Xeno Fighters R (2019 GM Studio Port)

[BPzeBanshee]

I've been curious for a LONG time for just how you were going to design the Gemini ship's weapon system should they be implemented, and I must say, VERY impressive.

When v0.7 eventually gets released I'm going to have a lot of fun using Gemini Red's laser to exact my revenge for the times that same boss weapon killed me.

[S20-TBL]

Glad to report that the latest DLLs have stabilized the game and reduced the instances of crashing to near zero. That, and I should have considered that Alluro was using Game Maker, which has its own error handling functions--meaning to say that if it was an error within the game, the GM warning window should have popped up somehow. Again, I'm really sorry about this mess...

I did notice during my last crash (which happened after upgrading the DLLs--so far it hasn't returned) that there was a conflict of sorts with Windows' DirectMusic file "dmloader.dll". So that's a system error more than anything.

BPzeBanshee: I haven't gotten around to reinstalling Belarc yet, but that's the above result I discovered after patching with the updated DLLs, and there have been no crashes ever since on both of the units I have this game on. In the meantime I'll still try to collect the system data.

Re: the video, I saw the Gemini ships, the blue one looks right up my alley. Can't wait for this new version. Though I was wondering in what version the Boss Rush will be implemented.

Finally, I think you guys will be interested to know this little anecdote. One of the teams at my company was designing a shmup for kids based on a cartoon franchise, and came to me for advice on weapon mechanics, enemy patterns, etc. I referred them as far back as Dragon Spirit and Galaga, and at one point Raiden was even brought up. That was when I referred them to Xeno Fighters. As a result their shmup is more or less solid enough for consumption and their client loved it.

Side note: a tiny fluke happened to me once, but it occurred so fast I didn't have time to take a screencap. In level 3-A, I was harvesting 100K medals when I happened to kill one of the medium-sized blue planes. It released a green medal, and when I picked it up it was worth 0 points...

[EddyMRA]

Glad to report that the latest DLLs have stabilized the game and reduced the instances of crashing to near zero. That, and I should have considered that Alluro was using Game Maker, which has its own error handling functions--meaning to say that if it was an error within the game, the GM warning window should have popped up somehow. Again, I'm really sorry about this mess...

I'm pleased to hear that using the updated DLLs have helped stabilize the game for you. Whenever I hear that these DLLs are updated (one is a custom Game Maker wrapper DLL that works in conjunction with the FMOD DLL) I'll be sure to let everyone know and make these DLLs available at the first chance I get.

Re: the video, I saw the Gemini ships, the blue one looks right up my alley. Can't wait for this new version. Though I was wondering in what version the Boss Rush will be implemented.

I predict the Gemini Blue will be quite popular among beginner and intermediate players. It has a movement speed that's just right: not too fast and not too slow. It uses both Laser and Missile weapons at once, and fully powered up, it becomes a mix of decent power and screen coverage. Plus, having two different Bombers lets you switch between a panic bullet-eating attack or a Bomber that is potentially deadly when used point blank on huge enemies.

The Gemini Red I consider to be the more finesse fighter of the two, more geared towards advanced players.

I have no set decision when the boss rush mode will be implemented in the game. I bounced a couple ideas off a few people as to how the system would work.

Finally, I think you guys will be interested to know this little anecdote. One of the teams at my company was designing a shmup for kids based on a cartoon franchise, and came to me for advice on weapon mechanics, enemy patterns, etc. I referred them as far back as Dragon Spirit and Galaga, and at one point Raiden was even brought up. That was when I referred them to Xeno Fighters. As a result their shmup is more or less solid enough for consumption and their client loved it.

Hehe that's a great little anecdote there. Is this game they designed publicly available on a web site by any chance, or is it truly private, meant for just the client?

Side note: a tiny fluke happened to me once, but it occurred so fast I didn't have time to take a screencap. In level 3-A, I was harvesting 100K medals when I happened to kill one of the medium-sized blue planes. It released a green medal, and when I picked it up it was worth 0 points...

That zero-point medal quirk has happened to me on more than one occasion as well. Several other people have reported this occurrence too. This happens to me so randomly, meaning on any stage with no set triggers, that I cannot pinpoint why this happens. My best guess is that a ground medal and an airborne medal are created at the exact same instant, causing the game to be confused and turn one of them into a zero-point medal. For me, when it happens, it's usually the airborne medal that's zeroed out.

[Skyknight]

"For consumption" leads me to believe it's going to be public release in SOME format; likewise the basis on a cartoon. (One wonders WHICH cartoon...)

[S20-TBL]

Yes, it will be a public release. I'm under legal constraints not to reveal any major details concerning company projects, so all I can say is that it's one in a series of online Flash games aimed primarily at children, and that the target date for completion is November. The website that would contain said games is apparently still being set up by the team's client. That being said, the one tiny specific I could reveal is that it's mouse-controlled (I had to make this concession with the game's original designer for simplicity's sake). I'll spill the rest of the beans once it's out.

Though while it was being made, we kidded the game's replacement designer a bit for dying during the first wave of Galaga, having never played it before. Goes to show how little remembrance there is for the Old School, sadly, but now that designer is appreciating Old School more thanks to games like XFR and the freeware Turrican game "Hurrican" (which I also gave him).

Anyway, I noticed that there were some houses at the beginning of Chechnya's boss area; are those meant to be destroyed in a similar fashion to the tank boss in RF1, i.e. you have to protect them from the boss' shots?

Also, are the WWII planes in the same level placeholders for future enemy emplacements and patterns particular to that level (since it's basically the Stage 1 enemy spawn setup, minus the ground turrets)? I noticed since the waves and patterns seem a bit out of place, making chaining really difficult. I could almost *swear* there's a Fairy in there somewhere.

[EddyMRA]

Anyway, I noticed that there were some houses at the beginning of Chechnya's boss area; are those meant to be destroyed in a similar fashion to the tank boss in RF1, i.e. you have to protect them from the boss' shots?

Also, are the WWII planes in the same level placeholders for future enemy emplacements and patterns particular to that level (since it's basically the Stage 1 enemy spawn setup, minus the ground turrets)? I noticed since the waves and patterns seem a bit out of place, making chaining really difficult. I could almost *swear* there's a Fairy in there somewhere.

You are right, partially. It's the houses when the boss appears. Stage 3-A's boss is a giant tank. You see where this is going...

As for the enemy waves in 3-A, this is how it will be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krPve45S9MQ

[S20-TBL]

As for the enemy waves in 3-A, this is how it will be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krPve45S9MQ

sdjkfhkjasdfhkasdhf!!1one Sniper tanks.....this will be very interesting.

After extended playing, I wanted to ask what method you used to control the firing rates and patterns for some of the secondary weapons, particularly the missiles. I noticed two things about them:

1) When I pick up a missile weapon a fraction of a second after I've released the fire button, my ship launches a few missiles. This is most noticeable when the ship is at base power level.

2) When I already have a missile weapon (or laser in Amada Viros' case), my ship still manages to launch a salvo (or part of a salvo) a quarter of a second after I've let go of the fire button.

The patterns are near-perfectly synced, so I'm assuming you used a combination of Alarm events, a variable that returns as true whenever Z is tapped and the instance_number function to trigger missile burst firing. Is this correct? I'm also guessing you used timelines in the code to control the patterns.

[BPzeBanshee]

As for the enemy waves in 3-A, this is how it will be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krPve45S9MQ

sdjkfhkjasdfhkasdhf!!1one Sniper tanks.....this will be very interesting.

After extended playing, I wanted to ask what method you used to control the firing rates and patterns for some of the secondary weapons, particularly the missiles. I noticed two things about them:

1) When I pick up a missile weapon a fraction of a second after I've released the fire button, my ship launches a few missiles. This is most noticeable when the ship is at base power level.

2) When I already have a missile weapon (or laser in Amada Viros' case), my ship still manages to launch a salvo (or part of a salvo) a quarter of a second after I've let go of the fire button.

The patterns are near-perfectly synced, so I'm assuming you used a combination of Alarm events, a variable that returns as true whenever Z is tapped and the instance_number function to trigger missile burst firing. Is this correct? I'm also guessing you used timelines in the code to control the patterns.

I've noticed this with a few ships, especially ones like the Blue Javelin where it's most obvious. I don't really consider it to be a bug though, since most of the time it's actually for the better.

[S20-TBL]

I've noticed this with a few ships, especially ones like the Blue Javelin where it's most obvious. I don't really consider it to be a bug though, since most of the time it's actually for the better.

Actually, I do agree that, with practice, it's possible to use this to one's advantage especially when timing certain chains (*cough* Stage 3-B *cough*). Though part of me thinks that this can also be a double-edged sword at times, since I'm so used to tapping the fire button that I occasionally forget the game automatically has rapid fire on.

Anyway, I did another run, and I do think it's a combination of the above functions, which I believe is a balancing measure to prevent projectile spamming exploits. Takes a bit of getting used to though, especially with the Xelcor and Javelin (my favorite ship so far along with the MkII Beta).

BTW, I have the Belarc results from both machines. Would you like me to PM them to you?

[BPzeBanshee]

I've noticed this with a few ships, especially ones like the Blue Javelin where it's most obvious. I don't really consider it to be a bug though, since most of the time it's actually for the better.

Actually, I do agree that, with practice, it's possible to use this to one's advantage especially when timing certain chains (*cough* Stage 3-B *cough*). Though part of me thinks that this can also be a double-edged sword at times, since I'm so used to tapping the fire button that I occasionally forget the game automatically has rapid fire on.

Anyway, I did another run, and I do think it's a combination of the above functions, which I believe is a balancing measure to prevent projectile spamming exploits. Takes a bit of getting used to though, especially with the Xelcor and Javelin (my favorite ship so far along with the MkII Beta).

BTW, I have the Belarc results from both machines. Would you like me to PM them to you?

There is always the option to turn autofire off if you feel the need for it, and its also heavily recommended you use Z for shooting rather than SHIFT if you do use autofire because of a strange glitch where the autofire breaks when music changes.
I'm not exactly an expert in this matter, but if memory serves me right (please correct me if I'm wrong Alluro), a lot of the firing mechanisms for ships in general got modified significantly since the Judge Spear's firing mechanism was made in such a way that with an external autofire (such as Xpadder) it would be ridiculously overpowered. This was in rather early versions of XF-R. My understanding is that he fixed that in such a way that it could be implemented across the board and implemented autofire shortly afterwards.

Interesting choice of ships you're used to there. My personal favourites are Jade Knight and Phyxius for scoring, along with the Raiden MK-IIB. I think when the next release comes out you'll be playing with Gemini Blue and I'll be using Gemini Red since big red lasers rock.

As for the Belarc results, PMing them to me would be very much appreciated. As a program I find I don't really like Belarc, since it requires installation (which in turn requires admin privileges) whereas AIDA32 doesn't, but any info at all should be able to help me spot consistencies with problem machines for XF-R in the future. Pro tip: Intel based integrated architecture seem to be a recurring factor, so if you ever buy a new computer stay away from their label.

[S20-TBL]

There is always the option to turn autofire off if you feel the need for it, and its also heavily recommended you use Z for shooting rather than SHIFT if you do use autofire because of a strange glitch where the autofire breaks when music changes.

Nah, no need, I actually appreciate autofire. I just blame Cho Ren Sha. Although I have read about that SHIFT key glitch when I browsed the thread history a few days ago, which I find weird. It doesn't appear to be a Game Maker quirk, but if anything it might be related to the FMOD DLL's current known issues.

I'm not exactly an expert in this matter, but if memory serves me right (please correct me if I'm wrong Alluro), a lot of the firing mechanisms for ships in general got modified significantly since the Judge Spear's firing mechanism was made in such a way that with an external autofire (such as Xpadder) it would be ridiculously overpowered. This was in rather early versions of XF-R. My understanding is that he fixed that in such a way that it could be implemented across the board and implemented autofire shortly afterwards.

My analysis makes sense, then. I remember reading about that Joy2Key issue and how changing the button rapid fire frequency messed with the Spear's firing rates. If so, then setting the rapid fire and shot patterns to a preset alarm+timeline system will address most problems regarding keypress events (since the shots would be launched at a predetermined rate and duration rather than being fully dependent on keyboard or gamepad I/O events). In that case, I'm not gonna complain about the current setup.

Interesting choice of ships you're used to there. My personal favourites are Jade Knight and Phyxius for scoring, along with the Raiden MK-IIB. I think when the next release comes out you'll be playing with Gemini Blue and I'll be using Gemini Red since big red lasers rock.

Lol yes, I love both point-blanking enemies and scattering destruction all over the screen. It's a habit I picked up from the original Raiden II when my preferred shot+missile combo was nearly always Spread Vulcan+Nuke Missiles.

As for the Belarc results, PMing them to me would be very much appreciated. As a program I find I don't really like Belarc, since it requires installation (which in turn requires admin privileges) whereas AIDA32 doesn't, but any info at all should be able to help me spot consistencies with problem machines for XF-R in the future. Pro tip: Intel based integrated architecture seem to be a recurring factor, so if you ever buy a new computer stay away from their label.

Heh, noted. The results are in your inbox.

[S20-TBL]

Bump~

I suddenly had this idea where you fight a jacked-up BRES version of a player ship as a [sub] boss in a later stage. Probably during the Dreadnought Echidna battle where it would blast off from one of the Echidna's ports and take you on, similar to the TLB battle with Stranger from GigaWing. And Duel of Top could be the BGM. Just a suggestion.

Though I think you'd be really screwed if it was a BRES Judge Spear. Think Glow Squid's large bursting cannon shots or Widerstand's exploding aerial mines, only multiplied 12 times...

...Or you discover that the human traitors have been giving the BRES Earth aerospace technology all this time and they actually have several thousand mass-produced VAF fighters at their fingertips. Nightmare Fuel. I'd hate to dodge 20 serpent seekers onscreen, it would be Raystorm all over again with a touch of Ibara.

[BPzeBanshee]

You sir have been playing too much Thunderforce.

And Duel of Top? I had that for my TF Music Mod for XF-R a while back as seen in my pre-release video of it, but then I replaced it with SSH's Metal Squad remix.
Best version of Lightning Strikes Again I've heard recently is actually Lightning Striker, but I need to work out what stage to put it in.

[EddyMRA]

Real life has been killing me here lately. I am starting to consider doing a minor release at this point, a v0.6.5 release.

Of course, the biggest addition will be the Gemini ships. I've also done the following bugfixes since v0.6:

REMOVED SHIPS:
==============
Twinbee
Winbee
Strikers P-38

*FIXED: The bonus system is rewritten to fix a glitch regarding simultaneous bonuses gotten at the same time, as shown in the screenshots. For example, before, when you get two Quick Shots and a At A Time simultaneously for a quick 3-chain, the bonuses would be 50000, 50000, and 100000x2. Now, it's been corrected, giving you 50000, 50000x2, and 100000x3 like it's supposed to. It is still the same bonus system with the x10 cap.
*FIXED: Bonus multipliers now advance properly (5-chain 20000x5 instead of 5-chain 20000x4 for example)
*FIXED: Raiden mk-IIβ: It can now point-blank small ground enemies it overlaps properly.
*CHANGED: Green Walrus: Each of his three forms has lower health. However, his first and second forms last just 10 seconds before he goes into a swan dive.
*FIXED: Game no longer hangs for a few seconds when resetting the game while music is playing.

*CHANGED: Jade Hydra has been rebalanced significantly, especially its second attack phase. The second phase has been changed as follows:
*Short grace period before beginning any attack after being knocked into the second phase.
*No more support tanks appear during the second phase.
*Each attack layer starts up one after the other.

*CHANGED: The deploy time for the Dimension Mine bomber (for both Judge Spear and Blue Javelin) has been slightly increased.
*CHANGED: The damage for the Judge Spear and Blue Javelin's Vulcan Cannon increased slightly.
*CHANGED: The damage the Dimension Mine inflicts slightly increased.
*CHANGED: The damage for Raiden mk-II's Thermonuclear Bomb slightly increased.
*CHANGED: The damage for Lord British's Ripple Lasers slightly decreased.
*FIXED: Timeout sequence for Stage 1 boss Techno Ayako, 3-B midboss Teramanta, and 4-A boss Obsidian Peryton have been fixed to no longer crash or hang the game.
*FIXED: DESTROYED AT A TIME bonuses for Stage 2 boss Silver Banshee's parts.
*ADDED: Silver Banshee's radar now has a lifebar, making it infinitely easier to gauge the amount of damage a player deals to it so that it can be timed for destruction during its timeout for an Objective Clear.
*FIXED: Stage 2's brownish round ships' bullet pattern adjusted to prevent uncharacteristic bullet hell patterns. Also, overly long waves of these ships have been broken up into several smaller waves with delays in between for that same purpose.
*ADDED: New title screen by emphatic and Herr Schatten in game.
*FIXED: Small tanks now cast their shadows properly no matter what direction they're facing. The earlier tanks had their shadows already on the sprite itself, so when the sprite is rotated, the shadow is rotated as well, causing odd visual anomalies.
*CHANGED: New Jade Knight sprites by Herr Schatten have been implemented.
*CHANGED: Fighters with their own shot impact sounds (Miria, P-38, Gemini Wing ships) given those sounds from the original games.
*FIXED: Amada Vipros: Missile weapon now fires more rapidly.
*FIXED: Can no longer pause the game immediately after the player dies.
*FIXED: Getting a 1st place high score in a conquest mode play now reflects on the in-game HUD when selecting Retry from the Conquest Mode menu.
*CHANGED: Enemies hit by player weapons now flash a brighter white.
*FIXED: Lord British: Ripple Lasers decreased in firepower.

I can do this release if enough people ask for it.

[Skyknight]

Depends...How close are you to finishing up Jasper Gigas?

[BPzeBanshee]

I'm also curious about Jasper Gigas, though the fixes and new/replaced ships are far more of interest to me.
In the end though, I think this release should only happen if you feel it's ready, Alluro.

[Kaiser]

Don't release a new major version early! You should finish Jasper Gigas first at least AND RELEASE IT WHEN YOU'RE READY. We could wait so much so far, so we can wait longer!

[EddyMRA]

Don't release a new major version early!

As I mentioned earlier, it is NOT a major version! It is a MINOR version with numerous bugfixes and new ships.

Real life has been killing me here lately. I am starting to consider doing a minor release at this point, a v0.6.5 release.

[S20-TBL]

It's your call--though if you do a minor build, rest assured you have a quite a number of public beta testers ready and willing.

[Skyknight]

My point about Jasper Gigas was just along the lines of "If it's 80% or more finalized, you might as well wait until you've got that dealt with". Less than that, a minor release probably is warranted, if only to sate everyone yearning to use (and further play-test) the Geminis.

[BPzeBanshee]

On an unrelated note to above:

Providing you use the right settings, Xeno Fighters R is now capable of running at playable speeds in Mac OS X using VirtualBox. I can provide a more thorough instruction guide upon request but basically this is what you must do:

1. Have VirtualBox on OS X with Windows installed (preferably XP)
2. Boot into Safe Mode and install Guest Additions WITH the D3D support option.
3. With Xeno Fighters itself, right-click > Properties > Compatibility;
- tick 'Run in 640x480 screen resolution'
- tick 'Disable visual themes'
- tick 'Turn off advanced text services with this program'
4. Set Xeno Fighters so that it boots fullscreen if it isnt already

It also will help to make sure within VirtualBox settings itself to have things like the graphics card memory allocation all the way up, sufficient RAM and all those other stuff. This is roughly what I did with VirtualBox 4.2.10.
I can run the game on my 2.8 Ghz desktop iMac (2 GB RAM, dual-core processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600) using VirtualBox at a variable rate of 90 to 05 percent speed using any ship including Raiden MK-II and Jade Knight which are the most resource-taxing ships in the game for performance. Note that fullscreen does not extend the game to cover the entire window - the game is at original size on top-left corner of the VirtualBox window and the rest is garbled crap. This is an emulation issue on the programmer's end, not the end-user.

Unfortunately at this point in time, it does not look like Xeno Fighters R will be able to be easily ported to Mac. There is a Game Maker for OS X, but the current issues that I can see are:
1. GMFMODSimple.dll is native to Windows. Game Maker Extensions in turn are respective to the operating system so .GEX-based files will not be suitable. The only way around this is to rewrite the sound engine to use Game Maker's default audio functions (which are renowned for compatibility issues anyway) and I don't believe Alluro will go through this effort, though I would if I had sufficient resources. I couldn't even find an official thread on Google for GMBinFile.dll let alone a OSX port, which is a further dent.
2. GM4Mac is built off of Game Maker 7, not 8. To convert the source files to this format one would have to use LateralGM to convert the GM8-version GMK to GM7-version and then open that through GM4Mac, then exporting it as a native OS X app. That not only requires a separate paid license for Game Maker (if my understanding of the trial system is correct - its not the Lite/Pro way) but it also requires a Mac, which Alluro doesn't have nor had access to last time I queried on the matter.

Overall, considering VirtualBox is gradually getting better and better at emulating DirectX-related functions and that it will be difficult if not impossible at best to convert XF-R natively, the best way to run the game within other operating systems is undefeatably via VirtualBox or dualbooting.

If anyone here knows how to set up WINE for Mac OS X send me a PM - the game may or may not run faster in WINE considering it emulates on the Windows DLLs level without Windows itself using the same approximate method as VirtualBox.

[EddyMRA]

Since I now have a block of free time once more, I will postpone the minor release and make a major release instead. These stages will be done for the next release (v0.7 at least):

Stage 3-A
Stage 5-C
Stage 9

[EddyMRA]

Stage 9 (BRES Colony - Tentative stage name) WIP screenshots:

This is the true final stage of Xeno Fighters R, after fulfilling the condition of clearing all B-stages and not failing a single stage objective along the way.

You start in outer space:


Here you will encounter the first miniboss: Copper Coeinag, which is a much more difficult version than the one fought at the end of 5-C. After disposing of Copper Coeinag, you will encounter waves of medium to large ships along with waves of striker popcorn fighters. Eventually, you will reach the space colony of the antagonist BRES organization:


There, you will be met by another squadron of ships that will do everything in their power to stop you:


This section scrolls at a fairly high speed. Once you pass the force-field zone protecting the colony, you'll run into a column of tanks in this location:


Sniper tanks are rampant here. At the end of this section, you will encounter a harder version of Jade Hydra (actually, the v0.6 Jade Hydra will be placed here, while 3-B's will be nerfed) as the second miniboss. After Jade Hydra, it is the home stretch towards the colony control center Balor, which is the true final boss of the game.

[BPzeBanshee]

Hey guys, notice how he's using the Raizing ship Miyamoto? Protip: Practice on the impossible Batrider before you even think about playing this stage!

Awesome progress as always Alluro. Out of curiosity where did you get the level sprites from? They do seriously remind me of Viper Phase 1 and Raizing titles like Batrider, but I think that might be because I've been playing it too much recently.

[Drum]

Looking awesome, nice progress.

[EddyMRA]

Here's a 15% WIP video of Stage 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HEpe6OOI4

It will be a very difficult and very long stage. It clocks in at 7 minutes long, with two minibosses and the true final boss at the end.

Teramanta is used in this video as a stand-in for Copper Coeinag until it is programmed in.

This stage has two songs that play, but the unique feature of this stage is that the second song that plays depends on what fighter you use. Some fighters have their own music that plays, such as a Raiden II song when you play as any Raiden ship.

Another new feature is a horizontal wobble mode, found in Seibu shmups among others. The screen pans left and right depending on the horizontal position of the ship. This will be used in certain stages for evil purposes, such as hiding sniper enemies and forcing the player to move all over to kill enemies on the extreme edges.

[Skyknight]

It's properly spelled Caoineag, not Coeinag. Although given the number of vowels in a row, I can understand the confusion. (For those late to the party, the Caoineag--pronounced "konyack"--is a Scottish Hebrides analog of the banshee, the main difference being that this one is somewhat malevolent, seeking out people to bring death to, instead of just heralding death's approach in a particular clan like the banshee does.) If too irksome, there's still the easier-to-spell Sluagh, if you haven't allocated that name to something else (I remember that Cobalt Sluagh was my idea of a name for an airborne 5-B mid-boss based on Sky Soldiers's 7-2 boss).

Meanwhile, I'm already plotting phase two song patterns. The Galaga should probably get the scrolling areas' song from Galaga '88 (if the cycle isn't too short, that is). Amada Vipros & Co., I'm thinking of the st. 6 song from Air Gallet (provisional name: "No Regrets")...if I don't use that for the first part, that is (maybe "Last Fear" from Raiden III). Miria: "Aggressive Attack" from Musha Aleste (same publisher...). Miyamoto: "Sliding Stop!!" from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen ("Organic Metal" and "Dark Plot" don't have quite the right feel for what's happening, I think). Lord British and Vic Viper: "Dear Blue" from Salamander 2.

The second mid-boss...Jade Hydra Mk. II? Malachite Hydra? Emerald Hydra? (If it keeps its colors, anyway)

I'm also trying to figure out a way for all three possible st. 5s to be accessible from both 4-A and 4-B (i.e. so the all-A resulting in 5-C is still possible; the way it's currently set up, 4-A from 3-A can only lead to 5-B or 5-C). Essentially, TWO success clauses in st. 4, one more important than the other. Here's what I've come up with...

4-A:
Avoid 5-C: Destroy ALL Stymphalian Birds
5-B: Destroy Obsidian Peryton's second form before it can begin a third aimed bullet salvo (in story terms, before it can send a proper warning out regarding how badly the bombing mission failed)

4-B:
Avoid 5-C: Destroy Orion before the timer runs out
5-B: Destroy Orion with at least X amount of time still left (harder than it sounds, since the current plan involves power units trying to dock with Orion. If that happens, a certain amount of time will be instantly removed for each docked unit.)

[S20-TBL]

Here's a 15% WIP video of Stage 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HEpe6OOI4
...
This stage has two songs that play, but the unique feature of this stage is that the second song that plays depends on what fighter you use. Some fighters have their own music that plays, such as a Raiden II song when you play as any Raiden ship.

Did I just hear S.S.H.'s "Try To Star!" remix in there?

[Twiddle]

The slowdown on Vic Viper's bomber kind of bothers me, since when the bomb animation ends the player likely is defenseless after it ends as the bullet cancelling effect has stopped.

Suggestions for possible solutions:

-Remove speed reduction but also decrease the bomb duration (I posted this as a comment, but it got removed (?))
-1.5 second invulnerability timer after bomb expires, indicated by the Vic Viper blinking. This keeps the speed reduction during the bomb, but the player has a chance to maneuver out of the way to a more advantageous position after it ends.

@BPze: The bg sprites are from VP1. I suggested those a looooong time ago.

[EddyMRA]

I meant to reply to it, but I hit the "Remove" button by accident. Yeah, the slowdown is debilitating and an old holdover from the XFEX days. It seems both your suggestions will work. I'd like to keep the slowdown in the end, so I'm leaning more towards the mercy invincibility after the bomb animation ends.