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Gradius 3 (arcade) is rock hard, but there is some tricks that can enshure a longer game. The 3rd boss is the one that slaughters most people, but there is a way to make him a little easier. Damage the front 2 cores untill there red. When he fires off his 3 criss-cross laser he will close. Now he will close and move down or up. move out of his big trap's range when he opens and your options should be in front of his cores. Carefully guide your options and blow the cores. You have 20 seconds before he starts moving tward you so do this quick. For more refrence,go to the gradius 3 arcade review in the xenoside files. Also on level 3 if you fire off a mega crush where those platforms are in the begining of the level the music will change to very catchey and familar tunes.
Can anyone help me out on the fire level? I Get stuck there because of the barrage of rocks.

Because the st.3 boss is a god awful asshole, here's a guide to time the bastard out. I find this method to be the easiest and one you can use in a recovery from the boss.

Legend: "Back," refers to 2nd diamond laser hole from the core. "Front" refers to the first diamond laser hole from the core. The number represents the number of times it shoots, and correspondingly, how many times of that pattern you stay in that spot untill the next pattern change in which you change position.
The patterns are represented in phases which are roman numeraled here. After each phase, it goes to shooting its spread shot USUALLY 2 times where you should dart out of its range. Then you gotta dart back in.

I. Back 2, Front 2
II. Back 1, Front 2, Back 1
III. Back 1, Front 1, Back 1
IV. Repeat phase II.
-after this point the boss can approach you, and shoots once or twice)
V. Repeat Phase II. Back 1
(fly out of its way as it fires one last time and times out... BOOM!)

OOOOTHERwise, you better count on the slowdown of full options to take down this fuck, an option trap won't hurt either.

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Some other basic hints and strategies for stages, Type 2 (Spread missles):

Stage 2, Bubble stage: Make sure your options are being used to full efficacy to destroy as many bubbles as possible. At times you should be prioritizing your fire to the front when the bubbles appear. Be keen on destroying the turrets and tracking the stray bullets that may come your way. To use options correctly, spread them out vertically to create a spread missle wall against the bubbles. I get ripple after my third option, then get the fourth option, ignoring force field.

Stage 3, cliff stage: I use tailgun the entirety of the stage. For approaching the umbrellas, I setup an option trap at the base of the upside down mountain to destroy the middle dispenser. With some luck, you'll take care of the other dispenser too. Hide yourself behind that mountain, with your options missle spamming on and inside the mountain to take care of any popcorn ships coming your way. Keep tailgun on for when the screen begins to scroll again.

Stage 5, Moai: The boss is the most troublesome, when approaching the six moai head formation, create an option blob trap in the bottom left in order to destroy the bottom left statue immedietely. Proceed to fly inbetween the middle top and top right statue and fly out to destroy the top right statue. Then work on the other bottom two. Try to keep aware of their spitting pattern, and aware of the inflation size. It's bigger than you think, so create option trails to get rid of them. If you can't get the top 3 heads, you can continuously fly in a oval, clockwise, and lure the heads into your options untill it times out.

Stage 7, Fire: The fireballs in this stage are pre-determined, because of this a pea-shooter path can be memorized. But not recommended. Ideally, you want to take advantage of the slow down and destroy most of the fireballs before they get too close to you. Don't use missle because the blast radius will block your view of incoming bullets or of indestructable fire magmas. There are some safe spots but I'd just keep firing.

I was trawling Nico recently when I came across these helpful type 2 videos. They show practical ways to recover in levels 10 and 7:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3528335
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3327657