6/18/99
Version 0.1
By: Regdren
Welcome to my Giga Wings FAQ. I'm writing this FAQ in the hope that
other, more experienced players of this game will see that even someone
like me can make an FAQ, and post their own, more effective advice. I
also hope that in the meantime, people who play this worthy shooting
game will extend their life expectancy in the game by my advice. In case
you haven't already guessed, this is also my very first FAQ.
Giga Wings in a vertical scrolling arcade shooter by Capcom that
was recently released in my area. Where I live, it's 50 cents a credit,
which it a bit steep for a shooter in my opinion. However, it has a
couple of innovations, as well as the ability to have ridiculous amounts
of moving objects on the screen at once, as anyone who has played it
will tell you.
Table of contents:
1.Basic equipment that every plane has
2.Scoring Points
3.The planes
4.In-Game General Strategy
5.Miscellaneous
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1. Basic equipment that every plane has:
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Reflect shield: This is something new to shooters (a least, I've never
seen this before) that has serious ramifications as far as the game play
is concerned. If you hold down the fire button, in about a split second
a shield will appear around your plane for a short time. Not only are
you invincible while the shield is active, but any enemy shots that hit
you will bounce off and head for the enemy that fired it. This can be a
potent weapon, as many enemies see fit to fire huge amounts of shots at
you. The shield expands considerably just before disappearing,
reflecting any shots in its vicinity. After you use this, the reflect
meter as the bottom will exhaust itself, then start refilling. It
doesn't take too long for this to refill, I'd say around five and a half
seconds, but it is long enough for you to do considerable worrying
between then and when it says "OK" again, indicating that it's ready for
another use.
Force bomb: Every plane's force bomb has a slightly different effect,
but they all have two critical things in common: they dissolve all enemy
shots and make you invincible when it's active, and they tend to do
quite bit of damage to the enemy. You start with two bombs, and you can
usually find one in each stage. If you lose a plane, your bomb stock is
returned to two.
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2. Scoring points
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Naturally, you'll get points for shooting down enemies. However, if
you're aiming for a high score, you'll have to take some other things
into consideration.
First is the bonus icon. Bonus icons appear when you kill most
enemies, as well as from reflecting shots. When you touch one, you get a
base amount of points depending on the level you're on, plus some
multiplier times the number of icons of that type you've collected. The
multiplier is dependent on the type of icon you collected. You can get a
lot of points from collecting icons, but there's a catch: you don't get
the points until after you finish that stage. Therefore, committing
suicide for some icons that would put you over the current high score
makes no sense, since you wouldn't get the points until after the stage
anyway.
There some other end of stage bonuses as well. Fist is the boss
bonus, consisting of how much of it you've destroyed. If you go straight
for its medallion core without destroying its turrets and other
equipment, you'll get a very low boss bonus. Still, if a boss is really
giving you a hard time, you should probably just get rid of it as fast
as possible.
Next is the shot down bonus, which is based on the percentage of
enemy aircraft destroyed in the stage. Not much to say about this, but
being thorough helps.
Finally is the bonus for bombs left in stock. This is pretty
insidious, as it sometimes encourages people to die trying to conserve
their bombs. Lives for points is definitely a trade you don't want to
do; pretend this bonus doesn't exist while you're playing.
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3. The Planes
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Each plane has a different fighting style and pilot personality, though
I do not yet have the pilots' background information.
Raijin: This plane has the weakest forward shot of all the planes, but
it also fires a pair of wave cannons diagonally up left and up right.
The waves fire over a wide area, making it easy to take out enemies that
come in wide formations. This setup is also effective against large
enemies, since both wave cannons and the frontal attack hit at the same
time. This plane runs into the most problems when it has to destroy
small, durable targets, such as the medallion core of many bosses. Its
force bomb fires lighting in every direction.
Carmine: This fighter is the most powerful and also the fastest in the
game. Its frontal attack, which it its only attack, deals lots and lots
of damage to anything in its way. You'll need its extra speed for
dodging, because the nature of its attack requires you to get within the
firing line of most enemies. This fighter also has problems with taking
out enemies to the side, and relies on its speed to carry it from one
enemy to the next. Its force bomb is a much stronger version of its
normal attack.
Porchka: The Porchka has a very strong frontal attack, second only to
the Carmine and fully twice as strong as that of the Widerstand. It also
fires homing missiles, which are not that strong but can hit an enemy
anywhere on the screen. They sometimes don't home in on enemies behind
you, however. It uses the force bomb to summon a hail of ice boulders
that affect enemies both in front of and behind it.
Widerstand: This plane's frontal attack, while only as powerful as that
of the Raijin, fires in a constant stream rather than the Raijin's
bursts, so it ends up doing significantly more damage. Still only half
as much as the Porchka and not nearly as much as the Carmine. This
plane's main feature is the bombs that it fires out of the pods on
either side. These bombs explode either on impact with an enemy or after
traveling a certain distance. The explosion lingers, and damages not
only the enemy it hits but anything in the explosion's vicinity. The
thing that sets this weapon apart, though, is that it can be aimed up,
to the side, straight behind you, or any angle in between. The way to
aim the bomb is (you probably won't like this) to stop firing. When
you're not firing, moving up will make your pods move further back along
your plane, while moving down makes the pods go forward. With practice,
then, a good Widerstand player can aim at anything on the screen
whenever he or she desires to. The only drawback, obviously, is that you
can't aim and fire at the same time. Still, the versatility of this
plane truly stands out, even if its attack power does not. The
Widerstand's force bomb is kind of weird; an icon appears in the center
of the screen that sucks in shots from off screen that damage anything
that gets in their way.
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4. In-Game Strategy:
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I will say this right off the bat: I am not a great player. Nonetheless,
often I wince at the way other people play this game, and this section
is my way of venting without having to grab these people by their
collars and scream, "NO, YOU FOOL! YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!"
First and foremost is the subject of avoiding enemy fire. Although
the folks at Capcom gave you the bombs and shield to protect you, you
should still work on your dodging skills before anything else. The
better you are at simply avoiding enemy fire, the more you'll be able to
conserve your shield for damage dealing reflections, and your bombs for
truly hopeless situations. Every enemy has a firing pattern or set of
patterns that it does not deviate from; learn these patterns and you'll
be much better equipped to avoid these attacks. Part of it is
psychological, too; if you panic when you see a mess of shots heading
your way, chances are you won't have the presence of mind to avoid the
attack.
That having been said, the reflect shield is a powerful tool,
both as a weapon and as a defense. Reflected shots don't do huge amounts
of damage, but you can often reflect so many shots at once that their
total damage adds up to something big. Plus, each reflected shot turns
into a bonus icon after it hits an enemy. The more confident you are in
your dodging, the more you'll be able to save your shield for reflecting
really dense clusters of enemy fire. Still, if you have a charged shield
bar and it looks like you won't be able to avoid an attack, you
shouldn't hesitate to use the shield; aside from reflecting shots, the
shield makes you invulnerable to everything else. You have to be able to
see it coming at least a split second before hand, though; starting to
charge the shield when an enemy shot is right on top of you will get you
killed. Also, don't rely on the shield to get you through the game; five
and a half seconds might not sound that long, but it's more than enough
time for a boss to shoot you down if you're not good at dodging.
If I ever die with even one bomb still in stock, I feel like
whacking myself upside the head. You get a six bombs per credit, plus
any you pick up during the game. USE THEM. As I said previously, bombs
make you invincible, and unlike the shield it takes effect as soon as
you press the button. Thus, you can often turn bombs into extra lives by
pressing the button at the right time. True, it is a weapon of last
resort, but last resort comes up pretty often in this game. If a shot is
too close to you for the shield to activate in time, or your shield is
still recharging, use the bomb! Don't worry so much about conserving
them; when you become adept at dodging enemy fire, you'll be able to
conserve your bombs by not needing them as often. But when you do need
them, use them. I just can't stress that enough.
The last thing I have to say about playing this game is never to
put yourself at unnecessary risk for the sake of points. Those shiny
bonus icons can be seductive, but when there are enemy shots on top of a
cluster of them you'd best not get too greedy. Extended survival will
bring you a much higher score than mindless icon-grabbing.
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5. Miscellaneous
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If I find the time to update the FAQ, I hope to add a story
section, including the quotes from each character at various points in
the game. I will not include the conversations between characters in two
players games, because of the immense number of possible conversations,
plus the fact that I have no friends that play this game. When I get
better, I'll also include the endings and a level and boss section. I
will not write complete level and boss walkthroughs as my memory is not
precise enough to recall, for example, the amount of enemy planes that
attack at such-and-such a time, but I can offer general strategies.
Anyone with questions or comments about this FAQ can E-mail me at
regdren@hotmail.com.
I doubt that anyone would want to copy this, but just in case, I'd
better be sure. This material is protected by copyright laws and cannot
be reproduced for any reason without my permission. There, that ought to
cover it.
Thanks to Capcom for making this great shooter, and thanks to you,
the reader, for having the patience to read through my FAQ.
