It only took 10 years of whining but we finally got Cave on Steam.
Ultra mode is the hardest mode in the game by far and is the only mode in the normal game with a TLB at the end. The Mushi Ultra modes are pretty notorious for being extremely difficult and this mode is especially infamous for the last pattern.
The Ultra mode of this game is actually surprisingly doable compared to Futari's Ultra mode. All of the difficulty in this mode really lies in the TLB and reaching it with enough resources to beat it. Ultra would actually just be a moderately difficult clear if Aki didn't exist.
With certain autofire rates it's possible to get a stronger shot. With W power it's holding Full-Auto and Rapid Shot with Rapid Shot at TRIGGER TIME:1 and INTERVAL:2.
It's only really effective at close range but it's very powerful. It's powerful enough to kill Aki's 2nd phase before it even begins.
Aki has an anti-bomb shield as usual for a TLB but it has a very nasty additional property in this game. If you shoot Aki while he has his shield up it will start to shoot really fast and dense reflect shots. But the real threat of this anti-bomb shield is the fact that you can't focus until the shield goes away.
Aki's final attack is very complex and the only way to really beat it is by exploiting the screen scrolling.
First you misdirect the aimed cloud to the wall and then dash to the other wall and suicide. The cloud will be near the wall and the death makes it freeze to that point on the screen. This way you can "push" the cloud even further into the wall by scrolling the screen.
At the time of playing the stage 1 boss had major slowdown missing on his second attack that is necessary for survival so I had to bomb it. Hopefully this gets fixed.
Steam page:
store.steampowered.com/app/377860