/-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=\ \----------------------------Strategy Guide / FAQ---------------------------/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TABLE OF CONTENTS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I. Intro & Stuff II. Version History III. Game Modes IV. Gameplay V. In-depth World Tour Mode VI. The Teams VII. Codes/Cheats - Credits ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I. INTRO & STUFF ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hi... Er, this is a Beach Spikers FAQ. This FAQ is designed to help people with this game. It's a great and under appreciated game that should be owned not only by volleyball fans, but any fan of great sports games. If I've missed anything, please email me at i_see_the_matrix@yahoo.com and I'll give you all the glorious credit you so, so deserve. If you want to use this FAQ on your site (yeah, sure) ask me and I'll think about it... This FAQ was made 100% by me. It's really mean to steal. Just ask, really. I have no problem letting people use this FAQ, that's what it's for. This FAQ was made to be printer-friendly. It should fit perfectly (with 77 characters in length) on a default-bordered sheet of printer paper, see: 12345678911234567892123456789312345678941234567895123456789612345678971234567 This FAQ is only available at -gameFAQs.com -http://www.cheats.de -http://faqs.IGN.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ II. VERSION HISTORY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Version 0.01 (7-21-2003): This is the first version. It's all right here. Version 0.02 (7-22-2003): Added V. through VII. Version 1.00 (7-23-2003): Formatted page to fit printer paper. Version 1.01 (7-23-2003): Added some CREDITS thanks. Version 1.02 (7-24-2003): Fixed ALL CAPS problem. Version 1.03 (7-31-2003): Added a host of the FAQ. Version 1.04 (8-01-2003): Fixed some capitalization and asthetic stuff. Version 1.05 (8-06-2003): Added another host. Version 1.06 (2-21-2004): Changed e-mail and a few typos. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ III. GAME MODES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ {ARCADE MODE} This is the direct port from arcade to GameCube, as many sports games have. In this mode you face off in a tournament against the other teams. You can go at it alone or have a friend join you (the only real way to play). Just have Player Two press START when selecting a team. Once you beat this mode once, you will be the champions and the last team you face next time. This makes arcade mode progressively harder to beat :) Under the default options, you start off with 10 points and play to 15, which I find really weak. Just change Arcade Options (in "OPTIONS" from the root menu) to start at 0 for the real deal. {WORLD TOUR MODE} This is the mode. This is the game. In world tour mode, you design your own team and take them to the top. You play a series of tournaments (8 in total) that get harder as you go. Along the way you earn points for your useless partner and work on your teamwork %, vying for a level 100 and a nice 100% by the end. And the best part--you can use your created team in any mode! The thing is, though, that if you are playing by yourself your teammate will be at the level you left her at in world tour mode. This means that the only way to make a team and use them right away is if you have a friend to play as your team-mate. Otherwise you'll have to go through World Tour to get her at any kind of playing level. {VERSUS MODE} This is great multiplayer madness at it's finest. You can have 1-4 human controlled players in a quick-match type game. You can change the options any way you like, too. Also, this mode contains all the mini-games. Including: }BEACH FLAGS{ In beach flags, the goal is to lay down in the sand, wait for the whistle, then race and grab the flag before anyone else. It has nothing to do with volleyball, but it's still hilarious. At the start you hold the Control Stick down, wait for the announcer to say "GO!" then you let go of the Control Stick and mash the A button until your thumb blisters right the hell off. When you get to the "jump zone" you press B to dive for the flag. The two fastest move on to the finals and repeat this process so that one person will be the champ! }BEACH COUNTDOWN{ In beach countdown, we replace the volleyball with a bomb that acts much like a balloon that explodes. The camera angle stays off to the side the whole time. You get two hits per side and each hit effects the timer of the bomb. You can set if you want the random rule ON or OFF in the options. If it's OFF, the bomb goes down and down only according to the button pressed to hit it. A = 1 point, b = 2, A+B or X/Y = 3. With the random rule ON, every now and then the rules change, such as all hits counting for 1, or everything is x3, or that all hits add to the counter instead of subtract from it. This game is fun with 3 or 4 people, but gets really boring with only 1. }BEACH PK{ This is a penalty "kick" (spike) situation game, in which you go head to head with someone (Player or CPU) in a spike-and-block face off. You can select the type of area that counts as a goal, or have it randomly chosen for each ball. The game goes for 5 hit-or-miss points, it you have a tie at the end of the 5, the game goes until one person gets an advantage over the other. {TUTORIAL MODE} Start here, actually. This mode teaches you all the basics and some of the more advanced stuff in the game. There are 5 areas of training that each have 5 drills plus an explanation. If you get an ok in everything (EVERYTHING...) you unlock some outfits to use on your World Tour teams. {OPTIONS} Set various options here. Such options include the very important Arcade Mode options and basic sound/rumble/gameplay stuff. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ IV. GAMEPLAY ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is where we go into controls, strategies, and/or other crap. There are 3 basic buttons/button-combos that you will be using. A, B, and A+B (or X/Y). X and Y work the exact same way as A+B and I'd suggest using them instead, especially since pressing A+B does not always work. There have been plenty of times when I went to Jump Serve and ended up with and Underhand because I hit B slightly before A. So, the controls: ---------------- SERVING THE BALL ---------------- Underhand Serve (B): This is the weakest serve, and you can't make an error using it, so it's great for first time serving. The "advantage" of using this serve (supposedly) is that it has the best aim. You can place this serve almost anywhere on the court. Overhand Serve (A): This is the basic beach volleyball serve. It's stronger than the underhand but you run the risk of missing if you hit it under 50% power. This is good for intermediate players. Jump Serve (A=B or X/Y): This is the strongest serve, this is the one you want to use all the time. You will miss with this serve if you hit it under 80%, so be careful. At the beginning of Arcade and World Tour mode, however, this serve will often result in an ace. ------------------ RECEIVING THE BALL ------------------ Of the usual 3 hits you get to a side, this is your first. Like most hits in this game, you get 3 options. Normal Receive (A): Also known as the High Receive. This is the one I use all the time, as I don't see any real use for the... Low Receive (B): This just ends up popping the ball a little lower that using A. It can be a bad move if the ball is coming at you fast, as your hit will probably go awry and not give your partner time to hit it. With A at least you give them some time. I guess you can use this to surprise some of your friends, but I don't recommend it. Two Attack (A+B or X/Y): This eliminates the middle-man, so to say. This move sets your partner up for an attack, skipping the toss, catching your opponents off guard. The deal is, though, that you'll get a half-power spike at best with this move. ---------------- TOSSING THE BALL ---------------- This is the second hit, and one of the most important hits to do well. In order to allow your teammate to spike at full power, you have to be in the very center of the circle and use the correct move. Normal Toss (A): Also known as the High Toss. This will toss the ball up high in the air, letting your partner run up to the net for a close and powerful attack. Used most of the time, especially if they are not close. Quick Toss (B): Also known as the Low Toss. This will set your partner up for an immediate attack. No time to position, to run, or to really do any thing at all. Use this only if your partner is already in position to take your opponents off guard. Two Return (A+B or X/Y): This will toss the ball back over the net giving your opponents a free attack. Unless you are against some really bad/new-to- the-game friends, do not use this move! This move is infamous for being used by your World Tour partner and ruining many of your matches before you give her some toss points. --------- ATTACKING --------- This is the 3rd and final hit you can have on your side, so make it good. This is how you score your points. Just like in serving you will get a power meter to decide how hard you hit the ball. Don't worry, your girl will automatically jump for the spike, all you have to do is aim and let it rip. It is very important that your partner gave you a good toss, because how close she was to the center of the circle depends on how high your power meter will allow you to hit. A "FANTASTIC" toss will let you hit it full power, while a "GREAT" is usually around 60% or a little higher. Anything worse than that is just sad... Spike (A): This is the move that will give you the hardest hit. But it can be viciously blocked by anyone with any talent at all. Going against the weaker teams, however, will result in you knocking them flat on their backs if they try to block you. However, if you position this spike well, it it by far the best to use regularly. Feint Shot (B): This (well performed) will place the ball right next to the net. This works well if your opponents are about halfway back or farther, or if they go up for a block and you catch them in time, because you can aim this shot over her hands and hopefully where her partner isn't standing. Hand Spike (A+B or X/Y): This will spike the ball directly at your blockers hands, hoping that the ball will bounce off and go away from their partner. This is a great move against harder teams, who block every fricken attack and get to all your Feint Shots. The ball may bounce back to your side, but you should have plenty of time to get it if you are paying attention. -------- BLOCKING -------- This is the most important move to master in the game. You can block with any button, it makes no difference. Just line yourself up with the "prongs" coming out from under the attacker and press a button when the time is right. I'm afraid you cannot be told the correct timing, it comes with practice alone. So do the Tutorial, fool. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ V. IN-DEPTH WORLD TOUR MODE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the main game. You'll make your team, take them through the ranks, and hope to come out somewhere near the top. You are given points based on where you finish in each of the 8 stages, and ranked among the other teams. so lets get to some of the basics. Okay, when you first start off: YOU WILL LOSE. Your partner might as well be controlled by NO ONE. She will ruin your life if you don't realize right now that even if you are the master of all that is Beach Spikers, she will drag you down. The only way to get any points is with an 80% to full-power jump serve, but that almost never takes you to victory. It can be done, yes, but it is much less frustrating to just let it be the way it has to be. Okay... Making your team: It has been said that a good idea is to make your team from Brazil to ensure that you do not have to take them on in any of the stages (Brazil is the hardest team in the game). You will still have to take on Cuba, but it isn't a bad strategy. Otherwise, just pick any country you feel like, you know? ---------- ATTRIBUTES ---------- Your partner has several attributes that can be improved throughout your tourney in world tour mode. Some are more important than others at first, so I'll tell you which ones you don't really have to worry about until later on. Serve: At first, she will always serve underhand. The higher she gets in points, the more confident she will become. At around 7 or 8, she will do jump serves, and at around 10 she will do full-power jump serves, so once you get there, just leave it. Receive: Without points here, your partner will most likely miss ALL the serves at her. Build this one up right away, it will save you lots of points. Attack: With no points here, your partner will almost always screw up the attack. This is another on to really work on. At the highest levels, she will almost always do a full power spike. This can be a bad thing, though, against tough teams that can block well. Block: I don't worry about this one until last. The reason is that unless you build this one up very quickly when you are doing it (5 or so points at a time) your partner will go for all the blocks and only make about 10% of them. At 20, she will constantly save you. Toss: This is an important one to get right away. At first, most of her tosses will either hit her in the face and fall to the ground, or sail over the net, destroying all chances of a good spike and any kind of victory. Power: This improves all of the other attributes with each point. I'd devote some points each time if you can spare it. Response: Possibly the most important of all the attributes. This one dictates how fast your partner will react to the ball. It improves her hustle and accuracy. -------- TEAMWORK -------- During your games, after every 10 points you get to work on your Teamwork. you will interact with your partner depending on her performance and if you get it right, your Teamwork Percentage will go up. You get 4 different interactions to choose from. The higher your Teamwork Percent, the better your partner plays overall. The lower, the worse. Praise: If you are winning by at least 3 and your partner is doing well (not screwing too much up), this is the one to go with. A good Praise will raise your teamwork the most out of all these. Encourage: If your partner is doing well, not great, and the game is close, this is your best bet. If you are not sure whether to Praise or Reprimand, this is a safe move. Reprimand: This is your best friend during the first matches. Your partner sucks, so tell her. This one also raises your percent a lot. Do Nothing: Use this when your teamwork is already 100% or if you don't want to risk losing any percent points. This is a safe-out. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VI. THE TEAMS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are a total of 16 original teams in the game. Each has a rating (SS down through B) and a country to represent. For this game, SS is the best (and Brazil is the only SS team in the game), S is really good, A is pretty good, and B is the... well, the countries that have never seen a volleyball. Team: USA Team: Canada Players: Lisa Mayer Players: Jullia Quilico Thelma Garnett Luca Olvis Rating: S Rating: B Team: Brazil Team: Mexico Players: Veronyca Marques Players: Angela Sandi Akasha Costa Jessica Salinas Rating: SS Rating: B Team: Australia Team: Thailand Players: Mira Joyce Players: Pinjai Tankul Nicole Fraser Ratee Salvana Rating: S Rating: B Team: Spain Team: Netherlands Players: Gloria Sanchez Players: Nel Feilke Elena Garcia Manon Renesse Rating: B Rating: A Team: Japan Team: China Players: Naomi Wakui Players: Xiuhua Lee Hikaru Sunaga Ling Cui Rating: A Rating: A Team: Italy Team: Germany Players: Irene Fano Players: Anita Erhart Loretta Gilardi Hilda Wolff Rating: A Rating: A Team: France Team: England Players: Carine Lafont Players: Mary Clare Sophie Rouch Susan Evans Rating: A Rating: B Team: Cuba Team: Jamaica Players: Debra Gomez Players: Lynda Howell Petra Fleta Irie Coxe Rating: S Rating: B Brazil and Cuba are the hardest teams in the game, while England and Jamaica and Canada, etc. are the easiest. After playing for a while, you'll get to know each team pretty well and you'll know by instinct how good you see them to be. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VII. CODES/CHEATS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Basically, the cheats consist of unlocking outfits, hair styles, sunglasses, faces and stuff for World Tour mode. You can get these either through beating modes, or entering secret names when making your character. ----------- ARCADE MODE ----------- -Clear first time: Uniforms 87, 88 -Clear second time: Uniforms 90, 91 -Clear third time: Uniforms 93, 94 -Clear with Japan: Uniforms 103, 104 --------------- WORLD TOUR MODE --------------- -Clear with any ranking: Uniforms 96-102, Sunglasses 88-93, Hair 71-74 -Clear with overall 1st place: Uniforms 89, 92, 95 -Clear with 100% team work: (beat Dural Team) Faces 54, 55 -Clear with 30% teamwork or less: (beat Black Dural Team) Face 56 ------------- TUTORIAL MODE ------------- -Complete all training courses: (including Tips To Win) Uniforms 71-86 --------- PASSWORDS --------- When you make your World Tour team, just enter on of these names in the player name box. The password name will disappear and you are then free to enter the other password names or just name your player. -Virtua Cop: "JUSTICE" Uniforms 105, 106. Sunglasses 94 -Daytona USA: "DAYTONA" Uniforms 107, 108 -Fighting Vipers: "FVIPERS" Uniforms 109, 110. Hair 75. Face 51 -Space Channel 5: "ARAKATA" Uniforms 111-113. Hair 76. Face 52 -Phantasy Star 2: "PHANTA2" Uniforms 114, 115. Hair 77. Face 53 -Sega Outfits: "OHTORII" Uniforms 116, 117 --------------------------- EXTRA STAGES IN ARCADE MODE --------------------------- In order to use the extra stages you've unlocked in World Tour mode in Arcade mode, hold R when selecting Arcade. This will make it so that you play in the extra (unlocked) stages instead of the normal ones. (Unsure of this) ------------- RATING POINTS ------------- This one is pretty useful. In World Tour mode, when the tournament bracket screen is up (not the versus screen), hold L and R until the match starts. This will display numbers in the bottom left area of the screen that you can use to determine what to say to your partner. It will look something like this: 5 / 10=0.50% which means you have 5 out of 10 something, and that your score is 0.50%, not good. It also shows your partner's rating. If you are doing great (2.78%) and she is doing really bad (-0.24%) feel free to Reprimand her. If it's even, Encourage or Praise her, and if hers is higher than yours, Praise her. Of course, you still have to take into account the score of the match... So be careful. ~~~~~~~ CREDITS ~~~~~~~ I'd like to thank Sega-AM2 and Nintendo for bringing this game to the masses as it has, myself for spending all this time playing and writing and FAQ for this great game, and you guys for reading it. Thanks to CVXFREAK, Z-Force, and mao2. Their FAQs helped me fill in some of the blank spots :) If I have screwed up, remember to email me: i_see_the_matrix@yahoo.com Copyright 2003 KingQuark. All other trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.