Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1998 11:19:15 -0700 ================ | Strikers II | | 1954 | | by | | Sabre | ================ Version 1.0 E-mail: goutan@yahoo.com Revision History: Version 1.0 (9/27/98) -- Start working on the overall structure of this FAQ. More will come later. Copy Rights 1998: H. C. Yu Please: (1) Do not sell or distribute this FAQ for your own profit. (2) Do give credits where they are due. ======================================================================= Introduction: Since I haven't find any FAQ about this game on the net, I've decided to start one! Thus, please bear with me because I've got to start the whole thing from scratch; however, I'm pretty confident of my FAQ writing skills that you'll all like it. Thanks for the patience. Well, I know what you all are thinking -- what the hell is this game? Well my friends, this is basically an airplane game. IMO, this is the best of its kind! Yup, it's way better than the more famous Raiden Fighters series. For those of you not yet familiar with this genre of game, it's basically a game of dodging the bullets while destroying enemies. The game-play progresses upwards, with bosses and such. Strikers II is preceded by Strikers (duh!) and runs on a similar style. You start out with 3 planes, and diminishes, or died, whenever you got hit by bullets. The engine of this game is also similar to its predecessor in that you can get power-ups, send out specials, and use bombs to save your butt when you can't dodge the bullets. Overall, you'll be expecting a lot more bullets in this game, but are slower in general. Wanting to catch the band-wagon of super meters, the creator of this game decided to add on a super meter themselves! Now, each plane will have a super gauge to be charged. It's only with super gauge that you can send out special attacks that is more powerful than regular attacks. There will be 3 levels of supers, with level 3 being the most powerful and thus hardest to achieve. Nearly all level 3 specials will protect the plane for a little while, at least to the count of one, with some specials protecting longer than others will. Now the bombs. Every plane will start out with 2 bombs, with each stage providing one additional bomb. You can stock up to 5, I think, bombs. Each plane has its own bombs, with differing damage potential and protection range. Often, the relationship is inverse. More coverage, less damage; and vice versa. Bombs will absorb the bullets for you while doing damages to other planes. Probably the most interesting feature of the game is the boss. Basically, they are transformers ranging from 2 stages to 3+. It's always interesting to see the techno gizzmo the creator designed. As expected, the higher stages have harder bosses than lower stages. Since I'm not the best pilot in the world -- frankly, I'm only so-so! -- I can't offer much advice to you new-bes. But, I will in this FAQ introduces to you the planes, with descriptions of their own specialties. Interested? Please do read on! ======================================================================= (Plane #1): Being the biggest plane of the choice, you might find it hard to squeeze between bullets -- especially in higher levels. Overall, this plane has average speed, but its size makes evading bullets all of a sudden difficult. [ Power-ups ] Each power-ups will give this plane more homing missiles, up to four. The missiles will first release, pause a bit, then home in on their target. The damage is fairly good. [ Specials ] For its special, this plane release two missiles -- one on each side -- and attack straight forward. Level one gives smallest missiles, and level three shoots largest and most powerful missiles. Since I rarely use this plane, I can't give you too much about this weapon. [ Bomb ] The bomb for this plane covers little space, roughly 1/3 of the screen. The damage is fairly good, but since it only attacks straight up, enemies on the sides won't be destroyed. ======================================================================= Flying Pancake: This is the smallest and the quickest plane of the choice. Its funky design will certain make you doubt whether it'll fly or not ^_^ Due to its superior quickness, it might takes some time for you to get use to it. Otherwise, you'll find yourself running into bullets while trying to evade them. [ Power-ups ] The plane will shoot out one laser for each power-ups, up to four at most. The laser seems to aim by itself, but is fairly weak. [ Specials ] This is where Pancake starts frying! For level one, the plane shoots out a thin stream of laser from the front. The laser is descent but doesn't last very long. At level two, the plane will shoot out thicker stream of laser, each from the sides. This is very useful in that it's pretty powerful and lasts longer. One caution though, watch where your plane is! At level three, heh heh, you are looking at the most powerful attack of the game! The plane shoots out a huge beam of laser that totally engulfed the craft. It lasts probably a good 5+ seconds and protects the plane. It'll wipe out bullets and enemies in its path, and finish off the boss quickly. Watch out though, bullets from behind can still burn your butt! [ Bomb ] Pancake calls out two planes, converging toward the middle. The coverage is excellent, but some bullets might slip through toward the end. ======================================================================= (Plane # 3) Nothing much about this plane yet. [ Power-ups ] This plane sends out large single missiles. More to come later. [ Specials ] As specials, the plane sends out a shield of varying size that'll both absorb bullets and attacks targets. Level 2 will be big enough, barely though, to fit the plane; however, it's still risky. Level 3 will completely protects the plane. [ Bomb ] Its bomb is very powerful, but covers very little range. It's only big enough to fit the plane in there! More to come later. ======================================================================= Haquat: IMO, this is the best plane of the choice! This plane is very balanced. It's small enough to fit in between most bullets, quick enough to dodge bullets, and powerful enough to destroy targets quickly. Probably the biggest challenge for you as players is knowing where the plane is. Due to its specials and power-ups, there will be LOTS of planes on the screen -- and you need to know which one you are piloting. [ Power-ups ] As power-ups, this plane will send out one additional plane, up to four, that has a mind of its own. The planes will each track a target to destroy. Curious, they seem to have artificial intelligence in that they home in on the most potent target! However, the plane is fairly weak, probably the weakest power-ups of the bunch! Nevertheless, it's very useful. [ Special ] At level 1, the plane release 1 helper plane that will continuously attack, in a spiraling manner, the target from the position it's released. At level 2, it's two spiraling planes; and at level 3, there'll be 4 spiraling planes. The advantage of this special is that you can release the special at the position of the target and let it do its thing while you go after the other targets! For example, if there are 3 major targets on the same screen. You can release two specials, each targeting a different targets, and you go after another one. Or, you can release the special to attack the targets while you are concentrating on evading bullets! This is very useful. One special note on level 3. I find it fairly useless in that it doesn't protects the plane and it's not worth level 3 in terms of power. IMO, level 1 is most useful! [ Bomb } The plane calls out a huge fighting fortress that will cover pretty much the whole screen. The provides fairly good coverage while doing descent damage. Beware though, some bullets might slip through! ======================================================================= Shidden This is another average plane. The fastest plane from Strikers I has slowed down by a large margin! However, it's still quick enough to evade bullets and stuff. [ Power-ups ] As power-ups, Shidden shoots out blue flames that seems to make targets easier to destroy. While the flame is "concentrating" on the target, the defense seems to slip and the targets are easier to destroy. Curious? [ Special ] As special, the plane does its bomb from Strikers I. Level 3 is very powerful and protects the plane for an instance. Lower level specials shoots out miniature "bomb" and inflicts solid damage. [ Bomb ] Its bomb provides excellent coverage -- the whole screen! However, the damage is sub-par. ======================================================================= Mosquito: While powerful, this plane has the speed of a snail! Probably the Juggernut of the game, Mosquito, while can provide dangerous sting, is easy to swat due to its large size and slow speed. In upper levels, it's impossible to dodge bullets without calling out the bomb! [ Power-ups ] As power-ups, the plane shoots out 4 missiles from its sides. This is the most powerful power-up of the game! [ Special ] The plane will send out slow moving bombs that are very powerful. At level 1, it sends one bomb. At level 2, it sends two bombs. At level 3, it sends out four bombs, but doesn't provide momentary invulnerability. While powerful, the slow speed of the bombs make hitting targets a bit of guess work, especially on moving targets. [ Bomb ] Its bomb also provides excellent coverage and solid damage. It'll cover a good whole screen. Literally, no bullets will slip through. ======================================================================= Credit: No one but me! I start the gig!