0.0 INTRODUCTION: THE ULTIMATE TIGER FLIES AGAIN
1.0 BASIC MECHANICS
1.1 WEAPONS
1.1.1 RED FANG
1.1.2 BLUE SMASHER
1.1.3 THUNDER CLAW/BINCHOU LASER
1.2 BOMB TYPES
1.2.1 NORMAL BOMB
1.2.2 SMART BOMB
1.3 HITBOX AND SPEED
2.0 ADVANCED MECHANICS
2.1 RANK
2.2 EOS
2.3 EXTRA POWER-UPS
2.4 RANK
3.0 TIPS, TRICKS AND ODDITIES
3.1 TIPS
3.1.1 POINT BLANK
3.1.2 SIDEFIELD
3.1.3 GREEN WEAPONS
3.2 TRICKS FOR STAGES
3.2.1 STAGE 1
3.2.2 STAGE 2
3.2.3 STAGE 3
3.2.4 STAGE 4
3.2.5 STAGE 5
3.2.6. STAGE 6
3.3. ODDITIES
0.0 INTRODUCTION: THE ULTIMATE TIGER FLIES AGAIN
KyuKyoku Tiger II is the first shmup made by Takumi, on Taito F3 hardware,published in 1995. The game was going to be the first Toaplan's title on a "next-gen" hardware, but Toaplan bankrupted in early stages o development and the funds were not enough to complete the game. Luckily, Taito offered to publish the game in the arcades (unlike the famous special version of Batsugun, which only surfaced in scarce copies on second-hand market), leaving the rights to newborn Takumi, which is the company that hosted the ex-Toaplan designer and one of the programmers. Kyukyku Tiger II can be defined as a "Raiden'em up", in the sense that it features fast aimed bullets and only a few patterns, mainly by bosses.However, this style was actually created by Toaplan programmers themselves, with two gems like Kyukyoku Tiger and Flying Shark (both published by Taito, too).
The game also features the artwork of Sanae Nito, the original artist behind Flying Shark and Kyukyoku Tiger ( a lady, in case you wonder). Aside from the obvious influences from its predecessors, Kyukyoku tiger expands one minor idea from Batsugun and makes it as the base for bonus collecting, namely the progressive increase of value for stars. I will cover this detail later, for the moment it suffices to say that the game was also ported to Sega Saturn in 1997, as "Kyukyoku Tiger II plus", since it has FMVs between stages and an extra stage (all this for the Saturn mode).
Takumi also released an OST cd for the game, which should be not so expensive (20$ range)but rare, and to be found only on yahoo.jp (and maybe on ebay, thanks to Incognoscente for the tip!): this is the actual product .Final note: Takumi, apparently, is the leader in those crane-based things with plushies, so their arcade videogames department isn't the whole of the company...
1.0 BASIC MECHANICS
I will cover, in this section, all basic aspects of gameplay, or everything you should know to properly play the game and be able to fully exploit your ship's potential.Let's start from the weapons.
1.1 WEAPONS
Your arsenal is based on three weapons, one of them being different if you choose the player one or the player two helicopter. The basic power-up item, unsurprisingly, is a "P" icon which changes in colour every 5 seconds or so.If you change weapon type, you won't upgrade: if you take the same type, you will increase of one level, up to level 5 (four power-ups). One thing, once dead, your weapon when respawning will remain the same: if you lose a life with a green weapon, you will get back with a level 1 green weapon.Let's see the weapons in detail.
1.1.1 RED FANG
Red power-up, it features a relatively wide shot, but it's not too powerful.Good for beginners, but it requires full auto-fire at maximum speed, the one to be found in Saturn joysticks.It's the default attack when you start the game.In case you increase the rate of fire, the power level will increase as well. While i'm not sure of the exact values, there are four possible levels of power, given the increase of fire rate.
1.1.2 BLUE SMASHER
The typical spread attack, extremely weak and more or less useless.Avoid it at any cost, as it has the annoying characteristic of not dealing any serious damage.As the Read Fang, an increased fire rate will imply an increased fire power, which is still kind of useless...
1.1.3 THUNDER CLAW/BINCHOU LASER
This attack has two variants:
1) layer 1 has a frontal powerful missile which, once it hits a target, has a lock-on effect on the lateral homing missiles.The weapon of choice, once you learn to handle it properly (i.e. close-range attacks and maximum rate auto-fire);
2)Player 2 has a frontal powerful missile which detects enemies and explodes in an energy wave, dealing damage in horizontal direction, to all hit enemies,with range increasing with power. It also deals some consistent damage when hitting enemies directly. Very useful if used more or less like the player 1 version.
As you can guess, you should learn to play with the Green weapon, which is the only true useful attack. The other weapon at your disposal is, unsurprisingly, the smart bomb.Let's see how it works.
1.2 BOMB TYPES
The smart bomb comes in two variants: normal and hyper.One important thing you should always keep in mind of this weapon is its quickness of activation: the very moment you hit the bomb button, you're invicible, with the bomb detonating a few moments after.This is extremely important, as it is the best smart bomb you can find in a shmup, in term of defensive effectiveness.
1.2.1 SMART BOMB.
The smart bomb is pretty simple: a big spherical explosion, like most smart bombs.However, it does damage only what it hits, albeit the damage itself is pretty big.Since you're completely invulnerable when using it, you can still hunt down enemies unscathed by the deflagration, a simple but useful trick to completely clear the screen.
After having five bombs in stock, you will switch to the hyper bomb: let's see how it works.
1.2.2. HYPER BOMB
The hyper bomb has two fundamental characteristics: it deals more damage (roughly twice of a normal bomb), and lasts longer.Also, all terrestrial enemies hit by it will release bonus stars.This is not as good as it sounds, as the hyper bomb will trigger other scoring mechanics, which are also more rewarding, score-wise.At any case, hyper bombs are obtained by maxing out normal bombs: at the next bomb power-up,the normal bombs will turn into hypers (yellow frame surrouding the icon) and using them will reduce the amount of hypers in stock, obviously.In order to get back an hyper, it will be necessary to first get back to five bombs (i.e. if the stock was 2 hypers and 3 normals, it will be 1 hyper and 2 normals:it is necessary to get another normal an then the hyper will be triggered again).I'll cover then in the following sections.
1.3 HITBOX AND SPEED
Unlike many other games of the same sub-genre, Kyukyoku Tiger II features a small hit-box, which is not microscopic like modern bullet-maze games, but still pretty small (roughly the size of the rotors, about a few millimitres of radius). Also, speed is faster than your average Raiden'em up, roughly one second from side to side (horizontal axis). Both ships have the same characteristics, in both regards.
At this point, we have defined all the basics:let's see some more advanced tecniques and mechanics.
2.0 ADVANCED TECNIQUES
I will cover two aspects in this section: scoring tecniques and rank.In this regard, the two aspects are related by one scoring mechanism, based on extra power-ups.Let's start from stars first.
2.1 BONUS STARS
Bonus stars were present in the first Kyukyoku Tiger and granted a bonus at the end of the stage.In this game, they follow a principle based on bonus granted from extra power-ups in Batsugun: in short, the basic value of stars is 100 points, then it increases to 200 at the next star, then to 300...up to 1k (1000) points, and the progression is 1k,2k...up to 10k points. From this point on, every star will be worth 10k points.This value will be only resetted in cases of death. Another important feature is the EOS (End Of Stage) bonus...
2.2 EOS
The EOS bonus is based on extra bombs in stock and the level cleared:
NORMAL BOMBS:n*5k*level cleared
HYPER BOMBS: N*20k*level cleared
As it's easy to guess, a full stock of hypers is quite rewarding, at some point: for instance, it's worth 5*20*6=600k after clearing the last stage with all bombs in stock. Using an hyper bomb will also grant a star per terrestrial enemy destroyed, but this is not very rewarding...let's see why.
2.3 EXTRA POWER-UPS
When weapons and bombs are maxed out, any extra item will be worth a n initial value of 10k, increasing of 10k per every extra item (regardless of the type) up to 100k (10k,20k...100k). This means that, once with a level 5 weapon and a full stock of hypers, every "power-up helicopter" will be worth 200k (as it releases one bomb and one power-up).Changing weapon will not grant extra weapons.That's why hyper bombs should be preserved, for scoring purposes: bombing with hypers will never trigger more than 10-15 stars (150k, potentially), while an hyper is worth at least 20k plus up 100k, after max-outall stages have 4 bombs, so it's 150k vs EOS bonus and 400k of power-up bonuses.Extra items, though, trigger rank, which consists mainly in the increase of bullets speed and enemies' aggressivity.Let's see how.
2.4 RANK
Rank, in this game, is based solely on your power level. Once at level 5, the bullets will become faster, with every extra item increasing difficulty.Referring to the arcade revision, the default difficulty is 4, and maxing out the main weapon will turn it to 5.After three extra power-ups, it will arrive to 8, its maximum. If hit, it will revert back to 4 until the same power level is attained.On the last life, difficulty will lower to 3, to make things easier. Extending (one extra life at 4M) will also increase the difficulty by one level.
Once we've covered these more advanced aspects of the game, let's see some tips for the stages, general tricks and random oddities.
3.0 TIPS, TRICKS AND ODDITIES
A good thing to do, for a 1-cc goal, is to learn what to expect and the quickest way to deal with it. Here's a short by comprehensive guide some of the most important things to know about this style of shmup and some specific notes on the levels.
3.1 TIPS
If you know Raiden, you should know most of these tricks.Just to be sure, let's repost them here.
3.1.1 POINT BLANK
One basic aspect of this kind of games is point-blanking: that is, being very close or above an enemy (in case of terrestrial ones). This will prevent from the enemy to shoot (but this distance is reduced with rank) and make the shots to travel less in order to hit the enemy (and thus more shots!). Be careful with aerial enemies though, at maximum rank they will still shoot at you.
3.1.2 SIDE FIELD
Moving to the left or to the right will make appear a 10% of the playfield on the screen.If enemies aren't visible because of this effect, they won't shoot.On the other hand, if they're barely visible (and they can't shoot unless the sprite has its weapons on screen), they can still be hit.Shoot them with your side missiles or lightnings!
3.1.3 GREEN WEAPONS
As i said, the only weapons worth mentioning are the green ones.By point-blanking enemies, you can also have side missiles or electric discharges to lock-on on enemies and land more damage.Also, they are very useful to sweep the screen on its lateral parts, as often you can destroy partially visible enemies with them.
Let's see how to deal with stages, once we know all these nifty tricks.
3.2 TRICKS FOR STAGES
As a general rule, this game is pretty straightforward and requires only to apply well these tecniques.However, a few tricks regarding some sections can always help.
3.2.1 STAGE 1
A few things: move immediately to your side and destroy scenery before the stage starts, to get extra stars and power-ups.The mid-boss is easy, just let it spam in one zone with its bullet-cloud attack.The bosses have a lot of cannons shooting destroyable missiles, take them down at the same time, you don't want the balloons and missiles together.
3.2.2 STAGE 2
Learn where the zapping planes come from to shoot them down before they shoot, but at any case don't panic, they won't shoot directly at you. the two mid-boss planes have only one nasty attack, the wave-like one.Stay in front of them and the hole in the central part of the pattern is easily visible. On the boss, take down the two laser cannons once they appear, to avoid other attacks: don't stay in front of them though, lock-on and be slightly on the side.
3.2.3 STAGE 3
Abuse the sidefield trick for the rows of tanks, and stay right in front of the two mid-boss tanks.Always get down the red helicopters before they shoot! The bosses are simple, stay slightly on one side of the second-to-the-right at the beginning align with the rail, slightly to the right of it), take down two of them and then move of the second-to-the-left. If your alignment is correct, you will not need to move at all.
3.2.4 STAGE 4
Don't try to point-blank the tank with wheels, but be quick with the pink planes.Also, they will not shoot in front of you, so no panic movements.Don't get engulfed by the mid-boss typhoons, and don't point-blank tanks which interact with scenery (i.e. pass under bridges, exit from caves). On the boss, take down immediately the parachuting tanks, then stay aligned with its edges, the lasers and frontal shots will be easy to dodge.The combo missiles+ spread shot is easy to dodge, just tap at the second spread of shots.Finally, lock-on the core and start slowly dodging once it starts shooting the bulletspam.
3.2.5 STAGE 5
Be careful on the canal zone, as there are many lateral tanks and pink planes (the second comes from the back, don't stay too low). The respawning turrets (mid-boss) are easy if you clear one side while taking the other on the sidefield.Once you get on the river, don't point-blank the helicopters zooming in, try to use the side missiles.Once on the river bed, stay in front of the large amphibian vehicles, their whiplash attack will be easy to dodge. On the boss, as always, stay aligned on its edges, as all attacks will only require some tapping.On its final form, let it start from one side to laser and quickly move to the other before it starts, so you will have room to dodge the bullet spam.
3.2.6 STAGE 6
First part: take down the opening turrets before the tanks.Then, stay low and central on the lasers, so you can see where they pop from-At the first mid-boss, take down the turrets quickly so the central control will be a piece of cake.
Second part: Stay in front of the spawning turrets, once they're deprived of the guns, they're unoffensive. Be careful to fully exploit the sidefield effect with the many helicopters and tanks before the second mid-boss!At the second mid-boss, take down immediately the lower turrets by point-blanking them, then the main turret.
Final part: quickly take down the sub-marines and the cannons from the sides, the latters are "blind" to shots from directly above (their spread doesn't cover the corners), so a quick blast of the submarines before they emerge is the key. From this point on, it's about sidefielding up to the boss. The boss itself is simple: destroy all various parts when it's not shooting the rotating attack, in that case stay central and tap.Rest is pretty immediate, take down the side tanks before they shoot, of course.
3.3. ODDITIES
Ok, in no particular order...
The Saturn version has an original mode with an extra stage, bland music and wobble mode.The Extra stage lacks rank and thus is easy (default difficulty). The final boss is also easy, just let it aim its neutron cannons in points you want to. This mode also features FMVs during stages and credits at the end of the stage.
Pilot 2 is a woman, as the voice is clearly woman-like: also, she has an extra bomb instead of an extra power-up on her "first take off" section.The helicopter is also more like a plane, in shape (and pink).
There are a lot of small technicians around the platforms when you land, at the end of a stage, like in DP.Also, a car goes in the sea at the end of stage 1 (maybe the same car of Raiden?).
The Saturn version lacks a few depth effects, mainly the one in the section with submarines and pods.
The final scene is an homage to the second boss of Gun Frontier, also to appear in Battle Garegga.
That's all, for the moment. Have fun
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