Holy crap it's been a long ass time since i've updated this
http://www.crookedstep.com/abadox.fcm
levels 4-1 and 4-2 are done
the 4-1 boss is insanely easy, seriously. normally he crawls upwads and turns around but i manipulated him to stay at the bottom of the screen, which honestly didn't take that much effort. easy!
in 4-2 my initial plan was to take the right path and switch to left when i could, so that both would be used (faster path to the boss on the left) however the right path was too easy so i used the left one the entire way
the 4-2 boss was weird, i was about to tear my hear out figuring out how to TAS this guy (this is why it took so long to update)
basically sometimes i'd shoot him and he'd take damage, other times he wouldn't. it seemed completely arbitrary. i eventually figured it out. when the eyball bulges out completely, he becomes vulnerable, so i would try to have my shot hit him on the 1st frame that the eye bulges, however he would not take damage. turns out that shots won't help him unless you start shooting AFTER he becomes vulnerable. shots that were fired before he's vulnerable will have no effect, even if they hit him while he's vulnerable. to add to that, if you start turbo or have any shots on the screen, you won't be able to hurt him at all. for this reason i had to hold off on firing until the 1st frame he was vulnerable.
the position i'm in for that battle serves 2 purposes (which is why i don't move) the first is that i'm right up close to him so that the above explained oddity won't slow the battle down much. the 2nd is that everything misses me, even though the shots from the left seem to touch me and his lasers go right through me, for some reason if i stay in that EXACT spot, i'm invincible. so you're damn right i took advantage of that fact!