Defenders of Dynatron(NES) FAQ/Walkthrough version 1.0.1 by schultw.andrez@sbcglobal.net(anti spam spoonerism) Please do not reproduce for profit without my consent. You won't be getting much profit anyway, but that's not the point. This took time and effort, and I just wanted to save a memory of an old game and the odd solutions any way I could. Please send me an email referring to me and this guide by name if you'd like to post it on your site. This guide has a corresponding city map on GameFAQs. You can refer to it to decide where to go. You can also rotate it and it will be clearer than the in-game map. ================================ OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CONTROLS 3. STRATEGIES 4. WALKTHROUGH 4-1. CLEARING THE STREETS 4-2. CLEARING THE MALL 4-3. CLEARING THE SEWERS 4-4. PROTO COLA 4-5. DR. MAYHEM 5. CHEATS 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS ================================ 1. INTRODUCTION Defenders of Dynatron City(DC) had some great ideas. But it didn't have much else worth bothering with. It's just not a very good game. It features six heroes you can interchange while running around Dynatron City, shooting down monsters and eventually taking out Dr. Mayhem in a sequence of five scenes. The first is really the most interesting and involved, and the rest do seem to get a bit repetitive. The bad AI should eventually lose out to the bad hit detection, but you'll be able to figure out how to hit the enemy most of the time. Given that each scene has a time-limit, you may have to learn how to do as much as you can before the bos fight and, yes, chisel a bit. The six heroes: # Jet Headstrong, who fires his head off # Radium Dog, a green dog that bites people and things # Miss Megawatt, who shoots electric bolts, potentially at diagonals # Buzzsaw Girl, who rides quickly on a buzzsaw that is like a wheel # Toolbox, a robot that hammers the ground uselessly as an attack # Monkey Kid, a blue monkey who flings bananas Thanks to Wikipedia for this information. They really do have the goods on nearly everything! 2. CONTROLS Move left and right as expected. Up/down climbs ladder or walks up/down. The controls for each person are different. (A) attacks. (B) uses the special power, and you can hold down if the power is flying. # Jet Headstrong fires his head up, down or left. He flies for a power move. You need to hold the head down for it to move all the way. # Toolbox jumps up in the air for a power move. This is useful for defense or jumping over random background damagers. He pounds what is ahead of him. He also jumps down as a power move and can climb up stairs. # Radium Dog floats in the air. He needs to get in close to beat someone, but sometimes if they fire at face level, they can't really attack him. He can rapid-bite which is nice. # Buzzsaw Girl fires quickly and moves pretty quickly, and she flips up to land and jump. The flip can damage an enemy, but you don't want to rely on it. She can rapid fire if you hold the button down. # Miss Megawatt can fire downwards diagonally but not (with any reliability) upwards. Her power-up move is to move fast. This is useful against some monsters but generally Buzzsaw girl can move fast enough. She cannot rapid- fire. # Monkey Boy throws bananas, which is pretty worthless. (select/start) goes to the item adjust screen. It is a de facto way to freeze the game. Use up/down to go among the 3 options. Use left/right and (A) to choose a new character. (A) chooses the map and (A) clears it. (A) also uses a supercharger, which makes you invulnerable and very powerful for a while. 3. STRATEGIES Sneak up behind monsters when possible. If not, move vertically to avoid them, watch where they go, and loop around them. This negates the possibility that you might not hit them. Most of the time you can hit fliers at the bottom, lizards with an accurate shot, etc. But you should also give yourself a way to flee if the hit that should count does not. If you can run past monsters without damage, that is a huge advantage. Don't feel guilty about rapid fire, or upset if you seem to hit a monster. Collision detection is bad, though often enough the second hit will take out a monster. Watch the health and use Toolbox as a bunker if you are in a tight spot. Any time an enemy hits you and the health goes way down, immediately focus on avoiding and outflanking that enemy to kill it. There are some that randomly do a lot of damage. Learn them. Be aware of where the nearest food is. Before the next fight, or a big fight you know is ahead, be sure to recharge. There is enough food, so it's better to waste a bit of it and get to the maximum(112 for all except Toolbox, 224.) The exception is if you don't have a lot of time. For that, you pretty much have to just fire continually and learn from your mistakes. A dry run through the game would probably help you long term. Save states before each new street combat. It's easy to remember right is east, but remember it is north too. And that north/east INCREASES the street name(1..6, A..D). And neither exit up or down makes a difference. 4. WALKTHROUGH Your heroes to choose from at the start are Jet Headstrong, Radium Dog, and Ms. Megawatt. The other three are in your roster: Toolbox, Monkey Kid, and Buzzsaw Girl. The two females are probably the best. I would choose Jet to start out. You can get Ms. Megawatt, who is really better, later. The first few fights should not be a problem. You want to make sure also that nobody gets captured. If they are low on health, find food. Toolbox is actually a decent guy to have around because he has a ton of hit points. However, it is not worth keeping Monkey Kid. ??trade Jet Headstrong at start for Ms Megawatt. Where does JH appear? 4-1. CLEARING THE STREETS 1200 time to complete this. At ten streets, plus a boss fight, that is 110 time-units(seconds) per street. At first, you will have easy fights, but they get tougher. You will want to pick up Radium Dog along the way, trading Monkey Kid. You'll also want to pick up some power-ups, to make it quicker to get through the Sewers. I also have a recommended order of clearing the streets, as monsters flying from the sides can be rather nasty, and you want to be able to fire at them before they shoot. If you played through the game without really trying to solve it you may notice that your health falls off a cliff on one of the later fights. This is not an accident, but it sure seems like a dumb part of the gameplay. Jumping monsters in the last two to four streets do 36(!) damage, while everyone else does 1 damage. This is a recurring theme in the game, and it quite simply gives you no clue who does what damage. If you are using an emulator, I strongly recommend you save after each completed area, provided you get through quickly. And be constantly firing with Buzzsaw Girl. But anyway--you have 10 streets to clear and 1200 time units to do it in. Each street shouldn't take much more than 60, leaving you a lot of time to wander around. The boss fight will take 150 at most. So first, here is the pattern of enemies, and then I'll give the pattern of streets. 1. walkers 2. walkers 3. walkers 4. 2 flyers, walker 5. flyers 6. flyers 7. jumpers 8. jumpers 9. everyone, heavy damage from jumpers 10. everyone, heavy damage from jumpers Walkers are easy to just get behind and shoot. Align your feet horizontally with the flyers and shoot away--you can either shoot their heads or base to dismantle them. If Buzzsaw Girl fires continually, she'll get them. Jumpers are tougher. You need to be able to duck their bullets and turn around. They jump to synchronize themselves with you, so if they get close, you can move vertically. Also they cannot fire if hit, so if you get the first hit in, you shouldn't have a problem. That isn't always a sure thing with the game's collision detection, but there's a way to avoid that, mostly. The path I recommend to get through this level is as follows. It's implicit that you clear things before doing anything. Parentheses are for cleared streets. C street, switch to Buzzsaw Girl and kill everyone and exit on right. You can, if you want, visit the Doctor and Police for hints, though the hints are random. You just need to fire continually at whatever monsters are there. You get $5 for each one. It's good practice but not critical. 6 street, kill everyone and exit on the left edge--remember to get the Megawatt power item in the auto dealer/repair. You'll need to flip to Ms Megawatt and back. Note that you appear from the right edge. This is useful later because the jumpers will appear from the left edge, and you can blast them as they come in, or shoot them once, then run at them and turn and fire as they go to the right edge. Don't move from the right screen. And if your hits do go down, search out food to regain health. You can only take two critical hits before a player is captured, and the game isn't much good at showing you when they'll occur. A street, kill everyone and exit on the right. (6 street, go to the right edge--no passage to street B) D street, kill everyone and go 1 street left. 5 street, kill everyone and exit on the right. (D street, go 1 street left) 4 street, kill everyone and exit on the right. (D street, get the Buzzsaw Girl Power-up from the Hardware Store right of Matt's Meats, go 1 street left) 3 street, kill everyone and exit on the right. (D street, get the Toolbox power-up from the Drug Store left of Matt's Meats, go 1 to the left edge--no passage to street 2) 1 street, kill everyone, enter the toy store to trade Monkey Kid for Radium Dog and go to the 2nd-left street. B street, kill everyone and go to the 2nd-left street. 2 street, kill everyone. Enter the sporting goods store for a Ms Megawatt power-up. Go to the right street. Though you may wish to get some food before you do so. C street, go to the left edge to activate the boss, then go right and start firing right away. Eventually the supercharger will appear on the bottom part of the blimp. Hit it a few times and you win. You may have fliers to contend with but they won't do damage. Keep in the neighborhood of the bottom supercharger and keep firing away, and you should hit it pretty quickly. Pick up the supercharger(twinkly thing that falls to the ground) and you are ready for stage 2. 4-2. CLEARING THE MALL You may wish to pick up power-ups if you haven't already. With my walkthrough, you just need to go to street 6 to get the Radium Dog powerup on the right edge. You have 1000 time and I found I could use 300 or so getting power-ups in various buildings. So, if you do not have them, or you need/want food, get that now. Use the game map/my map. Use Buzzsaw Girl for this. Wait for the Robosaurus to come to you, or else it may jump out from the side and blast you. Be prepared to retreat diagonally as soon as you see the Robosaurus. The plan to win is pretty simple here. You find a Robosaurus, retreat and fire 3 shots. Then repeat. When he gets close, move diagonally above/below him and circle around, and repeat the other direction til he's dead. You want to make sure you are horizontally aligned with him--he will flash when you shoot. You can also fire when the Robosaurus is off the screen--in fact, this will stop him from shooting. However, don't stay too long as the baby Robosauri can do damage. Retreat and fire off the screen, then if you get to the right edge, loop and repeat. Then take the elevator--run to the edge and push down at the curved bit. You may want to buy food on the first level--there's not much else to do with your money. You won't really have time to spend it in the sewers, so spend it now. The final gun, Atom Ed, is not too bad. Fire at it, hit it three times or so, retreat diagonally, then fire again. Don't wait for it to come onscreen. If it does fire, note that you can outrun the fire easily, but don't get too cocky. I also found it easier to work firing from the left at Atom Ed than the right. --level 1 has 1 robosaurus --level 2 has 2 --level 3 has 3, then Atom Ed. You get another supercharger for clearing this. Again, hold off using the supercharger until the final boss. 4-3. CLEARING THE SEWERS This is not too bad, except for the time constraints of 800 units. Use Ms. Megawatt, who can run fast, to get through here. There are basically two sorts of enemies. The lizards, whom you can retreat/fire at, and the birds, which fire diagonally. The lizards are the most dangerous, as they do 36 damage. For Lizards you can actually run past them and they'll swing at you and miss. For birds, you can fire at them from the top part and nail the two center ones. You need to climb up the ladder a bit to take out the top one in the group of four, but an angled shot can take out the bottom one. Climbing on and off the ladder can be criminally difficult, so watch for this. You get 800 time to win this, which is really barely enough, so proceed quickly. Wipe out the bottom row moving left to right, then the top. You can use emulation save states to see if anything is over on one side, then you can try another. To avoid going back and forth too much, the pattern I recommend is: 5-D-1-A-6-C-2-B-4-B-3. The sewer boss is on 2nd street, and it is not hard. You just go to the top, fire right, go back left, kill a lizard, then go back right and fire. You can even kill lizards with a diagonal shot. You won't see the supercharger during this, but you'll see the screen shaking. After killing enough, you'll see the supercharger drop to the bottom. Pick it up. Incidentally a map of what exits are where(up or down) is below, just for fun. v-------v---v 6 | | | | | | | | | | ^---^---v 5 | | | | | | | | | | | | v---^---v---^ 4 | | | | | | | | | | | | ^---v---^---v 3 | | | | | | | | | | | | v---v---v | 2 | | | | | | | | | | | | v---v---v---v 1 A B C D 4-4. PROTO COLA Time: 700 The enemies look tough but, in fact, Monkey Kid is the toughest enemy, with the bubbles(4 damage) being the worst of the rest. Without the bubbles, this would be rather easy. You should use auto-fire to tackle the enemies, except when you need to run, which should not be often. If there are too many bubbles, you can use Megawatt Girl to run, then switch to another enemy. It's also viable to use a superhero with a lot of health to absorb bubble damage, then switch to the superhero that can do damage. This is tedious but probably necessary. Also, don't worry if Megawatt Girl or Toolbox gets captured, as long as you are making decent progress. It's even ok if Buzzsaw Girl gets captured if you have Radium Dog at decent strength. The only thing you need to do here is get out with Radium Dog alive. And in the meantime, you just need to be hitting the enemy, and you probably are if you see them flashing. Toolbox has more hit points than you think he does, so don't be shy switching to him and back. You may wish to avoid lots of bubbles at once, so you may want to get them off the screen, but other than that, jump over them and attack enemies as you see fit. Buzzsaw girl is great for long range, and Radium Dog is best for if two enemies are in close. First set of enemies: 25 hits(0x19) for each The first set of enemies is two of Monkey Kid. You can back them into a corner with Radium Dog and just have him eat them to death. If there are a lot of bubbles, clear them with Toolbox jumping on them and then return with Radium Dog. You may wish to use Buzzsaw Girl if Radium Dog's health goes to 1/2 or so. Second set of enemies: 30 hits(0x1e) for each The second set of enemies is two sets of Toolbox. Buzzsaw Girl can blast them, run past them and blast them from the other side. But you need to have Toolbox and Ms. Megawatt spell her. One runs/jumps away and then Buzzsaw Girl blasts from a distance, and the enemies will go down. Again you may have to juggle everyone's health here. Third set of enemies: 35 hits(0x23) for each The third set of enemies is two sets of Buzzsaw Girl. Fortunately the AI is terrible. Radium Dog will rip them apart. Get in close and start biting. Then once you are done, use another guy to get the supercharger on the bottom. 4-5. DR. MAYHEM Time: 600 This one's really corny. I just walked up to Dr. Mayhem and had Radium Dog start barking at him. I had no problem taking him out using the superchargers. You just make sure he's flashing and then hit the A button. I was able to win starting with x60 health, so you can probably win with Radium Dog pretty quickly. 5. CHEATS 0x9c = player #1 power 0x9d = player #2 power 0x9e = player #3 power 0x9f = player #4 power 0xe7 = player #1 0xe8 = player #2 0xe9 = player #3 0xea = player #4 Values 0=Toolbox 1=Buzzsaw Girl 2=Monkey Kid 3=Jet Headstrong 4=Radium Dog 5=Ms Megawatt 0xeb = player #1 hit points 0xec = player #2 hit points 0xed = player #3 hit points 0xee = player #4 hit points (note: freezing player #1's values makes the game rather easy) (also if a player is trapped, resetting brings him back) 0x543 = enemy 1's hits(especially useful in boss fights) 0x544 = enemy 2's hits 0x702 = cash(in increments of $5) 0x705 = # of superchargers 0x7fe = thousands and hundreds digits of time(eg 0x99 = 9900) 0x7ff = tens and ones digit of time(eg 0x99 = 99) End of FAQ Proper ================================ 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS 0.9.0: sent to GameFAQs 5/5/2009, complete but lacking full detailed instructions on how to get through and handle the worse damage 1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs 5/5/2009, complete with a guide through 1.0.1: sent to GameFAQs 5/6/2009, added sewer map and general details Thanks to the usual GameFAQs/honestgamers gang, current and emeritus. They know who they are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done. Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog and others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-banned message board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him to be part of mine. Thanks to the NES Completion Project for keeping it going. Thanks to SBAllen for putting various North American NES games up for a bounty. I'd never have discovered this game otherwise. All you people at honestgamers, YELL AT ME if I forgot you and you deserve to be in there. I mean, it's partially because of HGWars I wrote this FAQ, and I want to add to this in the future. Wikipedia, for their information on Defenders of Dynatron City.