Dynamite Headdy Part #6

Part 6: Act 6

Act 6 (Baldurdash | Youtube | blip.tv | Download)

"Damn, I've sure written a lot of words, that must be like 5000 characters or something, probably should copy it to notepad in case Firefox crashes or something."

....

Fuck you Mozilla. Fuck you.

Act 6

The folks at Treasure sure know how to surprise you. I, for one, didn’t expect the game to suddenly whip out a horizontal shoot ‘em up. As game genres go, it’s not my favourite, which is why I’d probably rank this level as the game’s low point. But it has three incredibly good things going for it: the background isn’t black with white dots, the music is terrific (that time signature change from 8/8 to 6/8 takes the cake) and it lifts the secret bonus points up from the gutter, in which acts 4 and 5 left them. Something I didn’t mention in the video, we’ve now officially seen all heads this game has to offer. So sorry, no more new heads!

With the exception of act 7, this act marks the turning point towards a merciless platforming experience. Whereas so far I’ve test ran through a level once before hitting record, this video is actually my fourth take. I don’t take pride in faking out success, but on the other hand I don’t want my LPs to be death montages _{(ever since 2007, anyways...)} But yeah, this is a hard stage. Also, I really struggled with the commentary here for some reason. I guess there just wasn’t much to say.

6-1: The Flying Game – The first SBP is easily missed, as Bino’s hiding inside Headcase and can either appear immediately or make you wait several minutes. I’m not gonna lie, I started the stage over quite a few times because he’d make me wait so long. I could’ve edited it out, I guess.

As far as shmups go the scene isn’t too bad. It’s challenging though, I never figured out how to dodge anything, especially those spheres that surround you that only ever appear once, which is pretty weird. But that dog in the rocket is awesome. SBPs like that are great, they’re not just some arbitrary things foce you to try everything. You can find it by accident or if you pay attention to detail, which is part of what makes this game for me in the first place.
The miniboss is a bastard and a half. It wouldn’t be too bad if that goddamn smoke screen wasn’t there, but with that it’s nearly impossible to make out anything, which I why get hit constantly. The weird face chasing you around respawns if you destroy it, unless you shoot the battleship in the mouth. That spawns helicopters instead though, and those bombs are not easy to dodge. Plus they break when shot at. So pick your poison. Also how many hits does it take to destroy this thing? It’s absolutely ridiculous.

6-2: Fly Hard – Heyo first death of the LP. Wheeler Dealer is one of the toughest fights with the Bruin, although I must admit half of it is just me being bad at shooters. His attacks (cookie missiles, fireballs, electric bulbs) are reasonably easy to predict but I often find myself taking damage from his fireball’s explosion because of the level design. It’s something you can avoid by paying attention to what’s coming up, but I just suck at it, apparently. Basically, do what I say in the video and use Air Head. There’s no reason to limit your attack window.

6-3: Fly Hard 2 – Hooray, tiny corridors and so much stimuli on screen I don’t know where to look. This is where I usually die the first time if I didn’t get killed by Bruin in Fly Hard. My strategy? Keep the attack button down, cross your fingers and hope for the best. That’s all I can say. Also alternate paths make me happy.

6-4: Baby Face – Man, this boss is an LSD field trip. I mean most of this game is clearly done under the influence of psychoactives, but this one simply takes the take. The matryohska design is brilliant, and the fact he gets older and older is hilarious. My only grievance is that this is the only boss fight not to have its own unique theme, it shares the same music with Spinderella.

The first face is not too bad, but his slow moving projectiles might lure you into staying still, which might get you cramped in the corner and force you to take a hit. If you get in a tight spot with the fireballs it can be tricky to maneuver past them, but as long you keep moving, you shouldn’t have any trouble. The young man also isn’t too difficult, as long as you pay attention to the bottom of the screen. His hand/finger deals a fair deal of damage so you want to avoid that. It could just be my eyesight that sucks, but somehow I always have trouble seeing those electrical bolts, too. The middle-aged man though…. Jesus Christ I’ve died to this asshole so many times. You can’t see a thing with him having that damn sheet in the way, his lasers are really hard to avoid and I never found out when he shoots those fast lasers diagonally. It’s fairly easy to cheese this fight with the Air Head though, which is a godsend, otherwise I’d probably spend half my lives here. And as for the old man face, well… if you die here, I suggest you turn off your console and never touch a game ever again. The SBP is a nice touch, too, but I’m not gonna spoil it here if someone reads this before watching the video. _{As if anyone reads these things in the first place.}

~~Instead of words,~~ Also, here's another picture made by my friend miarf (who actually isn't "non-good" as I erroneously stated last time):