So, it's probably obvious that I got back into R-Type Final a little bit, after being away from it for several days. I finally beat the stage 4 boss on Bydo. However, because it's late, and because I'll have a busy day tomorrow, I had to quit when I got my next game over. So, I'll have to do it all over again. However, I expect that next time it'll be much easier.

Spoilers:
As there a lot of ships in this game (I currently have 36 unlocked), some of my time fighting the stage 4 boss was spent experimenting on which ship would be most suited for the job. Tonight, I unlocked the Bydo Systems Alpha ship, which seemed well suited for the job... until I tried the Bydo Systems Beta. But then I unlocked the Bydo Systems Gamma... and in fact did beat the boss with that ship.

I noticed something in general: When the delta weapon's dose is at 100%, the Force protects a larger area of your ship. At first I couldn't figure out why I would sometimes die when attacks would come at me from a certain angle, and other times the force would block them. Some experimentation revealed the truth.

With this knowledge, the first part of the stage 4 boss became absolutely trivial. It was always trivial with the T-X ship, and consequently I first thought I'd have to beat the entire boss with that ship.

Another thing about R-Type Final is that the ships all have different stages of charge. I unlocked one tonight that only had one level of charge (as it was in R-Type 1). On the other hand, the Bydo Systems Gamma ship has FOUR levels of charge. The beam charges to the second stage in Final much slower than it does in Delta. To get the fourth stage of charge, I'd imagine it takes at least a full minute.

What made the 2nd form of the 4th boss difficult? Well, as I said, it's like the stage 5 boss from R-Type 1. It launches pieces of itself about. But there are a few stages for the pieces when they're launched out. For example, sometimes after being shot at you, and you presumably dodge out of the way, they then JERK towards you again, with such speed I think I've failed to outrun them when my speed was set to 4/4. And then they change course one more time to return to the boss's body. Sometimes, though, it seems as though the jerk is at different parts of their pattern.

Because you have to concentrate on dodging so much for this boss, it's difficult to counterattack. That's where the Bydo System ships come in. Their beam is a homing shot. It's also pretty darn powerful. It seems to be able to destroy most of the projectiles from this boss without even being fully charged to the first level. The T-X couldn't do that, and its beam is supposed to be explosive. If you can manage to charge the beam more (though I doubt I ever charged past 2nd level while the fight was in progress), a single homing shot can take out several projectiles. I was able to fully charge (to fourth level) the Gamma's beam before the second form became active, getting me in one good first hit that took out several pieces of the boss. Fighting this boss with this ship is so much easier than with the others that I'm not sure what I'd do to beat it with other ships. On the other hand, since this game has so many ships, I doubt I'll try to beat the game with each and every one on every difficulty setting.

I only briefly tried stage 5 on Bydo. You may have read reviews that complained about the wavy graphical effect in this stage. On Baby to Human, the waviness was pretty slight. It seems that on Bydo, it's a lot more wavy and distracting. I'm not sure how this'll turn out.
I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!!
Crawl and 1000