Dip Switches
The following switches are available on both the real machine and when using an emulator (Modeler or MAME).
- Game Difficulty: 1 - 8 (affects Vitality; 1 being Easy and 8 being Hard)
- Initial Players: 1-4
- Initial Vitality: 16-48 (affects Difficulty)
- Advertise Sound: On/Off (aka Attract Mode)
- Monitor Flip: Normal / Reverse
- Cabinet Type: 2P / 3P / 4P
- Start Button: Use / No Use
Cheats
The following codes are ONLY available when using the MAME emulator to play the game. You will need to download Cheat.dat from the Retrogames MAME Cheat page. First you will need to set the -cheat option in the game's properties.
Then press Tab and choose Cheat>Enable/Disable a Cheat. Then can choose to turn on or off Infinite Lives, Infinite Energy (hit points), Inifinite Magic cheats for each player.
Map Screen
According to Arcade-History.com, the map has some interesting things too. "Each time when you win a stage a map screen shows up. That map screen actually contains ancient greek words!!!"
- The word at the bottom means 'river'.
- The bottom-left word means 'cave'.
- The bottom-right word means 'forest'.
- The word in the center means 'town'.
- The upper-left word means 'graveyard'.
- The word in the upper-right corner means 'sea'.
- And finally the word on top is the name of an ancient greek mythological monster!
And what's the title screen say? Well, once again, Arcade-History to the rescue! "The kanji on the title screen actually reads 'Senpu', meaning 'Fighting Axe'. This is an example of 'gikun', where Japanese artists use the phonetic value of a character to determine the game's name and not the meaning of the character itself."
Different Versions
There are two known versions, US and Japan. The Japanese version has some notable differences from US:
- It contains 5 scenes instead of 7
- a default of 2 players rather than 4 (this can be changed by swapping the board into any 4-player System 32 cabinet and changing the dip settings accordingly)
- The default settings give you 2 lives and 24 HP instead of 1 life and 40 HP.
Items
Note: To collect an item, walk over it and press the attack button.
Magic Pot
- Location: Various places, such as on blue thieves, or in containers like barrels or treasure chests.
- Effect: Adds one unit (or point) to your magic meter. The point is lost after using your magic, and you'll have to get more pots to fill up your meter again. Because of this reason, it's good to only use magic when you need it, or when you know you'll get more.
Food
- Location: Various places, such as on green thieves, or in containers like barrels or treasure chests.
- Effect: Replenishes your life gauge. The amount recovered depends on the Difficulty level and Vitality settings (see Dip Switches)
Camp
When you camp, any Bizarrian you have managed to keep beyond the boss will be asleep in front of you. Rush to sit on it before it wakes up and runs away, and then worry about magic pots. With other players this is easier to do.
Bizarrians
Which beast is best? Unlike in previous games where each had an individual power and therefore some were definitely better than others, these new beasts are somewhat more evenly matched as they have no long-range attacks. The skeletal dragon is one of the best, having the only ranged bizarrian attack in the game as well as a more efficient death-pin. But unfortunately you only get to keep it for a while. Next would be the Preying Mantis or the Zapping Scorpion. They can execute all attacks except drop-kicking. This action will instead make you jump off the beast. Note that most enemies can use them against you if you are knocked off. The enemies who can't are: bosses, Brothers, Skeletons, and Evil Trees.
Ground Artillery
These are wheeled onto the field by Death Adder's men. You can easily avoid being hit by staying out of their horizontal trajectory.
A catapault has 6 shots, a flame catapault has 6, a crossbow has 6, and a ballista has 6. NOTE that you can ram or slice at the shot fired by any of these to deflect it—or just jump over it! Also note that a soldier will abandon the weapon if you come too close or if he doesn't shoot at you for a while.
Mounted Artillery
When you come across a catapault, flame catapault, giant crossbow, or ballista, you can actually pick it up if you are riding a bizarrian. Then you have a fully portable artillery unit, that can still ram, jump-button-kick, and death-pin, as well as firing the limited ammo of the artillery.
Game Notifications
"GO" is not merely a useless directional marker: it tells you that the enemies are truly dead (and not just KOed offscreen) and reminds you of the fact this is an arcade game. Whereas some games encourage you with stupid indicators saying such things as "Hurry", this feels more laid back. But if you wait too long, Dark soldiers appear that are very hard to kill.
Insert Coin means to pop in another quarter and then hurriedly hit Start before the 10-second countdown finishes. This is quite different from Press Start notification which means that someone else has already bunged their quarters in and you can have a round or so at their expense.
Some arcade owners are mean (read: greedy) and will set it so that you need more than one coin to start. If so it will say "2 Credits to Start" or whatever.
BONUS Stage secret
During a bonus stage, you can hit other players! Rather than hurting them, you make them drop a magic pot. This is a good thing to use if, say, one player has just too few magic pots and the other has plenty. This is a strange but useful secret. Of course you could always deliberately steal their magic...
Walkthrough
This walkthrough is written with the US cabinet set to the highest difficulty level, so there may be more enemies or different numbers of powerups depending on what difficulty your machine is set to (see Dip Switches). There may also be some differences between the US and Jap versions. Note that the totals given for magic pots will not reflect what you possess, as you start with a certain number, and so the pots on each stage are in addition to your own. It is also geared towards a single player getting through the game, but also offers useful group strategies.
Scene 5: Defeat The Death-Adder!
- Magic Pots: ?
- Food: ?
- Bizarrians: ?
- Boss: Death Adder's Shield // Death Adder // Final Death Adder
- Bonus Stage: none, as the game ends
OK now you fight Death Adder himself. Unlike in the last game the linking symbol has changed, turning him from Death=Adder into Death-Adder. Notice the snake insignia on the wooden floor panel? Suddenly, in a burst of flame, Death Adder rises out amidst smoke and flames! If by some magic chance you still had a bizarrian, you will notice that this is the one scene where you couldn't keep it throughout. Even if you could, you wouldn't have it for long!
Death Adder's Shield Strategies
No magic. Period. You will see what happens if you do. If you feel you can spare the bottles, try using magic; Death Adder's evil dragon shield will suck the bottles up before they can activate and eats them *crunch!* It does not appear to give him a power boost or heal him in any way, but it's still very annoying to lose your hard-won bottles. If you look at the icon beside the health bar you will see the shield NOT Death Adder. You need to destroy his shield in order to be able to use magic against him. Well, there IS another way...
Despite outward appearances, when he is KOed you can use your magic! But you have to be quick as the first thing he does when he gets up is to shove his shield in the air and ready it for more bottle-munching fun. Don't leave a gap between blasts if you intend to hit him with more than one type. If you repeatedly smack him with magic you can see him hilariously being pushed up and down in the air as you use magic, then he recovers and gravity takes over, only for him to be thrown around again! Death Adder's shield responds quite negatively to being hacked, rammed, or death-jabbed. Don't stand over DA when he gets up, as he has a split-second "invincible lunge" like all RODA bosses, and will knock you down before your blows register.
Don't stand right lined up with the mouth of the shield, as it will unleash either lightning or red-black flames on the hapless hero! Back-attacks would be the best option. Running jump over him, then come down behind him and smash him with a spinning attack. This works best with a friend or two. He is rarely stunned, but when he is take full advantage of this rare chance to death-jab him. With other players, you can execute the cooperative attack at this time (see Moves) or just all death-jab him at the same time.
Shieldless Death Adder Strategies
OK now nuke him with all your might. If he is knocked down at the time, let him get up and use his invincible lunge before hitting the Magic button. Watch out for his new half-circle Ring of Cloudy Evil spell. This can be avoided by jumping or using magic. A running jump gives the best chance of getting over it, as it is actually slightly wider at the points where it curves. When he is finally defeated you will flee the castle.
But wait, why aren't the credits rolling? Well, he's not quite dead yet!