StarHawk Game Boy Developer: NMS Software Publisher: Accolade By: GammaBetaAlpha ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Table of Contents -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ How to Play [HOWT] Walkthrough [WALK] Codes [CODE] Donations/Amazon [DONT] Contact Info [CONT] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- How to Play -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [HELP] -------- Controls -------- A/B - Autofire D-Pad - Move Around --------- Power-Ups --------- Obtained by shooting enemies, these come very rarely. P - 200 points N - Regular beginning gun B - Arrow-shaped pellets S - Bullet-shaped pellets L - Missiles that go straight but up and down once it aligns up with an enemy H - Straight laser beams that continue through enemies instead of exploding once it touches a single enemy Z - One, and then two orbiting energy spheres that absorb bullet fire ala R- Type, damages enemies In Star Hawk, you do not get points for destroying enemies. Rather, you get points just for hitting them, which is useful, given that you get an extra life every 20,000 points you accumulate. Furthermore, enemies often take much damage to hit, so you will have to give them a lot of shots to destroy. Shooting may take a while to get used to. This is because unlike the time-honoured tradition of shooters, the protagonist ship in Star Hawk does not shoot dead-center. Instead, it shoots slightly below dead-center from its maw, so you will need to get used to that. Another quirk to orient yourself to is the Star Hawk's vertical movement - it tends to be very sluggish, taking its time to rise and fall (as opposed to fast left and right movement). In theory, the different weapons are supposed to be varied and have different uses. In practice, N, B, and S are all entirely useless once you get an L power-up, which you can spam and take out almost anything that moves. L missiles will go straight on the screen, but if it detects an enemy moving above or below it, it shall halt in its tracks and turn at a 90 degree angle to hit the enemy. H is slightly more useful than N, B, and S, as it will not be stopped on impact with a single enemy but rather go through it, but it does not have the sheer versatility and brokenness of L-guns. Another thing of note is the Z power-up. One pick-up will give you a single energy ball orbiting around your ship, while a second pick-up will increase it to a maximum of two energy balls orbiting around the ship. These orbs can absorb enemy fire that comes your way, and will cause damage to enemies that they come in contact with. Remember, however, that enemies take lots of damage, so do not expect any one of them to be destroyed instantly on contact with the energy balls. If you get hit, you do not have to restart the stage altogether. Rather, when it comes to 'lives' in StarHawk, if you get hit, your ship resets to the normal gun and no Z power-up orbs, but you stay exactly where you were (even in boss battles) during the level. Your life count, however, will decrease by 1, and if you hit zero then you must restart. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Walkthrough -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [WALK] --------- Stage One --------- •Do not really bother with any of the power-ups you see throughout the stage, unless you spot a Z power-up for an energy orb that orbits your ship, soaking up enemy fire and causing damage to ships it comes in contact with. You will not encounter the L or H power-ups in this area, and the other power-ups have little more than marginal advantages over your normal pellet gun. Grab a B power-up if it is in easy reach, but otherwise keep your focus on shooting at enemies and avoiding their fire. •During the first section of the stage, focus on the mobile enemies that move about, and ignore the ones that are fixed in place. Stay to the left side of the screen for the time-being, and snipe off enemies from afar. Rock-shaped ships will come in shortly that take a significant amount of damage to destroy, so you do not want to wander right into their movement pattern. •On the occasion, you will encounter walls that block your passage shaped almost like vertebrae. Fire at them to reduce them, vertebrae by vertebrae. A 3 high by 2 wide carving out should be sufficient to sneak through each of them. Boss One -------- Boss one has several vulnerable points, most of which fire projectiles of various sorts out: these are the two antennas protruding from the front of its body, the two eyes, the two ports on its side and the port on its front side. Go for the two antennas first, which spit out small pellets, as they require the least damage to destroy. The three ports are at this point invulnerable to damage, and to destroy them you first need to destroy the eyes, so go for that which does not require anything else to be hit first. While attempting to hit the antennas, there is a fairly simple method to dodge the rest of the boss's attacks. As its attacks always fire in the same movement pattern, when the small energy ball launches from its center energy pod, go down while hugging the left side of the screen. When it sends out the two larger black spheres, move to the center of the left side of the screen, and they will sail by harmlessly. Once the antennas are done for, you need to destroy parts of the boss's body in order: start with the top eye (when it is not being covered by the shield), then the top pod, then the lower eye, then the lower port, and finally the centre port. Destroying this last part finishes the boss off as a whole. --------- Stage Two --------- •Watch out for the early mechanical-pod enemies, as they are both durable and will release two smaller enemies that will chase right after you. •When going through the meteor field, keep calm and steady. None of the rocks will go up or down, just left, so as long as you keep all the rocks cleared out in a small zone you should be good. A long intermission period of no enemies will follow shortly thereafter. •The intermission will end with a worm enemy coming out from the bottom left side of the screen, so watch out for that. It will be followed by some regular enemies, then a swarm of more rocks that move diagonally across the screen, filling it up, so navigate carefully. After another worm, some rocks will come out of the right side of the screen and move left, but will not touch the far left side of the screen (so you can stay there). Boss Two -------- Boss two is a plane that moves up and down laterally, with four different weak points which can only be destroyed in order. Unfortunately, one of Boss Two's attacks really is rather unfair: it will stop and shoot lasers instantly from its front guns that stretch across the whole screen in the span of a moment. As the player, you must be really careful with this: always keep an eye on the boss. The best way to do this is to park your ship just above or below the ship once it starts to avoid getting hit by the lasers. Once it moves again, if it moves towards your ship, move in the direction opposite it, while holding onto the autofire to briefly strafe the laser weapon with fire. Rinse, and repeat until both laser guns are done for. With that, the smaller pellet guns, each slightly above and below where the laser guns were, should be much easier to handle. ----------- Stage Three ----------- •After an initial enemy wave of about four different types of ships, you should come across a door with a laser beam guard that turns off and on intermittently. These will be spread throughout the level. Come up shy of the door and wait for the laser to stop before passing through quickly. •Near the end of the stage, an enemy ship may drop an L power-up. If you see this, grab it at all costs, as the L weapon is extremely broken in comparison to every other weapon. Boss Three ---------- The third boss has three sets of weapons. From the outer, right-most guns on its back, it fires out the small homing pellets. From the smaller, middle guns, it shoots out fast-moving needle-thin projectiles, finally followed up by two lasers from its center guns. It repeats these three attacks in order over and over again, so you can easily stay out of harm's way by keeping up with the pattern and staying out of the range of the ship's next attack. For the order to destroy the weapons of the boss, it seems rather odd. Start with the upper middle guns, then the lower middle guns, then the lower central gun, then the lower right guns, followed by the upper central gun and finally the upper right gun to take this boss out. ---------- Stage Four ---------- •This stage scrolls significantly quicker than the previous missions, so expect it when you start. When there seems to be a slight lull in enemies, watch for rocks to come out of the bottom left corner of the screen, which will be followed by another short intermission. •Continue to watch for enemies coming out of the bottom-left section of the screen. Around this area is a chance to pick up another L power-up if you did not already get it prior, and definitely take the risk to grab it if enemies are swarming you at the time. •Nearing the end of the stage, rocks will start falling from the top of the screen. Boss Four --------- The penultimate boss has three attacks split up into four seperate attack motions. It will start by firing small lasers from the two antennas on its sides (top and bottom). After moving around a bit, it will shoot out for homing pellets from its front antennas, before moving around again, shooting a single laser from its top 'eye', moving around again and then shoting from its bottom eye. It then repeats this pattern. While it does move around, it does not do so very much, so you can stick in the lower or upper-left corner of the screen and move only to dodge its homing pellets. In order, hit the top right antenna, then the bottom right antenna (the ones that shoot the small lasers), then the bottom and then the top antenna on its front side, and finally its top eye, followed by its bottom eye. ---------- Stage Five ---------- •When you see several small spherical enemies all lined up in a column drifting upward, quickly dash past them. They soak up a lot of damage to destroy and so trying to create a hole in their ranks while passing by is far more likely to result in your ship's destruction than just passing them by before they go up too high. A laser guard door follows right after them. •The level narrows considerably shortly following the first laser door of the stage. There really is not much you can do in this narrow space other than to hold your finger down on autofire and dodge any incoming foes. Boss Five --------- The attack pattern of the last boss is a three-point set-up. First, the spheres on the top and bottom of the circular ship will extend out and shoot off three bolt lasers in quick succession, while moving up, so each of the three lasers are at slightly different vertical distances. Next, it will send out several homing pellets, and top it off with a giant laser beam from the center of the screen before moving to the right side and repeating this pattern. First, hit the top sphere as it comes out to fire the small lasers. Once it is destroyed (there is no visual 'destroyed' sequence - rather, you will know it is dead when it no longer extends, fires, and retracts), focus on the lower sphere. Next, take out the pair of guns right below the main laser gun, which shoot out the homing pellets. Finally, destroy the big center gun. With all its weapons eliminated, shoot the center core of the saucer ship to finish the boss and the game off. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Codes -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [CODE] Press Select on the title screen to access your options menu, then Select twice more to scroll down to passwords. Enter in these passwords to skip ahead to each stage. Level 2 BABBAA Level 3 ABBABA Level 4 BBAAAB Level 5 AAAABA ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- 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