Black Heart

G-616 Black Heart is the boss of Stage EX-6 (San Diego), the developer stage Black Heart's Domain, and one of the final bosses in Xeno Fighters R.

Attack patterns

The most famous attack of Black Heart: the sweeping bullet streams.

Black Heart's patterns are mostly the same as in Battle Garegga.

The fight starts with a squadron of smaller Black Hearts, before the big one shows up. It has homing missiles when being completely on top of the screen, has the five spread shots, when it circles (more-so rectangles) around the top half of the screen, the infamous bullet walls and it tries to ram you, afterwards trying to burn you down with its engines.

After losing almost half of its health, it goes berserk by spamming the five spreads, followed by the 'sun' pattern before going in for the kill with the MOVING bullet walls. Its weak spot is the center, but by destroying the wings, it becomes much more vulnerable.

Origins

Black Heart's first appearance is in Battle Garegga, a 1996 arcade shoot 'em up that was released by Raizing and Eighting, as the boss of the fifth stage in that game, the Cloud stage. It makes a guest appearance, along with the four Battle Garegga player planes, in 1998's Armed Police Batrider. It also has a mk-II model, the N-617 Black Heart mk-II, also appearing in those games, first appearing as the penultimate boss of Battle Garegga in the seventh and final stage, the Airport stage, equipped with new and improved weapons, and notable for being more unpredictable than the original.

Details

Black Heart is described as a positional defense fighter built by the Federation based on the Wayne brothers' designs. It comes equipped with mobile 35 mm machine guns as well as two miniaturized rocket booster engines, giving the ship a lot of versatility. However, its engines take at least 20 minutes before becoming fully operational, so it is always escorted by smaller ships, the Mini Black Hearts.

The mark-2 model was also developed, with better weapons and improved firepower and mobility.

Trivia

• During development, Black Heart was the stand-in endboss for two stages:
  • Stage 5-C (End of Days): It was the stand-in endboss until Copper Caoineag was added.
  • Stage F-B (Temporal Spaceport): As of v0.288, it is the stand-in endboss until the second half of the stage is completed, including Dreadnought Echidna.

Media gallery

A squadron of mini Black Hearts attacks the player before Black Heart itself shows up.	Black Heart attempts to burn players down with its thrusters. In its second phase, Black Heart fires aimed bullet spreads, catching players off guard who are used to getting in between the thrusters like in Battle Garegga.
The fast sunburst attack is part of Black Heart's second attack phase.

References

https://eightingraizing.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Heart

Bosses
Starting stage bosses	Techno-Ayako (1) ● Silver Banshee (2)
A-stage bosses	Jasper Gigas (3-A) ● Orion Arrow (4-A) ● Steel Aughisky (5-A) ● Bronze Harpy (6-A)
B-stage bosses	Jade Hydra (3-B) ● Obsidian Peryton (4-B) ● Citadel Geryon (Orthrus, Eurytion) (5-B) ● Dullahan (6-B)
Final stage bosses	Copper Caoineag (5-C) ● Gettok (F-A) ● Dreadnought Echidna (F-B) ● Balor (F-C)
EX bosses	Green Walrus (EX-1) ● Blue Optomon (EX-2) ● Ziyudee (EX-3) ● BonziBUDDY (EX-4) ● Vahrstor (EX-5) ● Black Heart (EX-6)
Midbosses	Staubteufel (3-A) ● Teramanta (3-B) ● Stymphalian Birds (4-B) ● Megadon (6-A) ● Xenoscorpius (F-B) ● Mauve Mokoi (F-C) ● Big Boy Shippu (EX-3) ● Clippy (EX-4) ● Hummingbird (EX-6)
Other	The Stranger (Azure Silence)