First, on my travels I came across a Japanese Sexy Paro site here:
http://bhdaamov.hp.infoseek.co.jp/parodius/se-chara.htmlLooks like it's just info, but might be handy.
The guy also covers the rest of the arcade series, as well as some others like Jikkyo Oshaberi.
http://bhdaamov.hp.infoseek.co.jp/parodius/sexy.html- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 - stage order and what stages to fail/pass
Hmmm. Let's see.
03a -> 04a
/ \/ \
01 -> 02 05 -> 06 -> [Special]
\ /\ /
03b -> 04b
Stage List:
01: On The Farm (no targets)
02: Bathtub Speedzone (300 coins)
03a: Underwater Geisha House (200 geisha)
03b: Mouse Infested Castle (100 mice)
04a: Girls In Crates (50 girls rescued)
04b: Tanuki Mines (10 mining machines)
05: Sky Garden (300 coins)
06: Takocastle (final stage, timed >_<)
First thing to note is that you will always go down in the stage route if you fail any stage, while you'll always go up if you pass a stage. While you can probably get away with failing at select times to make the next stage easier, bear in mind that rank has a huge part in this game, as it does in the previous games, so the failing part won't always work.
Also, bear in mind that the floating boss-rush stage pops up occasionally after stage 2 and before stage 5. While I'm fairly certain that the trigger is to get 300+ coins BEFORE the Toilet Penguin boss (st2 boss), it might not always work.
Note you can only access Special if you ALL on the all up route.
Your best bet is to learn the stages themselves. The all-up route is the best scoring route to take, and both 03a and 04a are really easy to pass the required target for. 03a especially, as you can use Shooting Star's charged up laser to take out lots of raining geisha at once during the stage (especially at the big dragon, kill it when it's above you then quickly charge the Spark Laser and release, and watch your target counter shoot up) and when the boss dies.
2 - recommended ship selection
Depends on your playing style. While I usually take wideshot-based ships/charas in previous Paro (Twinbee in Da!, Koitsu in Gokujyou, Rupa and Ran in Jikkyo Oshaberi), Sexy has a lot of good ships:
Hikaru:
Her Carrot Laser is devastating when you have four Options on the go.
Mambo:
While the temptation to take four Homing is great, personally I find that taking two Screw first, then two Homing is better, as you have strong front defense with two fast homing lasers to back up.
Koitsu:
As usual, take the K-Way and keep it at just under max. And the Basketball missile is hilarious, and funnily enough, also semi-homing. Great range, but no piercing-type attack, which makes defense in later stages tricky.
Option:
I love this ship. ^_^
Take the Thunder Cross powerup all the way for bouncing boomerang goodness. One of the more entertaining ships to use, with good power. I'm probably wrong, but I think you can control the formation if you're using the Thunder Cross powerup using the missile button.
Shooting Star:
My favourite as it's one of the best for scoring. Take the Spark Laser, and tear through everything in 03a, 04a and 06.
Also, I don't encourage bell farming in Sexy as there's a lack of good spots to do it. Best to just grab golds (and colours when required), and concentrate on clearing the stages.
3 - auto, semi auto or manual
If you're a Parodius veteran, then Manual is a good choice (as you get full control of when to use the bell powers if you're not using the Saturn/PSX version), but Semi-Auto is also good if you want to speed-powerup without worrying about when to press the Powerup button.
4 - how to milk score
The only way to score high here is to keep your bell values at 10k, and to clear the stages with the highest possible clearance of targets per stage. I'm still trying to work out what the correct order for powerups are, but I think it goes:
5x RED -> BELL -> 5x RED -> BELL -> 5x RED -> BLUE -> REPEAT
Don't take my word for it, though, as I need to check first. But in any rate, knowing when bells are about to be released is a good way of keeping your bell values.
5 - boss rush tactics with the rank up
From what I remember:
- American Bald Eagle:
Aim for the belly button. At high rank this thing will fire lots and lots of bullets, so try and take out the little birds circling it quickly. Use cutback tapping movements from the top to the bottom of the screen and back again.
- Hot Lips:
You can probably destroy the lips before they do anything major by using Shooting Star's laser, a fully powered wide shot, or a blue/red bell. If you end up with the lips split between the left and right of the screen, try and take out four of the lips to get them to merge together. When they do merge, lure it to charge you (it always comes right after you), get out of the way, and zap it.
- Giant Powerup:
Always charges at you in one of eight directions, and bounces off the edge of the screen like a pinball. Always lure it to charge straight, never at an angle. When ranked up, it'll always mix mines in with the powerups, so stay far away from it as you can. Try not to pick up any powerups if you're fully powered up either, as they become roulette powerups which is especially annoying.
- The Love Goddess:
The most irritating of the bossrush bosses. >_<
She takes patterns from the previous bosses - the circling cupids are from the Eagle, there's a Hot Lips pattern in there somewhere, and she'll throw a line of powerups and mines like the Powerup boss. She also fires a straight Ripple Laser attack from her fingers that always covers the middle of the screen, so try and stay away from that.
I'll come back later with something more concrete, as this is going off memory, but for now this should suffice.
