GD: Dragon Blaze - character differences, etc...

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CMoon
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GD: Dragon Blaze - character differences, etc...

Post by CMoon »

A lot of questions on this excellent game...

1) Explanation of the two types of charge shots: I assume that the charge shot when you are dismounted is stronger than the charge shot when you are mounted--that is, the mounted charge shot=power spread, dismounted charge shot=full frontal boss-killing attack!

2) What are good strategies with each type of charge shot? I have found I'm not using the mounted charge shot at all, but perhaps there is a good use for it (maybe if you are stuck in a pinch and can't get close enough to do the dragon shot?)

3) Character variations. Oh God, this could be huge...
3a) is the dragon shot the same strength for each character?
3b) sub weapons...is one character any stronger in this department or is it all balanced out?
3c) charge shot variations? Again, does one character have a stronger type of charge shot (Rob's mounted charge shot looks powerful, but doesn't really seem to do any more damage.)
3d) Bomb variations. Some bombs seem more defensive and others more offensive. ???

4) How do you get gold coin 'dispensers' to show up...I've only done it a couple times.

Probably a lot more to be discussed but these are my immediate questions.



<changed RQ to GD -inc.>
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landshark
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Post by landshark »

1 huge difference between all the characters are their bombs.

The guy's bomb seems to be the best as it is a screen clearer. The others are a vertical column that block bullets from passing one side to the other and are not always useful in a moment of panic.
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CMoon
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Post by CMoon »

Well I suspect some of those other bombs do more damage though. Ian's bomb in particular doesn't seem to clear bullets at all but destroys the crap out of bosses.

The best I've been able to get out of Quaid's screen clearing bomb is to dump a couple dragon shots on the boss while invulnerable.

Although I don't like his speed, Rob seems to have some really nice balance. His bomb is nice because although it doesn't clear the whole screen it seems to do some pretty decent damage where it is dropped, and you could potentially sit inside of it and throw out a dragon shot. Likewise, his attacks seem more powerful than quaid.

In fact, Quaid just feels altogether weak, but maybe I am imagining this. Quaid seems to be all defense, with Ian at the other end is all offense, leaving the two slower characters being the more balanced of the four. Again though, these are just my early impressions and was hoping for a more seasoned player to rectify my ignorance on the matter.
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Post by Ex_Mosquito »

Okay, here's what I've observed.

Quaid:

Speed - Average

Shot Attack - Average width and power, powerful aimed secondary lances with every button press. NOTE: Extra lances can be fired with faster button inputs.

Shot Special - Button Held - Aimed narrow stream of fire. Slow moving fireballs that stay on the screen for a few seconds. Good for deploying on one side of the screen to let them do their work while you take care of something else on screen.

Dragon Attack - Average Width and call-back speed


Dragon Special - Wide Dragon breath, very little range, must be positioned close for any real effect.

Bomb - Good, Full screen protection for 2 seconds.



SONIA


Speed - Slow

Shot Attack - Wider shot than Quiad but about the same power, but she has a VERY strong secondary lazers that can take out multiple weaker enemies in one shot. Excellent.

Shot Special - Button Held - VERY wide spead, powerful. GOOD

Dragon Attack - One of the best in the game, if you notice the main dragon has two extra dragons either side of it making it the widest of all the dragon strikes, only down side is the call-back speed is slow.

Dragon Special - Poor and pretty useless. Main Dragon fires a weak green spread while the two smaller dragons home onto the closest enemy with an even weaker attack. Pretty much useless tbh.

Bomb - Poor, deploys a proective barrier slighly wider than sonia vertical up the screen, can be hit if outside barrier, useful for sticky situations and not much else.


ROB

Speed - Slowest

Shot Attack - One of the best in the game, Wide powerful spread covering a large span of the screen. His secondary weapon are very powerful slow moving metal balls tavelling at a slight angle to the sides but has limited range.

Shot Special - Button Held - Powerful spread of errm rocks? i dunno, but its good, fast and covers a wide area.

Dragon Attack - About the same range as Quaids but a little stronger, but again as with Sonia the recall speed is slow, not AS slow but easily slower than Quaid and Ian.

Dragon Special - Powerful hori laser, Decent. VERY useful for level 6.

Bomb - Good. Full screen protection for 2 seconds.


IAN

Speed - Fastest

Shot Attack - Straight fire, average. Secondary weapons are homing daggers that ermm, home in. Okay if you're going for survival but a pain in the arse if you're going for score because it kills everything before you get a chance to dragon shot them. Poor for Score, good for survival.

Shot Special - Button Held - Strong powerful laser, good BUT, Ians powerbar takes about 10 years to charge so use it wisely

Dragon Attack - Pretty much the same power and width as Quaid, but with the fastest dragon recall in the entire game. Excellent.

Dragon Special - Green round circular area, shield? i dunno what it is but it spins around the spins the dragon :? . Good for taking out stronger enemies in level stages.

Bomb - Worst in the game, pretty much useless tbh, it does sod all damage. Poor for painic situation too, no invulnerability.


Strat vids for TB. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark9/Dragon_Blaze/
Last edited by Ex_Mosquito on Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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cigsthecat
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Post by cigsthecat »

I've played Quaid for a while, but I'm switching to Ian.

Quaid is a good all around character. He's not painfully slow like the two middle characters, and the dragon shoot speed is OK. His bomb is great because it takes effect instantly and wipes out everything. I'd start with him.

Ian however, is the fastest. His dragon shoot recall time is also the fastest- and this is very important. With Ian I find myself scoring better because I can squeeze in so many more dragon shoots, and then zip around the screen collecting more gold coins. However, as Ex_ noted, the homing shots can be a bit of a pain. The only problem I really have with them is that they can take out the small enemies that activate the gemheads if you aren't very careful. Otherwise I think his speed/fast dragon shoot more than makes up for the homing shots killing a few little enemies before you can get to them. I imagine they'd be a much bigger problem in the second round, however.

His bomb is the big letdown here. It doesn't deploy instantly, and then you are only invincible on the thin "line" it creates. But if you only move up and down on the line you seem to be invulnerable.

Ultimately I think learning to deal with Ian's bomb/ secondary weapon weaknesses will benefit me more than sticking with Quaid's slower
speeds.


Oh, about the "gemheads" - Look on The Sheep's site for their locations. You need to hit a specific enemy in each stage with the dragon shoot to activate them.
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CMoon
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Post by CMoon »

Anyone care to explain the tech bonuses in those vids? Is that whenever you kill a boss with a dragon shot or does it involve no shooting at all (this hypothesis doesn't work because the player does shoot the boss a little bit in one of the videos)?
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Post by BulletMagnet »

IIRC, at certain points in a boss fight the boss will reveal its "core" for a moment or two: if you can move in and nail the core with a dragon shoot then you get a tech bonus for it (or do you have to kill the boss with it for it to work?). Of course, the boss also fires out a nasty bullet pattern whenever the core is revealed, so getting in there to use the dragon shoot isn't easy...I think the Sheep's site might have more on it.
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Post by Ex_Mosquito »

Anyone care to explain the tech bonuses in those vids? Is that whenever you kill a boss with a dragon shot or does it involve no shooting at all (this hypothesis doesn't work because the player does shoot the boss a little bit in one of the videos)?
To get the Techncal Bonus you must dragon shoot the core(heart) when its revealed, killing it in one hit. Try not to damage the 2nd for too much though, if damaged too much it wont reveal the core for the TB. If you noticed in the vids i fired a little, though .You need to do this on some of the bosses (1-6 mostly) to stop drones spamming up the screen with random stray bullets. Like BulletMagnet said the boss fires a meaty pattern just before the core is revealed, careful positioning is needed so any random spam from drones can knock you out of position and you'll more than likely miss/die while trying for the TB.
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dboeren
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Dragon Blaze

Post by dboeren »

Good discussion! I'm not that good at this game, so any tips to improve would be great. I'm sure I'm not using the dragonshoot effectively at all.

When playing mainly for survival, what is the recommended strategy for using the dragonshoot? I usually try to park it in front of any powerful enemies to help me take them down faster, but don't use it much on weak enemies to get extra coins (except maybe with Ian since he's so fast).

Anyway, for some reason this game seems to get out of hand for me, like there are too many enemies and I can't kill them fast enough. I have never had this feeling with other Psikyo games like Gunbird 2 or Strikers 1945 II, so I figure I must be doing something wrong here.
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snap monkey
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Post by snap monkey »

I've only played DB a little, but a really cheap way to get the Technical Bonus is to bomb right before the boss opens its core. You'll be invulnerable, so you can waltz right up to it and place your dragon shoot with ease.

Of course, being able to do so without a bomb is more desireable as bombs are nice to have, plus you get mad style points (though not in the game).
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Post by raiden »

Good discussion! I'm not that good at this game, so any tips to improve would be great. I'm sure I'm not using the dragonshoot effectively at all.
When playing mainly for survival, what is the recommended strategy for using the dragonshoot? I usually try to park it in front of any powerful enemies to help me take them down faster, but don't use it much on weak enemies to get extra coins (except maybe with Ian since he's so fast).
It´s nearly impossible to survive without using the dragon shot effectively. Instead of parking the dragon in front of powerful enemies, you should try to kill them with a dragon shot before they start shooting. The dragon shot is strong enough to kill almost every non-boss enemy except for multi-part enemies where it only kills the parts it touches.

If you want to play the game in a conventional way, staying at the bottom most of the time, Rob is the obvious character choice, but you will find it´s much harder that way than by learning to handle the dragon shot. I can understand your problems perfectly, though: I´m still having serious problems with dragon handling after playing the game for about 50 hours. Whenever I manage to reach stage 5, the game owns me completely.
Ian however, is the fastest. His dragon shoot recall time is also the fastest- and this is very important. With Ian I find myself scoring better because I can squeeze in so many more dragon shoots, and then zip around the screen collecting more gold coins. However, as Ex_ noted, the homing shots can be a bit of a pain. The only problem I really have with them is that they can take out the small enemies that activate the gemheads if you aren't very careful
In a superplay video the player clears both loops and rarely uses the conventional shot at all, and that´s with Quaid, so it´s probably possible to do the same with Ian as he is much faster. This technique obviously needs extreme amounts of practice, but by killing every enemy with a dragon shot the score per stage rises to about 200.000, twice of what I usually get.
I´m always alternating between Ian and Quaid. Ian is the one that´s much more fun to play, but Quaid´s bomb is just too useful to ignore him. The other two are interesting to play, but just too slow as speed is key.
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Post by cigsthecat »


In a superplay video the player clears both loops and rarely uses the conventional shot at all, and that´s with Quaid, so it´s probably possible to do the same with Ian as he is much faster. This technique obviously needs extreme amounts of practice, but by killing every enemy with a dragon shot the score per stage rises to about 200.000, twice of what I usually get.
I´m always alternating between Ian and Quaid. Ian is the one that´s much more fun to play, but Quaid´s bomb is just too useful to ignore him. The other two are interesting to play, but just too slow as speed is key.
Yeah, that's a great video. I can usually get about 170k per random stage, but in 3 and 4 it drops off a bit since navigation is much harder. I score higher on the first four stages than in Gunbird 2 easily (finish 4 with between 650-680k), but after that I get relatively low scores per level and my score for the game is much, much lower. I finally reached 2-1 the other day but somehow managed to score less than my current high.

I really need to learn the 5 and 6 tech bonuses and gemheads. I think 5 for survival is pretty easy (boss too) but 6 is a pain. 7 is much easier than 6.
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Post by IlMrm »

Congrats Cigs. :)

Good old Psikyo for its tough stage sixes and stage six bosses.
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Post by landshark »

cigsthecat wrote:
Yeah, that's a great video. I can usually get about 170k per random stage, but in 3 and 4 it drops off a bit since navigation is much harder. I score higher on the first four stages than in Gunbird 2 easily (finish 4 with between 650-680k), but after that I get relatively low scores per level and my score for the game is much, much lower. I finally reached 2-1 the other day but somehow managed to score less than my current high.

I really need to learn the 5 and 6 tech bonuses and gemheads. I think 5 for survival is pretty easy (boss too) but 6 is a pain. 7 is much easier than 6.
I wish I could score that much. I seem to average about 290k-320k after the first 2 stages. On 3 and 4 I drop down alot. Level 5 is pure survival.

What I like about Ian is I can panic, hit a bomb, and run up to the boss and dump 3 dragon shots into him and he'll usually die.

I find level 7's boss definitely more difficult that level 6. However, I have a feeling it is because I completely do not understand his attacks. Last year I played the level 7 boss over and over again until I could kill him with 1 bomb, but I've since forgotten what his patterns are.
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Post by aesthetik »

Do you know where I can snag that superplay video? -- Thanks!
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landshark
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Post by landshark »

Anybody have a link to a working boss strategies (TBs) page? The old one does not seem to be up anymore.
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cigsthecat
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Post by cigsthecat »

Ex_Mosquito's boss vids are on Superplay:

http://www.super-play.co.uk/index.php?c ... &gameid=50
Last edited by cigsthecat on Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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landshark
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Post by landshark »

Sweet. Thanks Cigs.s
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Post by MovingTarget »

Are gemheads the little goblin like things?
Know thy enemy attack pattern.
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MovingTarget
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Post by MovingTarget »

I really havnt a clue, think I triggered one once as a long stream of medals appeared, longer than the result of a dragon shot. Whats this 'sheeps site' somebody mentioned too?
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landshark
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Post by landshark »

They are triggered by dragon-shooting a specific enemy in each stage. They show up as a gold goblin like thing that floats back and forth when shot. The more you shoot it, the more gold coins that fall out. Usually you park your dragon under it and unload on it.
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MovingTarget
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Post by MovingTarget »

Thanks, i've now pinpointed the mist and underwater gemheads. I can also consistently get the mist tech bonus, the underwater one is very hard for me so far. Just been practicing the first levels at 1-2 level. once they're mastered its onto 1-3, then 4.... then stage 5 :D

Great game
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landshark
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Post by landshark »

Actually, the stage 5 boss is one of the easiest in the game for me.
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Post by freddiebamboo »

MovingTarget wrote:Thanks, i've now pinpointed the mist and underwater gemheads. I can also consistently get the mist tech bonus, the underwater one is very hard for me so far. Just been practicing the first levels at 1-2 level. once they're mastered its onto 1-3, then 4.... then stage 5 :D

Great game
I find that the practise mode is very watered down compared to the difficulty during an actual game, especially at 1-3 and after (maybe because of rank??).

Upping the difficulty of the practise mode to very hard seems to be a more accurate experience.
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Post by Gorecki »

Can I just ask, is Ian's dismounted dragon attack (the spinning whirl of death) actually that damaging, or is it more of a shield? I'm sure that in the past I've unleashed a full one of those on a boss and crippled it. Recently though, it doesn't seem to be doing much damage at all.
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Post by oxtsu »

Adding to Ex_Mosquito's excellent breakdown, here are the official stats from Psikyo, via Arcadia.

QUAID.

Character Speed
w/dragon: 2.6
seperate: 2.3
Dragon Shoot Power: C
Dragon Return Speed: B
Magic Guage Charge Speed: A
Magic Guage Consume Speed: C
Bomb Continue Time: B

SONIA.

Character Speed
w/dragon: 2.4
seperate: 2.0
Dragon Shoot Power: D
Dragon Return Speed: D
Magic Guage Charge Speed: C
Magic Guage Consume Speed: A
Bomb Continue Time: A

ROB.

Character Speed
w/dragon: 2.1
seperate: 1.8
Dragon Shoot Power: A
Dragon Return Speed: C
Magic Guage Charge Speed: B
Magic Guage Consume Speed: B
Bomb Continue Time: C

IAN.

Character Speed
w/dragon: 3.0
seperate: 2.3
Dragon Shoot Power: B
Dragon Return Speed: A
Magic Guage Charge Speed: D
Magic Guage Consume Speed: D
Bomb Continue Time: D
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Post by Arvandor »

I thought I'd try posting this here instead of making a new topic.

Anyways, after a little experimentation, it feels like the hitbox is your character's head. And it also feels like the hitbox moves WITH the head when you tilt while moving right/left.

Can anyone confirm this, or am I insane? =)
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Rob
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Post by Rob »

Hitbox is definitely the head, while stationary. The character's head does swing a bit when switching directions quickly and the hitbox does seem to remain the same spot. If you tap it doesn't really do the tilting animation. That's all I got.
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Post by Arvandor »

Yeah, the tilt thing makes it very difficult for me to keep track of my hitbox. I die a lot because I end up paying too much attention to my character sprite and not enough attention to incoming fire ^_^ I'll just have to get a "feel" for it I guess.
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Rob
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Post by Rob »

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