Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou/Scoring Sections

While Gradius II doesn't have a defined scoring system and ultimately the most consistent way to set a new high score is to play as many loops as possible, there are a few key spots throughout the game that can lead to a considerable increase when handled in a certain way, all of them involve milking.

Fire Dragons

The most frequent enemy in this stage is also the biggest source of points, as each dragon that comes from the artificial suns is worth 3,000 points. The two important factors are that a new dragon will quickly appear after the last one has been disposed of and the artificial suns always spawn them from the same place, thus the key to maximize score is to speedkill dragons and stay at the right screen position to spawn more. An average run through stage 1 will earn around 40k-80k points, while an optimized stage 1 could reach up to 120k points before the boss.

[Insert gif about speedkilling dragons]

Loops

The fire dragons have a considerable HP increase and appear more frequently than ever. This means the score potential for 2-1 and subsequent loops is higher, and so is the risk of dying.

Phoenix

The boss has a slight milking that can be done. Phoenix's attacks consist of:

1. Static blue lasers.
2. Spitting four sets composed of three fireballs, each fireball is worth 100 points.

Phoenix will cycle between these two patterns until self-destructing shortly after the 12th blue laser attack, making 13,200 the maximum amount of points that can be obtained from the fireballs, while the kill itself grants 5,000 points. Therefore, the player should damage the boss when the fight first begins to bring its HP down and not miss out on easy points.

Loops

The exact same strategy except Phoenix fires a few suicide bullets after being defeated, but it's not enough to make this boss even remotely a threat.

TBD

TBD