Well..... it looks like the world needs saving again.

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Well..... it looks like the world needs saving again.
We got Superman, we got the Flash, heck, we've even got Dolemite...
QUICK!! WAIT!! There's a three-foot tall girl in funny clothing over there!
Yeah, we're in buisiness now.
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Painful Generality on Silhouette Mirage
[US domestic version]
A FAQ by Subatomic Brainfreeze
version 1.0
3.04.00
members.xoom.com/SBFOne

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Kao Megura-thieved legal warning [thanks!], in case Gamepro wants this info or something.

Unpublished work copyright 2000 Subatomic Brainfreeze

This FAQ is for private and personal use only. It can only be reproduced electronically, and if
placed on a web page or site, may be altered as long as this disclaimer and the above copyright
notice appears in full. This FAQ is not to be used for profitable/promotional purposes; this
includes being used by publishers of magazines, guides, books, etc. or being incorporated into
magazines, etc. in ANY way. This FAQ was created and is owned by me, Subatomic Brainfreeze
<[email protected]> All copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged that are not specifically
mentioned in this FAQ. Please give credit where it is due.

FAQ available at:

members.xoom.com/SBFOne - my beloved home of stick-figure comics.
www.gamefaqs.com - CJayC's place. He's the man, by the way.

See it anywhere else, please let me know. Especially if it's one of those sellout game mags...
[grr]

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I. Basic Play Mechanics
i. This is you.
a. Movelist/Analysis
b. Weapons/Analysis
ii. "....these mutations are to be considered dangerous and perverse enemies...."
a. Normal enemies and dealing with them.
iii. Sho'nuff Shopping
II. Walkthrough of sorts
i. Stage 1- Shamain
ii. Stage 2- Raqia
iii. Stage 3- Shehaqim
iv. Stage 4- Machonom a.k.a Cute Little Town
v. Stage 5- Mathey
vi. Stage 6- Eruza
vii. Stage 7- Araboth
III. Miscellany

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I. Basic Play Mechanics
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This is you.
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Shyna Nera Shyna, one meter tall, weighs about 15.8 kg, yeah, she's tiny. And one side of her
outfit is red and the other side is blue, and she has wings on her hat, and her hair is both
straight -and- curly. Acid trip or potential savior of Earth? Oh come on, how do these people
usually turn out in videogames?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the basics
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You have a life bar and a spirit bar. When you turn in either direction, you switch your
attribute [Silhouette-blue/Mirage-red] When enemies the same color hit you, you lose spirit.
When enemies of the opposite color hit you, you lose life. Life can be regained by buying it
[see Shopping], and spirit can be regained by either draining it [see below] or buying it. Now
try and survive.

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Movelist/Analysis
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[note: there's no controller config option]

Attack- Square

Um, this is what you do the most. Whatever weapon you are carrying, if the enemy is the same
attribute as you, attacking it will drain its energy. If the enemy is the opposite attribute,
you will damage it, and obvoiusly, repeated shots will kill it.

Reflector- Circle [hold]

If a same-attribute enemy attacks you from the front while you are holding up the reflector,
their shots will be bounced back at them in the form of Normal [Green] energy and damage them.
Reflected shots will not damage you. The reflector can be used in midair. Use it when under
heavy fire from enemies of the same attribute. The clean way of killing everything in sight.

Jump- X

You have a triple jump. It can be used after the reflector is used even if you've double-jumped
before, but once you jump three times, the only way to stay in the air is using the reflector.

Slide- Down + X

You can go through enemies with this. You're still vulnerable to fire, though. If you want to
get to the other side of the enemy, this is a pretty good way, given you are invincible to enemy
fire while you're doing it.

Dash- double-tap Forward

Run around if walking is too slow. You can also climb curved walls with it, and... that's it
aside from getting those cool afterimages.

Crouch- Double-tap Down, double-tap Up to get up again

Gets under enemy bullets. You can also double-tap forward or backwards to do a dashing attack,
which incidentally is nowhere near as damaging as it looks.

Grab- Circle [close]

Why have 'em all running around like that when you can keep 'em in one place? From here, you can
use a rather large number of other moves. By the way... Shyna's -hair- is grabbing these guys.
Um... good for her...

Mugging your enemies for fun and profit- Circle repeatedly after Grab

Beat your enemies severely and take their money. And yes, you're supposed to be the good guy.
Anyhow, regular enemies cough up three normal-sized coins [about 10-20 credits] and one small
one, worth five or so. Bosses carry around various amounts of cash and most ought to be beaten
for everything they're worth. This is probably the most important thing to do in the game. The
weapons do not come cheap [especially with the jacked-up prices in the US version] so plan on
using this a lot. Not to mention you have to spend money on life, and if you don't buy any,
you'll have to use a continue, and the idea here is to beat the game five times within ten
continues. So yes, money is very, very important. Get it. Now. Deputy Headless notes that you
can hold down Circle for a punch and get big coins. The average enemy has 30C on them. This is
helpful since it doesn't take as long as three punches, plus you don't have to run around
collecting money, plus it works great for taking hundreds at a time from bosses.

The various tosses- direction + Circle after Grab

The enemy will go in the direction you toss them. This is good for isolating a single enemy,
beating them while uninterrupted by other enemies, taking their money, and killing them. The
manual states that the bosses will do interesting things when you throw them on the ground w/
the down button. Haven't tried yet, will find out later.

Over the enemy's head- L2/R2 after Grab

Fairly useless, considering either directional button will do the exact same thing without taking
so long or making you so wide open with a sign between your eyes that says "Hey guys! Try to get
the next shot right over here!" That said, it's also just like that move in Streets of Rage 2
where you flipped over the guy's head and then did a special move and yelled "Ratta-tatta-ta!!"

Attribute Switch- Triangle

If you feel you need to that badly, you can make facing right Silhouette and facing left Mirage,
but it wastes a third of your spirit and isn't worth the [short] amount of time it will take to
get the energy back.

Parasite Bomb- L2 + R2

Big huge circular shot. Looks nice, wastes a whole lot of your energy, doesn't hit everything
onscreen at the same time, why bother?

Also, if you're grabbed by an enemy, shake the pad left/right to break free. But it's always like
that anyway.

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Weapons Analysis [note: author is heavily inclined towards use of Surosa]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surosa- A circle for a head and a cone for a body, split Silhouette/Mirage down the middle
with a little beak popping from its head.
A plain normal bullet that automatically moves in the general direction of your enemies.
On increasing levels the amount and size of the bullets increases somewhat, but not by much.
About as damaging as you're going to need and is excellent at sapping spirit out of enemies.
Regardless of whatever else you're packing, this ought to be your main weapon. It's the only
particularly versatile one of the bunch. Most of the other weapons are strictly situational, but
Surosa will do whatever you need it to. One could likely use it alone their entire game without
any significant problems. However, the other weapons are quite a bit more gratifying.

L6 notes: This weapon is bloody awesome now. Imagine Grattoni with little to no spirit
depletion. One could even call it overpowered, especially being given at this early point in the
game, but quite honestly, having played through the game some five or six times without it, I
feel.... deprived.

Grattoni- A dragon made out of beam-type energy.
It's a known fact in videogames that dragons are not individuals to be, shall we say, messing
around with. Make a dragon angry, gamer lore states, and it will bite your friggin' head off.
With that in mind, Grattoni is a giant [even at L1] dragon laser beam that homes in on and kills
profusely that which stands in front of you. Now, the drawbacks, rather, the huge drawbacks. It
drains spirit by the hundreds even for temporary use of it. It's not something you can casually
use to wipe out normal enemies, because after even a few drop, you will be left with half of
your spirit gone. The other drawback is that draining spirit with it doesn't actually give you
spirit. See, Grattoni wastes spirit at the same speed as it drains, so your spirit count will
just fluctuate endlessly between 3 numbers [that is 267-269]. During boss fights, you would have
to use another weapon to gain spirit, and such a large amount would take a while, which makes
this weapon impractical.
L6 notes: It kills -fast-, but it's still way too limited to bother spending a thousand credits
on. Spirit drainage works, but it crawls. You ought not to bother. It still looks cool though.

Rasti- A Grim Reaper, that is your Grim Reaper, not the boss Reaper
A gas cloud that damages whatever stands in it for a fairly long period of time. This can be
quite useful. The main problem that you have to get around is that it will only cause big
damage if the enemy is in the area for a prolonged period of time. And for that, you have...
the Grab. If you're right next to the cloud just grab the enemy, turn in that direction and
cook until golden brown. Very fast, very effective. Drain energy in the same manner. The
problem with this strategy is that it won't work in a large group. To use this in a large
group, fire one or two bullets in an area that you can lure them to and watch them walk into the
trap. Again, highly effective. The other big problem is that you can only use three clouds at a
time. Otherwise, you can fire, but nothing will come out. And since it shoots a set distance,
you can't set very precise traps. Otherwise, good, but still very situational.
L6: If you liked it before....

Priday- A yellow thing with sunglasses and hooks for hands.
Shoots boomerangs. Go out, come back. Damaging with good range. It hits multiple times on
the way there and the way back, so it works well with spirit draining too. Not to mention it
goes -through- things. It's hurt by the fact that it's slow, but that only matters in a large
group. Overall, it's very well balanced. More damaging than Surosa, but not as good with
draining and takes a bit more spirit to fire.
L6: Huge range, goes across the screen, still very balanced, worth the cost.

Envia- A little winged angel-type thing.
This is the close-range weapon. Two wings fly out to the top and bottom diagonally, but don't
leave an open area in between either. Damages and drains quickly, but still not as quickly as
Surosa, so even though it looks pretty cool, it still isn't quite worth it.
L6: Not much seems to have changed.

Angara- An explosive shell.
Grenades. They arc up a little bit, then fall on the ground and blow up "real good" as stated
by the rabbit who sold you it. Very slow to fire, and have a strange angle that needs to be
planned beforehand. Does good damage on both sides, and it has a large blast radius that gets
a lot of enemies at once. But it's painfully slow. One bullet at a time, and if you miss that's
it until the explosion goes out. The explosion is short when you're hitting something, but that
same amount of time gets a lot longer [and a lot more vulnerable] when you're waiting to fire.
Were it not for that, this would be as useful as Rasti is, but it's crippled by the firing
limit.

L6 Notes: Big, big explosion. But it's still got that terrible arc on it, not to mention the
previously irritating firing limit. Not for the highly mobile enemies.

Cavitas- A duck with blue bug-eyes.
A sight, and once you get the enemies in your sight, release the fire button and send a homing
missile at them. It's cool, but the problem is that the sight is a middleman. Why am I bothering
getting them in a sight when another weapon would already have hit them? It's slow in actually
getting to the enemies as well, which means they'll still be in your way for a few seconds after
you fire. But if you have a big crowd of enemies in one space, provided they don't move around
too much, this will suitably demolish them.
L6: The problem still lies with the middleman of the homing sight.

Note on L6 weapons: Deputy Headless sez in order to get the L6 weapons you have to scroll up and
up and up until you can't scroll anymore and the weapon will be there. My inability to figure
this out is 100% positive, conclusive evidence that I have -no- attention span.

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"these mutations are to be considered dangerous and perverse enemies...."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Silhouettes [Spectres] are green things with jack-o-lanterns for heads and carrying frying
pans and baseball bats. The Mirages [Peepers] are little dolls that carry around handguns.

Both these enemies are pretty much the same aside from the fact that they look different and
need to be shot with different attribute bullets. Their two main attacks are the straight bullet
and the grenade. [btw, the Spectres have those really cool Hobgoblin Pumpkin Bombs] The bullet
moves very, very slow and is easily avioded/reflected. The grenades are kinda quick, though, and
they're pretty hard to see coming and evade in a big group of enemies. Look out for those.

Oooh! Mutations? In a shooter? I wonder what we're gonna do with em, kids? Eh? Eh? Who wants to
guess? Yes, Little Jimmy, down in front!

"Um... mister, I played Contra once, and they told me to shoot Red Falcon until he examaploded."

Exactly, exactly. The end goal is to kill them and get them out of your way. But remember that
the most important thing in Silhouette Mirage is to get money. The only way to get items and
weapons is to get money, and to do that you must beat up your enemies and take their money. But
as you probably noticed it takes some time to grab the enemy, beat up the enemy and toss him/her
aside to get the cash. So the main idea here is to isolate one enemy. Here are some examples:

KEY:
 peepers
<s> shyna egads!
/
 <s>
=================================================================================================

Most importantly, if you're in a big group like this, drain their spirit. Then the only attacks
they can use are close range. Isolating an enemy at this point will make you safe and free to
do whatever you like <that is for a few seconds>
So after that's done, take one enemy and chuck him over to the other side of the screen with your
Power Punch.

I pity the foo' who think I won't throw you all the way to JUPITER, sucka!
/ -whoosh-
 <s> --------------------------------------
=================================================================================================

So now that the enemy is isolated, run off to the side of the screen and appropriately whale on
your enemy.

If there is an elevated platform, things go even better for you. Once the enemies are drained,
you can take one all the way to the top of the stage and be even safer. Example.


=================|w======================
|h
|o
======================|o==========================
Throw that foo'! \ |s
 <s>|h
=================================================================================================

Go through the game in this manner and you can [although it's entirely unecessary] mug every
single enemy. Remember that this method isn't by any means foolproof, and there's always the
risk of getting damaged. But any damage that doesn't kill you can be repaired with the money
you'll get. That is, if you're close to a store.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sho'nuff Shopping with the Rabbit
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A very gratuitous amount of times over the course of the stage, you will run into a rabbit at a
small stand that looks not unlike one of those ice-cream vendors you see out in the street
during the summer. Jump [?] in front of him and he'll give you the choice to either buy or sell.
These are his prices at the various levels of weapons.

You'll notice that price doesn't make the weapon =P

In all the stages:

Mana [that is life, 100 units]: 100

Fatima [1/3 Spirit gauge]: 150

Stage 1: Shamain
L1 Surosa: 50
L1 Priday: 250
L1 Angara: 150
L1 Rasti: 100
L1 Grattoni: 300
L1 Envia: 100
L1 Cavitas: 100

Stage 2: Raqia
L2 Surosa: 100
L2 Priday: 500
L2 Angara: 250
L2 Rasti: 200
L2 Grattoni: 450
L2 Envia: 200
L2 Cavitas: 200

Stage 3: Shehaqim
L3 Surosa: 150
L3 Priday: 650
L3 Angara: 350
L3 Rasti: 400
L3 Grattoni: 600
L3 Envia: 300
L3 Cavitas: 300

Stage 4: Machonom a.k.a Cute Little Town
L4 Surosa: 200
L4 Priday: 750
L4 Angara: 450
L4 Rasti: 600
L4 Grattoni: 750
L4 Envia: 400
L4 Cavitas: 400

Stage 5: Mathey
[prices and weapons are same from here on in]
L5 Surosa: 250
L5 Priday: 850
L5 Angara: 550
L5 Rasti: 800
L5 Grattoni: 900
L5 Envia: 500
L5 Cavitas: 600

L6 Stuff:
L6 Surosa: 300
L6 Priday: 950
L6 Angara: 650
L6 Rasti: 1000
L6 Grattoni: 1000
L6 Envia: 600
L6 Cavitas: 1200

Rather important to have Mana. As a matter of fact, if you're missing over 100 HP, and there is
a store, buy one regardless. Cool weapons are secondary to basic survival. Remember, we -don't-
want to use those continues. And to do that you must always keep at least 200C on you at all
times. Of course, with excessive beating of your enemies this won't be a problem. Play the game
pinching your pennies and you are more likely to live, although, might I add, excessive cheapness
is also bad. One weapon in a long series of boss fights means you -will- run out. Stock up for
those times. Also, if you've run through the game before [highly recommended if you're planning
on that 5-game-straight run] then you ought to get a good idea of where the stores are and keep
them in mind in your money grubbing efforts. If you can get a lot of money [way over 200 for a
decent amount of enemies] and you're right next to a store, don't worry -too- much about taking
damage.

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II "Your walkthrough, Sire." "Why thank you Jeeves."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can assume that I advise to take the money of any enemy mentioned here unless it is
specifically recommended against.

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Stage 1- Shamain
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: Get accustomed to beating up Peepers. In the beginning section they will come at you
one at a time. Rob and dispose of them as quickly as possible before you've got a whole bunch
of them after you. Secondly, watch out for the grenades here. They're easy to catch if you watch
for them. Now there are Peepers on platforms with guns that shoot roughly the equivalent of their
regular bullets. Nothing to worry about. Rob them and climb the wall. Store here. Next, you'll
run into a large group of Peepers. Get up in the corner of the screen and drain spirit with the
Mirage shot to avoid taking unnecessary damage. Once the Peepers on the top platform are
knocked off, it's safe to take the edge of the top platform and do the rest of the draining
until the enemies are defenseless. Take their money. Now when you're done with that, the giant
Peeper mecha-contraptions will drop you into the next area.

Section 2: Before it was just Peepers, now you've got just Spectres to deal with. A large group
will come out. Drain their spirit from the platform, and continue up till the large group with
two platforms. This is a fiarly difficult formation to deal with without taking a little bit of
damage. What I do is jump on the right end of the first platform and drain the spirit of the
enemies to the left of me. Once they are knocked off the cliff, I can head back down and deal
with them on my own terms, then take out the rest. Be careful though, if you stray too far from
that area the Spectres will respawn. If you like you can take financial advantage of that fact,
but honestly, you've got enough and it's a bloody bore. The curved wall right before this can
be climbed to the shop with the L6 Surosa!! Whoo!! Going down here will take you to a series of
platforms on which Spectres [one to a platform] lie in wait. Drop in quickly so as not to be
grenaded on the way in. Go right ahead and waste them, get the money as usual. No reason not to.
At the bottom there is a single Spectre and a swinging spiked log. Kill, don't get hit, and
continue. Next cave-like structure: Most often, the Spectre on the top platform has joined his
friend on the first one, and they will cheerfully lob grenades at you. Jump into the cave at a
high angle, out of the range of the bombs, and fire from the top of the first platform to drain
spirit. Have your way with them and move on to the store and then the next large crowd of
enemies. They come in slowly. Drain the enemies on the left, then deal with the ones on the
right. Once drained kill as usual. Boss!

Boss 1: Grigg
Attribute: Silhouette
Easy fight to get you used to the whole thing. Thing to remember about single-attribute bosses:
Always drain spirit first. If you take same-attribute damage you will lose spirit as opposed to
life. Life cannot be regained in battle; Spirit energy can. Now, get on the Silhouette side by
knocking him down with Mirage shots and hopping over him. Start firing. If you see an attack
coming [and that's not too hard] hit the reflector button. If he hops over you get back on his
right side. Sometimes he'll get up on the spiked log that appeared before the fight. Shoot him
down with Mirage shots and get back in position if that happens. Once his spirit is drained he
can't attack and is nothing to worry about. Take your money and dispose of him.

Back to Section 2: This isn't a boss since you'll fight a couple more of these later on. Anyhow,
use reflectors again. Green [no attribute] shots can be reflected on either side. If the gun
flips over to a same attribute color [look at the barrel] then reflect. If not, dodge. Rinse,
lather, repeat.

Boss 2: Bug
Attribute: Mirage
The next section is just a boss fight. Before dropping into the pit dash and double/triple-jump
over it to the store. L6 Priday here, and this is your only chance, so come up with the money.
Only Surosa is really needed for this rather simple fight anyway. Whenever Bug materializes,
grab him and take his money, then drain him. Do this every time he tries to get into midair, but
make sure the Peepers he makes appear don't hit you with the grenades. If you see one coming
your way and you've got Bug, toss him aside and run. Every so often you won't be able to grab
Bug after he materializes [the game won't let you] and he will use one of his powerful-type
moves. For the avalanche you just need to stay above the area of his warp and use Reflector to
stay afloat. For the battleship, get on one side of the screen to lure the missiles, then head
over to the other side, climbing the wall as high as you can, and again, floating with Reflector.
The missiles won't touch you. The Energy Spring is easily reflected and if you get lucky it
will do 50% damage to Bug. The small Peepers' grenades should be dodged. as usual. Drain his
spirit, watch him fly around aimlessly like a lost fly, and crush him accordingly.

<end of Stage 1>

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Stage 2: Raqia
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: Straightaway. To drain the flying Peepers fully, you need to shoot them with Mirage
shots to take off their wings, and drain their spirit again when they've reverted to walking
form. Same goes for bikes, however, both types of enemies will be instantly killed by the
Silhouette shots as opposed to losing the wings/bike. You'll get to an area with three plaforms
where Peepers will slowly walk onscreen. Isolate the enemy. Take one to the top platform, take
the money, kill, repeat. This goes on for a while till the highway goes out. Move on to the next
room where you will fight Peepers on bikes. There's a reason you can get on those poles. With
Surosa or Cavitas, you need to jump down, take some shots, get back on the pole, and repeat. With
Priday and Angara, the shots will reach down. Grattoni reaches as well, but is generally not
recommended [ever, really] Try to do this quickly as soon you will be swarmed by more Peepers.
Most likely you won't make it in time, in which case you will need to kill a few Peepers before
robbing them. Store after this. Two groups of enemies on platforms similar to those used earlier.
Do the same as before. Boss!

Boss 1: Nardo [YOU shall become the RUST on my SWOOORRRD!]
Attribute: Silhouette
He will invariably use some large projectile at the beginning which ought to be reflected. He is
carrying less money than the average enemy. If you want it you can have it, but it's roughly
exquivalent to making a big deal over that penny you found between the cushions. After you grab
him, in any case, turn him around to the right and shoot him till he has stuff thrown at him by
all those angry people. Store here. Stock up. This'll be harder than anything else you've done
[that ain't saying much....] Boss!

Boss 2: Zohar
Attributes: Both
Two, two, two Zohars in one! Yippie-ki-yay! Get used to fighting this guy, um, not guy, um, a
little bit of both. Specifics on the two forms that Zohar switches between on the fly
follow.

Note: You cannot drain spirit during the Zohar fights.

Zohar Metatron
Attribute: Silhouette
He fights entirely close-range from here. You know how in fighting games if the opponent misses
a big attack, you're guaranteed a chance to counterattack? Well, thinking of it in those terms,
all Zohar can do in this form is use big attacks. Just stay away from him until you see a
vulnerability and fire. Grabbing, though entirely possible, is not suggested as he can break free
and smack you around for it.

Zohar Sandalphon
Attribute: Mirage
And she uses just long-range attacks. Keep her on the right side of the screen [she's easy to
grab in this form] and reflect a lot. Once she hits ground get her on the side you can hurt her
on and take as much money as you can until she breaks free of the hold. Then fire as she flies
off. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

When Zohar's HP count hits 500 it will stop fighting.

Section 3: Store. Group of Peepers on bikes. There's a large screen space. Start draning from
the top of either platform, and when they're out start pushing one at a time to the other side of
the screen and taking their money. Another one of the Peeper's giant beast-like things. Refer to
the previous instructions on fighting them. Boss!

Boss 3: Goliath
Attribute: Silhouette
This is possibly the only boss in the game I recommend you not grab. You will invariably be
slammed into the ground numerous times in your attempts, and he's only got... 250C. And you'll
be well beaten by the time you get that, so.... Don't do it. Just stay away and on one of the
platforms so he can't shoot at you [which he does do sometimes]. Then blast him. When he starts
tossing the Spectres and Peepers from the truck, you can reflect them, but they aren't likely to
hit, and it they do the damage is nothing important. Drain his spirit if you need to, but don't
try to grab him when he's drained, because his throw will still work. A store will appear after
the fight in case Goliath gave you any trouble.

Boss 4: The Gun
Attributes: Both
An interesting method of destruction, to say the least. Little Silhouette and Mirage bullets run
from a ladder into a giant 6-shot revolver and play Russian Roulette with you. Stay on the side
you see the most bullets for [i.e. you see 5/6 bullets are Mirage. Get on your Mirage side] and
get all the way on the end of the screen, so you can dodge an opposite-attribute shot. On the
left side there's a little Peeper who will hit you, by the way. Basically what you want to do is
reflect. That's all there is to it. You'll probably get smacked a few times, but it won't be much
of a problem.

Also note: This is Dave Connoy's better-than-mine method of wrecking the Gun:

I just thought I'd "shoot" you my method of destroying the Anti-Messenger Gun in stage 2... I
just sit to the left of the ramp that the bullets run up and fire Surosa like crazy, as they're
getting into the gun. This causes almost all of the Silhouette bullets to die before they can
even get into the gun, and then it's a simple matter of reflecting the Mirage bullets that did.
I've killed the big gun in as little as two "loadings" with this method. Hope it helps!

Boss 5: Dynamis "Call me crazy, but as a general rule, I don't purchase flora from giant
homicidal flying fish."
Attributes: Both [starts as Mirage]
Look! A Darius boss!! No wait, forget it. Anyhow, this thing will attack you with two giant arms
that swing around and try to kill you. Don't let it grab you. If it does, the other arm will
shoot you. And hit. A lot. It's most vulnerable when one arm is in the ground, but if you blow
up an arm while it's in the ground there will be a little... thing left in the ground that will
fire at you, and the last thing you need with all these shots flying around the screen is more
stuff to dodge, so kill it right away. When you blow up enough arms [they regenerate] Dynamis
will switch attributes. Sometimes when she's very low on health she will have one arm Silhouette
and one side Mirage. That's pretty dangerous. Concentrate on one and reflect the other. Overall
it's an easy fight.

<end of Stage 2>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stage 3: Shehaqim
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: This is the first time you'll have to fight enemies of both attributes at the same
time. Flying Spectres will come in through the windoes of the roof you're on, and at the same
time, Peepers in the background will toss grenades at you. To avoid that get over to the right
edge of the screen. Note the lack of Mirage grenades here. Grab the Spectres in midair when they
come to you, take their money, and be done with this place. Now you will face a group of flying
Spectres on the middle of the roof without the background Peepers trying to kill you. Ground one
at a time and get your money, but make sure that at the moment you kill the last enemy that you
are not in the middle of the screen. If there is one left, just stay on one side. Now head over
to the left, being watchful of the trapdoor midscreen, and there will be a store that sells L6
Angara. Take it if you want, but be warned that the situation from the beginning of the stage is
duplicated here, minus the safe spot, and is really, really annoying. With that done, head down
the trap door.

Section 2: Ack! It's the boulder thing from Raiders of the Lost Ark!! Except with a wheel. This
is kinda easy, kinda hard, depends on whether you get unlucky or not. The more enemies you let
go, the more enemies will jump into the wheel, and enough enemies will make the wheel faster
than you are. Enemy placement is pretty random here, there's a lot of ground to cover if you
want to take all the enemies out, and a lot of enemies [both Spectres and Peepers] can just jump
in front of your face all of a sudden and keep you back. To be safe, I recommend you keep a good
distance in front of the enemies. Don't even think about taking large amounts of money from
here. Maybe two or three isolated enemies in the beginning. Eventually you'll hit an up/down
crossroads. There's a shop at the up/down midpoint, and there's also a shop at the end of both
ways, but the secret shop is hidden on the down path. You have to go down, stick to the bottom
lane, and look for a piece of ground differently colored from the others. Jump down it, and you
will have outrun the wheel one more time. At the end of the path there's another up/down split
that goes up to the secret shop [L6 Rasti] and down to the exit. Boss!

Boss 1: Pablo
Attribute: Silhouette
Keep your back turned when you see him until he comes out. He doesn't seem so... werewolf-like
here, but rest assured, he's gonna try to kill you. Once he turns into the werewolf, before
anything, note his attacks. Ha-DO-ken! SHO-ryu-ken!! Heh-heh. That was cool. Anyhow, you can go
about this one of two ways, that is if you so choose. There's the convenient way, which is
fighting him head-on, and there's the long way, which involves turning him back into a human,
beating him up till he transforms, and repeating. First off, the easy way. Stay on the
Silhouette side and reflect until he either throws a fireball at you [if he does the big
Grattoni-looking one and you reflect it he will take massive damage] or he uses a close-range
attack. You'll lose spirit, but don't bother getting out of the way. You can drain it back, and
he's too fast to really be dodged too effectively. And besides, he has lots and lots of recovery
time. Grab him, after an attack, take the money, and so forth. Drain him for all his spirit,
then start attacking from the Mirage side and risk no damage. The second way, use the downwards
throw [I believe this is the only use for it in the game] over and over till he turns into
normal, timid Pablo. You can take his money from here, but attacking him in any way is pretty
limited since he has a reflector. I find this method sort of useless as it takes long and it's
boring and I haven't noticed an advantage in the use of either. Anyhow, beat him however you
like and move on.

Boss 2: Malak
Attribute: Your choice
This is likely the most irritating boss in the game. You can't -reach- him! I would
recommend something nice and long-range like Priday. Anyhow, whatever attribute you shoot the
smiley face with will be the attribute that he will use for the fight. Basically once you've
done that the giant lizard starts spiraling around your floating platform shooting like mad.
And often he'll keep a huge distance away from you. Any time he comes nearby for an extended
period of time shoot like crazy, Malak's own shots be damned. He takes damage easily, and the
quicker this fight is over the better. Just try not to come out of it too injured. You can
reflect his slow-moving projectiles for extra damage, just try not to get hit by his main
weapon, the homing missiles. The homing missiles are so hugely uncool. They're just a lose-lose
situation. Turn to the same-attribute side and use the reflector on them. Some will hit in the
front and be reflected, others will hit you in the back and cause large spirit damage. And if
they hit opposite-attribute, they juggle, which is just plain painful. Anyhow, it's simple,
but it makes me downright angry.

And no the level isn't over, contrary to what you see on screen. Our pal is back....

Boss 3: Zohar
Attribute: Both
Mainly the strategy is the same as previously, except it's a lot harder to get money, Zohar
moves faster, the Sandalphon form has the [largely ineffective] homing beam, and the Metatron
has the spinny-around attack which you can just shoot him out of. Plus you've a
huge area to move around in. That can be a good or a bad thing. Make it good. Throw Zohar around
before Zohar can throw you around. Grab and fire! Grab and fire! There's a lot of money there
if you want to go for it, but don't do it if you're risking death for it. Again, Zohar will
cut off mid-fight at a certain amount of HP. This is the place where I'm most likely to die
first, the second place being the Reaper and the third being the final bosses. It's that dang
"you can't drain spirit from Zohar" thing.

<end of Stage 3>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stage 4: Machonom a.k.a. Cute Little Town
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This level is easy, but it's where all the really fun/imaginative-type bosses occur. Enjoy the
stage. Boss!

Boss 1: Samson
Attribute: Silhouette
Store at the beginning of the stage. Keep going until you have to fight him. You're on a car,
and he's sticking out of the roof. He only uses a few attacks. Generally the pattern is that
he'll swipe his hand across the screen and throw a slow-moving projectile at you at the same
time. If you are fighting from the side view, get on the low end of the car and you will avoid
the swipes. Otherwise, dodge and reflect, respectively to each attack. Sometimes he'll
mix up the pattern and throw two projectiles at you. Again, dodge one, reflect the other. The
pattern continues like that for the rest of the fight. You can drain easily, but it's only
really necessary if you need to. You can pretty easily win this fight with Surosa.

Section 1: Making money the quick and easy way. You've got a hallway full of Spectres and
Peepers attacking you. Lots of them in a wide open space which means lots and lots of money.
Provided right is your Mirage side, run in blasting away at the Peepers, draining them and
rendering them ineffective. Now as the Specters start to come in throgh the top of the screen,
jump up and drain them too. A whole wave of enemies that can't hurt you will soon stand before
you. Toss them all into one corner, take one, drag it off, take its money, and repeat. The
second wave consists entirely of Spectres, making it a little easier. First go for the enemies
coming in from the right. Grab them and turn them around. Then drain all the enemies at once,
and use the aforementioned robbing method. When that's done... Boss!

Boss 2: Some guy whose name is not listed in the manual. "LOVELY iron Bo-hemoth!"
Arribute: Silhouette
After beginning the You Die, You Lose game show, you end up in a hallway. Jump down twice and
you will notice the presence of a store. It's also a store where L6 Grattoni is sold, that is
if you're into that sort of thing. Move on and-- the room blacks out. Not a problem, just
remember that there are two platforms and a floor, both of which cover the whole area. Anyhow,
this guy will show up and try to kill you with his shadow puppet tricks. Oh, come on. The way
to beat this guy is to smother him completely. Stay on him at all times. Grab profusely. Throw
him where you want to throw him. You can control him, don't let him move because you don't have
to. This fight will be short. Now get back up there. Boss!

Boss 3: Sara
Attribute: Mirage

First off, the bunnygirl starts moving back and forth across the screen. Blast with Silhouette
shots until the bunnygirl thing falls off. Yeah, it was just a midget with a sign. Well, isn't
it always? Now before beginning on the actual fight or anything I'll get into the slot machine
aspect of the fight. Hit Sara enough times, either attribute when she is standing and opening
the treasure box on her head, and the multiplier on the slot machine will go up. This represents
how many items you'll get from the slot machine. Usually, when it hits eight, she will jump up
to the handle of the slot machine and give it a spin. Press any button to stop each column. You
can get a row horizontally or diagonally. Note that this slot machine is not even remotely
controlled by you, and most often will make the decisions by itself.

Here's what the prizes are:

Coin: A couple hundred credits at 8. Very, very good for you.

Spectre/Peeper: The lame prize, or so it seems. A bunch of either enemy will come out and
attack you. Drain and take the money. See, this was a good thing! Just try not to let Sara
hit you during the procedure.

Lucky!: Sara is hit by a giant bolt of Silhouette energy.

Blue Smiley Face: You get hit by a large beam. The real lame prize.

So anyway, the first thing you ought to do in this fight is drain spirit. Without spirit, Sara
will be unable to use any of her attacks, and you can have lots of fun out of the slot machine
that is if you have the patience. As for dealing with the attacks when she isn't drained...
the three card monte doesn't need to be watched. As soon as the cards move up, triple-jump and
use the reflector to stay in midair while the bolts fly around. The marbles she tosses can be
extremely useful for keeping her in one place. Reflect them, and they will turn into your
weapons. Sara will often run over them without you even touching her. When this happens, either
drain her, or, if she's out of spirit, take her money. Once she's out of spirit, you can do what
you like, take her money, [advised, she is, after all fairly loaded.] wait for the slots, and
eventually, of course, kill her. When she's beaten she'll give you one last spin on the wheel.
When she gets back down, you can grab her and beat her up if you like. In any case, when that's
over she'll kick you out, and then we move on to the next part. Boss!

Boss 4: Delia
Attribute: Mirage

Soup!! Soup is great, soup is fun! So what you have to do here is turn that soup from Mirage
soup, which Delia likes, to Silhouette soup, which wlll kill Delia. To do that, we must throw
the little Spectres into the bowl. The Spectres are throwing Mirage food in there too, so you
have to be fast about it. Stick to one side. Moving around wastes too much time. Basically,
just keep throwing the Spectres. You can take money, but being on the edge of the screen you're
in a bad place to do so. So just go ahead and enjoy the fight. You won't have a problem.

<end of Stage 4>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stage 5: Mathey
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: You are presented with the choice between the two heads of Prinsdam. One will eat you
on the left side, or the other will eat you on the right. In the right head, after the first
boss, you will find a store selling the L6 Envia. In the left head, you will get.... just normal
stores. Take your pick. Both areas are similar, though not alike, in layout, with the spider
boss in the middle and stores on the left and right, and you're moving left in the right head,
right in the left. You get a new kind of normal enemy in this level, robots. They're actually
stronger than the regular enemies because they have no spirit to drain. Isolate one at a time as
usual. An interesting note is that robbing your enemies on the slanted buildings [this is if you
are facing up] the coins will fall on you and save you much time and effort in their retrieval.
Anyhow, you ought to be making your way to the middle by now. Boss!

Boss 1: Spider
Attribute: Normal
Quick note on normal damage: It can be reflected by either attribute but if it hits it drains
both life and spirit. This boss attacks in a few ways. Most often he will shoot out a web-like
line -very- quickly and then will shoot a bomb at you along the line. Avoid this by staying on a
different platform than him. If you are caught, and you are a good distance away, you can easily
break free before the bomb hits. His otehr main attack is a very large web that spreads out for
a wide distance around him. If it catches you, it will drag you in and the spider will proceed
to do whatever he wants, which is most often the first attack. This is pretty much unbreakable
once it happens. The only way to avoid it is staying out of the range before he uses it. His
third attack is dropping on a web to the space between two platforms and shooting out normal
bullets in all directions. When you see the green light appear on his head, signaling that he is
about to fire, get right in front of him and try to reflect as many as possible. This is one
of your two chances to attack. Your other chance is the fourth attack. This is the least used,
but it is also the most effective means of attack for you. He lays small webs around the area.
Reflect them with the corresponding attributes and they become your weapons, much like using
Rasti. With that weapon, you just drag the enemy into the area and watch them take the damage.
Do this with the webs, and if you're lucky, the fight will be over in seconds.

Back to Section 1, more of the same except in the right head you have the L6 Envia shop, and...
Boss!

Boss 2: The Yona Division "REDRUM! REDRUM!"
Attribute: Normal

Um, this is a wacky crazy kinda fight. They've got you in a pretty nasty situation here.
Surrounded on all sides. Get the enemies on one side of you, cause all you can do right now is
reflect. Eventually, the main robot will use the Attribute Beam, which will cause the enemies to
take on one of the attributes. Kill all the normal enemies as a priority. You don't want the
boss making 20 robots and them killing you all at the same time. When he hops around and plants
bombs, provided you are near them, reflect them. They will turn into normal damage that will not
hurt you. You can try to grab the boss to keep him in the area of the bomb, too. Generally, just
keep killing the robots and reflecting the boss' attacks and you will beat them. But it'll take
a while, and that's pretty draining. And draining is not what you want when you have to fight,
without any rest... another Boss!

Boss 3: Megido
Attribute: Silhouette
This seems damn near impossible until you realize that the only thing that will get you anywhere
is reflecting. Get on the Silhouette side at all costs. When he attacks, reflect. When he doesn't,
drain spirit. Sometimes when you fire, he'll start spinning. That's his reflector. Just reflect
the shots back [be at a good distance for that]. The main idea is to reflect Kill Wave over and
over and over again. If you're lucky, he will throw it at you about ten times straight at the
most. The reflection takes away both life and spirit, which is good because you also want to
drain his spirit. Of course, he does use other attacks, and in the meantime, you'll have to evade
them. First off, when he throws a lot of Spectres at you, wait for him to use the Kill Wave and
reflect it. It will kill the rest of the Spectres. If he doesn't do that, like say he uses
Burning Arrow [ugh] you'll have to take a chance and kill the Spectres. Get high in the air
[so Megido can't hit you] and start firing. If he uses Burning Arrow, you have to dodge on the
first time by running and jump out of the way or reflect on the second time. Jumping is harder,
but either way has no particular advantage. For the move where he throws lots of projectiles
at you, move around as much ast possible to throw off his homing. Often it's better to just
jump off the side of Prinsdam, because that will launch you to the center of the screen. The
roses are confusing. Sometimes they reflect and sometimes they won't, they're just like that.
Dodge them to be safe. Remember, above all, stay on the Silhouette side and drain spirit,
especially if you haven't died and plan on fighting the Reaper [btw, if you fight the Reaper you
will be fighting -three- bosses straight with no break in between]. You don't want to see
Megido kill you six thousand times, do you? Hey, I didn't. This fight cuts off at 500 HP and
then....
</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
<end of Stage 5>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In-between somewhere: Here's the deal with the Reaper. Get through the game with no continues up
until this point. If you do, the Reaper [that is, "a mysterious voice"] will ask you some
questions:

Have you ever felt fear when facing an enemy?
Yes, I have! [bad answer]/No, why? [good answer]
Have you reached the limit of your powers?
Indeed. [bad answer]/Of course not! [good answer]
Do you have the confidence to believe you will never be defeated?
Yes, I do! [good answer]/No, I'm doomed. [bad answer]

And if you couldn't answer these, you haven't got the mad superpowerful fighting spirit you need
to take the Grim Reaper in a fight. Sorry.

So anyway, even if you don't have the fighting spirit, if you got the questions, you're still
fighting this guy.

<Huh, what? I didn't get to the Reaper this runthrough? Um, I dunno how -that- happened. I
didn't die, and I refused the fight the first run because I didn't want to use the continue. Am
I condemned? Noooo!! Reaper section will come later, next time I finish the game, which won't
be long>

Um, well actually, this rather says it itself, and honestly since it's the only of Dave Connoy's
helpful hints that I don't have a walkthrough for myself, it will likely be left this way for a
little while.

Oh, and I'll give you my fool-proof (mostly) Reaper strategy... just sit on your Silhouette side, on the bottom platform, and
reflect. This will reflect his big wave attack for HUGE damage and the Soul Stealer attack as well. When he gets on his, er...
horse and starts wheeling around like a maniac, just stand your ground and reflect... he won't do any damage. The only attack
to watch out for is when he throws his scythe. It can't be reflected, and since it does Normal damage you'll lose life from it (and
a lot since it'll probably juggle you for several hits). When he throws it, jump up to the other platform and move to the vertical
center of the screen. Wait for him to say "Return!" and the moment he does, drop off to the lower platform.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stage 6: Eruza [Zebul in manual]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: Small hallway, three Peepers with big guns. Drain from midair, isolate and kill.
Proceed up the hallway to the store, where you probably need to fill up by now. Your last
encounter with the walkers, only this time you've got two to deal with, and getting rammed
between them is a very bad thing. Try to keep them on one side of the screen, and deal with them
as detailed earlier. Store up here, and you are presented with a whole mess of fliers. Catch
them in midair, take the money if you really need it, and kill. Falling debris down this
hallway. Dash and don't look back. Boss!

Boss 1: Gargantuan ["he's quite ravenous", btw]
Attribute: Switches.

This is easy enough, just long. Give him the opposite color enemies of what he currently is.
That is, if Gargantuan is Silhouette, kill all the Spectres in the room, and make sure he only
takes Peepers. Repeat for a really long time. Drain as many enemies as possible to keep them
out of your way while you're waiting for Gargantuan to recover them. The attacks he uses are
all just slow-moving projectiles, nothing too frightening. You can get pretty rich here if you
still need to at this point. And kill that thing, and Boss!

According to the memory card file, Stage 6 ends after this fight, and Stage 7 begins at the
fight with Zohar.

<end of Stage 6>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stage 7: Eden [Araboth in manual]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boss 1: Zohar, the return.
Attribute: Both

Important Note: This fight determines which boss you are going to fight at the end of the
game. Kill Zohar, and you fight Za-Zohar next. Don't kill him, and the game will go easy on
you and give you Serah. This, along with the choice at the end of the game, determine four of
the five endings. It is imagined [by me] that beating the Reaper over the head with a shovel and
then continuing to beat the game is the fifth path. In order to keep track of endings and
not repeat any, it is reccommended you make the decision as to who you're going to fight ahead
of time. Diagram:

Difficulty of the bosses is based on the opinion of this FAQ author and may differ from your
experiences. Parental discretion is advised.

Edo [-really- hard]
Cypher Za-Zohar __________________________
[hard] restore Edo /
__________________________/
win / \ Megido/Transformed Megido [harder than Serah,
Zohar / abandon Edo \__________________________ easier than Za-Zohar]
---------/
\ ______________________________
\ Serah [easy] restore world / Geluve [easy]
lose\____________________________/
leave it be \ Megido/Transformed Megido
\______________________________

Back to Zohar:

Again, refer to the previous strategy. New attack in the Sandalphon form is the mines. She
shoots them out, and they make an awfully annoying area to move around in. Oh well, shoot her
when she's in the attack's recovery time. It'll make you feel better. She can shoot a laser
around between these mines, which means stay out of that area, even though that's a bit easier
said than done. She can also shoot a group of large beams out that stretch a very long range.
Just stay on her during this mode and don't let her attack. All isn't exactly lost if she does,
but you're going to take some damage.

Boss 3 [easy]: Serah
Attribute: Both

And this is where they go easy on you. Relax, take a deep breath, be glad you aren't fighting
the other third boss of this level. The most important measure that you have to take during
this fight is to keep Serah from healing herself. If you leave the worms that she throws at
you during the Genesis Phase attack alive, then she will eventually eat then with that vaccuum
hose she has attached to her. These worms are your first priority. You can drain from them, but
don't unless there is only one left and Serah shows no signs of wanting to eat it. You must,
however, always make sure to kill the worms, as even Serah eating one can set back an already
long, tedious fight a minute or two. You, provided there hasn't been an attribute change, are in
good position to just continually wail away at her when you can for the first half of the fight.
The only attack she uses here are Genesis Phase and the Containment Beam, which sweeps all over
the screen except the area under her, which means we are going under her. Halfway through she
will start to use the Destruction Clarion [I think] attacks, which do random things, and also
spout random numbers from Serah's trumpet, but they have nothing to do with the attack used.
Mainly she will make bats fly around and bother you. Kill them, but first, if there are any
worms around from Genesis Phase, kill them. Sometimes she does a -big- Genesis Phase which is
also easily taken care of, but long and annoying. Your biggest chance for attack [and this may
not even come up while you're fighting] is the circle of flames she wil generate. It starts big
but gradually gets smaller until it's gone. What you can do here is reflect as many of those
flames as possible, and they will start to do damage. By the end, you will most likely have
caused a few hundred points of damage, which would otherwise take a while.

Boss 3 [hard]: Cypher Za-Zohar
Attribute: Both

Egads. You're pretty toast if you don't look out. These are patterns, yes, but they are some
real bloody rough patterns. Use extreme caution and remember there's always an opportunity for
damage. Most importantly, fire at all times.

Note: <groan> No spirit draining here. Working Designs' changes make the game minorly
unreasonable from here on IMO, what with all the inablility to drain from bosses. <not-so subtle
whisper> Edo!

-First, I'll take Sandalphon, as it is a lot easier to fight. It can use the stupid guns that
normal Zohar uses, except firing downwards from one arm at a time. No problem, stay under it.
Sometimes, it throws out slow-moving grenades with a large blast radius. If you reflect these
while they're floating, they won't do much damage, but if you wait and reflect the blast itself,
they can do decent damage to Zohar. This form's big attack is the one where it flies up to the
top of the screen, waves its arm across the screen, says "embrace the void," and a huge row of
enegy beams goes across the screen. And like most big attacks, it is easily avoided. Jump up and
float above Zohar or reflect the blast from the ground, even though it won't do anything. It
also shoots an even slower-moving variant of the homing beam that normal Sandalphon used.
Reflect, you might get lucky.

-Metatron is the form that you are likely to have problems with... Ah, Metatron. Note that
normal Metatron's weakness was the short range of his sword attacks. Note the fact that Za-Zohar
has swords that can cover the entire screen at once. Well, that weakness has been well taken
care of, I'd say. His main attack, and really the only attack he needs to use, is constant
slashing. To avoid these, you have to move to the only part of the screen he isn't attacking,
and that would be his body. Jump up, float, and wait till you have no choice but to drop. Fire
if you get the chance, but keep in mind this isn't the time to be on the offensive. His big
attack is signaled by his flying up to the top of the screen, crossing his arms, and giving
another speech on some wacky NES-era videogame villain topic, and swinging both swords outwards
at the same time, leaving small projectiles going out in every direction from left/right to
down. There isn't an area -on the platform- that he doesn't attack, which only means that you
have to get off the platform for this to not kill you. You should be able to triple-jump over
the projectiles, firing at it, when this happens. Generally, you need to deal with this pattern
until he transforms. Watch those sword slashes, I'm pretty sure they do in the area of 30-40 HP
a shot.

-Halfway through the fight, Zohar loses his lower body, leaving you with only three targets; the
upper body and arms. And they're a lot harder to hit than the lower body was. Not only that, but
the lower body, every so often, charges across the screen trying to kill you. The lower body
adds one more attack [and this is good for you]: at random during the fight, six energy balls
will appear in the background. They will disappear, at which point they will come down to the
platform in the form of columns of energy. Reflect with Zohar above you, and he will take large
damage. And you need that badly.

Basically, once you've figured out the patterns, you will spend an additional 5-10 minutes
trying to duplicate your efforts over and over and over, and let me tell you, it's hard. But not
frustrating. Fun difficult, you know?

Inside Edo: After a lively chat with Har, you are given the choice to restore the world or
abandon it. Depending on what you did during this level, you get one of three bosses.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final Boss 1: Edo [super-hard]
Attribute: Normal, Silhouette, Mirage [what, you expected less?]
Note: No spirit drain here. <thwack of head against wall>

This is the game's megaboss. If you thought things were disturbingly elaborate before... they
are getting worse.

First form: Sequence of huge floating drones that shoot beams at you in varying manners
according to their number. The first time there's two, the second time there's three and the
last time there's four. Sometimes the sequence will end when you beat one, sometimes only one
drone will be destroyed and you'll still have to fight them. Generally, the only way to kill
them is to reflect them. More specifically:

One: Zips around like mad [and with shadows]. It has to, and will, come to you. You can't really
lose against one of these. Wait, and reflect.

Two: They line up and fire at you from both sides. You haven't a chance directly between them
a good distance in the middle, so don't try anything like that. Usually, you'll need to get
close to one, [so you can dodge the other shot] wait for it to fire, and watch the shot coming
at you from the other side. On a diagonal slant, you can be barely in range of the one side's
shot and be completely out of the way of the other at the same time. Just very, very barely
get the bottom area of the reflector into the path of the fire and you won't have to worry about
being hit. Also, when the bullets collide, they separate. Easy reflection.

Three: Triangular formation. There are lasers at the spaces between the drone which act as
fences, limiting your movement and causing large amounts of damage if you are shot. They fire
one or two at a time, usually both at angles that can be reflected at the same time. Be quick
about things, dodge if you need to.

Four: Snake formation. [That first Strider level, perhaps?] They always fire in the direction
that they're moving. Stay in front of the first head, and when it starts flashing, reflect in
the location it's going to be when it fires. You should be able to get the timing down. Just
hope that when you kill this you won't have to deal with number three again.

Second form: Ack, it's Hal and Megido- at the same time!! The Megido form tosses around those
projectiles from before and just like before they can't be reflected. It also uses the Helping
Hand attack, which similarly, cannot be reflected. Edo also throws little things that look
-just like- Metroids at you. [If this game didn't have so many of its own bizarre ideas I'd be
calling it "homage"....] Much like, well, Metroids, they attach to your head and suck out
your health and spirit, presumably through your ears. Kill as usual, though they're really hard
to get around with everything else that's being thrown at you. The main thing to watch out for,
though, is the small energy arcs that Edo places on the ground. If the ground gets packed with
these [and it will, trust me] float above them [with the same attibute as your attacker] until
one goes away. With these on the ground, there isn't much you can do to hurt the enemy unless
you have something long-range like Priday. But you don't want to use Priday because as
previously mentioned you can't drain spirit here, and Priday drains your spirit fast. Stick to
Surosa, you haven't got much of a choice. If you do run out of spirit and weapons, however,
you'll get the L6 Surosa, which, incidentally, uses up a lot of your spirit. Yes, this is a
pretty mean situation just because of the spirit loss. You're lucky it's the end. The only
advice I can really offer here is to stay on top of everything at all times, and.. don't use
so many continues that you won't get through the rest of the game on the rest of the runs.

Dave Connoy's second opinion:

Edo can actually be made somewhat easy if you have the patience for a really drawn-out, boring fight. Basically, what I do is
this: Park on the far right edge of the upper platform, facing left. (This puts me on my Silhouette side, if you've used attribute
change you may have to mirror these strategies). Whenever she's using the Megido image, just stand there. Don't reflect, don't
fire, nothing. The hand attack won't reach you and the blades will pass right under you. When she switches to the Har image,
start firing like crazy to do damage. It'll take a while since you're dependent on her to use the Har form to win, but you're
threatened by very few attacks if you use this strategy. The worst one is the Metroid-like blobs that the Har form creates... they
will often ignore you, but once they get within a certain range they sniff you out and try to latch on. If one of them notices you,
make it Priority One to smoke it. Use the whole right side of the area to jump around like a nut so it can't latch on to you quickly.

<game ends here>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Boss 2: Megido/Transformed Megido [about as difficult as last time]
Attribute: Silhouette

Basically, what you've got here is Megido again. Even when he transforms, he is pretty much
the same to fight. See the earlier strategy and repeat. The differences with the transformed
Megido are mainly visual. He runs around like a maniac, but really just falls into the same
pattern, plus he has a huge giant long machinegun attack that you will just love reflecting
and watching it not hit. Still, this is as hard a fight as it was before.

More from Dave Connoy, who incidentally has done more than I have on this boss:

Megido can be really easy since he's only one attribute. If you sit on your Silhouette side, you can handle the attacks this way:

Kill Wave: Just reflect and it'll bounce back and do a little damage.
Helping Hand: If you have Reflector activated this'll hardly do anything.
Surprise!: This is a tough one... the best thing is probably to grab the closest Spectre and Power Punch it so it knocks all the others back, then wait to reflect a Kill Wave to wipe them all out. It's not worth it to try to maneuver so you can fire Mirage shots.
Watch This!: Handled pretty much the same as in the last fight against Megido.
Burning Arrow: Same as last time.

Be careful when firing to drain his spirit, since he can reflect. It's advisable to fire a "burst" of two or three shots and then get right
on the Reflector in case he reflects himself. If he does, the shots will bounce back and forth until he gives up and gets hit, which is
great--since reflecting turns any shot into a Normal shot, you'll be taking life from him.

The "transformed" Megido is the same except that Kill Wave is replaced by the spinning blade attack (which does a lot more
damage when reflected) and he gains the "roar" attack (reflect!) and the machine-gun-rose attack (hmmm... reflect? yes!). You'll
want to be leaning on reflect for most of the fight after this.

<game ends here>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Boss 3: Geluve [relatively easy]
Attribute: Mirage, uses Spectres and Peepers in attacks.

This is a pretty easy fight that, like the fight with Faust, mainly just requires that you keep
at Geluve to the point where she's overwhelmed and can't do anything. Geluve attacks by using
two long rows of Spectres and Peepers, Peepers on the left, Spectres on the right. You can
either drain or you can get under it and attack it. Normally draining is recommended, but that
allows Geluve to use all of her attacks, and we don't want to see her attacks used, so we are
going to attack directly. The main thing that you need to do here is just keep up wth Geluve as
she darts madly back and forth across the stage. As you cause physical damage, the armies of
Spectres and Peepers will die, causing her to be less and less able to attack until they are all
dead, at which point she will have to summon more, and that means she won't be able to attack.
Essentially that is the fight.

Dave Connoy's second opinion that isn't unlike my own:

If you haven't used the attribute change throughout the game, then you're set up so you can just
perch directly under her and fire upwards at her "arms". If you have L6 Surosa and most of your
spirit, the rapid-fire will smoke most of the Peepers and Spectres that comprise her before they
can do anything really devastating, and she'll be forced to summon more. Basically just keep up
the pressure and you can control the fight. The only tough attack is when she extends the "arms"
down and they fire those "regular" shots at you... then you'll have to jump straight up and
possibly do some fancy reflectoring.

<game ends here>

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III: Miscellany
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Endings and Option Screen
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-Ending Note
The ending is a small animated sequence. The reason I add this note is because the Edo ending is
the one where Shyna actually does restore the world, so instead of the post-apocalyptic Fist of
the North Star setting of the other endings, she's walking around in the human world, where she
is neither noticed nor appreciated. The music is different. You'll note there's a bit of reused
footage on a different background here. Just a little.

-Fun with Credits
Yes, this is the part you've been waiting for! As one of WD's enhancements, you can play as
Zohar during the ending credits and blow up things, mainly Peepers. Controls are as follows:

Metatron:
You can fly, 8-directional movement.
[pad is neutral] Square: Large downward sword slice.
[holding left/right] Square (2x): Small horizontal slice, followed by upward slice.
X/double-tap: Warp
Circle [hold]- Start spinning.
-let go while holding direction to fly with sword out in that direction.
Triangle- Attribute change.

Sandalphon:
Square: 8-direction firing.
X/double-tap: Warp
Circle- That slow, slow homing missile you laughed at before. It's called payback.
Triangle- Attribute change.

Note that the Spectres only appear towards the end of the credits, even if you kill the Peepers
really fast, so not much of a -functional- chance to use Sandalphon is given.

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Options
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the game is beaten through all five paths the Option Screen is unlocked, or at least the
actual options that are on it.

Vibration [open at beginning]: Dual Shock vibration.
Difficulty: [I think] Baby, Easy, Normal, Stud, or Super Stud.
Shop Items: |
Stage Select: |
Char Resize: |- Don't know, haven't actually done this yet,
Game Speed: | blame it on either Bangaioh or Crazy Taxi.
SE Test: |

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The things that WD changed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As usual, Working Designs changed something in one of their translations, and yes, they've gone
and pissed people off again. Anyhow, these are the changes, your own opinions ought to be
formed.

-The game was dubbed, as per nearly every single videogame I've ever seen anyhow. [side note:
aside from Panzer Dragoon Saga, does anyone know if any other game was subtitled for
translation?] The ending song was also dubbed and rewritten.

-Judging from the restaining order line and that thing about Shyna's grandpa's smeg stew or
whatever, the script was entirely rewritten aside from plot points. Again, as per usual for WD.

-Major gameplay change that made people angry: In the original Japanese game, spirit was not
lost when firing, only when being hit by a same attribute enemy. In other words, the "spirit as
ammo" concept used in the US release is not present. Also, due to that fact, spirit drain is
nonexistent, and spirit loss is permanent until a Fatima is bought, something that the US
version makes unnecessary. In the Japanese game, when a same-attribute enemy was shot, it only
lowered their spirit power. Note how annoying this makes the bosses that can't be drained. The
head of Treasure says it's better this way.

-The original release's plain text load screens are replaced with screenshots from the intro
animation.

-Dual Shock is supported, as an extra frill.

-You can use slot 1 -and- two when saving your games. What? It's a necessary feature dammit!

-Font was changed to "something computer-like." Anyone have a screenshot of the Japanese game so
we can see the font?

-Options [locked until fifth path is cleared] are added, as is the status screen to check your
progress. In the original game, there was no reward for having been through the various endings.

-Controllable Zohar added to end credits.

-Anime bits remastered and recompressed. Look better than Japanese release.

-Five-minute preview of Lunar 2 accessible through holding L1 button while turning on system.

Author's opinion:
-Gameplay changes: I -would- like this way better, except for those bosses. I think there should
have been an option to switch between the modes in the form of a difficulty setting. Options
obviously a change for the better.
-Dubbing: Tolerable. I like the song dubbing though.
-Script: Toilet humor or not [and it isn't used in this game, BTW] WD still does the best
translations in the buisiness.
-Lunar 2 movie: The video only a fan could love. Sorry, I only got excited when I found out WD
was actually translating it. Knowing it'll be out soon was enough for me. The video, on the
other hand... just don't do it for me. But then again, knowing me, only a demo really would
have.

Overall, I think it's a good job, but the reason everybody is angry [*cough*WD*cough*] is that
they can't play the game in its original form as made by the original creators. Fans just get
pissed about that stuff. Enhancements are one thing, but taking them away is another. You ought
to just allow them to play it both ways. Less angry people. And admittedly, and this is for the
yelling anti-WD fanboys, the changes are not exactly butchering the game. It's still very
playable, even if you don't like the changes. Lay off, guys. <Freeze sits down quietly>

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the rest....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

comes later. Quite a bit later.

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version history
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1/31/00: version .10: first, very preliminary release. Only Section I finished.
2/3/00: version .20: second, still preliminary, release. Walkthrough covered up until stage 2.
2/4/00: version .25: Is it preliminary? Yep. Walkthrough covered up to level 3, some L6 weapon
notes, and highly appreciated reader contributions.
2/8/00: version .50: "I'm waiting for UPS to bring my copy of Bangaioh" update. Level 6 is
covered and some more notes on L6 weapons are done.
3/4/00: version 1.0: I'm a little late, but I got the full game walkthrough! Oh yes! Miscellany
section has begun. As of now, we are very near this being a completed document.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
acknowledgements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Treasure, for making the game that made me write this FAQ, and yet also making Bangaioh, the
game which halted my progress on the FAQ. Go figure.
ESP, for publishing aforementioned game in Japan and apparently having some kinda deal with...
Working Designs, for publishing a game in the US that nobody else would have, whether you like
them or not. You rocks Vic and the gang!
CJayC, at gamefaqs.com for being k-rad and hosting my FAQ.
Dave Connoy, for offering his muchly helpful opinions on the bosses [esp. those last few].
Readers of my website [all three of ya=)] who got me back to working on the site, which got me
back to working on the FAQ.
Joe, Ocean Gekiganger, whose noble sacrifice and takin' one for the team have inspired me during
the horrendous downtime of this FAQ.
<end of file>