SuperSoaker360 wrote:I really like the music. It's probably the only reason why I kept playing the game.
So much this^
The DLC soundtracks are really great too, so much classic Gradius love. The Erul Tron pack (Salamander remixes) is 1000% worth the money even though it's expensive for music DLC.
Yeah that spot in stage six can be rough with certain character/weapon setups. Platonic Break is usually the best way to deal with them, but if you have a character with a shitty break like Aoba you have to precisely line up your lasers or bomb spam. Luckily there not many (any?) other places in the game where you really need the bombs, so you can just spam away if you want to.
As for characters I can't remember if Esmeralda and Poini Kune are unlocked by default, but for Aoba Hyper you have to finish (credit feed OK) Expert difficulty with Aoba. However, Aoba hyper is really just a shitter Aoba. The other two are DLC, Kokoro and Strarf. Kokoro sucks as a character but is interesting and a little bit challenging, and Strarf is a really good and fun character. Strarf is actually the most fun to play in the game imo.
pseudo wrote:just bought it yesterday and yeah idc what anyone says that game isnt terrible. and i guess il go for the expert no miss then, normal only took me like 3 tries. the yellow girl with the ridiculous cleavage with the gravity weapon and her options that stay in place is so powerful lol
Yeah not terrible, just sloppy. It's certainly not as objectively bad as Salamander, so that's...
something I guess.

The game itself is fun enough too imo, as long as you like Gradius. It's just really unpolished and too easy. The first Otomedius game is legit good though; criminally ignored on the forum.
And yeah Diol is by far the best character because of the lock options. You should be able to tear apart Expert pretty easily with her.