StarFox #14 - Level 2

1. Corneria, Level 2

You start off with two enemy ships, then you encounter a tiny ground-based turret (between two benign towers) and a few more enemies. Now you come to the all-important arches. Slippy does not show you how to fly through the arches this time, but you can do it yourself and collect a twin blaster powerup. However, as you approach to the first arch, a wingman gets into trouble! Fortunately, both wingman and pursuer will fly right in front of you on your way to that first arch, and you can shoot the enemy before the arch if you are quick and your aim is true. If your wingman does get hit and/or you miss the twin blasters, you might want to consider restarting the game.

Nothing but walkers to bother you as you cruise through the arches. The last "arch," though, is a huge opening-and-closing door off to the left. Adjust your speed with retros or boosters so that you can collect the twin blasters without being smashed.

You have some flying and ground-based enemies to take care of. Then as you enter the city, you will encounter an overhead ship that drops enemies on parachutes. Aim high and get rid of this fellow ASAP. Now the city gets denser. I love this part. You get into a clearing and deal with some flying enemies. Remember, if you figure your bolts are going to hit the bogey, move on to the next one.

You fly between two control towers and a wingman gets into trouble. Follow them through the arch to collect a grey ring. Then you will have a little turret on your right. Then you fly over two close buildings and though another arch. Some walkers pass by porting a blue pillar. Then you get into a series of falling blue pillars, and you will have lots of roving turrets to deal with in the middle before they close in on you. For the very last turrets, you can just fly very low and in the middle - an enemy plasma bolt will wipe out a turret for you, and you can pull up a bit and collect a supply ring. Then you will have a nova bomb tucked in an alley between two buildings. If you want it, tilt yourself to one side (hold L or R) and grab it. Then you got some more enemies, and control towers, and then the boss comes.

Advance Scout Mother Ship ATTACK CARRIER

This is the same boss that you faced in Level 1, Stage 1

The boss flies in over you from behind, so do not hang around the top of your flight path or you may get knocked. The boss will turn and face you. Now start firing at the right-side hangar door, even before it opens. That way, your shots hit the instant it does open, and if your aim is true you will be able to fry the hangar before it can launch any fighters.

Now start firing at one of the left-side doors - these are missile doors, and you also want to be damaging them as soon as they open up. With luck you will destroy them before they fire homing missiles at you, which you will have to shoot down. Twin blasters are very handy here. Concentrate on one until it is gone, then do the other. I tend to go bottom-to-top.

After destroying the hangar and missile bays, the central hull that is left of the ship begins flying toward you, firing its plasma guns. Now you can shoot the ship anywhere on its surface and it will take damage. You can pretty easily avoid the bolts since they do not home in on you like missiles do, but you can fly right through the middle of them rolling your ship to deflect them if you want. When the ship gets close to being underneath you it will turn around, letting you just sit and fire into the back of it! Boom. Off to Sector X, so we can take care of the rest of the invaders.

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2. Sector X, Level 2

Soaring over Corneria's upper atmosphere, you reach an area densely packed with girders, pillars, and construction equipment. Uh-oh... think Andross wants to build a base here? But why would they need a *rock* crusher? you will face enemies right away, and a wingman will get into trouble.

you will fly into an area with rotating Ts. Fly through the slot between the columns of horizontal girders. Then one of your wingmen will go after some on his own. Watch for a 1-up here (but mind the beams).

Proceed through the gap in the following columns of vertical girders tilted over to one side (hold L or R). As for the rotating sets of beams that follow (and you will want to fly through them, because something nasty will happen if you try to avoid them - a plasma mine will rain down on top of you!), you can start out not being tilted, but eventually you have to to avoid getting smacked. Find a nova bomb powerup amidst the chaos.

Emerging from this, you will pass an outpost and encounter some appearing-and-disappearing enemies. Consider lobbing a nova bomb their way. you will also see one of those little blue ships that you can shoot for a twin blaster!

Find a nova bomb between two crawly things that shoot lasers at you. Then after a few rotating beams you will find a power shield - do not miss it, because you are definitely going to need it.

You hit the blue supply ring, then fly through the second outpost. A wingman gets into trouble. you will then run into a vertical line of four ships that are really hard to blow up. The only time that they can be hit is when they turn to face you (you will see a patch of yellow).

After, you do some more easy fly-bys of more rotating objects - then you run into something horrible! Pillars everywhere, headed in all directions! How do you escape without being hit? Well, that is hard. it is kind of an "instincts" thing. I would suggest that the key is not overcompensating when avoiding one pillar so that you won't run into another one; and not bothering with the retros or the boosters. Alternatively, you can fly over to the extreme left or right, though like I said earlier you will have to deal with plasma-spewing mines raining down from above - it is a pick-your-poison situation. Unless you are really good at rolling to deflect stuff, i would suggest just picking your way through the mess of pillars.

Just as you are nearing the end of the pillars, a wingman finds trouble, and you also have to deal with one of those triangular three-piece ships. you will probably be firing your blasters as you dodge the last few pillars.

Asteroid Destroyer ROCK CRUSHER

The basic strategy from Level 1, Stage 2 also applies here (see section [1-2] of this FAQ), but there are a few new twists.

• The ship is now far more reluctant to open its laser turrets (thus allowing you to blow them up).
• Once you destroy all the turrets on one side, it will begin firing missiles (from its sides) every time it turns another side toward you.

The general strategy, again:

You have to destroy the four laser turrets on both sides of the vessel before you can roast the whole thing. it is a pretty tame boss at first because all it shoots at you are the lasers (until you destroy all the turrets on a side, that is, at which time it starts firing missiles). In any case, I recommend steady fire so that a turret will be roasted as soon as it opens. This time, the Rock Crusher is loathe to open its turrets, and when it does it opens them only for a short time, so be prepared for this to take a little while.

When you destroy the last turret, be very careful - the main bulk of the ship is then detached, and its operators would love for it to smash into you. Be sure to get out of the way. After you get past that, you can concentrate on the center bit between the two pads of the ship - of course, it fires lasers at you. Shoot at it repeatedly, but watch out for the missiles and plasma blasts, and be sure to shoot the missiles down the moment you see them.

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3. Titania, Level 2

Now this is a fun level. Titania is Corneria's resource world, and the bad guys have come in and taken over. they have even shut down the weather control. (Titania might be a bit like our own Saturnine moon Titan - in terms of resources, Titan has cold seas of liquid methane.)

The enemies on this level are mostly stuff you seen before - but watch out for the big crab-like robots. To destroy or disable them, you will have to shoot at the tiny flashing blue areas where their legs join onto the body. Watch out you do not crash into them, because you usually have to get pretty close to score a hit. Of course, you can just forget about the crabs, but unless you at least disable them they will fire at you from behind, so be sure to do some barrel rolls.

Now for the flythough:

You start in a snowy area, and visibility is reduced. Fly under a gap left by a raised panel. Then you have to deal with some close-quarters rocky ledges, and turrets and walkers amongst that. (When you get to the big rock in the middle of your path, hang a right, as there is a walker you can shoot that is creeping that way.) Then tilt yourself to cruise between two large rocks, or fly high and centre to get over them.

Now you will have some walkers and moving turrets to deal with, and one of your wingmen will find trouble. These turrets are unique - they will try to lob crystals at you, so be careful. Then you will meet your first crab-enemy (described above). Then you meet two turrets (careful - you will see their plasma blasts before you see the actual turrets!) and a choice of three doors.

The deal with the doors: The weather control is on the right, and you need to trip it to continue on with the stage. However, if you need twin blasters, you can reload - there is a twin blaster powerup inside the center door. (there is nothing inside the left door.) Flying though the center (or left) door means repeating some of the stage: you deal with some moving conventional turrets, a crab thing, the two plasma turrets again, and you return to the same three doors. Heck, go through the middle door again to upgrade to the photon shot! But if you are ready to continue, fly through the right door and trip the weather control.

Now you got two conventional turrets and some flying enemies. Two helicopters appear and a wingman finds trouble.

Along the left side you will see a nova bomb tucked in behind a sheet beam. Fly under the gap and then pull up quickly to grab it. Then you will have another crab thing, and another, and some more crystals will be headed your way. Then you have three moving turrets - hopefully one or more of them will leave behind a yellow ring!

A wingman finds trouble, and you encounter some more plasma turrets. Be ready to roll! Then you have two crab things, then a plasma turret and a crab thing, and another plasma turret and a crab thing. Then you have a few more fighters and plasma turrets to deal with as what I conjecture to be the Titania spaceport comes up on the horizon.

You fly inside. (you are able to continue from here if you get defeated, so do not worry about the fact that this stage had nary a supply ring.) A robot appears in the entrance corridor and tells you "BYE BYE!" on its screen as you fire upon it again and again. How menacing. But you do not even have to waste your thumb on it - it withdraws even if you do not shoot it. You then enter a large hangar bay.

Master Computer PROFESSOR HANGAR

I imagine that Professor Hangar was once a kind and peaceful computer that simply guided ships in and out of the Titanian Spaceport; but Andross' forces must have reprogrammed it, and now you have no choice but to blow the computer and its robotic body to smithereens.

The trick to beating this guy is through skimming along very close to the ground, swinging right and left, firing like mad. There are these winged creatures that keep coming out of the ground, and you want to destroy as many as you can while there are near the surface and not careening through the air toward your ship. Now when you destroy all the little jumpers, the machine itself finally appears, launching winged things at you. Keep firing at the computer, still skimming around on the ground to take care of those awful winged things, and you will soon destroy it.

Professor Hangar has a special Shadow Thruster attack that it uses after four sets of launches - you will see it coming when the robot splits into three and you will know to get out of the way. More likely, you will blow the thing up long before it has the chance to use it.

If it is still around after the Shadow Thruster attack, hammer on it with all you got before it retreats! If it manages to get away from you, you have to clear out a new batch of critters before it appears again. And here is a bit of surprising news for you: it comes back fully recharged!

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4. Sector Y, Level 2

“Corneria's main battle fleet has suffered severe losses in Sector Y! A huge space battle has left our flagship crippled- or perhaps worse. Debriefed survivors have informed us about a new attack squadron of gigantic humanoid battle suits in the area. Although it may be too late to rescue our fleet from disaster, we need you to get in there and take out Andross's new iron soldiers! Their shields will deflect anything but a direct hit, so aim carefully! They are of course, accompanied by star fighters that will keep you on your toes.” —General Pepper's Flight Log, pg 60

Sector Y is part of a trio of nebulae that appear in the shape of a letter, itself formed in the shape of a giant Y. Though not as severe as those found in Sector X, radiation storms and fluctuating magnetic waves make travel through this sector dangerous, as the ionized space dust causes equipment malfunction or failure in most ships. It is thought by some scientists that the harsh state of Sector Y is the result of a failed Bolse satellite that underwent nuclear meltdown, polluting the sector with the radioactive fallout.

Boss

Plasma Hydra - Course 2

One of Andross' robotic animals, that intends on aggitating the intersellar creatures of Sector Y, it has long arms which shoot plasma, and once its arms are destroyed will use a huge spike ball.

Tactics

Fighting Plasma Hydra will not be easy. You have to focus on its arms first, shoot the ends of its arms to damage the Hydra, but sometimes your lasers can meet up with a plasma bolt and destroy the arm temperarily (it will grow back though), once the Hydra takes enough damage, it will ditch both if its arms and crate a mace with a spike ball, this will do major damage, but its body will be exposed to your lasers, shoot at it until it is destroyed.

Level 2, Stage 4 - Sector Y

"How are the Arwings handling? If an amoeba clings to your ship, use L or R to get rid of it."

Boss: Hydrogen Harvester PLASMA HYDRA

This is one of the strangest stages in the game, second only to Out Of This Dimension. If you can buy the idea of sea creatures floating through space, you will have a lot of peaceful fun with it.

See, there are only a very few enemy fighters in this level. What you need to worry about are the sea creatures - notably the squid and the small stingrays. What's going on is that Andross attached mind-control devices to them and is thereby controlling them. You do not want to defeat the creatures, you just want to knock out their equipment. you will know this has happened when they turn blue.

You need to shoot the squid repeatedly until they make a noise and turn blue, and you need to shoot the stingrays once to turn them from red to blue. If you miss any, they will crash into you, and you won't get to see the special bonus at the end of the level. (it is worth getting and will make the boss far easier.) There are also amoebas. If one clings to your ship, do a barrel roll (L or R twice) to get rid of it.

The last item of note is the big stingray. do not shoot it, and stay out of its way. If you fail in this, then you miss the bonus. (You might, though, graze it once or twice and get away with it.) Getting the bonus is very important - keep it in mind above all else in this level.

Now with the flythrough:

As soon as you enter the stage, get yourself into cockpit view (by pressing SELECT twice) - those red stingrays are hard to hit. you will see three of them off to the right almost as soon as you begin. Then you will need to deal with two squid (remember, they take more than one hit to neutralize). Then you got some missiles, two more squid, and a wingman gets into trouble. Then you have two hard-to-hit fighters.

Now you enter a field of amoebas. do not miss the 1-up. The amoebas will seek you out - you have to be actively evasive, not just passively evasive. Three missiles will be launched toward the end of the amoeba field. Then there is a twin blaster ship toward the upper left.

Now the big stingray appears. Leave it the heck alone. do not hit it with your ship and do not let your lasers strike it. (You need to be especially careful if you are packing the photon shot.) One good thing is that a wingman will pull out and take care of two enemies for you, so you do not have to risk shooting just yet.

After he is done the stingray should be out of the way, so you can get the new enemies that have flown in and rescue a wingman that gets into trouble. There'll be a supply ring, then a squid and three blue fighters.

Then you get beaucoup stingrays and a couple of squid! Turn them blue and do not miss any! You can actually turn blue ones red (angry) again by striking them unnecessarily, so be careful! Of course the big stingray (and sometimes two of them!) will be running interference! A wingman will find trouble eventually, too. Then it is boss time.

Now, if you done absolutely everything 100% right (you can get away with accidentally plugging or crashing into the big stingrays, but you MUST be PERFECT and have turned all the little stingrays and squid to blue), right around when your wingman finds trouble you will also hear the call of a whale. The whale will swim out in front of you (try not to smash into it!), leaving a tremendous trail of power-ups behind it. Nova bombs (speaking of, consider launching one as the whale approaches to clear the enemies since you are going to get fully restocked anyway). Power shield. Twin blasters. Grey rings. you will need it all for the enemy that shows up as the whale leaves you.

Hydrogen Harvester PLASMA HYDRA

These hydrogen farmers must be working for Andross, because they are not very friendly. To inflict damage on the Hydra, you have to fire on the hydrogen collectors at the ends of its arms. Once you get a lock, do not let up. do not hesitate to fire retros. It can be hard to get a good firing angle.

The Hydra's moves include staring you down and firing missiles (from its hull, so direct some shots there to shoot them down), spinning around and firing missiles and plasma shots (roll and watch those arms!), and sitting on an angle to you with it is collector in your face, allowing you to pump laser into its miserable chassis, while it fires more missiles at you.

Once you take out the arms, the Hydra begins to spin erratically - keep shooting the central component. Feel free to lob some nova bombs to aid your cause, especially if you do not have twin blasters. The Hydra may sprout one long tail with a spiked wrecking ball on the end, and you should do your best not to get smacked with it. Finally, once you essentially defeated the Hydra, it may make a kamikaze-like lunge for you, so get out of the way as its energy meter is fully depleted. If you miss the final attack, or are fortunate enough to survive it, you take off for Venom. Hang on!

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5. Venom (space over Venom), Level 2

Oh, this is exciting! Going in through the rear, you gotta love it. I guess those lines on the map aren't arbitrary after all. This is another shoot-em-up stage similar to the Level 1 Venom, but here the enemies are a little tougher. For instance, there are now exploding grey drums to contend with - either shoot them from a distance, or move far to the other side as you pass by. And of course the interception buoys are being launched from the surface again. To top it off, plasma mines rain down on you if you decide to veer too far over to one side.

There is an initial wave of fighters - be ready and shooting and rolling. Then a wingman gets into trouble.

You have to contend with intercepting buoys and those exploding drums. Shoot them down, because if they get ahead of you, the successive impacts could leave you dead in seconds. Then you get some fighters, maybe a mine, and a bunch more exploding drums. A nova bomb might come in handy. there is a twin blaster and a nova bomb hidden for the dexterous. Then there'll be a supply ring.

A wingman gets into trouble and you have more exploding drums. A cruiser appears overhead. You get a bunch more fighters. Then we're back to intercepting buoys, and a wingman gets into trouble. Then you have a fat easy cruiser, and then a bunch of little ships to deal with. In this altercation, you will see a strange little brown wire-framed ship. If you shoot it, a power shield will appear - but it is nearly impossible to collect since the little ship rarely comes near your flight path, so when you destroy it, the powerup is usually out of reach, but you can get it, though it may distract you from other things that are going on! The ship's behaviour is random, but it does have a tendency to bob down lower and lower into your flight path. Give it some time, and if you are patient and pick the right moment to strike, you should be able to collect the shield after you shoot it.

You fly through a veritable forest of drums, this time of the non-exploding variety. You face two more wings of enemy fighters. Then you run into what I conjecture to be the creator of all these drums.

Super Gravity Powered METAL SMASHER

Peppy told me to fire my retros - I fired my retros, and I was still getting smacked when the two halves of the machine came together. The video game magazines, your wingmen, and many "strategy guides" all fail to tell you why the Metal Smasher continues to beat you. Or, more likely, why it continued to lay waste to me - I never noticed that when the two halves of the Smasher split up, it releases a whole lot of steel drums - and they hunt you down! If you do not shoot them before there are underway toward you from between the halves, you are as good as dead. And that is the key to it. If you can vaporize the flying drums, you have what it takes to beat the Metal Smasher.

The Metal Smasher introduces itself with a leap and bound out of the distance, then opens itself up in to two halves and stops. FIRST THINGS FIRST - shoot the METAL DRUMS that appear between the ships. With the drums gone you can relax and concentrate on avoiding being crushed. Now you want to get some licks in to one of the the little red panels - there is one on each side of the Smasher. It does not matter which one you target.

So anyway, the enemy is stopped and you are flying toward it at high speed. The enemy wants you to be trapped between the two halves when they come together. But that is elementary to avoid, you just fire your retros when Peppy screams at you to do so, and duck out of the way. If you do not want to rely on peppy, try to mentally back count and allow two whole seconds before the rig seems to be on top of you. Also, it might help to manoeuvre in the perpendicular direction to the Smasher's orientation - meaning, if it is pointed up and down, you go right, and so on. But that is not as important as when you fire the retro rockets.

you will repeat this approach and retreat process several times. (And do not forget to get rid of those drums! They can end your game in a hurry!) Every couple of rounds, the Smasher will sit back and fire an arc of ring bolts at you instead of trying to crush you. Again, get out of the way.

After a while, you will blow up half of the Smasher. Instead of continuing the fight, though, the Smasher just self-destructs as a shuttle departs from its bay. The Star Fox team takes off in hot pursuit.

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6. Venom (aerial passage), Level 2

This stage is really pretty simple. As long as you remember not to overcompensate when you manoeuvre, you will be fine. Also be careful when you are flying with your ship tilted sideways - you do not want to get your wing destroyed this late in the game.

Ships will come onto the corridor from your left, so you should stay on the right where it is safer. The ships that flash yellow when you hit them will leave yellow rings behind. do not get too close to the sides of those silver vehicles that just spin around on the runway; they will try to hit you, and you could end up with massive wing damage (or destruction), but little or no shield damage - if you are lucky enough to get away with damage, start looking for a yellow ring to refresh your wing.

Here goes. Ships and vehicles appear on your left. i would stay on the right and peek left just to get some shots off, but be careful because it is easy to get stuck behind pillars or ships that take too long to destroy. A twin blaster powerup appears early on on the right side. It might be triggered by defeating enemies - let me know if you do not see it. After the powerup, the stage opens up a bit, and you can move left and right more freely. Take full advantage of this.

you will come to a part where there are falling ceiling tiles, but if you want to brave them to pick up a nova bomb, you can. As I write this I feel that discretion is the better part of valor, and I squeezed left of the whole mess. You might want to duck right at the tail end and maybe even deliberately smack a pillar to get the supply ring.

Now you deal with more cruisers coming into the corridor. Be very careful here. Some smack the wall deliberately and bounce around in front of you, but the ones you really need to worry about are the ones that sort of float in and sit still, then take off again - there are dropping ring laser mines! If you see one of those little cone things on the floor, just get out of the way! If you can, shoot them down before they get the opportunity to lay them, but sometimes there'll be three cruisers on your screen at a time, and that is when you know there are going to lay a mine, because you just cannot destroy them that quickly, unless you are using bombs. do not forget to really pound on the ones that show yellow when you shoot them, because they leave those valuable yellow rings.

Four bikers show up. You need to destroy them to go on with the stage. Fire your retros if there is one right by you, then you will be behind it, and in firing position. they will also destroy themselves once in a while. When all are roasted, that shuttle that escaped from the Metal Smasher shows up! Keep right!

Central Guard Machines GALACTIC RIDERS

The shuttle will be the vehicle you will have the problems with. it is simply much too big a ship to be flying inside this corridor, and the fact that it will intentionally try to ram you does not help. The shuttle actually has no weapons, it can only launch bikes and mines. Also, the only way to destroy it is by firing inside its bay when its ramp opens.

The shuttle's first launch will be bikes. If you have twin blasters, you can bring its energy meter down below half - forget the bikes until the shuttle has completely closed its door. After you destroy the bikes, the shuttle will try to ram you. When it seems to have you nearly pinned, fire your retros and head over to the other side before it completes the ram. Then it will try to ram you again!

Provided you survive this, the shuttle will pull back and open up its ramp again. Be careful this time, though, it might launch a mine instead of the relatively harmless bikes. (Well, harmless in that they do not fire at you; as I wrote the first version of this FAQ, one of those buggers destroyed my left wing!) Your chances of getting seem to improve if the shuttle did not at least glance you while attempting the rams. It may also launch a mine while you battle the bikes.

If you do not have twin blasters, I would suggest using bombs here. You might not be able to survive more than one round of ramming, so the quicker you can destroy the shuttle, the better. Once you do destroy the shuttle, you find the end of the corridor.

Your ship sails into the brown-colored approach corridor of Andross' Telekinetic Amplifier. This will be your continue point should you bite it here and have one or more extra ships to play with. As Andross taunts you, you get a grey ring, then you fly over a closing beam, then under a closing beam, then you get a nova bomb. Then under, then over, and then through a series: under two closing beams, over two, under two, over two (do not hesitate to fire your retros!), and finally between two.

You want to tilt yourself to the right and grab the twin blasters between the wall and a closing door. Then tilt left and go between the wall and a second closing door. The door still closes about 2/3 of the way like in Level 1, though this time there is a little bracket on the wall side that you could theoretically smack into. it is really nothing to worry about, though.

Psychic Energy Core TELEKINETIC AMPLIFIER

This is more or less the same battle that you fought at the end of Level 1, but:

• The control cube is tougher here, and it will definitely take you more than one round to destroy.
• The cube is lined with a color triangular piece on two ends, giving you a color indication of how much damage you inflicted

First, destroy the eyes. It will probably two rounds or more of Andross spitting out the telekinetic particles and then sucking them in again for you to accomplish this. I find nova bombs do not really help much here. The faster you work, the better - playing cat-and-mouse tends to mean you get smacked around more by the telekinetic pieces. You also destroy more of them by mounting an aggressive offence. If you have the photon shot, pick an eye, sit high, and just blast away. Surprisingly, you will take little to no damage from this stance.

When each eye gets blown up, the whole face shatters, giving you a chance to fire directly at Andross' control cube. Fire fire fire! You won't destroy the cube in this first round, so you will soon see the face come back together again. Destroy the eyes like before (it won't take nearly as long - definitely a feasible one-round job if you have the twin blasters), and then utterly fry the control cube - the damage you inflicted in the previous round(s) is still there.

And then Andross blows apart. Your autopilot gets you out of the fortress before it is too late - you do not leave the super-cool way you came, regrettably, you go out the regular surface stage route like every other time.

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