Andro Dunos II - Android 1cc (No-Miss/No-Deaths) + Respect 1992 Bonus Stages

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Looks like random modern sequels to random old arcade games is a trend now.
Andro Dunos II came out recently on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Steam, 3DS and, for some reason, Dreamcast and is the sequel to the 1992 Andro Dunos from Visco.
This sequel is made by Picorinne Soft, developer of games like Infinos Gaiden and Battle Crust,
which were all pretty good.

Android is the hardest difficulty in the game.
Enemies shoot more and bosses have some new attacks. It's not that much harder than Arcade in the sense that the same routes work for both, but Android definitely requires a lot more proactiveness from the player to remove threats before they overwhelm you.

Andro Dunos was an alright Neo-Geo shmup, the coolest thing about it was the weapon switching mechanic like the Thunderforce series.
Probably the most memorable part of it was this absolutely bizarre rank system, where the game would become near impossible if you so much as dared to power up more than one weapon, kinda defeating the point of the multi-weapon system. And don't even think about collecting all the bonus point items.
This game doesn't have that though, and in terms of overall level design it's definitely quite a step up from the original. Far more interesting design and the pacing is way better, whereas the original often suffered from dead air.

System
This game, like the original, lets you freely switch between four different weapons on the fly and most of the game is centered around strategic use of your various weapons to get past enemies and obstacles.
Each weapon powers up individually and each weapon has a unique and powerful special attack that's on a cooldown. You can only use the special again once the cooldown is over and the weapon you used the special with will be stuck at level 1 for the duration of it. Specials are always at max power regardless of a weapon's current power level.
Figuring out how to most optimally make use of your weapons to get max DPS and do speedkills on bosses is very fun.
Blue Shot: Strong forward focus. The most powerful shot from afar and also the most powerful pointblank if the missiles hit the target as well. The special cancels bullets and also pierces enemies, which is useful for enemies that are protected in armor or hide behind other enemies.
Green shot: Lets you shoot in 5 different directions at once on max power. The best shot for stages and the most versatile shot in general since it can hit most of the screen. Special does damage in a big circle around you and also cancels bullets. The most defensive tool in your arsenal.
Yellow shot: Backshot. The special on this is just straight-up broken, it does an absolutely absurd amount of damage. But its usefulness is somewhat limited since chances to hit enemies and bosses from behind is somewhat rare.
Grey shot: Wide shot. Good against swarms of popcorn, though it needs to be powered up to be really useful. The special gives you a huge wide shot and does the most damage, aside from backshot, if you can land every single shot onto a target.

Every stage has 30 bonus items that get dropped by certain enemies.
For every 10 you collect you get a bonus level up that you can use between stages to power up any of your various weapons.
I like this system because it incentivizes getting them all and it makes the stages more involved and dynamic.

Scoring
Not much scoring going on in this besides enemy destruction, picking up the bonus items and picking up powerups at max power for +2000 points. Bosses also have some destructible parts you can destroy. After every stage you can cash the powerups in for +5000 points instead of using them.
Scoring would probably involve a balance of powering up the least amount of weapons while still not losing out on score from enemy destruction.

The Respect 1992 stages are bonus stages you can unlock and are remakes of stage 1 and 3 of the original Andro Dunos, which is pretty neat. Respect B even has a unique boss.

The game has a practice mode, but it's probably one of the worst practice modes I've seen in a while. It only lets you start at the beginning of stages and they start you with close to no power, which is not useful in the slightest. It's better than nothing but not by much.

Buy the game on Steam here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/18...

00:00 - Intro
01:40 - Stage 1 - Our Planet
05:04 - Stage 2 - Space Colony
08:54 - Stage 3 - Asteroid
12:57 - Stage 4 - Deep Sea
18:08 - Stage 5 - Machine City
22:33 - Stage 6 - Battleship
28:54 - Stage 7 - Secret Base
36:53 - Ending & Credits
40:03 - Bonus Stage 1 - Respect 1992 A
43:25 - Bonus Stage 2 - Respect 1992 B

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