Tripod Sardine

Appears as a boss in:

G-Darius (1997)


Relatives: Nil.


Stop laughing. Again. Taito managed to combine one of my fave fishes, an Alice in Chains album and a half-bad free web space provider to give you THE insanest boss name in a long time. Quite an interesting guy to meet, though. His level is, like, in this lush quasiprehistoric stage with flying dinosaurs, huge plants, spiders, and the occasional monster dinosaur. When the camers starts to go berserk after the alarm wail, brace yerself. It ain't that bad, though.

Tips:Common to both zones C and D is Tripod Sardine's first weapon. He fires an expanding seven-bullet arc which is breakfast in bed, as he doesn't make a conscious effort to send it after you. From here, the two attacks vary, and I've chosen to deal with them in the next two paragraphs.


Area D's Tripod Sardine.


After this, he sends out the four cannons under his head to fire some pretty tangled bullet patterns. But don't worry- they're all perfectly destructible. The guns come out in two forms, both of which are not much to worry about. So far, so good. Thend comes a slightly more nasty attack. Leggy Fish sends out six bombs after you, which explode one after the other. A good way to avoid them is to move slowly and jerkily in an anticlockwise spiral from above his head to underneath it, and then, a bit up and backwards. The bombs should explods one after another in a staggered fashion then. Being unhappy with this, the boss fait du pied and JUMPS over you. Then come some missiles from above and below, nothing too dangerous as they're destructible. Then come the Orange Shield Thingies. Capture and charge, as Xoom Sardine covers his head while he charges his Beta Beam up. And then...BANG. Sock it to 'im. Done correctly, his head will fall off and you will get a fair deal of damage to his body, even enough to kill him. Otherwise, when the Beam peters out, you have to deal with a bitchin' annoyin' attack. The two remenants of the 'arms' move up and down and churn up huge semicircular wavefronts of energy and spray random bulets at you. But no matter what, he should be weakened enough to die fast enough.




Zone C offers more of a challenge, I'm afraid. After the bullets, he sticks out the four 'claws' on his arms to fire out nasty beam lasers (which look very fancy, though). They tend to be aimed at where you exactly are, so if you keep moving you stand a better chance of avoiding shield damage and/or death. Then come the missiles, more or less the same as in zone D. This Sardine doesn't jump at all. It is very important not to fire away too much at his head in the Endurance Mode as then it blows up you cannot hit him with the Alpha Beam (Orange Shield Thingies will be provided). Once his head is gone Beamwise or just through your usual laser/missile shot, you are treated to a frightening attack. Our fish comes back with this HUGE laser ball. He throws it at you and sprays the screen with bullets at the same time. This may sound glib, but a clean dodge is possible. You just have to avoid being crushed by the ball(s). The Alpha Beam can deflect it too. But in spite of the ball, Tripod Sardine is quite weakened by now and eventually he should go down.


Rating:

Colour Scheme:	78% (C), 82%(D)
Design:	85%
Attacks:	77% (C&D)
Name:	170%

Real-Life Inspiration: Believe it or not, there actually IS a tripod fish; it's also called the spiderfish (Bathypterois longipes). It lives at something like 2 to 5 kilometres below sea level and rests on modified fins called the 'tripod'. It's also a hermaphrodite.



Home | Darius Games | Main Boss List | Links | Contact