PC Engine - How does the power up system work?
Had a deeper look into this Magician Lord STG and yeah, NORMAL difficulty is no challenge. You can stick to one favorite combination of orbs through the entire game. HARD spices things up a bit, which brings me to my strategy, which... is a lot like in Gunhed, where I used two weapons on a rotating basis (II & III) and only used/refreshed the Shield extra-weapon to avoid stray bullet hits.
In Spriggan, you have to refresh your shield, too. Once it's lost, you can easily loose a couple of lives on the spot. Using orbs as smart bombs isn't as effective as in Gunhed to get you to the next flashing orb unscathed, so beware.
The two orbs combinations I use, are:
1.
2 x Blue + 1 Red (or 2 x Red + 1 Blue, which is the same)
2.
2 x Blue + 1 Yellow (or 2 x Yellow + 1 Blue)
The first offers a good three-way shot and, most important, two fire tails, rotating around your mech, destroying incoming bullets.
The second offers two streams of big and powerful bullets shooting eccentrically forward with a very fast firing rate.
The rotation cycle is quite simple, mostly changing from stage to stage:
Act 1
Part 1: Combination 1
Part 2: Combination 2
Act 2
Part 1: Combination 1 for the first part up to the dam
Part 2: Combination 2 for the second part, after passing the dam, change needed because of the snapdragons.
Act 3
Combination 1
Act 4
Part 1: Combination 1 for the first part up to the fortress.
Part 2: Combination 2 as soon as you reach the fortress with all those little ground turrets.
Act 5
Part 1: Combination 1
Part 2: Combination 2, the firepower will help to destroy the scrap fragments and all enemies hiding behind it.
Act 6
Combination 2
I always keep this order: Blue, Blue, Yellow or Blue, Blue, Red. It makes the change easy, you'll need just one orb to collect, a Red one or Yellow one respectively.
Some hints:
-- Orb combinations of three different colors are a waste of time. So are the combinations of three orbs of the same color.
-- The three dominant factors to evaluate and ultimately choose any weapon are firing rate, fire power and protection.
-- From my experience, the Yellow/Green combo is not strong enough for the Hard difficulty.
-- Two Red orbs offer a similar weapon, as the Yellow/Blue combo, but it has less power.
-- Bosses often require to waste an orb as a bomb. The orbs come flying in very frequently, so it is better to save your shield, then to persist to hold on to your orbs.