Top Gun (NES)/Mission 4

In this final combat level, the enemies attack with all their power. They will fire missiles from the ground, the sea, and the sky to shoot down your F-14 Tomcat.

This combat level is especially difficult because these enemy fighters use acrobatic flying skills to elude your attack. Also, it's difficult to dodge the attack of the persistent Attack Copters. Lock-on quickly and shoot your missiles accurately.

The final enemy target is a military Space Shuttle. You have to shoot an abundance of missiles at it to destroy it, so be sure to save enough. After you destroy the shuttle, you have to fly back to the aircraft carrier Enterprise to finish the game.

Fly well and fulfill your mission. When your mission is complete, you will become the Top Gun.

It will take all of your training
This mission is like a sampling of all three previous combat missions. You begin flying above the clouds, just as you did in ../Mission 1/, where your only threat is enemy jet fighters. These fighters will try to be a little more evasive by rotating as they fly. After a while, you will transition to flying over the ocean, just like ../Mission 2/. The enemy jets will continue to appear, and boats will dot the water below, firing missiles and cannons at you. Shortly after that phase, you will switch to flying over land. All of the defenses present in ../Mission 3/ will be present, attempting to shoot you down.

By the time you begin flying over the ground, you will likely need to refuel. After you hook up with the tanker, and get far enough inland, the sun will set. The sky becomes dark, and the ground will take on a white, snowy appearance. Despite the change in environment, the enemy contingent will not change. You will continue to face air and land-based opponents. When you see this environment change, be prepared because the enemy space shuttle launch site is rapidly approaching.

Boss: Enemy space shuttle
You've had to fly over many types of terrain to make it to this location. Once the shuttle launch pad comes into view, begin pelting it with your cannons and missiles as rapidly as possible. If you chose T-33 missiles, they are very effective against the shuttle, but you'll have to be very careful not to waste a single missile on any other target. Using T-11 missiles may not help you defeat the shuttle quickly enough, but using T-22 missiles should be the right mix of damage and quantity.

Naturally, the space shuttle behaves just like the aircraft carrier from ../Mission 2/ and the missile silos from ../Mission 3/. It will defend itself with very accurate shots, making a direct assault impossible to survive. Although the shuttle has the most "health" out of any target, you do have a fairly long approach to attack it. Even if you run out of missiles, you can take the shuttle out with your machine gun alone as long as you attack fast and persistently. Don't give up, watch out for enemy jets flying into the area, and you should destroy the shuttle before you get too close and are forced to loop around for another attempt. Once the shuttle is destroyed, you will come back to the Enterprise for one last landing. Expand the section below to learn about the game's ending.