RQ: R-Type Stage 8 Boss Battle

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SAM
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RQ: R-Type Stage 8 Boss Battle

Post by SAM »

I had spent 16+ hours just to creadit feed myself though this Stage. It's really hard.

My findings:

(1) Those Littel Green Men go stright at you and wound't turn. And they won't shoot either.
(2) There is a safe spot from those non-destructable balls of doom. It is the leftmost spot in the middle of the screen.
(3) Some time after the the 4th non-destructable balls of doom appears, they would slow down turn homing and speed up again. They seems to be keep speeding up until they caught you.
(4) I recalled that a friend of mine once told me that I could shoot the force into the boss chamber. And keep firing at him even when the chamber is closed.

****************************************************

Thus, the boss would only open its chamber three times before you are nailed by those homing non-destructable balls of doom. After experiments for a few times, I believe that you simply couldn't beat him while keeping the Force with you.

Searching though the net, seems to confrim my believe that shooting the Force into the boss chamber is the correct strategy.

But I found it extreamly difficult to keep alive without the force.

Just moving up and down on the leftmost position, could only deal with those Little Green Men starting far from you. You would be forced to move right when a Little Green Man start right above or below you.
Bydobasher wrote:Two Bits will make a big difference in the last level.
So if you got two Bits, you could keep staying on the leftmost of the screen? I am yet to single life to here, so I cannot tell.


Since I was doing it without a Bit, I will have to move right to aviod those Little Green Men coming from two leftmost corners. By the time you shoot the Force into the Boss Chamber, there should be two non-destructable balls of doom on the screen.

Since the non-destructable balls of doom occuppy top half and the right most region of the screen, I could only safy doge those Little Green Men on the Lower Left Region of the screen. I doge left and right while keeping my ship close to the middle of the screen far from the upper and lower edge.

I don't have a strategy after the 3rd non-destructable balls of doom appears.

Is there a better way in doing that?

Other Strategy I had been thinking about:
(1) Keep the Force with you a bit longer before shooting the Force inside the chamber. And hope for the additional damage you had done to the boss would shortern the time to take him down when the Force is not with you.

It seems that with the added number of non-destructable balls of doom it becomes harder instead.


(2) Is there a safe spot away from those Little Green Men?

I had looked, but it seems it doen't exist.

MJR wrote:I also noticed that it that bydo dies usually after 2 openings when I play my arcade version, where in the psx version it seems to take quite a bit more punishment, at least 3 openings and full charged beam has to be added into the mix before it blows up. interesting.
I am playing the PSOne version, so that's why it is soooo hard. I got no problem keeping alive after 2 openings, but 3 would be too much for me...

It seems to me that you have to bring two Bits with you in order to have any chance to beat this boss in the PSOne version.
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Icarus
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Post by Icarus »

The best way to beat the boss is to fire the Force Device into the chamber as soon as humanly possible. The sooner you fire it in there, the faster you can beat the boss, and the less chance of the third and fourth swirlies appear.

I think the swirlies move in a set pattern around the screen.
  • The first swirly will move in a figure 8 pattern around the right side of the screen.
  • The second swiry will move in a clockwise circular motion around the top-left corner.
  • The third will move in aa anti-clockwise thin rectanglular motion between the bottom-left and top-right corners.
  • The fourth will move in a clockwise circular motion between all four corners of the screen.
After a time, the four swirlies will combine into one and start to chase you. If you have enough speedups you can continually outrun them, and eventually, you can time out the boss battle. ^_-

Timing out the boss is only recommended if you have two Bits equipped, as you can attack behind you easier, and keep yourself defended. If you have less than two Bits, you can still time out the boss, but you'll have a harder job keeping yourself alive.

As for the small Baby Bydo, yes, they will aim for your location. With two Bits, you can have a better chance of surviving, as you can make the Baby Bydo crash into the Bits, leaving you less to deal with. The perfect safespot is in the lower-right corner of the playfield, inside the movement path of the first swirly. Make sure you aim your Force Device backwards to deal with the Baby Bydo. AFAIK, this is the best place to sit until the four swirlies combine into one.
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SAM
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Post by SAM »

So the boss could be time out. :shock:

Thanks for the info Icarus. :o
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MJR
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Post by MJR »

The funny thing is, in PSone version the Bydo seems to be able to take in more punishment than in the arcade version (I know, I own them both)

In the PsOne, all I could do is:

1. shoot the Force in then nest as soon as it opens and shoot full powered beam at the same time
2. fire like mad while the Force is in the nest
3. Wait until the boss music is about to loop first time; this is a sign that the nest is about to open then; charge up and fire another beam, you have to be careful to not get hit by second ball of death
4. repeat the pattern from point two and pray. With the 4th time the nest opens you should be able to beat it.

In the arcade version however, all you have to do is to fire the force inside and then tap fire button like mad. You should have no trouble to stay alive if you are in the zone*
Bydo should die by the time the nest opens 3rd time. You don't even have to shoot a beam.

PsOne version is real bitch to beat. Good luck!

* The Zone = Altered state of mind where your concentration is so swept to the game that you are able to raise your performance by 30%. term coined by Jeff Minter. Other games where you can enter the zone are defender and robotron. In the first R-type it is possible only during the fight with Bydo.
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Post by Bydobasher »

Hello everyone.

MJR, I'm surprised to hear that you have found differences between PSX and Arcade. In my experience, they are identical. :?:

Leaving that aside, here's my take on this boss:

Okay, let's suppose you died and you have to do this from the checkpoint. You cannot time out the boss in this situation. (I will explain why a little later.) You must destroy it, and in order to do that, you must part with your Force. Your shots (charged or otherwise) seem to have a negligible effect on the boss; what matters is contact with the Force. (You can prove this to yourself by beating him with a 1st level Force as opposed to a 3rd level Force; in my experience there's almost no difference in the amount of time this takes, even though the 3rd level Force fires four times as many shots.)

Okay, so what to do? When you arrive there will be one Win (swirly creature) and soon to be a second. You can just hide behind your Force as you wait for the wall to open. The Mikuns (green creature) cannot hurt you if you are sitting in the middle of the left side of the screen. When the wall opens, fire the Force (charge shot is optional, and quite unnecessary), and get out of the way. As I recall, the Win that just appeared moves in a clockwise direction. What I do is to follow it around, in a vaguely circular pattern in the left side of the screen -- so I don't have to worry too much about the first Win, which spends most of its time on the right side of the screen -- and taking care not to get too close to the top or bottom where I might be surprised by a Mikun. Also, I fire continuously, but this is more to destroy Mikuns rather than to damage the boss.

When the third Win appears, you will likely need to adjust your flight-path at least once to accomodate its presence. But take heart! You only have to deal with this for maybe five or six seconds (I'm guessing here) before the boss is destroyed.

Now, what happens if you arrive with a Bit? Not much. The Bit will help make your topside safer from the Mikuns, but otherwise the same strategy applies.

However, if you have two Bits, it's a totally different story. First of all, if you have two Bits, the stage itself is pie because you can just sit at the left side of the screen and you won't be touched; you don't even have to fire. When the boss fires the second Win, fire your Force and move down to avoid the Win, but then follow the Win up to the top-left corner of the screen. Then just sit there, holding your Bits out in front of you (by pushing left), and keep on firing -- don't kill yourself trying to maxmize your fire-rate though. The boss will soon be destroyed.

(Aside: on PCE if you hold out your Bits in this manner I have found that the odd Mikun can slip in from the top and kill you. It may be better to leave the Bits in place, although I would recommend quickly moving the Bits back and forth in order to maxmize your protection.)

As for timing it out, you can only do that if you have three speedups; that's why it's impossible to time out the boss if you died on the stage (only two speedups are available). If you have three speedups, you will have just enough speed to stay ahead of the combined "4-in-1" Win. When the time comes for yet another Win to appear, the boss will self-destruct instead.
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MJR
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Post by MJR »

Bydobasher wrote:Hello everyone.

MJR, I'm surprised to hear that you have found differences between PSX and Arcade. In my experience, they are identical. :?:
Well, I have Japanese version of PSX R-types and (probably)bootlegged PCB I bought from ebay.. there is very clear difference in speed and the amount of hits Bydo takes..

..well the PSX version is almost identical, however, for some reason there's no way I could get to 2nd loop without a real fight while in arcade version it is not difficult at all..
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Post by zaphod »

The reason for the difference is that the arcde ran at 55 fps, while the ps1 game runs at 60.

therefore your fire button mashing causes less firing relative to the speed of the game.
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SAM
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Post by SAM »

zaphod wrote:The reason for the difference is that the arcde ran at 55 fps, while the ps1 game runs at 60.

therefore your fire button mashing causes less firing relative to the speed of the game.
I guess we are all using the software repid fire buttonof the game, am I right?

zaphod, if thorey is true, I could have shortern the time by using a hardware auto fire setup, right?

I would test this the next time I play.
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Post by zaphod »

The real question is did they just make a mistake in the port?

it' sclerly not emulated.

Does the level 4 boss easy kill work on the psx one?
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Post by SAM »

zaphod wrote:Does the level 4 boss easy kill work on the psx one?
There is a way you could kill the Lv. 4 Boss easily? Please tell me. :D
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Post by zaphod »

the easy kill is this.

when it flies in from the left, have your force attached to your back.

get as high as you can without bumping into the upper right part, and go underneath it. get in really close to the bottom part as it flies in, and jam on the fire button with your force overlapping it. This wirks with both the red and the blue lasers, but the positioning is different for the two weapons. you must experiment. you folow it to the right, with force inside the bottom part, and jam on the fire button.

when you position yourself right, you will hurt part of the boss, because your shots materialize directly on it's weak point without being eaten up by other parts. keep this up, and you will destroy the bottom section about as it starts to split apart. fron there it's an easy kill to destroy the left section using either blue or red lasers (if you've still got red lasers you most likely have a bit and you just jam the bit in.) and then the right section is no threat at all when you go to the left to blast it with a charge beam or two.

It's really hard to believe this works until you've seen it done, but work it does, and once you get the hang of it, level 4 boss is an absolute joke. I HAV done this on the PCE version as well, but it's MUCH more finicky about positioning then the arcade is. I learned it by watching someone else do it in the arcade.
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