(Insert ASCII Here) Note: ASCII needed! I'll be holding a small contest for ASCII between today--11/1/00--til the new year, so be contributing! Any ASCII pertaining to Gunstar Heroes will be accepted, from generic renditions of the logo to Blue and Green eating pizza, so don't be shy--mail me today! Gunstar Heroes Faq ----- Sega Megadrive/Genesis ----- Version 0.6 ----- Copyright 2000 Deeto Gunstar Heroes Copyright 1993,1994 Treasure ----- E-mail at joey_theslug@usa.net Secondary E-mail at pieduster@seanbaby.com Note to all: If anyone has anything relevant to add to the faq, be it alternate strategies for bosses, things for the misceallaneous section, or anything else, be sure to mail them to the above addresses. Thanx =) -Deeto Contents -------- 0) Things To Add 1) Revision History 2) Intro -Review -FAQ Guide 3) Controls -Generic Controls -Advanced Controls 4) Weapon Combinations & Strategies -Weapon Combinations 5) Stage Walkthroughs -Stage 1 -The Village -Papya Dance -Goin' Up -Bravoo Man -Goin' Down -Bee Hives... and a Robotic Arm?! -Pinky Roader -Stage 2 -Missing: One Brainwashed Brother -Green and the Seven Force -Soldier Force -Tails Force -Tiger Force -Eagle Force -Blaster Force -Urchin Force -Crab Force -Stage 3 -Runaway Air Battleship! -Into the Wild Blue Yonder -Swapping Reg -Colonel Red -Orange -Stage 4 -The Farmland of Gunstar -Hanging Gunship -The Farmland of Gunstar (cont.) -The Dice Maze -Fight 1:Valvalion -Fight 2:Timeron -Fight 3:Rush 'n Go! -Fight 4:Minion Soldier -Fight 5:Melon Bread -Fight 6:Bust the Car! -Fight 7:Pit -Fight 8:Rush 'n Go! -Fight 9:Phantom -Fight 10:Vortex Core -Fight 11:Super Gondola -No Gun:Curry & Rice -Fight 12:Aberenbou Gel -Black Beat Stepper -Stage 5 -My Way or the Highway -Final Great Soldier -Smash Daisaku -Stage 6 -The Space Battleship -Timeron -1000MM Gun -Seven Force -THE FINAL ASSAULT- -The Core -Core Guard System -Unit of the Hammer -Unit of the Dragon -Unit of the Runner 6) Miscellaneous 7) Credits + Thanx Section 0- Things to Add _______ *Walkthrough for Final Stage (Stage 7) *Fixes for Stage 4 *Miscellaneous Section *Credits + Thanx Section (Partially Done) Section 1- Revision History _______ 8/25/00-Friday 9:32 PM Well, I started this faq! After reading the mediocre one already at GameFaqs and deciding I could do better. Call it ego, call it bigotry, call it whatever, all I know is that this FAQ is going to faq-tacular. I hope. Uhm, wrote the intro section. The Intro contains a review of the game and a general description, along with the note that this is my first faq, so that you can read it both here on the revision history section and the intro section! Yee--haa! _______ 8/27/00-Sunday 8:31 PM Started on the Controls section. Went to check the controls by playing the game, but realized that I left my Genesis controller with a friend. Damn. Wrote the controls best I could from memory. Will try to get it back from him at school tomorrow. This revision is robotic. Error processing directive 404. _______ 8/28/00-Monday 6:08 PM Moving Slllllooooooowwwwwwwwlllllllyyyyyyy along. Added more to the weapon combinations. Got my stuff back. _______ 9/1/00-Friday 10:10 PM Finished the Weapon Combinations Section. When I started typing the 5th section, my notepad complained about lack of memory, so I copied the faq into wordpad, and everything works fine now. _______ 9/2/00-Saturday 10:03 PM Finished Stages 1-3. Will probably finish the rest of the stage guide tomorrow. I plan to release the FAQ to gameFaqs soon. _______ 9/6/00-Wednesday 7:05 PM Didn't finish the level guide. School came up. Just finished my homework, and I fixed up some things in weapons and some bosses. I also changed all the instances where I used the word health to the word vitality. ________ 9/7/00-Thursday 3:42 PM Patched up some things here and there. And I finally submitted the faq to GAMEFAQS!!! Oh yeah! ________ 9/10/00-Sunday 5:17 PM Added in some things in several sections. Also Added the moves unique to Fixed Shot. And I started on Stage 4. ________ 9/12/00-Tuesday 3:50 PM Added in descriptions for the bosses. Also fixed up some more things here and there. Finished Stage 4 as well! This counts as a new version in my book, so I mailed it to GameFaqs. ________ 9/14/00-Thursday 4:31 PM DAMN! Hotmail's screwed up, so I had to abandon my address there. 'bout time. I was getting 30 mails a day that was pure spam. After much deliberation, I decided to move over to USA.net. So, start using this new address, 'k? ________ 9/21/00-Thursday 9:22 PM I took a week-long break, but now I have a 3-day weekend to do stuff, like work on the FAQ. I added in Stage 5, and most of Stage 6. Only one more left! Oh, and I mailed the new version to GameFaqs. ________ 11/1/00-Wednesday 7:04 PM Well, after pops ordered the new comp, I realized that I should go ahead and update the faq for once. Thanks to Jamal Blackwell for being the first person to give me some infos that I could add to the faq. I added in the appropiate things here and there, and I also fixed up yet more things. I also put up a list of features left to add to the faq. Lastly, I worked a bit on the Misceallaneous and Credits sections. Go look at them! _____________________ End of Section 1! Section 2- Intro _______ Well, since I'm writing a faq on the game, I bet that you want to know just what Gunstar Heroes is (Although I guess that you wouldn't be reading this faq if you didn't know what the game was about). Gunstar Heroes is first and foremost a shooter. Shoot 'em up, run 'n gun, shmup, call it what you want, but the game essentially consists of moving your character (Soldier Red or Blue) through a stage horizontally and vertically, shooting with a gun in eight directions to kill everything in sight and move onward. However, there is much more behind Gunstar Heroes then just shooting. This game features many things you wouldn't expect to see in a game of it's type, from the fighting game like special moves to throws, slides, air jumps, and blocking, to the fact that you can combine 4 different types of weapons to make entirely new ones! Yes this game is truly one of style, substance, and incredible, INCREDIBLE fun. The best way to address all of this game's pros and cons is with a review. --------------------- Gunstar Heroes Review _______ Back in 1993, Konami, best known for Metal Gear, Castlevania, Gradius, Contra, and those great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, had an internal affair that would soon affect all of gaming. The team originally responsible for Contra (and Axelay, swwwweeeet Axelay), were sick and tired of being Konami's bitch, churning out loads of sequels to existing games with little room for creative control or experimentation. While once or twice being allowed the oppertunity to make a game with original concepts, they were constantly under restraint. Many of their games never made it out of R&D. After a while, the group broke off from Konami, forming a company that was soon bestowed with the now legendary name of........... TREASURE!!!!! Gee, I really should have put more periods up there. Treasures' first game was Gunstar Heroes, which while greatly resembling such classic shooters like Contra, added many new ideas, such as combining weaponry. What resulted was a first time effort (although the programmers had plenty of experience) that was much better then many old companies later efforts. Graphics-10 From the 3-d polygonal Treasure logo at the beginning of the game, to the awesome reactor boss, this game is a super nova graphically. I've not seen many other games for the Genesis with graphics as fine as these. In fact, I've never played a game on the Genesis with as good of graphics as this, even Treasure's later efforts. Every single sprite in the game has loads of frames of animation, and there's nothing that screams high production values more then that. There are also effects in this game that the Genesis shouldn't even be able to do. Scaling and rotation (minimal), huge amounts of objects onscreen at once without slowdown, some random stretchy effects, hell, this game even has polygons! Gameplay-10 Truly the games strongest suit. If this game was just a basic, barebones shooter, it would be fantastic. The gameplay is fast and intense, enemies are interesting, levels are varied, etc. Of course........ this isn't a basic, barebones shooter. One thing I've never seen in any other game (but then again, I'm a video game ignoramous.... pardon the 70's talk) is the combination system. Every once in a while, a robotic flying "duck" will fly by, and by shooting it you'll cause it to drop weapons. The 4 types are Force, Lightning, Homing, and Fire. Of course... you can collect up to two at once, and every combination of 2 you get will give you a different weapon. I'll leave it to you to learn the different combos (oooof course, if you're reading this faq, you can just scroll down and read the combos yourself, without having to do any work). Also, you can also do certain moves by pressing fighting game-like combinations. Add in some incredibly awesome bosses and you have yourself one stellar game. Sound-10 The sounds do a great job of conveying the action aurally. From your soldiers "yah!" to explosions and gunfire, GH gets the job done in spades. On the music side of things, I'd have to say that this is one of the most fitting soundtracks I've ever heard. The boss music is suitably edgy and fast-paced, while the other songs give similar atmosphere to the stages. Controls-8 There really isn't much to say about the controls... I usually don't have much to say, anyway. Eitherway, while the controls are simple, I find the Genesis Directional Pad to be unresponsive. It's all a matter of personal preference. Overall-10 There really is nothing wrong with this game that I can find on my own. Some people complain that this game is far too short, and that the ending is mediocre. However, like Chrono Trigger, this game is more of an extremely enjoyable experience then a "game" as put in the simplest sense. If you find a copy of this game, buy it.... at any cost! ---------------------- Ahem. Now that you know what I think of the game, you---the faithful reader--- can go ahead and read the faq.... Which helpfully is divided into many sections. These sections include the following.... 1) Revision History ----- Contains all of the updates I've ever made to this faq over the wonderful thing that seperates two events known as TIME!!! If you want to know how much hard work and effort I've put into this document, just look here.... or anywhere else on this FAQ. 2) Intro ----- The section you're reading now! Includes the fact that this is my first faq, a description and subsequent review of Gunstar Heroes, and then this... this handy guide to all the sections in the rest of the Faq. 3) Controls ----- Generic Controls are the simple, no brainer controls, such as what each button on the controller does, and what the controller looks like (for all you retards without a Genesis). Advanced controls give you all the controls that require an iota of skill to pull off, such as dashing, sliding, blocking, etc. 4) Weapon Combinations ----- Contains every single weapon combination known to mankind!!!!!! Gives you the expert advice you need to win!!!!!! Allows you to cook toast in less then 2 seconds and watch every TV show at once!!!!!!! Not really!!!!!!!! 5) Stage Walkthroughs ----- If you just can't get past that one part in the game, just look here. With strategies for every stage in the game, and guides to those diabolical bosses, you're sure to get the help you need. And if not, too bad. 6) Miscellaneous ----- Whatever I can't put in any other sections, or can't put anywhere without being arrested, goes here. 7) Credits + Thanx ----- This is where I thank all the people and things that helped me get this faq done. If you want, you can mail me and I'll put your name here... pointlessly.... ____________ End of Section 2! **************************** Section 3- Controls _____________ Part 1-Generic Controls Note: These are the controls I'll be referring to for the remainder of the FAQ. Unless otherwise noted, I'm playing with a GENESIS control pad, and that means I'm not playing with a piece of rock with a rubberband around it. ____________________________ Control Reference _________________ (Insert ASCII of Pad here) A-Cancel weapon. B-Fire Weapon C-Jump Directional Reference _____________________ Up=U Right=R Down=D Left=L O O OO |/--O QCF | \O-- QCB O-/|\-O O O O HCF/HCB Yes, I know that the ASCII for controls is confusing, but the terms should be familiar to any hardened fighting game fan. Just in case anyone is confused, allow me to illiterate. QCF is your basic fireball motion. Just go from pressing directly down on the pad to directly right on the pad, with the diagonal between them. QCB is the same as QCF, but you go from directly down to directly back (or left, whatever). And QCF stands for Quarter Cross Forward, as it's a quarter of the cross-pad forward, and Quarter Cross Back is... well, you get the idea. HCF is Half Cross Forward, and HCB is Half Cross Back. It's the same as QCF or QCB, 'cept that you go across half of the cross. Start on left, go to down (with the diagonal, of course), and then right. HCB is HCF reversed. Go from right to down to left. Any commands that don't use QC or HC will just use the basic cardinal directions Up (U) Right (R) Down (D) and Left (L). ___________________________ Part 2- Advanced Controls Now for the real meaty, scrumptious controls. I'm using all the terms listed above, so be sure to read that if you're confused by my terminology (and no, I'm not alienating any fighting game fans by saying that). All of my ratings are out of 10. I figure that's a good number. ___________________________ Air Jump (Moving Fire only!) -------- Command-Jump while in the air. -------- Rating: 9 -------- Description: Your soldier flings his arms and legs out to their fullest, and yells "Yah!". Besides giving you a bit of a speed boost in the air, and also propels him a bit higher. It also smashes any enemies in your way. -------- Evaluation: VERY USEFUL! You can use this do dodge fire efficiently, and it also allows you to get away from bosses in areas where you can't slide (both Orange battles). You can also smash enemies, making it quite potent for an offensive weapon. ____________________________ Triangle Jump -------- Command-Air Jump into a wall or obstruction, press A. -------- Rating: 5 -------- Description: When you get near a wall, you can do this to rebound off of the wall to hit enemies and move over fire on the rebound. Mostly useless. -------- Evaluation: Really only useful in the one mini-game in Blue's Dice Palace (see far, far below). Sometimes good on the last stage, as you can bounce off of the walls a lot there. ____________________________ Slide -------- Command-D+Jump. -------- Rating: 10 -------- Description: Your soldier goes immediately from standing to a feet first slide. During slide, you're mostly invincible, and you knock enemies and objects away from yourself. -------- Evaluation: Anyone who's played Contra Hard Corps (rumored to have been made by Treasure ex-defects) will be familiar with the almighty slide. Although not even half as useful as in C:HC (in that game it made you completely and totally invincible, and you could beat the game without dying if you didn't die during points where you couldn't slide), it's still a very, VERY useful move. Watch out though, don't try sliding through beams or other projectiles. You're not invincible. ____________________________ Flip Drop -------- Command-D+Jump, when in areas above the ground. -------- Rating: N/A -------- Description: Your soldier once again say "Yah!", and flips down from the hanging platform you are currently on. -------- Evaluation: It's more of a necessary move then anything else. As in every other platform game, this allows you to drop down to the platform directly above you. It can hit guys below you, but I'm not really going to go so far as to rate the move. ____________________________ Throw -------- Command-Near enemy, press fire. -------- Rating:9 -------- Your soldier grabs an opponent and throws him across the screen (and he yells "yah!"). Will knock other enemies that the thrown enemy hits away, maybe even killing them. -------- Evaluation: Yawn, yet another 9. I really should stop rating these moves. But then again, this move is great! You can grab just about anyone or anything, and throw them for high damage! Use liberally. ____________________________ Standing Slide -------- Command- HCF+Fire. -------- Rating:7 -------- Description: Your soldier slides across the ground and rams into anything in it's path. -------- Evaluation: While it's fun to do and it looks cool, this move really has limited use. It does high damage, but you can't avoid enemy fire with this thing. ____________________________ Block -------- Command- Hold Jump, hold Fire. -------- Rating:7 -------- Description: Your soldier covers his head with both of his arms, causing enemy damage given to you to be reduced. -------- Evaluation: While this move is very useful, You have to wait til you fall back down to the ground from the jump to start the block, making it very clunky and unweildly to use. It does have it's purposes, though. ____________________________ Downward Kick (Fixed Fire only) -------- Command- In air-Down + Jump -------- Rating:8 -------- Description: Your soldier forces his foot downwards and smashes anything in it's path. -------- Evaluation: A really useful move! You'd be surprised how susceptible enemies are to this thing. _____________________________ Flying Kick (Fixed Fire only) -------- Command- In air-Jump -------- Rating:9 -------- Description: Your soldier kicks out in mid-air. -------- Evaluation: It serves the exact same purpose as the air jump, so there really isn't much to evaluate. It looks way cooler then the air jump though, so it gets style points. End of Section 3! ***************************** ***************************** Section 4- Weapon Combinations and Strategies All of the weapon combinations in the game have varying degrees of usefulness. I'm rating each combination for the following categories. Damage-How much damage does the weapon do on enemies? Speed- How fast does the weapons fire move? Rate of Fire- At how high of a clip does the weapon fire? Range- Can you hit an enemy from anywhere onscreen? Or do you have to move around a bit to get a bead on the enemy? Each category is rated on a level of 1-5. There are 4 base weapons, which you can combine to make the other weapons in the game. ____________________________ Force -------- Damage-3 Speed-4 R.O.F.-4 Range-2 -------- Description: 1 clean, steady stream of orange spherical bullets fire straight forward, destroying anything in their path...slowly. Can be aimed in 8 directions. -------- Evaluation: While weak, Force is probably the best weapon to choose at the start of the game. It can be used to clear crowds, and is also proficient in taking care of bosses. However, Range can be a pain in the ass. You'll often find yourself not being in a good position to fire at enemies, and that can be a problem. _______________________ Lightning -------- Damage-2 Speed-5 R.O.F.-5 Range-2 -------- Description: A super-fast beam of lightning fires all the way across the screen. Can be aimed in 8 directions. -------- Evaluation: Stupendous speed, but the poor damage makes it a bit difficult to use effectively. Also a good starting weapon. ________________________ Fire -------- Damage-4 Speed-3 R.O.F.-5 Range-1 -------- Description: A short burst of flame shoots out and stays there, like a flame-thrower. Does high damage to anything and everything. When you let go of the fire button, the flames currently firing will let go from your gun and go all the way across the screen at high speed. -------- Evaluation: High damage, but the terrible range makes sure to screw you over. You'll have to get close to do damage, but if you're skilled, you can usually make up for the short range. _________________________ Chaser -------- Damage-3 Speed-2 R.O.F.-1 Range-5 -------- Description: A burst of green, arrow shaped bullets home in on any enemies onscreen. -------- Evaluation: An excellent weapon. Although the rate of fire (poor) is annoying at times, you can fix this just by getting 2 homings for Hyper Homing (see below). In my opinion, Chaser removes all of the challenge from the game. Any enemies below mid-bosses will get blown away by the wave of green arrows. Of course, I'm a total freak, so anyone else will probably love this weapon. _________________________ Now that you know the Pros and Cons of the base weapons, you can effectively choose a base weapon to start the game with. At the start of the game, you are given the option to use one of the 4 base weapons. You can get through the game with any of them, but certain weapons will make levels easier. I'll leave those details to the level faq (below). After you start the game, you can combine weapons to make more complex weapons later on. I've rated each weapon on the same categories as the base weapons, and I've given each weapon a name since I don't have the manual to G.H. (I'm pretty sure it has the names of the weapons) Force + Force -------- Rapid Cannon -------- Damage-4 Speed-4 R.O.F.-4 Range-4 -------- Description: A blast of large, orange spheres fires and goes in a semi- spread pattern. -------- Evaluation: Fast and accurate, this weapon is easy to use and does high damage. The spreadiness of the gun can be annoying when you try to cap small targets, but otherwise a great weapon. _________________________ Force + Lightning -------- Light Stream -------- Damage-4 Speed-4 R.O.F.-5 Range-5 -------- Description: A Stream of blue light fires out at high speed. -------- Evaluation: My favorite weapon. Anyone who's played Contra Hard Corps will recognize this weapon as Brownie's A weapon. Although fast and powerful, that's not this weapon's strongest point. If you fire this weapon straight forward, then you can make it spread more by repeatedly tapping up. An ASCII example: ______________ ______________ _____________ | | | | | / -/ | | | | | After | / -/ | | | | | tapping | / -/ | | "Yah!" | | Your Fire | Up | /-/ | | / | | \ | | // | |S<--You | |S-------------| |S------------| |______________| |______________| |_____________| Yes, well, the ASCII was crap, but what it comes down to is that by tapping any other direction then the one you were pressing when you fired the light stream will cause the stream to fire in all the directions between where you were firing and 90 degrees. Several other weapons have this property, so for the sake of.... something, I'll be referring to this technique as the "wave". One thing that may piss you off is when you are being attacked on all sides and can't turn around to fire fast enough ( the stream has to go entirely around your soldier). This can be fixed easily. By just stopping the fire (by letting go of the fire button, stupid!), you can then turn to the direction of the thing you want to kill and then fire. This is a fast and effective way to get enemies on all sides. ________________________________ Force + Fire -------- Exploding Cannon -------- Damage-5 Speed-2 R.O.F.-2 Range-2 -------- Description: A sort of rapid blast of orange spheres will fire out and explode on contact with anything. -------- Evaluation:Combine the greatness of Force with the high damage of Fire and you get..... this? My least favorite weapon, this is both the most boring and the most annoying weapon in the game. While powerful, It really isn't that interesting to have an exploding version of Force (which isn't even rapid fire!). _________________________________ Force + Chaser -------- Chase Gunner -------- Damage-4 Speed-4 R.O.F.-4 Range-3 -------- Description: A line of orange spheres will fire and hit the nearest enemy. -------- Evaluation: It's homing force! However, the weapon will often fire on enemy's that you really don't want to bother with, and it's hard to get the weapon to target another enemy. A good weapon otherwise. __________________________________ Lightning + Lightning -------- Electric Nightmare -------- Damage-4 Speed-5 R.O.F.-5 Range-3 -------- Description: A Hyper fast beam of light goes all the way across the screen. -------- Evaluation: Relatively powerful, this weapon does the job in killing your enemies. ___________________________________ Fire + Fire -------- Flame Stream -------- Damage-5 Speed-5 R.O.F.-5 Range-3 -------- Description: A Long blast of flames fires out of your gun and stays in mid-air, like a flame-thrower. Can be fired across the screen by holding fire and then letting go. -------- Evaluation: Another one of my favorite weapons, this fiery personality is essentially a longer version of Fire. You can use the wave to hit enemies all over the place for high damage, and bosses are especially weak to it. Use it effectively and you cannot be stopped. ____________________________________ Chaser + Chaser -------- Hyper Homing -------- Damage-4 Speed-4 R.O.F.-4 Range-5 -------- Description: A huge, all-consuming blast of green stars homes in on all enemies for high damage. -------- Evaluation: Cheap, Cheap, Cheap. Any enemies less then a miniboss will be killed almost instantly by this thing, so this is definitely the ultimate lazy-man's weapon. ____________________________________ Lightning + Fire -------- Light Sword -------- Damage-5 Speed-5 R.O.F.-4 Range-1 -------- Description: A Very, very short beam of lightning will come out of your gun, and can be aimed in 8 directions. Can also cancel out most enemy fire. -------- Evaluation: Although I once thought this weapon to be the worst in the entire game, it turns out that this weapon is incredibly useful! Although it has short range, it does incredible damage, and it can cancel out nearly everything that enemies shoot at you. Lasers? Gone. Rapid bullets? Evaporated. Bombs? Exploded. The only thing that this weapon can't cancel out is large weapons. Stuff like Soldier Forces Arm Bomber and Smash Daisakus Spiral Head. And I think they can be canceled out, too! Later on, this weapon is a must, unless you've got the Mad Skillz (TM) needed to succeed without. _____________________________________ Lightning + Chaser -------- Target Beam -------- Damage-4 Speed-4 R.O.F.-5 Range-5 -------- Description: A twisty lightning beam will target the nearest enemies and continue to smash them until they're dead. -------- Evaluation: Pretty good, but uncontrollable! You can continue to electrocute enemies until they die, but that essentially means that you can't control where the beam hits. Really useful for bosses. Just fire and forget! _______________________________________ Fire + Chaser -------- Radio Flame -------- Damage-4 Speed-4 R.O.F.-3 Range-5 -------- Descripton: A line of flames fires at the nearest enemy. It won't disapear after it hits, however, and you can control where it goes next with the control pad. -------- Evaluation: Awesome! What a great idea, having a weapon you can control. You can pretty much hit anything from anywhere onscreen, but the movements you'll make to move the flame may put you in a dangerous situation. Be careful. ___________________________________ Abusing the Duck -------- Although the duck will stop dropping items after you've shot it several times, you can get even more weapons by air jumping into it. However, after enough times of doing this, the duck will fly away and you'll have no more items out of it. However.... If you air jump into a duck, it will drop more items. After three, it will stop, but if you're playing with 2 players, you can have one player grab an item, and the other player can keep hitting the duck for more items! ___________________________________ Which Firing Type? -------- At the very beginning of the game, after you decide the number of players and before you decide the weapons you'll start with, you're given the choice of either a moving or fixed firing type. If you're moving, you'll be able to move while firing, and if you're fixed you'll be forced to stay in one spot while firing. Your soldier will also look slightly different. If you're moving, your soldier will be slightly unkempt looking (like just about anyone in anime these days), and if you're fixed, you'll have different hair, a bandana, and you'll look meaner. However, while it may seem like the obvious choice is moving, don't be so sure. Fixed has some useful moves that moving don't, like the downward kick. Some weapons force you to move to hit on diagonals, and others just make you move (Radio Fire). If you're using a weapon like Flame Stream or Light Stream, or any chaser weapon, you'll want moving since you can stay still while firing at diagonals. If you're using anything with the word Force in it, you'll be wanting fixed. Of course, some people like playing as fixed for the hell of it. It all depends on your style of play. End Of Section 4 **************************** **************************** Section 5: Stage Walkthroughs And here is the meat of Gunstar Heroes- The stages. Filled with variety and excitement, these stages are also very, VERY tricky. That's where this faq comes in. If you ever need help with a stage, you should just look here. _______________________________________ At the beginning of the game, you're able to pick any of the 4 stages. However, some of the stages will be unfathomably difficult at the beginning. Every time you beat a stage, however, your starting vitality for every other level will go up by 20 points, thus making any other stage much, much easier. It is possible to beat any of the 4 levels right from the start, but.... don't say I didn't warn you. _______________________________________ NOTE: All Boss actions are taken directly from the game. Some actions are not named within the game, so I've named them myself. _______________________________________ NOTE2: All Boss Vitality listings are from playing of HARD difficulty. While most boss vitalities are the same no matter what difficulty, there are some that aren't, so expect an easier fight if you're playing on an easy difficulty. Obviously! Stage 1: Ancient Ruins 1-1: The Village You'll immediately become swamped with enemies at the beginning of this stage. Get used to it, as almost every other stage will have parts like this. Just use your moves and weapons to kill all the enemies. If you become grabbed, just jab buttons and you'll escape and maybe throw whoever was grabbing you. A lot of the enemies throw skull bombs (bombs with skulls on them), and now would be a good time in mastering the art of throwing the bombs back, since you'll be seeing a lot of them later. How? Simple. If the bomb was thrown and you're about level with it, just wait til it's close, move forward, and press fire. If it was thrown from the air, wait til it's close, jump towards it, and right before it hits you, press fire. Not too hard, is it? Also, Jamal Blackwell (jamalblackwell@hotmail.com) had this to add: A general thing to remember during any stage is that every normal enemy that appears on screen waits before attacking. It's like they count to 10(pretty fast) and then they shoot. If you make sure you're hitting everyone on screen (not necessarily killing them), then you're much less likely to be shot at. Being hit yourself resets their counter. A tad bit into the stage, your first duck will appear. Smash it with an air jump and take whatever parts you need to make your desired weapon. A little further past the duck you'll fight a red phantom. If you have Target Beam (Lightning + Chaser) you'll take care of this guy in about 2 seconds. If you don't have it, just avoid his slide (an ! will appear above his head before he does it) and shoot, shoot, SHOOT! After he explodes, take the 15 points of vitality he leaves behind and get ready to fight... !!!!!BOSS!!!!! Papaya Dance -------- Description: A large, green celery-like stalk with a fuzzy end at the top. Waves to the left and right wildly when shot. -------- Actions: Baloon Bomber: Papaya Dance drops a load of pink balloons that will fall towards you. Mother Ant: a large yellow ball will fall slowly to the ground. When it hits, it will turn into a large snake-insect. -------- Vitality: 1234 -------- Difficulty: 1 -------- Strategy: Pathetically easy. Stand in the middle and fire up to the stalk. Avoid the balloons (they fall slowly), and kill the insect when it forms. You should destroy this thing in no time. 1-2: Goin' Up If you're playing on Easy mode, you'll immediately go to the pyramid. However, on Normal and up, you'll have to go through more of the village and kill more soldiers like in 1-1. You'll have to fight another Red Phantom, this time, it has a satellite that orbits itself, preventing you from getting close to it to do throws or other close attacks. After you get to the pyramid, you'll see a bunch of soldiers with jetpacks. You can't hurt them. After they lift off, start up the pyramid. You can flip drop down to the segments below if you want. All the way up, soldiers with jet packs will attack you. They drop easily enough. Just don't get hit too much by their lasers. About halfway up, a duck will fly by. But this is no ordinary duck. This duck drops vitality! Abuse the duck, and you can get up to 300! After getting all the vitality you need, proceed up the pyramid like before. Once at the top, you'll have to fight another... !!!!!BOSS!!!!! Bravoo Man -------- Description: A huge cluster of cubes forms together to make the ultimate(?) fighting machine, Bravoo Man. In other words, a big man made out of boxes. The head is a clear cube with two blue objects inside. -------- Actions: Spinning Driver: Bravoo Man will fly towards you with his arms spread out, and spin. After passing you, he (it?) will go into the sky and repeat the process the other way around. After he lands, he will have regenerated his health. Dragon Punch: Bravoo Man will do a low, sweeping punch. Can also be done high. Bravoo Spin: Bravoo man will jump in the air and spin his legs around rapidly. -------- Vitality:3421 -------- Difficulty: 2 -------- Strategy: Interesting, to say the least, besides the obvious pun involving Johnny Bravo (of course, I could say that about the game Bravo Man, for the TG-16). Your first instinct should be to shoot Bravoo Man, but you'll need to take some time out for some dodging. When he does Spinning Driver, wait until his arms are in the air, and then do a standing or low slide. Of course, this will cause him to regenerate all of his health, so you'll need to get off enough damage the second time around to kill him. Stay far away, and you'll take care of this basto in no time. 1-3: Goin' Down After Bravoo Man has been silenced, the floor will bust, and you'll be sent sliding down the side of the pyramid. Soldiers will come bumbling down the side begging for you to kill them, but occaisionally one that's serious will slide down, and you'll have to shoot them a bit more then your average soldier, and they'll actually shoot at you! Jump and avoid their fire while simultaneously attacking, and eventually you'll make it to the bottom.... 1-4: Beehives... And a Robotic Arm?! As you come down the pyramid, you'll slide to a stop, and a duck will fly by. Take any items you find important, and continue on. You'll approach a beehive, and then a large, red robotic arm will attack you! You can't harm the arm, but you can avoid it. It will continue to attack you until you make it to the end. In the meantime, shoot the beehives, along with the bees, until you destroy them. When you get to the very end, the arm will come out and move around in a clockwise pattern, and several soldiers will come out. After you kill them, you'll find the source of this robotic arm is.... !!!!BIG BOSS!!!! Pinky Roader -------- Description: A relatively large red robot, with two segmented legs, and a hole on the side. Next to the hole is a window, where you can see Pink and her two henchmen inside. One is a skinny guy with a kind of large chin, and the other is a nerdy looking guy with a round head. Both have black sunglasses. Pink is the most generic bimbo you could possibly imagine. -------- Actions: Hitman Shot: Pinky Roader's right arm will come out, with one of Pinks hitmen (The one that isn't a nerd) on top of it. The arm will move around, and the hitman will shoot at you rapidly. Iron Knuckle: Pinky Roader's right arm will come out, with a spiked iron ball on the end. The arm will then try to smash you with the ball. Shooting it will keep it in place. Hitman Bomb: Pinky Roader will let out several explosive balls which will home in on you. --------- Vitality:3201 --------- Difficulty: 2 --------- Strategy: After Pinky Roader lands, it will immediately initiate Hitman Shot. Dodge the lasers the hitman shoots, continuing to fire at P.R. the enitre time. After a bit of this, Pinky Roader will start to jump around. Slide under the robot while it's in the air, and hit it when you're safe from being crushed. At this point, it will let out several explosive bombs. Just avoid them and keep shooting. At this point it should start Iron Knuckle. Keep dodging and shooting and P.R. will lose it's limbs and explode. Grab the gem and you've finished Stage 1! ___________________________________ Stage 2: The Underground Mine Note: This stage will prove to be an incredible pain if you take it second. I suggest finishing Stage 3 first before attempting this stage. 1-1: Missing: One Brain-washed Brother As you enter this stage, you'll be on the Professors modified mining cart. You can slide as usual, but air jumping will flip you upside down and cause you to stick to the ceiling. Enemies will come from all over the place, as ususal. Just shoot them. After some time, a mining train will approach, and three soldiers will be waiting inside to shoot at you. After you kill all of them, the train will move off-screen, and the mine shaft will change direction, and you'll be going straight down. Air jumping will put you on the other side. The only real problem you should run into will be the two robots that come from the bottom, they will be projecting a guard beam that you can't cross until one of the robots is dead. Of course, they'll shut off about halfway up the screen, but they'll turn on again near the top, so don't wait out up there. Again, after a bit, the train will come up with three soldiers. They'll be asleep, so take them out descreetly. Andddd, the shaft will change and go right, again. Again, the train will appear and three soldiers will be waiting inside, this time awake. After the first three, another three will come up. And another three after that. After the last three, the train will catch on fire. The train will go offscreen, then come back. Inside the last car of the train will be Colonel Red, the dastardly M.Bison rip off. He'll throw a bunch of soldiers at you. Just shoot them out of your way. After about 5 seconds of this, the last car will catch on fire, and Red will jump on top of it and laugh as it gets carried offscreen. A duck will come by with some health, so take it, and get ready for one hell of a fight... !!!!BIG BOSS!!!! Seven Force -------- Description: Before you're forced to fight any of the forces, you'll see Green come in on the Seven Force. Green looks a lot like Red and Blue (The two soldiers you control), except he wears Green, has a flowing black cape, and combed back, slick hair. Seven Force is the thing that transforms into all the other forces. It's floating in midair, and it consists of a round green object in the middle, with two semi-serrated green objects on the side. -------- Actions: Soldier Force-Is a horizontal force. Tails Force-Is a vertical force. Tiger Force-Is a horizontal force. Eagle Force-Is a vertical force. Blaster Force-Is a horizontal force Urchin Force-Is a vertical force. Crab Force-Is a horizontal force. The difference between horizontal and vertical forces is that horizontal and vertical is which way you're going in the mine shaft when you fight the boss. You're going downward when you fight Tails Force, so it's a vertical force, and you're going sideways when you fight Blaster Force, so it's horizontal. -------- Vitality: N/A -------- Difficulty:4 -------- Strategy: Here it is, the legendary Seven Force, and what a legend it is! Seven bosses, seven ways to get brutally killed. Actually, this boss isn't as hard as it seems. For one, every one of these bosses has an incredibly fixed pattern, and once you learn it, you can't be touched. Also, pretty much any weapon will work on any one of the forces, but keep in mind, short-range weapons will make the battle much tougher. The fight will always start with Soldier Force, and just go to random forces from there. However, the forces always go from a horizontal to a vertical force, so you've got some idea of which force you're fighting next. Also, if you're playing on easy, you'll only have to fight 3-4 forces. Normal is 5 forces, and Hard and up is all 7. (Thanks to Jamal Blackwell (jamalblackwell@hotmail.com) for the info!) !!!!BOSS!!!! Soldier Force -------- Description: After leaping off of Seven Force, Soldier Force automatically forms around Green. There is the usual round object in the middle, and the rest of Soldier Force is composed of soon-familiar objects. A semi-serrated green block, a weird fist-like object, some orange orbs connected together, and a head-like object, among others. The entire package looks like a strange conglomeration of a soldier and a scrap heap. Overall pretty cool looking. -------- Actions: Arm Vortex: Soldier Force's Arm will aim itself at you. After a few seconds of aiming, it will extend out to hit you. Goes backwards as well. Arm Boomerang: Soldier Force rears back for a second, then moves forward and hurls a salvo of boomerangs at you. Only done high. Arm Bomber: Soldier Force throws several green, circular bombs onto the ground, which explode. Leg Slide: Soldier Force awkwardly slides forward, then quickly returns to a running position. -------- Vitality: 4101 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Not too hard. Arm Vortex is the usual "I'll aim at you for a while and give you time to escape" move, all you have to do is constantly move to avoid it. Arm Boomerang is only used if you're on the ceiling and hitting Soldier Force from where he can't hit you, so just move up the ceiling for a second, and only when you have to. Although it may seem like Leg Slide is impossible to avoid, it only happens when you're at the feet of Soldier Force, and S.F. will lean forward for a second before starting the move. Arm Bomber is explosive, so go on the ceiling to avoid the blast. !!!!BOSS!!!! Tails Force -------- Description: A large blue object is the "head" of this monstrosity. It then has several blue round objects connected by orange spheres, and at the end of it's "tail" is a huge cutter-like object. -------- Actions: Somersault Tail: Tails Force pauses in place, and then does a backflip. Lightning Zap: The flap above the "head" of Tails Force opens up, and unloads a ton of ammo. It also has a variation of this move where it goes along the walls and fires. -------- Vitality:4102 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Another relatively easy boss. Stay near the walls and fire. When it opens it's flap, run like hell and retaliate when safe. If it gets too close for comfort, it's probably going to do Somersault Tail, so move over the opposite side of the shaft, or go below its tail. !!!!BOSS!!!! Tiger Force -------- Description: A Huge, orange tiger made out of the Seven Force parts. -------- Actions: Sight Laser: The Tiger Force's tail will aim at you, and a sight will appear over where it's going to aim. It then pauses for about a split second and fires a blue energy blast. It can expand the sight and shoot an explosive shot. Trace Zapper: The Tiger Forces tail will wildly flail about with a blue line attatched. The line bounces all around, and after a bit, the Tiger Force will fire a yellow beam along the line, which will rebound off the ceiling and floor. -------- Vitality:4203 -------- Difficulty:3 -------- Strategy: The pause between the aiming of Sight Laser and the firing is short, so you'll have to be constantly moving. Be sure to be calculating the backwards part of the Trace Zapper. If you just wait til the beam has gone through, the beam will bounce back and hit you. Chaser weapons will make this fight much easier. !!!!BOSS!!!! Eagle Force -------- Description: A large, blue eagle made out of the Seven Force parts. Composed of a head, two wings, and a huge tail. -------- Actions: Dance Dance: Eagle Force moves one of it's wings up, one down, and it's tail to the side of whichever wing it moved up. Then it moves itself back to it's normal postition, and then moves the wings up and down again. Every time it moves it goes a bit up the screen. It does this until it moves all the way to the top of the screen. It then comes all the way down, and moves it's wings up right at the bottom. It then repeats. It can then start the move over doing it sideways, or upside down. Spread Laser:???? -------- Vitality:4006 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Not too hard. Just get below him and make sure he won't hit you with his tail on the rebound. The idea to getting around the Eagle if it goes up sideways is to go on the left. Don't try to go on the right. It's a mistake many make. !!!!BOSS!!!! Blaster Force -------- Description: A huge gun made out of the seven force parts. The entire gun is composed of the serrated blocks. -------- Actions: Grenade Shoot: The Blaster Force spins rapidly, aims at you, and quickly fires. It repeats 12 times. It then stops, drops out it's clip, and reloads. It then fires another 12 shots and reloads. Repeats until dead. Gold Bullet:???? -------- Vitality:4007 -------- Difficulty:1 -------- Strategy: Piece 'o cake. Just shoot rapidly, and move constantly. Take the time it needs to reload in stride and get off several hundred pts. of vitality. Make sure not to go on the left, it'll leave you wide open to get shot at. !!!!BOSS!!!! Urchin Force -------- Description: Yet another large creature made out of Seven Force parts. A load of serrated blocks arranged in a circular pattern makes up the main part of this robot. -------- Actions: Hyper Sonic Spin: Urchin Force bounces back and forth between the two walls. After a while, it will go "hyper sonic" and spin incredibly fast, while going down the side of the wall. It then repeats the process on the bottom. Rush and Roulette: Urchin Force appears in the center of the screen with energy balls between it's prongs. It then spins around, stops, and fires the balls. It then repeats. -------- Vitality:4302 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Not hard, so don't worry. Just shoot it on the opposite side of where it's spinning, then do what you need to get as far away as possible from the Hyper Sonic Spin. After it drops to 1500 health, it will start Rush and Roulette, so just stay a little bit above the bottom right of the screen and fire, and you'll never get hit. Hopefully. Dodge if you have to. !!!!BOSS!!!! Crab Force -------- Description: It doesn't really look much like a crab, but it's the thought that counts. The main circular object is in the middle, and the rest of the body is random red parts. -------- Actions: Crash Mine: Crab Force lets out a circular red orb that explodes on contact with... you! It goes straight across the ground/ceiling. Explosive. Will O The Wisp: Crab Force fires a glowing orb with sparks. If it fires from above, it will go diagonally forward-down. If it fires from below, it will go diagonally forward-up. When the spark hits either the floor or the ceiling it will bounce and go diagonally up/down and forward. Crab Gate: A red, serrated block goes from either the top or bottom of Crab Force across the floor or ceiling. About halfway out, it extends either down or up, until it's so high or low that you can barely squeeze through. Touching it will cause it to explode. -------- Vitality:4505 -------- Difficulty:3 -------- Strategy: A difficult boss at first, speed is the key. If you pause for even a second, you'll get smashed by whatever, so.........don't!! To get around Crab Gate, wait to see which side it's on. If it's on top, just stay on the bottom and dodge the rest of Crab Force's moves. If it's on the bottom, quickly move to the top. Crash Mine is explosive, so be sure to get away from the explosion, and make sure never, EVER to jump forward over a mine. You're momentum will force you into Crab Force. And finally, Will O The Wisp is a slow move, so just dodge it when it's coming towards you. As always, don't even get close to Crab Force itself. After you destroy whatever force, the mine will explode in flames! As you get the hell out through the vertical shaft (which has got to be incredibly long after how far down you went), Green will come by and give you the Green gem. Thanx! And now you can go to wherever else you feel the urge. ___________________________________ Stage 3: The Flying Battleship 1-1: Runaway Air Battleship! As you start this stage, you'll notice a large piece of mechanics flying away. Obviously, you've got to chase after it. Jump up each platform of the tower while shooting out everything above you. If you want to take a short breather, jump onto the little platform on the side of the engine(?) and just shoot forward from there. You're going to have to continue upward, however, so hop back onto the tower and continue against the scroll. Don't get too far behind or you'll fall and lose 20 vitality. Once you can, jump onto the battleship and continue to fight the flying soldiers (skull bombs are what they drop) until the ship flies offscreen. 1-2: Into the Wild Blue Yonder After the ship returns onscreen, you'll notice that the perspective has changed. What was the front of the ship before is now the side, and you now continue forward towards the rest of the ship. First off, though, you've got to take care of a yellow phantom. The phantom has a jetpack and is flying, and will do a flying kick at high speed towards you. Jump over the kick and return fire several times, and the phantom will explode, leaving 15 vitality as usual. Now continue forward, and shoot all the enemies in sight. The 5 green gun turrets contain items, so be sure to destroy them all and get any items you need. When you get to the generator, you'll see the now- familiar message and be forced to fight.... !!!!BOSS!!!! Swapping Reg -------- Description: Two small green blocks are on the left and right of a large rectangular "cockpit", which is connected to the legs by two long poles. The "cockpit" has three soldiers sitting inside. -------- Actions: Reg Vulcan: One of Swapping Reg's limbs will lift up and fire a few seconds worth of vulcan at you. -------- Vitality:2041 -------- Difficulty:1 -------- Strategy: Easy as pie! Swapping Reg will start out by jumping around like a wild banshee. Shoot at it's mid section (the one with the soldiers riding), and don't get crushed by either of it's legs. When it raises one of its limbs, or just it's mid-section, it's going to use Reg Vulcan, so stay off to the side and shoot from there. If you really want to be the showman, you can jump up onto the electrical wire and attack from there. After taking enough heat, it will--like so many others-- die a hideous, mechanical death. 1-2: Into the Wild Blue Yonder (continued) After Swapping Reg is deadder then swapping Reggae (the worst pun I've ever done), continue onward. Two soldiers will be sitting in gun turrets, and they'll rise up on poles. Shoot each one down, and they'll drop 15 vitality each. Then jump onto the helicopter-type thing and.... !!!!MINI BOSS!!!! Colonel Red -------- Description: A lame rip-off of M.Bison, except much skinnier and wussier looking. No cape. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:520 -------- Difficulty:1 -------- Strategy: Pfffeh! This pathetic clone of M.Bison wants some more, so give it to him! He'll fly up and around you while dropping bombs, but he'll last about 4 seconds with such little health. Don't ever throw him, he'll ram you, and there's no way of avoiding that. Of course, that was just the appitizer... the main course is coming up now...... !!!!BIG BOSS!!!! Orange -------- Description: A buff guy with a green shirt and green pants. No robot or anything! -------- Actions: Rotor Press: Orange will jump up to the helicopter rotor and spin around with it at high speed. He will then drop on top of you, doing high damage. Hard Shoulder: Orange charges straight towards you at high speed for high damage. Break Wind: Orange gathers energy via visible blue sparks, then cuts loose a blast of blue energy about as tall as himself that goes all the way across the helicopter. -------- Vitality:2400 -------- Difficulty:4 -------- Strategy: A very tough boss, Orange is one tough mo-fo. His attacks are very, VERY powerful, and he can knock you off the helicopter for 20 damage almost at will. Don't get close to him, or he'll german suplex you for a load of damage. Before Orange does Roto Press or Hard Shoulder, he'll look towards the camera, flex his pecs, and then do either move. When he does Roto Press, wait a couple seconds, then do a standing slide in any direction (as long as it doesn't put you off into the empty sky). This will put you out of the way of Oranges drop. All you have to do to avoid Hard Shoulder is jump at the right time. Break wind is easy enough to avoid. Just flip drop down and wait until the blast is behind you. Having a homing weapon will greatly help against Orange, as you can dodge all you want and still hit him. Or, you can do it this way (Thanks to jamalblackwell@hotmail.com): Difficulty=2...if you fight him from underneath the helicopter. Tap down+c(jump) and you're hanging on the bottom of the helicopter in psuedo-fixed shot mode. Now orange's hard shoulder is useless (so, he won't use it ;) and you only have to worry when Orange gets directly above you. This is because Orange's wind break also has a variation where it shoots directly beneath him. If he does manage to get directly above you, flip kick to the top of the helicopter's platform, run away, then get back under the helicopter. The flip kick is invincible, so the wind break won't hurt you and you'll score a hit on Orange in the process ( if he isn't flashing from being shot). I've beaten him on normal and hard using this strategy without getting hit during the fight. Don't know if it works on expert, since I just got the game a few weeks ago. If you really want to impress people you could try to hang underneath the edge of the helicopter's platform and trick Orange into roto-pressing himself off the helicopter :). I discovered one more wrinkle to my Orange strategy. Found this kinda useful when playing on expert. When orange goes for the roto press, he'll land right above you. If you can move to the side of him with the right timing, he'll do the downward break wind and miss you completely. Here's the trick: if you can anticipate this correctly, you can flip kick yourself up to the surface right next to orange (without hitting him) while he's still executing the break wind. He'll be frozen in that animation briefly, so if you're fast you can grab him and throw him onto the platform, for 400 (400!? -Deeto) damage. Problem is if you're a bit slow he'll suplex the heck out of you. 20 health gamble on each try for a quicker fight and impressing onlookers. prolly works a lot easier on the lower difficulty, but I haven't tested it yet. After you wear him down to 0 health, he'll explode, you'll fall down to earth and get the 3rd gem, and from here it's on to Black's fortress (or the Underground Mine if you listened to me). __________________________________ Stage 4: Blacks Fortress 1-1: The Wild, Green Farmland of Gunstar What a nice, peaceful background! There are even cows all over the place. Of course, the foreground is pure carnage. You'll be swarmed at the beginning, and as you come up the first ridge, a duck will appear. It'll be right over a pit though, so make sure that it's above ground before shooting it. After you go over another hill, you'll be attacked by... !!!!MINI BOSS!!!! Hanging Gunship -------- Description: A large green ship attatched to the ceiling with a grapple- like object. There is a gun aimed at a diagonal angle directly below it. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:860 -------- Difficulty:1 -------- Strategy: Just shoot it, and stay behind it's gun turret. Just keep shooting the ship and all enemies surrounding it, and this guy will be another page in the "Crappy Bosses" history book that you're sure to read sometime. 1-1: The Wild, Green Farmland of Gunstar (Cont.) You'll come up to several more hills. After a bit of this, you'll come to an area with a wall and some hanging platforms. Flip Drop below the left platform, move right, and flip up the right platform. Jump the pit, and you'll come to another Hanging Gunship. This one can't move, and it doesn't have any shown vitality. Kill it like you did the last one, and you'll come to Blacks Fortress. Guarding it is a phantom. This one throws skull bombs at you, and it can block slides and other physical attacks. After it's destroyed, and you take it's vitality, the door to Blacks Fortress will bust open, and you'll get to experience... 1-2: The Dice Maze Ahhh, the dice maze. Possibly the most original stage in a video game ever. The background shows you your basic board game map, and a dice will drop down from the ceiling. After throwing the die, you'll move the spaces and do whatever the space tells you. I'm pretty sure that the outcome of the die is totally random. If anyone knows for sure, go ahead and mail me! The layout of the maze is as follows. Fight1-Item-Fight2-Fight3-Fight4-Fight5-Fight6-Fight7 | | Start Fight8 | Item | Boss-WayBack-Item-Fight12-Fight11-NoGun-Fight10-Fight9 Every fight pits you against either a boss, or a fun little physical challenge, like jumping through a twisty maze or busting up a car. Item spaces put you in rooms with 3 weapon parts and a vitality up. Way Back puts you all the way at the beginning of the maze. And Boss pits you against Black himself. Dying without getting to Black forces you to start all over, without any of the spaces clear. That's a killler. Be conservative, and make sure not to try anything stupid, because every point of vitality counts. _________________________________ Fight 1 !!!!BOSS!!!! Valvalion -------- Description: An incredibly long yellow segmented snake. It's head has two black beady eyes. -------- Actions: Arch Crasher: Valvalion smashes into the ground, then goes in an arch pattern, smashing the ground after every arch. -------- Vitality:2821 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Valvalion really only has one attack, and it's not a very effective one, so while it's spinning around like a retard, you should be shooting. When it goes into arch smasher, just stay in the empty space of one of the arches and shoot at Valvalion. And of course, "Shoot the head". __________________________________ Fight 2 !!!!BOSS!!!! Timeron -------- Description: A medium-sized egg-shaped ship with a tube-like object on the bottom. -------- Actions: Apocalypse Seed: Timeron counts up 10. During this time, it drops explosive seeds. After it reaches 10, it freezes, and begins counting down to 0. During this time, the seeds explode, and fly back into Timeron. Timeron then repeats the process. -------- Vitality:2423 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Another easy boss. Don't stay near the bottom of Timeron, since you'll get blown apart by the seeds. ___________________________________ Fight 3 !!!!RUSH 'N GO!!!! This physical test puts you in a room with a segmented grid of colored blocks. The blocks are Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. The idea is to go from the furthest bottom-left to the furthest top-right in 1 minute. | G R G R |<---End |Y B G G Y| | R B Y B | |B B R G Y| Start--->| G Y B Y | You can't fire here, instead, you can only punch. Whenever you do so, certain colored blocks disappear from the grid, allowing you to pass. The blocks disappear in this order: Green, Blue, Yellow, and Red. To reiterate, punching causes the green blocks to disappear, then blue, then yellow, then red. It then starts over. Also, there are 2 red balls that bounce around inside the maze. After you get to the end, you're given points according to time left. The point system is simple enough- the numbers on the timer are exactly how many points you'll get. So if you've got 49.23 seconds, you'll get 4923 points. _____________________________________ Fight 4 !!!!BOSS!!!! Minion Soldier -------- Description: A teensy, weensy little guy with (seemingly) big muscles and a big chin. Looks a lot like Orange... if he were a Micro Machine(TM). -------- Actions: Minion Shot: Minion Soldier leaps up and shoots out a star trail that goes in a weird sort of swirly pattern across the screen. Minion Clone: Minion Soldier creates a large amount of other Minion Soldiers that, while similar in appearance, bear little in common. They die after a couple shots. -------- Vitality:2010 -------- Difficulty:4 -------- Strategy: What an impressive pint sized package! Well, actually, this guy'll make your life hell. Duck Minion Shot, and don't get close to this guy, as he'll throw you around like a rag doll. While it may seem like Minion Soldier has no weaknesses, there is one thing that this terror is extremely weak against---physical attacks. Any slide will cause him to fall over and lose lots of health, so just smash him repeatedly and he won't be able to attack! Simple, eh? _________________________________ Fight 5 !!!!BOSS!!!! Melon Bread -------- Description: An incredibly stupid (goofy?) face. Two really stupid eyes, and a sort of scary looking jaw made out of triangles. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:1310 -------- Difficulty:0 -------- Strategy: Uh, easy? I've never seen this guy do an attack, EVER!! It seems like all he does is look at you with those big, dweeby eyes, and occaisonally gum you with that annoying jaw of his. This guy is just a waste of time. ______________________________ Fight 6 Busted Car -------- Description: A big blue car with a soldier inside. There are some random boxes and pieces of electrical equipment on the side. -------- Vitality:847 -------- Strategy: The idea is to bust up the car as fast as you can. You have 1 minute, as usual. Shoot the box on the left, and it has some vitality inside. Nothing to it. _______________________________ Fight 7 !!!!BOSS!!!! Pit -------- Description: Anyone who has played the Windows shareware game JezzBall will recognize this boss. There is a big brown vertical bar that moves left and right while extending up and down. To the sides are floating red balls with cute faces on them that bounce around the screen. The targets are the red balls. The bar is invincible. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:300 each? -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Really easy. I should give this guy a 1, but I'm too lazy to change it, so too bad. The bar is really the only thing that can harm you, so make sure not to get caught in a corner with it. You can also ride on the balls for any reason you might have. ________________________________ Fight 8 !!!!RUSH 'N GO!!!! This physical test puts you in a twisty turny room with lots of enemies. You have to get to the END (marked with a nice sign) in the fastest time possible. To get up the side of the walls, use your triangle jump repeatedly. ___ _________ | | _____ | | | | | END| | | | | | |---| | | | | | |___| | Start--->|_|___|_______| _________________________________ Fight 9 !!!!BOSS!!!! Phantom -------- Desciption: Looks exactly like every other phantom in the entire game. Just like a soldier, but his helmet conceals his face completely. Nothing but a shadow in it's place. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:N/A -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Not hard. If you've fought a phantom before, you know what to expect. This one has every ability you've seen on a phantom thusfar. A satellite, the ability to slide, block, and throw you, etc. Just shoot it from far away and don't get close. Note: Has anyone else noticed the tiny speck that flies around in the sky? Is it Black? Is it an alien spaceship? WHAT IS IT?????????!!!!!!!!!! __________________________________ Fight 10 !!!!BOSS!!!! Vortex Base -------- Description: At the very bottom of the scenario (god, I hate using that term), is a huge base with a laser cannon in the middle. There are four platforms stretched out to the walls above the base. On the left and right ends of each platform are light-bulb like objects. There is also one at the very top. -------- Actions: Vortex Beam: The 7 light bulbs light up in random patterns. The base then fires a beam to each bulb in the pattern flashed seconds before. It then repeats. -------- Vitality:2802 -------- Difficulty:3 -------- Strategy: Pretty damn difficult. Pay really close attention to the whole picture, since the pattern flashes in the blink of an eye. Don't get caught in a cross-fire, and keep firing at the core of the Vortex Base. ________________________________ (No Gun) !!!!BOSS!!!! Curry and Rice -------- Description: Curry and Rice is a huge guy made out of stone. He has some beady eyes on his face. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:362 -------- Difficulty:4 -------- Strategy: Ouch. Probably the hardest enemy you've faced so far. You can't fire your gun. Instead, you've got to fight in hand to hand combat. To actually damage this guy without feeling hurt yourself, you've got to move close enough to him so that he does a move (punches or kicks), but not so close that you get hit. After he's doing something, you can smash him without getting hurt. I usually jump toward him, and do an air jump back so I avoid getting punched. I then just run towards him and smash his brains in. ___________________________________ Fight 11 !!!!BOSS!!!! Super Gondola -------- Description: A huge rack of laser cannons, bombers, and some random handle-like things are hanging from the ceiling. The rack moves from left-to-right. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:379 each? -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: You'll want to take out the bombers first, since they'll blow out the floor. If you get to the point where the entire floor is a hole, you can shoot the handle when it comes by to move the floor. Once you take care of that, destroy the other weapons in any way you like. Shouldn't pose too much of a problem. ____________________________________ Fight 12 !!!!BOSS!!!! Aberenbou Gel -------- Description: A huge blob with multi-colored bubbles, and two cute eyes. Stretches around a lot. -------- No Actions -------- Vitality:3510 -------- Difficulty:1 -------- Strategy: Beyond easy. When it jumps, slide under it. Getting squished kind of hurts. ____________________________________ 1-2: The Dice Maze (cont.) After you make it to the last space, you'll be taken to Black's inner sanctum. You'll get a bunch of "Spirit Points"(anyone have any idea what they stand for?). After congratulating yourself for the job well done, get ready to fight.... !!!!BIG BOSS!!!! Black Beat Stepper -------- Description: A large, round blue body with a window in the middle (inside is none other then Black himself). Attatched to the main body are 2 segmented blue legs. Blacks inner sanctum itself has multi colored walls and floors. This is important. Remember that. -------- Actions: Dice Roll: Black Beat Stepper (B.B.S. from now on) drops out a large die. It then moves the number of spaces on the die. Depending on the color of the floor or wall, B.B.S. will do one of the following moves: Red Fireball: A long fire stream will fire out of the red space and go to each of the other red spaces, going into and out of each one until it reaches the red space that it first came out of. It then goes back to Dice Roll. Green Cutter: A long stream of green spheres fires out of the green space diagonally to each of the other green spaces until it makes it back to the green space it started at. Blue Cracker: A blue, spherical bomb comes out of every blue space, and explodes. Yellow Laser: A straight stream of yellow lasers fire directly out of each yellow space. -------- Vitality:6482 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: After all that combat, this is surely a very anti-climactic boss. The best way to avoid Red Fireball is just to triangle jump off the walls, and over the stream. Green Cutter is also a piece of cake, just duck under the line of spheres. And lastly, Yellow Laser is horizontal only, so just stay out of the way of any yellow spaces. After B.B.S. is B.S. (yet another terrible pun), Black will fly out and land in the corner. He'll throw you the red gem.... or has he? Nope, it was a trick, as it explodes when it hits the ground. He'll give a thumbs up to the camera, but he should be paying more attention! Shoot him and look at him bounce pathetically, that bastard! After you teach him a lesson, stop firing, and he'll give you the real gem. Congratulations! If you've defeated all 4 of the starting stages, you'll go back to base, but what a hideous surprise you'll find..... Stage 5: Rescue Yellow!! Those bastards from the empire came by, tied up the Prof., and kidnapped Yellow! Also, the head super commander of the empire left a message telling you that you'll have to give him all the gems you've spent getting, or else Yellow bites it! Obviously, you're going to have to kick some ass. 1-1: My Way or the Highway One thing you have to keep in mind in this stage is that death is even more annoying then 4 Jerry Lewis telethons in a row, since dying will force you back to the very beginning, and there really isn't anything else in the game that's more annoying then that. And no, there isn't a mid-point. So, with that in mind, on to the monotonous walkthrough! The entire stage is a swarm of enemies, which means super-killfest! After passing the buildings, you'll come to 2 boxes. The first box contains 10 vitality, but the second box is empty. After going even further, you'll come to a stack of two boxes, one on top of another. The top gives 10 vitality, the bottom is, again, empty. And, coming up, is yet another empty box. After a bit more, you'll find a stack of four boxes. Every box except the top (which contains 10 vitality), is EMPTY!!! You'll come to an area of hanging platforms, and there is a huge barrel on the very bottom. Shooting it will cause a huge explosion that will blow all the enemies away, so save it for when you're being attacked on all sides. Further past the barrel is a phantom. It has a satellite and can slide. After the phantom, you'll find another stack of 2 boxes. The top box has 10 vitality, and the bottom is empty. Then another stack of 2 boxes, both have 10 vitality, so pick up both. Then there's a bunch of boxes. The 2nd and 3rd have 10 vitality, but the rest contain nothing. You then get to fight another phantom. Moving on, you'll come to a huge diagonal row of boxes. Besides the fact that they're denying the laws of physics, the very top box contains 10 health, and the rest are there to piss you off. Blow off the top box, and then the one in the middle to cause the boxes above to fall, and allow you to pass. The last group of boxes, there is 10 vitality on top, and the bottom is empty. You then get to fight a phantom. Yee ha. Beyond the phantom is a long, boring stretch of just enemies. Just plow through them, and air jump the big robots to cause them to fall over. After a while of this, you'll come to a huge spaceship (in the background), and the incredibly difficulty boss..... !!!!BOSS!!!! Final Great Soldier -------- Description: A soldier.As in a guy with goggles, body armor, and a helmet. -------- Actions: Love Love Dancing: The soldier sways back and forth. -------- Vitality:N/A -------- Difficulty:N/A -------- Strategy: HOLY CRAPOLA! WHAT AN INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT BOSS!!!! Actually, this guy is supposed to be a joke. After dancing a bit, Colonel Red will come in, throw this guy off-screen, and guess what? You've gotta fight him! !!!!BIG BOSS!!!! Smash Daisaku (is this his real name?) -------- Description: It's Colonel Red. M.Bison without a skull on his cap, and no cape. Part 1 has him flying around with a jet-pack, but part 2 has him on foot. -------- (PART 1) Actions: After Burner: Smash goes off to one side of the screen, and the flames from his jet-pack turn blue. He then flies across the screen at high speed. -------- Vitality:2199 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Keep in mind, this is the strategy for the Smash Daisaku with the jetpack. After you wear his vitality down, you'll fight him on foot, and that's part 2. So.... The idea is just to fight him the way you did in the past. Shoot him, and stay as far away from the bombs as possible. When his flames turn blue, slide under him. After wearing him down to no vitality you'll get to take on... (Part 2) -------- Actions: Spiral Head: Smash takes out a gun, and fires a blast of two long, segmented fireballs. They go in a vertical spiral pattern across the screen. There is a small space in-between the fireballs. Streaming Head: Smash takes out a gun, and fires a long, segmented fireball at your soldier. The fireball homes in on you. Bravoo Reg: Smash leaps into the air, and kicks out, causing his foot to extend diagonally down-forward. -------- Vitality:3810 -------- Difficulty:3 -------- Strategy: Really, really difficulty at first, after a couple tries, this guy becomes pretty easy. Wait for Streaming Head to get really close, and then leap over it. Otherwise, it will home into you. Spiral Head always has a space in-between, so move to the far left or right of wherever it's being fired from, and move into the space when it opens up. You know that Smash is going to do Bravoo Reg when he begins advancing towards you instead of backing away. When this happens, air jump over him and slide when you hit the ground. With any luck, you'll deplete his vitality. After you've defeated Smash, he'll proclaim that "I NEVER DIE!!!" and leap off-screen. Watch the cinema (complete with "no-talk-o-vision") detailing your bittersweet victory, and then move on to Stage 6! Stage 6: To the Edge of Infinity After going back to base, the Professor will tell you about how he got you a small, speedy spaceship to chase after the Empire's space battleship. You can press the jump button while moving in any direction to boost that way, and you have 8-way firing, which sticks to one direction so you can move while firing in one spot. Very useful. Also, if you're playing with a friend, he controls another gun-pod. 1-1: The Space Battleship After you've warped through hyper-space (with a cool little zoomy effect), you'll be attacked by several formations of spaceships. Fire forward, and move up and down to blow them away. Also, there are little soldiers holding onto weapon parts, which substitutes for the duck. As you approach a huge wing of the battleship, you'll be attacked by little soldiers. They shoot surprisingly large lasers, so don't underestimate them TOO much. At the same time, vertical lines of about 5 ships will materialize in front of you. After several formations, a formation will appear behind you, so don't get caught off-guard. There are also 3 gun turrets on the wing, so shoot them off. After you pass the wing, there will be a large red ship with a tiny soldier inside. It takes quite a bit of punishment, and at the same time several formations of ships will attack you. After several formations, you come to.... !!!!BOSS!!!! Timeron "How Long Can You Last?" -------- Descriptions: It's Timeron (See Stage 4), but way tinier. -------- Actions:N/A -------- Vitality:N/A -------- Difficulty:1-5 -------- Strategy: The idea with this Timeron is not to destroy it, but instead, to see just how long you can last with it shooting at you. It starts out easy, with slow bullets, but eventually, it becomes an entire frenzied screen of bullets that appear out of thin air (space?) After you just can't hold out anymore, shoot Timeron a bit and destroy him. You'll be given points depending on the amount of time you lasted. 1-1: The Space Battleship (cont.) You'll enter a meteor shower, and a big green ship will appear behind you. It'll shoot a yellow laser at you, so aim behind yourself and pump it full of lead (laser? flame?). After going through the shower, you'll be attacked by some gun turrets, and some green missles which explode into a spread of bullets. Further past that, a whole lot of green and light yellow ships will attack you. Some will just shoot bullets, while others shoot lasers and fireballs. You'll soon find yourself going beneath the ship. As you move left, blue, horizontal lasers will attack you. They'll fire at wherever you are, so use your jet boost to avoid them. At the same time, small, green ships will attack you. After a bit of this, you'll come to a group of horizontal yellow lasers that move vertically down. Move through the gaps between the lasers, and shoot the green ships at the end of them. After this, you'll enter another meteor shower. You'll be attacked by more ships, and a lot of soldiers on meteors. At this point, you'll be attacked by circular formations of small, yellow ships that materialize around you. They then fly away from you, and fire at you. Move out of the way, or you'll be hit by their bullets. You'll then enter another meteor shower, with a soldier riding a snake made out of meteors at the end. Use your jet boost to outrun him. After you move up, you'll come to a huge rack of laser turrets. Having Light Sword will save your bacon here, since it will neutralize the lasers. Blow off the guns, and move on to... !!!!BOSS!!!! 1000MM Gun -------- Description:: A large, round gun turret with rectangular red lights around the circumference of the gun. -------- Actions: Red Laser: 1000MM Gun fires a large, red ball at you. Exhaust Laser: After 1000MM Gun fires at you, it lets out a bunch of explosions, which turn into horizontally firing lasers. -------- Vitality:1999 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Easy. Boost out of the way of Red Laser, and move carefully in-between the Exhaust Lasers. Watch out for 1000MM Gun's hidden missile launchers. 1-1: The Space Battleship (cont.) Moving on, a huge, fast moving line of grey ships will fly by on the top and bottom of the screen. When you see a bunch of green gun turrets, the grey ships above and below you will move towards each other, flying off of the screen. As you move further on, they will begin to move towards each other closer to the left side of the screen. Right when it looks like they're going to crash into you, the flow of ships will stop. After this is some more assorted ships. Just keep shooting at them, until finally you'll fight.... !!!!BOSS!!!! Seven Force -The Final Assault- -------- Description: A tinier version of Seven Force (See Stage 2). -------- Actions: Soldier Arrow: Soldier Force fires a spread shot of 3 red arrow shaped bullets. Tails Somersault: Tails Force does back-flips all the way across the screen. Crab Bomber: Crab Force moves around, and drops explosive bombs from behind. Tiger Charge: Tiger Force runs across the screen at high speed. Blaster Shot: Blaster Force fires 12 shots across the screen at high speed. -------- Vitality:4673 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: Every one of this boss' attacks require you to move out of the way, so just boost out of the way of the Seven Forces' attacks, and retaliate. If you've got Light Sword, this fight is beyond easy, since you can just evaporate Blaster Shot. 1-2: The Core As you make a rough landing on the surface of whatever planet, a duck will come by, so take whatever items you need. After this, you'll face about 14 blue phantoms, each of which die automatically when thrown. After you kill them all, move through the mysterious red door to.... !!!!BIG BOSS!!!! Core Guard System -------- Description: There is an area that you're standing on, in the foreground. It's a platform with hand-rails, and in the background is a huge checkerboard floor and ceiling leading towards an energy generator- like object (the core). -------- Actions: Unit of the Hammer Unit of the Dragon Unit of the Runner -------- Vitality:N/A -------- Difficulty:4 -------- Unit of the Hammer -------- Description: A huge, segmented chain made by spheres extends out from the core. -------- Actions:N/A -------- Vitality:2309 -------- Difficulty:3 -------- Strategy: The Unit of the Hammer has 3 forms of attack. The first is where it spins around the core, into the background, moving into either the middle or bottom of the screen. While it is doing this, the core lets out small ships that turn into horizontal beams. When it reaches the foreground, you have to judge where the Hammer is, and jump or not jump accordingly. The second form of attack is where the Hammer moves around while shooting lasers at you. This is a good time to do damage to the Hammer itself. The last attack is where the Hammer uses it's namesake for good use, and smashes into the ground repeatedly. After you defeat the Unit, the core will let out a ton of ships towards the foreground. Try to dodge them the best you can. Afterwards, get ready for... Unit of the Dragon -------- Description: A long string of blue spheres, which fly around like a dragon. -------- Actions:N/A -------- Vitality:2308 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: The Dragon only has one attack, and that is to make passes at you, fire blue fireballs, and fly back into the background, where it then flies back into the foreground for another pass. Just slide under the fireballs, and retaliate when safe. Again, after you finish the Unit, the core will let out a load of ships. Dodge them. Again. Then.... Unit of the Runner -------- Description: A HUGE runner made out of spheres. -------- Actions:N/A -------- Vitality:2307 -------- Difficulty:2 -------- Strategy: The Runner only has one attack, which is it running slightly into the background, cranking it's arm, then running into the background and letting out an energy ball. The pattern is simple: The first attack goes diagonally upward, and the second attack goes along the ground. It then repeats. Finish the Runner, and you've finished this long, long stage. Stage 7: Under Construction... _____________________________________ Section 6: Misceallaneous Title Screen Trick: Just about everyone knows this trick. On the title screen, you can press up and down on the controller to rotate the spinning 3-d logo. Nice effect, this one. NOTE: If you've got anything to add to the Misceallaneous section, be sure to tell me about it at either joey_theslug@usa.net or pieduster@seanbaby.com _____________________________________ Section 7: Credits + Thanx Sites ----- Gamefaqs http://www.gamefaqs.com ---- This is a pretty obvious inclusion. Without this site, I wouldn't have anywhere to put the faq, and no way to get noticed. Thanks to CJayC for maintaining such a phenomonal site! About.Com Guide to Video Games http://vgstrategies.about.com ---- The first site besides Gamefaqs to find my faq and host it. Not really too important--a load of faqs get hosted by this site. Thanks to Al Amaloo for maintaining the site. People ------ CJayC gamefaqs@gamefaqs.com (I think) ---- Maintainer of the fantastic Gamefaqs, this guy (supposedly) works nearly 24/7 on the site. Quite amazing, I'd say. Thanks to him for having a place for me to put the faq. Al Amaloo vgstrategies.guide@about.com ---- The guy who runs About.com's guide to video games. Another admirable guy. Thanks a ton for running such a great site to put the faq! Jamal Blackwell jamalblackwell@hotmail.com ---- The first person to give me some advice on the faq, the owe a lot of thanks to him! Keep up the good work.... or something. EOF___!