Guide to The Lost Viking minigame

So once you start playing the campaign missions, you'll get access to the Cantina and be able to play "The Lost Viking" minigame. It's a scrolling space shooter, reminiscent of similar games made in the 90s.

In case you're wondering why you should play it at all, it's a nice distraction and there are achievements to be won. You get an achievement for scoring 125,000, 250,000, and 500,000 points in it. The game itself is somewhat fun, albeit very repetitive.

I got 500,000 points on my first try and it takes about an hour and a half. It got pretty difficult to fight the boredom near the end, but I knew what I was getting myself into. You can't check achievements in game, so either memorize the score benchmarks or pause the minigame and alt-tab to look up the score levels.

Quick guide:

The best weapon loadout I could find is the double plasma + double drones. Plasma is way better at killing bosses and keeping drones alive allows you to deal with normal enemies.

Your main weapon is either the dinky default gun, the side missiles, or the plasma. Both of those can be upgraded once by picking up the same upgrade again. For example, pick up the "side missiles", then pick it up one more time to have the upgraded version. Future pickups don't do anything.

If you're using the side missiles and pick up the plasma, you will switch to level 1 plasma. Same thing if you have plasma and switch to the side missiles.

Item drops are random, and rotate over time in a set sequence. The order is: side missile, drone, plasma, bomb.

You can hold two drones at any time. More drone pickups do not do anything. If you get hit by most weapons (some boss attacks instantly kill you), it will destroy one of your drones. If you have no drones left when you are hit, you die.

If you die, you drop your main weapon upgrades as pickups.

Bombs clear most of the screen of enemies and projectiles and give you a short duration of invincibility.

Almost always use a bomb instead of risking a hit. Losing drones drastically hurts your ability to deal damage, ESPECIALLY in boss fights.

Boss guide

The carrier (first boss) is very straightforward. The interceptors don't do anything for most of their life, but fire a few projectiles before they retreat. Then the carrier fires a constant rotating beam. Start out in the middle, then pick a side and move that way when it starts firing.

The corruptor (2nd boss) has tendrils that instantly kill you. Using a bomb will destroy tendrils headed towards you and make you invincible. Strafing away from the first tendril almost always is safe. It also will rush you with an instant kill ability.

The last boss has several difficult to dodge projectile attacks, and on harder difficulties fires a bouncing blade. I'd make sure I have bombs going into this boss fight- usually only 2 or 3 is necessary for a pretty easy win. Just blow the bombs before projectiles hit you.