9th April 2015, 8:51 PM
I've been continuing to play the game since writing the review, and am now up to the final level in hard mode, Story 4-10. The first difficulty is Stories 1 and 2, and the second harder mode is Stories 3 and 4. Each Story is five levels, one half of each mode. Oddly, when the story goes from "1" to "2' or "3" to "4", the second number does not reset, so when you beat 1-5 you go to 2-6; that's how the final level is 4-10. It's a little odd, but it works. Anyway, I've gotten to the final boss, Geldra, again, but this time wasn't so lucky as to beat him on my first try; I've died at him three times now, unfortunately. Argh. I feel like I should have won by now. He doesn't seem THAT much harder than before...
A couple of things I need to clarify:
-If there are three enemies on screen, enemies who otherwise should spawn won't. You can abuse this to get troublesome enemies to not appear in some places; read below for an example of this.
- If you back up a screen you can get an enemy who isn't moving much to disappear, and they will not respawn. This is a VERY useful strategy for dealing with those guys who're standing somewhere where they will kill you if you go to them and it's impossible to attack them from where you are. Again, more on this below.
- In Hard mode enemies are also faster, they don't only all shoot at you. More below.
So, I've been playing hard mode. I'm going to discuss some of my strategies for tougher parts in the levels in Story 4, the second half of hard mode. I mentioned in the review that all enemies shoot at you in hard mode, but that's not the only difference. In addition to that, they also move much faster. They really zip around in Hard, and it can make for trouble. Figuring out timing for when you can jump or drop in Hard is a lot trickier than Normal because of how quickly they can move towards you while you are falling/jumping. There are a few places I just have to go and hope I make it based on luck. Luck is a factor in this game, though good play (read: good memorization and execution) will minimize the luck element.
Most of hard mode plays just like normal but with faster, more aggressive enemies, but some parts are made much harder. I'll talk about a few below.
- First, there are two hard parts in level 4-6, the first level of the second half of hard mode. The first is a part in the middle, right after the area with doors in midair that drop enemies on you. That bit is easy, but the part after that with a guy who pops out of a door, ducks, and immediately fires is not! That part's really tough. I only found two ways to get past this guy: Either, first, jump with perfect timing, bounce of of his rear half (make sure it's the rear half, land on the front and you'll bounce back into his fire!), take the hit, and keep going (next you need to immediately jump up onto that platform RIGHT on the edge, in front of the guy up there as he prepares to drop down; that gunner behind you will follow); or alternately, have a bullet on the screen at exactly the right place to hit that guy as he appears, and then fire again before he can shoot so he dies without firing. You need good positioning for the first strategy, and perfect shot timing for the second, but it's the only way past this bit.
The second hard part is near the end, the part that's also very hard in level 2-6 -- that part with a laser and a orange guy right after it that shoots RIGHT along the platform you land on after jumping through the laser beam while it's not firing. I died lots of times before figuring out how to get past this. I eventually had to resort to good old "backtrack so the enemy is exactly one screen offscreen to make that guy vanish" (I think I mention this tactic in the review); it worked. Of course you have to be very careful while using this strategy, because backtracking will re-trigger enemies you have fought before but from the opposite direction; when doing this, know which enemies can appear! Here there is a white gunner who can appear if you back up even slightly too far. Getting the distance just right, to make the guy vanish but not respawn the white guy, is tricky but doable. With that I managed to beat the level.
- In 4-7, the level is short but hard. The toughest thing here are the guys who shoot right along the ground in that final stretch where you're going down that multilayer area with lots of staircases. Those guys are nasty, they stand right where you can't hit them, but can kill you on sight! "Back up a screen" is very useful here too, though watch out for the numerous other enemies which spawn.
- 4-8 is the second appearance of the game's longest level. I found my practice from struggling with 2-8 for so long really paid off, and I found this level much easier than it was before! I did die, but it didn't take nearly as long as I expected, and I actually beat the level the first time I reached that last jumping puzzle with the narrow platforms... though I was helped by the fact that no enemies spawned after the platform with the four consecutive doors on it. I don't know why that happened, but I presume it's a glitch (not sure though), but it sure was helpful! I'd remembered the positioning for making the jumps in that last stretch with the very narrow platforms, so I got to the end. Otherwise... same strategies as in 2-8, retreat to a door to fight the flying enemies, wait for them to dive, then pop out and shoot them. And shoot fire-birds a second time if you can, after they fly diagonally at you, for extra points.
- 4-9 is another level that my practice from the first loop was very helpful. This level was only slightly harder than the first time, but the last stretch did give me trouble, that last bit particularly; the fast enemies made the last drop, where you drop from after that double laser into the last area in front of the door with three enemies, really hard! Those guys almost never cooperated and got out of the way, and "back off to make them vanish" doesn't always work when enemies are moving around a lot, it's more reliable when they stand still. Getting past the end of this was harder than I thought, but eventually I got lucky and managed to get down there without dying. So yeah, just keep at it.
- 4-10 I haven't beaten yet, but as I said, today I finally got to Geldra himself, so I saw the whole stage. There are two hard points in this level. First is the same area that's hard in 1-5, 2-10, and 3-5 -- the bit in the middle of the level with the small box pyramid followed by several floating platforms with grenadiers and gunners on them. This time strategies from those three previous versions of this encounter will not work, the more aggressive enemies change everything. My strategy from 2-10 was useless here. See, in that level my strategy was to jump to the top of the box pyramid, shoot the two grenadiers off their platform (backing off if only one was there to make a second spawn), jump up to the platform they were on, jump from there to the top platform after them, and then jump off of that to the box that ends the segment. Several of those jumps required perfect timing, but the strategy worked because with three enemies on screen the yellow gunner on the platform right after the one with the grenadiers will not spawn because of the games' "only three enemies on screen at once" rule, and with him gone you have a moment to jump up to that top platform before the grenadiers recover. (There's also a brown+green gunner below, for the third enemy.). However, in 4-10, that brown+green gunner jumps over the box pyramid at you, so there are only two enemies on screen and the yellow gunner spawns. My eventual strategy in this area is to go to that top box as before, shoot off the two grenadiers, jump forward, shoot the grenadier who landed on the ground, shoot the yellow guy with perfect timing the instant he drops down from his higher platform, then be ready to shoot him two more times as he appears on screen, before he can start shooting; he shoots a solid wall of fire, there'd be no way to hide behind a box and pop up in breaks between his shots to shoot at him. With good timing this strategy works reasonably well.
The second hard part is, of course the Geldra room at the end. Now, in the version in 2-10, I never found a safe spot; I had to keep moving around, until I ended up at the left edge for the battle. This time though, enemies drop faster and from different places as before, it seems, and I found a safe spot just to the right of the center, along that line around the box around the area Leila is chained up. I just knelt there and got through the battle without too much difficulty, up until the point where Geldra killed me of course. In 2-10 I remember a guy dropping on me if I tried ducking where I was this time, but not here, so I guess enemy placements are different here or something. Geldra himself is the same, just shoot when he does, shoot his bullets to stop them, and fire fast to hit him as much as you can, but somehow I'm having a harder time now. I'm sure I'll beat him in the not too distant future though, this is a doable challenge.
So yeah, that's it, that's Rolling Thunder. The more I play this game, the more I love it! Rolling Thunder is amazing, and is absolutely one of the best' 80s games, and one of Namco's very best games ever as well. I'd love to see a new sidescrolling Rolling Thunder game.
A couple of things I need to clarify:
-If there are three enemies on screen, enemies who otherwise should spawn won't. You can abuse this to get troublesome enemies to not appear in some places; read below for an example of this.
- If you back up a screen you can get an enemy who isn't moving much to disappear, and they will not respawn. This is a VERY useful strategy for dealing with those guys who're standing somewhere where they will kill you if you go to them and it's impossible to attack them from where you are. Again, more on this below.
- In Hard mode enemies are also faster, they don't only all shoot at you. More below.
So, I've been playing hard mode. I'm going to discuss some of my strategies for tougher parts in the levels in Story 4, the second half of hard mode. I mentioned in the review that all enemies shoot at you in hard mode, but that's not the only difference. In addition to that, they also move much faster. They really zip around in Hard, and it can make for trouble. Figuring out timing for when you can jump or drop in Hard is a lot trickier than Normal because of how quickly they can move towards you while you are falling/jumping. There are a few places I just have to go and hope I make it based on luck. Luck is a factor in this game, though good play (read: good memorization and execution) will minimize the luck element.
Most of hard mode plays just like normal but with faster, more aggressive enemies, but some parts are made much harder. I'll talk about a few below.
- First, there are two hard parts in level 4-6, the first level of the second half of hard mode. The first is a part in the middle, right after the area with doors in midair that drop enemies on you. That bit is easy, but the part after that with a guy who pops out of a door, ducks, and immediately fires is not! That part's really tough. I only found two ways to get past this guy: Either, first, jump with perfect timing, bounce of of his rear half (make sure it's the rear half, land on the front and you'll bounce back into his fire!), take the hit, and keep going (next you need to immediately jump up onto that platform RIGHT on the edge, in front of the guy up there as he prepares to drop down; that gunner behind you will follow); or alternately, have a bullet on the screen at exactly the right place to hit that guy as he appears, and then fire again before he can shoot so he dies without firing. You need good positioning for the first strategy, and perfect shot timing for the second, but it's the only way past this bit.
The second hard part is near the end, the part that's also very hard in level 2-6 -- that part with a laser and a orange guy right after it that shoots RIGHT along the platform you land on after jumping through the laser beam while it's not firing. I died lots of times before figuring out how to get past this. I eventually had to resort to good old "backtrack so the enemy is exactly one screen offscreen to make that guy vanish" (I think I mention this tactic in the review); it worked. Of course you have to be very careful while using this strategy, because backtracking will re-trigger enemies you have fought before but from the opposite direction; when doing this, know which enemies can appear! Here there is a white gunner who can appear if you back up even slightly too far. Getting the distance just right, to make the guy vanish but not respawn the white guy, is tricky but doable. With that I managed to beat the level.
- In 4-7, the level is short but hard. The toughest thing here are the guys who shoot right along the ground in that final stretch where you're going down that multilayer area with lots of staircases. Those guys are nasty, they stand right where you can't hit them, but can kill you on sight! "Back up a screen" is very useful here too, though watch out for the numerous other enemies which spawn.
- 4-8 is the second appearance of the game's longest level. I found my practice from struggling with 2-8 for so long really paid off, and I found this level much easier than it was before! I did die, but it didn't take nearly as long as I expected, and I actually beat the level the first time I reached that last jumping puzzle with the narrow platforms... though I was helped by the fact that no enemies spawned after the platform with the four consecutive doors on it. I don't know why that happened, but I presume it's a glitch (not sure though), but it sure was helpful! I'd remembered the positioning for making the jumps in that last stretch with the very narrow platforms, so I got to the end. Otherwise... same strategies as in 2-8, retreat to a door to fight the flying enemies, wait for them to dive, then pop out and shoot them. And shoot fire-birds a second time if you can, after they fly diagonally at you, for extra points.
- 4-9 is another level that my practice from the first loop was very helpful. This level was only slightly harder than the first time, but the last stretch did give me trouble, that last bit particularly; the fast enemies made the last drop, where you drop from after that double laser into the last area in front of the door with three enemies, really hard! Those guys almost never cooperated and got out of the way, and "back off to make them vanish" doesn't always work when enemies are moving around a lot, it's more reliable when they stand still. Getting past the end of this was harder than I thought, but eventually I got lucky and managed to get down there without dying. So yeah, just keep at it.
- 4-10 I haven't beaten yet, but as I said, today I finally got to Geldra himself, so I saw the whole stage. There are two hard points in this level. First is the same area that's hard in 1-5, 2-10, and 3-5 -- the bit in the middle of the level with the small box pyramid followed by several floating platforms with grenadiers and gunners on them. This time strategies from those three previous versions of this encounter will not work, the more aggressive enemies change everything. My strategy from 2-10 was useless here. See, in that level my strategy was to jump to the top of the box pyramid, shoot the two grenadiers off their platform (backing off if only one was there to make a second spawn), jump up to the platform they were on, jump from there to the top platform after them, and then jump off of that to the box that ends the segment. Several of those jumps required perfect timing, but the strategy worked because with three enemies on screen the yellow gunner on the platform right after the one with the grenadiers will not spawn because of the games' "only three enemies on screen at once" rule, and with him gone you have a moment to jump up to that top platform before the grenadiers recover. (There's also a brown+green gunner below, for the third enemy.). However, in 4-10, that brown+green gunner jumps over the box pyramid at you, so there are only two enemies on screen and the yellow gunner spawns. My eventual strategy in this area is to go to that top box as before, shoot off the two grenadiers, jump forward, shoot the grenadier who landed on the ground, shoot the yellow guy with perfect timing the instant he drops down from his higher platform, then be ready to shoot him two more times as he appears on screen, before he can start shooting; he shoots a solid wall of fire, there'd be no way to hide behind a box and pop up in breaks between his shots to shoot at him. With good timing this strategy works reasonably well.
The second hard part is, of course the Geldra room at the end. Now, in the version in 2-10, I never found a safe spot; I had to keep moving around, until I ended up at the left edge for the battle. This time though, enemies drop faster and from different places as before, it seems, and I found a safe spot just to the right of the center, along that line around the box around the area Leila is chained up. I just knelt there and got through the battle without too much difficulty, up until the point where Geldra killed me of course. In 2-10 I remember a guy dropping on me if I tried ducking where I was this time, but not here, so I guess enemy placements are different here or something. Geldra himself is the same, just shoot when he does, shoot his bullets to stop them, and fire fast to hit him as much as you can, but somehow I'm having a harder time now. I'm sure I'll beat him in the not too distant future though, this is a doable challenge.
So yeah, that's it, that's Rolling Thunder. The more I play this game, the more I love it! Rolling Thunder is amazing, and is absolutely one of the best' 80s games, and one of Namco's very best games ever as well. I'd love to see a new sidescrolling Rolling Thunder game.