RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

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Shepardus
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RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

Post by Shepardus »

In Stellavanity, after the stage 7 (final stage) boss you may qualify for one of three different "extra" bosses, or if you're like me you'll fail to meet any of the conditions and won't get any of these bosses. I'll refer to these bosses as "Fake A," "Fake B," and "TLB" (they have actual names but I don't remember what they are). You can find videos of each of these in this Nicovideo playlist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/29693735

The game's website has a page explaining the criteria for each of these bosses, but there's still parts I'm unclear about, whether it's because the page doesn't explain things fully or because I can't read it. Here's what I do know (mostly taken from machine-translating that page):
  • Both Type-C and Type-S can reach any of the extra bosses on any difficulty, from Easy to Pandemonium.
  • You can increase your "rank" by meeting qualifications at the end of each of the first four stages. For Type-C the qualifications are based on how many hits (including autobombs) you take in the stage, and for Type-S they're based on score. The qualifications are different for each stage, difficulty, and whether or not you're currently at the maximum rank for that stage (rank 0 for stage 1, rank 1 for stage 2, rank 2 for stage 3, etc.) - for Type-S the qualifications are based on cumulative score when you're at maximum rank, but on per-stage score when you're not. The exact values are listed in the top section of the page linked above.
  • Each rank level adds suicide bullets of increasing intensity. At rank 4, even Easy difficulty is crazy.
  • Triggering an extra boss how many hits you've taken throughout the game. Autobombs count as hits, and additionally if autobomb is turned on the "number of hits" used for this condition is (hits * 1.5) + 1. The threshold depends on whether you're playing Type-C or Type-S, the difficulty, your rank, and which boss you're trying to trigger (Fake B is stricter than Fake A). The exact values are listed in the bottom section of the page linked above. The table's a bit confusing for me to read, but I think the "X" cells mean you can't get the boss under those conditions (e.g. you can't get Fake B at Rank 1 using Type-C) and the "O" cells mean it's guaranteed/there are no conditions (e.g. for Type-S you're guaranteed to get Fake A or above if you're at Rank 2).
  • Triggering the TLB requires that you be at "Rank EX" when you reach the "Ketsui-style" descent section. This is still displayed as rank 4, but is distinct from rank 4.
What I don't understand is: How do you reach Rank EX?
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Shepardus
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Re: RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

Post by Shepardus »

Question answered here:
shoryusatsu999 wrote:As far as I understand it, you go straight to Rank EX when you qualify at Rank 3 and go down to Rank 4 if you get hit before the normal last boss. You can tell when it's at Rank EX because the 4 is tinged red.
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Despatche
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Re: RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

Post by Despatche »

So basically you NMNB the game like a pro? Terrifying.
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Shepardus
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Re: RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

Post by Shepardus »

You're allowed to bomb as long as it's not an auto-bomb, but yeah, don't get hit. If you're out of bombs, hold the bomb button to exchange a life for four bombs (five if it was your last life) so you can bomb more instead of getting hit. As far as I can tell there's no reason not to do that if you have auto-guard on, since it translates to the same number of hits you can take and it allows you to get the no-miss bonus at the end of each stage.
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Despatche
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Re: RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

Post by Despatche »

Oh, it sounded like regular bombs counted. I didn't know about that life-bomb trade command, that's kinda cool.
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Re: RQ: Stellavanity TLB conditions

Post by Shepardus »

Despatche wrote:Oh, it sounded like regular bombs counted. I didn't know about that life-bomb trade command, that's kinda cool.
I think they used to count, but this was changed in version 1.21. Excerpt from Google-translated changelog:
2012/08/18 Update 1.21 update patch
As auto guard ON even true boss appears
Even in Rule mode, except for a part, the equipment accessories are enabled
Exclude bomb usage from maintaining condition of Rank.EX
S Equipment · Rank 0 · Fixed a bug that the qualified condition for some AREA 2 ~ 4 became severe
Implementation of accessory resident system
Slightly relaxing maintenance condition of Rank.EX
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NTSC-J: You know STGs are in trouble when you have threads on how to introduce them to a wider audience and get more people playing followed by threads on how to get its hardcore fan base to play them, too.
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