Superman (NES)/Chapter 1

The first chapter should serve as an introduction to controlling and fight with Superman throughout the game. You begin, as always, as Clark Kent in the Daily Planet building.

Starting out
Inside the Daily Planet, you can speak with Lois Lane, Jimmy, and the Copy Chief to get an idea of what's going on. Lois will inform you that strange things are going on near "Metro Park", and that you can see it's location by pressing. By Metro Park, she means Metropolis Park. Head left to the door of the office and press to exit and head outside.

As soon as you exit the building an armed gang member will be waiting outside. They tend to shoot almost immediately upon appearing on the screen. Your best bet is to jump up in the air as soon as you see them in anticipation of their gun. Once up in the air, you can leap over the gang member and the bullet he fires, and continue right towards the first phone booth. Press to enter the phone booth and, voilà, Clark becomes Superman. Now you will run faster and punch harder, as well as have access to all of your super-powers.

Fast track to Metropolis Park
While you have the option to walk to Metropolis Park, it is far faster to fly there. Press to bring up the sub-screen, and move the cursor to activate the Super Flight power. Press again to return to the game, (beat up the gang member if you like), and press  to launch into the air. The map will come up, and two locations will be lit up, Mt. Royal and Metropolis Park. Obviously, you want to fly to the park, so press until the cursor rests under the right location, and press  to begin flying there. You will be shown an overhead view of Superman flying over the streets and buildings of Metropolis as he streaks toward his destination.

Hunting for trouble
Once you arrive, you will touch down in the middle of the park. The park is full of low-lives and thugs that you can choose to deal with or ignore. However, there will be no indication as to whether the trouble you are seeking out lies to your left or right. As it happens, it lies to the right, so run in that direction. You will exit the park and enter another block of buildings. There will be more thugs for you to deal with. The first entrance you come to will be the Wexel Company, and the interior contains a couple of enemies, but nothing important. Continue right, past a telephone booth until you reach the next building, which happens to be the Apollo Theater. This is the building you must enter.

Note: If you continue to run right, past the theater, you will enter a dead-end street. At the end of this street are two FBI agents, one of whom will inform you that zombies can be stopped with cold breath. This is important information that you should make use of in the theater.

Clearing the commotion
Once inside the theater, you will discover a new type of enemy: a zombie. The theater is crawling with them. No matter how many times you punch them, they will refuse to go down unless you hit them with a blast of Super Breath-2 first. Once you do that, they will stand completely motionless and drop after two hits. While you may be tempted to simply race past the zombies and get to the boss, you would be missing out on a great opportunity, three in fact. Some buildings (and even some outdoor locations) contain sections where you can receive a super-power upgrade if you clear the area of enemies. The first three floors of the Apollo Theater happen to be such an area.

It's worth it to take your time and slowly eliminate all of the zombies on the first three floors in order to obtain the super-power upgrades they provide. Once you clear away the zombies on the first floor, you will receive a Super Spin upgrade. Then drop down through the gap in the ground to the floor below. Clear the zombies here to receive an upgrade to your X-Ray Vision. Drop down to the next floor and clear those zombies to get an upgrade for Super Flight. After that, head down to the floor below, which happens to be the last floor. There you will find a group of armed gang members. Dodge the bullets they fire at you and take them out until all you are left with is the boss.

Boss: Zoara
The boss of this chapter is a woman who is identified as Zoara in the instruction manual. She appears to be an original creation and does not correspond to any known villian in the Superman universe. She wears an eye-patch and attacks Superman with a whip. She's also quite fond of leaping into the air and jumping over, or on top of, Superman as she fights. She doesn't require any complicated strategy. Simply stand on the ground and punch the air in front of you repeatedly. She will walk into your attacks. When she jumps in the air, move out from beneath her in the opposite direction, turn around, and continue punching. If it's going to slowly for you, you can attempt to close the distance between you, but that will increase the likelihood that she will hit you with her whip. Even if you sustain too much damage and revert to Clark Kent, don't give up! You will do less damage with each punch, but you can still beat her. Once you do, she will go down in an explosion, and the Daily Planet headline will announce your victory (mistakingly crediting you with the defeat of the Zod Gang who you won't encounter until the end of the game.) Then it will announce trouble in the Stock Market, which you'll have to investigate in.