[Novice 5 Lives] Gundemonium Recollection - Beginner Attempt

This is my second attempt at playing this game. I'm not really very experienced at shmups in general and ceratinly haven't played any for the better part of a year, so bear with me. I'm uploading this in the hopes of garnering some constructive criticism, and also of getting some advice regarding the boss that actually killed me.

Phaser in Stage 4 has an attack which seems to take off 4 lives when it connects, and dance all over the screen until it does nomatter how long I dodge for. Last night I had many, many attempts at Stage 4 (using the Continue option) and on ONE of them I managed to get past Phaser by bombing the second that attack showed up, which seemed to cancel it. I try to do the same thing in this video and fail. There has to be a more reliable and more intended way of dealing with it. Does anyone know?

Other than that, like I say, general hints and tips and critique would be welcome. I'm aware that I'm not good at this game and I'd like to improve. By all means be frank, but be polite. Thank you.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• gundemonium
• recollection
• novice
• 5lives
• beginner
• attempt
• shmup
• monica
• phaser

[Korszca]

Oh! And one last thing (sorry), on Area 2B, only kill the pumpkins that say "Shoot" by them, otherwise it gets way too difficult and all the pumpkins start shooting a ton of bullets.

[pentherapy]

@Korszca Thank you for your extremely useful advice all around! I'll be checking out the videos you mentioned, especially since I'm now trying to do some of the DC's and feel as though I've bitten off more than I can chew. I didn't know that thing about rapid fire shots during plane shifts either. All things to bear in mind!

Do you happen to have any advice about counter-bombing? I can't seem to get the timing right with it, so I've taken to bombing when I anticipate being hit instead.

[Hatt0riHanz0128]

Also, letting bullets graze your character will give you Mana, allowing you to be more liberal with Mana Actions.

Phaser only does that charge attack when she's low on health; when she starts getting low, you'll want to stop shooting to take advantage of your faster movement speed. Once you've dodged her attack, start shooting again since she almost immediately starts another charge. The idea is to repeat this and whittle away the last bit of her health (she should only be getting 1-3 charges).

[pentherapy]

@Hatt0riHanz0128 ... so I think I'll stick with using a bomb to counter that for now, since it seems to send her into the next phase of her attack, even on Revised difficulty. (Where I've otherwise noticed it restoring bosses' health.)

I've managed to 1CC the game on Novice now but it was a very close run thing - might upload a video of it, probably not. I also managed to clear it on Revised, but ti was FAR from a 1CC, haha. Any reccomendations for moving into using Earl Types?

[Korszca]

@pentherapy When you get hit, you'll hear her make a slight squeak noise the moment she gets hit and you'll see her start moving backwards, which is your cue to hit the bomb button. You have until she stops moving backwards to hit the bomb button for the counter bomb to work. It takes a lot of practice to do it on command.

[Korszca]

(cont.) and she'll deal more damage.

Don't be afraid to use the fortune wheel more often, it's your best offensive and defensive weapon.

Other than that, you play fine. Keep practicing!

And to answer your question, yes you need to beat the game with all 64 Earl types to get the Play Order. The Earl types are named after different species of roses (hence the "Rosette" Play Order).

HTH! Any more questions, just let me know :)

[Korszca]

Hey there - you may want to check my video of the 40 Demonic Challenges to see how you're "supposed to" take down Phaser. I know it's on Phase Level 21, but the strategy directly applies to all difficulty levels.

The important thing to keep in mind is that Eryth's fortune wheel not only plane shifts, but deals damage as well.

And going on that, when you throw her fortune wheel, wait until the plane shift happens to unleash her rapid fire. That way it takes longer for her to overheat (cont.)

[pentherapy]

@Hatt0riHanz0128 Yeah, surely to god it can't really require beating the game 64 times? I mean I imagine Novice runs are trivial after a while but that's a lot of grind. And I don't think you need *all* the play orders to unlock Elixerel either. (I'm aware you can also do it by beating her Daath form, but I don't think I'm going to be that good anytime soon.)

[Hatt0riHanz0128]

@Hatt0riHanz0128 So it turns out every weapon will affect your movement speed, and it also changes the name of the Earl. That's a cool touch, shows what happens when I don't pay much attention to stuff.

Though if you're gunning for the Rosette achievement, you'll have to get used to all of the weapons...

[Hatt0riHanz0128]

@pentherapy Can't help you there; I just bought the game last night and I just barely scraped through a Novice Eryth run. All I know is you can customize all 4 of their loadouts. I know they all have different movement speeds, but I don't know if that's affected by their loadout or if it's unique to that Earl.

[pentherapy]

@Hatt0riHanz0128 Thank you very much for your advice! I'm not playing with default controls, since my only real previous shmup experience was Touhou so I'm used to having slow/focused movement on a different key. Also, I know I have a really bad habit of popping my mana attack while holding rapid shot to "stack damage", when as you rightly point out it's much more useful for invoking a plane shift. The intended method of dealing with Phaser that you describe sounds risky...