I have been playing *A LOT*. I think this game has brought back a hint of my tennis elbow that I got rid of last year (no fooling). Lots of swearing, lots of pounding the control panel, some pain in my right hand...it didn't come easily!
Hey, I should learn to use the WolfMAME INP function sometime & submit scores to Twin Galaxies--I'd be #3! =O
http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=22&pi=46&gi=2821&vi=10030Comments, tips, tricks:
1 - On level 1, if you keep the red bullets from the 1st power-up, you'll get to shoot 4 instead of 3 big airships--good for almost 1000 points.
2 - On level 1, find the 10,000-point fairy in the tree.
3 - On level 1, get ON TOP OF the tank bosses while they're shooting their diagonal shots. Get off them when they shoot the ring of bullets & the aimed stream. It seems that your missiles shoot after the previous set of missiles leaves the screen or hits a target, so you can do much more damage much faster.
4 - Save your bombs & get all the medals. You should get a 44,000 bonus at the end of level 1 if you get all medals & use no bombs. You should have 79k-86k points when starting the level 1 tank bosses if you've shot everything.
5 - Memorize memorize memorize. I've got the 1st 2 levels memorized now. It's routine & I know where everything will appear.
6 - Shoot the fast 10,000 point car on the horizontal bridge in level 2. It zooms from right to left & doesn't take too much damage to kill it. I'm not sure what makes it come out--it's not always there. ANYBODY KNOW?
7 - Same for the little blue men instead of medals--you get 3k for them instead of .5k for the medals, & they still count for a medal when calculating your bonus at the end of the level. I'm not sure what makes these guys come out--they seem random. ANYBODY KNOW?
8 - I used to use the blue laser on level 1 to kill the tank bosses faster, & then I'd switch to the red shotgun for level 2, since level 2 has so many enemies swarming you from all over, but then I got better at level 1 & now stick with the red shotgun powerups all the way through levels 1 & 2. Remember, when you switch weapons, you don't increase them by 1 level. (Hmmm, maybe I should switch to blue laser at the end of level 2--I hardly ever get through level 2 without dying...).
9 - I can't cope w/ the level 2 boss' sweeping spray of bullets after you shoot off all of his little planes that swarm you. You can be a chicken & hide above him & shoot the occasional homing missile at him, but that doesn't do much damage. On one attempt, he ended up flying away after getting bored with me--I got no end level bonus, but at least I didn't die... ANY STRATEGY ON AVOIDING THE SWEEPS OF BULLETS?
10 - The little airplanes will disappear permanently if you scroll off the side of the screen. Nothing can shoot you from off-screen, but they can certainly shoot you sneakily from a corner very shortly after they appear on-screen. Handy in the first part of level 3, where there are tanks on the far left & right sides of the docks--you can essentially keep 1 side off-screen if you want to play it safe. Tanks & tank boats have turrets that have to be pointing at you to shoot you--so keep moving!
11 - I avoid using the homing missiles--they're slow, they get confused if you shoot an item that they're homing in on, they disappear if they leave the screen, & they're weak--about all they're good for is killing the wimpy basic 150-point planes.
That's all that comes to mind at the moment. Good luck!
-Jason