worth mentioning just in case since it's sadly probably the least known of Takumi's games.

The game is deceptively easy at first; the first 3 or so stages really are pretty reasonable, but then there's a point where the difficulty ramps up tremendously. Even with your special ability and bombs, the game feels at least as hard as Mars Matrix is because the enemy patterns later on are out to murder you mercilessly, as you've found out!

I've spent some time on this game so I feel I can give some hints. It's been some time but I recall most of it from the time I've been able to 1cc (and score too but I'm top of the 3 people who tried seriously outside of Japan).

First of all the game looks unfair by pouring tons of messy patterns, but keep in mind there is no rank or random shit to master the hard way. It's very deterministic in a lot of ways. Saying that, I can tell that even if (like many) I don't fully understand all the clockwork inside, I ended up building solid strategies and scoring routes in time by just... playing.

Second of all the game looks unfair by not giving any extend (I just hate that). So treasure your life and focus on dodging (ie: don't play a Yagawa game casually in your freetime while trying hard Night Raid).

Stage 4 boss is a huge difficulty wall. Bullets are super fast here, but as it's always the same pattern you can find a safe-ish strategy pretty quickly. This is THE moment in the game why I used save states to experiment the most, and where I use my first strategic bomb (because I honestly could not find a safer strat).

This and last boss are the two moments I consider spending lives and bombs. I remember allowing to lose 1 life anywhere else (costing a big stress during final boss), and consider the run gone forever if I lost 2.

About the hug launcher and the "keep pressing C" thing I use it (on stage 4 boss and in another place iIrc) to move the destination point after the bounces. For stage 4 boss it's to land in a "safer" spot during a vomit-style pattern, and in a stage (probably 2?), to be at items falling point and optimize the pickups route. But you can easily forget about it, I do it mostly for style. But the main usage is to milk enemies as they release items when they are hooked until you reach them. You can see it in action here https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16561255 on the stage 1 boss. Timing the duration to milk and bounce just what it takes to land the last hit on the core and kill it is very tight, but proof that this game is definitely waaaaay more subtle than it looks.

As for the combo you can make, I also guess the gauge depletes slower if you move a lot. The replay you can find on NicoNico has 30+ combos all the way, and knowing the love of Japanese players for autofires, I'm pretty sure there he's using a button to move in circles at max speed (like the "autoroll" hacks on Psyvariar cabs I've seen).