Mercenary Force
Game Boy
Developer: Kaze Publisher: Meldac
By: GammaBetaAlpha
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Table of Contents
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Basics [HELP]
Round One [ROU1]
Round Two [ROU2]
Round Three [ROU3]
Round Four [ROU4]
Round Five [ROU5]
Round Six [ROU6]
Passwords [PASS]
Donations/Amazon [DONT]
Contact Info [CONT]
Credits [CRED]
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Basics
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[HELP]
Mercenary Force is technically a horizontal shmup, but it differs
greatly from normal games of the shoot-em-up genre. Instead of a single ship
that can take one hit before it blows up, in Mercenary Force you employ four
warriors from five separate classes with an Ancient Japan backdrop, who have an
HP bar.
Each warrior can have up to 30HP of damage, with each hit they receive
from enemy swarms causing 1 point of damage to them. Each warrior differs in
their method of attack, such as fast straight attacks or diagonal shots.
Every warrior can also use a last-ditch sacrifice attack with special
effects, the Monk of which is especially broken and can kill bosses.
There are six levels, or rounds, in Mercenary Force. The manual defines
each round as having twelve 'screens', or more approximately, each level is
twelve screens wide.
The game is managed on a money system. Every enemy drops a coin worth 10
Japanese yen. You can collect up these yen to visit Seki's Cafes in every level
to buy items that restore your HP back up to the 30HP maximum, as well as
purchase warriors to fight in the Mercenary Force at the beginning of the game
or replace them at the end of each level.
Controls
--------
D-Pad - Move your mercenary force around
A - Shoot
Confirm purchases and choices in stores
B - Change Formations
Reject options, exit stores
Select - Change your formation leader around
Start - Pause/Unpause the game
Mercenary Types
---------------
There are five types of Mercenaries in the game you can recruit (and you
can buy more than one at a time), along with one secret, non-purchaseable
character at the beginning of Round 6.
Servant
-------
Cost: 400 yen (500 yen starting from Round 2)
Starting Health: 6
The Servant is basically the weakest of the Mercenaries, with poor
starting health, and his rifle shot only shoots a single slow bullet at a time,
and only one bullet can be onscreen at a time. His main use is as a filler
character for round 2 and round 5, where you can buy a Scripture or Scroll to
upgrade him into a Monk or Ninja.
His transformation attack causes damage to all enemies onscreen.
Ninja
-----
Cost: 1000 yen (1200 yen starting from Round 2)
Starting Health: 10
The Ninja has a shorter range than the Servant, but is otherwise much
quicker with his shuriken, and can toss up to two shurikens on screen at a time.
You can upgrade any other character into a Ninja on Round 5 through the use of a
Scroll from the Saki's Cafes.
His transformation attack summons the Spirit of the Wind which has a
shuriken shield circling it. The shurikens each disapear as they are used up
striking enemies, but you can also summon up more shurikens by tapping the A
button when you run out. You can move around and hit all monsters on screen with
the shurikens and collect yen.
Samurai
-------
Cost: 800 yen (900 starting from Round 2)
Starting Health: 12
The Samurai shoots out two needle-shaped projectiles at a time, one
slightly above him and one slightly below him, both going right from his sprite.
Two Samurai in front of a Mountain formation can be especially devastating, as
they are not much slower than a ninja and have about the same attack range, but
twice the amount of firepower.
The Samurai's Transformation Attack, the Spirit of Fire, also seems to
be more useful than the Ninja's transformation attack. Transforming into the
spirit, press the A button to spit out eight bullets in the four cardinal and
diagonal attacks, and repeatedly tap A to spit out bullets multiple times until
the transformation runs out. You can move around and hit all monsters on screen
with the shots and collect yen.
Monk
----
Cost: 1200 yen (1400 yen starting from Round 2)
Starting Health: 9
The monk shoots diagonally towards the upper-right and lower-right at
the same time, which can provide a crucial role in picking off any blind spots
left behind by your Samurai, Ninjas or Servants. You can upgrade any other
character into a Monk on Round 2 through the use of a Scripture from the Saki's
Cafes.
Where the Monk really comes in handy is his Transformation Attack, the
Spirit of Time. When the Spirit of Time appears, the scrolling of the screen
speeds up and you can move forward through about 35% of the round, and skip any
monsters. You do not get any yen from the monsters you bypass, however. Where
the Spirit of Time really comes in handy, though, is in being able to completely
skip bosses by activating the Spirit of Time just before the boss shows up in
any round. The opportunity cost of not having to heal your other three teammates
in case of the particularly difficult bosses (especially Deathworm in Round 5)
may outweigh the 1400 cost to get a new Monk or to buy another character. In the
case of Round 6, using your Monk's transformation attack costs nothing as the
game ends if you skip the final boss.
Mystic
------
Cost: 700 yen (900 starting from Round 2)
Starting Health: 8
The Mystic shoots blasts up and down of her position at the same time,
which can help out in picking up any straggler monsters that get by the front of
your formation. Besides her usefulness in back-end attacks, she also gives you
better luck with the Shrine fortune telling, can be used to attract Tanuki, and
is a requirement in your party after defeating the boss of Round 6 for the best
ending.
The Mystic might have the second-best Transformation Attack, after the
Monk. Her Spirit of Life sends out several projectiles that bounce all over the
screen (and do not disappear upon impacting an enemy) and so can wipe out hordes
of monsters in only a couple of seconds, as well as dealing a significant amount
of damage to bosses if not defeating them outright.
Tanuki
------
The Tanuki takes some work to attract. You cannot buy it, and it is
fairly useless, coming only in the last level with little HP and a single store
right at the start (making it your only opportunity to get the Tanuki's HP up),
and its shot is slow. The Tanuki also does NOT have any transformation attack.
To obtain the Tanuki, you first need to go to the Shrine in Round 2 and
take a fortune telling for 100 yen, and get an Excellent Reading. When you
finish Round 5, you need to have at least one empty slot. If you have an empty
slot and a Mystic in the right slot, then you can also attract a tanuki into
your party. See this video below for more information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRm7M1Xhty4
Shooting
--------
Rather unfortunately, there is no auto-fire function, so when you need
to fire, you need to tap the A button repeatedly.
When firing your shots, you can technically hit any enemies that are
offscreen. This can be VERY useful, but it also has a high tradeoff - coins that
enemies drop will disappear after awhile. If you kill enemies offscreen and they
drop their coins, the coins may be gone by the time the foes would have come
onscreen.
Transformation Attacks
----------------------
Each Mercenary type can use a transformation attack, which is a
sacrificial summoning of a spirit that can kill enemies through various effects,
or even just skip through them entirely. The Monk's is especially broken, in
that it may be used to skip a boss fight entirely. The Tanuki does not have a
transformation attack. Each class's transformation attack is described above in
the Mercenary types description.
Formations
----------
Throughout each round, you can put your four mercenaries into four
different formations, and can change up formations by pressing the B button. The
walkthrough gives you a few times where it is opportune to change characters
around into certain formations, but otherwise the rest is at your discretion.
Formation of the Mountain and Wind often will have mercenaries get snagged on
rocks and other obstacles, and so you would need to double back to pick up the
straggler.
Formation of the Mountain lines all four characters up in a vertical
column. This spreads out your firepower and can be very useful in blasting all
enemies that come onto the screen. It also makes you very vulnerable to getting
hit by an attack, but for some enemies, this may be advantageous as only one
character usually gets attacked, as opposed to tighter formations where all four
mercenaries may get hit by the same bullet (a bullet does not terminate after
touching one of your characters, but instead continues on).
Formation of the Wind yields a + formation, with your leader being the
point man, and large character-sized space in the centre. This will probably be
your least used formation, as it spreads out the fighters enough to expose them
to damage but not enough to rain fire down on enemies.
Formation of the Mountain brings your four fighters into a 2x2 square,
with your leader taking the upper right spot. This will probably be your default
formation, with Monks or Mystics at the back spewing out diagonal and vertical
damage, while you have Ninjas or Samurai at the front spitting out horizontal
bullets. It can also maneuver around most areas with lots of obstacles littering
the area.
Formation of the Fire is the narrowest of the formations, with your
leader taking point, one person behind him, and then the last two members at the
back in a vague arrow-shape. This can be especially useful in tight spaces with
lots of obstacles, not only because you can maneuver around things easily, but
you can also press up against the top of the screen and pack your characters
into a one-character wide formation.
Leader
------
Your party has a 'leader', who leads the point during Formation of the
Fire. When you enter shops, any Medicine that you buy is used to restore the
leader's health, and only the leader. In going into the fortune teller in Round
2, having a Mystic as your leader supposedly increases your luck. Finally, if
you use an A+B Transformation attack, it is your leader who sacrifices his or
herself.
You can change your leader up by pressing the Select button, but this
rotates your entire formation as well.
It should be noted that if, by any chance, you are replacing a character
in the mercenary force selection screen, and you already have four members, it
is the LEFT-hand character who gets replaced.
Items
-----
Items can be purchased at the Seki's Cafes littered throughout the
stages. Note that in Round 2 and Round 5, the Scripture and Scroll replace the
Tea item in every store in the level.
Name | Cost | Effect | Other Notes
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Sushi | 100 Yen | Heals 1HP to all members |
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Medicine | 180 Yen | Heals 3HP to the leader |
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Tea | 400 Yen | Heals 3HP to all members |
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Scripture | 420 Yen | Turns leader into a Monk | Round 2 only
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Scroll | 400 Yen | Turns leader into a Ninja | Round 5 only
Buildings
---------
There are four different types of buildings throughout the six rounds,
and each location is noted in the walkthrough.
Seki's Cafes have items that you can buy from them, mostly for healing,
but also two items that can change your leader into a Monk or Ninja, in Round 2
and 5 respectively.
A Shrine, located in Round 2, will sell your a fortune for 100 Yen. If
you get an Excellent reading, you can recruit a Tanuki in Round 6 (more
information on this is above on the Mercenary types or at the start of the Round
6 walkthrough).
The two Temples, located in Round 3 and Round 5, heal 3HP to all your
party members for free.
The Daibutsu, found in Round 4, can revive one of your downed
characters. You must pay either 100, 200, or 400 yen. You have to select the
middle of five cards, with the cursor scrolling between the five cards. The more
money you pay, the slower the cursor goes, making it easier to select the middle
card when it is highlighted by the cursor.
Money Management
----------------
This game runs on a money system. Every opponent you kill drops at least
one coin worth 10 yen, with a few opponents dropping multiple coins. These coins
can be spent at the start of each level on replacing any dead party members, or
spent at shops during the game on recovery items, and a couple of other
miscellaneous odds and ends.
Unless you are using the 50000 yen code, money is fairly limited
throughout the game, so be careful when you need to make a purchase. In the Seki
Cafe, tea is by far the most useful item, as for 400 yen it restores 3HP to each
party member, compared to 200 yen for sushi (restores 1HP to each party member)
or 180 for medicine (restores 3HP to the character on the right-hand side).
If you intend to make good use of your money, one way you can try to do
this is rotate your leaders often. The two members at the back in Formation of
the Forest will usually take very little damage compared to the members at the
front. By rotating them around so the back ones are exposed to some more damage,
you can attempt to spread any damage you take around to the entire party. This
will keep your HP from dropping precipitously fast for the front-row fighters,
and when you buy Tea, you do not have two characters with 28 or 29HP already who
buying more than one Tea for will be useless, while the others have 10 or 12HP.
Similarly, if you are at the end of a stage fighting a boss, and you
have one character who is extremely low on HP, it may be better to sacrifice him
(or her in the case of a Mystic) against the boss and get a new character. While
it costs money, it can save you some implied costs if the rest of your party
takes damage from the boss and the injured member goes down anyways.
Endings
-------
There are three endings to this game: A Good Ending, a Best Ending, and
a Bad Ending.
To get the Bad Ending, you can do one of two things, or both: you can
either cheat, and scroll from Level 1 to Level 6 right at the start of the game,
or you can use the 50000 yen money password. Doing either of these things
automatically defaults you to the Bad Ending.
To get the Good Ending, you must not use any cheats, and play from Level
1 all the way through Level 6. When you beat the final boss, you must NOT have a
Mystic in your party.
To get the Best Ending, you must not use any cheats, and play from Level
1 all the way through Level 6. When you beat the final boss, you MUST have a
Mystic in your party.
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Round One
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[ROU1]
Use the first good chunk of this round to familiarise yourself with the
controls. For quite a while, all you will deal with will be human enemies, most
of them being Samurai.
About a minute in, when you encounter your first batch of ninjas, stop
and take a look at the top of the screen. You should see a building in the
background with a door. Go up and enter the door to enter Seki's Cafe. Inside,
you should be buying exclusively Tea, which increases the HP of all of your
party members by 3HP for 400 yen. Once you run out of money, leave the shop.
Outside, continue on battling your way through foes, which besides
ninjas will also include some armoured foes.
After some time, you shall encounter the first non-human enemy of the
game, a tiger. Take note of this tiger because shortly after, you will encounter
a giant centipede. The centipede can only be damaged on its head, but when it is
finally killed, every of its carapace will give off a yen coin - be sure to be
prepared to grab a lot of dropped money.
Following the centipede very shortly thereafter is another Seki's Cafe,
so be sure to drop in and get some more tea to increase your HP. If you are at
something like 300 yen or 700 yen, wait and kill off more enemies to get up to
400/800 yen, then move to the back of the screen and enter the cafe before the
door disappears offscreen.
When you come to the bridge, stop for a second and look to above the
bridge. There are fish lying in wait in the water. They will not actually do
anything until you step right underneath a fish, at which point it will move
from the water and drop down to the bridge and then offscreen. Move to trigger a
few fishes dropping down, pull back, and attempt to shoot them once they are
level with the bridge so you can collect the yen coins they drop.
Upon crossing the bridge, you will be met with a few last enemy
formations. Following up on that, the round's boss will come out.
The boss, an Asian dragon which the manual labels as a Sky Dragon, spits
out three blasts of fire at once, one straight forward from its mouth and the
other two at about thirty degrees to the horizontal of the straight blast. Your
best bet is to stay in your formation, but what you can attempt to do is press
against the wall to the top. This will pack all four of your mercenaries in one
horizontal line.
If you can maneuever quickly to dodge the shots once the dragon comes
up, do so. Otherwise, stay there, as you will only get hit once instead of two
or three times with a shot from the dragon. The dragon usually alternates
between firing to the higher end of the screen and then the lower end of the
screen.
Other than that, in between shots, move away from the wall, blast at the
dragon, and then move back up to whichever vertical side it does not fire at.
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Round Two
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[ROU2]
In between levels you can purchase mercenaries again to replace anybody
you lost. If you have 4 characters, then buying another mercenary overwrites the
one on the far left side, your leader. If you have at least one open slot and no
Servants, you may want to pick up a Servant - in the level, there are cafes
where you can buy a Scripture that upgrades your Leader mercenary to a Monk, and
Servant + Scripture is far cheaper than Monk.
Move into a Formation of the Forest to start and move about three-
quarters towards the right side of the screen when going through the narrow
passage. You will encounter multiple frog enemies - their shots, however, do not
go straight forward, but are rather lobbed like a missile, so if you shoot them
from close enough range, their attacks will miss you entirely and you can grab
the coins right away and then back off a little.
After only a couple of waves of frogs, you should see a Seki's Cafe. If
you have a Servant, press the Select button until he is your 'Leader' (on the
right hand side in the lower bar), and enter the shop. Inside, you can buy the
Scripture for 420 yen.
Upon leaving, after dealing with a few snakes (who spit out straight
forward but do so slowly, giving you some time to shoot them down before they
attack), you will have to deal with vaguely bat-like enemies that swoop in from
the side before moving down or up and spitting in your general direction.
Following some more frog enemies (who lob shorter shots, so do not get
too close to them) and more bats, you sould see a Japanese shrine with a torii
in front of it. If you have a Mystic in the party, alternate leaders until she
is the leader, then enter the shrine.
The shrine has a game of chance, where you pay 100 yen to pick one card
out of five. If you get a card with an 'Excellent Reading', you are visited by a
special character in the final level. The Mystic supposedly has better luck at
this game (according the manual), and because the card game is played by the
leader, you have to assign her as your leader.
Upon leaving, you will have to contend with a few more bats and frogs,
and then the stage will get its first batch of human enemies, enemy Servants who
fire a single shot each from their rifles. Following some more frogs and bats,
you will also get a giant frog, who basically fires multiple lob shots at once.
Shortly after the giant frog, once you go to the bottom part of the
screen and travel through another village section (which includes a floating
fish), there will be another Seki's Cafe, which also sells Scripture on the off
-hand chance you missed out on one earlier.
Continue on, until you get to a bridge. After duking it out with some
more bats, stay on the lower side for a couple of waves of enemies, then shove
everybody up in the top between the back of the buildings and some fences to
pick some enemies off from above. Go back down after a little while, killing
more human foes, and you will get to a third Seki's Cafe.
Once you get out of the village portion, you will be ambushed by
multiple long lines of Servants. Following them, the boss battle starts.
The Round 2 boss, labelled a Razor Rat by the manual, is constantly
spinning during the battle, with blazing fire spinning around him. While he can
definitely take some damage before going down, he does seem to have a consistent
pattern.
This pattern sees him starting near the centre of the screen, slightly
right-aligned of it. First, the Razor Rat sends some fire blasting down the
centre of the screen, then some more going along the lower end of the screen.
Right after, the Razor Rat charges left (without moving up or down), and when it
retreats spits some more fire right on the same horizontal level it charged at.
Upon having moved back into position, some more fire is dumped along the top row
near the trees.
Roughly, stay pressed against the top row to start, preferably in
Formation of the Fire. When the first centre blast goes past you, go down and
strike the Razor Rat, then quickly press back up against the trees once it
charges. Once it retreats, move down to avoid the fire going by the trees and
then blast the Razor Rat, and move back up once the next centre row of fire
comes along. Repeat until the Razor Rat is dead, then scoop up the coins that it
leaves behind.
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Round Three
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[ROU3]
In Round 3, you do not have any human enemies, and they begin to take
more inspiration from Japanese mythology.
After a couple of enemies to start, you can enter another Seki's Cafe.
In here, you will not be able to purchase a Scripture anymore, but you can get
tea again.
Outside again, following several waves of club-wielding ogres (oni?),
you will get three crows. Watch out for these crows, as right after the crows
there will be lighting bolts striking down from the top of the screen down about
the centre of the screen, so move back to the left side and shoot at them (yes,
they are dsstructible).
You will also encounter vaguely snail-shaped enemies that come in pairs,
one on top of the screen and one on the bottom. They will move over to your
party is, then quickly move towards the centre of the screen, and will explode
on contact if they hit you.
Following some more oni and crows and a plethora of lightning bolts, you
should come to another Seki's Cafe. Outside again after you pay your visit, you
will quickly come into an open field. Move right, and hammer the new infantry
enemies that have vaguely spherical-shaped heads. When they come on, they take
quite a while to fire their shots, so it is best to kill them quickly before
they can get a shot off.
Leaving the open field and moving into some tree lines, move away from
the right side, as some elemental spirits will appear. They only take one shot
to kill, but they can deal out some hefty damage. Following that, when you get
to a rock formation, go on the underside to execute multiple ogres, or on the
top side to avoid taking any damage (but similarly you will not be able to
injure most of them unless you have the use of a Mystic or a Monk).
After the rock formation, move into the house here to visit a Temple,
where the monk inside gives everybody a 3HP bonus. Going back outside, take on
some more ogres and elemental spirits. You will also have to take on a giant
demon head, which shrinks the more damage it takes. Stick to the top to avoid
taking damage and hit it with any Monks or Mystics you have, otherwise blast it
at point blank range quickly enough to destroy it.
You will come across another Seki's Cafe shortly thereafter. Take out
some of the spherical-shaped enemies thereafter, then watch out for fish that
are hanging around in a strip of water at the top of the screen which will fall
down and ambush you once you wander by. After taking on some more spherical-head
enemies thereafter, you will come across a Japanese pagoda, with the boss battle
taking place here.
Line up in the Formation of the Fire right away, as this is the most
horizontal formation. Now, this boss, labelled a Megacorn in the manual, spins
bullets around himself in a rectangular fashion, either clockwise or
counterclockwise. He then sends the bullets out in a straight line after they
rotate around a bit, either towards the top of the screen or the bottom of the
screen.
You can get damaged pretty quickly in the Formation of the Fire if a
bullet strikes each party member and you get spammed by a lot of bullets, but
there is a trick to this: if you crush all your party members against either the
upper left or lower left corner, you cannot be touched by the bullets. In fact,
if you stay against the bottom of the screen, you will not be touched, period,
regardless if you move to the lower-right corner or whatnot.
In that case, this fight becomes easily winnable without taking a single
hit if you have at least one Monk or Mystic, who can strike above
them/diagonally above them. If all you have are Samurai, Ninjas or Servants, it
becomes more difficult, but still doable. Stick to the upper-left corner, then
when Megacorn rotates bullets clockwise, once he starts shooting them out, his
bullet shield in front of him runs out because he is using them to shoot at the
centre. When the shield disappears, you can dash in front of him, take several
shots, then retreat back into the corner until another opening appears.
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Round Four
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[ROU4]
You will start the round fending off numerous gargoyle enemies, which
shoot straight forward, along with some rock monsters, which do not shoot
bullets, but can cause damage by contact by bouncing down from the top of the
screen, going diagonally down-left across the screen. Shortly into the area, you
will also get your first Seki's Cafe.
Continuing on, you will start to encounter skeletal warriors. These guys
are a lot more dangerous because they can shoot spinning bones above and below
them and continue marching. You will also get the occasional zombie, which pops
out of the ground and is very large, fires a shot, then burrows back
underground.
When you get to a rock formation, if you take the top side, be careful -
you will face off against an eagle-like monster which takes several shots to
kill and can dole out a lot of bullets in the meantime. Once you get past the
rocks, be prepared to take on some more skeletons, along with some ghouls.
This next lengthy strip of environment may be a good time to employ the
Formation of the Mountain, as four mercenaries lined up next to each other going
vertically can pretty much strike all your enemies if you stay close to the
right end of the screen and start spamming as soon as they appear. You are
liable, however, to take some damage, but it may be better than trying to keep
your warriors closer together during this portion.
While travelling, keep an eye on the northern cliff face, and you should
see a statue with the chest and head of a man. Go up against this statue and you
can talk to the Daibutsu, basically a giant Buddha statue. _IF_, and only IF you
have 3 party members or less (one got killed), you can ask the Daibutsu to
revive your party member. To revive a member, you can pay either 100 yen, 200
yen, or 400 yen. What the increased 200 yen or 400 yen fee does is it slows a
selection cursor which rotates between five separate cards - you must select the
middle card to revive your fallen teammate.
Continuing on outside, continue pounding away at the enemies. You will
come to some rocks again, so make sure not to have any of your mercenary allies
get snagged on a rock and fall behind the rest of the team. You will come upon
another Seki's Cafe shortly thereafter.
Outside of the Seki's Cafe again, you may wish to move into Formation of
the Fire for some time while pounding the forces of the undead, as there is lots
of rocks and other obstacles littering the field, and the mostly horizontal
formation should allow you to navigate around the obstacles fairly easily as
opposed to the other three formation.
Once you get into the open field, you can switch into something less
tight, perhaps even moving into Formation of the Mountain again. Once you see
walls with a gate, the boss battle comes up fairly shortly, and you should move
into Formation of the Fire.
The Round 4 boss is called 'Eyeclops', and like Megacorn before it, you
can crush everybody into the upper left corner to avoid any damage throughout
the fight. You cannot actually attack the Eyeclops from this position, as it
will not move towards you, but you can stay and observe its attacking pattern.
You will notice that the Eyeclops moves down, up, and then back down to
centre, spraying out bullet shots diagonally. It is only once it settles back to
centre when it sprays out one shot directly left of the centre point on the
screen, and it then divides into 8 even sections, sending out the eye part
directly to the left, and then moves back into place before going down, up and
down again and repeating the pattern.
There are two methods you can use to cause damage to the Eyeclops while
retaining the safety value of the upper left corner. One is a very slow method,
and relies on having a Monk. Stick in the upper left corner, and once the
Eyeclops moves back to centre and is preparing to split itself, move slightly
right, and fire your shots. If you time it correctly, the down-right diagonal
shot of the Monk should hit the Eyeclops in its eye.
The other method is to wait until the single centre shot going left
passes by, then move down and right to slightly left of the centre point of the
screen, fire several shots, only a few of which will actually damage the
Eyeclops, then speedily move back left and up to the upper left-corner before
the boss Eyeclops shoots its straight-soaring bullet left and then splits up.
Both methods, regardless, will take some time, so do not be surprised if
it takes a number of hits before it goes down.
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Round Five
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[ROU5]
If you have only three mercenaries left, purchase a Servant, as the
first (and only) Seki's Cafe in this level sells ninja Scrolls for 400 yen. With
500 yen for the Servant, it is cheaper than purchasing a ninja for 1200 yen. The
shop also comes very early in the round, so you do not have to use the Servant's
weaker attack for very long.
During the first part of the battle, you may want to move into Formation
of the Mountain as this is a fairly open area, and stick close to the right side
and spam shots to take out enemies appearing on screen (most of the early waves
is ghost-heads). Do not move especially close to the right edge, as there will
be a giant bird enemy that teleports onto the right side of the screen instead
of coming on-screen from the off-screen section. While it goes down easily
enough if you are spamming shots, it can cause some good contact damage if you
are standing right above it when it appears.
After a short period of time, you can enter the Seki's Cafe, and grab
yourself the Scroll for 400 yen. If you have a Servant, again, be sure your
Servant is on the left side of the bottom bar, making him the de facto leader.
Leaving out Seki's Cafe, move into a more tight formation, preferably
Formation of the Forest. Once you get to a bridge, not only will you have to
deal with a fish flopping from the water above, but you must also take on a
giant skull. The skull spits out bullets diagonally, so watch out for this. It
also moves around, though in a diagonal fashion, so after it does its first
circuit around you should be able to predict where it will move and loop around
it to the front to continue dealing damage to it.
Following your bridge crossing, you will be ambushed by a considerable
number of the small zombies and some umbrella foes. You may either want to move
back into Formation of the Mountain and spam shots, taking them out before they
can attack you, or move into Formation of the Fire and press against the upper
wall to have a straight line formation, moving only to dodge shots while hitting
the enemies with diagonal and vertical shots from any Monks or Mystics you have.
After some time, you should come to another shrine (the building with a
front deck). Enter it to restore 3HP to all your mercenaries.
Outside, you will quickly enter a graveyard area. In here, you will be
absolutely slugged with an onslaught of enemies, so you may want to move into
Formation of the Mountain. There is an occasional gravestone in the middle of
the area that a mercenary will get caught on, so be sure to maneuver around to
get them back in the formation when they do get snagged. Do not press right up
against the edge of the screen: stay just a little ways away so you can get some
more coins instead of having them disappear just before they appear on screen
and can be recovered.
Eventually, the graveyard will narrow. When it does, move into Formation
of the Forest of Formation of the Fire (preferably Forest) and take out some
more enemies. Crossing through some open walls, you will take on the Round 5
boss.
Whoever your weakest servant is HP wise, place him as your leader (the
right-hand character slot). If you do not have a Mystic, you will want to pick
one up in the next stage to achieve the game's Best Ending, and so it may be
useful to free up a slot by sacrificing a character through a Transformation
Attack.
The Deathworm, as it is called in the manual, is a lot trickier than the
last two bosses, as there is no safe zone on the map to face it, and it can
cause a lot of damage extremely fast. About the best method I have found is to
move into Formation of the Fire. When it spouts out a round of grey bullets,
move to the bottom of the screen, then move right as it starts shooting black-
coloured bullets.
Once you get past the hail of black coloured-bullets, move up in front
of its face, then quickly move back once it starts shooting out grey bullets,
and then down, where it once more shoots black-coloured bullets. Repeat this
pattern several times, making sure to get solid shots off in its face every
round of bullets, until it goes down. Keep an eye on the HP of all your
mercenaries, and rotate somebody into the leader slot when he is low on HP (5 or
less) and use the Transformation Attack to deal significant damage if not
outright kill the Deathworm rather than having everybody else take more damage.
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Round Six
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[ROU6]
This is the last round of the game, so if you do not have a Mystic, put
one in your party if you want to get the best ending. If you have a Mystic
already and do not have a Monk, you may want to consider getting one due to his
broken Transformation Attack to use on the final boss.
If you have an empty slot and a Mystic in the right slot, then you can
also attract a tanuki into your party, but _ONLY_ if you got an Excellent
Reading from the Fortune Teller way back in Round 2. See this video below for
more information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRm7M1Xhty4
Move into Formation of the Mountain and move up against the top of the
screen to press everybody into a horizontal line, and move to the right. You
will have to deal with multiple Kappa enemies (I am assuming that is what they
are), but the Mystic's vertical shot can take care of any that stroll by you.
Shortly after, you should come to a Seki's Cafe.
If your Mystic is low on HP, move her into the leader position so you
can buy some Medicine, as this is the last shop in the game and you want to keep
her in high health. Alternatively, if you have a Monk who is at low HP, give him
some Medicine. Otherwise, Tea, and then Sushi when you run out of money for Tea.
Continuing on, you no longer have a need for coins anymore as there are
no more shops left in the game. Instead, continue pounding away at the Kappa
that come, but alternate between top of the screen and bottom of the screen to
move away in the opposite direction of any bullet spray aimed at your mercenary
force.
After some time, which includes a few of the bat enemies from an earler
round, you should see a wall with a gate in it. Press against the wall and keep
to the upper left corner, as a cannonball will come down from the top and
explode, sending eight pieces of shrapnel out in the cardinal and diagonal
directions. Keeping your party as tight together as possible and away from the
ball gives you a lot of leeway room to dodge a shrapnel piece if it looks like
it is going to hit you.
Right after the first cannonball, move right to the corner edge of the
wall, and three large armoured knights shall appear. Blast away at the one that
is tangible, and when it starts to move to about the centre of the screen, move
left while still firing at it, and continue pounding away. With some rapid
firing you should be able to destroy it, and its two phantom replicas along with
it before it manages to move again.
After mowing your way through several more Kappa and the occasional wisp
enemy that approaches from above, you will come to a bridge, where two
cannonballs will come from above. You have two options here: you can either try
to press right and keep out of the damage path, or you can let one of your
characters take the hit before the cannonball explodes - this way, only one of
your characters will get damages, as opposed to shrapnel that could go through
all four characters. This second option is more palatable here because of the
confined area around the bridge.
Crossing the bridge, after two sets of bat enemies, will be more Kappa
coming from the right side, along with some tentacle-like enemies, so press
close to the edge of the screen and pound away at them. When you get to another
bridge, shoot the fish hanging right above the bridge before attempting to cross
(remember that there are no more shops in the game, ergo, no need to get some
more money).
Going across the bridge, press against the right end of the screen
again, both to dodge a cannonball that will fall down to the left side, and also
to pound more tentacle foes and kappas coming in. Across a third bridge, take
out a few bats, then press against the lower-right corner of the screen to avoid
the shrapnel from two cannonballs in succession.
Past that, take on some more kappa, and a couple of more cannonballs
that drop down to about the centre point on the scrolling screen. Once you get
to the end of the walled portion of the level, press against the bridge and spam
fire against the kappa that appear. On crossing the bridge, you will come to an
area with a pagoda. If you have a Monk and want to skip the battle, slot him
into the right hand slot and use the Transformation Attack. The boss will not
appear and you will automatically win the level and the game.
Being the final boss of the game, the Darcmere as it is labeled by the
manual, you can technically use all but one of your surviving characters in
sacrificial transformation attacks. You should, of course, leave your Mystic
surviving if that is what you would do.
However, do not use your transformation attacks right away. Darcmere
will float over the pagoda, then go around in a circle counterclockwise until it
moves back to the pagoda, send out four spiked bullets, and then split into two.
When it splits into two, sending one head directly up and one directly below, it
sends its eye exposed for damage. The Ninja transformation attack is easier to
pull off, as you can just park in front of where the eye will be and hit it with
your bullet shield until your transformation runs out. The Samurai
Transformation Attack is very much hit and miss, so you may as well leave the
Samurai living as a bullet shield.
Now, there is only one spot on the map that's really a safe place to
park, and that is the lower left corner of the map next to the water, and only
when you have two characters or less. The Darcmere has several patterns of
bullet attacks, and one of them has a bullet that can still hit you, but the
rest do not. From this vantage point, you can do one of two things.
The first is, if you have a Monk, wait until the Darcmere finishes its
rotation and has fired out the bullets. While the bullets are still on the map,
move right (if you move right while the bullets are still on-screen, you can
avoid the one bullet that will hit you), and fire with the Monk a diagonal shot
to try hitting the Darcmere's eye, while of course staying out of the way of the
heads of the Darcmere. After you make your shot, return to the corner.
With a Ninja or Samurai, things get a lot trickier. While the Darcmere
is rotating around in a circle, wait until it is at the bottom of the screen,
three-quarters done its rotation. At this point, move up and right to about the
center and fire off a couple of shots right, then move back into the corner,
then move right a bit to dodge the same bullet as mentioned above. If your
timing is correct, your shot should strike the eye of the Darcmere as it begins
to split apart.
As the Darcmere is the final boss, you should expect some frustration
and a lot of damage needed against it before it finally goes down, but
otherwise, Monk time-hack aside, the lower-left corner is your best bet.
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Passwords
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[PASS]
Note that using either of these two codes will automatically give you
the Bad Ending.
50,000 Yen to Start
-------------------
At the main screen, press and hold the Up Button, the Select Button, and
the A and B buttons, then release all four buttons. Repeat this four more times
for a total of five times, and then enter the game, and you will start off with
50,000 yen instead of 5000.
Scroll through the Stages
-------------------------
At the main screen, press and hold the Up Button, the Select Button, and
the A and B buttons, then release all four buttons. Finally, enter the game.
After choosing your warriors, when it says 'Round 1' press the Right D-Pad
button and you can scroll between Round 1 to 6.
If you use the 50,000 Yen code, then this code is also automatically
activated.
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Donations/Amazon
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[DONT]
I don't really care too much about donations, but if you are feeling
generous, feel free to send one via PayPal to gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT
com
Alternatively, if you ever order any items from Amazon.com, go to the
link below. You do not have to buy anything right away, but (if you do not clear
browser cookies often) any items you buy within the next 90 days will count as a
'referral order' to me, meaning I get anywhere from 4-6% as a referral/affiliate
payment of what you ordered (ie. order $100 worth of stuff, I get $4-6 from
Amazon.com)
www.amazon.com/?&camp=212361&linkCode=wsw&tag=raofavigafa-20&creative=391881
Other than that, considering this FAQ is for an obscure old game, if you
have any other obscure old games that you do not play anymore, consider sending
them to me (I will even pay the shipping cost!). I write FAQs for plenty of
obscure old games with no FAQs, and having a physical copy of the game (and even
better, a manual) is superior to not. You can email me if interested at
gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com
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Contact Info
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[CONT]
Although I believe I have found everything there is to find in this
game, there is occasionally the possibility of some super secret level in an
obscure game that was never found because it was too obscure, or the like. If
you have anything that you feel needs to be includes, feel free to email me at
gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com
If you have any other information to contribute or notice any errors,
again, shoot me a notice at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com
If you wish to host this guide, or use information from it, consider the
FAQ semi-public domain: you can host it without asking and derive information
from it word-for-word if you wish, but keep the document unchanged if hosting it
and give credit where due if using information
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Credits
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[CRED]
Credit goes to John Szczepaniak, the author of this Hardcore Gaming 101
article on Mercenary Force:
http://hardcoregaming101.net/mercforce/mercforce.htm
Credit also goes to the Youtube user DeceasedCrab, whose Youtube
playthrough of this game I used for some reference work:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DeceasedCrab
More credit goes to the Youtube user squeegood, whose video on getting
the Tanuki in Stage 6 I have pasted a couple of times in this guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRm7M1Xhty4
________________________________________________________________________________
©2013 GammaBetaAlpha FAQs
