------------ Stages ------------

Stage 1 Nothing too crazy. Enemies are few and far between. You'll get accustomed to the wall climbing and shadow using. Fans of the later Contra titles will probably enjoy that this game is a boss festival. Every 30 seconds it seems you've got one in front of you. A personal favorite. After trashing some cars, you'll come to a stretched limo. The limo is sitting ontop of the first mini-boss. The giant statue, Material. Leave your shadows at the face of Material while you dodge projectiles and um, butterflies. Continue onward and you come to the roof of the city's bank and another mini-boss, a couple of flying machines. Take those out and you're already at the stage boss, Gameran. Gamran is interesting because it can take lots of different kinds of damage. You can destroy the buzzsaw in his arm, cripple the arm so it can't move any longer and damage the flame thrower that looks like it's taped to the top of the arm. The major weakpoint is the head, and the arm can be used as a platform either when it's active or not. Just watch out for that flame.

Stage 2 Right away we're introduced to the crystal springboards. Use a bunch to reach the very high ledge and pull yourself up to fight the first boss of the stage, Visete (pictured top right). Aim low to take out the legs. Once that's accomplished it will be forced to jump in order to move and when it does, slide underneath and continue to tear it apart. Shortly after you'll come to, a dead end? Kick it ;). Strider flashback anyone? After kicking through the wall and cimbing up inside the building, an electric barrier forces you outside onto a steep railway complete with oncoming train and mounted gunner. Out run the vehicle! Afterwards is the boss of the stage, a giant man made of fire. Upon defeating the boss, Jack greets you personally, and Kirrin is captured.

Stage 3 This is probably the scene I'll always think of when recalling this game. Kirrin is chained to a giant rock in the desert. Luckily, a scorpion ends up breaking the chain, just before the boss, Sandora, finishes him off. The whole scenario reminds somewhat of Star Wars. Kirrin comes to a hole in the desert which leads to a network of underground caves, followed by what can best be described as warps. After the second warp, you come to one of the 3 elite bosses of the game whos order is either random, or based on performance. Here we see one of the 3 bosses, Tianon, who's probably the best animated character in the whole game next to Kirrin. Her main attack is a very long-reaching burst of kicks, which she'll throw out every so often while flying around the chamber. She's also the only character that can throw you. You'll get wrapped up in the cape she carries and tossed straight upward, removing one life point. A kiss is also in her arsenal which removes one life point as well. At the conclusion of the encounter, you meet up with your pirate friends. One of them stole a giant torpedo (he's on the left)>:b.

Stage 4 On the pirate sub, the pirates put the stolen torpedos to good use and attack an enemy carrier. Once tipped over, Kirrin can jump onboard and cause all sorts of mischief. Make your way through the burning/sinking craft quickly and jump onto a small enemy life boat. Steer the life boat left to right while the waves bounce you up and down. A part reminiscent of Super Ghouls'n Ghosts' raft ride, except instead of dealing with fish you have floating laser emplacements and flying armored soldiers. When you reach the end you come to the goddess-like character from the opening to stage 2, who seems to be your guide/aid (help. need info). She gives you transportation to a floating platform and the stage boss. The second of the three elite bosses. This time, for me, it's Cannons. Probably the trickiest battle of the three elites. He doesn't fight you directly. He teleports around the arena while his giant robot in the background does his dirty work. Parts of the machine will seperate from the main body and come attack you in the foreground. There's no way to damage the robot, only Cannons. Once Cannons takes damage he'll disappear and reappear somewhere else which can get extremely annoying if your strength is low. However, launch a Special on his posistion and he'll eat all 5-6 "Special" hits before getting to move.

Stage 5 You're now on the outskirts of Jack Reysson's palace HQ. The Gravity Stones make their only appearance here. Make your way through the channel until you get to the city entryway. Here you're stopped by the last of the three elites, who for me is Willf. The last of these bosses always gives you the choice of battleground to choose. The choices are the place you fought the second boss (orange), third boss (green) and forth boss (blue). Jump into the sphere to start the battle. Willf wears long Gen-an (Samurai Showdown) claws on his hands and flies around the screen via his glider craft. He will sometimes let the craft fly on it's own while he stays put in one location. About as easy to defeat as Tianon. When the battle ends you're brought back. Enter the city. The game difficulty shoots way up starting here. I still can't find a way to get through the next couple areas undamaged. Robots and soldier-mounted "T-Tank" turrets are everywhere. Make your way up until you can't anymore and there's a small gap in the right wall you can slide through and meet the boss Euro-Gam. A remix of the first boss, Gamran, and is extremely tough to beat. If you approach low, the arm will fire a stream of bullets, if you approach high you have that lovely main gun to deal with. And if you're thinking of sneaking into the opening inbetween the low bullet angle and the leg, you'll get charged at for your trouble. A very tough battle that I've never completed without cheesey continuous "S" bomb usage. Finally you've made it to Jack himself. Jack is in complete disbelief that you've made it all the way to him and backs away when you approach. The goddess character makes an appearance here once again (well, her sword does >:b) and the stage is clear.

Final Stage Up until this point, when you've lost all your lives and continued you've started right where you left off. That no longer applies, and now you have to reach checkpoints in order to start farther into the stage when continuing. Which means you can't just use your bombs, die, continue and use you bombs, etc. You actually need to know what you're doing (*gasp*). You need to make your way up, fight off the servants of Slayer, who fly around on what look like carpets of fire. Defeat the first two bosses of the game and you've reached the first checkpoint (sounds easier than it really is >:b). There's a dead end shortly after and a mirror. Suddenly your reflection jumps out of the mirror and the battle with the boss, Fake, begins. He is a MAXed out version of you so he's very hard to fight just due to his superior range. Finish the battle and the area where the mirror is begins to be erased by a glowing wall of death (er, sorry). It makes it's way left so the only escape for you is left and back down the way you came. Run down the hill. Get some serious speed, and before the end you should have enough speed to long jump to a floating platform that was out of sight originally. Once you find yourself on a solid platform you're greeted by the Tianon, Cannons and Willf. You must fight them all simultaneously (X_X). The final boss, Slayer.

Index
Introduction & Play Mechanics