1/9/00
Version 1.0
By: Regdren
[email protected]
    Welcome to my Giga Wings FAQ. I’m writing this FAQ in the hope that
other, more experienced players of this game will see that even someone like
me can make an FAQ, and post their own, more effective advice. I also hope
that in the meantime, people who play this worthy shooting game will extend
their life expectancy in the game by my advice. This is based on the
assumption, of course, that those who are even less skilled at this game
than I am are interested in it enough to look up this FAQ, so I hope that it
is indeed the case. In case you haven’t already guessed, this is also my
very first FAQ.

     Giga Wing is a vertical scrolling arcade shooter by Capcom that was
recently released in my area. Where I live, it’s 50 cents a credit, which is
a bit steep for a shooter in my opinion. However, it has a couple of
innovations, as well as the ability to have ridiculous amounts of moving
objects on the screen at once, as anyone who has played it will tell you.

Table of contents:
1.Version history
2.Basic equipment that every plane has
3.Scoring Points
4.The planes
5.In-Game General Strategy
6.Stage and Boss Strategy
7.Miscellaneous
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1. Version History
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1.0: My last revision, since the theater removed the Giga Wing machine.
(Aaargh!) Added the last stages of the game, as well as some secrets.
0.2: Corrected the section on bonus icons. Added pilot names to plane
descriptions, and provided strategies for the first three levels and the
bosses therein.
0.1: First draft. Describes some of the game mechanics, describes the four
planes you can choose, and has a general game strategy and tips.
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2.  Basic equipment that every plane has:
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Reflect shield: This is something new to shooters (a least, I’ve never seen
this before) that has serious ramifications as far as the game play is
concerned. If you hold down the fire button, in about a split second a
shield will appear around your plane for a short time. Not only are you
invincible while the shield is active, but any enemy shots that hit you will
bounce off and head for the enemy that fired it. This can be a potent
weapon, as many enemies see fit to fire huge amounts of shots at you. The
shield expands considerably just before disappearing, reflecting any shots
in its vicinity. After you use this, the reflect meter as the bottom will
exhaust itself, then start refilling. It doesn’t take too long for this to
refill, I’d say around five and a half seconds, but it is long enough for
you to do considerable worrying between then and when it says "OK" again,
indicating that it’s ready for another use.

Force bomb: Every plane’s force bomb has a slightly different effect, but
they all have two critical things in common: they dissolve all enemy shots
and make you invincible when it’s active, and they tend to do quite bit of
damage to the enemy. You start with two bombs, and you can usually find one
in each stage. If you lose a plane, your bomb stock is returned to two.
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3.  Scoring points
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Naturally, you’ll get points for shooting down enemies. However, if you’re
aiming for a high score, you’ll have to take some other things into
consideration.
    First is the bonus icon. Bonus icons appear when you kill most enemies,
as well as from reflecting shots. When you touch one, you get the value of
the icon, plus the total value of all the icons you’ve previously collected.
For example, if you’ve collected five 10 point icons, the next one you
collect will be 50 plus the value of the icon you pick up. The total icon
value resets if you lose a life or the stage ends. The values of some of
these icons is as follows:
The diamond with wings icon that you get from small planes is worth 5.
The medium size star that you get from larger planes is worth 10.
The small stars that the big planes dissolve into are worth 1 each
The shields that you get from reflecting shots are 1 each.
The big decorated circle with a diamond within that you get from destroying
really big or important enemies is worth 70.
    You can get a lot of points from collecting icons, but there’s a catch:
you don’t get the points until after you finish that stage. Therefore,
committing suicide for some icons that would put you over the current high
score makes no sense, since you wouldn’t get the points until after the
stage anyway.
    There some other end of stage bonuses as well. Fist is the boss bonus,
consisting of how much of it you’ve destroyed. If you go straight for its
medallion core without destroying its turrets and other equipment, you’ll
get a very low boss bonus. Still, if a boss is really giving you a hard
time, you should probably just get rid of it as fast as possible.
    Next is the shot down bonus, which is based on the percentage of enemy
aircraft destroyed in the stage. Not much to say about this, but being
thorough helps.
    Finally is the bonus for bombs left in stock. This is pretty insidious,
as it sometimes encourages people to die trying to conserve their bombs.
Lives for points is definitely a trade you don’t want to do; pretend this
bonus doesn’t exist while you’re playing.

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4. The Planes
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Each plane has a different fighting style and pilot personality, though I do
not yet have the pilots’ background information.

Raijin, Pilot: Sinnosuke. This plane has the weakest forward shot of all the
planes, but it also fires a pair of wave cannons diagonally up left and up
right. The waves fire over a wide area, making it easy to take out enemies
that come in wide formations. This setup is also effective against large
enemies, since both wave cannons and the frontal attack hit at the same
time. This plane runs into the most problems when it has to destroy small,
durable targets, such as the medallion core of many bosses. Its force bomb
fires lightning in every direction.

Carmine, Pilot: Ruby. This fighter is the most powerful and also the fastest
in the game. Its frontal attack, which it its only attack, deals lots and
lots of damage to anything in its way. You’ll need its extra speed for
dodging, because the nature of its attack requires you to get within the
firing line of most enemies. This fighter also has problems with taking out
enemies to the side, and relies on its speed to carry it from one enemy to
the next. Its force bomb is a much stronger version of its normal attack.

Porchka, Pilot: Isha. The Porchka has a very strong frontal attack, second
only to the Carmine and fully twice as strong as that of the Widerstand. It
also fires homing missiles, which are not that strong but can hit an enemy
anywhere on the screen. They sometimes don’t home in on enemies behind you,
however. It uses the force bomb to summon a hail of ice boulders that affect
enemies both in front of and behind it.

Widerstand, Pilot: Stuck. This plane’s frontal attack, while only as
powerful as that of the Raijin, fires in a constant stream rather than the
Raijin’s bursts, so it ends up doing significantly more damage. Still only
half as much as the Porchka and not nearly as much as the Carmine. This
plane’s main feature is the bombs that it fires out of the pods on either
side. These bombs explode either on impact with an enemy or after traveling
a certain distance. The explosion lingers, and damages not only the enemy it
hits but anything in the explosion’s vicinity. The thing that sets this
weapon apart, though, is that it can be aimed up, to the side, straight
behind you, or any angle in between. The way to aim the bomb is (you
probably won’t like this) to stop firing. When you’re not firing, moving up
will make your pods move further back along your plane, while moving down
makes the pods go forward. With practice, then, a good Widerstand player can
aim at anything on the screen whenever he or she desires to. You have to be
sure, though, that you don’t spend too much time concentrating on where your
shots are going and not enough on shots heading your way, or you’ll be shot
down quickly. Still, the versatility of this plane truly stands out, even if
its attack power does not. The Widerstand’s force bomb is kind of weird; an
icon appears in the center of the screen that sucks in shots from off screen
that damage anything that gets in their way.
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5. In-Game Strategy:
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I will say this right off the bat: I am not a great player. Nonetheless,
often I wince at the way other people play this game, and this section is my
way of venting without having to grab these people by their collars and
scream, "NO, YOU FOOL! YOU’RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!"
    First and foremost is the subject of avoiding enemy fire. Although the
folks at Capcom gave you the bombs and shield to protect you, you should
still work on your dodging skills before anything else. The better you are
at simply avoiding enemy fire, the more you’ll be able to conserve your
shield for damage dealing reflections, and your bombs for truly hopeless
situations. Every enemy has a firing pattern or set of patterns that it does
not deviate from; learn these patterns and you’ll be much better equipped to
avoid these attacks. Part of it is psychological, too; if you panic when you
see a mess of shots heading your way, chances are you won’t have the
presence of mind to avoid the attack.
    That having been said, the reflect shield is a powerful tool, both as a
weapon and as a defense. Reflected shots don’t do huge amounts of damage,
but you can often reflect so many shots at once that their total damage adds
up to something big. Plus, each reflected shot turns into a bonus icon after
it hits an enemy. The more confident you are in your dodging, the more
you’ll be able to save your shield for reflecting really dense clusters of
enemy fire. Still, if you have a charged shield bar and it looks like you
won’t be able to avoid an attack, you shouldn’t hesitate to use the shield;
aside from reflecting shots, the shield makes you invulnerable to everything
else. You have to be able to see it coming at least a split second before
hand, though; starting to charge the shield when an enemy shot is right on
top of you will get you killed. Also, don’t rely on the shield to get you
through the game; five and a half seconds might not sound that long, but
it’s more than enough time for a boss to shoot you down if you’re not good
at dodging.
    If I ever die with even one bomb still in stock, I feel like whacking
myself upside the head. You get a six bombs per credit, plus any you pick up
during the game. USE THEM. As I said previously, bombs make you invincible,
and unlike the shield it takes effect as soon as you press the button. Thus,
you can often turn bombs into extra lives by pressing the button at the
right time. True, it is a weapon of last resort, but last resort comes up
pretty often in this game. If a shot is too close to you for the shield to
activate in time, or your shield is still recharging, use the bomb! Don’t
worry so much about conserving them; when you become adept at dodging enemy
fire, you’ll be able to conserve your bombs by not needing them as often.
But when you do need them, use them. I just can’t stress that enough.
    The last thing I have to say about playing this game is never to put
yourself at unnecessary risk for the sake of points. Those shiny bonus icons
can be seductive, but when there are enemy shots on top of a cluster of them
you’d best not get too greedy. Extended survival will bring you a much
higher score than mindless icon-grabbing.
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6. Stage and Boss Strategy
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Canyon Stage
This is Sinnosuke and Ruby’s first stage, Isha’s second, and Stuck’s third.
    The beginning of this stage will see you taking on small waves of
fighters while turrets on the side of the canyon fire missiles at you. This
is a very easy part and an opportunity to catch plenty of bonus icons and a
power-up. After a little while you will fly through an enemy hangar and have
the opportunity to take out lots of grounded enemy aircraft, each granting
10 point bonus icons. Just watch out for the large non-grounded plane at the
beginning of it and you’ll be fine.
    You will leave the hangar and end up in the enemy base proper, where
you will fight mostly turrets and small tanks. You will occasionally come up
against equipment heavy enough to warrant using the shield, like the heavy
flying fortress from the demonstration. However, they usually appear in far
enough intervals that you can recharge the shield in time, and even if not
the shots are pretty easily avoided.
    Upon escaping the base, you will fight more heavy aircraft, including a
not-quite-mini-boss plane that alternates between scattered spreads of shots
and a solid stream straight down. Reflect the stream and it’ll go down in no
time. A little after that you will face a wave of small planes while the
boss aircraft below you nukes a city, appalling whatever character you
chose. You will then fight the boss.
    The boss of this stage will start by firing directly at you  with
in-built turrets. They don’t fire very many shots at you; keep moving and
you’ll be fine. After getting damaged enough, the boss will get impatient
and start firing waves of shots in various directions; these can be
reflected, or, you can avoid most of them by staying directly beneath the
center of the boss, avoiding the occasional freak shot. When its medallion
core is revealed, it will start firing walls of shots (with convenient gaps
here and there) from either one or two turrets, depending on what level this
is for you. If one turret is firing, you should easily be able to avoid it.
If two are firing, you might want to muscle your way through with a shield
or bomb; either should be able to finish it off.

Dock Stage
This is Isha and Stuck’s first stage, Sinnosuke’s second, and Ruby’s third.
It begins with a few floating turrets, but soon you meet a mid-boss that
Sinnosuke and Isha say is just like theirs even though its big and black.
    This mid-boss begins by firing many more shots to the side than behind
it, so stay below it and you’ll be okay. The next thing it will do is fire
dense spreads in your general direction at well as some stray shots. You’ll
have to pretty much dodge the spreads entirely, or it’s possible to muscle
your way through it via shield if you first dodge one or two of the spreads.
If this is your first stage, it will skip its second attack and go directly
for the third. This is a set of six streams of shots in as many directions.
Once started, the streams will slowly change direction, but staying between
them is easy. If this is your second or third stage, it will also fire a few
shots directly at you in addition to the streams, making the dodging a bit
more perilous. After you beat it, a small plane that resembles yours will
escape the burning wreckage.
    The rest of the dock stage will see you taking down medium size enemy
planes, turrets that fire lots of shots straight down, and big armored
vehicles that fire streams of shots at you. They fire a lot, but pretty much
all in one place. The exception is if this is your third stage, in which the
heavy vehicles also fire spreads in all directions, which requires either
the shield or much better dodging.
    There is a secret in this level. You will, after fighting two heavy
(and I mean heavy) turrets, you will come across an object that resembles a
large black mirror. Is will glow and fire a huge amount of tightly-bunched
slow moving shots at you in normal circumstances. However, if you take out
the massive 5-way turret above it first,  the mirror will stop firing and
start shooting out massive amounts of 1-point bonus icons. Thanks to Charlie
C. for help with this.
    The boss of this stage is a battleship that starts by firing missiles
at you, which are easy to shoot down. It then fires dense clusters of shots
at you. This is a good opportunity to use the shield for damage. After a few
of these, the turrets will fire small strings of shots at you directly which
can be dodged easily. The turrets will then all fire on you at once, which
is another good opportunity for reflection. After doing enough damage, the
back part of the ship will blow up, the medallion core will be revealed, and
the boss will REALLY try to kill you.
The boss will fire the shot clusters that you saw at the beginning of the
fight. This is shield bait; don’t go for it, as you’re likely to need it
shortly. After a few of these, it will fire wide spreads of shots that cover
nearly the whole screen, since the front shots go faster than the back
shots. After dodging the first spread, you can do major damage by staying
close to the turret and reflecting the entire attack with your shield as it
comes out. You need some idea of when the turret will fire the spread, but
it doesn’t require precise timing. It’s best to stay away from the turrets
after that, because after a couple more of those spreads, the turrets will
fire at you directly. Cross-hairs will start appearing wherever you happen
to be, and those points will blow up at the same time that it fires a spread
pattern that takes concentration to avoid. Plus occasionally turrets will be
firing directly at you. If that fails, it will create sattelites of fire
that circle around the core, protecting it at well as trying to collide with
you. If the boss lives long enough, it will blanket its sides, but not the
area right below it, with fire. At this point you should be able to destroy
it.
Rail Stage
This is Ruby and Stuck’s second stage, and Sinnosuke and Isha’s third. It
starts with some small trains that give good bonuses if destroyed, along
with some mediocre enemies, but soon you’ll find yourself between two
heavily armed and armored trains. These trains have more weapons have more
weapons on their sides than on their backs. This means that you have to pay
extra attention to the train that you’re not currently attacking, and it
would be suicide to go between them and try to attack them both at once. The
train to the right has a medallion in its front car. Destroy it to move on
into (surprise) another enemy base.
    In the base you’ll fight a lot of floating turrets, but these will be
the least of your worries when you come up against two heavily armored gun
emplacements. Take them out one at a time, using your shield strategically,
and you’ll make it past them to fight other similarly heavy equipment
between waves of floating turrets. You’ll also face enemy planes the come
huge waves and fire the moment they come onscreen. The Raijin and Widerstand
will have no trouble, but the Porchka will have a bit of difficulty
destroying them all, more so with the Carmine. With those two, a use of the
shield may be necessary. It won’t be too long before you fly over a lake,
which the boss comes out of.
    There’s no safe spot against enemy fire, but the most dangerous place
for you to be is under either lower corner of the boss, because that’s where
most of its guns are angled. Turrets will spring out of those extensions and
fire at predetermined angles, while others fire spreads in various
directions. It will also sometimes create an energy field which looks like a
black hole. This will slowly move toward you until it sustains enough damage
to dissipate it. Still this stage of the boss fight isn’t terribly
difficult.
    When the core is revealed, it fights pretty much the same way except
for one crucial difference: if the background fades to black and the
medallion core tilts forward, GET OUT OF THE WAY! The medallion will fire a
wide energy beam directly downward as its turrets cover its diagonals. If
you can reflect the turret fire, you will do considerable damage and should
be able to quickly destroy the core.
Floating Continent:
    Fourth stage for everyone. After encountering some paltry small turrets
on floating platforms, you will encounter an old friend: the black fighter.
This fighter (if indeed it can be called that) has lots of firepower but
can’t take that much punishment. Your best bet is to weave between its
initial spreads, which you should be able to do if you’ve made it this far,
and use the shield when it starts firing tons of shots at you. Your opponent
should go down quickly if you do it right.
    The rest of this stage is mostly dominated by smallish vehicles which
follow a firing pattern which you will be facing often, especially in the
last couple of levels: a stream directly at you in combination with a
circular spread of shots. A shield will naturally cut right through this,
but you need to be able to get through this attack without shields or bombs
if you want to keep you coin spending to a minimum here. Your best bet is to
find a hole to the left or right in the spread; your movement should dodge
the stream and slip through the circle of shots. To save time, I will call
this pattern a circle stream.
    This level has a secret: about 2/3 through the stage, you will
encounter a very large vehicle that shoots a big ol’ mess of shots directly
at you. This vehicle can take massive punishment. You must beat it as
quickly as possible. If you destroy it fast enough,  you can get a coveted
1-up by destroying the circle of orbs that comes soon after. Thanks to
Charlie C. for help with this.
    The boss of this stage is a mask-like vehicle that has turrets attached
to either sides. Feel free to destroy the turrets, but don’t destroy the
platforms they were on or the turrets will be replaced. This boss
specializes in filling the screen with shots in such a pattern that there
are only a few places you can be without getting hit. Shields work nicely
when the boss goes overboard with it. This boss is unusual in that it does
not seem to have a medallion core.

Sky stage:
    The circle stream pattern in this stage is even more prominent than it
was in the last stage. You will encounter many, many enemies that do this.
The most frequent one is a large oval shaped aircraft that dashes in and
QUICKLY fires a circle stream. The shots here are fast and large. Facing two
or more of these at once is really, really tough without a shield or bomb.
You really have to concentrate to survive this stage.
    Near the end of this stage, you will meet the black plane….?? This
aircraft isn’t black, and doesn’t resemble your aircraft at all, even though
the characters say that this thing is designed just like your own planes.
After the super-difficult stage, this mini-boss is easy. For all its size,
it can’t take much punishment. In fact, its previous incarnation was
tougher.
    The boss of this stage resembles a phoenix. It features turrets on each
wing that can fire generic shots right at you or beams straight down. The
turrets will glow a bit before firing the beams. Use your normal boss
tactics to dismantle it. Like the mini-boss before it, the actual stage
makes this boss look easy.

Final Stage:
     This is it, the final boss. This thing is gigantic! It really likes
the circle stream pattern for it turrets, so be prepared. Shutting it down
one piece at a time is a lot of fun, and not all that hard (though it is
tougher than the previous boss). The real fun begins when you strip it down
to its core.
    This thing fires at you. A lot. For the most part, it will abandon the
circle stream and simply flood the screen with shots. Your objective here
is, as always, to last as long as possible to inflict the damage you need to
win. You WILL get shot down; the question is how often. Frequent use of
shields and bomb is highly recommended to extend your survival.
    Eventually, your attacks will prove too powerful, and the last boss
will fall. Enjoy the ending, you’ve earned it many times over!

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7. Miscellaneous
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    If I find the time to update the FAQ, I hope to add a story section,
including the quotes from each character at various points in the game. I
will not include the conversations between characters in two players games,
because of the immense number of possible conversations, plus the fact that
I have no friends that play this game. When I get better, I’ll also include
tips for the rest of the levels, as well as the endings. I will not write
complete level and boss walkthroughs as my memory is not precise enough to
recall, for example, the amount of enemy planes that attack at such-and-such
a time, but I can offer general strategies.
    Anyone with questions or comments about this FAQ can e-mail me at
[email protected].
    I doubt that anyone would want to copy this, but just in case, I’d
better be sure. This material is protected by copyright laws and cannot be
reproduced for any reason without my permission. There, that ought to cover
it.
   Thanks to Charlie C. for telling me about the secrets mentioned in the
walkthrough. Thanks to Capcom for making this great shooter, and thanks to
you, the reader, for having the patience to read through my FAQ.

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