Finally 1CC'd Expert on the Genesis version of Gunstar Heroes (as well as the hardest difficulty of the Game Gear port):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxGtGF4dLjo (Genesis ver)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGaHab2Jlc8 (GG ver)
So, let's get serious and chat about one of the best Sega Genesis games made: Gunstar Heroes. On Normal, the game is tame, and pretty forgiving. You can run around with your homing weapons and pretty much pound away on everything however you please. Melee attacks are very, very powerful, and you can use just about any weapon to demolish the game, especially given the extra hits you can take. Fun, without the fangs bared feeling something like Contra can give you. Hard takes that a notch up, lowering weapon damage somewhat while making attacks nastier. You also face all of Seven Force's forms. It's tricky, but manageable, and will give skilled players a good run for their money.
Then there's Expert. Expert is no-holds-barred madness, where multiple weapons are outright nerfed to oblivion, and several bosses are capable of sponging damage. Regular enemies fire lengthy, tight barrages of shots. The shmup stage makes all enemies fire back revenge bullets. Boss patterns mostly remain the same as Hard, but made even more difficult due to the increased time the bosses survive. I've not been able to 1CC it without exploiting the final boss's AI. It's pretty nuts. It's a lot more manageable when you know what you're doing, but there's still a few trouble spots that can potentially screw a run. But let's say you're a bit of a sucker for punishment and want to get the glorious
1CC. Kudos to you, here's how to nab it:
LET'S 1CC GUNSTAR HEROES (SEGA GENESIS) ON EXPERT WITH ME!
• SHOT TYPES
Free Shot lets you run while shooting. Sweeping weapons such as Fire, Fire + Fire, and Force + Lightning will stop you briefly if you sweep from forward to a diagonal or vice versa. You have only one air attack, a forward body slam. The hitbox is quite decent on it. This shot type has the easiest time with stages where you have to run forward such as Pink's stage and Stage 5. Bosses are more troublesome due to constantly moving whenever firing from a diagonal. Is the optimal shot type if you like the homing weapons, generally speaking, but a lot of the homing weapons are fairly weak on Expert.
Fixed Shot can't run while shooting, though you can make short hops forward while firing the weapon uninterrupted. Not as easy for getting through stages where you have to do a lot of running, but you get better air attacks in the form of a high jump kick (hold up) or a low jump kick (hold down), which have different hitboxes and give you a bit more flexibility. The main advantage is you can fire at diagonals without moving, making you ideally suited for dealing with a lot of the bosses with straight firing weapons.
I personally prefer Fixed Shot, but either one works just fine. Note that there's a No Damage run of Expert using Free Shot as well as a 1CC of the arcade version on Expert (basically the same as the Genesis just with far less health available), so Free Shot may technically be better for this sort of thing.
• YOUR WEAPONS
You get your fancy choice of starter weapon that also affects what weapon you have if you use a continue. These can be combined with new weapons to create weapon pairings that are often better than the individual weapons alone, but you can always use either individual weapon you have if you prefer.
Force: A basic machinegun type weapon that fires bullets directly forward with no spread, piercing, or any special properties. It's simple, but pretty effective on single targets, and three of its combinations are very effective.
Lightning: Fires a piercing laser beam. Thin, and frankly too weak to be used effectively on its own in Expert where it has a significant damage reduction. Has two effective combinations on Expert.
Chaser: Homing weapon that fires triangular bullets that slowly home in on enemies. At close range or point blank range it's surprisingly powerful, but at medium or long ranges the delay between shots hitting their mark makes it very weak. Has two effective combinations on Expert.
Fire: Shoots out a close range stream of damage. Sweep it diagonally by tapping up if you like. Tied with a couple other weapons for the most damaging weapon in the game, but the short range makes it very difficult to use on a few bosses where long range weapons are much more effective. Most bosses actually can quite reasonably taken down with close range weaponry though. Fire is also the only starter weapon in the game where any other weapon can combine with it to make something truly useful on Expert difficulty.
By holding down and tapping the shot button (or just tapping the shot button when hovering over a weapon in the shmup level) you can pick up a new weapon. Most of the combinations in the game are pretty useful, but note that the damage adjustments in Expert have been especially harsh to two of them, rendering them useless on Expert (but pretty effective on lower difficulties). The order you pick them up makes no difference to which combination you get:
Force + Force: A powerful spread machine gun. The lack of piercing is a problem for several areas but it has solid damage for bosses. Good mid tier pick that's easy to use, but look elsewhere for the really high end weaponry.
Force + Lightning: Fires laser beams in spurts that can be swept at diagonals similar to the Fire weapon. It's not overwhelmingly strong, but it's not that weak, either, and with quick sweeping it can hit the blind spots something like Lightning + Lightning or even Force + Force miss at a distance. Solidly mid tier, and better than Force + Force due to the piercing effect.
Force + Chaser: On lower difficulties it's quite decent, firing a stream of large Force bullets that can turn to 90 degree angles to hit enemies. However, Expert reduces it to a paltry 2 damage per bullet, turning it into the weakest weapon in the game. Using either Force or Chaser individually will get you better damage than using this combo. Bottom tier pick, avoid unless on Normal or below.
Force + Fire: A.K.A. the game's grenade launcher. Fires up to two shots at a time that explode when they hit something or if you let go of the trigger. Tap the shot button to fire it rapidly at close range for protection, or jump and fire it behind you to deal with enemies chasing after you. Many smaller mobs go down in one shot, rarely more than two. The flames also have a piercing effect, making it one of the best weapons in the game for general purpose. Damage on bosses isn't quite as high as a few other combos, but is still very powerful and versatile.
Lightning + Lightning: A thin, continuous laser beam that pierces everything for good damage but can only be fired in 8 directions, leaving massive blind spots in your aim. This is a problem on many enemies and bosses, where you can only hit with it by jumping or moving really close. If you want to use a long range laser beam, Force + Lightning is recommended over this for is versatility. This one makes it too hard to quickly and effectively sweep the screen of priority enemies.
Lightning + Chaser: Fires a homing laser that locks on to a single enemy and follows it around until it's dead. More or less worthless if using Fixed Shot due to the low damage, and also worthless on Expert due to it being way too weak. It can be a fun weapon when using Free Shot on the lower difficulties, though. Low tier.
Lightning + Fire: High tier pick. It's basically a laser drill. Tied with Fire and Chaser + Fire in damage per second. It fires a thin beam of energy about the length of the Fire weapon with a slightly narrower hitbox that deals incredible damage to anything it touches, while also destroying enemy bullets. There are a number of bullets this can destroy, including most of the bullets in the shmup level, and the stars that Green tosses at you. Also, the barriers Green's Crab Force launches at you (but it's too short ranged to really be a good pick for Green's level!). It's a difficult weapon to use due to the range, but one that enables you to cheese several bosses by outright blocking their shots.
Chaser + Chaser: Fires green homing stars that rapidly seek out targets. Like a supercharged version of single Chaser. The stars actually do slightly less damage per hit than single Chaser's bullets do, but because you can fire them in a more or less continuous stream, using double Chaser is still much better damage than single Chaser unless at or near point blank range. Low tier pick though, because Expert significantly nerfs its damage. Not quite to the range of being unusable, but certainly below your other choices.
Chaser + Fire: The big brain weapon of the game, favoured heavily by speedrunners. It is by far the most difficult weapon to use, but the one with the most potential. It has top tier damage, tied with single Fire and Lightning + Fire, as well as being long range and blocking all the bullets and attacks Lightning + Fire can. While holding down the shot button, you can press the D-Pad to guide the flame to wherever you want, meaning it's a weapon you have to really micromanage to keep it over enemies. If you press and hold shot without moving, it will fire a homing fire wave that tries to turn towards enemies but generally does so ineffectively compared to controlling it yourself. It's a fantastically powerful weapon that's also a pain in the ass to use cause you constantly have to mash the D-Pad left and right or up and down to keep it on top of bosses.
Fire + Fire: I really like this weapon, which does high tier damage, though admittedly there's a few fights where the lack of range is an issue. It deals slightly less damage per second than single Fire in exchange for being much, much longer. That extra range makes a huge difference and makes it very viable as a weapon in most boss fights. When you let go of shot, it fires the flame balls forward from whatever direction it was facing, dealing a minor amount of damage. It can be used as a weak ranged attack this way, but this mostly is a pain because you can't fire it again until those flame balls travel offscreen. A good general purpose weapon with above average damage that only becomes a liability in a few spots where you really want fullscreen range.
The general plan in Expert I recommend is get Fire, then try to pick up Force as soon as possible. The grenade launcher's just too versatile and useful to not use, and it's much easier to use than some of the other weapons. Double Fire is good, too, and handles enemies much the same way Force + Fire can. If you're comfortable with knowing what you can block then Lightning + Fire or Chaser + Fire are great too. Force + Lightning and Force + Force are suitable fallback combos if need be. Single Fire is always an option on bosses you can get close to safely for damage.
• THE CONTROLS
There's a few less obvious things you can do worth mentioning:
Throw: Hold a direction and tap attack when near an enemy. Some enemies can be thrown repeatedly by throwing them upwards, then throwing them again in midair. This doesn't deal extra damage, as damage only connects when they hit the ground. Note that the Game Gear version makes throwing much less safe on bosses where you could exploit the heck out of it originally such as Smash Daisaku's second phase on stage 5, and both of the Orange fights.
High Jump / Low Jump: Hold up when jumping to get a bit more height. Press down right after you tap jump do do a low hop. The higher jump is very useful for dodging stuff and it can help avoid stuff the normal jump height can't.
Jump Attack: Press jump in midair. Free Shot has one type of midair attack, Fixed Shot has either a high or low kick you can control by holding up or down when you attack. In addition to letting you wall jump off solid walls, it also makes you invulnerable to any attacks when you're actually hitting an enemy with it, which can be pretty useful for dodging stuff at specific points in the game. The flip up/down you do on platforms you hang from also gives you this kind of invulnerability when hitting an enemy.
The jump attack is also crucial for getting extra items from the orange item carriers. Item carriers normally only drop 1 item as they move past you. Hitting them with a jump attack causes them to drop up to 3 items, possibly more if they're health items and you somehow manage to pick up the health items then hit it again. They'll also drop an item if destroyed by an enemy attack.
Slide Kick: Hold diagonal down to slide kick even on surfaces you can drop from by doing down + jump. Invulnerable to damage when you're connecting with it.
Slide Tackle: Do a half circle input then press attack (back, down, forward + attack). This slide attack is a standing height slide attack that deals decent damage and seems a bit safer than the slide kick? Invulnerable to damage when you're connecting with it, this is particularly useful against the Minion Soldier boss in The Dice Palace who can throw you out of slide kicks.
In the Game Gear port, the input is changed to double tap forward + attack.
Pause: Game Gear port specific, just hold Start to pause instead of tapping it like you would to weapon swap.
Guard: On the ground when standing upright, press and hold jump + attack at the same time. Timing is strict. You put your hands over your face and greatly reduce the damage (half?) you take. Also makes you immune to knockdowns? It's better to dodge attacks, but this is helpful for reducing the damage from the exploding things between each of the Unit bosses (Unit of the Hammer/Dragon/Runner). Or if you want to play peekaboo I guess.
• THE STAGES
Stage 1: Pink, and The Ancient Ruins
I mean, you can do them in whatever order you're comfortable with, but you start each subsequent stage with an extra 20 health, so might as well do the easiest one first. Jump attacks are the fastest way to rush the stage, and getting hit a few times is worth it to grab a new item.
The Phantom miniboss enemies throw bombs you can toss back at them, or you can get close and throw them directly, but I recommend keeping your distance and firing away. The main hazard is a dash attack that comes out quickly on Expert you have to jump over to evade which can take off precious health unexpectedly.
For the pyramid climb, just hold forward and keep tapping jump. Ignore all enemies and powerup carriers (you'll likely lose way too much health as they fire aggressively). Bravoo Man's a joke as any time it gets close you can just jump attack through it. It may get the chance to use it healing move if you don't have a strong weapon, but whatever, it's still fairly easy. It takes a lot of damage from piercing attacks like Fire, probably because multiple segments register the hits.
Slide down the pyramid by hiding at the top left of the screen. There's a blind spot where you can slide down but the enemies bouncing down can't hurt you. Or be a badass and sit at the bottom right shooting everything and jumping over the shots that come, whatever.
There's a health item in the claw section you can do a jump attack off the wall to get 3 health items from it in total. Makes the Pink fight a joke. Pink's machine itself isn't too hard and can be cheesed with Fire + Lightning; its Hitman Shot consists of it stretching out a gunman to fire at you. Just weave between the lasers returning fire, or block them all with an appropriate combo (Fire + Lightning or Chaser). It can also jump from side to side or walk towards you, launching homing bombs followed by a big spiky ball you can shoot at to force it away from you. The easiest way to beat it is do a slide kick as it walks at you, jump up to hang from the underside, then shoot down all the homing balls as they approach.
Stage 2: Orange, and The Flying Battleship
The next easiest stage. Hug the left edge of the screen and hold a fire type weapon outward while jumping straight up. You should destroy the soldiers before they fire. Don't accidentally wall jump or grab a ledge by holding up! Once you see the top of the battleship, hop on (you can do a walljump off the left screen edge). The grenade that appear can be thrown back at the enemies.
There's a bug here where sometimes you'll take 20 damage as you go offscreen before the battleship flies back down. Oops. The miniboss is easy and is just a matter of shooting it while jumping over its attacks. It always does a jumpkick in a sweeping U-shaped pattern.
If you want a new weapon you can try and blow up the turrets here, but I suggest rushing past them. Try not to get thrown around by the soldiers and get to the boss, Swapping Reg. It's completely trivial if you high jump then wall jump off the screen edge to grab onto the grey wire hanging above, which you can stand on. Fire downward, and make sure to shoot down the next two turrets for the health.
Hello Smash Daisaku. Do NOT try to throw him or he'll take no damage AND use a special counterattack. Jump attacks are also worthless, dealing minimal damage. Just shoot him down, letting go of the trigger and jumping so you can make a long jump as need be to avoid the bomb blasts.
Orange's first encounter is annoying. He can slide attack at you, divebomb you after swinging around the rotor, and also fire off various blasts of blue flames at you. Hanging from below is probably the safest place to be as if he tries to attack you it's a chance to swing upward and escape or try and throw him. An exploit exists where you can bait his downward attack, swing upward just as it starts and throw him, but my timing sucks for that. If you throw him, always throw him up or down so he lands on the helicopter. If you throw him off the helicopter (or if he jumps off on his own, hah) he takes minimal damage.
Stage 3: Green, and The Underground Mine
I find Seven Force less of a hassle to deal with than Black's level is at times. The early part of Black's level can be a nuisance with all the enemies wanting to get a hold of you and throw you around. Again, stage order is up to you, do Black next if Seven Force is giving you trouble.
Hide at one of the screen corners and keep firing up then forward to stop most threats. You can duck and do a slide kick (hold up if on the ceiling) to evade forward firing lasers. Be very careful and jump away to the opposite side of the screen when the bomb thrower appears as it deals tons of damage (its location is random, hiding in the middle of the screen gives more time to react). When the first traincar appears, hiding at the far left of the screen and doing jumping shots, or standing and using Force + Fire and releasing the blasts under the enemies clears them. The homing bomb launcher that comes after isn't terribly hard.
The downward section has three sets of the laser wall enemies. Only strong weapons can reliably kill them, and they deal tons of damage if you're caught in them. Expert gives you only a tiny window to dodge past them, so try destroying them by hiding at the top and firing downward the moment one is onscreen. Force + Fire works well as usual.
More bomb throwers to watch for, just evade them. Getting hit can be extremely painful (30+ damage if you get multihit). The next set of traincars can be dealt with the same way as the first, but watch out for the last one that has two bomb throwers plus a soldier who fires relentlessly. Smash Daisaku's just a joke character here, poor guy.
Seven Force is the main attraction of the level, and always starts with Soldier Force. It then apparently picks randomly, alternating between vertical shaft Forces (Urchin, Tails, Eagle) and horizontal shaft Forces (Blaster, Tiger, Crab).
Soldier Force: If you're above it, or above and behind, it'll toss boomerangs. If you're behind it on the bottom it'll back up to step on you. In front of it, it will usually boomerang you if you're above, and fire the downward arcing balls if below, but it may randomly pick one unexpectedly. The main threat is the arm stretch which gives almost no warning time on Expert and multihits for significant damage. Do NOT get caught by this at close range above him. Sit on the far right of the screen firing away, top right usually being safer since the boomerangs are easier to read coming out. If Soldier Force gets way too close for comfort, quickly go to the ceiling and run past it at the far left. It'll boomerang, at which point you can drop down to evade, lure it back to the left side of the screen, and quickly go back when the coast is clear.
Urchin Force: This shouldn't be a threat if you're ready to play Expert. It's just about reaction time and using a decent long-range weapon.
Crab Force: If I recall, you can destroy the walls and orbs with Fire + Lightning/Chaser? Otherwise, use a long range weapon and hide far away at the screen edge. When it uses a glowing back that fires diagonally be on the same side, when it uses a vertical wall on the same side as you switch sides, and for the metal balls just jump over them (jump early so you can quickly jump again if it does these twice in a row. Has a lot of health, learn its attack timing so it doesn't wear you down.
Blaster Force: A joke. Has a safespot directly above and below where its shot hits the floor or ceiling without damaging you. You can touch the gun without taking damage.
Tails Force: Start the fight on the left wall. The shots it fires deal minimal damage but when it's chasing you around the screen they can lock you down so it can get into ramming range. If it moves close, move low on the screen, then quickly dodge up and hop to the right wall. Once it flips once or twice, quickly swap walls to get past it. The tail isn't too hard to evade but deals a LOT of damage.
Tiger Force: Learn the timing of the blasts, and then learn to read the laser angles. Easy, but hits hard if you get caught by it.
Eagle Force: The trick to moving past when hiding in the corners is to always face outward. Your hitbox extends further back than it does forward, so when moving past it always be looking towards Eagle Force. This makes a difference when you're in the corner with its tail in your face, where turning towards the wall will cause it to hit you.
Stage 4: Black, and The Strange Fortress (and its Silly Dice Maze)
The beginning segment has a lot of enemies wearing red that love to rush you and grab you. Do your best to evade them. Three of them keep spawning at the boss in the middle of the first segment. The cannon thing doesn't have much health and can be jump attacked or shot at, but be careful about using jump attacks in case you move in front of the cannon as it's firing! Try to reach the Dice Maze with at least 120 vitality.
Luck is a major factor in how troublesome this is. Most rooms aren't too bad, a few are manageable but deal a punishing 20 damage whenever you're hit, and some are genuinely a nuisance.
Valvalion: It's a multisegmented boss that takes ridiculous damage from piercing attacks. Anything with Fire or Lightning will generally shred it quickly.
Timeron: Learn how to misdirect the bombs it drops. Remember the bomb it drops near the 10 second mark will not detonate in your face.
Rush and Go! 1: The one where you have only melee attacks (pressing shoot now punches) and have to punch the orbs to change the walls. It's slightly stupid on Expert because in the maze are three bouncing orbs that deal a lot of damage if you get trapped with one. Just wait the timer out if you need, there's no penalty for doing so. When going up, use jumping punches (don't use your multihit jump attack). The solution is up, up, right, right, hug the green wall then punch it, moving right as you do so but without falling down. Stand on the ledge to the right of where the vertical green wall was and punch so you can now run across toward the goal. If you fall down I'm not sure how to get back up the section where there's multiple yellow walls short of running back to the middle of the screen.
Sometimes as the walls shift, the damaging orbs will move THROUGH solid portions of the screen and pull shenanigans on you, so be very careful with your timing if you want to make it to the goal.
Minion Soldier: Piercing weapons are exceptionally useful to kill off the crowd it summons randomly when knocked down. It will do a jump kick if you try and jump over it, and will throw you if you try to slide kick. High jump -> wall jump can get you past it, and it is very susceptible to the slide tackle (back, down, forward + attack). Alternates between rushing you to try and throw you, and staying back while firing sparkles you can duck under. One of the harder fights here.
Melon Bread: If this manages to damage you, a deep sense of all-encompassing shame is the correct emotion to feel.
Pit: Everything here deals 20 points of screen crush damage. You can jump on top of the orbs as well as grab them from below, though. Piercing attacks are ideal, but on Expert you won't be able to speedkill the balls, so be prepared to evade the first wave.
Rush and Go! 2: If you don't have a piercing weapon, you can poke your gun through the walls and shoot to clear it before proceeding.
Phantom: A standard Phantom fight. Just evade or throw back the bombs, don't let it slide attack you, and grab the healing item.
Vortex Base: Insanely fast on Expert. The top left is a blind spot on several attack patterns though.
Curry and Rice: Fixed Shot has an advantage here. There's an angle you can do a downward jump kick and hit it safely under its arm waving attack. This boss is silly and I'm not sure how to deal with it without getting hit. Any time it punches or kicks you, use the invulnerability to try and throw it. Don't forget the head at the end actually damages you with its blast.
Abarenbou Gel: Apparently "abarenbou" translates to "rampage"? So "rampaging gel" I guess. High jump -> wall jump over it when it approaches, run away and fire, then repeat. Don't slide under it.
Super Gondola This boss is the reason you don't want a close range weapon. It can take a bit of time if you have an unsuitable weapon, and the bombs that can destroy the floor you're on are its biggest threat, so shoot those down.
And finally:
Black Beat Stepper: Joke boss. Has a ton of health but is trivial to avoid. Hide in the corner and then go over it as it approaches. The front foot determines what colour it's on. Blue means avoid the corner, Green means go to a corner, Red can be evaded by standing on the edge of one of the platforms, and yellow has the thinnest shot of all, where you just have to avoid being directly across from the center of a yellow panel.
Stage 5: The Highway (Destroy Them All!)
Grab Lightning + Fire at any point you can. It makes the next shmup level vastly easier, and works fine here even if it's not as easy to use in this level compared to Force + Fire. Piercing weapons are crucial for breaking over the boxes. Learn which ones have health you're comfortable with getting, and which you find it easier just to keep running and skip. Evade enemies by constantly using jump attacks to maintain forward momentum. The Phantom battles are standard stuff by now; deal with the fodder enemies first and then fight them as usual.
When the first dude on a large hovering vehicle appears before two stacks of crates, lure him to the crates and high jump up. You can grab and throw the entire vehicle downward, where its blast instantly destroys everything it touches, crates and all, for an easy 30 health.
The extra tall diagonal crate wall only has one health item, so pop it and get moving. Don't let the crates crush you for 20 damage.
When you get to the green enemy section, the giant walkers can either be shot, jump kicked, or high jump -> screen edge wall jumped over. Don't let the feet touch you or it's 20 damage, and that include when you destroy them (where their feet suddenly stick out slightly). Past a few destroyable barrels is a soldier hiding in a barrel. This is key to remember, as just past him is an item carrier that comes from the left carrying precious health. Move too fast and you'll scroll it offscreen soon after it appears! Walk forward slowly until the item carrier appears then rush it, jump attacking it so it drops more goodies. It's possible to grab a ton of items from it if drops more items after you've grabbed the first three, but often you'll only get 2 to 4 depending on how many it drops before an enemy happens to shoot it.
The really tall walker enemies are difficult. Again, wall jump attacks can reach the front of them and destroy them safely if they get too close to the screen edge.
Smash Daisaku is a pain. Treat him like the first fight in Orange's stage; don't throw or jump attack him. Just keep shooting, and avoid him when he charges up the dash attack (which is a great opportunity to shoot him). Phase 2 however makes him wide open for throws, where you can easily bait him into jumping up, and throw him out of the air for 400 damage a pop. This is easier than fighting him on the ground where his fireballs can be troublesome.
Stage 6: The Shmup Stage
Use a blocking weapon and just dodge/block everything. Free Shot and Fixed Shot both control exactly the same here. This is by far the easiest way to do this. Lightning + Fire is ideal. Otherwise, a rapid weapon like Force + Force or Chaser + Chaser is ideal for quickly downing the small enemies. Force + Fire actually sucks here I find as the blasts are too awkward to control and aim.
In the section where the screen scrolls left, hiding at the top or bottom avoids those giant blue laserbeams that come your way. Past the next asteroid segment are some teleporting enemies that fire shots inward. The trick is to boost jump out of each ring before they teleport in. After that is a soldier riding an asteroid snake (?!). He cannot be killed from what I can tell and deals the most damage out of anything here. Do NOT get rammed and focus on dashing away constantly!
The 1000MM Gun boss is trivial if you sit above it and aim below with a bullet cancel weapon. If not hide at the far right, dashing up or down between the lasers to avoid its blasts. The section after this is a bit stupid on Expert where two cannons are in front as a ton of enemies swarm above and below that return fire on you when destroyed. If you have a bullet cancelling weapon or a straight firing weapon, great, but if you have double Chaser like I did you'll have to stop firing, evade the cannons, then pray and dash through. Oof.
Seven Force's last appearance is easy. Just attack it from diagonals so you don't suddenly get rammed by Tiger Force or Tails Force, and boost dash away instantly when you see the red or blue of Crab or Eagle Force.
Inside the ship, swap weapons at the first item carrier before enemies arrive if need be (Lightning + Fire's short range is a liability on the next boss) and then jump attack the second item carrier to get three healing items from it. Do NOT try to fight the Phantom enemies here. They have lots of health, and despite dying from one throw are still sufficiently dangerous that evading them is by far the best option since you can run past them.
Unit of the Hammer is the hardest of the three bosses honestly. It takes a long time to wear it down safely. Get past it without taking too many hits and the fight it pretty much done. If you have trouble avoiding the exploding things between Units, use the guard command (press jump + attack from a standstill).
Unit of the Dragon's easy and dies quickly from piercing attacks, but the clouds it fires hurt a lot if they multihit you. Use slides and walljumps to aggressively evade it.
Unit of the Runner is easy. Always alternates blue and orange orbs, with blue going up at an angle and orange going straight. You can either hide at the far left and jump over the orange ones, or get close enough to jump over both orb types with a high jump and attack it at close range. Just look out for getting hit by the swinging arm if you get close (11 damage a hit).
Stage 7: The Final Battle
Duck Battalion is easy to slide under or jump over as need be. It's really just the warm-up fight for the stage and even a hit from the lasers will deal fairly low damage. Just don't get crushed by it at a screen edge for 20 damage.
When the hitman hops off, get close and do a vertical throw. Slide kick towards him if he jumps away and then go for throws again, all while ducking. Staying close and throwing him is the key to beating him without taking damage, or at least minimal damage.
The glowing balls is a matter of learning the sequence and where to move. Alternatively, jump attack through them. They do hit very hard so absolutely proceed with caution.
Pink Lobster is a damage race and is where you absolutely want a piercing weapon. Everything it uses is 20 damage so getting hit is very, very bad. The bubbles can be mashed out of but the mashing is difficult to do, so don't get hit in the first place. My 1CC of Expert had an atrocious Pink Lobster fight but still cleared thankfully. If you can bait it into using bubbles early on, take full advantage of piercing your way through them. Otherwise you have to keep evading the slashes while jumping away. You can't stand on top of it without sliding off to the side either, so no exploit there. Once damaged enough, Pink Lobster runs away and hides, protecting itself with its claw and using the bubbles when you get closer. The fight's over at this point, just move in close enough to trigger the bubbles, then jump out of range and keep blasting.
Orange is super easy to bait (in this version; he's a nightmare on the GG port). Stay above him while firing diagonally down below (Ground Burning Draft is used if you're below him at this point and is much harder to evade). Jump past him and keep firing down diagonally at him. If while he's above 5000 health he jumps to the same side as you, run away and do not engage. Instead of rushing towards you to grab you or slide attack you he may just be moving in to use Final Big Bang, which can't be punished. About when his health drops below 3500 or so he'll go into rushdown mode where he dashes towards you then jumps up or down at you. Lure him into being above you, drop below, and when he elbow drops down, grab him and throw him diagonally away as soon as he lands. You can throw him repeatedly every time he drops down safely this way and is very easy to do repeatedly.
The Black Fly is best dealt with a high damage weapon. Single Fire if you have it also happens to be easy to hit the wall generators he drops (easier than Fire + Lightning's thinner width) so pop the generators that come near, and hit him hard when he reappears. When Black stays on screen and uses the rotating 3 way attack, stand on the side of the elevator close to the edge of the vehicle, and do high jump -> jump attack to hit the vehicle so the beam moves past you safely as the jump attack is hitting. It's easiest to do this when the beam is moving upwards, so if clockwise move to the left side, and move to the right side if counterclockwise. This is much, much easier than trying to keep up with jumping around the screen as the beams rotate.
Green is a menace and vastly harder to do the "normal" way than the other bosses here. The big threat is his constant love of rushing and throwing you for 20 damage. If you're already worn down from the other bosses, this is a major health hazard. He'll block attacks at the start, but jumping up or down lets you hit him as he tries to follow you. When he takes enough damage he starts fighting for real. Thankfully, three AI exploits exist:
• Use Fire + Lightning or Fire + Chaser. It instantly deflects the stars thrown at you and can stunlock him afterwards. He always throws stars after taking gun damage.
• Use Force + Fire and explode grenades in his face. Sorta deflects some stars (but not reliably), and stunlocks decently. Make sure to mash attack to explode the grenades early. A workable option if you didn't manage to pick up the above weapons.
• There's some AI exploit where a slide kick baits him into an uppercut, which you can then throw punish. I don't know the timing for this or how it works though, so up to you to experiment.
Golden Silver is best tackled with Force + Fire, which the room conveniently gives you. Fire + Chaser also works well if you have it. Each gem takes damage so piercing weapons are ideal. Double Fire works if you want, Force + Lightning is less recommended due to how thin the shots, and how tiny the gems are. I've gotten absolutely destroyed by Golden Silver from a massive 157 vitality. The only safe way I've found to reliably tackle him on Expert is abuse an AI exploit when he uses Golden Blast Nuclear, the one where he stretches his hand out and creates a massively wide blast you have to stand near him to safely avoid. There's a magical spot where you can safely stand and he'll just keep trying to hit you while missing every time. From there, just shoot upwards at the gems:
He'll do this all through phase 1 and phase 2 (where the gems circle his body) until he drops below 4000 health which triggers phase 3, where he'll immediately punch you away (since he stops using Golden Blast Nuclear and Earth Resolver in phase 3). Phase 3 is where he uses Jewel Strike, and the gems attack directly in nasty ways. Quickly damage race down the last 4000 health before you're killed and you've got the win. This means that you need far less health to survive his onslaught since, if you get the exploit setup quickly, you only need to fight one phase out of a normal three.
There's apparently an exploit where you can duck to bait his punch then throw him away repeatedly throughout most of the fight, but I have no idea how to set it up.
And that's it for the Sega Genesis version's Expert 1CC! Most strats should apply to the Mega Play arcade version, though you start levels with significantly less health there (80 vitality each stage I think?) so you have to really avoid damage to 1CC that version.