Least favorte boss attacks in shmups?

[xxx1993]

I've been playing the hell out of Border Down lately. There's this one attack from the final boss that really pisses me off. It flies off into the background, then it flies in all directions, completely random and spewing out bullets. I swear, that attack is extremely unpredictable and often catches me by surprise.

[Square_Air]

Junko.

[Shepardus]

All of them.

[Square_Air]

All of them.

Maybe it's time to take up Mahjong instead.

[BIL]

Least favorte, hmm... I would have to say JIGGA_OCTOPUS, the TLB of Ecco JR II: Solvin Crimez B-Neath Tha Sea.

Spoiler

DONT LIE TO ME OCTOPUS
YOU KNOW I HATE THAT SHIT
DECIDEDLY UN-FAVORTE (・｀W´・)

Although this dude devastated me the most - I dodged him just fine, but when my grandma saw him brazenly jacking off right there on the screen, she took away my Neo Geo for a whole week.

NWS

Spoiler

Do that shit on your own time Mr. Robot! Totally un-favorte behaviour.

EDIT:Oh as a runner-up Pa Wingate's invisible shotgun shrapnel from GUN.SMOKE. The way it holds you back while making you look like a wiener to the uninitiated is NOT very FAVORTE, to say the least. -_-

[quote="Robert Soul, "A HISTORY OF GUNFIGHTING IN THE GAY OLD WEST""]See the "bullet puff" animation as his shots terminate? Not only are these puffs absolutely lethal to touch, but their hitboxes will remain active for at least a few frames after the sprites have disappeared. It's effectively a solid, invisible wall of death. You've got to wait for it to fall, rush in to score your hits while Pa's not in his invincible crawling phase, then retreat as a fresh spread is loosed. The timing is tight, but a groove is definitely possible to pick up on. Of course, Pa's horde isn't going to sit back and watch.[/quote]

LOOK AT THIS BULLSHIT FFS (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

Still I have to respect Pa, his backstory in the NES manual is really badass.

Spoiler

When Pa was fifteen he spotted some injuns rustling his cattle. "Git ourra mah land" shouted Pa bravely. "No," said Bear Chief indianly while throwing axes at Pa, "is our land you fuck." Then Chief's skull exploded as he walked smack into Pa's invisible shotgun spread. His headless corpse crashed to its knees, tongue flapping and blood gushing from a Pez dispenser stump. "He going to kill us" screamed his cohort Wolf Shagging Pup, turning to run, but he only slammed into another invisible hitbox. His eyes bulged wide in recognition of his own stomach contents and intestines splattering the dust, before rolling back hard in death. Three more tried to flee the horrific new white devil sorcery, only to meet their own butcherings - wall after merciless wall of unseen buckshot mulching buff muscle men into convulsing ruins of pulverised bone and tissue. At last, the survivors cowered in huddled surrender. "I'm the top cunt on this ranch here now, you fackin' godless sheepfuckers" roared Pa as he and his brave sons JR and LIL PA surrounded their terrified captives - the injuns' hushed weeping punctuated by the unfeeling clinks of loosened belt buckles hitting stony earth.

Twenty five years later Pa would meet his end at the dual pistols of BILLY in GUN.SMOKE the hit coin operated shooting game from Capcom, but not before his invisible shotgun hitbox had claimed the lives of many, many more rude cunts looking to steal his land. Thank you for purchasing this Capcom Challenge Series™ Game Pak!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object. St 5 boss Shou Toramaru has annoying as hell curvy lasers that are really tricky to read and easy to smack into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiJRCFVmMHc

[OdiousTrident]

I can't multitask.

https://youtu.be/wohiQRew6ZI?t=465

https://youtu.be/wmbtRW0noRw?t=1006

[Nameschonvergeben]

Venomous Moths Dark Dance
It's a spellcard from Mystia, which is the stage 2 boss in IN that is pretty easy but I fail it every time, which reminds me how bad I am

[Satis]

Any pattern with spinning bullet sprites

[WMD]

Any pattern with spinning bullet sprites

If you're referring to DOJ's washing machine.. I'm right there with you. I'm even one of those heretics who believe bullets should not have anything but straight paths

[Shepardus]

I think he's referring not to curved paths, but to the bullet sprites themselves being animated and spinning around.

[LordHypnos]

Definitely the final car of the stage 5 boss of Mars Matrix. B/c BULLSHIT RNG!!!! At least it's the only RNG in the entire game. I've actually gotten much better at it in recent times, but it's really fast for how random it is. The worst part is those giant bullets that turn into smaller random bullets when you destroy them

I'm also fairly certain that I'm bad at all danmaku patterns including boss ones. One that really gets me is bullets coming from both sides of the screen horizontally while there's a more normal bullet spam type pattern radiating out of the boss. A good example is the "rapid eye movement" pattern from Blue Revolver, though you can see how I'm short circuiting it a bit by destroying the horizontal shooting things on one of the sides. I still managed to die, though. Actually the pattern is even worse at high rank because the horizontal shooting things also shoot lines of aimed shots at you in addition, thus adding a diagonal aspect.

Here's another example of that from Mountain of Faith. I guess it's called "Flood: Ooze Flooding." weird name.

Also homing lasers, those are pretty difficult for me usually. There's lots of games with them, but I can't think of a specific one off hand except for RefleX, which is a little different because you can reflect them and they'll home in on your enemies, which is awesome.

[BIL]

I think he's referring not to curved paths, but to the bullet sprites themselves being animated and spinning around.

Related, flashing bullet sprites as used by some Rayforce bosses (from memory the second stage boss, and the final stage's miniboss). In that game they're effectively invisible half the time (yellow/black on dark backgrounds), and they're fairly dense and quick too. It almost feels deliberate but it's totally non-favorte nonetheless!

[ardiel]

Definitely the final car of the stage 5 boss of Mars Matrix. B/c BULLSHIT RNG!!!! At least it's the only RNG in the entire game. I've actually gotten much better at it in recent times, but it's really fast for how random it is. The worst part is those giant bullets that turn into smaller random bullets when you destroy them

I'm also fairly certain that I'm bad at all danmaku patterns including boss ones. One that really gets me is bullets coming from both sides of the screen horizontally while there's a more normal bullet spam type pattern radiating out of the boss. A good example is the "rapid eye movement" pattern from Blue Revolver, though you can see how I'm short circuiting it a bit by destroying the horizontal shooting things on one of the sides. I still managed to die, though. Actually the pattern is even worse at high rank because the horizontal shooting things also shoot lines of aimed shots at you in addition, thus adding a diagonal aspect.

Here's another example of that from Mountain of Faith. I guess it's called "Flood: Ooze Flooding." weird name.

Also homing lasers, those are pretty difficult for me usually. There's lots of games with them, but I can't think of a specific one off hand except for RefleX, which is a little different because you can reflect them and they'll home in on your enemies, which is awesome.

I like Blue Revolver.

For me, Haskel's final attack is harder than the entire rest of the game.

[mycophobia]

the rings from that big central turret on Jupiter in Batsugun that takes forever to kill

[LordHypnos]

I like Blue Revolver.

For me, Haskel's final attack is harder than the entire rest of the game.

Blue Revolver is indeed a good game. I didn't mean to suggest that that is the hardest attack in the game or anything, just that it stands out as a good example of that particular type of nightmare pattern that I always dread having to face when I see it in a game.

[ardiel]

I like Blue Revolver.

For me, Haskel's final attack is harder than the entire rest of the game.

Blue Revolver is indeed a good game. I didn't mean to suggest that that is the hardest attack in the game or anything, just that it stands out as a good example of that particular type of nightmare pattern that I always dread having to face when I see it in a game.

I know. For me Haskel's pattern is that pattern. I don't really like double spiral patterns, especially when they're different color bullets.

[chum]

I don't know about in general, but in Double Spoiler I think 6-7 is as wrong and bad as a pattern can be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e5JEzNWt14&t=43m25s

The objective is to sit in 1 spot, time the picture right 5x and just hope that the rng doesn't kill you and that the rng gives you a high score (2000 risk bonus and high base value) each time. Passive, garbage luck shit. To make matters even worse you can pixel position for a 551 macro bonus strat which increases the odds of 2000 risk considerably but makes you die to the rng maybe 80-85% of the time or so, doing it 5 times compounds too much

[Lyv]

The survival spellcards in Touhou.
Like, all of them.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

That sodding bouncing ball of death in Crimzon Clover

[WMD]

I think he's referring not to curved paths, but to the bullet sprites themselves being animated and spinning around.

After re-reading that post I think you're right, my mistake.

[copy-paster]

Storm Causer from Darius Gaiden has some of the most BS attack pattern I've ever seen in shmups.

[Ruldra]

Final boss of R-Type 3, when the arms are flying all over the place.

[Dumple]

the rings from that big central turret on Jupiter in Batsugun that takes forever to kill

It's the spinning batons from the last form of Jupiter that really get my goat.

I'll nominate the final "desparation attack" of Tripod Sardine from G-Darius. That attack is just a hot mess, where RNG can box you in badly. (Beginner mode in G-darius revision 2 in beginner mode ratchets it down to a sane reasonable version)

[Stevens]

https://youtu.be/fvIK4Z99zPA?t=13m44s

The attack when the ship extends upwards, can't see through this one for shit.

[xxx1993]

Speaking of Border Down, the Stage 4 boss, Isis, has an attack on its last phase where it fires tons of bullets and a non-stop laser. It's VERY irritating.