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Been playing Espgaluda a bit these days, and I noticed there are some boss and miniboss bullet patterns that appear to be random (perhaps).

For example: Stage 2 miniboss, first phase

He has 3 patterns, one where he sprays out bullets in all directions, a really good one for scoring. Then he has another one where to small drones fly out and shoot some bullets in a cross-like shape, then there's a third pattern where he just shoots a small barrage at you. Needless to say I want to get the first pattern, but is there a way to always get it?

Another example is the Stage 4 boss.

Once you've made your way around the first train car I usually get a pattern where he creates a sort of "fence" out of bullets, and then little drones fly upward with a spinning pattern - very easy to dodge. Sometimes, however, I get this somewhat more difficult pattern where bullets will fly up and down the screen. Again, I wonder what determines what pattern I get.

Espgaluda-gods, please let me partake in your secret knowledge! Thanks!

As far as I know, both those patterns you listed are completely random, and there is no real way of influencing their selection. They do mess with your potential score though, but there is no way around it. Best to learn how to handle them. ^_-

If there's a way to control those patterns then I will shoot myself right now. I can't imagine how many times I got the shit pattern on the stage 2 midboss during a great run.

If you've got a lot of extra gems you can use them to get a few extra points on the stage 4 boss when he shoots those drones out.

For the stage 3 midboss (that shoots those drones), the amount of bullets they fire seems to be sort-of-random but mostly tied to

- How much damage you do to him before he ejects the drones (i laser constantly)
- When he ejects them, i switch to kakusei, and autofire. This makes the drones shoot more bullets at least 60-70% of the time.

It seems mostly connected to autofire/shot instead of lasering them. Even with a good score, i get lower patterns from the drones with laser-only.

Boss 3 is strange. When i'm lowerish on score, he sometimes shoots two rotating patterns after another, instead of the usual one ring.
Almost as if to finish me off since he 'ranks me' as a lower player, so time to end the credit

That's me 98% of my runs

It's actually not random. The drones fire bullets back at you when you hit them directly. To maximize your points there you want to actually tap the shot button occasionally and delay your kills. If you just laser them to death as Ageha you won't get as many bullets to cancel compared you using the rapid shot at first to generate bullets. Tateha has an easier time since her wide kakusei shot has a large pierce effect so it's quite easy to generate bullets off the st3 midboss.

I thought it was dependant on your rank from using kakusei over. I could be completely wrong about this though.

As above, it is indeed triggered by the amount of bullets you feed into the midboss drones..
I´ve now 1cc´d the game with Ageha (36M) and am attempting to get to 40~ish scores, and here´s how i handle that midboss for now:

1. Laser away at him to a comfortable level. We do not want him to die because of the (possible) lasering at step 4
2. Kakusei when he spews the drones, quickly. You want to be at the right side of the screen so you can hit the two right drones..
3. We are at the right side of the screen. Autofire a few times so the right two get hit and quickly go left to fire at the left two drones as well.

4a. You can now either laser the front line of drones, which is firing the faster bullets or ..
4b. Use tap shot (a) to fire bullets to kill more precise. Then repeat step 3, moving from left, kill, kill, to right, kill kill -> back to step 3

Depending on how much green gems you have it's laser or shot to kill the drones and move on. Laser is easier, you can kill two in one go

If someone has a proper stage 1 ageha 1000 gold replay somewhere on YouTube, i would love to see that as well. Still missing something and ~800 is my best so far, 3.2M. Must do better..

Getting 800 gold in Stage 1 is more than good enough to aim for a 40 mil score - Stage 1 is very finicky and has lots of little improvements, but I wouldn't frustrate yourself over it alone. Remember to max out your overmode against Seseri and then it's a matter of just learning the rest of the stages. Stage 3 is the most lucrative in the game, and there's a ton of points to be had from no-missing to the Alice Clones section at 5-2 and cashing in on them, so it's important to learn to score those both well.