"Quick?" detailed guide for running Phalanx on GBA

Overview
 I want to start this guide by stating that there are some notable differences between the GBA and SNES versions of this game. The most significant changes between the versions is the addition of an extra point of hp, bombs that hit everything on screen, and less slow down in the GBA version. There may also be other difference between them such as changes to the types of power ups in certain locations, though these differences are poorly documented, so take this guide with a grain of salt if you plan on using this guide to play the SNES version. The rest of this guide will go over the power ups, controls,  basic strategies, and then finish with a walk through of time saves in levels.

Controls

	A is to fire, B fires bombs, SELECT changes your movement speed, and R switches your currently equipped weapon. L activates, what I am going to refer too from now on, the weapon crash. The weapon crash consumes your power up weapons in order to perform a devastating attack, that usually also gives you invincibility, which is essential to beating the game fast.

Power ups
I am going to list the power ups based on importance for the run. There are weapon and missile power ups the weapon power ups generally tend to be more useful than the missile power ups with one exception that I will explain later.

	P- the "power" power up increases the power of your weapon up to three times additionally it will restore one point of hp on pick up and will also completely refill your bombs. Needless to say it is very important to maximize your fire power in order to save time in the game.

	H- the homing weapon power up is the most broken in the game. I does good damage and can be fired extremely rapidly for devastating effect in addition to tracking enemies.  Its weapon crash is also quite powerful. The crash gives you invincibility and causes damage to any enemy that is basally right on top of your ship, additionally you can rapidly tap the fire button in this mode to fire your gun and deal more damage.

	L-the laser is good not because of its regular fire but because of its weapon crash. The regular fire can deal some damage but typically not quickly and is only really useful against some regular enemies. The weapon crash for the laser is the most powerful in the game you go into a spin and start firing in all directions. This seems at first like it might not be very useful but you also become invincible the bullets you fire during the weapon crash deal a ton of damage. the combination of all this allows you to activate the crash and fly into bosses hit boxes which completely obliterates some of them.

	R- the ricochet gun, just R from now on , is marginally useful against some bosses. Its regular fire does seem to do the most damage of all the weapons but it does not have the highest rate of fire so is less useful than the homing. Its weapon crash sends out a part of your ship to attack enemies this does a lot of damage but some bosses are basically immune to it and you also do not get invincibility during this crash making it less useful in a pinch.

	E- the energy power up is the worst not because it is weak but because it is slow. The regular fire is slow and does not do much damage but you can charge the beam for more damage. The problem is that this weapon does not do enough damage fast enough to justify using it a lot. Its weapon crash is not much better it is like the H power ups crash but you do less damage to everything on the screen rather than a lot of damage on top of you. It is essentially a screen nuke the problem is that it does not do a ton of damage to bosses. The crash also causes a lot of explosions on screen that seem to cause the game to lag (I'm not 100% sure of this) which might not make it useful outside of boss fights because the lag could cost you time!

	B- B missiles or piercing missiles are the best missiles in the game solely because they deal damage constantly as they pass over enemies.

	A-A missiles or homing missiles are not very good because they do not track enemies very well and do not do much damage.

	C-C missiles or remote controlled missiles are bad mostly due to the limitations of only having one D pad. You are supposed to control the fired missiles with the D pad but this is hard when you trying to dodge bullets.

Strategies

	This will just be some tips for playing the game in general.
- dying can be good or bad. if die you lose your currently equipped weapon and are downgraded one power level additionally the re-spawn animation seems to cause some lag that might slow you down as well. Alternatively dying can refill your health entirely if you are low you can choose to strategically die if you know there are more power ups coming before the next boss.
-rate of fire is determined by how quickly your bullets disappear. This means that in order to maximize your rate of fire, specifically with H, you need to get as close to enemies as possible. Note that not all weapons have this rate fire exploit as the rate of fire for the laser only increases as you get close to the right edge of the screen ( because the lasers are disappearing off screen faster).
-use weapon crashes to free up weapon slots. you are limited to four weapon slots in this game( 3 in the SNES version). feel free to use a weapon crash to pick up another weapon otherwise your oldest pickup will get over written when you are full.
- avoid bonus areas by not flying to close to the walls. The bonus areas while they do give you extra power ups do slow down the run ( think they all do I have not tested this though) so try to avoid them. They are all located near the top and bottom edges of the screen for the most part. 
- do not over use your weapon crashes. The in game weapons are limited and need to be used strategically though the game due to how the game deals out the weapons some levels have a ton of power ups while some have not so much. this disparity creates a problem where one cannot always kill a particular boss in the most optimal way because one needs to save that power up to kill a later boss and save more time in the process.
 
Walk through 

	In this section I will go over the important bits of each level in the game to give everyone an idea of how a typical run for me might go. I am not going into too much detail for the run just giving you all some guidance for navigating the levels and boss fights. Feel free to reference my 37:35 run of the game if you want more detail.

	Stage 1 Assault
	
	Start you time at the fade in right before game play starts showing. I will start with a navigation and Item collection tip and then talk about boss strats. The navigation for this level is straight forward and doesn't need much explanation. You need to pick up these power ups in this level B missiles, one L weapon, one E weapon, one H weapon and three P power ups. it is very important that you grab all the weapons in this level and only grab B missiles and not the other missiles.

		Mid-boss 1 "Carrier?"
	
		this will be the second time you encounter this enemy. be sure that you have your H weapon equipped and are hovering near the top of the screen. The boss should cross over the top of the screen so start holding down the fire button to take some pot shots at it.  as soon as the boss appears in the middle right part of the screen start hovering directly above it so that your B missiles are dropping right on top of it all while holding down the fire button. This should deal massive damage to the boss and kill it in seconds.

		Boss 1 "Assault Crab?"

		Make sure that you have  the E weapon equipped and fully charged. the boss will not take damage until its arms open for the first time so don't shoot until its arms open. When its arms open release your charge shot then immediately weapon crash the E weapon and mash the fire button for extra damage. switch to the H weapon and hold down fire on the boss until it is destroyed. Note that this boss will not die until all of its parts have been destroyed but once it is destroyed that is the end of stage one.

	Stage 2 Underwater

	Navigation for this stage is made easier by switching to speed 3 as the water makes it annoying to move around. There are not a lot of power ups in this level but you should pick up an H and an E.

		Mid-boss 2 "Water Ship?"

		this boss is very easy just hover on the far right bottom of the screen and hold the fire button with the H weapon equipped you should be able to kill the boss before it entirely comes on screen. between this boss and the next there is an enemy encounter that looks like a blue C that fires orb worms. I like to use the E weapon crash I picked up in this level to destroy it because I think this saves some time.

		Boss 2 "The Hand"

		Have  the L weapon equipped and wait for the boss to appear at the bottom of the screen. As soon as you can fly into the boss and activate your "spin to win" weapon crash and destroy the boss before he can attack ending stage 2.

	Stage 3 Bio Cave

	Make sure that you pick up the one R weapon pick up in this stage you need it for the boss. Near the end of this stage you will come to a fork where you will have to choose a path to proceed. The screen will stop scrolling so we do not want to stay at the fork very long( ideally we can choose a path before the screen stops scrolling). The path in the fork to take is the one on the bottom as this leads to a speed zone that takes us straight to the boss.

		Boss 3 "Bio Hazard?"

		Make sure you have your R weapon equipped.  Fire at the bosses container till it explodes then activate your weapon crash and mash fire at the boss  till it dies. if the weapon crash does not kill it use your laser to finish it off.

	Stage 4 Deep Core

	There are more than a few power ups in this stage but try to get to the end boss with at least an L and  two H weapons.

		Mid-boss 3

		I am unsure if you need to kill this boss quickly the stage continues to scroll as you fight it but it will continue to scroll for a while even if you kill it quickly. You can kill this boss very quickly with an L weapon crash.

		Boss 4 "Deep Carrier?"

		You can kill the first stage of the boss fairly quickly with just firing your H weapon at it or using your H weapon crash inside of it then you can kill the second stage  with an L weapon crash. Make sure you end the stage with at least two H weapon power ups.

	Stage 5 Destroyer

	 This is the most important stage in the game in that this is the stage where one stands to lose the most time. Different form every other stage in the game this stage lets you move freely though it. The objective is to destroy three different parts of the ship. start by going down and right till you find the first entrance to the ship fly straight in regardless as to whether or not the door is open and enter the first hole. here you will have to destroy several bars to proceed just spam homing until they are dead while avoiding the smaller enemies. as soon as you leave the bar room start holding right this will allow you to use the I frames that the game gives you to go straight to the section you need to be. as soon as you get there enter the next hole. Here you will fight a giant crab start by hovering in front of the crab and spamming the homing weapon until it is dead. Once you leave the crab room immediately start holding left and then after a second or so start holding down and left this should put you on the correct path to the third and final hole. The timing on this might take some time to get correct but the punishment is taking one point of damage for doing it wrong so do not worry about it too much.

		Boss 5 "Destroyer Core?"

		this boss is fairly easy just spam homing until it dies and try to avoid its attacks. Note that if you have lost all of your power ups by the end of this level do not worry because level 6 has tons of power ups.

	Stage 6 Advertise Area

	This stage is not too bad the L weapon is useful for dealing with a lot of the enemies and there are a lot of power ups for you to pick up. Try to get to the end boss with an L weapon, H weapon and two R weapons.

	Mid-Boss 4 "Asteroid?"

	 this is another boss that Scrolls with the screen you can kill it fairly quickly with the laser and I do not think you lose any time doing so. This probably needs to be tested.

	Boss 6 "Asteroid Turtle?"

	This boss can be frustrating but it is possible to kill him before his first cycle ends. The boss is invincible until it opes its mouth while it is moving. in order to kill it before its first cycle ends weapon crash with L while its mouth is open to deal as much damage as possible. Switch to R and fire at its open mouth at point blank range and hopefully it will die before its next cycle starts and you have to wait for its mouth to open again. Note that there is a way to immediately kill this boss in the SNES version of this game that does not exist in this version of the game as far as I know.

	Stage 7 Hyper Space

	I do not have much to say about this level it is probably the most poorly optimized level in the game for me. There are some power ups you can collect in this level so feel free to use some weapon crashes on the bosses.

	Mid-Boss 5 "Double Crab"

	A fairly easy boss just spam homing or use a weapon crash to kill it quickly.

	Boss 7 "The Head"

	Use an R weapon to quickly kill the first phase then spam homing or use an L or H weapon crash to kill it (the R weapon crash does not actually work on this boss).

	Stage 8 Charge

	This stage can be difficult and lasts for a while. Try to get to the end with at least an L weapon and an H weapon. There are a bunch of hidden power ups right before the final boss I am not sure of there exact locations (they seem to be random) but this can help with the final boss.
 
	Mid-Boss 6 " Gravity Eye"

	This boss is tough because there is not really a good way to deal with it quickly. Its gravity will jerk the ship around and make it difficult to shoot at it. The homing is the best bet but even that is unreliable  Weapon crashes do not work very well because it is not always vulnerable. Luck is required to kill this boss fast and that always sucks.

	Final Boss "????"

	Start by flying down to the right other wise it might take some time for the boss to appear on screen. Once you see the center of the boss activate your H weapon crash and fly to the center of the boss while spamming fire this should kill the first stage. Once the second stage appears activate your L weapon crash fly to the center of it and it should also die. just fire at the third stage till it dies and end your time at the fade in right before the final cut scene starts playing.

Jeez that took a lot longer to write then I thought it would but I hope if some one made it this far that they at least give this game a chance it is actually pretty good I personally think that the SNES version is worse to play simply because the darker color scheme actually makes it harder to see some of the smaller projectiles in game. The lack of sound effects in the SNES version also kind of makes the game feel life less which I do not like. I think I rambled on for too long. I hope this helps somebody get into running this game I know that there was at least one person who was interested in learning it.

Lockonstrider

lockonstrider

Phalanx: The Enforce Fighter A-144

Super Nintendo

Game Boy Advance

Nezdanchick

Navarre

USA / NTSC

X68000

Hello?

flyingraccoon55