RQ: Mushihimesama-futari Original stage 4/5 boss advice

[Patashu]

I recently decided 'I've played these things on and off for years, but I finally want to get good at shmups' and grabbed Mushihimesama-futari for the iPad. I'll summarize the differences for those who have never played this version:

1) Instead of moving with analog d-pad style movement, you move by sliding a finger on the screen. You can move as fast or as slow as you want, and it is very responsive. I haven't tested if fast enough movement 'teleports' your character's hitbox past bullets - and it's not something I'm interested in exploiting anyway, due to the luck and inconsistency involved.
2) A virtual button toggles between shot and laser. Shot sucks in air gems, laser sucks in ground gems. Neither inhibits your movement speed.
3) There is an auto-bomb toggle. I have it on. Auto-bombing uses up all bombs in stock and your gem counter goes to 0.
4) There is a difficulty slider. I have it at the highest setting (called 'Hell') which makes the bullet patterns identical to any other version of the original game.

Ok, that aside - my first goal for this game is Original 1CC (then Original 1CC with no manual bomb usage, only auto-bombs). I am practicing individual stages 4/5 until I feel consistent at them, then I'll start going for 1CC attempts. Because it takes me several minutes to retry a boss (have to go through the stage again), my feel for how to do certain boss attacks is progressing slowly, and there are a few I am curious about:

-For the stage 4 boss's final attack (with the purple balls going all over the place), what is the Perfect Strategy (tm)? Is there a particular path that has good gaps and always exists if you execute it? Or is the pattern inconsistent in some way, and if so, what should I be looking for? I think that the middle part of the screen is safer than the outer parts, because whenever I get too far toward the sides a purple ball overlaps into a gap between the shots and I'm forced to be hit, but I may just be trying to dodge with completely wrong timing. If there's a video that shows a good path, that would be appreciated!

-Stage 5 boss. I am particularly interested in the super fast bullet patterns - which ones have a trivial way of dodging them, such as streaming (just barely moving left/right enough so that every bullet, which was targetted directly at your center, whiffs past you) or interleaving (when a ring of bullets is shot in only two orientations at a time, so you can rest between them)? Does the tail double spiral of bullets (3rd phase) have a good dodging technique or is it pure reaction? And in general, if I am aiming for 1CC as opposed to scoring, is there anything I should look out for re: timing of using bombs?

Thanks for any advice!

[trap15]

Turn off auto-bomb. It'll only get in your way. Learn to properly use bombs instead, they'll take you a lot further.

[Patashu]

Turn off auto-bomb. It'll only get in your way. Learn to properly use bombs instead, they'll take you a lot further.

I'm more interested in learning how to dodge everything in the game rather than getting into a habit of bombing it because it's too hard. (I only plan on making an exception for the stage 5 boss, and only until after my first 1CC.) If this is a bad stance to have on playing shmups, let me know what I can do to fix it ('How To Use Bombs Ethically'), because I am willing to throw this away if it's not in my best long term interest

[trap15]

There's no reason to avoid using bombs unless you're playing for score. Avoiding using resources is a bad idea in general. First do it with bombs, then do it without if you want. Baby steps

[Formless God]

Two things
- If someone decides to use a bomb, they aren't planning to dodge the attack.
- There is nothing to dodge for the duration of the bomb.

By all means, use your resources in a real run, but it's probably a good idea to not bomb while you're practicing (and especially when "learning how to dodge") because bombs don't help you achieve that goal at all.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

IFor the stage 4 boss's final attack (with the purple balls going all over the place), what is the Perfect Strategy (tm)?

There's none. This is all about reading the attack, which happens to be completely predictable (it's just there's a lot going on at once with multidirection overlaps). Basically, Kurogane shoots spread lines at you that are aimed, alternating between aiming a line at you or aiming a gap at you. Tap dodge, or just keep sliding barely when you're about to get hit by a line. The real danger here are the giant orbs Kurogane fires from the sides, aimed at you, then followed by a set of static spreads, and then aimed at you again. Again, tap dodging or slow sliding avoids the aimed orbs as long as you don't smack into one of the lines of spreads he fires. The danger is getting hit by the spread of orbs he shoots, line up with a gap when you make your dodges. The spreads fired with the giant orbs are mostly static and you can pretty much memorize where the gaps appear and plan ahead to be in one of those positions. Being directly in front of the boss is basically a terrible idea during this attack, there's much bigger gaps to the sides of the boss.

If you play as Palm Abnormal, he's strong enough to start centered, dodge to the side to avoid the first aimed orbs, then dodge to the middle to avoid the second and finish the boss just before the spread orbs get low enough to hit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQLGgVa3kgQ

-Stage 5 boss. I am particularly interested in the super fast bullet patterns

Bombs are your friend. They're basically all about remembering where the gaps appear (usually shot at you statically, like you can tap dodge the speedshots fired at the end of the first attack) but they can be so fast that it takes a bit of luck, so unless you're confident in your reflexes, these are good attacks to be prepared to bomb against. It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of bombing when you're learning the game, because personally I find it's easier to learn not to bomb than it is to not be in the habit of bombing, and keep wasting bombs to deaths because you were too stingy with the bomb button to save yourself.

Does the tail double spiral of bullets (3rd phase) have a good dodging technique or is it pure reaction?

When Larsa goes up in the air and her dragon's tail is the only portion showing, your attacks will do minimal damage (Reco Abnormal will lose lock-on, Palm Abnormal's shots won't fire their wide lightning at it). However, the way the bullets fire is completely static - the only random element is if Larsa moves around a bit when firing, so with practice you can remember the gaps and position yourself in them as they're fired. Generally you'll bomb this one late anyways as it gets very quick at the end. It's a good idea to use bombs anytime you're worried about getting hit because the scoring penalty for bombing in Futari 1.5 is much lower than say in Futari Black Label.

[Patashu]

This is good advice, thanks!

I like that the tail double spiral is deterministic. I might have to take notes and see if it's consistently dodgeable for me at all. Otherwise, yeah - bomb bomb bomb for sure.

Wooow, Palm Abnormal is STRONG. Maybe I'll switch characters... <.< >.>

To get a clarification on something - stage 5 boss, I think near the end of phase 2, she starts shooting out insanely fast aimed spreads that you can stream to dodge (as I am sometimes getting in my practice ). But I was wondering - how big is your hitbox and how big is the hurtbox of the shots, in pixels? I'd like a physical idea of the fastest I have to sidestep to become safe.

And - stage 4 boss final phase - do the orb spreads travel the same path across the screen every time you fight him? As in the first is always the same as the first, the second always the same as the second, etc. (Of course to get it completely consistent you'll have to move the same way so the main shots are also shot the same way to present the same gaps, but that will help a lot with planning)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

This is the size of your hitbox (top row is for Original/Maniac modes, bottom row is for Ultra/God, it's tiny in Ultra/God and you can make some ridiculous dodges thanks to that). Basically, it's centered on the swirly orb/triangle on your character's back. Note that all of the bullets in the game, like a lot of other Cave games, appear to have the same hitbox size, they only hit if their bright center collides with the player hitbox. There's some exceptions obviously - the giant orange fireballs fired by some bosses and enemies in Ultra are massive, the giant orbs the stage 4 boss shoots have large hitboxes, etc.

Palm Abnormal's actually got the weakest rapid mode shot in the game (no real spread, all of the damage is in that thin wave beam), but he's got the strongest laser shot in the game (this is why everyone tends to use him, boss fights are quickest) and the slowest movement when lasering, though movement speeds don't apply to iOS game. He's also got no spread except for when his main laser is hitting (anytime you score a hit with the lightning balls, it fills the screen with additional streams of lightning). Reco Abnormal is almost as strong as he is, but her laser damage relies entirely on getting the beetles locked on to enemies, which can be very difficult during stage. It makes bosses easier because you'll do basically full damage as long as all 4 beetles are on the boss (you lose lock-on in between boss phases so get close to the boss between phases) whether or not the main laser Kiniro fires is hitting anything (it does minimal damage, in Black Label though the main beam does a good chunk of the damage, about 50%, so you want to be in front of enemies in Black Label), but if you're playing a non-iOS version, her movement speed when lasering is much faster, so she's difficult to control. Her rapid shot has low movement speed and is reasonably strong for stages, but it's still at least 1/2 or maybe 2/3rds less powerful than the laser is, so don't go using it for bosses or anything, it's all about the laser and learning to deal with the fast movement speed. Basically an expert shot type.

Palm Normal's the weakest shot in the game. In the older 1.0 version, the shot types all did roughly the same damage (and bombs did very little) so he was fairly balanced and competitive, but all later game ports make their 1.5 revision the 'official' version, and all shot types got a large damage boost except for Palm Normal, who's more or less the same. He's got the highest rapid shot damage in the game (it's only slightly less than his laser!), good movement speed when using rapid or laser, his laser has extra spread mini lasers, but the laser itself isn't terribly strong. He's not bad for scoring in stages, but boss fights take noticeably longer, so he's actually the tougher version of Palm to use. Reco Normal's just a very well balanced spreadshot character with good laser damage (noticeably higher than Palm Normal in 1.5) and a wide rapid shot for clearing popcorn, but low movement speed both when using the rapid shot and when lasering (not in iOS obviously).

As far as I can tell, the orb spreads move roughly the same way every time during the fight. Might be some slight variance, not confident to call it 100% exact, but it looks like the giant orb spreads are static. It's basically a matter of making tap dodges in between the gaps, made difficult because the aimed orbs require wider than normal dodges because of their increased size. You can get a good look at this pattern in this run, it doesn't bomb at all and the player dawdles during that phase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCJ7Yw9sChY&t=17m09s

[Patashu]

This is the size of your hitbox (top row is for Original/Maniac modes, bottom row is for Ultra/God, it's tiny in Ultra/God and you can make some ridiculous dodges thanks to that).

Can I get a clarification on this? At least on the iOS version, the Palm hitbox in this picture is centered on where the glowy thing is, yes, but the Reco hitbox is presented as being higher than her green swirly thing (by, I would say, 3-4 pixels). So is the game deceiving me or is the hitbox lower down on this version of the game?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The hitboxes are centered in the glowy circles for Reco, and the orange triangles for Palm. That image is more for approximate hitbox size reference, it's not accurate with respect to hitbox position, for some reason the image accidentally placed the boxes over her neck. But yeah, it's correct in-game, just look at where the middle of the graphic is on the character sprite. I think Palm's is slightly off in that image, a bit lower than it is ingame? Regardless of version, the hitbox is always centered in the middle of the character sprite inside the obvious graphic (same goes for the first Mushi game).

[Patashu]

OK, got it. Thank you for your help! No further questions for now (need to practice/study more).

[Patashu]

So I had a minor epiphany for original stage 4 phase 3 - it's the aimed orb shots. If I'm not playing 'with' the aimed orb shots, they'll catch me off guard and force me to find a new gap, but without the time to react I'll invariably ram into one of the spread orb shots and die, or I'll be forced to dodge to the side of it I didn't want to and get trapped/die. I was having some success with a strategy like this:

1) Hold still.
2) Anticipate the release of the next aimed orb shot and glide away from it in the direction you planned on doing so (to a side if you're in the middle, usually back to the middle if you're on a side, but slightly more out to the side seems ok, but too far out makes the aimed orbs go over a wider arc and your maximum reaction time is suffering)
3) Use the maximum amount of reaction time granted by dodging the aimed orb shot early in a controlled way to slip through a gap made by the spread orb shots.
4) By this point the next aimed orb shot will be coming out. Anticipate this and glide away from it in the direction you planned on doing so (repeat 3 basically)

The hitbox for the aimed orb shots seems smaller than how dangerous the rush coming at you seems (although they're still larger than normal shots for sure. There's definitely some large intimidation factor to it - the game wants you to over-react, panic dodge and die.

Gotta practice more.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

So I had a minor epiphany for original stage 4 phase 3

That's how a lot of progress feels with difficult stages. I know I spent forever on Progear Stage 3 boss's last phase wondering how the hell to do it reliably until it made sense and I knew how to read the gaps properly. Just keep playing and difficult spots may eventually just click, that's perseverance for you.