RoboWarrior is played in a linear fashion from the first Period to the eighth Period. Only the first Period contains one stage. All subsequent periods beyond the first contain anywhere from two to five stages. You will face off against a boss for the first time at the end of Period 3. There are no bosses in Period 4, but you will face at least one boss from Period 5 on, and two bosses in Period 7 and 8.
Throughout the game, you will collect item tiles. Ten of those items can be stored and accessed via your inventory screen (shown to the right). In order to utilize most of these items, you must press 
, move the cursor to a desired item, press 
to select that item and return to the stage, and press while on the stage to activate it. The only item this does not apply to is Candles, which activate automatically if you select them while standing in darkness.
Stages[edit]
The goal of each regular stage is simply to reach the end, locate the Key tile, and collect it to open the exit which leads to the next stage. Some stages contain irregular features which are listed below:
- Looping stages: You will find that some stages seem to loop indefinitely. If you play these stages without realizing that they are looping, you will eventually come to recognize some of the features of the stage and realize you have seem them before. In order to break out of the endless loop, you must locate a Chalice tile which prevents the stage from looping and allows you to advance to the end of the stage where you will find the Key.
- Darkness stages: Certain stages (specifically, four of them) contain no lighting. They are cast in pitch black, requiring you to provide you own source of light in order to see where to go. Normally, Candles are effective in lighting the darkness, but they only light up a little of the space around you, and they blow out eventually. Lamps are far more effective since they light up the entire stage, and they never run out. They are, however, much more difficult to find.
- "Empty" stages: Some stages appear to be void of any blocks or terrain to bomb. You will be able to walk a long distance through these stages and encounter nothing but enemies and the occasional staircase to an underground tunnel. Eventually, however, you will reach the end of the stage, and it will transition from being completely empty to being completely full of blocks. In these situations, the use of the Megaton Bomb can be an extremely efficient way of clearing every single block.
Stage features[edit]
In addition to blocks and enemies that you must bomb in order to find items, there are a number of features to keep an eye out for that can boost your inventory and score. Remember that boosting your score will improve your defensive power.
Underground tunnels[edit]
Every time you discover a staircase, it will lead to an underground portion of the stage. All underground sections are pitch black, and require some kind of lighting in order to see. They contain no blocks, but item tiles are randomly scattered around the floor for you to collect. Tunnels are excellent sources for Point tiles and Award Medals. However, you will never find Candles. Enemies will appear on the screen as usual. It is never a good idea to use up a Lamp in these tunnels, as they are hard to find, and better suited for Darkness stages described above. To escape from a tunnel, you must locate the staircase that will bring you back up to the surface at the same location you left from. These staircases are always positioned at the same height as the staircase that you descended. Therefore, if you end up in a tunnel without any lighting, do not press up or down and simply walk straight to the right, and you will stumble upon the staircase and be returned. Assuming you have a good supply of Candles, the best strategy is to light one (use a Super Charger as well to speed up) and snake up and down the corridor in search of items to collect. When your candle blows out, light up another one. Tunnels vary in length, usually in proportion to the length of the stage you came from. Tunnels should not require more than three or four candles to get through.
Treasure rooms[edit]
In many stages, you will notice certain sections of the top wall that are distinguished from the rest of the wall. Often, it is possible to bomb this parts of the walls and create an opening to explore. If you pass through them, you will wind up in a single room with a set of statues. Some of these statues provide you with items if you bomb them, but some do not. If you happen to bomb one of the statues that do not contain an item, you will be unable to find items in any of the remaining statues. Bombing the wrong statue will prevent you from discovering items from any of the remaining item-baring statues. The walkthrough will illustrate which statues contain what items, and which statues to avoid bombing. Treasure rooms are the only place within the game where you will be able to collect Megaton Bombs for free (you can purchase them from the Item Shop).
Item duplication pools[edit]
Ordinarily, water is hazardous to your ZED. While he can briefly walk across small streams, extended trips into water can result in death. However, there are small puddles of water found in a select few stages that are actually advantageous to step on. They typically require a wall to be bombed in order to access them. When you step on the correct tile of water, the screen will flash. All enemies on the screen will be instantly defeated. Additionally, seven out of your ten inventory items, as well as you current bomb collect, will double in count, up to but not past the maximum limit of 99. The only three items which do not double are the rare items; the Waterproof item, the Lamp, and the Megaton Bomb. In later stages, you may be required to walk across one tile of regular water in order to access the pool, but you can do so without a Waterproof item as long as you don't hesitate.
Item Shops[edit]
Not really a stage feature, but rather an end-of-period feature. When you complete an entire Period, you are presented with the Item Shop. This is where you can spend the Award Medals that you've been collecting. Before you advance to the next Period, you can spend the medals on whichever items you feel you are in need of, provided you have collected enough. The list of items that you can collect are as follows:
- Hyper Missiles: 5 medals
- Candle: 10 medals
- Lamp: 20 medals
- Waterproof item: 30 medals
- Megaton Bomb: 50 medals
Of these five choices, only two should be chosen. Hyper Missiles and Candles are found in sufficient supply on regualar stages, and they can be duplicated in item pools. Waterproof items are also found relatively close to areas where you will require them (in order to cross bodies of water) so there is little to no need to purchase them. Of the remaining two items, Lamps are very valuable to purchase in general, although you will find as many as you need if you do not miss them in the Treasure Rooms. Megaton Bombs are always useful. In general, purchase a Megaton Bomb if you ever find yourself over 50 Award Medals. Otherwise, purchase as many Lamps as you can afford to.
Techniques[edit]
Although it requires a lot of patience and energy, it is often advantageous to bomb away as many blocks as you can in order to find enough equipment that you'll need to survive the later stages in the game. Provided here are a few techniques that can make surviving and clearing the boards much easier.
- Double Bombs: Your ZED can deploy two live bombs at a time. If you are trying to destroy a large number of blocks at one time, you can drop one bomb after another as you get pushed back, thereby laying two bombs next to one another to destroy a wider area of blocks.
- Double Bombs in one place: In situations where you need to utilize more than one bomb to fully clear out an area (for example, if there are four blocks diagonal from where you lay your bomb), you can deposit two bombs in rapid succession on the same spot before you are naturally pushed back as a result of laying the bombs. It helps if you push into the direction that you are facing, but remember to get away from the blast.
- Collect bombs before you leave: When you travel through a stage, enemies can appear on the ground or in the air. The aerial enemies are much easier to destroy than the ground enemies. By the time you reach the end of the stage, if you destroy all of the ground enemies, the game will produce nothing but aerial enemies. Then you can walk up and down, shooting enemies down and collecting the bombs they leave behind before you advance to the next stage.
- Hyper Missile dash: When you know that you have a long row of blocks to clear, a Hyper Missile can be far more effective than bombing your way through. To extend the use that you get out of Hyper Missiles in this situation, be sure to activate one of your Super Charger boot items to increase your speed. Then fire the missile and chase it while it mows down blocks.
- Get out of underground tunnels without seeing exit: To know how to exit underground tunnel without light source, just remember where your character spawned when you entered underground tunnel and exit will be on that same horizontal line. If you miss one exit, just keep walking and it will appear again.
- Infinite time for candle light in dark periods (glitch): Candle light lasts 35 seconds in dark periods or 25 seconds in underground tunnels. In dark periods, activate candle light and enter underground tunnel. Now make sure that your candle light expires and then exit underground tunnel. Now you will have infinite time on candle light for the rest of this period. If you enter underground tunnel again in same period, you will have no candle light so you will have to activate candle to see items, but make sure you exit without candle light to continue having infinite candle light when you're back outside.