Big Boss Breakdown #1: Poppoos (Fantasy Zone)

Boss Breakdown #1 introduces the ever delightful Poppoos from stage 5, Polaria. These snowmen looking fiends may appear friendly, but you'll soon find that they show little mercy to poor Opa-Opa.

Each row of Poppoos will unleash a flurry of snowballs that get more intense as you begin to face larger sets (there are 3 sets in total, followed by one large Poppoo). The smallest Poppoo's fire tiny bullets, and after destroying two from this row, those in the 2nd row begin attacking, defeat two from the second, then those in the 3rd row will also start firing. Soon you'll find yourself having to weave in and out of a bullet curtain of snowballs, which is verge on the bullet-hell level of intensity. Once these final two sets have been despatched, the largest Poppoo enters the fray attacking with the the biggest snowballs, but being so huge does make him sizeable target to aim for. 

The main problem with this battle is the sheer number and rate of bullets from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd waves of Poppoos, but there are strategies to deal with them relatively easily.

1) Dodging: using the tried and tested routing and bullet dodging method can be risky as you can  easily find yourself pinned in a tight spot. You will need to take out each row very quickly, particularly the 1st; their almost microscopic bullets can be very difficult to see.

Dodging requires skill and some practice.

2) Using the 7 way shot: This weapon is great for coverage and can help taking out each row very quickly. For it to last the duration of the fight, you'll need to trigger the shop just before you destroy the last base. 

The 7 way shot is super powerful.

3) Timing out the Poppos: There's a scenario during the fight where you can actually stop the Poppoos from firing. Yes, this may sound a little bizarre, but here's how it's done. Destroy the first set of Poppoos then take out the top and the bottom Snowmen from the second set; this gives you enough clearance to dodge the incoming bullets (this will make more sense if you watch the video below) as there won't be any bullets coming directly from the top and the bottom of the screen. The key here is not to continue to finish off the remaining Poppoos, but to dodge the bullets for approximately 1-2 mins. After this period, the Poppoos will stop shooting and will remain static, allowing you to easily take them out one by one. 

When used correctly this method makes light work  of one of the games more challenging bosses.

Well that's it for the first Big Boss Breakdown, let me know if this was useful in the comments. As mentioned they'll be more of these in the future and I can also take requests.