Gradius V

[Saurian]

David posted them:

Full power up cheat is cumulative. After you use one, it deducts from the total.

For example:
At the beginning (stage 1), you have only 1 full power up cheat.
At stage 3, if you never use it, you have 3 full power up cheats.
At stage 5, you have 5 full power up cheats, etc.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, L2, R2
Gives you 1 Speed Up, Missile, Double, 4 Options & ? (Force Field)

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, L1, R1
Gives you 1 Speed Up, Missile, Laser, 4 Options & ? (Force Field)

It's naughty to use it in normal game but it's superb for when you're training on stages in Stage Select Mode especially sections where you KNOW you'll be fully powered when you get there.

[dataDave]

WOAH!! RED LASERS!!?!? I'm using t3h 2p pad tonight! Laser/option RGB edit mode would be nice. I'd have black ones me.

Spent a nice 5 hours on the game last night, does anyone have any gripes with 'left thumb/palm strain' when directing lasers for hours? I might nip round to the beauty parlour after I've finished here and pay ?5 for a nice palm massage from a nice smelling young lady before my sesh tonight. Might try and persuade her into coming round to mine with my G-5 talk. Maybe not.

Gonna unlock stages 6+7 tonight with my freeplay for some big practice this weekend. By monday I wanna be beyond 1.5mil, next weekend I want to be looping easily.

What about the stage 5 boss? I can 1-life the stage up until he fires out swarms of the grey diamonds. I find it less life consuming hiding behind the meteors until he charges his beams. I doubt I can 1-life him without some good advice from someone here first. Still, doing better on each attempt. I hope I can beat him with 3 lives lost or something, I'll be happy with that.

Marcus man, the stage 3 boss is still my most feared section of the game so far, it's too easy to naff - Still finding stage 3 boss harder than stage 4 boss infact. After I 1-lifed him last night he got me with one final blast of his cannon during his explosion phase, cheap ****e. At least that little 'pikey-pincer' only took off with one option this time.

Come on you sluts! Answer me! How much time have you racked up so far? I've just over 10 hours myself, my clock reads more thanks to my mum tho.

That makes normal mode seem like a walk in the park! Look at those bullets FFS!

Normal is a walk in the park, we're just all blind men looking for the path. Look, Gradius has turned me all phylosophical!

Gradius V though, game of the year for me so far, by a mile.

[Kubrick]

Heh, I'm a red laser man too. My arcade stick is plugged into port 2 on a permanent basis, so I'm usually P2 on most games.

I think the Stage 3 boss is easy now. As soon as it has done the beam attack for the third time, get "inside" his legs and you have loads of time to destroy him before he starts with the rapid fireballs.

[ara]

does anyone have any gripes with 'left thumb/palm strain' when directing lasers for hours?

BOTH my thumbs get really sore after a few hours of continuous play.

Come on you sluts! Answer me! How much time have you racked up so far? I've just over 10 hours myself, my clock reads more thanks to my mum tho.

12 or so for me.. although at least a few of those are from my friends' playing.

[NeilMcRae]

picked this up on the way home - boy do I suck at it

[dataDave]

I think the Stage 3 boss is easy now. As soon as it has done the beam attack for the third time, get "inside" his legs and you have loads of time to destroy him before he starts with the rapid fireballs.

I'm always up there man, especially just after it knocks out a middle block, then I stick close whilst it takes out the side two before rushing back for cover. I still rely on a shield for backup with those sneaky final shots it has, you're blind to the blast radius with its huge dying explosion.

Took me an hour to get to sleep last night as everytime I shut my eyes all I could see was swishing blue lasers. Couldn't get used to the red ones for some reason.

Woke up this morning and my left hand felt like it'd been tortured. We all know the remedy for that of course - some intensive stage 6 practice!

Glad stages 1-4 are now totally pwn3d, still losing too many lives on the stage 5 boss. Getting better though.

It's much easier if you leave the asteroids alone, they're your friends I point my options behind me although I only fire when it's required. Move gradually up and down the left hand side 'teasing' the spray fire from the right, you should be able to keep relatively clear of it for the most part, although, that's where I lose my lives, usually just after I change direction.

Oh, I tend to leave out the force field for this. Everytime it decreases in power it tends to put me off bigtime.

So, it's stages 5-4 and 6 that are now in quarantine.

I seriously doubt I'll be looping this by next week. It proper kicks off on stage 6, stage 7 made me feel ill. **** - I wish I had this game when it was first released. It'd be in my pocket by now.

Stage 6 onwards is a totally different game. Even the music kicks off.

****ers - It's WE8 night tonight with my buddies. I wish it wasn't. At least I'm scoring some S.K.U.N.K out of it, I'm gonna need it by the looks of things.

[dataDave]

Stage 6 bosses 3+4 are driving me mad, it's those that are preventing me from stage 7 one credit goodness. I predict I'll be breaking 2mil with ease if I add my practice run scores to my 1 credit score after I learn the bosses from stage 6. It gets seriously hard after the first 300000 you rinse from stage 7 though.

[Ravon]

ok ... why am i so **** at L4, the stupid growing back **** gets me everytime... i must be doing something wrong... POS nearly through my pad at the TV last night lol... whoops

[dataDave]

ok ... why am i so **** at L4, the stupid growing back **** gets me everytime... i must be doing something wrong... POS nearly through my pad at the TV last night lol... whoops

Start firing at the big wall of it and enter immediately, about 1/3 the way up the screen, following your fire as you do so - now, go all the way to the right hand side (furthest you can go) and point your options upwards for scoring. I wish I had a camera for making vids.

If you think this bit's hard, wait until you get to the green liquid gel on stage 6!!

Oh yeah, watch out for the pikey pincer on stage 5 too. I'm lucky I noticed it tbh, it didn't get away with any options thankfully.

[Ravon]

cheers i will try, i got to L5 last night it was ok .. untill i hit the Boss... Doh... then i died..

[Ravon]

O yes . a few mins and im getting that sorted right out .. thanks again..

[venom743]

Stage 6 bosses 3+4 are driving me mad, it's those that are preventing me from stage 7 one credit goodness. I predict I'll be breaking 2mil with ease if I add my practice run scores to my 1 credit score after I learn the bosses from stage 6. It gets seriously hard after the first 300000 you rinse from stage 7 though.

Actually if you know what youre doing the 4th boss on stage 6 is by far the easiest IMO. Can be taken out in less tahn a minute!

[dataDave]

Actually if you know what youre doing the 4th boss on stage 6 is by far the easiest IMO. Can be taken out in less tahn a minute!

Yep, don't worry, I know. It's even easier than the 1st stage boss IMO.

You can sit in between the spinning cores and the main bulk, I tend to prefer the bottom - just follow it around with tap-presses on the d-pad and it's a 1-lifer everytime.

Stage 7 is kicking my arse all over however. As long as I can take out that 5-core boss I'll be alright though, the one after it isn't so bad (3 core gravity bast) and the one after that is the easiest out of the three - just gotta get used to how it moves its legs mainly, there's not much else to dodge.

The big blue bouncy beams that the 5-core boss fires are similar to the red beams that the 4th boss on stage 2 and the 3rd boss on stage 6 fires - when they are fired they are aimed right at your ship, you only have to move a right little bit to avoid them. That being said, the 5-core boss is still bloody hard.

Might try type 1 to take these suckers down as fast as poss.

Gonna slag through the entire game with freeplay tonight - I know that once I get the 5-core sorted it's an easy stream all the way through to the yet unseen stage 8! I hope the last boss is easy, I wanna loop!

PS. I've never seen any vids apart from the attract sequence at the beginning of the game - how does he take down the stage 5 boss? The same 'hide behind asteroids' technique that I still use? It's just that I lose a life at that bastard 80% of the time.

[venom743]

Yep, don't worry, I know. It's even easier than the 1st stage boss IMO.

You can sit in between the spinning cores and the main bulk, I tend to prefer the bottom - just follow it around with tap-presses on the d-pad and it's a 1-lifer everytime.

Stage 7 is kicking my arse all over however. As long as I can take out that 5-core boss I'll be alright though, the one after it isn't so bad (3 core gravity bast) and the one after that is the easiest out of the three - just gotta get used to how it moves its legs mainly, there's not much else to dodge.

The big blue bouncy beams that the 5-core boss fires are similar to the red beams that the 4th boss on stage 2 and the 3rd boss on stage 6 fires - when they are fired they are aimed right at your ship, you only have to move a right little bit to avoid them. That being said, the 5-core boss is still bloody hard.

Might try type 1 to take these suckers down as fast as poss.

Gonna slag through the entire game with freeplay tonight - I know that once I get the 5-core sorted it's an easy stream all the way through to the yet unseen stage 8! I hope the last boss is easy, I wanna loop!

PS. I've never seen any vids apart from the attract sequence at the beginning of the game - how does he take down the stage 5 boss? The same 'hide behind asteroids' technique that I still use? It's just that I lose a life at that bastard 80% of the time.

I mentioned this before earlier. Reduce your speed down to level 2 and weave in and out of the asteroids with your options lined up behind you. Then, when it fires its lasers, move your ship into the core . Your safe as long as you make small movements, your options will protect you from the rocks trailing behind. Another easy boss!8)

[dataDave]

I mentioned this before earlier. Reduce your speed down to level 2 and weave in and out of the asteroids with your options lined up behind you. Then, when it fires its lasers, move your ship into the core . Your safe as long as you make small movements, your options will protect you from the rocks trailing behind. Another easy boss!8)

That's what I'm doing man, although I always get overrun by the grey diamond shot swarms, especially if I take out asteroids in front of me. I'm getting better at dodging although there are times when I'm trapped like a wet dog.

As long as I only lose one life there it's not so bad I suppose. It just pisses me off when I lose all of them later on when I could be doing with just one more.

Also, is it just me or is the 2nd stream easier to dodge than the first? I'm currently trying to work out why.

Now no.1 on my top ten most feared parts of the game, 5-core is at no.2.