R-Type II Game Boy Developer: Bits Studios Publisher: Capcom By: GammaBetaAlpha ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Table of Contents -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ How to Play [HOWT] Walkthrough [WALK] Donations/Amazon [DONT] Contact Info [CONT] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- How to Play -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [HELP] R-Type II is a built-from-scratch title in the famous R-Type shoot-em-up series. It is a horizontal scroller, meaning it goes from left to right, and has five levels with a boss battle at the end of each level. --------- Power Pod --------- In each level, you will get an accessory called the 'Power Pod', which attaches to your ship, either on its front side or its back side. When attached, the Power Pod is capable of stopping any type of enemy bullet fire except for larger bullet fire (such as missiles or energy balls) by simple contact. Overall, it seems to be far more useful to keep it on the front of your ship as opposed to the back side, not the least because while you can shoot your Power Pod away from you and collect it on your backside, it is rather more difficult to get it from the back to the front, as it will first shoot back and then retract a bit. Keeping it on the front side is particularly useful for taking out bigger enemies, where you can 'damage' them several times in a second and destroy them far quicker than with normal bullet fire. The Power Pod also will fire bullets separate from your R9 ship. Although it normally fires pellet bullets, if you find an air-to-surface bomb power-up it will start firing those instead. For the first level, the Power Pod will shoot out from the left side shortly after a Shuttle enemy that will give you your first power-up. --------- Power Ups --------- Power-Ups work slightly different in this game than you may be used to, as one of these applies specifically to your R9 ship, while all the others are used for the Power Pod. Air-to-Surface Missile ---------------------- This looks like a sideways rectangle and circle next to each other. When equipped, your R9 ship will start firing out missiles that lurch downwards at a slight angle. Air-to-Air Laser ---------------- The icon for this vaguely looks like a sideways key. When picked up, your Power Pod will start firing out crescent-shaped waves of energy that are extremely tall and thus can pick off lots of smaller enemies at once. Reflective Laser ---------------- Has an arrow-shaped icon. Lasers will go out diagonally from the Power Pod ship. If they do not strike an enemy by the time they hit a surface, they will bounce off the surface at a 90 degree angle and continue on for a duration. Air-to-Surface Laser -------------------- Has a C-shaped icon, and can be incredibly devastating. Your Power Pod shoots two series of rock-like energy pellets up and down of it. When they hit a surface, they will travel right along that surface until they hit the edge of the screen, strike an enemy, or dissipate in something such as water. Bits ---- A single, orb-shaped icon. This is not a weapon, but rather a protective shield that consists of a ball above your ship which deflects most enemies and bullet fire, much akin to your Power Pod. Acquiring a second Bits power-up will put a second orb on the underside of your ship. Speed ----- Fireball-shaped. This is purportedly supposed to increase your speed for a short duration of time but I have not seen this to actually be the case. One-Up ------ A +1 symbol. Gives you an extra life. ------------ In-Game Code ------------ On the title screen, press Select + Down to access a screen that allows you to change the difficulty between Easy, Medium and Hard. This only alters the amount of abuse a boss can take, and not the proliferation of enemies on stages themselves. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Walkthrough -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [WALK] --------- Stage One --------- •You will initially have a wave of the most common enemy ship type, the Clerk. Blast through them for a while. •Shortly in, once you approach the enemy base, a Shuttle ship will come out. Hit it and it will leave you a Reflective Laser power-up. Do NOT pick this up until you equip your Power Pod or else it will not properly work. •At approximately the same time, your Power Pod will come on-screen from the left side. Do NOT attempt to pick it up on your back-side: instead, allow it to move in front of you before picking it up so you can get it attached to the R9's front end. •Once you get closer to the base, Ironclaw ships will come out and converge on one point. This is a good time to see how the Power Pod is capable of instantly destroying enemy ships on contact by moving forward to where the Ironclaws converge and touching them with the Power Pod. •After another Shuttle which drops a Speed, some more Ironclaws followed by a wave of Clerks. The Power Pod will eat up small bullet pellets from the Clerks, but not larger missiles or energy beams. •Stick way to the left side of the screen when shooting the Clerks. Snail-like enemies will pop out from the water, but as they (like other enemies) always jump out at the exact same time through every playthrough, your Power Pod can quickly destroy the first one as long as you stay at the far left end of the screen. These snail enemies shoot out missiles, so do not attempt to block their attacks using the Power Pod. •When coming to the three presses, a Shuttle will come out from the right side. It will drop an Air-to-Missile power-up for your R9, but do not go down into the press if the power-up is low on the screen. •Continue on for a while through more enemies. Another Shuttle will drop an Air-to-Air Laser on the way, then another one with a Reflective Laser shortly following that. •A Mangler enemy will top off the inside of the base area. It shoots out enemy beams, which you can only dodge, not negate with the Power Pod. •Once you get to the three doors at the end exiting outside, quickly rush through as the doors will close, and can destroy your ship if it comes in contact with the doors. Boss: Zabtom ------------ •The only weak spot of Zabtom is on its chest area, where a bulging ball of cytoplasm is exposed every so often once the metal flap opens up. Charge your ship laser up when the flap is closed, then let a shot go once it opens up its flap to blast it. You can also just park your Power-Pod right over top of Zabtom's weak-spot and kill it incredibly quick, though you may consider that to be cheating. •Occasional bubble-like bullets will come in from above and below the center of Zabtom. These CAN be nullified by the Power Pod, so do so while charging your laser at the same time to keep them from becoming a nuisance. •Battling with Zabtom also has a time limit, as doors will continue to come in and close on the left side of the screen. Avoid getting chomped by the doors, and move right as your room for maneuever narrows. --------- Stage Two --------- •Watch out when shooting the initial wave of enemies, as they will explode when shot, leaving an aftereffect with a large radius. Do not approach them to destroy them with the Power Pod. Some of the explosion blasts can actually travel left, so keep an eye out for them as well. •A Shuttle will follow this wave shortly that will give off an Air-to- Surface Laser power-up, an incredibly devastating laser that sends firepower up and down, and then right along the walls until they hit an enemy, disappear off- screen or dissipate in the water. •Stick to the left side shortly thereafter and start spamming your lasers and Air-to-Ground missiles to clear out the enemies as you go along. •Once you get to the waterfall, quickly rush through past the waterfall. If you stay in front of the waterfall, it will pull the R9 ship down slowly with some drag. •Continue spamming your lasers as you go through. Watch out for the enemies in here that float out of the water. If they hit a roof, they will 'pop', releasing three bubbles. •Stick to underneath the waterfall spray as you continue on a bit, and watch out for enemy ships that drop from above the waterfall. You should also be able to pick up a Bits power-up, which gives you basically an additional shield above your R9 that acts much like the Power Pod insofar as stopping bullet fire and destroying foes. •Soon, a big, immobile floating enemy robot called a Crawlgar will appear, part in the water and part out. Do not try to block its shots, as it will go through your Power Pod. Instead, move underneath it as you go past, and be sure to spam your firepower to destroy its bullet capabilities before you come out the right side of it. •The boss fight follows soon, right after a Shuttle carrying a Reflective Laser power-up. Boss: Barakas ------------- •Barakas has a single weak point, in the center of its body, a mushroom- shaped ball that travels up and down the spine-like center and hangs out either at the top or bottom end. You can fire at it normally, or again using your Power Pod. This latter is not recommended in this battle as Barakas is not immobile. •Barakas will move left and right, going down and then back up. While it is moving down an up, it shoots lasers out of its shoulders next to the 'head' which will destroy the R9 if it makes contact. It will also spit two bullets up when it comes back up, but these bullets are fairly negligible - it will be the very odd person who finds his ship being destroyed by these bullets. However, they will come back down and disappear off the bottom side of the screen, so watch out for it if you are hanging around the bottom side. •To avoid getting hit by Barakas moving up and down, you can attempt to stick to the very top of the screen, just under the roof, and the space will be wide enough so that only the lasers can hit you - neither the projectile nor the mushroom shaped ball can damage you then. ----------- Stage Three ----------- •If you had the Bits from the last level, you will keep it until your ship gets destroyed. •The first two shuttles here will drop a Air-to-Ground Laser and an Air- to-Ground Missile for the R9. Definitely grab this if you did not get the missile the first time around in Stage One or lost it due to your ship being destroyed. •Do not stick to the left side of the screen, as enemies will start coming out from that direction once you begin to go past the underside of the overhead of the large enemy vessel on the top of the screen. •With the second enemy vessel, it will move right to keep with your ship. Stay underneath it at at all times as it will shoot out worms to the left side. While fighting the enemy ships underneath the large vessel, another Shuttle will come out carrying a Bits, so blast that to pieces. If you already have a Bits on the top side of your ship, you will get a second one on the bottom side. •You should encounter a pair of enemy vessels next. While the top one is negligible, as it stays immobile throughout, the second one will move right with you for a while, disappear off the bottom of the screen later, and then reappear and drift up to the top side of the screen while going past another grounded large vessel. When it reappears, you MUST get to the underside of it as soon as you can or you will be crushed between the vessel and the top border of the screen. Stick to the left side during this time and keep your Power Pod in front to eat up enemy bullets. "The wave of enemies right after this has a 1-Up. •Of the next two large enemy vessels, the upper one will occasionally fire down long, slow laser beams. Slip in between them if you can (again, they are incredibly slow-moving). The pods that fire out the lasers can be destroyed by bullet fire. •The bottom ship will move right along with your R9 for a bit, before drifting south. Make absolutely CERTAIN you grab the Reflective Laser power-up floating around. The boss fight follows thereafter. Boss: Colbert ------------- •Colbert will float around left and right, up and down through the fight. •During the initial bout, you should attempt to destroy the two bullet shooters on top of Colbert. They do not take much damage to eliminate, but more importantly, if you do so, you can park in the very upper-left corner of the screen and be untouchable for the rest of the fight. •The sacs on Colbert's side, right above its 'feet' shoot out pods which can be destroyed by the Power Pod. •Colbert has two weak spots: these are the sacs that spit out the pods, but also the inner part of the machine. If you can send Reflective Lasers down its internals, you can cause a large amount of damage. Conversely, if you park in the upper-left corner and have Air-to-Ground missiles, you will also have the chance while it is at the top end of the screen in its movement cycle to damage it simply by spamming away. ---------- Stage Four ---------- •Enemy ships right from the start will fly around, attempting to create walls and ceilings to narrow your route of travel. You can blast your way through the makeshift walls, but try to clear out the enemies instead where you can through use of your Bits and Power Pod in addition to your weapons. Keep a charged shot handy during the brief lull periods. •Following a significantly long initial wave of these enemies, you will face a Mangler enemy. Recall that you cannot negate its energy blasts, so go around the energy shots while battling it. •Right after the Mangler you will encounter solid walls. You need to let the Clerk enemy eat through a small block on each and then navigate up and down through the narrow spaces. •Save a charge shot when you exit the maze, as you will get a couple more wall-creating foes. •Be sure to pick up the Reflective Laser power-up from the Shuttle following shortly thereafter, as it will be incredibly useful for the upcoming boss. Boss: Blendor ------------- •Blendor is basically the right wall on this screen, and its weak point are the three sacs tucked inside. It does not shoot any big enemy fire, only small bullet pellets, so the Bits and Power Pod can eat them up easily. •Blendor will send out four long blocks at the R9 ship that will drift to the left side of the screen. If you shoot the middle two, they will flip around horizontally, giving your ship enough room to skirt through them. •If you have the Reflective Laser, you can hit both of the middle blocks at once, but you also need to quickly move through them before the lasers bounce back and hit the blocks again, putting them back into vertical position. •Again if you have the Reflective Laser, you can quickly make mincemeat out of the boss. ---------- Stage Five ---------- •In addition to the regular, small Guardgoyle enemies, who you can try fending off by going left and right using your Bits, you will also get long snake-like enemies, called Slimeys. These can only be destroyed by hitting their heads, although this is made significantly easier if you have the Reflective Laser power-up. •A Shuttle that appears during the initial swarm will be carrying a Bits power-up, useful if you do not already have two equipped. •After a lengthy amount of enemies have come by, Ironclaws will appear trawling horizontally along the screen instead of vertically. When this occurs, move towards the center of the screen, as Ironclaws will also appear from the left side and go right. •Finally after some more time, you will enter a narrow tunnel. Be sure to grab a Reflective Laser from a shuttle, and press against the right end of the screen and then go down once you leave the tunnel to escape a few enemies that come in from behind. "The boss battle begins very shortly after. Boss: Uom --------- •Two fireballs will come out from the right side of the screen, one from the top end and one from the bottom end. Once they get past the shell of Uom, they will zig-zag to the opposite height of the screen. Meanwhile, small enemy ships will occasionally come out from the bottom and top of the screen. •If you park on the upper left or upper right corner and have both Bits and the Power Pod equipped in front, your ship is invulnerable in that position to any incoming fire. •Uom itself has two points that must be hit, the two spots that look almost like fetuses curled in upon themselves. One of these is inside the boxed cage in the center of Uom's body. You must wait for the left side of the cage to open up before you can attack it. Once that weak spot has been destroyed, the fetus-like apparition disappears. •The second weak point can be a bit trickier. Normally, you must wait for both the left side and the right side of the cage to open before you can fire at it. You can also travel into the cage when the left side is open and stay there for the duration of the battle, pummeling the boss when the right side of the cage is open. •If you have the Reflective Laser equipped (which you most likely do, given that it was dropped in the narrow tunnel right before this boss battle), you can move up or down right up against the ceiling or floor and spam the Reflective Laser. It will reflect itself alongside the cage and ceiling/ground around to the back side to hit the fetus. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Donations/Amazon -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [DONT] I don't really care too much about donations, but if you are feeling generous, feel free to send one via PayPal to gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com Alternatively, if you ever order any items from Amazon.com, go to the link below. You do not have to buy anything right away, but (if you do not clear browser cookies often) any items you buy within the next 90 days will count as a 'referral order' to me, meaning I get anywhere from 4-6% as a referral/affiliate payment of what you ordered (ie. order $100 worth of stuff, I get $4-6 from Amazon.com) www.amazon.com/?&camp=212361&linkCode=wsw&tag=raofavigafa-20&creative=391881 Other than that, considering this FAQ is for an obscure old game, if you have any other obscure old games that you do not play anymore, consider sending them to me (I will even pay the shipping cost!). I write FAQs for plenty of obscure old games with no FAQs, and having a physical copy of the game (and even better, a manual) is superior to not. You can email me if interested at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Contact Info -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [CONT] Although I believe I have found everything there is to find in this game, there is occasionally the possibility of some super secret level in an obscure game that was never found because it was too obscure, or the like. If you have anything that you feel needs to be includes, feel free to email me at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com If you have any other information to contribute or notice any errors, again, shoot me a notice at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com If you wish to host this guide, or use information from it, consider the FAQ semi-public domain: you can host it without asking and derive information from it word-for-word if you wish, but keep the document unchanged if hosting it and give credit where due if using information ________________________________________________________________________________ ©2012 GammaBetaAlpha FAQs