A) Information B) Full weapons shop C) Jet Shoes shop D) Inn E) Psycho Barrier shop F) Information G) Scanner Goggles shop
There are a couple of things worth noting about this stage:
Area 5 requires Dan to destroy three hearts before proceeding to the final battle of the game. You are free to destroy them in any order that you like. What follows is only one recommended method to complete the area.
Every time you destroy one of the hearts, your health meter is instantly and completely restored.
Additionally, most enemies in this area drop red energy coins which provide Dan with 20 units of energy as opposed to 10.
From the start, proceed right until you reach door A. The man inside will tell you that you must destroy the three hearts, and then proceed through the left gate. Then continue to the right until you reach door B. In here, you will be given the opportunity to purchase all seven weapons for the cost of 250 units of energy. This is only worthwhile if you happened to miss any of the weapons along the way. Otherwise, ignore it.
Destroy the hearts. Proceed through the right gate. The next area has three passageways. The outer two lead to two of the hearts, while the middle passage is the return passage. This walkthrough recommends that you walk all the way to the far right passage first, passage a. Proceed to the end of the section, and take the passage.
From passage a, cross the hallway to passage b. Begin walking all the way over to the left. It's not a bad idea, as you are walking along, to preemptively fire your Spider Shot, as that has a good likelihood of clearing away minor enemies as soon as they arrive on the screen. Pass through the gate and continue to the left.
Continue until you reach the next gate. Pass through it, take the elevator up and exit to the right. This will lead you to the first heart. Hit the heart as frequently as possible with any weapon besides the Heat Knife or Thunder Sword. You can even stand directly below it and hit it with the upgraded Rolling Shot. No matter what, when you defeat it, all of your health will be restored. Take passage c out of the room.
This elevator has a secret floor. The area that you arrive in is the same area you will arrive from all of the hearts. It contains a variety of large insect enemies. It also contains three doors, some of which are shops that sell you special items. The Jet Shoes behind door C might be tempting, but you are still best off with the Psycho Barrier behind door E, especially when fighting against the boss. You shouldn't need the Inn behind door D since you likely arrived here with all your health after destroying a heart.
The next heart is closer than you may realize. After passing through the gate, you will find an elevator. It only appear to travel between two floors. However, if you push down while on the lower of the two floors, the elevator will pass through the floor and stop at a lower level. The second heart is in here. Head inside and destroy this heart. Then take passage d to return to the area you just came from.
When you return from the heart, head to the gate, and take the elevator down one floor. Exit to the left, and take passage e. This leads you to the right end of a long lower tunnel. Head left to reach passage f, and you will be back in the area described in step 3. Now head back to the left and take passage g.
Begin walking to the left. Eventually, you will encounter passage h. Take it, and traverse the short upper hallway to passage i. Then head to the right until you reach door F. Inside, you will get important hints on how to find all three hearts.
"Follow the green" refers to passage a.
"Go beyond the wall" refers to the wall beyond door G.
"Take a ride down" refers to the false elevator floor to the right of passage e.
Return through passages i and h and continue walking to the left. Pass through the gate, carefully remove enemies that block your path, and proceed until you see what looks like three passages side by side. In fact, only the middle passage is real, passage j. Jump through it.
Part of this wall is an illusion. You will arrive in another area occupied by large insects. Carefully remove them and advance to door G. In here, you can purchase Scanner Goggles. You might think they would come in handy when looking for secret passages, but they do absolutely nothing so don't buy them. Instead, proceed to the right and approach the large wall. The middle of the wall is an illusion. You can actually jump through it and walk through the wall to the other side.
On the other side of the wall, walk to the gate, take the elevator down, and exit to the left. You have found the third and final heart. Once you destroy it, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that all of the enemies will disappear and you can proceed to the end of the game unimpeded. The bad news is, the boss of the game will begin rising in health at an alarming rate, so you shouldn't waste any time. Head through passage k.
From the familiar arrival point, head down the elevator back to passage e, and then through passage f, and start making your way back to the left. Pass doors B and A and take the left gate. You will pass door H in which an alien will tell you that you must have destroyed all three hearts to proceed beyond this point. Exit and continue to the left to passage l. Take passage l, and you will arrive in a small room with door I to the left. Carefully leap over the spikes and take door I to reach the final encounter of the game.
Unlike other boss fights, the boss of Area 5 is a gigantic demon which you must actually invade and destroy the heart of. While you attempt this, the screen will scroll along automatically. As it does, you will encounter mouths of varying size which will attack you when they are visible on the screen. If you get squeezed along the left side of the screen, you will die instantly. Focus more on avoiding the projectiles that the mouths spit than destroying the mouths themselves. You want as much health as possible for the final battle. After one large and two small mouths, you will have to dive down a hole to get inside the demon. A fourth and final mouth will spit fire at you, but you can safely run underneath it as soon as you see it. Eventually you will arrive at the heart of the demon and the scrolling will stop. There are two strategies you can employ. If you still have most of your health, you can stand on the raised platform behind the heart, and attack it from a close distance with either the Psycho Blossom or the Thunder Sword. However, if you are low on health, you should remain on the far left side of the screen. The heart's projectiles can't hit you there, and although you can't jump very high, you can jump just high enough to fire a Thunder Sword or Psycho Blossom and damage the heart. Once you have removed all of its health, the demon will die, and you will be presented with the ending of the game. Congratulations.
