When going through each stage, you will be allowed a single air weapon
and a single ground weapon. When you hit the B Button, it will fire both the air
and ground weapon at the same time, so effectively you get to double wield,
and in two different directions at once. Here is a description of each weapon,
as well as their overall relative usefulness.
-----------
AIR WEAPONS
-----------
Each weapon will fire at least one bullet per shot. For the Chain Guns
and the Falcon, all the ammo from the previous shot needs to either be used up
in killing an enemy or spend a certain amount of time on-screen before you can
fire again.
Chain Guns - The Chain Guns fires two bullets: one straight forward, and one
at a 45 degree angle northeast of you. Overall, the Chain Guns is
the lowest-quality air weapon because of the firing rate of the
gun: the gun shoots at a very slow rate, about once every two
seconds
Falcon - The Falcon shoots out missiles that are fairly long, providing more
opportunity to hit something, but only fires straight forward. However,
the Falcon shoots missiles at a much faster speed than the Chain Guns
will. Additionally, because the Falcon only shoots ONE missile at once,
one can get in front of a line of enemies and achieve a rapidfire
effect; as soon as your missile is destroyed in taking out an enemy,
you can immediately fire again
Cannon - Easily the most useful Air weapon, the Cannon can be fired four times
at once. Additionally, the Cannon has a tall height, meaning that your
enemies are less likely to avoid a hit by a sliver. If you start firing
in front of a row of enemies, you can take them out in no time at all
through the use of rapidfire
--------------
GROUND WEAPONS
--------------
The name isn't very descriptive here; what each ground weapon does is
send a bullet or missile going down from your plane, as opposed to straight
forward or up. Fortunately, ground weapons don't delay you from shooting your
air weapons repeatedly, and you can usually double-shoot them.
Red-Eye - Drops a projectile straight down from your position, at a decently
fast speed.
Copperhead - Shoots a missile that goes down-right thirty degrees below your
x-axis. The missile goes at a fairly quick speed, making it
decently useful. However, talented usage of it will take some
practice to make the most out of it.
Hellfire - Shoots a bullet down-right forty-five degrees below your x-axis,
mirroring the upper bullet of the Chain Guns. Overall, the Hellfire
suffers from the same flaws as the Chain Guns.
My personal recommendation is to use a combination of the Cannon and
Copperhead, as both are relatively quick and you can spam them easily and
destroy a row of enemies in short order.
=====
OTHER
=====
FUEL - In every level, you can hit the A Button, and go into a state of
temporary invincibility, in which the screen goes slightly faster than
usual and your ship destroys anything that is in its path automatically.
However, this state can only last as long as you have fuel (indicated
by the fuel bars at the top of the screen), and you can exit out of the
fuel state by hitting the A button again, and reenter it later. The fuel
resets and replenishes itself in between every stage, so don't be afraid
to use it to get out of a tight bind!
Bonuses - Occasionally the enemy will leave behind a symbol that reads like
"POW". This will give you a score bonus.
POW - 300 Extra Points
Helmet-Like Object - 3000 Points
Star - Destroys all enemies on screen and adds the score you would normally get
to your high score
1-Up - Adds another life to your total
'Special Enemies' - In some of the stages, there will be an enemy that will
take multiple hits to down, and will go off the left end,
only to come straight back on. These enemies must be
destroyed before the end of the level, or else it is game
over for you.
Airwolf (not to be confused with the American NES game of the same name)
is a horizontally-scrolling shoot'em'up game, with six levels. Unlike some games
of the same genre, Airwolf does NOT have any powerups. Curiously, the bosses of
each level with the exception of the final boss are fought using an entirely
different engine - as opposed to fighting them in a horizontal scroller, you are
instead given a static target that will shoot out the occasional missiles, and
you have to shoot the static target repeatedly until it is destroyed. In the
scrolling levels, the closest that passes for bosses are special enemies that
need to be shot multiple times to be destroyed.
Probably the greatest design about Airwolf are its enemies - they can
pop up from the top or the bottom of the screen, or from the left end, sometimes
they pop up from the background, squadrons of enemy planes can curve around in a
circle or double-back, providing for a refreshing NES-era shmup.
=========
STAGE ONE
=========
•Once you survive the first couple of minutes, you should be wary about keeping
the Airwolf at the left-hand side of the screen; enemies will start coming in
from the back side and will do so for the rest of the game. Once that happens,
it is highly recommended that you keep a bit of distance between the Airwolf
and the edge of the screen all the time. The same goes for staying away from
both the top and bottom of the screen - enemies will come from both extremes
there as well.
•The missiles and capsule-shaped bombs that drop from above are nothing special;
however, they are slow to leave the screen, so you may wish to destroy them
fairly quickly to avoid having too many obstacles on screen to dodge.
•During the stage, a helicopter will glide across the top of the screen - this
helicopter is invincible, so do not bother trying to destroy it. Instead,
watch out for the bombs that it drops while on-screen and either avoid or
destroy the bombs
•About halfway through the stage, you will encounter an above-average sized
yellow-gold plane. This plane cannot be destroyed with just one hit; it will
take several hits to take it out. During the meantime, once the plane goes to
the left end of the screen, it will exit the screen, and then come back right
on, either from the left end, the top-left, or the bottom-left; whichever is
closest to where the Airwolf is. As such, when fighting the plane, try not to
let yourself be squished in between a squadron of enemy planes and the edge
of the screen, lest the plane come back on hit you. Instead, leave yourself
a lot of room to work with. When it goes off the right end, it will come back
on via the right end.
----------
BATTLE ONE
----------
•This is somewhat of a stationary snipe-and-shoot game - just aim your
crosshairs at any of the parts of the ship that are shooting out the missiles
and continue shooting until each missile launcher section is destroyed.
•Each missile will probably take about half a minute or so to reach your ship;
if one hits, it is game over. Fortunately, there is a ridiculously easy
solution to avoid the missiles - simply scroll the screen over left or right
until you can no longer see the missiles. When you scroll back, the missiles
will be gone. Yeah. It is that easy.
•The bars at the bottom indicate a time limit. Be sure to destroy the ship
(some of the missile sections might be a bit obscurely-placed, and you will
have to scroll the screen left and right) before you run out of time.
•After you win, WRITE DOWN THE CODE YOU ARE GIVEN (you have 60 seconds to
write it down). This code is randomized through each playthrough, so I cannot
help you here.
=========
STAGE TWO
=========
•On top of many of the buildings there will either be white poles with red on
top of satellite-shaped weapons that will shoot bullets at you. You should be
wary when looking at the background, as they can blend in remarkably well. To
destroy the white poles, you specifically have to hit them by the red striping.
•The big red missiles will start coming out from the left side, so stay on your
toes as far as darting around goes.
•Shortly after you cross the first bridge in the background, you will come
across a green helicopter whose purpose is similar to the yellow airplane from
the last stage. The helicopter will be infinitely more annoying, because it
will be dropping projectiles straight down as it flies across the screen, all
while you still have to fend off normal enemies. Two things make this a bit
easier; first of all, the projectiles it drops has parachutes, so there is a
larger surface area for you to hit. Secondly, the helicopter will always fly
across the top third of the screen, so if you go low when it flies out the
left end, you will not have to worry about it running into you.
•You will start getting a larger variety of bonuses in this stage. My particular
favorite is the Star, which destroys all on-screen enemies.
----------
BATTLE TWO
----------
•This time around, you have ten targets - five on each of the FRONT wings of
the airplane (there are none on the back wings or on the cockpit). The five
on either wings are the three larger propellers and the two smaller ones close
to the cockpit.
•The trick of getting rid of the missile still works, so just try to destroy
a couple of the propellors on one wing, then scroll over to the opposite wing.
•Again, do not forget to write down your password.
===========
STAGE THREE
===========
•The background for the stage is fairly unique - the top third of the background
will be a rocky cavern ceiling. If you run into it, your ship blows up.
Furthermore, there are several rock platforms throughout the cave that are
also capable of destroying your ship. If you want to take the path of least
resistance when it comes to the platforms, I recommend getting as high as
you can and putting yourself between the top platforms and the cavern ceiling.
You CANNOT use your FUEL run to go through the ceilings, either (but you can
still use it to go through bullet sprays without harm).
•Fortunately, whenever there is a silvery floor, you CAN lower yourself onto
the floor background and be safe.
•This is about the only stage where you might want to use something other than
the recommended Cannon-Copperhead combination; specifically, a
Chain Guns/Red-Eye combination or Chain Guns/Hellfire combination, as both
will give you a lot more range to work with, which is direly needed in the
caverns.
•Once you get through the first portion of the cave and get to the part where
there is water in the background, give yourself some altitude - missiles will
start launching right from the bottom of the screen (and it will always be
right underneath where you are) and go straight up. You need to give yourself
some flex room to avoid getting hit straight off the bat.
•Thankfully, there is no 'persistent' enemy that you will have to shoot
repeatedly to kill in this stage.
------------
BATTLE THREE
------------
•Not much to say about this battle. Just destroy the seven cannons that are
located in the cavern wall background. Once you win you've officially completed
half the game.
==========
STAGE FOUR
==========
•Almost immediately into the stage, purple bunkers will open up and shoot out
a missile that will split into four bullets, each heading in a cardinal
direction. There is no real pattern to the locations of the bunkers, but they
are the exact same every time, so emulator users can reload and reload as
needed. Later on, the bullets will split to go diagonally.
•Once you make it over open waters, submarines will also pop out of the water.
If you do not destroy them quickly enough, they will shoot five bullets
straight up into the air. Thankfully, there is probably about a three second
lag in between them appearing and then shooting out bullets, so you can easily
destroy it in the given time.
•You will get the occasional black plane that will fly across the screen, and
drop several loads of bullets straight down. These planes are not repeating
enemies and can be destroyed with one hit, but it is recommended you take them
out quickly to avoid a headache of dodging.
•Near the end of the stage you will have to deal with another new missile - one
that launches from the bottom of the screen and goes at a 45-degree angle
northwest, at a very high speed. Thankfully you will only have to avoid a
couple of these in this stage.
-----------
BATTLE FOUR
-----------
•The same old sort of fight; this time you will have to sink six submarines.
To sink each submarine, you have to shoot at the head of the submarine (the
tower).
•The missiles in this fight are deceptively quick, so make sure to scroll around
often to get rid of the missiles.
==========
STAGE FIVE
==========
•Overall, many of the enemy planes will tend to randomly accelerate throughout
the stage, so don't expect your foes to be going at one speed all the time
•Almost immediately, you will get some of the quick missiles much like last
stage; however, in addition to the ones that launch northwest from the bottom,
you will have some that will come in from the top going southeast
•After you make it through the first batch of capsule-shaped missiles, you will
face this stage's special enemy - a space-shuttle like airplane. The plane
doesn't seem to actually do anything beside just glide around back and forth
after it initially comes on screen and fires a single bullet after you,
so you need not worry about having to avoid bullets from it. However, it is
around this time that the screen just fills up with lots of enemies, so you
may encounter some slowdown - be wary when this happens, and make sure to
focus on taking out the regular enemies first so you don't get caught in
between multiple foes.
-----------
BATTLE FIVE
-----------
•Do not hesitate with this battle - just fire and fire away and scroll as needed
to. You have ten tanks that you must destroy, and little time.
•The five tanks at the back should be your first priority. They can be destroyed
much faster than the five up front, and once all five are gone, they can no
longer shoot missiles.
•After, shoot the five in front to win the battle.
=========
STAGE SIX
=========
•This is not really much of a stage. For the first little bit, when outside,
you will have four statues that you must shoot at their eyes to destroy them
(and you can only destroy one eye at a time). Until you can destroy all four
pairs of eyes, the stage will loop through the same four statues.
•If you are somebody who cares about getting the highest point total possible,
then you should let the stage loop itself over and over util you have little
time left and destroy as many enemy airplane squadrons as you can to get
more points off of them.
•Once you destroy all eight eyes, you will be taken to another stage.
•In this stage, you will fight the final boss, but it isn't like any of the
special battles previously; instead, this is one of the horizontal-scrolling
sections with a single enemy that has a lot of endurance.
•Shoot at the helicopter repeatedly. When it moves forward to the left side,
move past the helicopter, then when it comes back, move back to the left side
and continue to shoot at it. In the meantime, be sure to avoid all the bullet
spray the helicopter sends off, as well as the occasional turbet.
•Once you beat the helicopter, you will be asked to input the codes from the
previous stages. Input all five five-digit codes and you will get your ending.
Congratulations!
Need help with something that's not in this FAQ? Got a comment to make? Find
something wrong in this FAQ, or else just want to contribute something extra?
Email me at darkstar.ripclaw AT gmail DOT com if you need any of these things.
Just a warning note; if I recognize a question as something being asked in this
FAQ, it's not getting answered.
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