A deathless run of Drainus's hardest difficulty mode, Ridiculous. Some of the patterns on loop 2 are harder than Arcade Hard, and enemies appear to have more health than in Arcade mode. I played this using the same rules as Arcade, only allowing myself to go into the shop once in the middle of each stage.
Some silly mistakes in Loop 1, Stage 3. Forgot to save a bomb for the start to clear the last set of enemies from behind, and then after buying the Ultra Beam I forgot to equip it.
I went with an inexpensive weapon loadout in Loop 1 so I could save as much for Loop 2 upgrades as possible later on. 5 way's kind of weak compared to the wave or laser shots, but it got the job done. In Loop 2, Non-Stop is top tier as there's tons of situations that are way easier if you can shield while firing. Perfect Guard is crucial to handle all the revenge bullets of both types, and Homing Jet is effective for boss damage as well as handling smaller targets (though the Vertical Terrain Missile is also useful for loop 2 if you prefer that).
Ultra Beam allows you to sweep the screen of bullets, making it by far the best bomb for 90% of the game. The Hurricane Bomb is helpful for certain bosses in Loop 2 though, particularly the Stage 5 boss's second phase. Emergency Power-Up is also insanely strong as you can just recover your shields whenever you like and get a brief period of invulnerability, but I consider it a bit too unbalanced and overpowered to be fun.
I forgot to get the very last recorder in loop 2 in the section with all the dragons, oops. :D
You get full invulnerability whenever you release your charge while you've filled the entire ring. One thing that's not obvious though is it appears the homing lasers get a damage boost if you keep absorbing shots even when the green ring is already filled.
If you're looking for a run showing the entire story including all cutscenes, recordings, etc, please click this link: • Drainus - Full Story P...