Contra: Rogue Corps is a game that’s extremely rough around the edges, yet I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was exactly what I was looking for. Not so much in terms of the game itself, but more in what the game represents. For me, gaming is about heading into town with £10 and emerging a few hours later with lunch and a game of questionable pedigree. Sometimes this game will be a “hidden gem”, sometimes it’s just mediocre and sometimes it’s actively terrible. Yet this ordeal in and of itself is why I enjoy buying games. I could pirate everything, but there’s no cardio involved nor is there any skin in the game. As a consequence the bargain bin is what holds the most appeal for me, and Contra: Rogue Corps is definitely a bargain bin game these days. Between middling reviews, a piss-poor PC port and modest sales this is a game that’s easy to overlook. Yet in the finest traditions of the bargain bin haul, I actually thought it was fun – even if it was quite janky at points and had some questionable design decisions. If you can endure the occasional bout of frustration, I can safely say that Contra Rogue Corps is one of the better twin-stick shooters for the 8th console generation.

Which is my seamless segue into discussing what Contra: Rogue Corps actually is. First and foremost it’s barely a Contra game in any sense of the word, and most likely wasn’t one until Konami realised they were in trouble if they didn’t staple a brand to this game. Outside of a handful of modest references, there’s really nothing related to Contra here – especially not the gameplay. Contra: Rogue Corps is not a 2D or overhead shooter, but is instead a 3D twin-stick shooter with a few… additions that arguably suit the game but would alienate any actual Contra fans who bought it. For example, I doubt that Contra fans would enjoy the concepts of their weapons overheating after a few seconds of shooting. Nor would they enjoy a quasi-RPG drop system wherein they can equip 4 augmentations to their characters and multiple augmentations to each weapon. So you’ll end up finishing a mission, getting 20 pieces of loot and then checking if any of them offer something good. Most of the time, you just get thrilling bonuses like “-7.4% damage from Enemy Type D” or “+2metre dodge roll” although equipping all this nonsense does eventually make a difference. Then you’ve got the enemy types which get a bit repetitive and gain more health/attack with each tier of missions, of which there are 7. Finally while the game does have a co-op mode, it’s entirely separate from the campaign and will require decently levelled characters to be beatable.

So on the face of it, Contra: Rogue Corps sounds a bit hopeless. It’s not anything like Contra, and the additions sound pretty boring. Why then am I, your humble bargain bin scout, recommending it? Well for the simple reason that if you aren’t hung up about what a Contra game should be, then you will probably be able to have some fun with this one. While the enemies are a bit repetitive, the game loves to throw them at you in hordes which actually results in some pretty frantic and enjoyable gameplay. There are a few missions later on in the game that are basically horde defence missions, and I had a great time playing them because they really encouraged you to learn the game. You had to know what enemies to prioritise, you had to know the enemy patterns and if you did know these things then they were a tight, punishing but fun experience. After having played so many tedious, sluggish and whiny games over the past few years it was nice to have something that was just an honest-to-God arcade experience. It reminded a bit of Mothergunship, in the sense that this was a high-octane game that no one seems to have cared about (sadly). As for the character customisation and stat systems, while the game does a terrible job of explaining how they actually work – these systems do help a bit. There are a lot of different weapons to develop for starters, which helps the variety up. Then by giving better gear on higher levels and for higher mission completion ranks Contra: Rogue Corps does a good job of encouraging you to just keep trying the higher levels and to reward you (somewhat) for going back to earlier levels and crushing them with ease. Of course as the game is admittedly a bit challenging, there’s some risk reward going on here and sometimes the scale tips a bit too much towards risk as you get nothing except weapon XP should you fail a mission.

With that being said, I actually found the game to be finely balanced most of the time. Some other reviews have cried many tears over how hard the freaking is man :'(( but I’m not sure what they were doing. You need to learn the enemy patterns, dodge attacks A LOT and then you should be fine. There are a few really annoying enemy types, like the turrets that lock-on to you and one of the bosses – but most enemies are if anything a bit easy. Plus you don’t need to complete all the levels to progress, so you can leave some for later if you are getting filtered. Generally the game is fun and lets you progress to the disappointing final boss without too much trouble. There are a few things I wanted to mention though, because as mentioned at the start of this review Contra: Rogue Corps is a bargain bin game. Which is to say, that it’s a diamond in the rough at best. So you should be aware that you can’t pause, even when playing in Single Player… for some reason. You should be aware that the graphics aren’t amazing and neither is the soundtrack. You should be aware that while you do get some invincibility frames after getting hit, these won’t save you from any other damage that happens before you hit the ground. There are just a few niggles like this that make the game feel a bit janky. Especially when we consider how many stages just repeat the same bosses (but now as mini-bosses yay) or how often you’ll go from full health to no health on some of the later campaign stages. As I said, it’s finely balanced most of the time but is sometimes a pain in the backside.

At this stage I should probably mention that there is a multiplayer mode, and some people have said it’s fun. You’ll need to faff around with it for all the CHEEVOS as well. Unfortunately for me and by extension you dear reader, I don’t have an Xbox Live Gold subscription so… I can’t tell you what it’s like. I can tell you that Contra: Rogue Corps has plenty of single player content though, including 41 campaign missions and a further 9 missions split between co-op and the HARDCORE mode. So there’s plenty of content for what is a fairly cheap game, just be aware that I would recommend the console version (hence my purchase of it on the Mighty Xbone due to the PC Port being hopeless). One last thing to mention, finding information about this game online is a nightmare so… I hope you speak Spanish, to access the one comprehensive guide that some kind soul has uploaded via Google Sheets.

In conclusion then, Contra: Rogue Corps is barely a Contra game. It’s also an exceedingly rough around the edges game, with poor reviews and a terrible PC port. Yet if you can deal with some weird quirks, it’s actually a pretty fun arcade twin-stick shooter extravaganza and one that I would actually recommend… to the right sort of person. Ask yourself whether you want a fast paced if slightly janky twin-stick shooter, because you are oh-so-tired of lousy modern FPS/Action-Adventure bollocks. If the answer is Yes then go grab the game for cheap. If the answer is No, because you love games like Uncharted 3 and whatever the latest flavour of the month game with crafting in it is, then you’ll probably be repelled by Contra: Rogue Corps. For me, it’s what gaming is all about. For you, it’s either a fun little throwaway purchase or a nightmare.

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Quick Note: As the Sega 60th Anniversary Collection bundle of games were released as part of a promotional effort to celebrate Sega’s 60th Anniversary, the store pages for them have been taken down and so they’re seemingly no longer available. Fortunately there’s a work around (Credit to //ennui_72826 on Steam for this fix) that lets you tell Steam to download them anyway and as they’re free they’ll be added to your library forever more. Just open your browser on a computer where your Steam account is signed in (or open the Windows Run tool) and enter the following command(s);

• Armor of Heroes: steam://install/1368440
• Endless Zone: steam://install/1368450
• Golden Axed: steam://install/1368460
• Streets of Kamurocho: steam://install/1368430
• Bonus related game, 8-Bit Bayonetta: steam://install/1368460

Despite being synonymous with the relatively young videogames industry, Sega much like Nintendo has been around for far longer than you might initially expect. While it’s first true home console might have only hit Western shores in the early 1980’s, Sega itself has been around since 1960 and as a way of celebrating it’s longevity the company released a handful of free promotional games back in 2020. Now these games are far too short to deserve a review each, especially as two of them can be beaten in around 15 minutes! Yet after browsing through my Steam library I remembered that I had received these games years ago and thought that I should give them a try, just to see whether they were of any interest. To my surprise they were each cool in their own way, although unfortunately the one I was most excited about (Golden Axed) is also the shortest one here. So without further ado, I’m going to take a quick look at each game and then briefly conclude with which one was The Best

Golden Axed

Starting off with the one I was most excited to try, Golden Axed is a resurrected proof of concept for a Golden Axe remake that was in development around 2010. There was going to be a couple of remakes in this vein for the 7th generation of consoles, but for better or for worse they were all scrapped and the Australian development studio working on them was closed down. As such Golden Axed is an insight into what could have been, albeit a fairly short one as there really isn’t much going on here. You get to play as the Ax Battler class, with a couple of different attacks that you can use to face off against two enemy types across a single level. The combat itself is fairly faithful to the original games, as you only have a jump, light attack and heavy attack but there is still a surprising amount of depth to the move as various combinations of movements and attacks will unleash multiple different moves. As it’s just a proof of concept demo, there are still some rough edges to this combat including how easy it is to abuse the light attack “combo” (just mash it) to prevent enemies from being able to deal any damage. In spite of the limited amount of content however, the game is still able to demonstrate that there was a concerted effort to make the concept of a remaster work. You can see this in the elements of this demo that illustrate what can be done on modern systems, including the appealing visuals and large amount of enemies to fight on-screen. Plus the game has been able to recreate some of the more amusing elements of it’s predecessors, including the ability to knock enemies off the stage or the prospect of a magic system. As a consequence it’s disappointing that this little teaser as all that was ever seen of this game, as with some time and energy it could have been a decent game. Instead the Golden Axe series has languished since this project was cancelled.

Streets of Kamurocho

The next one I dove into was Streets of Kamurocho as I’ve enjoyed the Streets of Rage games in the past and this is essentially a (sanctioned) knock-off. While that might sound like a criticism, I don’t intend to disparage the game as it’s enjoyable if brief and manages to accurately capture most of what makes the Streets of Rage series enjoyable. You’ve got a similar combat system, with light attacks, heavy attacks, weapons you can pick-up, jump attacks and a constant barrage of enemies with different attack patterns. Even the smaller details such as how health items are picked up, the UI, the number of hits that different enemy types take and so on are almost identical to the Streets of Rage games. This includes the handful of boss fights, which are dangerous but manageable and culminate in a final boss fight that can be pretty tricky as he has goons that respawn multiple times. Unfortunately much like Golden Axed the whole thing is very short indeed, and once you’ve cleared the first stage it loops (unlike Golden Axed which goes straight to the title screen). With that being said, both the soundtrack and visuals are well polished and when combined with the combat provide an enjoyable if brief experience. Once you’ve cleared the only stage on offer, you unlock Kasuga alongside Kiryu and Majima but aside from this modest goal there’s nothing to aim for outside of a higher score. There are online leaderboards available for the game, which is a nice touch but that’s about it.

Armor of Heroes

Perhaps the most unusual game of the bunch is Armor of Heroes, an ostensibly Company of Heroes themed game that has absolutely nothing to do with the series or indeed the RTS genre. Instead it’s a top-down arcade-y multiplayer game where you control a tank across a variety of game modes and it’s playable with up to 3 other players, 3 AI bots or a mixture of the two. Despite being arcade-y, there are still some sops to realism as the tanks don’t handle particularly well and so you need to slowly rotate your vehicle instead of just being able to turn on a dime. Similarly, the stages are cluttered with debris some of which can be shot through (or driven through) and some of which is more resistant to your efforts. Shots also have a degree of bullet-drop, although you don’t have to worry about shot angle and armour penetration so there are limits to the realism. The game is therefore in a slightly odd position, as it is far too fast paced and liberal with the simulation elements to be considered anything but an arcade experience. Yet it also has some elements that get in the way, for want of a better way of phrasing it. To make matters even more complex, there are a handful of game modes such as Survival, King of the Hill, Deathmatch and so on but there are three variants for each mode which are essentially Arcade, Hardcore and a somewhat balanced middle. The tweaks are mainly related to fog of war and how shots act, alongside tanks being easier to destroy on the non-Arcade difficulties. This is solely a party game however, as there are no progression systems and no single player content (aside from matches against the AI) to speak of. The game does at least have a handful of maps, so there’s enough new content to support around an hour of playtime before it starts to get stale. With that being said, much like the other games this is more of a novelty due to the relatively lack of content even though it supports local multiplayer.

Endless Zone

Last but certainly not least in this collection is Endless Zone, an attempt to emulate the Fantasy Zone series made by the team behind the Endless Space 4X games. Much like Armor of Heroes, this is a pretty abrupt change of pace on the part of the developers but unlike Armor of Heroes, Endless Zone is close to being an entire game! Of course that is a backhanded compliment at it’s core, but I was still surprised by how much depth was packed into what is a throwaway promotional piece of software. Not only are there multiple stages, each with their bosses, but the game also has a full shop interface just like the Fantasy Zone games which provide access to a multitude of different weapons. The caveat is that these weapons have very limited amounts of ammo, so you’ll need to choose wisely and be prepared to return to slumming it with your default blaster before long. Fortunately the upgrades to your bombs and thrusters are permanent, plus you’re able to buy additional lives which always helps! To access the shop, you’ll need to fly into a beacon which appears roughly once per level after you destroy a certain amount of targets and then you’ll be able to buy what you desire. Be careful though, as weapons and lives get progressively more expensive as you buy them and so extra lives will quickly eat up vast amounts of currency. Now this wouldn’t be an issue, but you die in one hit so this is a surprisingly challenging little experience. To win all you need to do is shoot down 10 floating orbs that are spread out across each of the 4 stages, while dodging or shooting down all of the infinitely respawning enemies and then dealing with the boss. That’s easier said than done however, especially as the enemies spawn more and more frequently as the time you’ve spent on a stage increases. Don’t let the difficulty curve get you down though, as each stage has it’s own unique ambiance, visuals, soundtrack and most importantly enemies to deal with! As such this is a great looking shoot em’ up with plenty of depth and a decent amount of challenge, although once you get used to it (and learn to save your money for the missiles upgrade and the thrusters upgrade) it shouldn’t take you too long. Just don’t be surprised if you see the game over screen a few times more than you’d like!

And the Winner is…

So after playing through all of those games, I had to confess that I had inadvertently left the best for last. While Golden Axed was a cool insight into what could have been and Streets of Kamuchoro was probably the most fun I had, the clear winner here is Endless Zone. Not only was it the longest game of the bunch, but it was also the one with the largest amount of challenge and perhaps most important the most strategy involved. It’s hard to lose Golden Axed or Streets of Kamuchoro before they’re over, and honestly I found that Armor of Heroes was entirely random as despite having the same AI the bots were incredibly unpredictable when it came to the final scores. Endless Zone on the other hand is a concise but challenging game that requires you to learn it’s systems to succeed, as it’ll let you keep blasting away at the infinitely respawning enemies or waste money on the wrong upgrades. But once you have an understanding of how everything works, the game itself isn’t too hard and I was able to clear the last few bosses without any real trouble. Then add a great OST and visual presentation, alongside plenty of enemy patterns to learn and the end result is a great little game. That’s not to say that the others aren’t worth a look as I enjoyed them all to varying degrees, with Armor of Heroes being my least favourite but it was still pleasant enough to mess around with. But with that being said Endless Zone is an actually enjoyable free game that you can still add to your Steam library today, and I would highly recommend you give it a try. Then again, you may as well give the others a try at that point as the whole batch will only take you maybe an hour to see everything once you’ve been able to beat Endless Zone.

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Metal Slug Advance is one of those games that I bought on a whim during my youth and which has been languishing in my backlog for far too long. Not only has the store I bought it from long since ceased to exist, but the company that controlled the chain has had to be rescued from bankruptcy on multiple occasions. That’s not to say that I never played it of course, but for whatever reason I was never able to finish the darn thing despite it being an ostensibly short game, and so it sat in a cupboard for years once I’d moved onto the DS and then 3DS. I did try playing it again via an emulator a few years ago, but ended up struggling on the final boss and took a break before life got the better of me and I ended up moving country three times, working in half a dozen jobs and so on. The third time is the charm however, and I’ve finally gotten around to finishing what turns out to be a difficult but surmountable shoot em up experience. Which really shouldn’t be anything to write home about, as this game only has FIVE stages (well 6, but read on for more details) and the first four will only take most players a few hours to beat as the game has unlimited continues.

The catch to using these continues however is seemingly minor at first, but quickly becomes more pronounced the further through the game you play. Essentially as you play through each stage, there are around 16ish prisoners to free and around 16ish cards to collect. Now you won’t be collect all of those cards initially, as some of the cards are required to gather other cards (for example by unlocking hidden routes within the stages). Most of these cards are decorative and don’t do anything, in fact around 60% of them can be described in this way. Similarly, the majority of prisoners you rescue will just give you a healing item or special weapon (which can only be used briefly before it’s ammo runs out) and so the benefit to rescuing them is modest. The remainder of the cards however, provide various bonuses and modifiers which can be extremely powerful. Examples include reducing the damage taken by your controllable vehicles (including the Metal Slug itself) by 50%, doubling the amount of ammo you have for special weapons, or doubling the amount of grenades you start with. With that being said, the catch is that if you use one of those continues during a stage you lose any cards/prisoners you acquired throughout the mission. In other words, to keep your powerful new bonuses you need to be able to beat the entire mission without dying once.

Fortunately unlike other Metal Slug games, you don’t die in one hit and instead have a health bar which enables you to survive multiple blows. Of course nothing is given away for free, as unlike in the arcade or anthology you can’t just enable unlimited credits to let you blitz your way through the game. Instead you’ll need to play somewhat cautiously as while you can survive multiple wounds, healing items are fairly rare and never appear during the boss battles. In addition, the i-frames (invincibility frames) are quite short and as such it’s often only too easy to be hit, become temporarily invincible and then get hit again during the same boss attack or by the same gaggle of enemy grunts. This means that the stages are mostly easy to beat, but tough to master as each stage has 3 or 4 components split up by checkpoints, but you can’t use any of these checkpoints should you wish to gain those permanent buffs. The stages themselves are each inspired by the previous games and many of the enemies, art work and even attack patterns are copied over from mainline entries in the series. This means that you’ll be facing standards rebels, mask-wearing aztec (or inca?) inspired foes, the maggots from MS2’s mummy levels and so much more throughout a single stage. Fortunately all of this holds up well on the humble Gameboy Advance and outside of some of the blood effects and gore, you’d struggle to tell that this wasn’t a straight port of the originals (well of course the stages are a bit different too, but you get what I mean).

One area in which the GBA struggles a bit however is in handling all of those enemies at once. You see, the game does a good job of managing the levels as the camera follows your perspective slightly which lets you see further ahead despite the small screen resolution. This means it’s fairly rare for enemy attacks to appear out of nowhere off-screen. The way the game’s able to do this is that it spawns enemies in slightly ahead of your perspective, but rarely without sufficient time for you to react. Unfortunately the game also spawns in enemies where you’re looking, regardless of whether you’ve already killed them or not. As a consequence it’s possible to fight your way through a section of the stage, then need to jump backwards to avoid an enemy attack, causing new enemies to respawn into the fray. This may have been an intentional design choice, but if it is then it’s a very annoying one as it happens not only across stage transitions but also throughout every stage with there not being a ton of leeway given before retreating results in more baddies popping up. Additionally both enemies and prisoners are prone to despawning, so if you were to free a prisoner from their constraints but then get knocked down to a lower area of the same stage, then that prisoner can disappear until you reload the level. Which requires either beating the stage and starting it again, or losing all progress made thus far. It’s a tedious aspect of the prisoner and card collecting mechanic that holds Metal Slug Advance back a little bit.

As for the levels that you’ll be playing through again and again, they’re generally pretty good. As mentioned earlier they do a good job of blending various assets together from the rest of the series and as such the enemy variety is strong and most stages are just long enough to feel complete without being a total slog to replay for those cards. Generally the difficulty in Metal Slug Advance is easy-enough and I’d say anyone who has played through any mainline Metal Slug game will know what to expect, with one exception. The bosses. Now the first couple of bosses aren’t too bad and in fact I’d say both Stage 1 and Stage 2 are quite easy, lending themselves nicely to a cheeky replay for those bonus cards. Stage 3 is more of a pain and I struggled to get through it to collect some of the power-up cards if I’m being totally honest. Stage 4 is a bit harder but the boss is slightly easier, once you know the patterns and so it’s entirely possible to get through it without too much trouble. Regardless I’d say that getting all of the prisoners and cards in these stages will take some patience, as one death will screw everything up and most of your deaths are going to come from the bosses at the very end of the level. Then you’ve got Stage 5 which is, to put it charitably, a digital haemorrhoid. The stage itself has a ton of replayability as it splits into multiple segments, starting with either a jet vehicle section (or you can eject for a different level) before you start going through the enemy base. This base has a lot of powerful hidden cards within it, but also some dead-ends and so you’ll need to work your way through it many a time to get everything. Especially as some of these cards are will hidden, and will require you to shoot at innocuous props and background items so that you can reveal them (honestly I’d recommend a guide if you’re going to do this). Then once you’ve fought tooth-and-nail through a brutal gauntlet of enemies, you have the worst boss in the game and in my humble opinion one of the worst bosses in the series. In fact beating the 5th boss with continues took me longer than the rest of the game combined. It was so brutal I’m going to include a little guide at the end of this review. Suffice it to say, if you can beat the game you’ve already proven yourself. But to get 100% will require going above and beyond!

Once you’ve cleared through the 5 stages, there isn’t much left outside of the card collecting and prisoner liberating to do. Although there is a bonus 6th stage (albeit without a boss) that contains another batch of cards and prisoners to liberate. The catch is that this bonus stage is quite long, relatively difficult and of course has multiple routes through it so you’ll need to replay it multiple times choosing different routes to get everything (kind of like stage 5 on steroids). The only catch is that to unlock the sixth stage, you’ll need to beat stage 5 without dying as you need one of the stage 5 cards. Honestly it’s a ballache and I would not be surprised if only a modest % of the player base bothered. With that being said I think it’s proof that despite being short, Metal Slug Advance has a surprising of content and on balance it’s a great experience for shoot em up fans or Metal Slug appreciators who are looking for some new content. Between the strong graphics, high levels of replayability and decent performance on the GBA this is a solid game and one that’s great for the right type of player. Those who aren’t looking for a challenge, or are new to shoot em ups should start elsewhere unless they’ve got something to prove. For them, I’d recommend the Metal Slug Anthology as it contains multiple games with the ability to use unlimited credits so you can practice, practice practice until you’re confident enough to beat stages in one go. Then you’ll be ready to get 100% in Metal Slug Advance and save the world, Forever(?)

If you’re still reading, then you’re probably looking for some help with the final boss. God only knows I was, as the endless deaths were brutal and of course getting through the entire stage and the boss without dying is frankly a nightmare. As such I’m going to make a list of tips that I found very helpful for dealing with the final boss of Metal Slug Advance. I’m also going to link a Youtube video of some guy beating the final boss, without any powerups, grenades, etc. You can find that here.

• Pre-battle pro-tip: You can bring a tank into this fight if you go the following route through the enemy base – Go down at the first option, then up every time thereafter. Towards the end there will be a Metal Slug for you to use, but you’ll need to shepherd it through two more segments (slightly easier than it sounds) before you’ll through to the boss. This tank is useful even without upgrade cards as it gives you some extra heath, an unlimited MG while driving it and you can abuse i-frames when entering and exiting it. Alternatively always going up is the shortest route and thus exposes you to the least danger (although there isn’t much to collect).
• Boss attack 1 – The Drones: I HATE these little freaks, my best advice is to use the small window before they spawn to get some shots off at the boss and to then immediately duck down to the bottom area. You’ll be able to jump around 4 times before they start to spawn. If you touch the top of them, you take damage so you want to be below them. They can take around 16 pistol shots or 2 grenades (or a mix) so you need to focus on one. Be very careful that you don’t jump up onto a ledge, as getting down without taking damage is a real hassle. If you can take out one, the other is easy to deal with. The 2nd one you kill drops a Heavy Machinegun pick-up, but it despawns very quickly so try not to kill them when they’re high up in the air.
• Boss attack 2 – The floating lasers: This part isn’t too bad, and while you’ll be tempted to sit it out entirely it offers a great opportunity to do some damage. Just keep an eye on the pattern (generally it alternates per shot from left to right and they go through each side of the two platforms in variation). You’ll want to keep jumping back and forth to give you more reaction time, but you’ll get the hang of this pattern fairly quickly. Just be careful not to waste your MG ammo by jumping behind you then firing, as you’ll shoot behind you. If you’ve started shooting, then your movements will be the same but you’ll keep facing ahead of you – use this to your advantage
• Boss attack 2.5 – At this stage the boss will reuse the laser attack from the Stage 3 boss directly beneath. Do NOT stand there! The platforms will then fall to the ground.
• Boss attack 3 – The reflecting lasers: A very annoying attack to deal with. Before it starts you have a brief window to pour damage onto the boss, take full advantage of this by jumping up and down as the closer you are the less distance your bullets have to travel, meaning the more bullets you can fire off in a short time. Once the attack starts, try to stay directly in the middle and keep firing upwards while jumping over the various shots. You’ll need to move slightly, but generally directly under the bosses weakspot is the best place to be and moving from side to side will result in you getting trapped in either corner. Refer to the video I linked to see a good example of how this strategy works.
• If you do everything right, you should only need to survive these patterns twice before the boss has taken critical damage and starts being on fire. At this point the attack patterns will change, albeit the existing one will continue (so if you do critical damage during the reflecting lasers stage, you’ll have that stage before the next stage is upgraded).
• Boss Attack 4 – The DRONES: Now there are 3 (one spawns after you kill one) of them, and they stagger their shots which sounds like a small change but makes them so much difficult to deal with. Keep focusing on them one at a time, I’d also consider saving some grenades for this section as these drones are surprisingly durable. Personally I used about 5 or 6 grenades on the boss once it started being on fire and saved the rest for clutch moments against these damn drones.
• Boss Attack 5 – Pewpewpewpewpew: This is a very quick two-tier laser attack that hits basically the whole stage, so you’ll need good reaction times to find a sweet spot and to then move quickly from it as the sweet spots are then hit on the second barrage around a second later. If you’ve playing it right, you should have to survive this once (or maybe twice)
• Boss Attack 6 (sort of) – Faster floating lasers: This is the same as the previous attack, but about 50% faster. The technique is the same, but it’s hard to pull off. I’d suggest using this pattern as an opportunity to use up your first 6 grenades before things really get tough.
• Boss Attack 6.5 – That stage 3 laser attack again, it’s unchanged
• Boss Attack 7 – Oh my goodness, more lasers: If you thought the reflecting lasers were bad try this one on for size. You’ll be hit by a barrage of lasers that sweep the stage in a similar fashion to the previous attack. It takes longer, but you won’t have those platforms getting in the way. Again you’ll only need to survive this once (or maybe twice). Unfortunately much like the previous attack there’s no consistent sweet spot and they come in quick so you’ll need to either have plenty of health saved, abuse the tank’s i-frames or just have damn good reflexes.

Basically the challenge with the boss is avoiding all damage during the first half, then trying to finish off the second as quickly as possible. Make full use of the MG drops and then use grenades once it’s already on fire. I’m not going to pretend this is an easy fight by any means, but I was able to overcome it and I have a coordination difficulty so hopefully you’ll be fine. If you’re just going for a casual playthrough, there’s no shame in continuing again and again until you’ve got those patterns down. Hope this helps!

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