How does the rocket pack work?
Hold K or L and the rocket meter starts to fill. Sparkster can keep walking while it charges, so there is almost never a reason to enter a room with an empty meter. What happens when you let go depends on whether you're holding a direction.
Spin or launch?
Release a full, flashing meter with no direction held and Sparkster spins in place like a wheel with his sword out. It's the answer to being surrounded. Release it while holding a direction and he blasts off that way, sword first, in any of eight directions, from the ground or in the middle of a jump. While he's rocketing, enemy bullets pass straight through him, and whatever he hits he damages and bounces off.
The strongest attack in the game is a diagonal rocket into an enemy. Most of the time Sparkster spins at the end of the hit as well, so a single charge lands twice.
Wall rebounds
Sparkster bounces off walls too, and a chain of rebounds climbs a tight vertical shaft. Many walls carry painted arrows. Those mark places where a boost at an angle bounces you up to ledges you can't reach any other way, so treat every arrow as an order to charge.
The sword is a shield
Tapping attack without charging swings the sword, and the swing makes Sparkster invincible for a moment. Its shot also cancels enemy bullets: fire once to erase a pig soldier's shot, then again to hit the pig.
Where the pack gets you killed
Taking damage resets the meter, so a hit while charging costs you the attack as well. The bigger trap is the end of a rocket in midair: Sparkster loses control until he lands, and over a pit that's a life gone. Hold the button for more than 30 seconds and the pack overcharges, blows up and stuns him for a moment.
Which difficulty should you pick?
This is the North American cartridge, so all four settings are open from the start. The stages are the same on every one. What changes is how hard enemies hit and how many chances you get:
- Children: 3 lives, 5 continues
- Easy: 2 lives, 3 continues
- Normal: 1 life, 1 continue
- Hard: 1 life, no continues, a single block of health, and fruit restores nothing
Hard is closer to impossible than hard. Normal is tighter than it looks too, because a continue doesn't put you back at the boss that beat you. It sends you to the beginning of the stage. Score is worth watching for the same reason: the first extra life comes at 20,000 points, and more follow roughly every 60,000 after that.
Why does the game end early on Children?
On Children the game stops the moment the Pig Star's core is destroyed. The escape that follows never plays, and a message congratulates you, then says peace "has not been fully restored yet" and sends you to Easy. To see the whole ending you have to clear it on a higher setting.
You'll find codes for Very Hard, Crazy Hard and a stage select on cheat sites. They belong to the Japanese and European releases and do nothing on this version, so skip them.
What kills Sparkster instantly?
Most things just take hearts. Only a few skip the hearts and take the whole life: bottomless pits, the spikes in the mine cart ride of stage 2, and the rising lava at the start of stage 3. The confusing part is that the same stage 3 also has spikes and lava that only hurt you, so it pays to know which is which.
The mine cart (stage 2)
When signs with exclamation marks show up, duck and stay ducked, because spikes run overhead. Pig soldiers in carts attack from the left and right in turn, and their bombs always blow toward the left. The wave ends with two soldiers from the left. When your cart starts flashing, you can jump off it, and from there you hop from cart to cart four times.
Rising lava (stage 3)
The lava here rises and falls constantly, and touching it by a single pixel is instant death. Where crystals cover the upper screen and hide Sparkster, wait for the lava to come up and find the floating ledges in its reflection. Steering by a mirror image feels backwards for the first few jumps, so take them slowly. Don't miss the 1-up right after this part.
The parts that only hurt
In the underwater section that follows, the spikes cost health, not a life. Sparkster floats upward in water, so hold to stay under, and cross the spiked ledges while the water level is high. Later the Boiling Lava Pit also only burns. Ride the walker across it, and when you reach land, jump off and walk, because the walker doesn't always duck the spikes.
Boss guide: stages 1 to 4
Stage 1: Kingdom of Zebulos
The Pig Tank on the bridge is easy once you get behind it. Wait until it rolls an inch or two in from the right edge of the screen, rocket diagonally over it, and keep hitting it from the back, where it can barely touch you. The bridge collapses, and as you slide down the waterfall, move right at once and start charging. The tank comes back out of control. Slash it when it gets close, and keep going until it's dead.
The dragon in the sky section slithers up and down. Shoot its head when the body curves downward, and when it reaches the right side, rises and jumps, let it pass over you. On Normal it takes about a cycle and a half.
The giant robot on the castle has the longest pattern of the stage, and its head is the only thing worth hitting. It smashes through the middle, then the left, then the right. When it comes out of the left or right wall, stay in the middle and jump up to hit it. When it releases a swarm of small robot bugs, keep jumping over them until an orb starts circling the room clockwise. Charge up and rocket straight across while the orb moves along the floor, and every bug explodes. After that its tail comes out from the sides: get away from it. If it's still alive by then, it starts repeating its attacks at random.
Before the castle, climb the trees for apples. There's a 1-up just left of the top-left branch.
Stage 2: Mountain Range
Aim for the Repulsive Raccoon Robot's big red nose, and jump and start hitting it the moment the fight begins. When its spiked hands get close, just swing. When it swings its arms in circles, stay just out of reach. Watch the one move that looks like a punch with one arm: it actually throws the other arm at you.
At the edge of the waterfall, rocket straight up for a 1-up. The snake on the vines has a red ball on its tail, and that's the target. When it's about to hit you, spin or rocket over to the other vine. It sometimes slips behind the waterfall, so you can't always reach it.
The train that chases your mine cart attacks three times. First it comes from the left, firing nonstop. Jump its shots and step back after every two. Then it returns on a higher track with long swinging arms. Get inside the circle of the back hand and hit it, and spin when the front hand comes out. From this point on, don't jump: touching the train takes a lot of health. The last attack comes from the right with slow bouncing shots.
Stage 3: Going Underground
The underwater robot has a pig operator inside. Hit the pig's head each time it rises, then rocket diagonally down through the rightmost arm to hit both the claw and the operator. Once the right claw explodes, go for the remaining armpit.
You can't damage the giant mechanical fish at all. Moving platforms carry you toward its mouth, so hop between the upper and lower groups while it spews fireballs. It also throws out bunches of bananas. At some point it opens its mouth and the pig operator jumps out: he is the one you hit. On the left side the ledges come faster. On Normal it takes five hits.
Stage 4: Flying Battleship
Against Captain Fleagle's bombs, stand at the far left edge facing right and swing to bat each one back. He panics soon enough and flees.
On the deck the wind pushes you back and poles catch you. Jump the rolling barrels and keep walking under the bouncing ones. After you drop to the rails beneath the ship, look below them for a 1-up. The flamethrower that parks under you fires upward three times. Then small creatures drop from the ship: hit them so they fall onto the flamethrower.
Fleagle's giant junk robot stomps twice, then dances in place while junk rains down. The safe spots are near the left side and a little right of center. Next it opens its stomach, shows a red sphere, and fires huge shots followed by smaller ones. At the end Fleagle runs back and forth on foot, and he only jumps when you swing, so wait for your moment instead of swinging nonstop.
Boss guide: stages 5 to 7
Stage 5: Kingdom of Devotindos
The Pulsating Plasma Blaster takes no damage at all until you break the three small barriers in the middle of its body, so hit those first. Two or three big walls of lasers come in between. Once its legs are blown off, it comes back as a flying machine that flails its arms.
Inside the Imperial Castle, jump on the red button at the end of the race against the armored pigs to collapse the bridge. In the room with the rising floor, hit the spiked pillar and rocket diagonally up and to the right into the side hallways. There's a 1-up there too. On the moving platforms, strike the arrow on the right to go down diagonally and the arrow on the left to go up, and the opposite arrow straightens you out. Stay away from the neon spiked balls and follow the gems.
How do you survive the chase by Axel Gear's mech?
Hold + and don't let go, not even for an instant. Keep the rocket charged, rocket diagonally upward at every wall, and at the large pit jump first and then rocket diagonally up. It's the least forgiving stretch in the game, and it's pure muscle memory.
At the end of the chase you get a mech of your own. The first three hits come easily, because Axel's mech walks straight into you. After that it stops in the middle of the screen, steps back four or five paces and returns. Take small steps forward and swing as it comes in.
Stage 6: space
Destroy all six spinning pig heads in a group and you get an apple. Keep your distance from the stationary asteroids, because getting close sets off a pack of heat-seeking missiles. With a ring of pig heads, hitting one destroys them all.
The shield robot can't be hurt while it lunges with its shield up. Hit it as it backs off, and when it throws out a spiked yo-yo, that's your real chance. When Axel shows up with a rocket pack, move to the top-right corner right away: the blast from his gun covers almost the whole screen. Swing at him as he flies across. His heat-seeking missiles can be shot down.
The mothership is the longest and most complicated fight in the game, but not the hardest. Circle under and behind it, and don't touch it: on Normal contact takes half your health. Hit the target on its underside, then a small gold sphere, then the sphere in the gap between the front and rear sections. In the second phase the front turns into a humanoid robot that fires waves of bullets and a blue homing beam, then tosses a gold sphere between its hands. Hit the sphere. On Normal it takes four hits.
Stage 7: The Pig Star
When you play online here, press Save before this stage. Normal gives you a single continue for the whole game, and the site keeps one save per game in your browser.
The Emperor is a surprisingly easy fight. Rocket into his crown, and when his pieces pull back together, rocket diagonally up into him. Watch for the legs he extends down at you.
Axel comes at you twice. The first time he has no rocket pack, so hit him as he lands after each jump. Then he blows out the back wall of the Pig Star, and you have to hang on to pipes against the vacuum while he circles clockwise and throws small bombs. Rocket straight ahead into him when he passes in front of you, then dodge his drill attack. Five or six rounds of that finish him.
The inner Pig Star has lower gravity, so you jump much higher. There are bananas on the left and right, a 1-up in the middle and another in the top-left of the second half. Take all of them before the teleport pad.
The final boss, the Pig Star Core, opens with a red knob that pops out of one of its holes, at first only the top three. Rocket into it. Then comes a phase where it shows off its weapons, electricity and rings, and you can't hit it at all, so just survive. When the music switches to a slightly unhinged version of the boss theme, rings pour out of every hole, faster and faster.
Then, on every setting except Children, it chases your escape pod. You can't attack, only move anywhere on the screen. Dodge the rings, and when it pauses, expect a lunge toward your side. Hold on until the screen turns red.