RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

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Deca
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RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by Deca »

I finally broke down and started save stating this game out for practice, after having died just before the st6 boss countless times. I want this 1-all really bad, I feel like it's within reach, but I'm running in to issues late in the game. Unsurprisingly I'm using C-S.

First off, the st5 boss...I'm fine until his patterns start to repeat (need more practice dodging the big explosions though..). I can get through his patterns consistently enough following a safe route I found, but after he drops all his bombs the first time it all goes to hell. I have really varied success dodging the huge spray from the bits he releases immediately after, and when he goes back into his starting patterns everything has always gone to hell and I need to bomb. Is there an easy way to approach this that I just haven't found yet?

Stage 5 is relatively tense for me in general, but I can dodge most of what gets thrown at me. There are a few places where I ALWAYS get trapped though, two of them involve huge sprays of pink bullets (maybe from large turret bases in the center of the screen? I tend to have trouble noticing what's going on aside from the bullets at this point in the game). Additionally I still have no idea how to effectively deal with the corridor of large enemies coming down on the left and right sides alternating near the end of the stage, always end up having to bomb through that.

As for Stage 6...well I probably just need more exposure to it, but if there are any general tips to help me approach it they would be appreciated. At this point I don't have any real specific issues or questions about it.
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RNGmaster
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by RNGmaster »

Stage 5 boss: Sneak up into the area above where he fires the bombs. Look at the Prometheus video - it's what all the pros do. Getting closer allows you to do damage much more quickly,

Stage 6 is easy if you memorize the spawn points of the green-spread-firing enemies and take them out quickly. There's one really hard part with those blue spiral enemies on a highway that I generally bomb.

Just look at the superplays to give you an idea of what to do. Oh, and keep at least 1 life in stock for the final boss. Final pattern will bring you to tears otherwise.
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finisherr
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by finisherr »

The middle section of Level 5 (grey turrets with the masses of pink bullets) basically seems impossible to master. I know it's possible because I've seen YouTube videos of skilled players totally owning this level. I've also beat the level a handful of times on one life. But, every time I make it though I believe there is a great deal of luck involved with getting me through that mid section. Does anyone have any pointers for this part?

I had similar thoughts during Stage 3 when those ships appear out of nowhere and start shooting tiny pink bullets. I eventually realized that quickly destroying those ships in the order that they appear, ideally before they spit out masses of bullets, makes it fairly easy to survive w/o bombing. However, in the said portion of Stage 5 the enemies enter the screen from both sides of the screen and follow your ship, making it pretty tough to eliminate them before they become a true threat. Right now my strategy is to weave left and right with the A-L (laser active) before the enemy ships are directly adjacent and close out escape routes. The problem is that they come in so fast that it makes the escape route pretty busy and difficult to navigate.

But, when I think about it, I thought Stage 3 was pretty impossible before and now I can basically do it in my sleep. Hopefully the same will happen with this level. Ha.
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ncp
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by ncp »

Can't help you much since stage 5 is loleasy as C-S. I'm fairly certain you do the same thing as A-L though (but with more shots being fired at you since you don't take out as many enemies at a time), just go in giant U-shapes across the bottom/sides of the screen. MAKE SURE YOU'RE ON THE SIDE WHEN THE 2 BULLETSPAMMER THINGS APPEAR so you can just sidestep the giant mess of bullshit that it throws at you and you're good to go. The hardest part (imo) of stage 5 ends up being keeping your chain through the conga-line aimed-shot extravaganza section, if you know what I mean.
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PROMETHEUS
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by PROMETHEUS »

finisheer : unless your skill is significantly superior to whats needed for that section, you will have to learn a very precise path through that section in order to do it consistently. I think you should just copy from my video there http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-O7YmS ... ed&t=4m49s , which is an adaptation of K.O's way of doing that section I believe. It's very consistent.

To copy it, start simple with the big general moves and concepts and gradually refine until you get a precise action sequence and are consistent.
Of course you could copy from another source such as K.O's video or whatever you prefer ! But copying is definitely the best way to learn.
Last edited by PROMETHEUS on Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Chaos Phoenixma
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by Chaos Phoenixma »

RNGmaster wrote:Stage 5 boss: Sneak up into the area above where he fires the bombs. Look at the Prometheus video - it's what all the pros do. Getting closer allows you to do damage much more quickly,
.
From a survival standpoint, that's a great thing, but wouldn't they get more points from boss hits by not pointblanking the thing?
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RNGmaster
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by RNGmaster »

Chaos Phoenixma wrote:
RNGmaster wrote:Stage 5 boss: Sneak up into the area above where he fires the bombs. Look at the Prometheus video - it's what all the pros do. Getting closer allows you to do damage much more quickly,
.
From a survival standpoint, that's a great thing, but wouldn't they get more points from boss hits by not pointblanking the thing?
They get more points by not dying and not bombing the fireballs. :P Really, though, boss points are inconsequential unless you're going for WR.
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finisherr
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by finisherr »

PROMETHEUS wrote:finisheer : unless your skill is significantly superior to whats needed for that section, you will have to learn a very precise path through that section in order to do it consistently. I think you should just copy from my video there http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-O7YmS ... ed&t=4m49s , which is an adaptation of K.O's way of doing that section I believe. It's very consistent.

To copy it, start simple with the big general moves and concepts and gradually refine until you get a precise action sequence and are consistent.
Of course you could copy from another source such as K.O's video or whatever you prefer ! But copying is definitely the best way to learn.
thanks, this is helpful.
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ncp
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by ncp »

Chaos Phoenixma wrote:
RNGmaster wrote:Stage 5 boss: Sneak up into the area above where he fires the bombs. Look at the Prometheus video - it's what all the pros do. Getting closer allows you to do damage much more quickly,
.
From a survival standpoint, that's a great thing, but wouldn't they get more points from boss hits by not pointblanking the thing?
You get 2 hits at a time when point blanking, while doing double the damage.
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PROMETHEUS
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by PROMETHEUS »

ncp wrote:You get 2 hits at a time when point blanking, while doing double the damage.
That's true in DOJ but not DDP ! In DDP you still get 1 hit at a time while doing double damage so you lose boss hits. But it doesn't matter, boss hits are a very minor source of points (the 2 major sources are MAX bonus and chains, then end of stage no miss bonus which is much more secondary, then bees, then boss hits and stars are way less important than even bees). Only go for more boss hits if you can no miss no bomb the whole game and/or know that you can extremely consistently no miss no bomb that boss either way.
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finisherr
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by finisherr »

I just discovered something pretty awesome. I'm not exactly sure if this has anything to do with the computer on which I am running DDP (I'm using MAME, sorry) but discovered a slowdown technique for that tricky part in stage 5 which I previously mentioned. When I do the wide horizontal sweeps with the laser activated and then let off of the laser on the sides of the screen for regular shots, there is some slowdown that allows me enough time to find the small gaps in the mass of bullets. Perhaps using slowdown as a survival technique is kinda lame, but it's certainly helping me get past that tricky part of stage 5 a bit more consistently.

Has anyone else noticed this during their play of this part of Stage 5?
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ncp
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Re: RQ: DoDonPachi St5 Boss and general St5 and 6 strategy

Post by ncp »

It's not your computer, unless you're on like a 15 year old piece of garbage. MAME emulates the slowdown of the circuit board.

Using shot to cause slowdown is definitely a strategy, even (especially?) with A-L, for some reason that narrow shot can cause a lot of slowdown on certain patterns (stage 6 boss final attack for instance). Futari (especially black label) has this even more so.
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