Metal Slug 7 Combat School Guide by Distant_Rainbow =============================================================================== 0. Table of Contents =============================================================================== I. Introduction II. Version History III. Combat School Mode? What is this? - The Basics IV. The Characters V. The Missions VI. Miscellaneous =============================================================================== I. Introduction =============================================================================== This guide is to help those who want to beat Combat School mode in Metal Slug 7. It does not detail methods to actually beat the game's main missions; in fact, since most of the Combat School missions are unlocked by beating the main missions, this guide will assume that you have already beaten the corresponding main story missions, and thus will keep any unnecessary explanations to a bare minimum. Enjoy! =============================================================================== II. Version History =============================================================================== Ver 0.1 Oct 3rd 2011 Started guide. As I myself haven't finished every single Combat School mission yet, guide will definitely take quite a long while to get finished... Anyway, have laid down the general structure of the guide and started writing down any info that is presently known. Ver 0.7 Jan 9 2012 Finished writing guide about most of the missions. However, the missing missions seem to be beyond my ability to S-rank, so it is actually very troublesome to write about them. I'm aiming to submit this first, then update the guide with newly S-ranked missions when I actually manage it. First version submitted to GameFAQs. Current to-do list: - Most Item Collection and POW Rescue missions incomplete. - Some Target Elimination and Base Assault mission general guides needed. (explanations with (xx) at the end are incomplete ones; they need revising at next version) - Second-by-second walkthrough of beating the Level 5 boss in 1 minute with no weapons. - Find S-rank qualifications for those missions I've missed. - If someone would like to help, I would greatly appreciate hints on Special Training 3D; I'm absolutely stumped as to what I have to do to S-rank this mission. =============================================================================== III. Combat School Mode? What is this? - The Basics =============================================================================== Metal Slug is a famous series of shooter games that was originally arcade-only, and later ported to several different video-game consoles. One of these, Metal Slug 7, eventually found its way to the Nintendo DS. One notable thing upon starting this game, that made it different from the classics that preceded it, is the addition of 'Combat School Mode'. Once starting this mode, you're greeted by a typical Japanese anime-style girl who introduces herself as your 'instructor'(as if the gun-slinging Metal Slug team with all their dripping macho-ness needed any instructions) then throws you into a whole lot of missions. At first, she abuses you, just as any army instructor would do to a recruit. Over time, however, as you make progress through Combat School and gradually increase your rank, this girl gradually gets more friendly to you, up to the point of trying to make you her boyfriend(ugh...). Once you load Combat School, there's even an option that lets you speak to this instructor, subjecting you to more of her attempts to make out with you(double ugh...). But once you get over her overly apparent advances and concentrate on Combat School itself, you'll find itself a decent addition to the game, fairly difficult at times, sometimes frustrating, yet mildly interesting as well. In short, you are given certain objectives with each mission, and have to play through one of the game's 7 levels(mostly) with that objective in mind. These objectives range from stupidly easy to mind-blowingly difficult, so it can attract Metal Slug players of all skill levels. There are some basic rules to this mode: 1) You are given unlimited ammo, no matter what weapon you're currently holding. This doesn't apply to your grenades, though, and you still lose whatever weapons you had when you lose a life. 2) Difficulty of bosses and such is set to Normal mode. 3) The score system is changed with many of the missions. So don't think you'll get points by shooting every single thing in sight, like the main game! 4) Depending on the mission, many of the in-game powerups will change. Whenever you clear a mission, you get a rank based on how well you completed it. The ranks are S, A, B and C, with S being the best and C being the worst. S-ranked missions are colored gold, cleared missions(but not S-ranked) are in green, and un-cleared missions are in gray, so you can use these colors to keep track of which missions are cleared and which are not. Also, whenever you clear a mission, you receive points depending on your rank. These points accumulate on the counter to your right, and these points enable you to promote to higher army ranks. This doesn't seem to do anything(apart from getting smarmier responses from your instructor(again, ugh...)) as of now. Re-clearing missions don't give you points; only newly-cleared missions and improved-rank missions do so, and you only get the points you missed for previously getting a bad rank in case of the latter. As you would expect, the harder a mission is, the more points it will yield. The mission types are as follows: Target Elimination - This mode resembles the main game the most. What you have to do is beat the main game's corresponding level. Sounds easy and straightforward? Well, the first ones are, but there are variations with additional rules... Item Collection - This mode concentrates on the items found in each level. Killing enemies isn't important anymore; instead, try to find every single collectible swag in the whole level! You'll need to collect most(if not all) goodies in the whole level to get your S-rank. You don't have to fight the boss. POW Rescue - The name explains it all; your mission is to rescue most(if not all) of the POWs in the level. You know who the POWs are, right? Those guys with the mass of yellow facial hair who drop goodies when you touch them. Sounds easy? It sure isn't. Many of these POWs are hidden, and missing these hidden ones counts as a strike against you as well. Refer to deathfisaro's Prisoner of War Guide if you're stuck; it will help immensely on the locations of each POW. You don't have to fight the boss. Base Assault - What you must do is simple; defeat the boss. While it may sound simple, you start RIGHT AT the boss's front door, meaning that you have to resort to your trusty pistol to last you through the fight(unless you happen to come across other weapons during your fight with the boss). Good luck... And don't forget that these missions have variations with additional rules as well! Special Training - These missions usually have very specialized goals for you to perform; stuff that you would normally never do. Many of them put you in places that don't exist in the main game in the first place. Only the main theme of the level is preserved. What you must do differs greatly between each mission; they'll be explained further in detail in the main part of the guide. Depending on the mission, you start with either four lives or just one. However, this doesn't mean that you can spend these extra lives liberally if you start with four; the more you die, the worse your rank gets. Keep this in mind if you're aiming for a better score! Lastly, Combat School isn't completely unlocked when you first start it; most of the missions are hidden, and only the missions that are related to Level 1 are initially playable. To play the other missions, you have to unlock them first. What you must do in order to unlock them is as follows: Level 2 missions - Beat Level 2 in the main game, on any difficulty. Level 3 missions - Beat Level 3 in the main game, on any difficulty. Level 4 missions - Beat Level 4 in the main game, on any difficulty. Level 5 missions - Beat Level 5 in the main game, on any difficulty. Level 6 missions - Beat Level 6 in the main game, on any difficulty. Level 7 missions - Beat Level 7 in the main game, on any difficulty. =============================================================================== IV. The Characters =============================================================================== Each of the game's six playable characters has his or her own specialty. These specialties can make the difference between losing a mission, beating a mission, and S-ranking a mission, so know them well and pick characters wisely depending on the mission! These characters' attributes are identical to what they were on Metal Slug 6, so you can skip this part if you're already familiar with that game. MARCO Good old Marco is the ultimate Metal Slug vet, having been playable in every single Metal Slug game that has been released. Marco's specialty is that the default pistol used by the characters is twice as strong than the others. With the unlimited ammo issue which makes infinitely using the other weapons possible, Marco seems pretty lackluster, but keep in mind that there are plenty of missions where the game forces you to use only the pistol with no other weapons. In many of those missions, Marco is king. See for yourself. In ordinary missions, though... he loses his most important advantage once other weapons come into play. ERI Eri, the cute girl member of the Metal Slug team, was introduced in Metal Slug 2, and afterwards has been playable in every game except 4. Eri's a master with grenades, starting with 20 of them(as opposed to the default 10). Moreover, while the other characters can only throw grenades a short distance forward, Eri can throw hers in any direction by aiming with the D-pad. She can even throw them very far by using the D-pad. As an added bonus, Eri receives twice the amount of grenades with powerups. This aptitude with grenades proves to be invaluable against bosses; moreso with time limits, since the grenades prove to be very powerful indeed. Coupled with a powerful weapon of your choice, Eri is a character who can dish out some very serious damage to your enemies in a short time. TARMA Tarma is Marco's second-in-command and closest friend. He was Marco's partner in Metal Slug 1(as the second player), and has since been playable in every game sans 4. Tarma is a master of machines, in that the Slugs which have Tarma in them have double the firepower, double the health, and the Vulcan Fix tech, which enables the Slug to lock their vulcan cannon to a specific angle and keep firing away without fear of having to re-aim your weapon upon moving the Slug. When you feel the need for an overpowered Slug to do the dirty job for you, Tarma's your man. Any Slug with him becomes a roving machine of death, capable of destroying enemies by the dozens while eating hit after hit after hit. However, Tarma has no special abilities outside of Slugs, meaning that while on foot, you can say he's the weakest of the bunch. Use him only when that increased Slug power is valuable enough to ignore his shortcomings in the other departments. FIO Fio, the other girl of the team, joined at Metal Slug 2 and has always been playable ever since. Fio is the weapons specialist, which has her starting every mission with a free Heavy Machine Gun in her hands(except in Beginner Mode in the main game, which has every character having a Heavy Machine Gun as their default weapon. In Fio's case, she carries an Upgraded Heavy Machine Gun as her default weapon in Beginner Mode), as well as having 1.5x the amount of ammo with every weapon she finds on the field(this applies to her initial Heavy Machine Gun as well). Fio is one of the most overpowered characters in the game, due to the fact that the Heavy Machine Gun she starts with greatly overshadows the pistols her teammates have to use at first(except Marco's strong one). Although the increased ammo doesn't help due to every weapon's ammo being infinite, the very fact that missions can be started with a Heavy Machine Gun is very helpful indeed. Use Fio a lot; she is adaptable to almost any mission. The only time you shouldn't use her is against missions which force you to use only your pistol; this rule overrides her Heavy Machine Gun, essentially killing the very reason to use her in the first place. Also, avoid her in missions where a Heavy Machine Gun powerup(or any weapon powerup that isn't a Dropshot or Zangetsu Sword) is available right at the start of a mission, as that neutralizes her advantage as well. RALF Ralf is a comparative newcomer to the series, having joined in Metal Slug 6. Before that he could be seen in other video games... but I'll stop at that. Ralf's specialty is a very nifty one indeed; in a game where anything kills you with a single blow, Ralf takes two hits to die. This effectively doubles your number of lives, with the added bonus that he gets to keep his original weapon if he survived the enemy's attack. However, Ralf is the only character to suffer a penalty compared to other characters; when he picks up a weapon, its ammo is reduced to half. Thankfully, this weak spot is pointless in Combat School due to ammo being infinite. He can also perform Vulcan Punches with L+Y, though the move isn't noteworthy and is thus largely ignored. The fact that Ralf has double the lives available to you proves to be immensely helpful, particularly in tough endurance missions. Again, a highly overpowered character and Combat School favorite, I should say. CLARK Clark is also a newcomer, who joined the team at the same time as Ralf. They've been in the same games beforehand, and... err, I digress. Anyway, Clark's specialty is having a different melee attack much like Ralf's Vulcan Punch. In Clark's case, it's the Argentine Backbreaker, which has the distinction of giving four times the points compared to your normal knifing melee attack. Clark is easily the worst, most underpowered character out of the six in Combat School mode. The Backbreaker can be mostly ignored(again, like Ralf's Vulcan Punches) since none of the missions concentrate on score earned by traditional methods(well, some of the Special Training missions might, but I'll have to test that...). Anyway, using Clark is pointless as he is essentially bland with no useful perks whatsoever. Avoid using him in Combat School, except a few specific missions where choice of character really doesn't make any difference. =============================================================================== V. The Missions =============================================================================== Welcome to the main part of this guide. The missions will be listed according to their appearance in the game's mission queue, starting with the missions concerning Level 1. The missions will be explained in the guide according to this standard format: Target Elimination Noob (1 pt) ------------------------------ Main objective: Kill that enemy soldier. Additional rules: None. And don't forget to breathe. To qualify for S-rank: Have a finger so that you can press Y. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Anyone Mission overview, tips: Just shoot that soldier you meet first, and he'll cough up your S-rank. The 'Clear Difficulty' and 'S-Rank Difficulty' are all my personal takes on each mission, not actual mission stats/data. They are just there to help you get a feel on each mission's difficulty. You may find some of those scores overrated, and some underrated. This would just be personal differences; keep that in mind! Also, these numbers are given for when you use the character I recommended. If you use someone else, naturally that number will rise; sometimes to impossible levels. Got all that? Well then, let's get this show started! If you want to find a specific mission, hit Ctrl+F, then type [Level X] complete with the brackets, replacing X with the level your wanted mission is located in. Then, scroll downwards a little to find it. [Level 1] ========= Target Elimination 1A (110 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 1. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 Recommended character: Anyone except Clark; they can all come in handy Mission overview, tips: Given that this is the first level of the whole game, without any time limit, this is going to be very easy. Take your time and progress slowly, beating up any enemies you find. Beginners and experts alike will favor Ralf with his ability to survive a hit, but with the stage having various powerups(even a Slug) and being easy enough you can try anybody for S-ranking the mission. Just be careful while eliminating enemies and going forward. There really isn't much to say about this easy, introductory mission to Combat School. Target Elimination 1B (140 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 1. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Eri Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 1C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 1. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Marco Mission overview, tips: Item Collection 1 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 1 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 1A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 1. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 1B (120 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 1. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Eri, Fio Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 1C (180 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 1. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Marco, Eri Mission overview, tips: Special Training 1A (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Survive the falling obstacles until time runs out. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 Recommended character: Ralf Mission overview, tips: Just keep moving, and keep your eyes on the top of the screen to look out for falling debris. You can shoot and destroy the debris if you want, though it isn't necessary to complete the mission; you can get an S-rank without shooting a single time. This is actually one of the easier, simpler missions, and if you choose Ralf(who can survive getting flattened once), you'll easily get an S-rank with no trouble. Special Training 1B (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Destroy all of the falling obstacles as fast as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 15 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 4/10 Recommended character: Eri, Ralf Mission overview, tips: If you're just aiming to beat the mission, then this is so easy; all you have to do is stay to the left side of the screen and keep shooting right until everything is destroyed. Naturally, this takes a lot of time and gives you a lousy rank. Now, if you want to get an S-rank, you have to be daring. Eri is the best choice here as she has a lot of freedom with grenades, though Ralf is also a good choice since he can survive one hit from the debris. The basic idea of what you must do is to make the most of your initial invulnerability frames, to destroy the bottom debris in the second-to-left pillar and grab the Zangetsu Sword powerup hidden inside. This is vital, as the Zangetsu Sword destroys the debris with a single hit at close range. You also have to do this quick, since the [Z] powerup disappears in about 1.5 seconds and you have to get it before too much junk piles up on top of it. Now, getting the thing isn't easy as it sounds. As soon as you enter the stage, lob grenades like crazy, keeping priority to that second pillar. As soon as you see the [Z], run like heck and pick it up before some more debris falls down above it. Once that's done, it's time for some fancy footwork as you destroy pillars of debris by spamming your sword and grenades while standing in the tiny space between the pillars. Ralf gets a lot of leeway here as he doesn't die in one hit and gets to keep his Z-Sword, as well as get some invulnerability frames after recovering as a bonus. This does waste time, though; mash Y to reduce delay to a minimum. The Z-Sword is indeed powerful; soon you'll be able to demolish every single piece of debris well within the time limit if you're careful(I managed 11 sec). Special Training 1C (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many hidden items as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. To qualify for S-rank: Get 23 items(230,000 points). Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 1/10 Recommended character: Anyone; it really doesn't make a difference. Mission overview, tips: Despite the mission briefing telling you that you should complete this mission ASAP to get a good rank, the game actually doesn't check how fast you do the mission, but rather how many items you get to complete it. So just ignore the timer; you're fine as long as you don't let the 23-second timer expire. The mission itself is laughably simple. Just a lot of junk lying about, waiting to be blasted by yours truly. So, just blast them, and collect the stuff they leave. The end. Now, though, to S-rank the mission, you have to collect every single thing the junk leaves behind once destroyed. This includes weapon powerups. This is harder than it sounds since some pieces of junk refuse to drop until a lot of time has passed, and because some goodies vanish only a second after they appear. The key to the mission, therefore, is to take it slow and steady. Progress slowly, breaking junk and immediately claiming the item inside before it disappears. Keep an eye on the top of the screen; if you see something trickling, it's a sign that a piece of junk is about to fall in that spot. Make good use of your grenades and the Shotgun powerup since they're strong and can easily demolish junk in a heartbeat. Keep track of how many items you've collected; each item gives 10,000 points, so you're aiming for 230,000, remember that. Towards the very end of the stage, two pieces of junk fall late to the left outside the screen, so don't forget to backtrack to get those two. [Level 2] ========= Target Elimination 2A (110 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 1. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Fio, Eri Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 2B (140 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 2. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 2C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 2. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Item Collection 2 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 2 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 2A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 2. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Eri Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 2B (120 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 2. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 30 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 6/10 Recommended character: Eri Mission overview, tips: This boss isn't hard, but beating him within the time limit is. The basic strategy is to pick Eri, shoot the boss a few times at the start, get the Enemy Chaser powerup ASAP from the first POW, empty your grenades at the boss, then go crazy with your Enemy Chaser, all the while avoiding the missiles and stalactites the boss throws at you. It sounds simple, and it is, but you have to be lucky to manage it; I had to get a lot of 32-34 second results before finally scraping a 30 second win, barely managing the S-rank. Base Assault 2C (180 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 2. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Eri, Marco Mission overview, tips: Special Training 2A (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Destroy all enemy copters(20) as fast as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 1:10 Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 Recommended character: Marco, Eri Mission overview, tips: Since you're only allowed to use pistols and grenades, Marco/Eri is the logical choice for you here. The copters aren't that tough so you won't need Ralf's double life unless you're having a lot of trouble dealing with the copters' attacks. The key to victory here is the endless trail of missiles being sent to you under your feet. Shoot the cart holding the missile, then the cart will skid to a stop, the green 'READY' sign turns into a red 'FIRED', and soon the missile goes flying. You have to time your shots on the carts and lure the copters so that the missiles hit the copters. One missile shot actually isn't enough to destroy a copter, though; follow it through with a few bullets from Marco's pistol or an Eri-grenade to finish it. So, with practice, you have to familiarize yourself with launching the missiles and getting the copters to stand in their trajectory. At the same time you have to practice shooting the copters or Eri-bombing them continuously when you're not trying to launch. Sounds tricky, but some practice will show you that it actually isn't THAT difficult at all. Special Training 2B (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Shoot the balls so that they fall into the mine carts. Additional rules: None. To qualify for S-rank: Get all the balls(20) into the mine carts. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 Recommended character: Anyone, but if you're really skilled at using bombs to control the balls, pick Eri(I'm doubtful that you would be, though). Mission overview, tips: Just clearing the mission is absurdly easy. All you have to do is wait until the last ball drops down, and bam. Mission cleared. Of course, this gets you a C-rank. Now, to S-rank the mission, you have to get every single ball into the mine carts. To do that, you have to shoot them. Shooting the lower left side makes the ball drift right, and vice versa. Other methods of attacks don't work well; grenades and Fio's Heavy Machine Gun fire get erratic results, while knife slashes and Ralf/Clark's special melee attacks don't get any responses from the ball whatsoever. To be honest, this mission isn't hard at all to S-rank. It's just tedious, and gets you a lot of frustration if you slip up and lose a ball, since it takes a lot of time. Special Training 2C (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Take the ball to the mine cart at the end by shooting it. You have only one ball. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. Failure to keep the ball(by letting it fall to the bottom of the screen) kills you instantly. To qualify for S-rank: Get the ball inside the mine cart within 40 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 Recommended character: Eri(grenades) or Fio(Heavy Machine Gun) have useful perks, but frankly, it's nearly the same no matter who you pick. Still, Fio would be best for it. Mission overview, tips: This mission is quite difficult. Clearing the mission isn't much of a deal, but 40 seconds is a very short time to move that darn unmaneuverable ball. You have to get used to shooting horizontally at the balls lower-left corner to make it move right as fast as possible. Even so, you're strapped for time; this is natural, so don't panic mid-mission. Midway through the level two mine carts will trundle up the track in an attempt to divide your attention and mess you up. If your timing is right you can just use your grenades to destroy them, but it's more practical to make the ball float a bit high by shooting it, then leaping over the cart before the ball has time to sink back down. Time IS a bit short here, so you should be diligently shooting away. With a bit of practice, you'll easily manage the S-rank. Special Training 2D (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Move the mine cart around by shooting it, and catch the balls in the cart. Additional rules: A coin will drop down somewhere, and a second later a ball will drop on the exact position of the coin. Use the coins' hints to get the mine cart under the ball in time. You get 1,000 points for each ball you catch. To qualify for S-rank: Catch all 20 balls in the mine cart. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 4/10 Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: [Level 3] ========= Target Elimination 3A (110 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 1. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Anyone except Clark; they can all come in handy Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 3B (140 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 3. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 3 minutes. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 8/10 Recommended character: Eri, possibly Tarma Mission overview, tips: The mission itself isn't hard, but the time limit is dreadful. You have to be nearly perfect to make it through in 3 minutes and get your S-rank. The most important thing you need to do in this mission is to note which weapon is best at which part, and to make sure you have that weapon at that part. First of all, once you start, just keep running right. Ignore the Slugnoid (unless you chose Tarma in order to use it to destroy enemies quickly) and just keep going right; the Slugnoid is too slow. Destroy enemy tanks carefully and quickly with the Heavy Machine Gun you picked up at the start, plus your grenades. Once you reach the automatically moving lift, keep spraying bullets upwards to take down any pesky paratroopers. Use concentrated fire on anything that's not a grunt to destroy them ASAP. Soon you'll obtain a Zangetsu Sword; keep it on reserve for the moment and continue on with the Heavy Machine Gun equipped. Once on the next screen, ignore the lever that gives you the Flameshot powerup; you'll get a better weapon soon, and you should keep your Z-Sword. Spray bullets to take out any grunts and bats in the vicinity, then switch to the Z-Sword. Stick to the right edge of the screen while firing off continuously; you'll kill every grunt you come across while progressing along. A POW will give you a Thundershot; collect that to replace your Heavy Machine Gun, but re-equip the Z-Sword for now. Use the Z-Sword to quickly demolish the insect nests and get down ASAP to the boss. Once you reach the boss, run up to the lower half and unleash Z-Sword blasts like crazy; it'll go down... in just 4 seconds! Wow, this thing's really powerful, right? Once the lower half's toast, immediately switch to the Thundershot you picked up earlier and let loose on the upper half while avoiding its attacks. Throw some grenades up at it as well if you're Eri. The upper half won't last long either and soon explode, ending the mission. You can see the Morden Walker, but ignore it; it's weak compared to the carnage you can unleash with the Z-Sword and the Thundershot. If you've done all of this perfectly, you'll come to somewhere around 2:50, barely managing that S-rank. Target Elimination 3C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 3. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 3:30. Clear Difficulty: 4/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 7/10 Recommended character: Marco, possibly Tarma Mission overview, tips: I find this more easier than the previous mission, because the time limit is more lenient. Basically, the same strategies apply as Target Elimination 3B, only that you have to use your pistol for everything. Get to the boss as quickly as possible, ignoring that Slugnoid. Be aware that you should save all of your grenades for the battle against the boss. Once you reach the boss, the strategy's the same as with the Base Assault missions, so I'll just copy/paste what I wrote for them: As soon as the fight starts, lob every single one of your grenades on the lower half of the boss, then retreat, all the while shooting the boss as much as possible. The Walker crate will soon come into view; shoot it to release the Walker and quickly hop in. Once inside, concentrate your vulcan fire on the upper half while shooting your cannon with A on the lower half. Avoid the projectiles the boss throws at you; especially the stalactites he drops. Once one half is destroyed, concentrate all fire on the other half. You can hit the upper half with your cannon as well by jumping and firing(more easily so if you use a stalactite as a platform), so do so. One last thing; keep in mind that the Morden Walker opts for a melee attack with its claws if enemies are too close to it. This attack is very weak and it cancels out your vulcan's attack, so it's quite debilitating. You'll find yourself unintentionally doing this during the battle against the larvae the boss drops on you; can't help that. Just be careful not to get too close to the boss's lower half that you start punching it. You'll waste a lot of time if you do so, and health as well if the boss actually walks into you while you're doing that. If you're Marco, you stand a high chance of getting the Walker destroyed; opt for your pistol shots when that happens. If done perfectly you can reach the boss in something like 2:40. And 50 seconds is enough to take him down. Item Collection 3 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 3 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Rescue all(11) POWs. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 1/10 Recommended character: Anyone, really, but Ralf might be slightly better than the others thanks to added durability. Mission overview, tips: Really easy, this one. Just progress normally, blow up the enemy tank, get the Heavy Machine Gun from the first POW, go right, get the Enemy Chaser from the next POW and... that's the end of the hard part. Thanks to infinite ammo, if you spam Enemy Chasers it's actually impossible to lose any of the POWs in the stage. They're all in plain view as well, except for one. This hidden POW is on the top of the automatic lift trail. When the lift stops and you have to get off to continue, strafe the top of the screen with your Enemy Chaser. Your shots will blow up and some part, and a POW will pop out; touch him to finish the rescue. Overall, one of the easiest POW Rescue missions, just because none of them are staying hidden so well. Base Assault 3A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 3. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 1/10 Recommended character: Tarma, Ralf Mission overview, tips: Since there's a Morden Walker right at the beginning and the objective for S-ranking the mission is to not lose a single life, Tarma is the logical choice here. Plus, his stronger Walker attacks reduce the length of the boss fight, essentially giving the boss less time and opportunities to kill you. Just fight normally while spamming vulcans and cannons, and eventually you'll defeat him without trouble. Quite an easy mission with him. If, for some reason, you don't want to use Tarma's stronger Walker, you can go with Ralf, but beware; Ralf's attacks are way weaker than Tarma's in the Walker, which means that there's a higher chance of dying and failing your S-rank attempt. Base Assault 3B (120 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 3. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 30 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 7/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Since you are given a Morden Walker right at the start of the boss fight, Tarma is your obvious choice. Since you'll mostly be inside that Walker, the other characters' specialties won't matter at all. Basically, as soon as the fight starts, lob every single one of your grenades on the lower half of the boss, then retreat, all the while shooting the boss as much as possible. The Walker crate will soon come into view; shoot it to release the Walker and quickly hop in. Once inside, concentrate your vulcan fire on the upper half while shooting your cannon with A on the lower half. Avoid the projectiles the boss throws at you; especially the stalactites he drops. Once one half is destroyed, concentrate all fire on the other half. You can hit the upper half with your cannon as well by jumping and firing(more easily so if you use a stalactite as a platform), so do so. One last thing; keep in mind that the Morden Walker opts for a melee attack with its claws if enemies are too close to it. This attack is very weak and it cancels out your vulcan's attack, so it's quite debilitating. You'll find yourself unintentionally doing this during the battle against the larvae the boss drops on you; can't help that. Just be careful not to get too close to the boss's lower half that you start punching it. You'll waste a lot of time if you do so, and health as well if the boss actually walks into you while you're doing that. Even with all this in mind, the time limit is quite hard on this one. If done perfectly, you'll beat the boss in about 27-8 seconds, so don't dawdle! Base Assault 3C (180 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 3. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and the Morden Walker you find with the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 30 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 7/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Read my explanation for the previous mission. They are completely identical due to the existence of the Morden Walker from the start. Apparently the programmers thought so as well, since they gave this mission the same S-rank time limit as the mission before it... Shouldn't they have eliminated the Walker and forced you to use your pistol while giving you a longer time limit? Lazy, I'll say... Special Training 3A (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Take the ball along with you on the lift by shooting it. You have only one ball. You earn points whenever you shoot the ball. Additional rules: You have only one life. Failure to keep the ball(by letting it fall to the bottom of the screen) kills you instantly. To qualify for S-rank: Score 70,000 or more points(70 shots). Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: If you pick Fio and her Heavy Machine Gun, this mission becomes a cakewalk. Basically, all you must to is get out the Machine Gun, then spray bullets right and up(by facing right and tapping up on the D-pad). The random bullets will somehow keep striking the ball to keep it trapped on the top right corner. This method keeps the ball safe, as well as score a lot of hits to easily get over 70(my first attempt got 129). Note: Don't do this with the top left corner, as the ball will then scroll off the screen, which kills you. If for some reason you want to do this with a different character, though... You'll have to keep shooting the ball a lot to make it over 70. It doesn't help that the lift is continuously moving up and right, giving the ball a tendency to move left. Aim for the ball's left side to keep it from going too far left and thus out of your bullets' range. Special Training 3B (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Push the large lift to its destination by shooting it with your weapon. Anything that is on the lift slows it down. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Get the lift to its destination within 43 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 3/10 Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: Fio with her Heavy Machine Gun is optimal here, as its rapid shots are best suited to moving the lift as fast as possible. (xx) Special Training 3C (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Get the lift to the top of the rail. The lift stops or slows down if enemies get on top of it; eliminate these enemies ASAP to get the lift going. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Get the lift to its destination within 1:30. Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 3/10 Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: Special Training 3D (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Earn as many points as you can by destroying as many larvae and larvae nests as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. To qualify for S-rank: ?? Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: [Level 4] ========= Target Elimination 4A (110 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 4. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 3/10 Recommended character: Anyone except Clark; they can all come in handy Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 4B (140 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 4. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 3 minutes. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 9/10 Recommended character: Eri Mission overview, tips: That S-rank time limit is crazy. Yep, crazy. You have to be perfect with EVERYTHING, no kidding, to get an S-rank here. (xx) Target Elimination 4C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 4. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 4 minutes. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Item Collection 4 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Collect at least 30(?) items. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 4 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Rescue all(12) POWs. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 4A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 4. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 3/10 Recommended character: Eri Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 4B (120 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 4. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 30 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 4/10 Recommended character: Eri Mission overview, tips: At first glance, it's unbelievable how this boss can be beat in just 30 seconds. However, this guide is here for a reason! Pick Eri. You really need her surplus grenades to deal some serious damage fast. Once you start the mission, immediately head left and free the POW there to get your Enemy Chaser powerup. The POW on the right with his Dropshot powerup can be entirely forgotten. Now, stand on the boss's left 'hand', and toss all of your grenades while shooting with your Enemy Chaser at the same time. Once all of your grenades are gone, jump on top of the boss's head, then CROUCH DOWN as you repeatedly feed him Enemy Chaser blasts. The crouching part is very important; it reduces your gun's distance to the boss, enabling faster reloads and thus more damage at a given time(remember that there can only be two Enemy Chaser charges visible at a given moment). If you do crouch, the Enemy Chaser will fire at a surprisingly fast rate, knocking down the boss's health to nothing before you know it. Remember, though, that even with this method, you'll barely manage 26 seconds or so. You have to be quick and efficient; remember that. Base Assault 4C (180 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 4. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 1 minute. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 Recommended character: Marco, possibly Eri Mission overview, tips: Nothing special with this mission. Just pick Marco, start the mission, throw all of your grenades at the boss as soon as you start while standing on one of his claws, then let him have it with your pistol. Be careful of the boss's attacks, specifically that double strafing laser attack and the missiles he fires at you from the background. As long as you stay alive for long and it doesn't abuse its screen-sweeping giant laser attack, you'll beat the boss with about 10 seconds to spare on the time limit. Special Training 4A (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items to get the highest score you can within the time limit. Additional rules: Each fish gives you 500 points. Whenever you collect a mushroom, it briefly reverses your control so that pressing left makes you go right, and vice versa. Mushrooms give you 1,000 points, however. To qualify for S-rank: Score 70,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 1/10 Recommended character: Anyone, it doesn't matter. Mission overview, tips: This mission is laughably easy. Upon entering the level you'll see streams of fish falling on a spot. Just stand under the stream and collect those fish. Occasionally the fish stream shifts to another location; simply follow the fish there and keep on collecting. Sometimes mushrooms will fall at random locations. These mushrooms are worth double the points the fish give you, but they briefly switch the right and left side of your controls. However, this is not detrimental; if you know what to expect you can handle it without much difficulty, so if you're confident you can choose to go after the mushrooms that stand in your way while pursuing the shifting fish streams. Don't go after mushrooms while sacrificing the fish though; you lose more points by the fish than by gaining with the mushrooms. Really, as long as you pay attention and diligently follow the fish, there's no reason why you won't get an S-rank here. It's that easy. Special Training 4B (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Keep as many balls airborne by shooting them until the time limit expires. Additional rules: You have only one life. As time passes, you continuously earn points depending on how many balls are still afloat. You fail the mission immediately if you let your last ball fall down. To qualify for S-rank: Score 1,000,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 with Fio, 2/10 with anyone else. S-Rank Difficulty: 1/10 with Fio, 10/10 with anyone else. Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: Basically, to translate that S-rank requirement, you should not lose a single ball, at least not until 3 or so seconds remain at the timer. Since the level gives you four balls and doesn't give you more, this should be insanely difficult to S-rank, right? Sure is. But they forgot about Fio. And her Heavy Machine Gun. Remember Special Training 3A? Where you kept a ball in the top-right corner for a long time with the Heavy Machine Gun? That tactic still works beautifully with four balls. Go ahead and do it. Bam. Easy S-rank for you. If you're somehow crazy enough to try to get an S-rank with another character, well, be my guest. I'm not going to bother to give you hints for it, because I personally believe it's humanly impossible. Special Training 4C (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Make it to the end of the combat zone as fast as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are only allowed melee attacks; you don't have any other weapons, not even your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Get to the end of the stage within 40 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 3/10 Recommended character: Ralf Mission overview, tips: Ralf is your obvious choice here, since his Vulcan Punch is the fastest melee attack that's available to you, as well as the fact that his ability to survive one hit comes in handy against the poisonous insects and flying piranhas(keep in mind, though, that the man-eating plants can still kill Ralf with a single bite). Some fancy footwork is required here; although the Vulcan Punch is useful, you would be better off just jumping and knifing the plants here. If you see a plant rear its head, get out of the way before you become plant food. Use the Vulcan Punch only sparingly; you have plenty of time on this mission anyway. When you reach the insect nest, first clear away any plants in the vicinity before dealing with the nest itself. Unload Vulcan Punches on the nest; you'll destroy it quickly. Right after the nest, you'll encounter piranhas flying towards you. Although you can kill these piranhas, it's not recommended as a frontal assault only kills you and you have to slash them in the back. So just jump over them repeatedly. If Ralf hasn't taken a hit until now, you can afford to jump over a few and just get hit; if you don't use your rapid recovery technique by holding down Y he'll be invulnerable for a long time as he slowly gets up, and the mission ends anyway as soon as the piranhas stop charging, even midway through Ralf's recovery frames. Overall, not that tough as long as you're careful around the plants, and a comparatively easy S-rank for you. [Level 5] ========= Target Elimination 5A (120 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 5. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Anyone except Clark; they can all come in handy Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 5B (180 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 5. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: ?? Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 5C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 5. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: ?? Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Item Collection 5 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 5 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 5A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 5. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Ralf, Fio Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 5B (120 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 5. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 1 minute. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 9/10 Recommended character: Fio, Marco Mission overview, tips: Wow. That's the only word I can say. This boss is just crazy, and the time limit for S-ranking, moreso. Although technically there is no limit to what weapon you may use against the boss, there aren't any weapon powerups in the first place(well, not soon enough to help you through the time limit) so it's a moot point. After experimenting around a bit it seems that Fio and her Heavy Machine Gun are the easiest way to achieve the time limit. As for Marco's strong pistols, they can work too, but the lack of diagonal shots with the pistol will make it slightly frustrating. Eri with her surplus grenades won't cut it; you need some serious firepower to beat this devil within a minute, she falls short by a few seconds. As for the other three, I laugh at their general direction; they're hopeless. Anyway, at first... (unfinished, second-by-second guide needed) (xx) Overall, you'll curse the boss a lot since the boss is immune except for his three weak points, and he likes to cover them up a lot. A very difficult mission, but not one of the worst. Keep practicing! Base Assault 5C (180 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 5. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 1 minute. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 9/10 Recommended character: Marco Mission overview, tips: See the above directions for S-Ranking Base Assault 5B. Precisely the same directions apply, except for the fact that you now can't use Fio due to the restrictions on her Heavy Machine Gun. As noted, nothing really changes since there were no weapon powerups for this boss in the first place. Special Training 5A (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Attack and destroy as many enemy drones as you can within the time limit. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are given a Slugnoid at the start of the mission; you get infinite replacements if it gets destroyed. To qualify for S-rank: Score 75,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 3/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: IF you pick Tarma, this mission becomes a piece of cake to S-rank as the added power thanks to Tarma makes short work of the drones. Although the Slugnoid can jump to the ledge on your right, don't bother. The Slugnoid's cannons prove very ineffective against the drones, so focus on the twin vulcans. Keep in mind that a Slugnoid's vulcans are very fragile and thus break off with every hit; if you do get hit, you would be better off self-destructing the Slugnoid with L+Y and immediately boarding the replacement that drops down after that. As long as you keep these tips in mind, the mission is very easy to get an S-rank in(I managed slightly over 100,000 points on my first try). Special Training 5B (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Keep the ball airborne until the time limit expires while fighting off enemies. You accumulate points as long as the ball remains airborne. Additional rules: You have one life. You have unlimited balls, but whenever your ball drops to the ground your score resets to zero. To qualify for S-rank: Score 240,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 6/10 Recommended character: Fio Mission overview, tips: Another 'keep the ball safe' mission. However, this time an infinite number of Morden grunts are here to join the fun as well. They prove to be a bother since their bodies block your bullets, which hamper your shots on the ball. The best strategy to go through with the mission is to pick Fio and spray bullets relentlessly while tapping up on the D-pad. While you do have to focus on the ball, also be on the lookout for shield grunts and paratroopers, who are the most dangerous enemies you'll face in the mission. Throw a grenade to take care of the former, and spray the skies with bullets for the latter. And remember, the score limit for S-ranking the mission roughly translates to you having to keep the ball airborne for 16-17 timer seconds. So until the number above hits 17, you're free to do whatever you want without paying attention to the ball, but once you hit that time, keeping the ball afloat becomes your top priority. Special Training 5C (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Be airborne for as much as you can by jumping repeatedly while fighting off enemies. As long as your feet are not on the ground, you continuously earn points. Additional rules: You have only one life. To qualify for S-rank: Score 65,000 or more points Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 Recommended character: Ralf Mission overview, tips: One of the weirder missions, definitely. What you must to is keep jumping throughout the mission. You don't have enough leeway either; I tried it and the best I could manage was barely above 66,000. You might ask, 'What's so difficult about just jumping continuously?' Well, yes. The catch is that there are an infinite number of Morden grunts running or parachuting in, ready to kill you. They even bring in a few tanks. That's the problem. Of course, in order to stay alive you can't just ignore these enemies; you have to regularly take them down. Since a diagonal attack would be handy here, you might think Fio's the best choice here, but thankfully, the game gives you a free Heavy Machine Gun powerup just seconds into the mission, so you can rule her out. The best choice is Ralf, since he gives a bit of leeway with mistakes. Just keep shooting, strafing the ground with your machine gun to take care of any grunts. Keep an eye on the sky, and if you see any grunts parachuting in, spray some gunfire into the sky to take care of them. If you see a tank, throw a couple of grenades into it and finish it off with some more machine gun shots. And all the while, don't forget to keep jumping. If you didn't neglect to jump through the whole mission, you'll get your S-rank without too much trouble. However, just a couple seconds of forgetting to jump will most likely cost you that S-rank. Remember that. [Level 6] ========= Target Elimination 6A (120 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 6. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 6B (180 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 6. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 5 minutes. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 8/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 6C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 6. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the mission within 5:30. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Marco Mission overview, tips: Item Collection 6 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 6 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 6A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 6. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 with Tarma, 8/10 with anyone else. Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 6B (120 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 6. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 30 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 with Tarma, 7/10 with anyone else. S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 with Tarma, 9/10 with anyone else. Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 6C (180 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 6. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. Yes, you don't have your Slug Gigant with you... But Allen O'Neill has his! (rotten cheater...) To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss within 1 minute. Clear Difficulty: 8/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 10/10 Recommended character: Marco Mission overview, tips: Special Training 6A (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Survive the onslaught of enemies until time runs out. In the meantime, kill as many enemies as you can to get the best score you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. To qualify for S-rank: Get 65,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Since you start in a Slug Gigant, the choice is obvious as to who you should pick; Tarma the master of vehicles. Once Tarma is chosen, what you must do is simple; wreck house. You don't even need to coherently think about how to fight; just shoot everything and step on any grunt who's stupid enough to get right next to you. Ignore the damage you take; as you're Tarma you have more than enough health to last you until the end of the mission. Just make sure you avoid any threats that you can, like shooting down the missiles shot by enemy fighter planes. The enemy copters, when shot down, will drop items. They will mostly drop teddy bears worth 5,000 points, but one will drop a fuel can that replenishes your health. These items are greatly helpful, and they're mandatory to collect if you want that S-rank. As long as you keep shooting your enemies diligently and collect every item dropped from the copters, you'll get an S-rank without too much trouble. Special Training 6B (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Survive the onslaught of enemies until time runs out. In the meantime, kill as many enemies as you can to get the best score you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. Ralf's Vulcan Punches and Clark's Argentine Backbreakers don't grant you extra points. To qualify for S-rank: Get 32,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 2/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 Recommended character: Ralf, Fio Mission overview, tips: At first glance, with the only enemies being grunts, the obvious answer seems to be picking Fio and spraying the landscape full of Heavy Machine Gun bullets. Well, partly. The catch is if you do that, you'll never reach the S-rank score limit; there just isn't enough time to shoot enough enemies for that. The solution is... knifing. Your knife melee attacks give you 500 points per kill as opposed to the 100 you get for shooting them, and you have to abuse that fact in this mission to get it. Since closing in for melee attacks is a risky business, Ralf would be the best character here, although Fio and her Heavy Machine Gun still retain value for being able to quickly dispose of any enemies that you aren't going to kill with a knife thrust in the first place. Basically, withhold your trigger finger. Get close to them, then knife them. Shoot only the more troublesome enemies like paratroopers, and those hand- rockets thrown by enemy grunts. If you encounter a grunt holding a shield, you can choose to shoot the shield until it breaks for some bonus points instead of breaking it instantly with a knife slash. Or you can just lob a grenade to kill him instantly if you're in a tight spot. All this while, pay attention to the ground; it's snowy and you are constantly sinking beneath it. Sinking to the bottom freezes you into a snowman(or woman), which renders you immobile and highly susceptible to enemy attacks for a second. Keep jumping around to avoid this. Enough knife attacks will net you an S-rank, so keep your twin knives ready! As long as you remember that knives are crucial, the mission isn't too difficult. Special Training 6C (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Jump over the incoming sled as close as possible. The closer the sled is to you when you jump, the better your score. Additional rules: You have only one life. To qualify for S-rank: Score 100,000 points. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 1/10 Recommended character: Anyone, it doesn't matter. Mission overview, tips: The shortest mission ever, and one of the weirdest as well. But it also happens to be one of the easiest, too. Basically, it's a game of chicken of sorts; you have to jump the sled as closely as possible without dying. It sounds simple, and in fact, it is. The sled insta-kills Ralf as well, however, so there's no benefit in choosing him. Just practice. Dying a few times and restarting will get you the feeling of when to jump the thing. Since the mission's so ridiculously short, it's easy and quick to get a lot of practice in. Remember, you have to be perfect to get 100,000 points, and that's the only score that gives an S-rank. Overall, a very easy S-rank and 100 points for you. Not bad, considering that this mission is located so close to the end of the game. Special Training 6D (100 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Survive the onslaught of enemies until time runs out. In the meantime, kill as many enemies as you can to get the best score you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. Your Slug Gigant's vulcans and cannon are disabled, so you can't use them. Have the Slug Gigant step on enemy grunts to kill them. To qualify for S-rank: Get 10,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 1/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 2/10 Recommended character: Tarma Mission overview, tips: Another weird mission... boy, the developers must've been running out of ideas or something... Anyway, there's not much to say with this mission, except to use Tarma. That's all the advice you really need. Actually, I question whether it's possible to even SURVIVE this mission with someone who's not named Tarma; you'll get killed halfway through the mission no matter how hard you try to survive. Anyway, have fun being a kid surrounded by anthills. Enjoy squishing as many Morden Grunts as you can in various ways; walking over them, jumping and landing on them, kicking them in mid-jump... As long as you weren't lazy in this, you'll get your S-rank. Simple and easy. Ignore their pitiful attacks as there simply isn't enough time to kill you. Whatever happens, you can't die as long as you pick Tarma, so destroy enemy grunts with pure impunity. [Level 7] ========= Target Elimination 7A (120 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 7. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 5/10 Recommended character: Ralf Mission overview, tips: Target Elimination 7B (180 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 7. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level within 6:30. Clear Difficulty: 5/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 9/10 Recommended character: Eri, Ralf Mission overview, tips: Eri is your recommended character because of the added grenades she has at her disposal, though Ralf is also a good choice just because of how crazy this stage is. Basically, the most important thing for you to remember in this stage is: Keep that Shotgun powerup. Whatever the cost. Its massive firepower enables you to make short work of tough enemies with a lot of health, like tanks and bosses. This is vital, as while the time limit for this mission is a little more lenient compared to the insanity you'll face in the next one, it's still very hard to manage it. Having that Shotgun with you saves a lot of time, as do Eri's grenades used wisely. Keep a Shotgun on your person at all times(you pick one up at near the start while you're riding a Slug Fighter; keep that), and have a versatile, long-range weapon like the Heavy Machine Gun or Laser Gun as your secondary choice. Blast nearly everything with that Shotgun while spraying Machine Gun fire around if the only enemies are grunts. If you still have that Shotgun when you reach the boss, good for you. Unload your shots. The boss will drop weapon powerups that are near impossible to avoid; make sure your Shotgun is equipped so that you don't lose it to inferior choices like the Rocket Launcher or Dual Heavy Machine Guns. Focus on blasting the boss and throwing whatever grenades you have left, and you'll finish it quite easily, hopefully within the time limit. Target Elimination 7C (200 pts) ------------------------------- Main objective: Beat Level 7. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol, grenades, and any Metal Slugs you can find. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the level within 8:20. Clear Difficulty: 7/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 10/10 Recommended character: Marco Mission overview, tips: Now this is really hard, as the time limit is just insane. You HAVE to use Marco to get your S-rank; you really need his pistol firepower bonus since the level's hellishly long and hard. The other characters won't make it since the time limit's as tight as it gets, and they'll waste too much time on the mid- boss and the actual final boss. Even with Marco, the level is, as I said, insane. Enemy projectiles flying in from every conceivable direction, tough enemies all around, two bosses, not to mention a single slip-up will wreck the whole mission... Whew. It's just crazy. All I can say is, select this mission from the main game, pick Marco, and practice like crazy. Even then, chances are that this mission is one nut that's too hard to crack. Well, that's okay. This IS one of the craziest Combat School missions there is, anyway. Keep cool, and remember that while you do have to go through the level as fast as heck, saving your own skin takes top priority. Distribute your grenades efficiently, since those 10 you start with are the only grenades you'll ever get to use. I would recommend using most(if not all) of them on the mid-boss so that you can shave off some precious time. If you do manage to even beat this mission, consider yourself a Metal Slug master. You got an S-rank?! Then you're a Metal Slug GOD. It's that hard... Item Collection 7 (100 pts) --------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: POW Rescue 7 (100 pts) ---------------------- Main objective: Rescue as many POWs as you can. Additional rules: You have four lives. Mission ends right before the boss. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 7A (100 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 7. Additional rules: You have four lives. To qualify for S-rank: Beat the boss without losing any lives. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Ralf, Fio Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 7B (140 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 7. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Eri, Marco Mission overview, tips: Base Assault 7C (200 pts) ------------------------- Main objective: Defeat the boss of Level 7. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. The only weapons you can use are your pistol and grenades. To qualify for S-rank: Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 0/10 Recommended character: Marco, Eri Mission overview, tips: Special Training 7A (120 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Cross the platforms across the lava pool as fast as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Get across the pool within 15 seconds. Clear Difficulty: 3/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 8/10 Recommended character: Anyone, it doesn't matter. Mission overview, tips: A weird mission, and a hard one too. Basically, all you have to do is get over the lava pool in 15 seconds. Doesn't sound too hard? The catch is that there are mines floating up under the platforms in the lava pool, and if you're standing on them when it explodes, you're dead. Not only that, but the platforms sink into the lava when you're standing on them. Naturally, if you touch the lava, you're dead. The platforms do float back up if you're not standing on them, though. Finally, when the mine explodes under the platform, the platform goes flying up, splashes down, and for a few moments is under the lava thanks to the impact. Since you can't skip a platform due to them being decently separated from each other, this forces you to wait and waste time if it happens to your next platform, which is debilitating to your S-rank attempt. Of course, if you're going to take your time, this mission's easy; you just have to take note of the mines under the lava, and make sure not to just stand still for long. However, for an S-rank, this mission's incredibly annoying. You need some really fancy footwork, as well as luck so that the mines don't prematurely explode and force you to wait, since the time limit is insane; even if you were lucky like no other and managed to go over the pool nonstop with no waiting, you'd barely manage 13 seconds. It's that strapped for time. So, go as fast as you can, jumping when the mines explode under your platform to avoid their blasts(the flying platform by itself doesn't kill). With a little luck in the bombs' placements and with practice, hopefully you might make it. Special Training 7B (120 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Destroy enemies within the time limit to earn as much points as you can. Additional rules: You have only one life. You are timed for the mission; the faster you beat the mission, the better your rank. To qualify for S-rank: Get 45,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 4/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 6/10 Recommended character: Fio, possibly Eri Mission overview, tips: Oh dear, it's those lava platforms again. Thankfully there are no mines this time, but your mission is quite unpleasant; to get rid of as many enemies as you can within the time limit. The character of choice would be Fio. As some of the enemy copters drop weapon powerups when shot down, you might think that Eri would be better. Well, if you can get a Heavy Machine Gun or even better, a Flameshot ASAP, then yes, Eri and her extra grenades would be the best then. However, these weapon drops are random and unpredictable. At worst, no weapons may be dropped, and if that happens you're stuck to your lousy pistol for the rest of the mission. Which definitely isn't good. Anyway, pick Fio, then go on blasting enemy copters and paratroopers. Keep an eye on their projectiles, AND keep an eye on the lava so that you don't fall into it. If you diligently keep shooting and destroying copters with your Heavy Machine Gun, the score limit for the S-rank is easy to achieve. The problem is surviving until time runs out while doing that, which a little practice can certainly remedy. Special Training 7C (120 pts) ----------------------------- Main objective: Collect as many items to get the highest score you can within the time limit. Additional rules: You have only one life. Each roast chicken gives you 1,000 points. Whenever you collect a toad, it messes up with your control briefly so that you bounce upwards uncontrollably for 3 times or so. Toads give you 500 points. To qualify for S-rank: Get 280,000 or more points. Clear Difficulty: 0/10 S-Rank Difficulty: 6/10 Recommended character: Anyone, it doesn't matter. Mission overview, tips: Remember Special Training 4A? The one where we collected fish while trying to avoid mushrooms? Well, this mission's the same mission, only that it's back with a vengeance. This time, you're trying to collect roast chicken while avoiding toads. However, this time, collecting toads is not an option. They cause you to bounce uncontrollably into the air 3 times. They bounce you pretty high too, so you waste a lot of time and potential collected chicken as well. Not to mention that the toads give LESS points than the chicken this time. Avoid those toads at all costs. Not only that, but again... you guessed it, we have to do this mission on those infernal platforms that sink into the lava, the same as Special Training 7A and 7B. So while collecting your chicken, don't forget to keep jumping in place to not let the platform sink and kill you. As with Special Training 7A, a little luck is required to get an S-rank in this mission. You have to be lucky so that the chicken-spawning location doesn't change drastically(for example, spawning from the leftmost platform at one moment, then switching to the rightmost platform on the next), and that toads don't hinder you by blocking your way or jumping into you while changing platforms. With a little luck and concentration, the S-rank is not too hard to get. You have to be diligent in collecting that chicken, though; the score limit is surprisingly hard to reach, so slacking off for even a few moments will cost you dearly. =============================================================================== VI. Miscellaneous =============================================================================== [Copyright] Metal Slug 7 and all of its characters are the property of SNK Playmore. I own nothing, except this document itself. [Concerning Distribution] As long as A) this document remains as a whole, unchanged and unedited, B) you give me credit for writing this, and C) the document is provided for free and not used as any monetary means, you are free to redistribute this guide in any way you like. One exception is posting it on other websites, or printing it on a media like a magazine(though I highly doubt the latter is likely); I want you to ask my permission before doing so(there are nearly no reasons for me to refuse, but posting it without asking me, THEN asking for permission seems like a good enough reason). As of now, websites that are allowed to post this guide: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ [Contact] Contact me at esk2978 (a) hanmail (dot) net. Replies may be slow in coming, so please be patient. Oh, and make sure to include the words 'Metal Slug 7' in the mail title if you are about to inquire about this guide, or else they may be classified as spam and deleted without me noticing anything. Any mail that is offensive, hard to read(l337, for example), has nothing to do with the guide, etc. will be deleted without any responses whatsoever. Any constructive comments, corrections, suggestions and such will be welcomed. [Thanks to] + GameFAQs, for giving me such wonderful gaming experiences as in pulling me out of tight spots. And of course, posting this FAQ. + CJayC, the original admin, for creating GameFAQs. + SBAllen, the current admin, for maintaining GameFAQs. + SNK Playmore, for the extremely fun, addicting, and stress-relieving Metal Slug series with all of its Nazi-wannabe-blasting glory coupled with wacky, surreal humor. + And you for reading this! Copyright 2011-2012 Eugene Kim