Dragon Spirit/Stage 7

Walkthrough
After the frenetic pace of the previous stage, the seventh stage slows the action down, but only for a short while. In this stage, you will be swimming through the water, so creatures that swim as well are destroyed by your normal breath weapon, but you still need to bomb enemies that occupy the ground.

The stage starts off by sending waves of Eels at you. They swim straight down and occasionally fire projectiles at you. After a short while, you will see a red Anemone stationary on the ground firing many projectiles at you. Bomb it if you can. There will be a blue egg just above it to the right.

Almost simultaneously, a squid-like enemy known as a Gezora will appear, along with a flashing starfish called a Red Star. Gezoras tend to "bounce" around the screen and can be fairly erratic. The Red Star, on the other hand, comes straight down to a point, fires at you, and instantly retreats diagonally. You'll have to react very quickly in order to destroy it and collect the random power-up it leaves behind. More Gezoras will continue to appear.

A little further on, a red egg will appear on the left. Just above it and to the right is a dangerous ground foe, the Scallop. Scallops open their shell and fire two sets of three projectiles that fan out. Because some of the projectiles travel straight down, it can be difficult to line up a bomb shot at them without putting Amul at some risk. Approach it carefully if you plan to remove it, or avoid it entirely.

After a row of three red Anemones appear, the screen will fill with the water variety of Favos, called Sea Favos. They behave identically to their above-water brethren. Lure them up, then come underneath them and shoot them. A trio of Gezoras will attack after the Sea Favos stop appearing. An additional enemy, a Tis-horn, will appear from the bottom of the screen. You won't encounter any more of them until near the end of the stage, so they are described in further detail below.

Next up is a very large fish known as a Girasu. It moves left and right as it slowly descends, and fires projectiles at you. It has a lot of health so it takes quite a number of shots (depending on your breath weapon level) to destroy it. If you haven't killed by the time it's in the bottom half of the screen, you may want to avoid it. A red egg appears right behind it.

More Anemones will dot the ground, along with a flashing Scallop sitting on the ridge on the right side of the screen. Around that time, more Sea Favos will appear on the screen. More Geroza and Eels will swim down the screen before you encounter another Scallop on the floor. Shortly after that, another large Girasu will be swimming left and right, back and forth down the screen.

A flashing Red Star will be followed by more Red Stars, along with some Anemones on the ground. You'll fight them and some Eels until you see two red eggs on the ground, on either side of the screen. Shortly after that, you come to a crevice in the ocean floor, and it's guarded by a large shelled creature called a Home Shell. Home Shells occupy a small location on the screen and shoot icicles at you. You'll have to hit them sufficiently to destroy them and stop them from firing ice at you.

The first Home Shell will be followed by a community of five Anemones on the right side of the screen, all firing at you. The second Home Shell is angled 45 degrees to the right, so it shoots diagonally. It's followed by two Anemones above it, and a third Home Shell to the right. Eels and Gezoras will start to attack as well. Finally, five Home Shells will be arranged in a circle formation that extends to the far sides of the screen. Destroy as many as you can and swim around the rest. There's a blue egg between the top two.

Two more Home Shells can be seen on either side of the screen, facing each other. The next two shells will be facing up, and difficult to destroy without a good weapon. A flashing Scallop will appear above them in the middle. Two more Home Shells will appear with a red egg between them, and then a final Home Shell will appear above that in the center. Two Anemones and some Eels will attack before you swim over the next crevice.

On the other side, you'll see a red egg. By that time, a group of Blue Stars will fly out on to the screen in formation, and the last one will be flashing. Shoot at them and the Eels to stay safe as you proceed. Then you will encounter a new and dangerous enemy. Morays are fearsome creatures that poke their necks out of holes to breathe rather large fireballs at you. Each breath is a set of three fireballs that spread out, so you'll need to occupy a space between the center fireball and either side in order to survive. Getting beneath them to shoot at them and remove them is a big challenge, let alone simply surviving the breath weapon. What's worse, even when you do manage to destroy their head, they retract their neck, and return with a new head. When they pop their head out, they try to angle their necks and faces in your current direction, so it's possible to lure them to shoot at one side of the screen, and then get beneath them to destroy them while they shoot sideways.

The first Moray appears in the center of the screen. The next two appear shortly after, separated a bit, first to the left, and then to the right. An Anemone will be sitting between them. Then a pair of Morays will appear next, popping their heads out simultaneously. If you are in the middle, their heads will occupy the same space.

Once you make it past the Morays, you'll find a flashing Scallop on the left, and an Anemone on the right. Eels will descend down the screen to attack. As the Eels keep coming, you may notice three Anemones above a rock on the left. You'll need to rise up at this point because a very unfair enemy, the Tis-horn will begin appearing from behind you. They appear on the bottom of the screen and swim up. Your inability to predict when they will arrive makes it crucial that you stay off the bottom of the screen, or you will almost assuredly get hit. If that's not enough, they have another trick up their sleeve; when they get about half way up the screen, they explode into eight particles that scatter throughout the screen.

When the Tis-horns appear, another group of Blue Stars will swim on to the screen, with the last Blue Star flashing. After some more Eels and Tis-horns, the enemies will stop. You'll approach a crack in the floor, and it will open up to reveal the boss.

Boss: Sea Devil
The Sea Devil is a giant fish who is surrounded by a cohort of eight smaller fish. At first, Sea Devil is content to let the smaller fish to the fighting for him. Each of the smaller fish shoot icicles at Amul. But the smaller fish aren't too strong, and they're not that difficult to defeat. Once you remove a few, Sea Devil starts attacking you personally. He does so by opening up his mouth and releasing a spread of seven projectiles. These projectiles fan out rather wide, and you have little choice but to treat the entire set as a solid wave which you must fan out and fly around. The only time Sea Devil is vulnerable to attack is when his mouth is open to shoot at you. It will take a good number of shots into his mouth to destroy him. Note that while killing all of the smaller fish around him is very helpful and reduces the threat to Amul, you are not required to kill them in order to defeat the Sea Devil. It is possible to destroy him without destroying all of the smaller fish. Once destroyed, Amil will dive into the crevice created by the Sea Devil's arrival.