Quick Lock Tech: Letting go of the fire button when your ship is rotated from a lockon will allow it to return to center quicker.

Stage 1
Stage:
(?) Destroying the cave base faster causes the game to move on early.
Boss:
On opening pattern I count three bursts of the opener before unlocking and relocking to refill the lockon bar. The next refill will happen when relocking after phase change.

Avoid standing in the middle during second phase flame attack once the green copter goes back up to the center top. I usually sit on the left upper side of the screen. Remain locked until boss kill.

Stage 2
Stage:
The boxes that drop in the first half as you descend into the city are aimed three way spreads. You can macro them while feathering the fire button to take out zako without locking on.

For the three tougher burstshot helicoptors near the end of the stage, I start from the bottom right corner and lock the right one, then tap my way over to the left while making sure to lock kill all three.

on the boss, make sure to keep an eye out for zako helicopters that will come in from the top right and fire single aimed shots.

Stage 3

Burstshot copters. misdirect and lock kill. try not to let them push you around and trap you.

On the river, you'll be up against sets of 3 zako copters and green planes from the left and right. focus on the planes.

Harrier formation after the river, 3 harriers. Dodge up the left or right parts of the screen as you lock one and dodge as you need to from there. Sitting in the middle as they fire is a very very bad idea.

Planned bomb at second set of Green Planes, not because of the green planes, but because of the triple shot helicopters above the rightmost one.

open boss by locking, then circling around behind it. refresh lock bar when its back at top but before the second flame bullet volley. stay at sides during second volley. Transition to second phase, planned bomb once the spray is fired. wait two volleys or until boss is down in bottom left, then sit in the bottom right corner while locked. avoid dodging within the shots and the boss should die before or just as the next pattern shows up.

Stage 4
The missiles are static.
harrier formation of 3 is backed up by zako ships, making the usual strategy incredibly risky or downright impossible. Use a planned bomb to escape. second harrier formation at the city limit has no backup, dodge with same method as the S3 harriers.

The black round helicopters before boss fire three way spreads, once per copter. tap dodge and dont bother trying to speedkill, I havent been able to kill them before they fire.

During the boss, I lock onto the left coptership first and as they rotate I wait for a gap in the right one's bullet fire to cut over. Wait a moment for the now righthand coptor to raise up from the bottom before relocking to finish it off as both do a slow sweep with fire bullets. dodging in the fire bullets is not too tricky, especially once the first copter gets downed halfway through. Lock on second, stay at left and be ready for a planned bomb, as blue burstshot choppers will arrive to assist the coptership as it starts a spray n pray pattern. Continue until boss dies.

Stage 5
no normal zako. harrier formations and burstshot copters. use bombs when you get in trouble

The big gun turrets on the first phase of the ocean base look like theyd aim at you but they so far seem static. just watch out for their bullet streams and focus on the spreadshot turrets before finishing the machine gun ones off.

4 harrier formation memo trap. since some of them seem to fire away from you instead, i sit between the two left ones and am able to dodge leftish(?) to get past the opener. It might nail you the first time but its static for the first burst before they all switch to aimed.

Planned bomb on second section of base. lots of weird spreadshot stuff i dont like

Boss

seems to fire in this order of patterns:
fire shot streams down middle
spray stream across whole horizontal length of screen: can be dodged semi-easily.
Spreads with singular aimed bullets. I cant offer dodging tips since im in flow at this point or just panic/Honest Dodging.

refresh lock as needed, bomb as required.