Super Thunder Blade/Walkthrough

Stage Flow

Each stage follows a prescribed pattern that you play through as you fight your way to the end, where you must survive in a battle against a boss in order to advance to the next stage. Unlike in the original arcade version, no distance meter is shown to indicate how far through the stage you have traveled.

First half

You begin each stage with the camera positioned behind your helicopter. It remains behind you as you fly through the stage. You will be attacked by various enemy air craft, along with tanks on the ground. You must battle your way through hostile territory, shooting the enemies and avoid their fire. Eventually, the enemy attacks will pause when you reach the half-way point.

Mid-boss

The camera remains in its position behind you. A boss will be presented out in the distance, which you must fully destroy in order to advance through the rest of the stage. You must typically destroy various parts of the boss until it is considered completely defeated. Each part you destroy tends to reduce its available firepower.

Second half

After you defeat the mid-boss, the second half of the stage resumes. The second half typically offers very little change from the first half, and is just a continuation of the stage.

Boss battle

Once you reach the end of the stage, the camera will switch to an overhead view. In this view, you must fire your guns and missiles to take out as many offensive batteries that the large boss vehicle has at its disposal, and reach the front of the boss. Doing so automatically destroys the boss regardless of how much damage you've done. In fact, you don't even need to destroy a single battery, as long as you fly fast enough to get ahead of the boss.

When a boss battle is concluded, you are awarded bonus points based on two factors: how long it took you to reach the end of the stage, and how many hits, or destroyed vehicles, you achieved. The faster you are and the more enemy vehicles you destroy, the more points you will win.