"Star Fox FAQ and Flythrough" version 2.01 by William Matheson
Published September 10th, 2011
Original content (c) 2001-2011 William Matheson
All other things Star Fox are the property of Nintendo.
Star Fox was published in the United States of America in 1993 for the Super
Nintendo Entertainment System.
Star Fox was released as 'Star Wing' in PAL countries.
William Matheson can be found on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.willmatheson.com
and the latest version of this FAQ can be found either there or at GameFAQs. If
you want to post this on your own website, go ahead, and if you're going to
make alterations to it, you need only say that you are doing so, though I'd
appreciate being directed to it if and when you get it published. Among this
experienced audience I need not say that credit needs to be given where it is
due. Commercial use is prohibited without express written permission.
My e-mail address is
[email protected]. But if you're interested in quick
answers, start with using the search function of your web browser or word
processor (usually Ctrl+F) and search for a word - you should find what you're
looking for without too much trouble. If you have a suggestion, clarification,
or contribution, please contact me - if your addition makes the FAQ, full
thanks and credit will be given to you.
"Star Fox FAQ and Flythough" version 2.00 by William Matheson
CONTENTS / FLIGHT OUTLINE:
(You can use the "[B-1]", "[1-1]", "[2-1]", etc.. as search entries to jump to
that point of the FAQ.)
I - Introduction [I-0]
II - Things to Know [B-0]
[B-1] - Miscellaneous Tips
[B-2] - Story
[B-3] - Parade of Planets
[B-4] - Display / Controls
[B-5] - Wingmen
[B-6] - Powerups
[B-7] - Enemy Fire
[B-8] - Wings and Wing Damage
[B-9] - Scoring and Continues
[B-A] - Selecting Your Course
III - Training [0-0]
[0-1] - Training: Planet IV - Corneria (daytime)
IV - Level 1 Flythrough [1-0]
[1-1] - Stage 1: Planet IV - Corneria (daytime)
[1-2] - Stage 2: Asteroid Belt
... from here you can travel to:
[1-X] - Stage 3: The Awesome Black Hole*
... or continue with the level:
[1-3] - Stage 3: The Andross Space Armada
[1-4] - Stage 4: The Battle Base Meteor
[1-5] - Stage 5: Venom (space over Venom)
[1-6] - Stage 6: Planet I - Venom
V - Level 2 Flythrough [2-0]
[2-1] - Stage 1: Planet IV - Corneria (daytime)
[2-2] - Stage 2: Sector X (space over Corneria)
[2-3] - Stage 3: Planet II - Titania
[2-4] - Stage 4: Sector Y
[2-5] - Stage 5: Venom (space over Venom)
[2-6] - Stage 6: Venom (aerial passage)
VI - Level 3 Flythrough [3-0]
[3-1] - Stage 1: Planet IV - Corneria (evening)
[3-2] - Stage 2: Asteroid Belt
... from here you can travel to:
[3-X] - Stage 3: Out Of This Dimension**
... or continue with the level:
[3-3] - Stage 3: Planet V - Fortuna
[3-4] - Stage 4: Sector Z
[3-5] - Stage 5: Planet III - Macbeth
[3-6] - Stage 6: Venom (space over Venom)
[3-7] - Stage 7: Planet I - Venom
VII - Enemy Force Commander ("Boss") Data [E-0]
[E-1] - Level 1 Enemy Data
[E-2] - Level 2 Enemy Data
[E-3] - Level 3 Enemy Data
VIII - Codes, Cheats, and Tricks [H-0]
[H-1] - Object Manipulation
[H-2] - Strange Music
[H-3] - Great Commander Space Battle Glitch
IX - Sources and Acknowledgements [S-0]
X - Version History / Closing Remarks [C-0]
* - From the black hole you can warp to Level 1-5 (Venom Space), Level 2-4
(Sector Y), or Level 3-4 (Sector Z).
** - This is essentially a dead-end, though you can sort of beat the game by
this route. Kind of.
Note: Since I may sometimes make the game sound easy, I have to remember that
this is really a difficult game. Getting through some of these levels may take
you many, many tries; please don't get discouraged. I am sure that you can do
it!
======================
I - Introduction [I-0]
======================
Star Fox was an important milestone in video game history, for it was the first
Super NES game to use polygons en masse or real 3-D scaling. To accomplish
this, a special kind of math coprocessor that was relatively cheap to construct
and mass-produce was installed inside the cart. This chip was named the "Super
FX chip." (It had better be cheap - you have to install a new copy of the chip
in every cartridge that requires it, rather than just counting on the standard
SNES hardware!) It helped a lot that the game was likeable and *good* - I must
have rented it a dozen times or more before finally being given my own copy for
Christmas in Grade 8.
So what is a polygon? Geometrically, it's just a shape with some number of
sides. Virtually all the games being developed now use polygons, but now it's
commonplace to see tens of millions of polygons being used at once on your
screen. The characters in Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Gears of
War are all rendered with polygons - that is, thousands and even millions of
computable, movable geometric shapes. Newer systems use so many so well that
sports games look like live TV, and RPGs now look like animated movies - even
outside of FMV cutscenes (where all the vector rendering is done by far more
powerful computers and the result is saved as a raster animation).
Older games didn't use 3-D polygons much, because the processing power just
wasn't there. Take an old game like Super Mario Bros., for instance. That
particular game uses only bitmaps, so all of Mario's moves are part of an
animation. For a game that only utilizes one or few points of view, though,
polygons would be less useful anyway.
Part of the idea behind polygons is that you want the computer to be able to
reconstruct the image you should be seeing no matter where you stand. Imagine
how slow and how much of a disk hog Gears of War would be if a new static
background has to be called up every time you move. Actually, it'd be next to
impossible to create or run, wouldn't it?
You can still do 3-D without scaling or polygons, though. Take Super Star Wars,
for instance. Actually, it's fake 3-D - something called Mode 7 where the
bitmap of the ground is flattened out and you can zip over it in any direction.
You'll also see Mode 7 in games like Final Fantasy VI. Back to SSW, though, if
you play the game you'll notice that all the things coming at you look flat,
and when they approach and retreat, it doesn't happen very smoothly. That's
because the game has to call up a new or resized image for all the different
distances away the object is supposed to be. (Super Empire Strikes Back
improved on this method and accomplished convincing 3-D scaling without the use
of the Super FX chip.)
Meanwhile, Star Fox uses the polygons (albeit hundreds and not millions, plus
the shapes that are used are pretty basic - remember, this is the Super
Nintendo) and the limits are suddenly gone. The scaling becomes nearly perfect.
Objects can now rotate freely. It's a 3-D world! (Yeah, yeah - we fly through
it in a fixed corridor, but the principle is the same.)
Naturally, there is a long stretch of innovations that line the road between
Star Fox and, say, Modern Warfare. Star Fox, did, though, help inspire Super
Mario 64. I suppose we have to count Star Fox 64 as well, but I'm not too keen
on talking about Star Fox 64 - it's a good game, but I don't think it was very
consistent with the story and world laid out in the Super NES game. We also
didn't get Star Fox 2, and that's still a pretty big disappointment, though you
can seek out ROMs and patches for the latter online. For legal reasons, you
have to be on your own for that, but you could give it a shot.
Because an unrelated Atari 2600 game of the same name was trademarked in
Europe, Star Fox was released as 'Star Wing' in PAL countries. Star Fox 64
became 'Lylat Wars'. Then Nintendo got the rights cleared up and it was all
'Star Fox' going forward.
Anyway, enough with the preamble. The game lies before us.
=========================
II - Things to Know [B-0]
=========================
--------------------------
[B-1] - Miscellaneous Tips
--------------------------
- Keep in mind is that it takes time for your blaster bolts, once fired, to
strike your enemies. Far-away enemies take longer to hit - but if you want to
get high scores and stay safe, these are the ones to hit! A few targeting tips:
1) For moving enemies, shoot where they're going to be, not where they are. 2)
If you're confident your bolts will strike, move on - get a head start on the
next enemy.
- Don't be afraid to lob a few nova bombs to help clear stray enemies so that
you'll get a high score, especially on the easier stages. But think carefully
before you deploy your last one - you might need it to get out of a desperate
situation.
- Going through the black hole may shorten your game time in more ways than you
intend. You miss out on getting points towards continue credits that you would
have gotten from at least three stages: the asteroid belt, the black hole
itself, and any level(s) you skip.
- Rolling is your friend - your rolls can deflect anything except collisions
and missiles. It's a skill of central importance.
- Do play this game in stereo. Not only does it sound better, but you'll be
able to use the left-and-right channels as directional cues for the sounds of
engines, blaster bolts, and missiles headed your way.
-------------
[B-2] - Story
-------------
For those genuinely interested in the Star Fox story, I point them in the
direction of Benimaru Itoh's masterful Star Fox comics from Volumes 45-55 of
Nintendo Power. But in case you don't have your old Nintendo Powers lying
around at arm's reach, you can check it out in the form of some very crisp
scans here:
http://arwinglanding.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=1
Another page I looked at suggested that the comics were of Star Fox 64, even
though they predate the Nintendo 64 system by more than three years! For the
record, the comics are based on the SNES Star Fox, not Star Fox 64. At any
rate, the comics add a great deal of depth to the story and the comics and game
compliment each other well. I remember feeling the same way about the
subsequent Super Metroid comic, also drawn by Benimaru Itoh, though it sadly
lasted only five issues. I remember Nintendo Power dumping comics for their big
"Play It Loud" edgier marketing scheme. (Oooh! Same crappy-screened brick-like
Game Boy, now in not-so-svelte black, and also "hot dog", and "puke". The only
good thing to come out of the campaign was the open promulgation of the fact
that you had to use your A/V multi out to get stereo sound - this at a time
when I felt like I was the only person on the entire planet who knew that the
RF output mixed the audio channels together.) I hated the new look, and after
the comics ended I let my subscription expire.
Here's the "official" game story from the manual. It's not nearly as rich as
the comic - for me, the comic takes precedence although some fans of the series
as a whole would consider only the actual game to be truly canonical.
>> The official story, straight from the manual <<
Background Story: Origin of the Lylatian Conflict
The Lylat solar system, located near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is
made up of several bountiful planets. No fewer than three of these worlds were
home to civilizations teeming with industrious inhabitants. The other planets
in the system provided boundless natural resources. The comfortable lifestyle
enjoyed by the Lylatians was the envy of the galaxy, until the coming of the
evil Emperor Andross.
Emperor Andross was once known as Doctor Andross, a scientific genius who
worked at an advanced lab on Corneria, the fourth planet in the Lylat system.
Ever since his childhood, Andross's brilliance outshone that of other children.
As an adult, Dr. Andross began developing a powerful engine based on
hyper-spatial energy. Selfish and blinded by ambition, he repeatedly conducted
dangerous experiments in the heart of Corneria's most populated city. After
many warnings from the planet's ruling council, he was finally banished from
the planet for endangering the inhabitants of Corneria.
Out of sight, out of mind. The inhabitants of Corneria soon forgot the menace
of "Dr. Andross." One day, however, Corneria's small defense force detected
some unusual happenings on Venom, the first planet in the Lylat system. Strange
unidentified flying objects were monitored maneuvering around the planet in
large numbers. It was not long before the self appointed Emperor Andross, who
had fled to Venom, declared war on Corneria.
The planet Venom had been completely remade by Emperor Andross into a gigantic
military base. Andross hoped that with his military power, he could soon
control all the planets in the Lylat system. General Pepper, the commanding
officer of Corneria's defense force, decided to dispatch the
super-high-performance combat ship ARWING to the defense of the planet, even
though it was in the prototype stage in development. Because of the urgency of
the threat to Corneria, however, he did not have time to train pilots for these
advanced fighters.
"We need the Star Fox team!!"
This is the call sent out by General Pepper. You are Fox McCloud, leader of the
Star Fox team, a group of adventurers with outstanding combat skill. Your
mission is to penetrate the defenses of the planet Venom and defeat the forces
led by Emperor Andross. Your ability to maneuver the ARWING fighter will make
the difference between the return of peace to the Lylat system and the fall of
Corneria to the evil Emperor. As team leader, you are also responsible for the
safe return of your Star Fox teammates.
-------------------------
[B-3] - Parade of Planets
-------------------------
This canonical information is taken directly from the manual.
>> Planet I: Venom <<
When Andross was driven out of Corneria by Director General Pepper, he occupied
this planet as his base. While it used to be known as the "evergreen planet",
and boasted beauty second only to Corneria's, Andross has re-made it into a
dark, polluted world of military machines. The natives, who were not advanced,
were enslaved by Andross and drafted into his military machine. Though they
serve Andross, they inwardly hope that the forces of Corneria can win a victory
and liberate the Lylat system.
>> Planet II: Titania <<
Titania has no indigenous creatures and is nearly always wrapped in a dense
fog. This planet is known as a treasure world because of the large deposits of
raw materials that can be found there. While it has not been as hard hit by
Andross's invasion fleet as some planets have, it is occupied by a large
garrison of his troops. The resources here are extremely valuable to Andross's
plans of future conquest.
>> Planet III: Macbeth <<
Macbeth has a long history of geological disasters which have changed its very
shape. In a unique geological occurrence, the core of the planet shrank while
the crust remained the same size, making much of the planet hollow. Andross has
used this to his advantage, stockpiling the world with weapons, ammunition and
spare ships. As a result of the amount of weaponry stored there, the planet is
a gigantic bomb waiting to explode.
>> Planet IV: Corneria <<
The fourth planet in the Lylat System, Corneria, is known as the "bread basket"
of the system. It is a fertile farming world with a variety of climates and
terrains. Most of the inhabitants live in the shelter of the mountain ranges,
where the most productive farming soil can be found. Corneria is a peaceful
planet with only the smallest of defense forces. Most of its starships are
designed for exploration and transportation. When Andross's invasion fleet
threatened the planet, it was up to General Pepper to improvise some kind of
planetary defense. He hired the Star Fox Team to pilot the experimental Arwing
Fighters.
>> Planet V: Fortuna <<
Fortuna is also known as the Dinosaur Planet and is prowled by untamed and
brutal creatures. Andross has fed and gained control of these brutes and plans
to turn them into living weapons. The giant dragon, Monarch Dodora, is the
living spirit of this planet and has powers exceeding state-of-the-art weapons.
His name is feared throughout the Lylat System.
>> Asteroid Field <<
There are two asteroid fields, consisting of thousands of small planetoids,
surrounding Corneria. These swarming chunks of rocks form a dangerous natural
barrier to invasion of the planet, as they must be carefully navigated through.
However, Andross has developed a powerful new battleship, known as the Rock
Crusher, which is capable of reducing planetoids to cosmic dust. It is up to
the Star Fox Team to destroy these Rock Crushers before they can clear the way
for Andross's main battle armada.
>> Meteor <<
This giant planetoid is actually an artificial asteroid that was created to be
a great amusement facility called "Meteor Land". The evil Emperor Andross,
however, turned it into his advance base, leaving it a mere shadow of its
former self. This well stocked military depot is hurtling towards Corneria
behind the Space Armada of Andross.
--------------------------
[B-4] - Display / Controls
--------------------------
Your flight screen, in Training and in Practice modes, is laid out like this:
_________________________________
|EXTRA SHIPS |
| |
| |
| | |
| |
| > [ ] < |
| YOU |
| | |
| BOMBS |
|SHIELD BOOSTER|
|_________________________________|
YOU - Your ship is here, though in Cockpit view (available only in space
stages) you'll just see the crosshairs illustrated here - in which case the
target in the middle is where your nose is pointing and where your lasers will
strike, and the left and right triangles represent the edges of your wings,
while the upper and lower vertical bars help you see which way you're oriented.
The bars and the triangles will turn blue when you have the Power Shield
activated (see Section [B-6] for information on this and other powerups). When
a wing is destroyed, the corresponding triangle will turn red (and in Approach
and Standard views you'll see a red nub where your wing should be) - for
information on this phenomenon, see Section [B-8].
EXTRA SHIPS - You begin with two (meaning a total of three "lives"), but you
can pick up more from the extra-ship powerup (see Section [B-6] below). You can
also earn continues (see Section [B-9] farther below) based on your performance
in each stage. When you use a continue, you'll again be given two extra ships.
SHIELD - When your shield meter is fully depleted, which happens by means of
repeated impacts with objects or energy blasts, you lose your ship. If you have
one or more extra ships, you can start over from the beginning of the current
stage or the location of the last Supply Ring you flew through in that stage,
if applicable. You can replenish your shield meter by flying through the
various kinds of rings (see Section [B-6]) or, in one stage, picking up
coins... but let's not spoil the details of that now. Also, no matter how much
damage you've taken in a stage, you start every stage with a full shield meter,
and you also start with a full shield meter each time you use an extra ship.
Unfortunately, this does not apply to your teammates (see Section [B-5]
immediately below). Incidentally, you'll know that you've taken just about your
last hit because a special buzzer will sound, so you don't really need to
obsess about watching the meter. Watch where you're going instead - as Falco
would say, "Eyes forward, Fox!" One more thing to note: when you have a Power
Shield going (see Section [B-6]), this meter turns blue. In this case you get
three free hits before hits start counting for damage again.
BOMBS - When you start the game or activate an extra ship, you begin with three
nova bombs. You can carry a maximum of five. In a nutshell, they do a passable
job of clearing enemies from your immediate vicinity. Your count is illustrated
by the number of bomb icons on this part of the display. The count "carries
over" from stage to stage. For information on the powerup, see Section [B-6] -
for usage tips, read about it in the control information below.
BOOSTER - This gauge illustrates how much booster energy you have to work with
- a full bar means you have one shot of braking or boosting. You have to wait
for the bar to fill up again before another use, but since the bar only takes
about two or three seconds to replenish, the power should be there when you
need it. For more information, read the control information that fills out this
section.
As for those controls, let's start from the beginning. The very first thing you
see (after dusting off your console and successfully turning it on with the
cartridge fully inserted) is three antiquated starfighters fleeing the enemy
Attack Carrier approaching Corneria. It launches beaucoup fighters, one of
which flies into your face firing its lasers. Then you get the title screen,
and pushing START there you get a neat control select screen where you can pick
your control layout and even test them out on the spot with the little ship
window on the upper left.
I'm basing my descriptions on Control A but the differences between control
types can be summarized like this: Types C and D make you push up to go up and
down to go down, which seems reasonable on paper but is awkward in gameplay.
Types B and D reverse the blaster and brake buttons, such that you push B
instead of Y for blasting and Y instead of B for braking.
>> D-pad: Nose <<
(in schemes C and D, up and down point the nose in that direction)
Up: Nose down (dive)
Down: Nose up (climb)
Left: Nose left
Right: Nose right
Pressing down to go up seems counter-intuitive, but after a few minutes of
practice you'll see that this method has it all over pressing up to go up. If
you don't believe me, try both and see. ;-) This is why Pepper recommends you
use type A or B, though if you're looking for a challenge I'll bet trying to
complete Level 3 on C or D would be a handful!
You can also use the D-pad to select a course on the opening map screen.
>> A: Nova bomb <<
You start with three of these and can carry a maximum of five. They do a
passably good job of clearing weaker enemies off your screen and inflicting
significant damage on the bigger ones. You definitely don't want to be relying
on them, though - they more or less exist to help you get out of a jam, or
perhaps add insult to injury when you're handing it to some of the bosses.
You press A once to launch the bomb and press A again to detonate it, but if
you leave it for more than a few seconds or the bomb strikes something, it will
detonate automatically.
The closer your quarry is to the centre of the explosion, the better. But
amazingly, the bombs won't hurt you or your wingmen. ;-)
You get additional nova bombs through the nova bomb powerup item (it looks a
bit like a ball), and you start with three again after losing a ship. I suppose
you could start a level with no bombs (you used them all) and kill yourself
right away and that way "gain" three bombs, but they're really not that big a
deal, except perhaps for clearing up stray enemies to ensure a high score. Twin
blasters (see below) are, in my opinion, more important.
>> B: Brake / Retros <<
(in scheme B or D, the Y button)
This is a VERY important maneuver. If you're flying though tight spaces,
slowing down can really help you. Braking uses up your booster capacity (seen
through the blue bar on the lower right of your screen - fortunately, it
regenerates after you use it) and the effects are temporary, so you can't just
brake and brake and brake all the way through a level. It's a really warped and
twisted ship that can only be temporarily slowed down and is compelled to
accelerate back to a constant velocity, but that's Star Fox physics for you.
>> X: Booster / Accelerator <<
A good thing to hit if you need to beat a closing doorway or get around a
rotating beam in the nick of time, but I usually prefer to slow down to get out
of trouble instead of speeding up. Like braking, boosting uses up your booster
capacity (seen through the blue bar on the lower right of your screen -
fortunately, it regenerates after you use it). You'll also quickly slow down to
your regular speed - accelerating back to your constant velocity like before.
Yes, slowing down is accelerating, but in this particular case the sign is
negative. ;-) Physicists don't muck around with terms like "decelerate". :-p
>> Y: Blasters <<
(in scheme B or D, the B button)
This is the button you'll be hitting the most. You use your blasters to roast
all the baddies that fill up your screen and try to shoot you down. Shoot or be
shot.
You can't damage your wingmen with your own blasters, though they will
certainly complain if you strike them. (Your wingmen are damaged only when they
are pursued from behind by enemies, which I'll discuss below.)
Wing-mounted twin blasters are the upgrade for the single nose-cone blaster you
start with. After that, there's a further upgrade, the photon shot, and it's
all kinds of awesome - not only is it more powerful, but it strikes a larger
area. The catch is that when you die, you go back to the single blaster. And
since the twin blasters are wing-mounted, losing one or both wings means losing
your twin blasters.
I'll talk about wing damage below (see Section [B-8]), but the powerup here is
the Twin Blaster / Wing Gyro powerup. It's the same item, and if you have
broken one or two wings you get your wings repaired, and if your wings are
intact you'll get twin blasters or an upgrade to same. Be nice to your wings -
losing your twin blasters is awful and it's a long hard slog to get from broken
wing(s) back up to the photon shot. The one good thing though is that losing a
life and trying again in a new ship brings back your wings, so from there you
can at least go straight to twin blasters again.
One thing to keep in mind is that it takes time for your blaster bolts, once
fired, to strike your enemies. Far-away enemies take longer to hit - but if you
want to get high scores and stay safe, these are the ones to hit! A few
targeting tips: 1) For moving enemies, shoot where they're going to be, not
where they are. 2) If you're confident your bolts will strike, move on - get a
head start on the next enemy.
>> L: Tilt / roll left <<
Press rapidly and repeatedly to roll left. You'll want to get good at this for
three reasons: 1) you'll need to tilt yourself to get through tight spaces, 2)
tilting left helps you move left faster, and 3) you'll need to be able to roll
to deflect energy blasts. You can deflect everything from light blaster bolts
to big plasma balls - you just can't deflect missiles (they need to be shot
down). As you might guess, rolling is a critically important maneuver,
especially in the advanced stages of the game.
>> R: Tilt / roll right <<
Same as above, but for tilting / rolling right. Since this button is more
accessible than L while you're flying, you'll probably use it more. If you need
to fly left while tilted you're going to want to hit L, but for deflecting
blaster bolts choosing to roll with R instead of L makes no difference.
>> START: Pause / start game <<
If you have one of those cheap "slow-motion" controllers that pause and resume
the game rapidly, you can probably use it with this game since there's no
chance of selecting "Quit" or "Restart Level" since there's no on-screen menu
in this game - just white letters that say "PAUSED".
You can't pause in Training Mode - pressing START returns you to the Control
Select screen.
>> SELECT: Selects <<
On the control screen, SELECT selects a control layout. After pushing START on
the controls screen, you push SELECT to move the cursor between PRACTICE and
GAME. And finally, having selected GAME, you can use SELECT to pick a flight
path (more on that below).
In flight, SELECT changes your viewpoint. In terrestrial levels or inside other
space vessels, you can choose between Standard view and Approach view. Approach
view puts the camera closer to your ship to help you get through tight spaces.
It may help, and it is the default in certain planetary stages with beaucoup
obstacles. Cockpit view is simplicity in itself - triangles and lines to
establish the extremities of your ship, and a nice crosshair in the middle
helps in shooting things down. Go for the big scores with Cockpit view!
Unfortunately, it's only available in space stages, and then only when you're
in open space (not when you're flying inside another, larger ship).
---------------
[B-5] - Wingmen
---------------
Fox McCloud is a heck of a pilot, but even the best don't work alone. These
bios are from the manual. They also say different things to you at the ends of
stages depending on the health of their Arwing - a complete game script is
outside the scope of this FAQ (but I did create one, and it should be available
on Game FAQs as well as my personal website), but you may be interested in the
various end-of-stage quotes, which I've included here.
>> Fox McCloud <<
Fox is the young leader of the Star Fox Team. Always at the forefront of the
team's attack, he is an aggressive fighter who often must rely on his skill to
get his team out of trouble. Your skill will determine if his name goes down in
space history as a champion of the people or a space rouge scoundrel.
Call: "All ships check in!!"
>> Falco Lombardi <<
As a member of an avian race, Falco Lombardi is at home in the skies or in
space, where his piloting skill exceeds even that of Fox McCloud. While his
short temper may lead to arguments with Fox, the two remain loyal allies when
it comes to combat.
Good shape: "No sweat, Fox!!"
Slightly damaged: "It's looking good, Fox!!"
Moderately damaged: "Be a bit more careful, Fox!!"
Heavily damaged: "It's going pretty badly!!"
Destroyed: "They got me!! I'm gone!!!!"
>> Peppy Hare <<
Peppy is the moderating force on the Star Fox team. His gentle character and
wealth of knowledge make him an invaluable balance to the chaotic chemistry of
the other Star Fox Team members. His skill as a pilot is an added plus.
[It's later established that Peppy Hare was also part of the original Star Fox
team including James McCloud and Pigma Dengar. They flew a predecessor to the
arwing that I conjecture is seen in the opening scene of this game (the three
ships fleeing the Attack Carrier when you first turn the game on), and which
can also be seen in the Black Hole stage and as an object available for viewing
on the Continue screen (after losing your last ship, you will come to this
screen if you have a credit or more available).]
Good shape: "OK, OK!! What's next?!!"
Slightly damaged: "We did it, let's go!!"
Moderately damaged: "Please tread carefully, Fox!!"
Heavily damaged: "I don't think I'm going to make it!!"
Destroyed: "Aargh!!!! I'm a goner!!"
>> Slippy Toad <<
While Slippy may seem to be timid and passive at times, he always keeps a
positive mindset about things. The scrapes he gets himself in may add some
comic relief to the dangerous situations you find yourself in during your
mission.
Good shape: "So far, so g-g-good!!"
Slightly damaged: "G-g-great!!"
Moderately damaged: "Remember not to shoot m-m-me!!"
Heavily damaged: "My ship's falling apart... Ribbit!!"
Destroyed: "No!! No!! Crrooakk!!"
You'll be dealing with your wingmen on three kinds of occasions:
1. They line up a few enemies and go after them. This happens at the same point
in every level, and the wingman will announce it by saying "You're not getting
away!!" or "This one's mine!!" or something like that. You can be a nice guy by
letting them have their two kills or you can be a jerk and shoot them down
yourself. Be on the lookout for other enemies that aren't being targeted by
your wingman - you'll still have to shoot them down.
2. They get themselves into trouble, and streak across your screen with an
enemy in hot pursuit, your wingman announcing "Get lost, you fiend!!" or "Help
me!!" (Falco says "Bogey on my six!!" and doesn't explicitly ask for help, but
you should help him anyway.) You need to shoot down these enemies as quickly as
possible, because if they strike your wingmen, your wingmen take damage - and
the damage persists FOR THE REST OF THE GAME! The damage they've taken affects
what your wingmen say to you at the end of each level. (E.g.: "It's looking
good!!" slips to "It's going pretty badly!!" - that sort of thing.) As you
might have guessed by now, it is also possible to lose your wingmen if you
habitually don't respond when they get into trouble. We'll get to that below,
but suffice it to say if you don't have wingmen, you'll have nobody to help you
when...
3. You're approached by a group of ships in formation and suddenly they're on
top of you. Instead of you taking major damage, one of your wingmen will swoop
in and help you out. In fact, sometimes you'll see two wingmen swoop in to help
you! Falco will say something like "Eyes forward, Fox!!" and the others'
remarks are similarly chastising. It's been my experience that this usually
happens in space stages, and only at particular points - like the other two
types of wingman interaction. However, this one is possible to avoid entirely
if you're good at shooting things down before they get close to you. Be on the
lookout for missiles and other kinds of ships on collision courses with you -
this is good advice generally, in fact.
So that's what your wingmen do. If you're feeling perverted, there's a stretch
in Level 1-3 (Space Armada, not the Black Hole) where if you don't fly inside a
ship, you repeat a particular section of the stage again (except for the last,
enormous ship which you're forced to enter). Between the first and second of
these ships, one of your wingmen will always be attacked. Thus it is possible
to keep repeating this section, doing nothing each time, and eventually your
wingmen will all be shot down. (For more details, check out section [1-3],
which deals with this stage.) You can then go on to complete the game all by
your lonesome. It's kind of depressing - Fox calls "All wings report in" or
whatever and nobody replies. Note that it's not possible to shoot or bomb or
bump your wingmen out of existence - it must be done by enemy fire, and this
only happens when they are chased at particular points in particular stages.
Oh, but you CAN damage your own ship by colliding with your wingmen, though the
opportunities for this are infrequent.
----------------
[B-6] - Powerups
----------------
Some of the powerups in this game are facile, while some are a fair bit
esoteric and benefit from explanation.
>> Yellow Ring ("Small Energy Supply") <<
Restores a little bit of your energy. Shores up your wings. You get them from
shooting down enemies. In fact, you get them from the ones that flash yellow as
your laser blasts strike them, but this can be hard to detect with the weaker
enemies that vanish after one or two hits. In any case, if you're running low
on energy, it's a good idea to particularly concentrate on shooting down as
many enemies as possible (well, you should be shooting them down anyway for
scoring / survival reasons, but you get the point).
>> Blue Ring ("Supply Ring") <<
Restores about half of your energy, shores up your wings, and serves as a
restore point if you lose your ship. They are placed at fixed points within the
levels and are fairly conspicuous. Most stages have one, but Space Armada and
Fortuna have two, while poor old Titania has none, though it does have a
continue point. Finally, the two special stages that I've described in Sections
[1-X] and [3-X] have neither Supply Rings nor continue points.
>> Grey Ring <<
This is a funny one that's easily mistaken for a Blue / Supply Ring - it does
refill about half of your energy, but it does not act as a continue point if
you lose your ship. The major visual cue: Grey rings spin around - true supply
rings are solidly fixed where they appear. They are only found on certain
stages: Level 1 Corneria, Level 1 Venom Surface (3), Level 2 Corneria, Sector Y
(if you get the bonus, check Section [2-4] for details), Level 2 Venom Upper
Atmosphere (1), Sector Z (2), and finally Level 3 Venom Surface.
>> Coins <<
This last type of shield powerup is only found in one place in one stage. If
you want to know where and when, skip to Section [3-X].
>> Twin Blaster / Wing Gyro <<
Unless your wing(s) are damaged, this powerup supplies the Twin Blaster. The
powerup can be found laying around in a level, though usually after flying
though a particular pathway or shooting down the little blue ship that always
provides it. There's also one point in the game where you can get it from a
whale. But get this powerup however you can - it's super important. You might
even want to consider missing a supply ring on levels like Macbeth so that you
can go back and get the twin blasters at the beginning of the level if you die
- the boss of that stage is extremely difficult without them, and even though
I'm writing this FAQ, I find I have a lot of trouble consistently completing
that stage for this reason.
Anyway. The wing-mounted twin blasters ("Type A") are the upgrade for the
single nose-cone blaster you start with. After that, there's a further upgrade,
the photon shot ("Type B"), and it's all kinds of awesome - not only is it more
powerful, but it strikes a larger area. The catch is that when you die, you go
back to the single blaster. And since the twin blasters are wing-mounted,
losing one or both wings means losing your twin blasters.
If your wing(s) are damaged, this powerup supplies the Wing Gyro. If you have
broken one or two wings, a little frame with wings will apply itself to your
ship and you'll get your wings repaired. Again, be nice to your wings - losing
your twin blasters is awful and it's a long hard slog to get from broken
wing(s) back up to the photon shot. The one good thing though is that losing a
life and trying again in a new ship brings back your wings, so from there you
can at least go straight to twin blasters again. I talk about wings and wing
damage a little more explicitly two sections down ([B-8]).
>> Power Shield <<
Ha-ha! This is my favorite powerup in the game - it turns your ship into a
transparent blue wireframe (in cockpit view, your extremity indicators turn
blue) and while you are in this form you are impervious to attacks! Until it
wears off, that is - and it's worn off by getting hit about three times. If you
want to, you can think of it as a supplementary shield on top of your current
one. Unfortunately, once it's gone, it's gone - you can't replenish it like you
can your wings or your basic shield energy.
Sometimes Power Shields are left lying at particular points in a level - at
other times there is a special ship you can shoot down to get them, but the
yellow wireframe ship that carries it is so small and usually so far out of the
flight path that you have no chance of picking up the powerup. Bummer.
Anyway, if you get a Power Shield, make it a little challenge to see how long
you can keep it. Amazingly, you can carry the Power Shield between levels! Yes!
The easiest place to test this is on Level One, between Stages 3 (Space Armada)
and 4 (Meteor). If you have spectacular skills or are playing with an emulator,
you could probably even beat the game carrying this shield! Try it!
>> Extra Ship <<
The proverbial "1-UP" in platformer parlance, this adds an extra ship to your
reserve. You start with two extra ships on a new game or continue, which ends
up being three plays since you can play with no extra ships left (x0).
You get the powerup by shooting the three little buoys in an Extra Ship Ring,
then flying through the ring to get the ship that appears.
>> Nova Bomb <<
As a powerup, it looks like a little blue ball with a wire around it. You'll
find them all over the place - you start with three and can carry a maximum of
five. They do a passably good job of clearing weaker enemies off your screen
and inflicting significant damage on the bigger ones. You definitely don't want
to be relying on them, though - they more or less exist to help you get out of
a jam, or perhaps add insult to injury when you're handing it to some of the
bosses.
You press A once to launch the bomb and press A again to detonate it, but if
you leave it for more than a few seconds or the bomb strikes something, it will
detonate automatically.
Amazingly, the bombs won't hurt you or your wingmen. ;-)
I suppose you could start a level with no bombs (like if you used them all on
previous stage(s)) and kill yourself right away and that way "gain" three
bombs, but they're really not that big a deal - well, unless you need to bail
yourself out of a jam. By and large, the twin blasters (see above) are far more
important, and potentially actually worth killing yourself for if you've got
wing damage or something.
You might see if you can beat Level One without using a single bomb. You may
find it hard to get a high score that way, though!
------------------
[B-7] - Enemy Fire
------------------
Your regular enemies have two basic kinds of attacks - energy blasts and
missiles.
Energy blasts of all kinds can be deflected by a barrel roll (executed by
rapidly pressing L or R). Here they are in increasing order of strength:
Weak: Regular Laser (yellow)
Medium: Ring Laser (red-orange)
Strong: Oval Beam (white)
Very Strong: Plasma Ball (white, sparking)
Missiles are as damaging as the strongest energy blasts, and worse than that,
they home in on you, and they cannot be deflected. However, you can and should
shoot them down before they reach you. You can sometimes try just avoiding
them, but that is very risky. Shoot first and evade as a last resort. Always
stay alert! If two or three missiles get the jump on you, that can end your
game pretty quickly.
Of course, a lot of enemies will also try to collide with you, and some bosses
will project parts of themselves at you, but you'll spend most of your time
dealing with energy blasts and missiles.
-----------------------------
[B-8] - Wings and Wing Damage
-----------------------------
Wings help you stay stable in flight - you'll find steering yourself a bit more
difficult if you lose one or both wings. Probably even more importantly, the
all-important twin blasters are wing-mounted, so you really want to take good
care of your wings. (Though if you want a challenge, try destroying your wings
on the first stage and going as far as you can without them!)
Wings also play a role in damage control - hits to the wing only damage you
half as much as hits to the hull. Unfortunately, the wings aren't invincible,
and after a few heavy hits or a good big thwack against a wall or two, the
wings will be destroyed. (You'll know when this happens by the computer voice
saying "Wing Damage" and the fact that your nice silver wing has become a puny
red nub.) The wings don't have their own power meters either, so you don't
really know how much further you can push them.
But one thing you can do is fly through as many energy rings and supply rings
as possible. Doing so will repair the hidden damage to your wings. Keep them
fresh, because you'll be sorry if you lose your twin blasters just before
facing a critical boss.
Destroyed wings can be repaired by the Twin Blaster / Wing Gyro powerup
(details above under "Powerups"), and when you lose a ship you'll come back
with intact wings. If you're near the beginning of a stage and have the ships
to spare, I'd suggest killing yourself off - that way, when you get the
powerup, you'll get the Twin Blasters.
-----------------------------
[B-9] - Scoring and Continues
-----------------------------
It's important to shoot as many enemies as you can, because maximizing your
score means maximizing your continues! If you defeat 100% of the enemies on a
given level (i.e.: anything that shoots at you - the benign column-carrying
walkers on Corneria, for example, don't count to this total - there are also
other things like smiley asteroids that try to kill you through impact but
can't themselves be killed, so they don't count either), you score 10000
points. If you get 90%, you get 9000, and so on - it's the percentage
multiplied by 100.
You get a continue - an extra kick at the can, and very valuable indeed - at
10000, 30000, and 50000 points. Start on a high note - whomp the easy first
stage (well, easiER) and get your first continue as you leave Corneria!
When you use a continue, you start again with two extra ships. You maintain
your current score as well, but you do have to start at the beginning of the
stage you were on, which may seem like a drag, but in my opinion this is
actually a blessing since you will have the benefit of the powerups from the
first third or half of the stage that you otherwise wouldn't have if you were
to continue from the supply ring, assuming you were on the latter parts of a
stage when you lost your last ship. Venom, the last planet of every level,
always consists of two stages, and if you lose your extra ships on the second
stage you still get to start on the second stage even though the continue
credit does momentarily bump you all the way back to the course map.
You'll probably get the 10000-point continue through just about any playthough
(except perhaps that "special detour" from stage 3-2, if you didn't score 100%
on stage 3-1) and you'll get the 30000-point continue unless you travel through
the black hole to stage 1-5 (it'll be impossible to get), or 2-4 (it'll be hard
to get - you have to score 100% on the three main finished stages). The
50000-point continue is tricky for levels 1 and 2 (you need to score 100% on
each of the first five stages - and let's be honest, if you're that good, you
won't be needing it!), but easily achievable on level 3 (where you very likely
will need it!).
As you might infer, going through the black hole is quite bad for you in terms
of accumulating continues. It's a nice way for raw beginners to see Sector Y
and Sector Z, which they otherwise wouldn't have a hope in heck of getting to,
but the tour will most likely end before Venom and Macbeth respectively. But by
and large, the black hole isn't like the Warp Zone in Super Mario Bros. -
instead of making the game easier, it actually makes the game harder! You don't
get to "complete" the second and third stages, so you miss out on 20000
potential points toward your credits. So for my money, playing through a stage
the normal way is the way to go. I've been able to warp to Venom and Sector Y
and finish the game, but I've only been able to warp to Sector Z and finish the
game perhaps once - the key is getting though Macbeth, and if you don't have a
good supply of ships and continues you may be dead in the water at that point.
It's far easier to do all of the levels *without* warping.
A few tips to help you rack up high scores: Remember that it takes time for
your blaster bolts, once fired, to strike your enemies. Far-away enemies take
longer to hit - but if you want to get high scores and stay safe, these are the
ones to hit! A few targeting tips: 1) For moving enemies, shoot where they're
going to be, not where they are. 2) If you're confident your bolts will strike,
move on - get a head start on the next enemy.
-----------------------------
[B-A] - Selecting Your Course
-----------------------------
Once you've finished reading and training, you need to decide on a route. Which
way should you go? Selecting game mode, the first thing you'll see is the
course-select screen. (If you leave the game on this screen for a while, you
occasionally see bolts of energy fired from Venom towards Corneria.) You have
three courses to choose from - press on the D-pad or press SELECT to change
your course and you'll see the little flashing line jump among the routes.
>> Level 1 <<
This is the middle course on the map, the default selection, and definitely the
course you should complete first. (Then you attempt Level 2, and when you
finish that, you can finally attempt Level 3. No harm in trying them to see how
hard they really are - I'm just saying that if you're serious about the game,
the 1-then-2-then-3 skill-building path is the way to go.)
Pepper calls it a counter-attack of Venom, and you do fly directly through his
fleet and a battle base, but it's still the easiest route!
PROS: The Space Armada stage is really cool. The Black Hole* is on this route.
CONS: Becomes very easy for advanced players - almost to the point of being
boring. I also never really liked the Meteor stage - it breaks up what would be
a good stretch of space-based courses.
* - For reasons explained in the section directly above ([B-9]), the black hole
is not a good tool for beginners because you will miss out on valuable points
needed to get continues.
>> Level 2 <<
This is the upper course on the map, and it's also my favorite. It's moderately
difficult - probably out of the reach of a rental Star Fox player back in the
day, but any owner of the game should be able to beat this course with enough
practice.
This route lets you "sneak into Venom's back door" - you get a different boss
in the Venom space stage, and the Venom planetary stage is completely different
and perhaps my favorite stage in the game.
PROS: Good variety of stages - Titania and Sector Y are quite fascinating. The
second Venom stage is really rockin'!
CONS: Corneria isn't much different from the Level 1 stage, and the first two
bosses of this route are similar to Level 1's. There are no secret stages to
tempt you away from your objective.
>> Level 3 <<
This is the lower course on the map, and it just so happens to be super tough.
This one will really test your mettle. It is also one full stage longer than
the other courses (seven stages instead of six). That doesn't seem like much,
but believe me, you feel it.
I suppose Pepper says this course choice will take Venom by surprise because
we'd have to be crazy to take it!
PROS: Corneria in the evening (and a different boss), Fortuna is beautiful,
Sector Z is every bit as cool as the Space Armada stage, and the final battle
with Andross is something special.
CONS: Macbeth! Macbeth is super hard. A fascinating stage, certainly, but
incredibly difficult. If you can get through Macbeth consistently, you're
golden. Level 3 is also the way to get to the Out of this Dimension stage,
which is an optional and in my opinion unsatisfying way to end the game.
====================
III - Training [0-0]
====================
The training level allows you to get a feel for the controls and practice some
advanced maneuvers while not having to worry about being shot out of the sky.
------------------------------------------------
[0-1] - Training: Planet IV - Corneria (daytime)
------------------------------------------------
Now, let's get the hang of the controls and have some fun. General Pepper says
you should use control type A or B, and I think he's right. One might think
that using C or D is better because you press up to fly up, and down to fly
down - but it just doesn't work somehow. And this is besides the reality that a
flight yoke on a real airplane works the other way around - down means up and
up means down. I thus recommend you go with Pepper on this one.
Now there are two major things you can do in training mode. First, you can see
how many rings you can fly through before missing one. You'll want to fire your
retros (B button by default) after rings six and ten, and using the closer
Approach view (push SELECT) will also help. Flying through all 15 allows you to
skip the manoeuvres training with your wingmen, and Pepper tells you he's sorry
for doubting you. You can keep flying through rings on into next year if you
like; I've flown through well over one hundred myself, and as far as I know
Pepper doesn't say anything more. I think that first time players should learn
to get through the set of 15 rings at least once - then you can be confident
that you know the controls, and you won't be sending me e-mails about how you
follow my suggestions but still can't make it past certain stages. (j/k) If you
can fly through a hundred rings you should be playing Level 3!
You might want to miss some rings so you get a shot at flying alongside your
teammates - plus you'll get a chance to play with some objects on the ground
again. See that wire frame ship that appears in the middle? That's supposed to
be you. Here's how to follow along: left, right, left, up, down, tilt left,
tilt right, roll left, left, roll moving right, roll moving left, right. The
Approach view that helped you fly through the rings really isn't an advantage
with this - I find Standard view easier (press SELECT to change views).
Mastery of the L and R buttons to angle and roll is essential if you want
Slippy to compliment you at the end. To see this, you must be flawless - you
can't let Peppy snap at you to stay in formation even once. If you're really
awful, Falco will ask what's wrong with you. Rolling might seem like a useless
thing to learn, but it isn't; rolling your ship lets you deflect laser blasts,
and there's no way you'll be able to get through Level 2 and beyond without
knowing how. To roll, you tap either the L or the R button twice really fast.
You'll get it with time.
Here it is again, in case you missed it: The most important maneuver in the
game is the barrel roll. If you can master rolling and shooting at the same
time, you'll blaze right through these stages: Asteroid Belts, Space Armada,
Meteor, Sectors X and Z, Titania, Macbeth, and the space over Venom stages - to
name a few.
When you're finished training, press START to go back to the Control Select
screen. You can also "die" in training - but despite the fact that you carry no
extra ships you just start the Training stage over again as if nothing
happened.
=============================
IV - Level 1 Flythrough [1-0]
=============================
Pepper says that the last resort to thwart Andross is counter-attacking Venom.
That makes sense; what doesn't make sense is how the course that takes you
directly through Andross' fleet and runs you over a battle base turns out to be
the easiest!
Level 1 is still of interest even to veteran players as it is the way to get to
the Awesome Black Hole, from which you can warp to the Level 1 Venom (space)
stage, the Level 2 Sector Y stage, or the Level 3 Sector Z stage. That doesn't
make the game any easier, though, only shorter. By skipping stages you'll miss
out on points for defeating enemies, and therefore you'll get fewer or no
continues.
--------------------------------------------------------
[1-1] - Level 1, Stage 1 - Planet IV: Corneria (daytime)
--------------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: CORNERIA - THE BASE
"Star Fox Team, our last resort is to counter attack Venom!! Good luck!!"
Boss: Advance Scout Mother Ship ATTACK CARRIER
I love the opening scenes to this game. First, of course, you see the Attack
Carrier approaching Cornerian space. Better is the launch sequence out of the
base and the check-ins from your wingmen. You can sense that this is going to
be a cool game.
Follow Slippy through all those arches and you can collect a twin blaster
powerup! Those things should be your best friend in the game, and I'll be sure
to tell you where to collect them. Try to shoot the two fighters that appear at
this time as you fly through the open space between the last two arches.
Remember, you want to score 100% and get that continue credit, right?
After a while, one of your wingmen will go after two fighters on his own. Let
him. Get used to seeing this in nearly every stage of the game - all you have
to do is keep your finger off the Y button for a few moments. Don't worry;
anything a wingman shoots down adds to your percentage total at the end of the
stage. But you may still see things to shoot in these situations - here a
little grey ground-hopper should be available to your left. Don't worry about
the big tall walker, though. As your wingman shoots down the second fighter,
you'll see a little moving turret on the ground in the middle of your
flightpath. Get yourself as low as you can and fire away. It may leave a nova
bomb powerup behind!
Now you'll fly through the city. See if you can angle yourself to fly between
the buildings if you feel like it. Near the end of the city you'll see a row of
orange buildings along the right side of the corridor - fly to right of those
to collect a nova bomb. You may have your hands full with three fighters after
you collect the bomb!
City over with, you'll have some enemy crawlers to deal with as a friendly
walker strolls through your line of fire carrying a beam. Then you'll see a
bouncing grey ring - these are good to get, as they restore about half of your
shield meter.
Now you'll fly through a long stretch of falling columns. Stay low and in the
middle and you shouldn't have any problems. A fighter appears after the
columns. Now I think this will be the only stage where I try to alert you to
every little thing. If I were to list every fighter or group of same that
appear in the more advanced stages, I might need to give up on my science
degree. ;-)
Now a wingman will fly out in front, from the right, being chased by an enemy
fighter. Shoot down the enemy fighter! If you leave it too long, it fires on
your wingman - and if they get hit too many times, they're out of the game!
That's bad, because you'll be in situations where a bunch of ships are bearing
down on you and you'll be saved in the nick of time by one of your
quick-thinking wingmen. Anyway, again, get used to this sort of thing as it
happens in nearly every stage and you need to be ready for it. I'll alert you
to when these events take place.
Now a walker will go by, you'll have to deal with one of those little turrets,
then there's the fixed, steady Supply Ring. You don't want to miss these - like
other rings, they restore your shield energy and repair any wing damage (I
discuss wing damage and destruction in section [B-8] of this FAQ), but they
ALSO work as continue points if you lose a ship. Of course you also want to
look out for the yellow rings that appear as you defeat enemies - they restore
a small portion of your shield energy and shore up your wings a bit, too.
Now a ship appears overhead that you'll want to destroy before things start
parachuting out of it. Fly to the very top of your flightpath and give this
ship everything you've got - it will take a good number of hits to destroy.
The wingman that you just rescued may stick around and fire a few shots along
the right. Not much use, though, I have to say. You'll see another walker who's
not doing much of anything. Now the boss will appear.
+++Advance Scout Mother Ship ATTACK CARRIER+++
The boss flies in over you from behind, so don't hang around the top of your
flight path or you may get knocked. The boss will turn and face you. Now start
firing at the right-side hangar door, even before it opens. That way, your
shots hit the instant it does open, and if your aim is true you'll be able to
fry the hangar before it can launch any fighters.
Now start firing at one of the left-side doors - these are missile doors, and
you also want to be damaging them as soon as they open up. With luck you'll
destroy them before they fire homing missiles at you, which you'll have to
shoot down. Twin blasters are very handy here. Concentrate on one until it's
gone, then do the other. I tend to go bottom-to-top.
After destroying the hangar and missile bays, the central hull that's left of
the ship begins flying towards you, firing its plasma guns. Now you can shoot
the ship anywhere on its surface and it will take damage. You can pretty easily
avoid the bolts since they don't home in on you like missiles do, but you can
fly right through the middle of them rolling your ship to deflect them if you
want. When the ship gets close to being underneath you it will turn around,
letting you just sit and fire into the back of it! Boom. Off to the Asteroid
Field.
----------------------------------------
[1-2] - Level 1, Stage 2 - Asteroid Belt
----------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: ASTEROID BELT
"Andross's forces intend to build a base in this area!! Destroy their rock
crusher!!"
Boss: Asteroid Destroyer ROCK CRUSHER
Sure, Andross wants to build a base in this area, but I think that the real
purpose of the Rock Crusher is to clear a path so that the bulk of Andross'
fleet can reach Corneria.
Science note: I don't know about the Lylat System, but here at home in the
Solar System our asteroid belt is far less dense. Remember those Voyager probes
NASA sent out so we could take a peek at the gas giants? There are millions and
millions and millions of asteroids, sure, but you have to remember that space
is BIG and asteroids are pretty tiny. Anyway, the folks at NASA tried very
hard, but never managed to create a flight plan that would allow one of those
probes to get near even one asteroid. It would be hard to imagine an asteroid
belt this dense being formed anywhere - where would you get the material?
As soon as you fly into the level, your view is switched to cockpit mode.
Boo-yah! My favorite! Now you have no excuse not to shoot down every last one
of those pesky enemy fighters.
When you see those long articulated things with the blue heads you can just
shoot the heads to have a chance at roasting the entire creature at once. It
saves time if it works.
You can shoot gold asteroids, but not silver ones. (Sometimes funny creatures
"swim" out of the gold ones as you destroy them, though I've never known them
to be a threat.) As soon as you see your first asteroids, one of your wingmen
will get into trouble. You'll want to help him out. While I'm all for gender
equality, I'm glad that the SNES Star Fox Team is all-male - otherwise this
would be grammatically awkward.
After a bunch of pairs of appearing and disappearing ships you'll fly into a
particularly dense cluster of asteroids. Shoot the gold ones if they're in your
way and avoid the indestructible silver ones like the plague. After they pass,
you'll see a little hopper hopping between two silver asteroids with a nova
bomb situated in between. Shoot the hopper and collect the nova bomb.
Also at this time, one of your wingmen will herd in two enemy fighters and line
them up for himself. While this is going on, fly through the three gold
asteroids that form a triangle. A twin blaster powerup will then appear
slightly up and right! Get it! Now, if you were keen enough to keep your ship
intact since you picked up the first twin blaster in Stage 1, you'll get the
Photon Shot! Ka-pow! You definitely want to hang onto these babies!
Another blue-headed thing with the trailing yellow bits appears. Then you see a
rotating bar of asteroids with one gold asteroid in the middle. If you want to
go to the Black Hole, this is the tricky part. Follow these instructions very
carefully. If you're playing on an emulator, make a save state here.
+++How to enter the Black Hole+++
You encounter three spinning bars of silver asteroids with a gold asteroid in
the middle, one after the other. What you need to do is get close to the middle
of each bar before shooting the gold asteroid; then you want to cruise right
through where you just shot at - right through the middle! - that's the key to
the trick. (Fire your retros to help you slow down when you're doing this, if
you feel the need. Also watch out for the bolt-spewing mines between bars and
the funny creatures way up above your flightpath that come down on you guns
blazing.) Now, if you're fortunate, you'll see a smiling asteroid fly at you.
Shoot it, and it becomes the entrance to the Black Hole. Fly through the Black
Hole, and you're in. A description of this stage is available in section [1-X]
directly below.
For those of you who decide to skip the black hole, let me assure you that the
Andross Space Armada is an equally, if not more interesting stage that you
won't want to miss. Anyway, a supply ring appears just after where the Black
Hole would be, so assuming you collect that, you have to decide to do this
before attempting the boss.
A wingman gets into trouble shortly after that supply ring. Keep an eye out for
those bolt-spewing mines.
Anyway, you'll now fly past two big asteroids, and through a forest of mines -
be fast with your laser. At the end of that, just before the boss, you'll
encounter a tiny three-piece ship that fires at you from the bottom of your
flightpath - don't mix it up with a 1-up, just destroy it. Oh, and there is one
tiny little bonus. If you "activated" the smiling asteroid earlier but didn't
shoot it, a bird will appear here and drop yellow energy supply rings in your
path. Certainly nothing to write home about, but better than a kick in the
teeth, I suppose.
+++Asteroid Destroyer ROCK CRUSHER+++
The deal with this sucker is you have to destroy the four laser turrets on both
sides of the vessel before you can roast the whole thing. It's a pretty tame
boss at first because all it shoots at you are the lasers. You can just sit
directly in front and roll-deflect the occasional yellow bolts. In any case, I
recommend steady fire so that a turret will be roasted as soon as it opens. In
fact, I'll go so far as to call this general advice for every boss.
When you destroy the last turret, be careful - the main bulk of the ship is
then detached, and you don't want to run into it. After that part safely passes
you by, you can concentrate on the center bit between the two pads of the ship
- of course, it fires lasers at you. Shoot at it repeatedly, but watch out for
the missiles and plasma blasts, and be sure to shoot the missiles down the
moment you see them.
After you vanquish the Rock Crusher you'll make the jump to lightspeed and be
off on a direct course to intercept Andross' fleet. The story of this path
continues in section [1-3] farther below.
-------------------------------------------------
[1-X] - Level 1, Stage 3 - The Awesome Black Hole
-------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: THE AWESOME BLACK HOLE
"This space grave yard, created by Andross's experiments, is where your father
vanished, Fox!!"
Boss: None, but you'll find the derelict hulls of a few of them.
Really, I find the game just as entertaining without taking the shortcuts, but
if you're pressed for time the Black Hole just might be the way to go. Just
note that it will make the game more challenging, since you're missing out on
points (towards continue credits) from the Asteroid Belt, this stage, and any
stages you skip by going this way. That said, the Black Hole is also mysterious
and fascinating in and of itself, and it's good to get familiar with it.
Cribbing a bit from the comic (see section [B-2], "Story"), the reference to
Fox's father harkens back to the time when Andross and Fox's father were
friends, but Andross was in love with Fox Sr.'s girlfriend, and so he wanted to
do away with Fox Sr. First, he rigged up a car bomb, but the wife got in the
car! That was unfortunate, to be sure. His second attempt to get rid of Fox Sr.
was more effective - Fox Sr. was sent on a mission out to the Asteroid Belt,
but Andross placed a powerful bomb aboard his ship. Its explosion created the
Black Hole.
There isn't really a lot to do inside the Black Hole besides looking for the
exits, which are gray rings. In order, the three exits lead to:
1. Level 2, Stage 4 - Sector Y [2-4]
2. Level 3, Stage 4 - Sector Z [3-4]
3. Level 1, Stage 5 - Venom (space over Venom) [1-5]
If you're a beginning player, the only likely way you'll beat the game is by
taking the third exit to Venom. Going to Sector Y or Z is still a good choice,
though, as it will give you a near-impossible challenge and allow you to see
some far-out stages that you wouldn't normally see. Take Sector Z, for instance
- it's way out in the boonies, and it's a pretty tough level.
But if you're not an expert yet, but looking to complete Level 2 or 3, I
suggest that you start those courses from the beginning. You'll complete more
of the easier opening stages that way, and thus you'll earn more continues.
One more interesting thing to note: If you go to Level 1 Venom, the game
considers it to be Stage 4 and 5, not the Stage 5 and 6 you might expect. You
won't notice this with the other courses since their point of emergence is at
their fourth stages.
Okay, let's talk about the stage itself! You can find some powerups inside the
black hole, so you can go through the whole area more than once and reload
everything. Only a few ships actually fire at you.
Near the start of the stage is a 1-up. After that comes a twin blaster powerup
inside a cube with a circular door - shoot the door to open it, then fly
through the cube.
You'll see the first ring (the exit to Sector Y). If you skip this you'll fly
though more debris - watch out for the little blue amoebas! They'll actually
move towards you, as they're attracted to your ship's energy. If one does
manage to attach itself to your ship, roll to shake it off. The next landmark
is another cube with a door, and this one contains a nova bomb.
You'll see the second ring (the exit to Sector Z), and in the next cube is
another nova bomb.
Finally you'll see the third ring (the exit to the Level 1 Venom), and then the
stage starts all over again - unfortunately, you don't get another shot at the
1-up (wouldn't that be nice, eh?). You can, however, get as many twin blaster
and nova bomb powerups as you like - just for your own sake try to keep track
of how many rings you've passed. You'll know you're back at the start of the
stage when you fly through the cube with the twin blaster powerup - the next
ring will be the first ring, the exit to Sector Y.
---------------------------------------------------
[1-3] - Level 1, Stage 3 - The Andross Space Armada
---------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: THE ANDROSS SPACE ARMADA
"The Space Armada consists of powerful battleships!! Destroy their energy
cores!!"
Boss: Planet Bomber ATOMIC CORE
Alright! Get set for one of the most entertaining stages in game. The goal is
to destroy two of the picket ships and the large planet bomber ship at the end
- good thing we're stopping these guys before they reach Corneria!
Upon leaving hyperspace you'll be greeted by a missile and then one of those
little blue ships that you can shoot to get the twin blaster powerup. If you
need the powerup, make sure the enemy is in an accessible part of the screen
when you kill it. Then you'll contend with three more missiles; then you see
your first 1-up! Shoot the three pieces (you can aim in the same place and let
the bits come to your blasts instead of the other way around), then fly between
them to collect it.
You'll also notice one of the smaller capital ships. Shoot between its antennae
to take it down, but watch out for the missiles! You might want to let a nova
bomb go here to clear the area. There will be more ships like this, and also a
few where you destroy the laser turrets to destroy the vessel.
Soon you'll come up on the first picket ship. You can miss it if you like, but
you'll just fly all the way back around again - you can't advance in the level
without destroying the ships. (Unfortunately, skipping the first picket ship
means starting from the first capital ship, not the beginning of the stage,
meaning you don't get the chance to encounter the twin blaster ship or the 1-UP
again. So there's really no point in skipping the first ship, though there IS a
point in skipping the second...)
Basic tips: Fire your retros when you feel the need to, and try not to bounce
around too much - it's hazardous to the health of your twin blasters. ;-) Try
not to move left and right unnecessarily, as it can be difficult to get
yourself perfectly centered again. Here's the procedure for this first ship:
fly above a beam, fly below a beam, push L or R and fly sideways between two
vertical beams, fly under a yellow beam, pick up a power shield (see how long
you can hang onto it - if you still have it in the next stage then you qualify
as a good player), fly under another yellow beam, shoot the round portal, then
start shooting steadily to destroy the energy core. Boom.
Since you're experiencing tight-quarters manoeuvring for the first time here,
this might be a good time for me to deliver my lecture on wing damage (if you
missed section [B-8] in the "Things to Know" part of this FAQ). Here it is:
Your wings act as shock absorbers (hits to the wing only count for half
damage), they assist your flight stability, and they serve as mounts for the
twin blasters if you have them. It's surprisingly easy to lose a wing - just
bounce around in one of these ships a bit with your wings banging on the walls
and you'll see what I mean pretty quickly. Now, you can just damage your wing
like the rest of your ship, and if you fly through a blue or yellow ring it
will be refreshed. You can also get Wing Damage, where your wing is destroyed
and replaced by a little red stub. Once in that state, you repair your wings
either by getting a twin blaster / wing gyro powerup (of course, you get the
wing(s), not the laser... sob!) or by getting killed (this might be necessary
in certain parts of Level 3 where you almost have to have twin blasters to
defeat the bosses).
Now once finishing the first ship, you're in open space again. You'll still be
in Standard view, but you can go back to cockpit view if you want by pressing
SELECT. Now pretty much right away, one of your wingmen will get into trouble.
Here's a quick trick for the cruel people: If you want to see what the game is
like without your wingmen, now's your chance - you can skip the second picket
ship again and again until all your wingmen get shot down. Bummer. I don't
recommend early players try this, for losing your wingmen detracts from the
enjoyment of the game, in my opinion.
As your wingman is having difficulty, there's also a mine to the right that
you'd better take care of. Now you'll deal with some fighters and one of those
three-part ships like you faced near the end of the previous stage. More
capital ships will appear, and also a supply ring. One capital ship has three
turrets you can destroy to blow up the ship, but watch out for the three
missiles that swing out towards you from behind it! If you're going for a
perfect score, shoot the turrets first, then launch and detonate bomb to take
care of the missiles.
The second ship appears. The moves are a little trickier this time, but nothing
too difficult: Shoot the double doors to make them part, fly above a beam,
below a beam, above a series of beams, below a series of beams (watch out for a
striped moving beam here), shoot a series of double doors to make them part
(I'd leave the nova bomb alone because collecting it means you'll be off-centre
and you'll risk smacking into the walls or the tight vertical beams near the
energy core), shoot some enemies (don't go out of your way to get an energy
ring for the same reason I advised passing on the nova bomb), shoot the round
portal, and start shooting at the energy core. Boom 2.
By the way, it is possible to get out of the ships without destroying the
cores. Unfortunately you have to fly all the way around and enter them again,
as if you'd missed them entirely.
Upon exiting the second ship you are swarmed by some tiny white and red capital
ships that are as easy as anything to shoot down, except if you're trying to
get back into cockpit view - I might hold off on that until you get a few clear
seconds. After a few of these guys and some mines and missiles, you'll
encounter a supply ring as you begin to see your final objective at the bottom
of your flight path - the fearsome and deadly Planet Bomber! Kind of like
Andross' version of the Death Star. A couple of fighters fly into your path
after the supply ring - you know what to do. There's one last mine for old
time's sake, and then you will fly into the Planet Bomber!
Inside, your cowardly wingmen decide to abandon you and head for open space if
they haven't already. You do some trickier manoeuvres; pay attention to which
way the arrows are pointed on the up-or-down doors. You can shoot them to
change their direction or just wait for them to open for you. I'll assume that
you won't be shooting them - that just complicates things!
Here's the list of moves: fly up over a down-moving-door, stay up and fly over
a series of beams, fly low under a series of beams, fly up above a beam, fly
below a beam, fly above a beam, fly below a beam, fly above a beam (might want
to fire your retros for these), fly between two horizontal beams, fly low under
an up-moving-door, fly up over a down-moving-door, fly low under an
up-moving-door, fly above a beam and then over a down-moving door, shoot some
enemies (might need a nova bomb to clear the way if you don't have twin
blasters), shoot open a series of side-parting doors, fly between the vertical
beams, and then your autopilot kicks in.
You fly though a cool passage and greet the Atomic Core.
+++Planet Bomber ATOMIC CORE+++
Ever seen Return of the Jedi? These cores have become quite a trope.
The first thing you must do is destroy the wall panels that draw energy out of
the Atomic Core. I find they're easier to hit if you orient yourself so that
the energy streams are coming at you around the circle. Watch you don't get
nailed by the streams, and you'll want to be careful not to smash your precious
wings into the wall. There's also a tiny fighter pod that appears once in a
while, so shoot him down.
Once you destroy the panels, the core itself will open up, allowing you to
roast the entire vessel with a few quick shots. If you're not fast enough, the
core will close up, and you'll have to repeat the process with the wall panels
again.
After destroying the Planet Bomber, you head to Meteor.
-------------------------------------------------
[1-4] - Level 1, Stage 4 - The Battle Base Meteor
-------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: THE BATTLE BASE METEOR
"Be sure to use your retros if you're going too fast!! Be careful with my
Arwings!!"
Boss: Spider Shaped Machine DANCING INSECTOR
Science note: This place really shouldn't be called Meteor - meteors are those
bright flashes you see in the sky when asteroids or other particles intercept
the Earth and burn up in the upper atmosphere. This big chunk of rock is really
an asteroid.
You'll notice that as the stage begins, you're put into Approach view. You can
of course switch to Standard, but the idea behind Approach is that you have an
extra-split second to see and react to things - the downside is that you lose
the view of what's going on immediately beside you. Here the Approach view is
suggested because, as Pepper alludes, you have to be careful with your ship
here - your visibility is severely reduced, and you don't see obstacles and
enemies until you're right on top of them. It's not like there's a fog - they
just "pop-up" later than they would on other stages.
First you'll deal with a few walkers, then you'll encounter plasma turrets on
both sides of your flight corridor. You actually see the bolts before you see
the turrets! Then you see a few roving turrets. A nova bomb could come in handy
here.
A wingman will find trouble as you encounter three roving turrets, all in a
row. (Not one after the other, I mean that they're all in a row across your
screen.)
Now you'll go through a pillared area. You might want to fire your retros.
There's a nova bomb powerup available center-left, not to mention an
all-important twin blaster powerup along towards the right. Then you run into a
plasma turret among the pillars, so stay sharp.
Now you wend your way through some rocks and walkers. Hug the ground to take
care of a couple of roving turrets. Then you've got another walker, and now
some helicopters. They're hard to hit. There's a plasma turret and a little
bitty turret that appear on the left, as a 1-up appears on the right. You don't
have a lot of time to react.
Just as you (would) collect the 1-up, a wingman finds trouble. Then you've got
more walkers and helicopters. And two more plasma turrets for good measure.
Then you've got a walker.
Now you'll see a big, boxy, garage-like building on your left. Three roving
turrets will spill out. You know what to do - hug the ground and blast them
early before they line up under your flight path and start taking shots at you.
You encounter another plasma turret or two on the left after this.
Now there's a big door in the middle of the path. There's a supply ring inside,
but wait until you're close before shooting it - it closes again quickly. Shoot
it when you're right on top of it, then boost through it. A wingman will be
clearing up a few airborne enemies now, which leaves you free to concentrate on
a huge stationary turret. It will take everything you've got to blast.
Two helicopters appear. Then you get a pair of doors like the one that held the
supply ring a second ago. There's a nova bomb in the left door (and nothing at
all in the right). A wingman finds trouble, and you have to deal with one of
those big turrets again, then three more helicopters.
And now for the boss!
+++Spider Shaped Machine DANCING INSECTOR+++
Your wingman may actually hang around and fire a few shots at the Insector, but
he'll take off before any real damage is dealt. Sigh.
The first thing to do is keep shooting the legs while the Insector dances;
watch out for plasma bolts. As you tire it from dancing, it'll pull up its legs
and spin around in the air. It will approach to try and hit you; it will either
fly in high or low - be ready (and do the opposite). For all of this first
spin, its legs will still be blue and you can do practically no damage.
Now it'll dance again, but when it goes into a spin this time, the legs will be
red. Start shooting off the legs. You want it to be singing this:
I'm never gonna dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm
Though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool
Should've known better than to cheat a friend
And waste the chance that I've been given
So I'm never gonna dance again
The way I danced with you
As revenge for taking its legs out from under it, the Insector will begin to
use its flame cannon. Since you can see its trajectory all the way, it's pretty
easy to avoid, though it is quick. Move in alternating directions to miss it
completely. The Insector will still be spin-approaching you on either the high
side or the low side, so watch out for that.
After downing all the legs, destroy the remaining central pod (how does it stay
in the air?!). Boom. Hey, Venom's on the horizon! Off we go!
---------------------------------------------------
[1-5] - Level 1, Stage 5 - Venom (space over Venom)
---------------------------------------------------
Pepper: VENOM - THE FINAL GOAL
"Andross is hiding on Venom!! Fox, you must find his core brain and destroy
it!!"
Boss: Special Close Orbit Robot PHANTRON
This is basically just a fun shoot-em-up stage. Just keep your finger on that Y
(fire) button.
Keep in mind is that it takes time for your blaster bolts, once fired, to
strike your enemies. Far-away enemies take longer to hit - but if you want to
get high scores and stay safe, these are the ones to hit! A few targeting tips:
1) For moving enemies, shoot where they're going to be, not where they are. 2)
If you're confident your bolts will strike, move on - get a head start on the
next enemy.
Almost as soon as you begin the stage, one of your wingmen will get into
trouble. Shortly thereafter, you'll begin to see strange pods coming up from
the planet. They're trying to crash into your ship, so shoot them down.
With the Venom stages, the sooner you shoot something after seeing it, the
better. A lot of innocuous-looking objects and enemies tend to explode or split
up in your face if you let them get too close.
There's a gray ring you can fly through to pick up two nova bombs. After that,
be on the lookout for a twin blaster ship. Then a wingman finds trouble, then
more pods start coming up from the surface. There's a Supply Ring, then even
more pods. A wingman finds trouble yet again! After the pods stop coming after
you, there are a couple of stray enemies, and then the boss appears.
+++Special Close Orbit Robot PHANTRON+++
When you first encounter this bad boy, keep firing at it; you'll inflict some
damage whenever it moves. Sweep your lasers with its movements so that you can
shoot down the missiles that it sends your way while it is moving. ;-)
Soon it will start spinning, and when it stops, you'll notice that there are
three ships now. Only one is capable of taking damage, so find it with your
laser (you'll hear a satisfying swish-like sound when your lasers find it) and
shoot shoot shoot. Watch out for missiles! Before you can destroy the Phantron
completely, though, the ship retreats back to the planet. The Star Fox team
wisely decides to give chase.
There's a chance that the Phantron will try and ram you just before it
retreats, but it doesn't happen very often. I'm not sure what triggers this.
I've also found that if you really really hammer on it in the opening moments
before it splits, what would be the killing blow triggers the spin, and after
it splits it will recoup a little energy so that you don't kill it right away.
Probably some kind of script/AI thing.
------------------------------------------
[1-6] - Level 1, Stage 6 - Planet I: Venom
------------------------------------------
Boss: Special Close Orbit Robot PHANTRON
Wow! You've finally made it! There's some tricky flying to do on this planet,
so be on your toes.
Soon after arriving you'll notice a panel with a triangle pointing to the right
on it. When you get up close to the panel, it will quickly rotate, becoming a
large barrier on the right side of the screen that will bring you woe if you've
foolishly decided to fly on that side of it. You can also fire on the triangle
to change its direction, if you wish; you'll be needing to do that later to
collect items and avoid getting seriously hurt. Get used to these things,
you'll be seeing them a lot.
Woah! Now some blocks are appearing out of nowhere! Fly low.
One of your wingmen finds trouble. A bit after that, you'll have some plasma
turrets to deal with. Hug the ground and take them out, or stay up in the air
and roll-deflect the bolts as you fire away.
Another one of those panels appears, pointing to the right as before. Then
there's a third one pointing right - you'll notice this one is pointing at a
nova bomb. So fire at the triangle to make it point the other way (left) and
then you can safely collect the nova bomb. (One little shot is all it takes -
whatever you do, don't hammer on your blasters!)
Now you have a left-pointing one, and you can dodge it or redirect it, but then
you have a right-pointing one on the left side of the screen. You pretty much
have to redirect this right-pointing one left, and similarly redirect the
left-pointing one on the right side of the screen to the right. Then fly right
of a left-pointing one in the middle of the path.
Now fly low, as there will be pillars rising and sinking in the ground, though
it's more eye candy than anything else. Then you'll deal with a couple of
enemies, and a wingman will get into trouble. Then there will be plasma turrets
on both sides. You might want to use a nova bomb here for safety reasons. A
couple more enemies, another pair of turrets, then a turret in the middle.
You will then arrive at some red pillars that you can shoot if you like; then
more pillars are cast down upright upon the ground so as to be in your way -
avoid those. Then there's a fancy left, right, left (or the other way around)
through falling grey pillars, then you get what looks like your choice of
three(!) Supply Rings. Unfortunately only the middle one is the real
continue-point-making deal, so you'll probably want to fly through it. Then you
have another narrow pass through floating pillars.
Now you're at the spot with the objects that fall to the ground if you fly
under them. If you want to collect the nova bomb or the twin blasters, I
suggest using the booster rockets. Fly sideways between the rows until you need
to swing into a row to collect an item.
One last swinging bar (initially left-pointed) for old-time's sake, then you
have more red shootable falling pillars, and then the Phantron comes back
again.
+++Special Close Orbit Robot PHANTRON+++
Start off (as almost always) by shooting. It will split into three right away,
and as before find the damage-taking one with your laser (you'll hear a
satisfying sound) and fire away, watching out for missiles and rolling to
deflect blaster bolts.
After you extinguish it, it flies around in a circle again, and... Oh... my...
God...
Strategy for the new Phantron is easy - just fire at the head and avoid / shoot
down the missiles, and avoid / roll deflect the lasers, and plasma blasts. ;-)
It's easier said than done, though. You'll need to be very nimble to outlast
the bugger.
Try to shoot down as many missiles as you can, as a few of them leave yellow
supply rings. But you can dodge most of the missiles reasonably well if you
watch their shadows and listen to their audio cues. Still, you don't want to
get into a long, drawn-out fight, and I tend to favor aggressive tactics. The
best defense may well be to stay right in the line of fire, shooting down the
missiles and roll-deflecting the blaster bolts. But if you're not good a
rolling, you'll have to play cat-and-mouse.
The Phantron's other attacks include leaping at you, and also launching a leg
towards you. Try to miss those. It can also split into three, and again you
have to figure out which one to shoot at. It may take a long time, but you will
be able to roast the thing for good eventually.
After destroying Phantron, the autopilot kicks in and you end up inside
Andross' fortress, where you do some manoeuvres in a corridor similar to the
ones you executed in the Space Armada stage. Andross taunts you a bit, but he's
just masking his desperation - you've made it this far, and you're not going to
leave before utterly destroying the fellow. Entering his domain acts as a
continue point, so if you've got an extra ship or two you should be good to go.
The corridor contains a grey ring, no doubt most welcome after your battle with
Phantron. Then you'll deal with some closing bars - fly up, then down, then
collect a nova bomb between two pillars. Fly under a bar, over a bar, and then
- carefully - between two bars (fire your retros if you need to).
Now you have to deal with closing doors. You have to roll onto one side and
move to the left and right very quickly. Retros will help immensely. Roll right
and approach the right wall, roll left and approach the left wall, roll right
and approach the right wall, roll left and approach the left wall, roll right
and approach the right wall (and get twin blasters), and finally roll left and
approach the left wall. You don't have to get *super* close - the door only
closes about 2/3 of the way.
+++Psychic Energy Core TELEKINETIC AMPLIFIER+++
First, destroy the eyes. It will probably two rounds or more of Andross
spitting out the telekinetic particles and then sucking them in again for you
to accomplish this. I find nova bombs don't really help much here. The faster
you work, the better - playing cat-and-mouse tends to mean you get smacked
around more by the telekinetic pieces. You also destroy more of them by
mounting an aggressive offence. If you have the photon shot, pick an eye, sit
high, and just blast away. Surprisingly, you'll take little to no damage from
this stance.
When each eye gets blown up, the whole face shatters, giving you a chance to
fire directly at Andross' control cube. Fire fire fire! You probably won't
destroy the cube in this first round (though you can do this with the photon
shot), so you'll soon see the face come back together again. Destroy the eyes
like before (it won't take nearly as long - definitely a feasible one-round job
if you have the twin blasters), and then utterly fry the control cube - the
damage you inflicted in the previous round(s) is still there.
And then Andross blows apart. Your autopilot gets you out of the fortress
before it's too late.
I won't spoil the ending for you - its mechanics are pretty much self-evident,
except perhaps for a "trick" described in section [H-2] at the end of this FAQ.
In any case, enjoy!
Congratulations, you've beaten Level 1, and you're well on your way to becoming
an accomplished Star Fox player. Now it's time to try Level 2!
============================
V - Level 2 Flythrough [2.0]
============================
Level 2 is initially presented as a counter-attack on Venom like Level 1. Level
2, though, is a great deal more complex to the point that it makes Level 1 seem
simplistic. While Level 2 isn't the roundabout / insane choice of routes that
Level 3 is, it is less of a direct counter by the time you reach Venom. The
last stage of Level 2 is one of my favourite
stages in the game.
--------------------------------------------------------
[2-1] - Level 2, Stage 1 - Planet IV: Corneria (daytime)
--------------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: CORNERIA - THE BASE
"Star Fox team, our last resort is to counter attack Venom!! Good luck!!"
Boss: Advance Scout Mother Ship ATTACK CARRIER
This stage is similar to the Level 1 Corneria in appearance, but it's a little
tougher.
You start off with two enemy ships, then you encounter a tiny ground-based
turret (between two benign towers) and a few more enemies. Now you come to the
all-important arches. Slippy doesn't show you how to fly through the arches
this time, but you can do it yourself and collect a twin blaster powerup.
However, as you approach to the first arch, a wingman gets into trouble!
Fortunately, both wingman and pursuer will fly right in front of you on your
way to that first arch, and you can shoot the enemy before the arch if you're
quick and your aim is true. If your wingman does get hit and/or you miss the
twin blasters, you might want to consider restarting the game.
Nothing but walkers to bother you as you cruise through the arches. The last
"arch", though, is a huge opening-and-closing door off to the left. Adjust your
speed with retros or boosters so that you can collect the twin blasters without
being smashed.
Now you'll have some flying and ground-based enemies to take care of. Then as
you enter the city, you'll encounter an overhead ship that drops enemies on
parachutes. Aim high and get rid of this fellow ASAP. Now the city gets denser.
I love this part.
You get into a clearing and deal with some flying enemies. Remember, if you
figure your bolts are going to hit the bogey, move on to the next one.
You fly between two control towers and a wingman gets into trouble. Follow them
through the arch to collect a grey ring. Then you'll have a little turret on
your right. Then you fly over two close buildings and though another arch. Some
walkers pass by porting a blue pillar. Then you get into a series of falling
blue pillars, and you'll have lots of roving turrets to deal with in the middle
before they close in on you. For the very last turrets, you can just fly very
low and in the middle - an enemy plasma bolt will wipe out a turret for you,
and you can pull up a bit and collect a supply ring. Then you'll have a nova
bomb tucked in an alley between two buildings. If you want it, tilt yourself to
one side (hold L or R) and grab it.
Then you've got some more enemies, and control towers, and then the boss comes.
+++Advance Scout Mother Ship ATTACK CARRIER+++
This is *exactly* the same boss that you faced in Level 1, Stage 1. Because of
this, I shamelessly refer you to section [1-1] of this FAQ. Just kidding.
Here's the copypasta:
The boss flies in over you from behind, so don't hang around the top of your
flight path or you may get knocked. The boss will turn and face you. Now start
firing at the right-side hangar door, even before it opens. That way, your
shots hit the instant it does open, and if your aim is true you'll be able to
fry the hangar before it can launch any fighters.
Now start firing at one of the left-side doors - these are missile doors, and
you also want to be damaging them as soon as they open up. With luck you'll
destroy them before they fire homing missiles at you, which you'll have to
shoot down. Twin blasters are very handy here. Concentrate on one until it's
gone, then do the other. I tend to go bottom-to-top.
After destroying the hangar and missile bays, the central hull that's left of
the ship begins flying towards you, firing its plasma guns. Now you can shoot
the ship anywhere on its surface and it will take damage. You can pretty easily
avoid the bolts since they don't home in on you like missiles do, but you can
fly right through the middle of them rolling your ship to deflect them if you
want. When the ship gets close to being underneath you it will turn around,
letting you just sit and fire into the back of it! Boom. Off to Sector X, so we
can take care of the rest of the invaders.
---------------------------------------------------------
[2-2] - Level 2, Stage 2 - Sector X (space over Corneria)
---------------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: SECTOR X
"Andross's forces intend to build a base in this area!! Destroy their rock
crusher!!"
Boss: Asteroid Destroyer ROCK CRUSHER
Soaring over Corneria's upper atmosphere, you reach an area densely packed with
girders, pillars, and construction equipment. Uh-oh... think Andross wants to
build a base here? But why would they need a *rock* crusher? Maybe its job has
already been done?
You'll face enemies right away, and a wingman will get into trouble.
You'll fly into an area with rotating Ts. Fly through the slot between the
columns of horizontal girders. Then one of your wingmen will go after some on
his own. Watch for a 1-up here (but mind the beams!).
Proceed through the gap in the following columns of vertical girders tilted
over to one side (hold L or R). As for the rotating sets of beams that follow
(and you'll want to fly through them, because something nasty will happen if
you try to avoid them - a plasma mine will rain down on top of you!), you can
start out not being tilted, but eventually you have to to avoid getting
smacked. Find a nova bomb powerup amidst the chaos.
Emerging from this, you'll pass an outpost and encounter some
appearing-and-disappearing enemies. Consider lobbing a nova bomb their way.
You'll also see one of those little blue ships that you can shoot for a twin
blaster!
Find a nova bomb between two crawly things that shoot lasers at you. Then after
a few rotating beams you'll find a power shield - don't miss it, because you're
definitely going to need it.
You hit the blue supply ring, then fly through the second outpost. A wingman
gets into trouble. You'll then run into a vertical line of four ships that are
really hard to blow up. The only time that they can be hit is when they turn to
face you (you'll see a patch of yellow).
After, you do some more easy fly-bys of more rotating objects - then you run
into something horrible! Pillars everywhere, headed in all directions! How do
you escape without being hit? Well, that's hard. It's kind of an "instincts"
thing. I would suggest that the key is not overcompensating when avoiding one
pillar so that you won't run into another one; and not bothering with the
retros or the boosters. Alternatively, you can fly over to the extreme left or
right, though like I said earlier you'll have to deal with plasma-spewing mines
raining down from above - it's a pick-your-poison situation. Unless you're
really good at rolling to deflect stuff, I'd suggest just picking your way
through the mess of pillars.
Just as you're nearing the end of the pillars, a wingman finds trouble, and you
also have to deal with one of those triangular three-piece ships. You'll
probably be firing your blasters as you dodge the last few pillars.
Those hard-to-roast ships show up again. Then comes the boss.
+++Asteroid Destroyer ROCK CRUSHER+++
So what's this thing doing here? My guess is that it's filling in for a
different kind of capital ship, and to make do they upgraded their battle
tactics. The basic strategy from Level 1, Stage 2 also applies here (see
section [1-2] of this FAQ), but there are a few new twists:
- The ship is now far more reluctant to open its laser turrets (thus allowing
you to blow them up).
- Once you destroy all the turrets on one side, it will begin firing missiles
(from its sides) every time it turns another side towards you. Ouch!
The general strategy, again:
You have to destroy the four laser turrets on both sides of the vessel before
you can roast the whole thing. It's a pretty tame boss at first because all it
shoots at you are the lasers (until you destroy all the turrets on a side, that
is, at which time it starts firing missiles). In any case, I recommend steady
fire so that a turret will be roasted as soon as it opens. This time, the Rock
Crusher is loathe to open its turrets, and when it does it opens them only for
a short time, so be prepared for this to take a little while.
When you destroy the last turret, be very careful - the main bulk of the ship
is then detached, and its operators would love for it to smash into you. Be
sure to get out of the way. After you get past that, you can concentrate on the
center bit between the two pads of the ship - of course, it fires lasers at
you. Shoot at it repeatedly, but watch out for the missiles and plasma blasts,
and be sure to shoot the missiles down the moment you see them.
After you vanquish Rock Crusher 1.1 you'll set course for Titania.
---------------------------------------------
[2-3] - Level 2, Stage 3 - Planet II: Titania
---------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: THE PLANET TITANIA
"Corneria's resource world has been overrun!! You must re-take the weather
control unit!!"
Boss: Master Computer PROFESSOR HANGAR
Now this is a fun level. Titania is Corneria's resource world, and the bad guys
have come in and taken over. They've even shut down the weather control - Brrr!
(Titania might be a bit like our own Saturnine moon Titan - in terms of
resources, Titan has cold seas of liquid methane.)
The enemies on this level are mostly stuff you've seen before - but watch out
for the big crab-like robots. To destroy or disable them, you'll have to shoot
at the tiny flashing blue areas where their legs join onto the body. Watch out
you don't crash into them, because you usually have to get pretty close to
score a hit. Of course, you can just forget about the crabs, but unless you at
least disable them they'll fire at you from behind, so be sure to do some
barrel rolls.
Now for the flythough:
You start in a snowy area, and visibility is reduced. Fly under a gap left by a
raised panel. Then you have to deal with some close-quarters rocky ledges, and
turrets and walkers amongst that. (When you get to the big rock in the middle
of your path, hang a right, as there's a walker you can shoot that's creeping
that way.) Then tilt yourself to cruise between two large rocks, or fly high
and centre to get over them.
Now you'll have some walkers and moving turrets to deal with, and one of your
wingmen will find trouble. These turrets are unique - they'll try to lob
crystals at you, so be careful. Then you'll meet your first crab-enemy
(described above). Then you meet two turrets (careful - you'll see their plasma
blasts before you see the actual turrets!) and a choice of three doors.
The deal with the doors: The weather control is on the right, and you need to
trip it to continue on with the stage. However, if you need twin blasters, you
can reload - there's a twin blaster powerup inside the center door. (There's
nothing inside the left door.) Flying though the center (or left) door means
repeating some of the stage: you deal with some moving conventional turrets, a
crab thing, the two plasma turrets again, and you return to the same three
doors. Heck, go through the middle door again to upgrade to the photon shot!
But if you're ready to continue, fly through the right door and trip the
weather control.
Now you've got two conventional turrets and some flying enemies. Two
helicopters appear and a wingman finds trouble.
Along the left side you'll see a nova bomb tucked in behind a sheet beam. Fly
under the gap and then pull up quickly to grab it. Then you'll have another
crab thing, and another, and some more crystals will be headed your way. Then
you have three moving turrets - hopefully one or more of them will leave behind
a yellow ring!
A wingman finds trouble, and you encounter some more plasma turrets. Be ready
to roll! Then you have two crab things, then a plasma turret and a crab thing,
and another plasma turret and a crab thing. Then you have a few more fighters
and plasma turrets to deal with as what I conjecture to be the Titania
spaceport comes up on the horizon.
You fly inside. (You're able to continue from here if you get killed, so don't
worry about the fact that this stage had nary a supply ring.) A robot appears
in the entrance corridor and tells you "BYE BYE!" on its screen as you fire
upon it again and again. How menacing. But you don't even have to waste your
thumb on it - it withdraws even if you don't shoot it. You then enter a large
hangar bay.
+++Master Computer PROFESSOR HANGAR+++
I imagine that Professor Hangar was once a kind and peaceful computer that
simply guided ships in and out of the Titanian Spaceport; but Andross' forces
must have reprogrammed it, and now you have no choice but to blow the computer
and its robotic body to smithereens.
The trick to beating this guy is through skimming along very close to the
ground, swinging right and left, firing like mad. There are these winged
creatures that keep coming out of the ground, and you want to destroy as many
as you can while they're near the surface and not careening through the air
towards your ship. Now when you destroy all the little jumpers, the machine
itself finally appears, launching winged things at you. Keep firing at the
computer, still skimming around on the ground to take care of those awful
winged things, and you'll soon destroy it.
Professor Hangar has a special Shadow Thruster attack that it uses after four
sets of launches - you'll see it coming when the robot splits into three and
you'll know to get out of the way. More likely, you'll blow the thing up long
before it has the chance to use it. In fact, I'm *betting* most of you probably
aren't letting the boss live this long!
If it's still around after the Shadow Thruster attack, hammer on it with all
you've got before it retreats! If it manages to get away from you, you have to
clear out a new batch of critters before it appears again. And here's a bit of
surprising news for you: it comes back fully recharged! So there, you have a
tremendous incentive not to ever see the Shadow Thruster attack, unless you're
trying to write a FAQ. ;-)
-----------------------------------
[2-4] - Level 2, Stage 4 - Sector Y
-----------------------------------
Pepper calls it: SECTOR Y
"How are the Arwings handling? If an amoeba clings to your ship, use L or R to
get rid of it."
Boss: Hydrogen Harvester PLASMA HYDRA
This is one of the strangest stages in the game, second only to Out Of This
Dimension. If you can buy the idea of sea creatures floating through space,
you'll have a lot of peaceful fun with it.
See, there are only a very few enemy fighters in this level. What you need to
worry about are the sea creatures - notably the squid and the small stingrays.
What's going on is that Andross attached mind-control devices to them and is
thereby controlling them. You don't want to kill the creatures, you just want
to knock out their equipment. You'll know this has happened when they turn
blue.
You need to shoot the squid repeatedly until they make a noise and turn blue,
and you need to shoot the stingrays once to turn them from red to blue. If you
miss any, they will crash into you, and you won't get to see the special bonus
at the end of the level. (It's worth getting and will make the boss far
easier.)
There are also amoebas. If one clings to your ship, do a barrel roll (L or R
twice) to get rid of it.
The last item of note is the big stingray. Don't shoot it, and stay out of its
way. If you fail in this, then you miss the bonus. (You might, though, graze it
once or twice and get away with it.) Getting the bonus is very important - keep
it in mind above all else in this level.
Now with the flythrough:
As soon as you enter the stage, get yourself into cockpit view (by pressing
SELECT twice) - those red stingrays are hard to hit. You'll see three of them
off to the right almost as soon as you begin. Then you'll need to deal with two
squid (remember, they take more than one hit to neutralize). Then you've got
some missiles, two more squid, and a wingman gets into trouble. Then you have
two hard-to-hit fighters.
Now you enter a field of amoebas. Don't miss the 1-up. The amoebas will seek
you out - you have to be actively evasive, not just passively evasive. Three
missiles will be launched towards the end of the amoeba field. Then there's a
twin blaster ship towards the upper left.
Now the big stingray appears. Leave it the heck alone. Don't hit it with your
ship and don't let your lasers strike it. (You need to be especially careful if
you're packing the photon shot.) One good thing is that a wingman will pull out
and take care of two enemies for you, so you don't have to risk shooting just
yet.
After he's done the stingray should be out of the way, so you can get the new
enemies that have flown in and rescue a wingman that gets into trouble.
There'll be a supply ring, then a squid and three blue fighters.
Then you get beaucoup stingrays and a couple of squid! Turn them blue and don't
miss any! You can actually turn blue ones red (angry) again by striking them
unnecessarily, so be careful! Of course the big stingray (and sometimes two of
them!) will be running interference! A wingman will find trouble eventually,
too. Then it's boss time.
Now, if you've done absolutely everything 100% right (you can get away with
accidentally plugging or crashing into the big stingrays, but you MUST be
PERFECT and have turned all the little stingrays and squid to blue), right
around when your wingman finds trouble you'll also hear the call of a whale.
The whale will swim out in front of you (try not to smash into it!), leaving a
tremendous trail of power-ups behind it. Nova bombs (speaking of, consider
launching one as the whale approaches to clear the enemies since you're going
to get fully restocked anyway). Power shield. Twin blasters. Grey rings. You'll
need it all for the enemy that shows up as the whale leaves you.
+++Hydrogen Harvester PLASMA HYDRA+++
These hydrogen farmers must be working for Andross, because they are not very
friendly.
To inflict damage on the Hydra, you have to fire on the hydrogen collectors at
the ends of its arms. Once you get a lock, don't let up. Don't hesitate to fire
retros. It can be hard to get a good firing angle.
The Hydra's moves include staring you down and firing missiles (from its hull,
so direct some shots there to shoot them down), spinning around and firing
missiles and plasma shots (roll and watch those arms!), and sitting on an angle
to you with it's collector in your face, allowing you to pump laser into its
miserable chassis, while it fires more missiles at you.
Once you take out the arms, the Hydra begins to spin erratically - keep
shooting the central component. Feel free to lob some nova bombs to aid your
cause, especially if you don't have twin blasters. The Hydra may sprout one
long tail with a spiked wrecking ball on the end, and you should do your best
not to get smacked with it. Finally, once you've essentially defeated the
Hydra, it may make a kamikaze-like lunge for you, so get out of the way as its
energy meter is fully depleted.
If you miss the final attack, or are fortunate enough to survive it, you take
off for Venom. Hang on!
---------------------------------------------------
[2-5] - Level 2, Stage 5 - Venom (space over Venom)
---------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: VENOM - THE FINAL GOAL
"Is everyone all right, Fox?!! You're on course to sneak into Venom's back
door!!"
Boss: Super Gravity Powered METAL SMASHER
Oh, this is exciting! Going in through the rear, you gotta love it. I guess
those lines on the map aren't arbitrary after all.
This is another shoot-em-up stage similar to the Level 1 Venom, but here the
enemies are a little tougher. For instance, there are now exploding grey drums
to contend with - either shoot them from a distance, or move far to the other
side as you pass by. And of course the interception buoys are being launched
from the surface again. To top it off, plasma mines rain down on you if you
decide to veer too far over to one side.
Here we go. There's an initial wave of fighters - be ready and shooting and
rolling. Then a wingman gets into trouble.
Now you have to contend with intercepting buoys and those exploding drums I
mentioned. Shoot them down, because if they get ahead of you, the successive
impacts could leave you dead in seconds. Then you get some fighters, maybe a
mine, and a bunch more exploding drums. A nova bomb might come in handy.
There's a twin blaster and a nova bomb hidden for the dexterous. Then there'll
be a supply ring.
A wingman gets into trouble and you have more exploding drums. A cruiser
appears overhead. You get a bunch more fighters. Then we're back to
intercepting buoys, and a wingman gets into trouble. Then you have a fat easy
cruiser, and then a bunch of little ships to deal with. In this altercation,
you'll see a strange little brown wire-framed ship. If you shoot it, a power
shield will appear - but it's nearly impossible to collect since the little
ship rarely comes near your flight path, so when you destroy it, the powerup is
usually out of reach.
But you *can* get it, though it may distract you from other things that are
going on! The ship's behaviour is random, but it does have a tendency to bob
down lower and lower into your flight path. Give it some time, and if you're
patient and pick the right moment to strike, you should be able to collect the
shield after you shoot it.
You fly through a veritable forest of drums, this time of the non-exploding
variety. You face two more wings of enemy fighters. Then you run into what I
conjecture to be the creator of all these drums.
+++Super Gravity Powered METAL SMASHER+++
Oh, did I ever go into mental breakdowns over this machine. Peppy told me to
fire my retros - I fired my retros, and I was still getting smacked when the
two halves of the machine came together. But why?! "I'm nowhere near the
thing!" I'd shout to my TV.
The video game magazines, your wingmen, and many "strategy guides" all fail to
tell you why the Metal Smasher continues to kick your butt. Or, more likely,
why it continued to lay waste to me - I never noticed that when the two halves
of the Smasher split up, it releases a whole lot of steel drums - and they hunt
you down! If you don't shoot them before they're underway towards you from
between the halves, you're as good as dead.
And that's the key to it. If you can vaporize the flying drums, you have what
it takes to beat the Metal Smasher.
The Metal Smasher introduces itself with a leap and bound out of the distance,
then opens itself up in to two halves and stops. FIRST THINGS FIRST - shoot the
METAL DRUMS that appear between the ships. Sometimes one likes to hide behind a
half of the ship and you have to shoot it when it's arcing around to get you.
Anyway, with the drums gone you can relax and concentrate on avoiding being
crushed. ;-) Now you want to get some licks in to one of the the little red
panels - there's one on each side of the Smasher. It doesn't matter which one
you target.
So anyway, the enemy is stopped and you're flying toward it at high speed. The
enemy wants you to be trapped between the two halves when they come together.
But that's elementary to avoid, you just fire your retros when Peppy screams at
you to do so, and duck out of the way. If you don't want to rely on peppy, try
to mentally back count and allow two whole
seconds before the rig seems to be on top of you. Also, it might help to
manoeuvre in the perpendicular direction to the Smasher's orientation -
meaning, if it's pointed up and down, you go right, and so on. But that's not
as important as when you fire the retro rockets.
You'll repeat this approach and retreat process several times. (And don't
forget to get rid of those drums! They can end your game in a hurry!) Every
couple of rounds, the Smasher will sit back and fire an arc of ring bolts at
you instead of trying to crush you. Again, get out of the way.
After a while, you'll blow up half of the Smasher. Instead of continuing the
fight, though, the Smasher just self-destructs as a shuttle departs from its
bay. The Star Fox team takes off in hot pursuit.
-------------------------------------------------
[2-6] - Level 2, Stage 6 - Venom (aerial passage)
-------------------------------------------------
Boss: Central Guard Machines GALACTIC RIDERS (more importantly, the shuttle
that carries the things)
Ah! So this is the rear entrance to Andross' domain! Woah! I love this stage,
and I hope you do too.
This stage is really pretty simple. As long as you remember not to
overcompensate when you manoeuvre, you'll be fine. Also be careful when you're
flying with your ship tilted sideways - you don't want to get your wing
destroyed this late in the game.
Ships will come onto the corridor from your left, so you should stay on the
right where it's safer. The ships that flash yellow when you hit them will
leave yellow rings behind. Don't get too close to the sides of those silver
vehicles that just spin around on the runway; they'll try to hit you, and you
could end up with massive wing damage (or destruction), but little or no shield
damage - if you're lucky enough to get away with damage, start looking for a
yellow ring to refresh your wing.
Here goes. Ships and vehicles appear on your left. I'd stay on the right and
*maybe* peek left just to get some shots off, but be careful because it's easy
to get stuck behind pillars or ships that take too long to destroy.
A twin blaster powerup appears early on on the right side. It might be
triggered by killing enemies - let me know if you don't see it.
After the powerup, the stage opens up a bit, and you can move left and right
more freely. Take full advantage of this.
You'll come to a part where there are falling ceiling tiles, but if you want to
brave them to pick up a nova bomb, you can. As I write this I feel that
discretion is the better part of valor, and I squeezed left of the whole mess.
You might want to duck right at the tail end and maybe even deliberately smack
a pillar to get the supply ring. And then a nova bomb appears in the corridor
anyway! Hooray!
Now you deal with more cruisers coming into the corridor. Be very careful here.
Some smack the wall deliberately and bounce around in front of you, but the
ones you really need to worry about are the ones that sort of float in and sit
still, then take off again - they're dropping ring laser mines! If you see one
of those little cone things on the floor, just get out of the way! If you can,
shoot them down before they get the opportunity to lay them, but sometimes
there'll be three cruisers on your screen at a time, and that's when you know
they're going to lay a mine, because you just can't destroy them that quickly,
unless you're using bombs. Don't forget to really pound on the ones that show
yellow when you shoot them, because they leave those valuable yellow rings.
Now four bikers show up. You need to destroy them to go on with the stage. Fire
your retros if there's one right by you, then you'll be behind it, and in
firing position. They'll also destroy themselves once in a while. When all are
roasted, that shuttle that escaped from the Metal Smasher shows up! Keep right!
+++Central Guard Machines GALACTIC RIDERS+++
I'm pretty sure that the title refers to the bikers and not to the shuttle
carrying them - but in any case, the shuttle will be the vehicle you'll have
the problems with. It's simply much too big a ship to be flying inside this
corridor, and the fact that it will intentionally try to ram you doesn't help.
The shuttle actually has no weapons, it can only launch bikes and mines. Also,
the only way to destroy it is by firing inside its bay when its ramp opens.
The shuttle's first launch will be bikes. If you have twin blasters, you can
bring its energy meter down below half - forget the bikes until the shuttle has
completely closed its door.
After you destroy the bikes, the shuttle will try to ram you. When it seems to
have you nearly pinned, fire your retros and head over to the other side before
it completes the ram. Then it will try to ram you again!
Provided you survive this, the shuttle will pull back and open up its ramp
again. Be careful this time, though, it might launch a mine instead of the
relatively harmless bikes. (Well, harmless in that they don't fire at you; as I
wrote the first version of this FAQ, one of those buggers destroyed my left
wing!) Your chances of getting seem to improve if the shuttle didn't at least
glance you while attempting the rams. It may also launch a mine while you
battle the bikes.
If you do not have twin blasters, I would suggest using bombs here. You might
not be able to survive more than one round of ramming, so the quicker you can
destroy the shuttle, the better.
Once you do destroy the shuttle, you find the end of the corridor. It becomes a
very neat-looking but tricky passageway to Andross. It's moments like this I
wish there was no autopilot. Can you imagine having to navigate such a passage?
What a challenge!
Your ship sails into the brown-colored approach corridor of Andross'
Telekinetic Amplifier. This will be your continue point should you bite it here
and have one or more extra ships to play with. As Andross taunts you, you get a
grey ring, then you fly over a closing beam, then under a closing beam, then
you get a nova bomb. Then under, then over, and then *carefully* through a
series: under two closing beams, over two, under two, over two (don't hesitate
to fire your retros!), and finally between two.
Now you'll want to tilt yourself to the right and grab the twin blasters
between the wall and a closing door. Then tilt left and go between the wall and
a second closing door. The door still closes about 2/3 of the way like in Level
1, though this time there is a little bracket on the wall side that you could
theoretically smack into. It's really nothing to worry about, though.
+++Psychic Energy Core TELEKINETIC AMPLIFIER+++
This is more or less the same battle that you fought at the end of Level 1,
but:
- The control cube is tougher here, and it will definitely take you more than
one round to destroy.
- The cube is lined with a color triangular piece on two ends, giving you a
color indication of how much damage you've inflicted!
Here follows the description from [1-6]:
First, destroy the eyes. It will probably two rounds or more of Andross
spitting out the telekinetic particles and then sucking them in again for you
to accomplish this. I find nova bombs don't really help much here. The faster
you work, the better - playing cat-and-mouse tends to mean you get smacked
around more by the telekinetic pieces. You also destroy more of them by
mounting an aggressive offence. If you have the photon shot, pick an eye, sit
high, and just blast away. Surprisingly, you'll take little to no damage from
this stance.
When each eye gets blown up, the whole face shatters, giving you a chance to
fire directly at Andross' control cube. Fire fire fire! You won't destroy the
cube in this first round, so you'll soon see the face come back together again.
Destroy the eyes like before (it won't take nearly as long - definitely a
feasible one-round job if you have the twin blasters), and then utterly fry the
control cube - the damage you inflicted in the previous round(s) is still
there.
And then Andross blows apart. Your autopilot gets you out of the fortress
before it's too late - you don't leave the super-cool way you came,
regrettably, you go out the ugly regular surface stage route like every other
time.
You get the same great ending again, but be proud of yourself - you just
finished Level 2, and most people back in 1993 when this game was the hot title
at the rental stores took the better part of a week to beat Level 1! By "most
people" I mean "me". By "better part of a week" I mean "the third or fourth
time I rented it for a week, I finally beat it". For Level 3, we could be
talking years. Oh hey, that's next! ;-)
============================
V - Level 3 Flythrough [3-0]
============================
Well, if you're looking for a challenge, look no further! This is truly *the*
hard way to go; hence Andross not expecting you to travel this route. Along the
way, you'll see some interesting sights; Fortuna with all it's deadly plants
and animals, Sector Z, and of course the Out Of This Dimension stage.
--------------------------------------------------------
[3-1] - Level 3, Stage 1 - Planet IV: Corneria (evening)
--------------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: CORNERIA - THE BASE
"You've chosen Course Three... A good choice to take Venom by surprise!!"
Boss: Ground Supremacy Vehicle DESTRUCTOR (though the Attack Carrier sort of
makes an appearance)
This is by far the most interesting Corneria stage. There's more city to fly
through, and you get the feeling that you're sneaking out before nightfall. I
like the detail that the turrets near the base are actually on your side,
firing plasma bolts far down your flightpath to help clear the way.
Some good things never change, though - you can still fly through all the
arches at the beginning to collect a twin blaster powerup. When you finally
reach the last small arch, shoot the ship going after your wingman and swing
into the left building to pick it up. (You *could* get the nova bomb on the
right if should like to, but if you miss the twin blasters I would suggest just
hitting the RESET button and trying again.) In any case, you'll most likely
have to fire your retros (do so sooner rather than later) or boosters to escape
without damage. Timing is key.
When you get to the first set of collapsing blue pillars, I suggest you either
fly high and shoot them, then zip down to ride through the double sets; or fly
low close to one side, perhaps using your boosters near the end. You encounter
a cluster of enemy fighters at the end - they tend to get in formation in front
of you, so if you are close to the right or left edge of your path you might
have a hard time shooting the fighters on the appropriate edge of the
formation.
A wingman finds trouble. You fly through a cluster of buildings and encounter
some walkers carrying wire-frames of ships. Interesting stuff.
In the second cluster of buildings, slow yourself down and tilt to one side to
cruise through a small opening between two buildings that themselves are
directly behind the first central building, and collect a nova bomb. Then fly a
little
lower - there are more collapsing pillars. In one of the more dramatic moments
of the stage, Falco will announce that he'll destroy the Attack Carrier, then
he jets off into the distance. Amazing. (Incidentally, the fact that the Attack
Carrier has already been deployed is what leads me to surmise that this stage
is taking place at sunset instead of at sunrise.)
After exiting the city, you'll fly through a series of arches. You could fly
over them, but you want to be inside them because first there's a nova bomb and
then when you come to the fork inside, you can either go left for a Supply
Ring, or right for another nova bomb. I love choice.
You'll see walkers carrying pieces of ships. You don't need to shoot them -
they don't count to your points total. I prefer to leave them be.
An arch opens the next section of city. I'd say that's your cue to stay low -
there are blue pillars between the buildings that will fall on you! You can get
by the first two pillars just by staying low, but when you come to the third
there's a block in your path! Nudge yourself up only as much as necessary, then
hammer on your booster, and then squeeze yourself right back down again,
because there's a pair of falling blues right in front of the last arch that
you won't see until it's too late.
As you exit the final archway, you notice a walker go by carrying the Attack
Carrier! Does that mean Falco managed to disable it? It's anyone's guess.
+++Ground Supremacy Vehicle DESTRUCTOR+++
This stage differs from the other Cornerias in that you've allowed Andross'
forces - brought in by the Attack Carrier - more time to unload their arsenal,
including this wonderfully powerful battle tank.
When the Destructor enters, it will launch the shields that cover the plasma
turrets into the air; so you'll be able to fire on the turrets themselves and
inflict some damage. When a shield becomes pointed in your direction, make it
your priority instead; the turrets may regenerate if you allow the shield
associated with it to land on the Destructor again. You put in damage either
way.
By the end of the second or third round, you'll probably have the shields
destroyed, and you hopefully wouldn't have allowed them the time to launch a
kamikaze-style attack on you. (But if you have the twin blasters - you do,
right? - you can probably vaporize them before they reach you anyway.) All that
remains now are turrets, and all the while the Destructor itself is firing
missiles at you. You will also notice that the turrets will sometimes move
around 180 degrees, preventing you from destroying them. They'll come back
around though, and you'll finish them off and leave for the Asteroid Belt.
Check your score carefully. If you didn't get 100%, consider doing the stage
again. You're gonna need that credit!
----------------------------------------
[3-2] - Level 3, Stage 2 - Asteroid Belt
----------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: ASTEROID BELT
"Use the L or R button to escape the tractor beam of the enemy battleship!! You
can do it, Fox!!"
Boss: Space Station BLADE BARRIER
This edition of the Asteroid Belt is considerably more difficult, simply
because there are more enemies and more asteroids in this far-flung region.
You'll also find a lot of mines in this stage; the first ones you'll see shoot
plasma balls at you, or become a plasma ball when you shoot them. Shoot them
early and get out of the way. There's also a blue variant that shoots five at a
time. Ouch. Also note that the smiling asteroids will be hunting you down, and
there's no way to destroy them.
So here we go. You get a great big cluster of enemy fighters at the beginning
(I might use a nova bomb on them, but a skillful tracking sweep of your lasers
will do the trick just as well or better), and then a wingman gets into
trouble. Then you've got plasma mines to deal with. Keep rolling and shooting.
Your crosshairs come in really handy since the mines are about the same angular
size when they first show up.
You'll fly past a big asteroid on the left, and then you'll see one to the
lower right.
++How to leave the dimension+++
Shoot at the second big asteroid until it explodes. If you look closely, you'll
see an egg fly out of it and come back around again from the left; after a
moment a bird will hatch. Fly into the bird's breast area to be taken right out
of the Lylat System. Note that your wingman is taking on fire at the same time
- help him out if you can before you leave the game. ;-) The flythrough
continues in section [3-X] below.
For those of you who choose not to ignore the task at hand - defeating Andross
- simply continue your forward flight, helping out your wingman who gets into
trouble, taking note of the plasma mines!
You'll come to a set of three gold asteroids lined up in a triangle. Fly
through the middle to collect a nova bomb, then you'll get a shot at one of
those twin blaster ships. Very cool. Fighters will appear at the same moment
that you'll be collecting the twin blasters, so you might want to lob the nova
bomb, collect the new nova bomb, then detonate the first nova bomb.
You'll probably have perfected the barrel roll by this time. Don't stop using
it. Soon you'll come to a Supply Ring between two large asteroids. After
battling some enemy fighters, and helping out a wingman, you'll fly through a
base. Watch for a 1-up at the end of it.
Now you're going to encounter some problems. See the silver asteroids? Well,
now they're being intercepted by enemy robots that will fire some laser blasts
at you, or just try to ram you with the asteroid after holding it back from
you. When you shoot the robots, get out of the way! The asteroid stops dead
where it is, which often means a prompt collision
with your ship if you don't GTFA. That's Star Fox physics for you. Try to graze
the robots-on-asteroids with the outer edge of your laser instead of putting
them square in your sights - this will let you avoid crashing much more easily.
When one of your wingmen goes out to shoot some enemies, you'll encounter a
batch of smiling asteroids. They're indestructible like the silver asteroids,
but they also try to crash into your ship! Do what you have to do - you'll be
travelling back and forth from left to right and so on often from here to the
end of the stage. And don't forget about the interceptor robots - be careful or
they'll pile up in front of you. Don't hesitate to lob a nova bomb to clear out
some of these guys and their pesky hopper friends.
+++Space Station BLADE BARRIER+++
Now if you didn't know how to handle the robot-asteroids and the smiley
asteroids, you'll be on Death's door by the time you arrive at the space
station. Fortunately, you stand a chance at beating it without getting hit if
you're careful.
When you first encounter the Blade Barrier, its blades will be spinning. You
can't do much with your blaster at these times. But the blades will stop, which
means that three missiles will be headed towards you, but you can shoot the
exposed nubs and do damage that way. Three of the six will be exposed at any
given blade stoppage - unless you've previously destroyed one of the nubs that
would have otherwise been exposed, that is. As much as possible, you should
stay in the middle of the flightpath and get lots of shots in at the nubs. You
have to be quick because you don't have much time before the blades start
spinning again.
So if you're in the middle, when the blades resume you'll also be in a better
position to avoid the tractor beam attack! Getting caught in it would be a bad
idea, because the ship drags you in and you start getting beat up by the
blades. Then you're a sitting duck for the missiles afterwards. Anyway, you
know how to get out of it if you get stuck - pound L or R continually, and you
should be released in the nick of time.
But it's easy enough to avoid the beam entirely by waiting for it to emerge,
noting where it's going, and being somewhere else. Then watch out for the
missiles when you recenter yourself! You'll have to be nimble to shoot them
down or somehow avoid them.
Overall, balance your aggressiveness and your patience and you should be fine.
However long it does take you, be careful at the end - the station will launch
the blade in your direction when you blow it up. Flying around that, you'll be
off to Fortuna. Follow the action in section [3-3].
------------------------------------------------
[3-X] - Level 3, Stage 3 - Out Of This Dimension
------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: OUT OF THIS DIMENSION
"Come in, Arwings!! Fox, where are you?!! We need you to protect Corneria!!"
Boss: One Armed Bandit SLOT MACHINE
Yeah, the heck with your wingmen, the heck with Andross - we're going to get
lost in space!
Watch out for the paper airplanes! Shoot them as soon as you see them. You can
use the backdrop as an indicator to how much of the stage you still have to
complete. As you get closer to the end, the image becomes steadier; when you
see the purple and blue smiling moons again, the boss will show up.
So here goes: Again, the onslaught is made up of paper airplanes, which you
must shoot down. You'll also see beams with little triangles on their ends -
you can change their rotation with your laser if you like, or simply ignore
them. Later you'll see airplanes that explode into smaller bits of paper going
far off into the distance, then floating down into your flight path - shoot
them before they become a real problem, as they will transform into new paper
airplanes one after the other and quickly finish you off. To make matters
worse, new planes will appear on your flightpath while you're trying to clear
out the ones hanging around upstairs. There will be a lot of these eventually,
and you might want to launch a nova bomb or two to clear them out. But be
careful - there are no bomb or laser powerups in this stage!
If you survive all this, you'll encounter one of the strangest Enemy Force
Commanders in the game.
+++One-Armed Bandit SLOT MACHINE+++
This is... fun. Play the slots by shooting the arm. Basically, you're trying to
win shield-regenerating coins and not receive an Andross laugh as a prelude to
laser blasts and homing missiles. Eventually you want to get three sevens and
toast the machine.
You can also stop a slot from spinning by shooting the panel below it if it's
flashing. Be careful about doing that, though, because it's very easy to
accidentally stop the wrong slot - like an Andross slot, as it often beckons
you to stop one of those! Not a good idea, because that means you're guaranteed
missiles for your result.
Here is a breakdown of the results you can get:
Fruits, stars, etc.: Three of something will get you beaucoup coins; cherries
will always get you a couple of coins - unless you get one or more Androsses,
that is.
Bar: Often causes the panels you can shoot to stop the slots to be activated.
Andross: Avoid this! When the machine turns around, it will fire yellow laser
bolts and three waves of missiles instead of those wonderful
shield-regenerating coins. The missiles aren't terribly difficult to deke,
though. One good thing about Andross is that he often causes the slot stoppers
to activate - so if you got a 7 with your Andross, you might be able to stop
the 7 before taking your next spin.
7: One is good; three is better - getting three sevens will cause the machine
to explode after giving you a whole lot of coins, thus allowing you to see the
game's secret ending. On their own or as pairs sevens don't do anything,
though.
Sometimes you'll get three sevens after thirty minutes or more of playing the
slots; sometimes you'll get it on the second spin. At any rate, when you defeat
the machine, the credits to the game will appear - even though you're still in
flight! The background will be nice and solid now so you can read them clearly.
Slowing down or speeding up won't much affect the speed of the credits, but you
can still travel to the extremities of your autopilot and only see parts of the
presentation.
When the credits are over, you'll notice that the words "THE END" will appear -
but the letters aren't oriented properly. Firing on a letter will cause it to
fly off into the distance and come back oriented differently - hopefully the
the right way. You'll also have to watch out for enemy fighters and missile
boats that will show up and interfere - in fact, shooting a letter can trigger
their appearance - possibly causing your correctly-oriented letters to revert
again! Good aim is essential here. Also, if you have twin blasters, tilt
yourself over onto one side to make it easier to hit only one letter at a time.
When you get all the letters lined up right, you get a little clip of the
standard "just-beat-the-boss" music and the letters fly off again. Then, they
come back, giving you the opportunity to repeat the process again . And after
that you can do it again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
One thing to note is that there seem to be a finite number of enemies you can
face at any particular moment - i.e. they'll stop regenerating if you aren't
doing anything for a while, but they'll come back as you start shooting letters
again. Also, successfully finishing a round will cause any background enemies
to disappear.
How long does this last, you ask? Until you get killed, then you start over
from the beginning of the stage. Even continuing on a credit means starting
here again. You can even beat the game twice without hitting the reset button!
Aren't you glad you came here? Well, you saved extra-dimensional space from the
menace of the slot machine, I suppose.
--------------------------------------------
[3-3] - Level 3, Stage 3 - Planet V: Fortuna
--------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: THE PLANET FORTUNA
"Andross has taken control of the huge creatures who live on Fortuna!! Take
care, Fox!!"
Boss: Primitive Dinosaur MONARCH DODORA
You'd think that a planet without any significant enemy installations would be
fairly easy to fly over. Ha-ha. Of course, to be fair, Andross took over the
animals here; they're not this mean on their own. Sounds like Sector Y.
There are three main sections to this level. The first is a grassland, the
second is ocean, and the third is prairie.
In the grassland section, your visibility is somewhat impaired (that's why
you're in Approach view), so fly carefully, and make sure to avoid the giant
blooming flowers. Fly low when you get to the area where the flowers are on top
of stems.
You'll see insects in this area, and they'll attack you, unless you shoot them
to make them turn blue. Unfortunately, they just turn yellow or red again, so
you'll end up having to kill them. And a wingman will get into trouble, of
course. Later you'll see dragonflies, which you also ought to shoot down,
though they are hard to hit. (The ones that stay perched on a flower don't seem
to do anything and you can ignore them.) And as if you didn't have enough to
contend with, you'll also encounter enemy plasma mines along the ground.
Hopefully one will leave a nova bomb for you. Then you've got a few more of
those high-stem flowering plants, so stay low. If you're good, you'll make it
to the blue ring without losing a wing or getting killed.
As you pass through the blue ring, you pass onto the ocean. Hope you've got a
bomb or two for this section, but hang onto them for now. Here you'll have to
deal with flying fish and seabirds. You'll fly through a school of flying fish
first, destroy them before they start taking off directly beside your ship. You
want to get them on an early hop, in other words. It's good to skim the surface
of the sea and track your lasers back and forth.
Soon you'll encounter flying fish that fly at you (shoot them), and some
seabirds - as soon as you see the first bird, pull up! Shoot the seabirds so
that they crash into the water, as they'll also try to dive bomb you (and you
won't even see them coming if you're still skimming the surface like you were
probably doing to get the first batch of flying fish). A wingman will get into
trouble.
Later you'll encounter some sea monsters. If you want to kill them, you have to
aim for their heads. You can practice on the first two that just snake through
the water. It gets serious in a few seconds when you have fly past dozens of
them poking their heads up above water, all using their fire breath on you.
Before you get to that, though, you'll see a power shield under the second
snaking monster - get it!! Like, you're probably gonna die if you don't.
So a bunch of monsters will start popping up in front of you. Even if you deke
them out, they will be quite happy to turn around as you fly by and roast you
from behind with their fire breath! Don't hesitate to lob a nova bomb - you
can't afford to let any get by you, or it's bye-bye Arwing. Try your best to do
something about the far-away ones, and shoot their heads off before they make a
flaming mess of your fight path. Among the fire ordeal, you'll find a 1-up -
directly in front of a sea monster, so try to shoot it's head off while you
make your grab.
After one last snaky dragon you'll encounter the seabirds again, and a wingman
will get into trouble. Then you've got one last batch of
flying-fish-that-head-for-you. Get in the middle of your flight path and get
through that second blue ring. Breathe a biiig sigh of relief. But you're far
from out of the woods.
As you pass through this second ring, the ocean turns to prairie. Okay, so you
*are* out of the woods, but you know what I meant. You'll face mostly flowers
and plasma mines - you have to pick your poison, do you want to fly low and
smash into plasma bolts or fly high and run into plant stems? Be very careful,
and be sure to fire your retros if you have to. The mines leave behind yellow
rings when you destroy them, so take advantage of this if you can, but you may
wish to fly defensively.
Along the way, you'll find a twin blaster. Nice of them to put it on the last
leg of a stage. You *cannot* afford to miss it. Since it's sitting in front of
a very narrow arched plant stem, you'll need to fire your retros as you collect
it. After passing the last of the flowers, you get to meet Fortuna's diplomatic
representative.
+++Primitive Dinosaur MONARCH DODORA+++
Your goal here is to fire at the heads or the end of the tail as much as
possible. Your wingmen might hang around and complain, or they might just
abandon you.
You'll first encounter the two-headed dragon from the rear. When it turns to
face you head-on, get yourself in the middle between where the tail was and
where the necks are going to be if you want to avoid getting hit.
When you're dealing with the rear, aim for the tail but also be sure to shoot
the eggs and the seabirds that hatch out of them. They can be quite dangerous.
I find it's best to shoot more or less down the lower-middle, the tail will
kind of bounce around in the path of your lasers, and you'll score hits more
often than you would if you were to try and track the tail as it swings back
and forth.
Once in a while the dragon will suddenly halt in its place when you're behind
it. Fire your retros and veer away!
Getting a lot of licks in on either the tail or the heads and necks (spread
your fire over the two heads so that they are shortened to the body at more or
less the same time) will cause the dragon to turn orange - this is good! Keep
on firing, because now hits to the body count. Watch out for it's
Arwing-seeking fire breath, though! It's much more apt to hit you than Dancing
Insector's. If you're nimble, you'll put the dragon behind you and be off to
Sector Z.
-----------------------------------
[3-4] - Level 3, Stage 4 - Sector Z
-----------------------------------
Pepper calls it: SECTOR Z
"Your team is doing well, Fox!! I hope you're taking good care of my Arwings!!
Go for Macbeth!!"
Boss: Invasion Troop Carrier ATOMIC BASE II
Note: This stage features several "grey rings" which are like supply rings but
a little greyer, and you can also identify them in how they spin around a bit -
unfortunately, they don't act as a continue point! All but the ring just after
the Power Shield are grey rings, not true Supply Rings.
Welcome to the sticks! Here the idea is to blast your way into Base II and
destroy it, along with a large deployable garrison of troops.
Now is a good time to master the barrel roll, if you haven't already. You need
to be able to do one at any time. It's possible to cruise through this stage
and the next two taking very nearly no damage if you have the photon shot, and
you're able to roll and shoot constantly. It's hard on your hand, sure, but the
stages seem to just fly by this way.
You'll notice that most of the pillars are transparent here, and that doesn't
make them any less deadly. In fact, they're more deadly because when there's
more than one and you're close-in you can't tell what is cloaked pillar and
what is empty space.
So here goes. You start with a bunch of fighters and a couple of cruisers. Then
it's the plasma mines. Then a wingman gets into trouble as you see the first of
many, many transparent pillars. Fly through a square of them to pick up a nova
bomb while you deal with missile ships. Then you get a mess of rotating pillars
(you can slow / stop the ones with triangles by shooting said triangles) and
you fly through a base.
Then you get to a second enemy installation with all kinds of spinning pillars
between the stationary ones. Your best bet is to hang a *little* bit to the
right (for an eventual twin blaster). Fly sideways through the slots. Don't go
over too far, though, or some plasma mines will rain down on you. You'll see
the twin blaster powerup along the right of centre behind the second set of
vertical pillars in this section. It's smack behind one of those pillars and
you will probably need to fire your retros in order to get it safely.
When you leave this section, fire your retros and get back in the middle of the
flight path to get the grey ring.
A wingman gets into trouble as you head through another installation. Follow
enemy and wingman into the middle of the "roadway" of pillars and take your
shot there. Now you want to stay as close to the middle as you can through this
bit because there are plasma mines with your name on them should you stray.
As this ends, you come into an area with two big mundane rectangles, and then
you find a much-needed grey ring - I think it only appears if you've been on
the intended course. Then there's a mess of stuff in front of you, then you get
some neat partly-clear rectangles you can fly through. Look out for the power
shield! It will save your life in a moment. Now there's a bona-fide supply ring
inside the second-to-last rectangle - Gee, nice of them to plant this right
*after* the power shield powerup... Well, you might want to fire your retros
and fly sideways and get it anyway because otherwise you'll be starting this
stage all over again whe- I mean, if you get killed. (Must remain optimistic.)
Now the chaos truly begins. Floating pillars, headed in all directions,
everywhere. You could just fly through a little off of the middle of your
flightpath and avoid as many as you can - but another thing to consider is
making a dive for, say, the extreme lower left or right of your flight path.
When the plasma mines rain down on you - well, you know how to do a barrel
roll. But you have to be really good at barrel rolls, because if the bolts
start getting to you you're basically dead in the water. Generally I recommend
going most of the way over so that you miss the majority of the beams and you
still have room to dodge the raining plasma bolts.
Anyway, after you pass the first big wash of pillars, there is a second,
smaller round of them shortly after, so be ready. And roll, roll, roll, because
you can't dodge blaster bolts and pillars at the same time - something's gotta
give. A wingman gets into trouble but there's a chance his pursuer will just
get smacked by a beam without your having to do anything. Ha-ha!
When the troop carrier is in sight, consider heading to the left or right of
the spinning pillars that block the entrance. The nova bomb's not worth getting
killed for! Your autopilot will guide you inside anyway when the time is right.
Once inside, you'll do well to fly sideways to get around the beam in the
middle, being careful to note that the corridor is already narrowed by similar
beams laid along its sides. It all makes me wonder what military usage these
bases could possibly get out of these constricted, impractical, pillar-strewn
corridors, but anyway.
After the middle-pillar bit, hit your retros and fly underneath a horizontal
pillar and smoke the enemy behind it with your lasers. Now you'll get one of
those doors that will retract in the indicated direction unless you foolishly
shoot it and change its direction. Fly low under it as it retracts up, stay low
to fly under a pillar, then tilt yourself sideways to pass between two pillars.
You get a set of doors you have to shoot to open, then some softball enemies to
roast.
Then there's a moving pillar, and you can boost or brake if your timing isn't
going to be right. Then another three pairs of doors to shoot open and that's
all - at the end of the corridor, you'll greet the base's atomic core.
+++Invasion Troop Carrier ATOMIC BASE II+++
This atomic core is similar in appearance to the one that you faced in Level 1,
Stage 3, (check out section [1-3] for the details) but this one is quite a bit
trickier. It's hardier for one thing, and I believe it also spins faster.
This time you're *deactivating* and not destroying the energy receptors on the
walls (you'll turn them black), and you need to be quick about hitting all
three, because the one(s) you shoot first will reactivate before you can knock
out the second and/or third and get at the core if you're not very quick about
things. This process can be very frustrating. Take care not to let the beams
regenerate on top of you - treat the receptors like ticking time-bombs. A
regenerate beam where your Arwing is stationed can end your game in a hurry.
Good aim helps here. I usually find it easier to hug the side that's coming
towards me and shoot from there - it's easier to avoid the energy beams, too.
The core will open up when you deactivate all three receptors, but this time it
will also close up again if you can't destroy it right away, and then you need
to knock out the energy receptors again. If you have the photon shot and a 75%
full shield meter, just park yourself in front the core when it opens and shoot
and roll and you should be able to do this in the one round. Don't hesitate to
launch a nova bomb if you have a few to spare.
Oh, and the little blue man in the pod is here again too, so shoot him when he
appears. Sometimes he appears in bunches. He only has a laser but at close
range it's enough to really do you damage and you might need to lob a nova bomb
to clear him away.
----------------------------------------------
[3-5] - Level 3, Stage 5 - Planet III: Macbeth
----------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: THE PLANET MACBETH
"The hollow interior of Macbeth is ideal for a base!! Prevent Andross from
building here!!"
Boss: Light Speed Revolution SPINNING CORE
If you arrive from Sector Z with wing damage, you might consider crashing your
ship right away, or perhaps after getting some practice. You *really* want the
twin blaster powerup to actually be twin blasters here.
This level is truly insane. Supposedly Andross wants to build a base here.
Well, that's not all you have to worry about though; this planet is also fairly
difficult to navigate. There is a beauty to it all though; the level is as
fascinating as it is brutal. All underground, to boot - the planet has a hollow
area between the outer core and the surface crust.
Your first task will be to navigate a canyon. There's a welcome nova bomb you
can pick up right away. Then you have a walker, a plasma turret, and a walker
to deal with. Upon emerging, after dealing with some roving turrets, one of
your wingmen will get into trouble, so you'll experience the strange sounds
other aircraft make inside the hollow core of this planet.
Now some walkers and turrets - don't miss the ones on the ceiling! Then you've
got a bunch of turrets and something on the ceiling lobbing diamond missiles at
you (kind of like the ones you saw on Titania). Then more roving turrets on the
ground. Now the buildings become more numerous. You'll pass two sets, then a
set with a plasma turret slightly behind-right of the centre building, then
you'll fly through a brief empty space before you reach the next set of
buildings. Twin blasters are right behind the centre building. Here's what to
do: Go in from the right, shoot the walker, fire your retros and pull a hard
left to collect the prize.
Now you'll pass through an area with lava vents mounted on the ceiling. Don't
fly directly under a vent; you'll get rained on with hot rocks. Watch for the
little roving plasma turrets on the ground. Maybe one will leave a nova bomb
for you.
Coming up ahead, you have a serious choice to make. A huge lava vent lies on
the floor. To the right of it is a power shield. So, do you swoop down,
boosters blazing, risking it all to collect the powerup; or do you hang an
extreme right and attempt to avoid the whole mess altogether? Your choice, but
you'll be better off going for the shield since it can be even harder to avoid
the rocks if you stray from your flightpath.
Now you need to deal with a ceiling-mounted turret and a diamond missile
launcher. Then you'll fly past (but please, not directly under!) some more
ceiling vents, then through a by-now-most-welcome blue supply ring.
(Aggravating that it's after the twin blasters, but what are ya gonna do?)
After the ring, you'll be up against a plethora of diamond missiles. They're
coming from the left, from the right, and from the ceiling - do not miss any!
(If you're just starting over again from here, you pretty much have to launch a
nova bomb.) Then you've got two roving turrets on the ceiling. Then a wingman
gets into trouble, and going past a rock you see a bunch of floor and
ceiling-mounted plasma turrets. Watch that the ceiling turrets don't fall on
top of you. Barrel roll your way to survival. (If you don't have the twin
blasters, you are better off concentrating on survival rather than a perfect
score!)
Then there's one more big volcanic vent - with no power shield to collect, you
want to deke a few rocks then hit your boosters. Then you'll have a forest of
ceiling-mounted turrets to deal with. If you're low on health, just dodge and
roll. But you might want to get the last, roving one that will stay with you.
But even it will pass as the boss shows up.
+++Light Speed Revolution SPINNING CORE+++
This rig might seem to be the kingpin of unfriendlies. It is not an easy boss;
it is so tough sometimes that if you were to die, you'd almost rather go back
to the beginning of the stage instead of the midway point so that you get
another try with the twin blasters. I have done it with the single laser,
though - you just need a full health meter, some dexterity, and a lot of
patience.
The first thing you want to do is shoot down all the plasma turrets on the
outside of the Core. Watch out for the plasma shots. If you want to, you can
aim your shots just to the right of the Core so that you can keep getting in
licks as the turrets turn around towards the other side.
After you destroy two turrets, the top will open up, and you'll have to watch
out for missiles coming around from behind on the right or left side.
Still, this is a reasonably manageable situation, and if you want to hang
around shooting missiles and collecting yellow small energy supplies until your
shield bar is full, that's not the worst idea in the world.
When there are no turrets left, the entire machine will leap into the air. Now,
see that shadow on the ground? You don't want to be on top of it! Fire your
retros and get out of the way as the Spinning Core returns to the floor.
The Core will now close its top and open up its bottom, and this is the tricky
part. You have to shoot the sensitive firing membrane of the core while
avoiding the blue-black balls that revolve around it. And it's positively
raining laser fire at you, though luckily in a narrow stream. At times, the
core will spread the balls out wide, giving you a clear shot at the central
membrane. Take these shots. Don't try to do to much at once, or you will be
severely punished.
When you get it down to its last little bit of energy, the Spinning Core will
jettison the balls and you'll have only the central membrane left. Roll-deflect
its laser blasts as you get in your final licks.
---------------------------------------------------
[3-6] - Level 3, Stage 6 - Venom (space over Venom)
---------------------------------------------------
Pepper calls it: VENOM - THE FINAL GOAL
"You've made it this far... It's your fate to destroy Andross!! We're counting
on you, Fox!!"
Boss: Final Battleship GREAT COMMANDER
Do your best to conserve your nova bombs in this level. You'll find out why at
the end.
You start the level with a rocket boat headed straight for you (shoot it), then
you'll encounter some more rocket boats (shoot them), then some of those
interceptor buoys (shoot them), then some starfighters (shoot them). There's a
lot of stuff to shoot. I really like this level. A wingman will find trouble
after a minute or two of this.
Eventually you'll come to deadly-looking circle of plasma mines with a nova
bomb in the middle. Do a few barrel rolls and pick up the bomb. You'll then be
able to collect a power shield and a twin blaster powerup! After the powerups
comes the blue ring, and you might have trouble timing the ring with a wingman
that will get in trouble there. Fly through the ring first, then track your
lasers to the right to destroy the pursuing enemy ship.
You'll get another long batch of fighters and buoys and missile boats, and
after a while you'll come to those little grey ships that turn to face you and
are hard to shoot - the kind you first met eons ago in Sector X. They're a sign
that you're just one plasma-spewing triangle and a last batch of interceptor
buoys away from the end.
If I had a criticism to make about this level, it would be that it's over too
quickly! If you have the twin blasters, it's an utter rout. But good times
often go by so fast, don't they?
+++Final Battleship GREAT COMMANDER+++
Alright, now we're going to deal with some serious firepower. Forget Andross,
this ship and the Spinning Core are the toughest bosses in the game if you ask
me.
First, you're forced out of cockpit view if you were still in cockpit view.
You'll first be treated to a segueway of the three segments of the Great
Commander coming together. Watch out for lasers and steel barrels. You can fly
low and to the right to avoid the whole mess, if you like, rolling to deflect
the occasional laser blast.
When it's finished, you'll see what needs to be done. Your autopilot will bring
you about again to face the vessel, and you have to deplete its energy by
shooting the open turrets. Get as low as you can on each pass and keep rolling
and shooting. With twin blasters, you may do well to aim sideways, but it's
best to roll so that your lasers end up tracing out a circular impact pattern.
When you start inflicting some damage on the vessel (say, three out of six
turrets destroyed, or you get approximately half of its energy depleted), it
will begin to smoke and fire plasma balls at you while you make your little
strafing run, so be sure to use your barrel roll constantly.
Don't hesitate to use a bomb if you need to speed this up. Bombs are especially
good if you catch it with its pants down, that is having several turrets open
at once. (Pants on the ground, pants on the ground!) Here's the key: wait until
you're right on top of the ship to launch and detonate. Heck, fire your retros
and increase your window of opportunity! But if there aren't any turrets open,
don't bother launching a bomb. In any case, the bombs, well-used, do a
reasonable job of compensating for aim. It's just too bad the game forces you
out of cockpit view for this battle - or that they made the turrets so darn
small!
The turrets really like to play peek-a-boo with you, so you may find it best to
deke them - act like you're going to strafe one side and at the last moment
switch to the other (if there are turrets open on that other side, of course).
When you finally deplete the last of its energy, the ship will fly away from
you when your autopilot brings you back around. It will spiral down into the
atmosphere. Care to chase it? Oh yeah!
So yeah, it was too bad the game chased you out of cockpit virew for the
battle, eh? Well, if you're running an early version of the game, there is one
little trick. Enter the battle in a third-person view. This will stop the game
from sealing off the cockpit view, so once the boss is on your screen, you can
select it again! As you might imagine, it makes the fight significantly more
facile, as it's much easier to target those tiny turrets. Beware, though: You
might get permanently stuck* when this boss turns you around, though I have yet
to experience getting stuck myself. Thanks go to Dean Siren for the tip.
Early version of the game? Well, I have no idea how to verify which version one
is running**, unless we're talking running the game on an emulator from a ROM
of known provenance. Version 1.0 has this bug; it has been corrected in (or
prior to) version 1.2. (If such a thing as a version 1.1 exists, and you have
access to it, let me know if the bug is there or not.)
* - The autopilot might turn your ship to an odd angle where it's no longer
possible to aim at the boss. You may or may not be in range of its guns - hope
that you are, or else you'll have no choice but to hard reset and start the
game all over again.
** - If you're playing a ROM on an emulator, these distinctions might not be
too hard to make. Cartridge players might be able to go by the type of
cartridge. If it's the older kind with the narrow slit for the eject-prevention
lock, I would say you're probably running an earlier version (perhaps 1.0). If
it's the newer kind, you could be running a later version (perhaps 1.2).
------------------------------------------
[3-7] - Level 3, Stage 7 - Planet I: Venom
------------------------------------------
Boss: Final Battleship GREAT COMMANDER
This is it. Please let me know - if this ain't love, you better let me know.
Wow, it seems like a while since you've been here, doesn't it? As you might
expect, the final stage in the game is slightly on the difficult side; but if
you were able to survive Fortuna and Macbeth, you'll be able to handle this.
After the autopilot puts you into your flightpath, fly up as far as you can,
and dead center over the parting pillars. The last pillar doesn't move, though,
so get out of its way at the very end.
You'll then fly under some falling objects. As in the Level 1 version of this
stage, try to snake your way through on your side so that you slip between
them. There's a power shield you'll want to get. The uppermost flat panels tend
to just flip over and face you instead of falling down.
Now you'll encounter pillars that are being thrown down and erected in front of
your flightpath. Some, but mercifully not all, will be allowed to fall on top
of you (even if you shoot them!). Stay low here. Get *close* to the falling
ones so that you clear them. It's funny how that works.
Coming out, you meet some moving turrets, and a wingman finds trouble. A lone
fighter appears and an arch forms around you.
Okay, remember the rotating rectangles from Level 1? Here they are again. See
the arrows? You want them to be pointed out of your flightpath, because that's
the way they'll swing. Shoot the triangle once to change its direction (and
that of the resulting rotation). Be careful - if you fire too many shots at
once it'll just flip back and forth as many times as your lasers hit it, and
your result may be frustrating!
The first one, in the middle of your flightpath, is pointing left. You might as
well shoot it to make it go right, then pass it on the left. Then you come upon
one on your left pointing right followed quickly by one on your right pointing
left. You'll have to nimbly shoot both of these.
And then, just to mix it up a bit, you come to one with a blue triangle that
keeps changing orientation. Here, you shoot the triangle when it finds a
direction you like. Since there's a pillar on its left, how's about we send it
right?
Then you get a right-pointing one on your left (direct it left), followed by a
left-pointing one on your right (direct it right). Next to that one is a twin
blaster. You need to take care of the rectangle, then fire your retros and
collect the lasers.
Now you've got some more blue-triangled-rectangles. Direct them left, right,
then left - but be prepared for failure and be ready to squeeze by any of these
on the "wrong" side. Then there'll be a right-pointer red on the left of your
flightpath that you need to send left. Then fire your retros again and get the
left-pointing one on the right to go right. You'll want to fly through the
supply ring. And here's a Free Bonus Tipâ„¢: Don't pause the game in the middle
of this to go have dinner. While playing/writing the first version of this FAQ,
I was quickly killed upon resuming the game.
After the supply ring, a wingman gets into trouble. You work your way through
some Stonehenge-esque artifacts. I guess this passes for a town on Venom. Watch
out for the moving turrets. You can probably get a nova bomb somewhere in the
fray. In any case, you'll have lots of things to shoot at (plasma turrets and
walkers galore), and then obstacles will be generated in front of you. And a
wingman gets into trouble. Take it really easy!
After a while, you'll arrive at a wall of rotating flat panels. Find an empty
space towards the ground and fly through. You'll fight off the last enemy
starfighters and a pair of walkers, and then the mothership will arrive.
+++Final Battleship GREAT COMMANDER+++
The Great Commander glides down over your head, turns around, and then becomes
a piece of utter horror.
Okay, see that door on the lower section that keeps opening and closing? That's
where you need to shoot. Watch out for the steel balls that rain down off the
ends of the 'arms,' and also the occasional missile. (But if you keep shooting
that hatch you'll most likely shoot down most of the missiles incidentally,
anyway.)
The ship will soon show you its spinning move, where steel balls will
continually be launched in your direction. You'll have a very hard time getting
your licks in here. In general, when you fire off a shot, don't wait for it to
hit; keep moving. Move, move, move. With dexterity, you'll survive!
When the Commander finally stops spinning (it takes a *long* time), you'll be
able to get lots of hits in again. Watch out for missiles again, and, more
importantly, the single arms that will be raised to launch a straight stream of
steel balls. They're pretty easy to avoid, though.
Soon, you'll face a brutal ring laser attack from the head. You'll need to
avoid the shots - roll-deflecting that many is hopeless. Shoot down the
missiles when you can - there's a chance they'll leave behind valuable yellow
rings.
Of course, if you have razor-sharp aim and a steady trigger finger, you can
speed up the destruction of the Great Commander significantly. After destroying
the bottom segment, two more will remain. The bridge section will begin to fly
around the main body, and there's nothing special here - just destroy it with
your laser. Of course, the main body will try to spin into your ship, and it
will also launch some very odd-looking probes.
Once you destroy the bridge, the rest of the ship simply destructs in front of
you. You'll then fly into Andross' fortress. Luckily for us, this acts as a
continue point. Hope you have some extra ships left!
Andross will remark that your choice of routes took him by surprise. For all
this difficulty, it better have. He'll also say a few words about your father.
Meanwhile, you'll preform some amazing manoeuvres in which your retros will be
your best friend:
After the grey ring, go up, then down, get the nova bomb, down, up, down,
RETROS!, through, up!, down!, over (take advantage of the gaps afforded by the
fact that these last bars don't extend to the full width of the corridor)...
Now you have to deal with closing doors, so fire your retros and get on your
side to squeeze right, then left, then right, then left, then right to get a
twin blaster (or wing gyro in my case!), and then one final squeeze to the
left.
+++Psychic Energy Core TELEKINETIC AMPLIFIER+++
A British gaming magazine once did a cool stage-by-stage expose of Star Wing,
and next to the photo of the second face of the Telekinetic Amplifier read the
caption: "This is it! The final level of Tetris from Hell!" Ha-ha.
You're probably already a little familiar with the procedure here. Shoot the
eyes until they explode, then go for the core. The core is a tad tougher to
destroy this time, though (but it hangs around in front of you for a longer
period of time, which I like); and when the face reforms it will be in a
different shape, and the eyes will shoot plasma balls at you. Ouch. Shoot the
eyes and stay away from the plasma (or carefully roll-deflect it), and avoid
the telekinesis planks as best you can. It won't suck you in again, though,
which is nice.
Otherwise, all is the same as before. I find a steady barrage of laser blasts
works better than launching a nova bomb since you have to interrupt your lasers
to launch the bomb. I can get Andross in just two rounds with the basic type of
twin blaster.
When you finally eliminate Andross, you'll fly out of the collapsing fortress
and meet up with your wingmen. Congratulations, you did it! You are now the
best Star Fox player on your street. And this FAQ is finally finished. Total
score: 66100 Average Score: 94% (low point was a 77% on Macbeth) - I think I
did alright considering how often I had to pause to write! ;-)
===============================================
VII - Enemy Force Commander ("Boss") Data [E-0]
===============================================
This is the same information that's available when you complete the game, but
since the geometric data is irrelevant to gameplay and the simplistic,
inconsistent height-width-depth analysis of their complex shapes isn't very
telling anyway, I've collated the information here instead of in the
flythrough. Note that you only see the enemies you encounter on a particular
route, so if you skip, say, the Space Armada and Meteor stages and go directly
to Venom via the Black Hole, you won't see the data or animations from those
bosses in the ending.
--------------------------
[E-1] - Level 1 Enemy Data
--------------------------
Level 1
Corneria
Name - Attack Carrier
Weapon - Missile Blaster
Size - H70xW100xD150
(It's made of fail. Still, it had to be small enough to get through the
Asteroid Belt, I suppose.)
Level 1
Asteroid
Name - Rock Crusher
Weapon - Laser
Size - H60xW86xD45
(This ain't your mom's rock polisher!)
Level 1
Space Armada
Name - Atomic Base
Weapon - Laser
Size - H600xW850xD1200
(Alright! Now we're getting to the real mothers!)
Level 1
Meteor
Name - Dancing Insector
Weapon - Fire Blaster
Size - H120xW87xD72
(Was what I did so wrong? So wrong that you had to leave me alone?)
Level 1
Venom
Name - Phantron
Weapon - Laser
Size - H25xW22xD31
(Apparently the folks at Argonaut like Disney movies starring Jeff Bridges.)
Level 1
Venom
Name - Phantron
Weapon - Laser
Size - H25xW22xD31
(Same Phantron, new packaging.)
Final Stage
Name - Andross...
Weapon - Telekinesis
Size - H100xW80xD30
(I wonder what Dr. Andross' first name was? Something innocuous like "Bob",
perhaps?)
--------------------------
[E-2] - Level 2 Enemy Data
--------------------------
Level 2
Corneria
Name - Attack Carrier
Weapon - Missile Blaster
Size - H70xW100xD150
(Well, we were running out of ROM, and we liked the Level 1, Stage 1 boss so
much...)
Level 2
Sector X
Name - Rock Crusher
Weapon - Laser
Size - H60xW86xD45
(Why would you need a rock crusher here, anyway? I'd be inclined to *build*
something out of all the crazy pieces floating around. Perhaps they were
recently fabricated from the asteroid dust?)
Level 2
Titania
Name - Professor Hanger
Weapon - Shadow Thruster
Size - H25xW18xD30
(Those Brits at Argonaut Software clearly don't know how to spell. Kidding, but
it's "Hanger" in the game versus "Hangar" in the North American manual.)
Level 2
Sector Y
Name - Plasma Hydra
Weapon - Plasma Spewer
Size - H96xW280xD55
(With those great long arms, it just wants to reach out and give you a hug.)
Level 2
Venom
Name - Metal Smasher
Weapon - Crush Attack
Size - H17xW20xD38
(LIES! The steel drums are worse!)
Level 2
Venom
Name - Galactic Rider
Weapon - Air Bikers
Size - H80xW61xD25
(How could this have fit *inside* the Metal Smasher?)
Final Stage
Name - Andross...
Weapon - Telekinesis
Size - H100xW80xD30
(I always said his motives weren't very deep.)
--------------------------
[E-3] - Level 3 Enemy Data
--------------------------
Level 3
Corneria
Name - Destructor
Weapon - Plasma
Size - H45xW150xD90
(Falco takes on the Attack Carrier by himself in this stage. Compared to how
helpless your wingmen are the rest of the game, that's pretty badass.)
Level 3
Dimension
Name - Slot Machine
Weapon - Missile Blaster
Size - Large
(This information is conjectural. I like to think it sort of counts as a boss.)
Level 3
Asteroid
Name - Blade Barrier
Weapon - Web Attack
Size - H90xW90xD65
(I'm running out of snappy things to say. Submit your suggestions to
[email protected] today!)
Level 3
Fortuna
Name - Monarch Dodora
Weapon - Fire Breath
Size - H85xW160xD200
(Like a Monarch butterfly, only a fire-breathing dinosaur.)
Level 3
Sector Z
Name - Atomic Base II
Weapon - Laser
Size - H92xW90xD1100
(Once again, the dimensions really don't make any sense.)
Level 3
Macbeth
Name - Spinning Core
Weapon - Laser
Size - H63xW52xD45
(It had a laser? I was more worried about the charged balls of energy that kept
smashing into my ship.)
Level 3
Venom
Name - -
Weapon - Laser
Size - H73xW97xD250
(The first time I faced this boss, it took me a very long time to beat. The
second time it only took me an hour.)
Level 3
Venom
Name - -
Weapon - Iron Balls
Size - H73xW97xD250
(In Star Fox physics, dimensions are conserved.)
Final Stage
Name - Andross...
Weapon - Telekinesis
Size - H100xW80xD30
(Hint: Make your final bosses more menacing by using a mononym, trailing off
with the Obligatory Ellipsis of Mystery(TM), available in your choice of three
full stops... or precomposed, if you've got Unicode.)
======================================
VIII - Codes, Cheats, and Tricks [H-0]
======================================
There really aren't any codes or cheats for this game, and Game Genie's out of
the question unless you're using an emulator because the Star Fox cartridge
uses the extra connectors, unlike most SNES cartridges. Still, at least one
minor glitch has been found that you might be able to get some mileage out of
- if you're interested, skip to section [H-3].
---------------------------
[H-1] - Object Manipulation
---------------------------
Having at least one credit, lose all your extra ships. On the continue screen,
you'll see Fox McCloud standing next to an Arwing superimposed on a grid.
Here's how you can play around:
Controller 1:
D-pad: Rotate an object in any direction. Holding down the buttons increases
speed in a given direction. You can also stop the ship again by tapping in an
opposite direction.
L: Zoom in.
R: Zoom out.
X: Stops any rotation.
A: Hold down to stop the grid from refreshing when you move the ship, so that
you get a frame-by-frame afterimage left of your movements. You can use this to
make some interesting images.
Controller 2:
D-pad, Start, Select, Y, B: Changes the object shown on the grid.
Unfortunately, you can only move through the sequence in one direction (no
matter which button you press), but here's the rough order of categories:
Arwing > Arwing Mk. 1 > Powerups (and ships that grant them) > Enemy Fighters
and Vehicles > Animals
There are 38 objects altogether.
At least it puts some fun into getting your butt kicked. It all kind of makes
me wish Super Mario FX had gotten made.
---------------------
[H-2] - Strange Music
---------------------
After beating the game on any Level, leave your system turned on for a really
long time. Eventually, you'll hear a few bars of the main theme, but only
through one instrument. This isn't really a trick you'll get much mileage out
of. ;-) It's too bad ROM space was at such a premium - they could have had a
clip of General Pepper saying "Please turn your system off."
-------------------------------------------
[H-3] - - Space Battle Glitch
-------------------------------------------
Too bad the game chases you out of cockpit virew for this battle, eh? Well, if
you're running an early version of the game, there is one little trick. Enter
the battle in a third-person view. This will stop the game from sealing off the
cockpit view, so once the boss is on your screen, you can select it again! As
you might imagine, it makes the fight significantly more facile, as it's much
easier to target those tiny turrets. Beware, though: You might get permanently
stuck* when this boss turns you around, though I have yet to experience getting
stuck myself. Thanks go to Dean Siren for the tip.
Early version of the game? Well, I have no idea how to verify which version one
is running**, unless we're talking running the game on an emulator from a ROM
of known provenance. Version 1.0 has this bug; it has been corrected in (or
prior to) version 1.2. (If such a thing as a version 1.1 exists, and you have
access to it, let me know if the bug is there or not.)
* - The autopilot might turn your ship to an odd angle where it's no longer
possible to aim at the boss. You may or may not be in range of its guns - hope-
that you are, or else you'll have no choice but to hard reset and start the
game all over again.
** - If you're playing a ROM on an emulator, these distinctions might not be
too hard to make. Cartridge players might be able to go by the type of
cartridge. If it's the older kind with the narrow slit for the eject-prevention
lock, I would say you're probably running an earlier version (perhaps 1.0). If
it's the newer kind, you could be running a later version (perhaps 1.2).
=======================================
IX - Sources and Acknowledgements [C-0]
=======================================
It'd be nice if I could convince the entire world that I wrote this on my
Blackberry while orbiting the Earth on my third Space Shuttle mission, drawing
entirely from a perfect memory of the game gleaned from my time as an engineer
and tester. Nah, the reality is that I'm a former English major with
pretensions to technical literacy.
I first read about the twin blasters on Corneria and the Black Hole and Out of
this Dimension stages in the pages of Nintendo Power's Classified Information
section. Still, most of the rest of the information is from my own experience
playing the game uncountable times, both on an emulator and on the real SNES.
Generally, I'd play, pause, write - repeat ad nauseum. Here's what I wrote
with:
The first version of this FAQ (from 2001) was written on my old Acer AnyWare
1100LX ([
http://www.flickr.com/photos/draikar/3176543042/ ] - this isn't isn't
my photo or my own computer, but mine is precisely like the one on the left of
that photo) with a 40MB hard drive that I loaded with 5MB of RAM, Windows 3.1
(but with the 11MHz 386SX chip I was limited to Standard Mode), and most
importantly EditPad Lite for massive text files.
This rewrite has been written on my new Dell Inspiron Mini 10v with 2GB of RAM,
Ubuntu 8.04 with OpenOffice.org, 16GB SSD:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellphotos/sets/72157618007744460/
(these are official photos from Dell) - the whole thing weighs next to nothing,
runs virtually silently, goes anywhere, and, new, cost about one-eighth of the
MSRP of the 1100LX. Don't get me wrong, I love both computers, but times sure
have changed. This computer can actually sit on my lap whereas the other one
needed a small table.
I am especially indebted to my FAQ competitors for thinking of things to
include that I would never have thought to, and even then may have dismissed
out of sheer laziness. ;-) In no cases have I copied from them - I have access
to an emulator and was able to transcribe things like the dimensional data of
the bosses myself. But in many cases I have learned from them. Prime example:
Until doing this rewrite, I had no idea there were "grey rings". They weren't
in the manual, they could pass for the blue supply rings to the untrained eye,
and I wasn't getting killed in the right places at the right times so that I
could verify that they weren't serving as continue points like the true supply
rings do. So after the the main work of the FAQ was behind me, I had to play
through all the stages again just to watch for the rings!
My first version of this FAQ was posted October 23rd, 2001. It had the basic
flythrough though it was not as through or detailed as the present version.
In 2010 I decided to clean it up a bit and add some of the missing facts - and
what I ended up doing was a total rewrite. No portion has gone untouched.
===========================================
X - Version History / Closing Remarks [C-0]
===========================================
Version History:
1.00 - 2001/10/23 - Original version. A basic flythrough. It has the virtue of
relative brevity, and though some of the minutiae are inaccurate it should
still get you through the game. If by chance you're interested, it can still be
found here:
http://www.willmatheson.com/guides/faq/starfox1.txt
2.00 - 2010/07/08 - Complete rewrite. A plethora of new sections and
information added, *all* level and boss strategies rewritten. Practically
nothing was untouched - a list of changes would be a significant fraction of
the length of this document.
2.01 - 2011/09/10 - Minor edits; added info about Great Commander glitch
- thanks go to Dean Siren for the tip.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the FAQ! (They probably should be called "amateur
guides" or, better still, "Video-Baedekers" but I guess we're stuck with the
term. ;-) If you're interested, you can also check out my Star Fox Game Script,
available here:
http://www.willmatheson.com/guides/starfox
(and it should also be available on GameFAQs around the same time this document
is)
I also have a YouTube channel:
http://youtube.com/willmatheson
So that's all. I hope you enjoyed the FAQ and continue to enjoy this great,
classic game.
Comments, suggestions, contributions... send all to
[email protected]
"Star Fox FAQ and Flythrough" version 2.01 by William Matheson
Published September 10th, 2011
