Rush 'n Attack FAQ/Walkthrough(NES) version 1.0.0 Copyright 2000 Andrew Schultz schultza@earthlink.net Please don't reproduce this FAQ for profit without my consent as it took a good deal of effort to create. I am not in any way affiliated with Konami, NES, or any entities who created the game. Although I did my best with this, some of the events are quasi-random in the game(soldiers' speeds--even though they look identical) so it is impossible to provide a complete description. So I appreciate any error-checking that gets done. Please note this is not the arcade FAQ. **AD SPACE** Please visit my homepage at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762, or something. ********************* --INDEX GENERAL(HEH) TIPS HOW POINTS ARE SCORED THE FASHIONS THESE DAYS LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 LEVEL 3 LEVEL 4 LEVEL 5 LEVEL 6 QUIRKS ********************* GENERAL(HEH) TIPS Rush 'n Attack is a very demanding game. Because of some decisions the programmers made about controls, even when you think you are doing something right, you won't be. Although you can knife repeatedly, if you are worked into a hole you won't be able to kill any enemies. Here are things to be aware of: 1--you can jump left or right over soldiers. But if you jump at them you can't always knife them. 2--if you jump at a ladder, you'll automatically climb it. Big problem if you planned to knife a jumper afterwards. 3--shooters, from the right, fire, go forward, fire, etc. Moving to the left, they get where you can't attack them even when crouching, unless you back in to the left. They'll also search for you if you are on a different platform. 4--When in doubt, a standing jump is better. 5--You can knife two opponents at once with one knife stroke. You're probably better off with two tries, even when you're killing two of them. 6--the regular soldiers have two different speeds, which are quasi- random. 7--the best way to play Rush 'n Roulette(sorry, had to say it!) is to jump left, especially if you are left of mid-screen to begin with. A soldier may appear from there, and you'll buy the farm. 8--your jump is slightly longer than the distance between two mines. So back up before jumping over the first of a series. Your hero is just too athletic... :) HOW POINTS ARE SCORED 100 points for a Special trooper/"weapons guy"(releases weapons.) They hide missile launchers or grenades(three shots each), a star of invincibility, or a gun(which you can use for a limited time.) You also get 100 points for picking the special item up. 200 or 300 points for Soldiers, depending on if they're slow or fast. It's funny that the fast ones may actually be the less annoying. 500 points for Shooters. 500 points for taking out a mine with a special weapon. You must crouch down with a missile launcher or throw a grenade to do so. 1000 points for dogs in the boss scenes. 1000 points for Jumpers. 2000 points for jetpack guys in the boss scenes. 3000 points for paratroopers, but 500 if they turn into shooters. 8000 points for helicopter guys. Oh yes. You get an extra guy at 50000 and then at every multiple of 100000. Approximate point totals for going straight through level without losing a guy(cumulative): 1. 25000 2. 60000 3. 125000 4. 170000 5. 230000 6. 300000 THE FASHIONS THESE DAYS Aside from weapons guys(light tannish yellow, no other details) each class of enemies dresses differently for each level. On level 1: --Soldiers have white bottoms with black tops and brown extremities. --Jumpers have black tops with red everywhere else --no shooters --everyone has bayonets On level 2: --Soldiers have maroon outfits with black shirts --shooters have yellow outfits with black shirts --jumpers have red outfits with black shirts On level 3: --soldiers have maroon tops, white pants, black shirts. --shooters have black/gold/yellow --jumpers have black/red/yellow On level 4: --everyone wears black helmets --soldiers wear maroon --jumpers wear red --shooters wear tan On level 5: --everyone wears coats with rifles --soldiers wear maroon --jumpers wear red --shooters wear tan On level 6: --no weapons guys --soldiers wear black with white spots --shooters wear yellow with pale yellow spots --jumpers wear red with yellow spots LEVEL 1 This one's a whole lot easier than the others! Of course, it's nice not to have Shooters. You can run forward, just knifing the guys behind. The weapon you get will be a missile launcher. You can use it to blow up the mines when the background changes from the bridges. Don't jump on the trucks because you will encounter Jumpers there. You should get another missile launcher--it's best to save the bullets to make the boss scene easy. If you hit the guy while he's still crouching, the launcher will be to the right, but if not, it will fly up and land on the truck. Also, a jumper will follow the weapons guy immediately, so be alert. There will be one solitary mine to jump over except you may have to wait a bit to pass it so you don't jump and hit a bad guy in the process, so it's the only place you might use the launcher. Other than that, just roll forward and don't forget to take care of the guys creeping up a bit on you every now and then. Once you pass the solitary mine, you will have to kill three jumpers who come from the right. When one appears, do not go further right but knock them off one at a time, until you have the hang of the game. If there is a soldier in the area, rub him out first so that you can concentrate on the jumper. Once you are able to go past the midway mark you are at the rightmost part of the level, and the boss will soon appear(you also hear sirens if you have sound.) Note this is a general rule for the end of all scenes. If you have all three shots in the missile launcher, this is easy. Go to the left, wait for the first man to appear, and fire right. Repeat three times. If you only have two shots left then wait as long as possible to shoot(you can take out jumpers when they are airborne,) leaving two jumpers to take out(not hard to do with a jumping stab.) With no shots left, start a bit left of center and determine your jump so that you will not have to knife both jumpers and soldiers. It's a good place to get comfortable with standing or running jumps. LEVEL 2 The pace picks up here. Go forward and the third guy coming from the right will be a jumper. You know what to do with him. You'll want to keep your left side pretty clear because you will be running under a gun tower which fires shots periodically--if you stay in one place, you will be shot, but otherwise you should be OK. If you must stop, right under the gun tower is the best place to avoid shooting. At some time you will want to make a break to the right--there are two jumpers and then your first shooter, and you can almost always outrun the bullets if you don't pause or turn back. If you run right at shooters(again, watch your back) they won't kneel and fire. Once you get to the first truck, don't pass it, but wait until the weapons person crouches, move to the left of the truck and wait(knife to the left if you have to.) Once you get the gun be ready to fire at the first jumper you see, always moving to the right. Then crouch down and blow up mines when you're relatively close to them(i.e. you see two mines,) and run right so your missile takes out as much as possible. There'll be a shooter there and anthough you can blow up all three mines with a shot it's better to pick off two mines and kill him than risk things. After the mines there will be a few trucks, followed by another gun tower. A shooter will come from the left, and you may want to go under the gun tower and nail him with a missile(remember to duck.) If you've got no gun, go just right of the tower, then back left to knife him. After that there are some mines you must jump over unless you were able to save a missile. You can knife the jumpers that jump at you pretty easily as it's just a matter of timing, and it's good practice for a tough part of level 5. There will follow a truck you will want to jump on, as it has an invisible ladder to the right of the visible one that is quite annoying--if you climb down it, you step on a mine. Go to the right edge and wait for the jumpers to cross below before jumping down. You can now go full throttle right as there will be jumpers and a shooter, but they will not be too tough to handle as long as you jump vertically when to the left of a ladder. When the trucks end, check briefly to see if someone's in back of you. Then floor it right. You should be able to knife a bunch of soldiers and a shooter, and you will just be able to beat the shots from the gun tower if you only knife when necessary. There's a jumper at the end, and after that is the boss scene. The boss scene is not too bad. Start off just left of center(where that white horizontal line ends) and if you have grenades, throw them before the jetpacks swoop down. Even if you don't this scene is not too hard even with just your knife--the people in jetpacks stop near the ground so often. Just beware the soldiers marching around on the ground. If you kill all three in the air and don't survive, tough luck for you. I find you can jump right and kill one jetpack guy after they land first. In fact, the jetpack guys spend a lot of time waiting to be knifed when they "land." Just watch for the grenades landing. LEVEL 3 Go right, knife the two soldiers, stop, jump up and knife the jumper. Then pass the ladder and wait for the shooter to climb down. Knife him, climb up, go right, pick up the invincibility star. Now floor it right until you get to the sheds with numbers on them(11, 51, 91.) A jumper should come out, and you probably want to jump straight up to take him out(chorus in: WATCH YOUR BACK! Don't get spoiled by the star) so you're not stuck on a ladder. Also, there will be a shooter coming up from the bottom level. Staying to the left of the down ladder will deal with him too, as you can knife him when he comes up. This is in general a good strategy for dealing with shooters. There will then be mines past the sheds. Jump over them and wait for the special weapon guy to come forward. Knife him and a grenade will jump up to the second level. Beware the jumper that comes at you(jump straight up to kill him) and again wait for the shooter. Once he's knifed, climb up, get the grenade, and go right. Pull up before the second level ends, waiting for the jumpers to go by. The next set of sheds, with mines, is a great place to use grenades. When a jumper appears on the bottom level, start throwing them. Once you get to the ladder at the pointy shed, run past it, knife the special weapons guy and the shooter, run left, and knife the shooter coming down the stairs. The gun that appears isn't terribly useful as it has less power than a knife(only one enemy dies with one shot) and will run out just when you don't want it to. It will, however, get you to the edge of the shed, and it's the only gun in the game so if you want to sidetrack a bit, it's a good time to do so. Otherwise you can just run past it after knifing the shooters and climb up to the second level. Jump down after one jumper runs by and proceed right with caution. You may be in trouble if jumpers and soldiers are coming at you from both sides and will probably need to resort to some ballet moves(i.e. jump back and forth and turn around in midair) if you run right too quickly. The final jumper may be the trickiest--if you can time things so you jump over the soldier as you hit the jumper(they walk together) you will have no problem. The boss scene is very easy--six dogs come from the right(knife them), six from the left, six from the right, six from the left, and six alternate left-right-left-right-left-right. At 1000 points each they're the easiest point source in the game. LEVEL 4 General note for this level: the grenade/cannon launchers that fire at you in regular intervals drop bombs that don't have as much range as you'd think and always land in the same place, so they are predictable. They also swivel if you walk past them, meaning they can shoot you from behind. They also don't kill you if you run by them, only if you jump into them. So do wipe them out, but don't panic when they fire. Floor it right. When you see the first grenade-launcher guy behind the oil drum/trash can, jump right and knife him, and you'll get the shooter that will appear as well. Past that there's a paratrooper. If you're running right, he shouldn't be a problem. He'll shoot twice, and your best strategy is to knife the weapons guy, go right, wait for the bullet to fall, and when the jumper comes from the right of the screen, jump up and knife him. If you must, cha-cha back and take out/jump over any normal soldiers once you see where the shot goes. Take the shooter(ex- paratrooper) out by waiting by the ladder. Climb up and back down(the missile launcher flies up) and you are in business. As you go right three jumpers will soon appear from the left. Turn around and knife them before taking out the cannon guy. The second-next cannon guy will have a weapons guy underneath. DON'T shoot him! You'll lose the missile launcher he'll throw out, and you want to keep three shots for the rest of the level. The best strategy is to get pretty much under the cannon, knife the weapons guy and the shooter, then fire left to take out the shooter from that side. Then walk up and get the missile launcher, timing the shots from the cannon. Again, don't use the missile launcher if possible. You should just run and jump, knifing shooters that may climb down ladders. When the scenery seems to change to the right, climb up the ladder and jump right off the platform end over the mine. Then jump onto the ladder and wait for the jumpers to pass you by. The top is a much easier place to survive. Past the second ladder there is a shooter, and you will want to run at him and may have to duck anyway, so it's a good place to watch your back. Other than that you will encounter some jumpers, but you can time this pretty easily. You will then want to climb down the ladder(jumping is a risk to your health, and walking off will hit a mine!) The mines are a good place to use a shot from your missile launcher, as if you run right you'll take out some jumpers too. The last part before the bridge is the hardest to get down, but when you see the log platform, jump right to climb onto the first ladder, climb up, and go right. If you don't want to use a missile or don't have one, knife the shooter, jump, and knife the jumper. Don't worry if your controls jam and you jump over the shooter, since when he backs up he falls off the log structure and doesn't bother you. You'll have to do this again. There's a third challenge of three jumpers in a row, who can be taken by one jump or less riskily by creeping right to take them one-by-one. Jump off the platform to the bridge. Be careful--there will be shooters on each side. Knife one, crouching all the time, and when the other lets up firing, creep right to knife the left guy. Of course, if you have a missile left it's no problem to shoot to the left. The boss scene is easy to survive if you take care of the soldiers that pass back and forth and if you stand at the third vertical line from the left--it's a predetermined patternn and you're safe there. As you keep track of stuff on the ground, you'll want to remember that you need to jump and knife straight up just as the air-gun machines reach your level(they have five levels total.) Except for the last one, where you'll want to move left a bit and wait. Note that a missile launcher can take out the machines on the second-lowest level. LEVEL 5 The second level of the brown sheds is the easiest if you know how to time your jumps. Beware that the third shed has a gunner who jumps from the very top--you can't jump and knife him(seems like a bug) but you can wait for him to drop to the first level, climb, and get knifed. If you can, watch carefully for a weapons guy that will give you grenades. They'll make your life easier. Once you get past the sheds a shooter is waiting to attack you from the right--watch your back and try to run at him. Climb up on the log platform(BTW, can I assume it's not made of Lincoln Logs :) ?) to avoid a jumper and then jump off. You have a mine/jumper combination here. Whenever you jump over a mine, a jumper will appear. The key is to get the weapons guy who'll give you three grenades. It will require patience to get the grenades, and you'll do well to jump straight up instead of over mines when a jumper runs at you, or you might get caught up in the action and lose concentration. I've slipped a lot by jumping over a shooter, who fires from the left with a jumper coming from the right. As there's no time limit, slow and steady is best. Then just throw the grenades whenever you see a jumper and you should take out a shooter too--otherwise, the combination of the two will be very tough. Continue going right, climb up the platform, and before you get to the brick wall, wait for a shooter to climb up and knife him. Jump right and down and do two flying jumps left to nail some jumpers. From there you'll have a few tense moments with other jumpers(there are about 14,) and you may have to jump over a soldier. But you can sneak to the right if you want. The boss fight here is close to impossible. If you have grenades, they are useful. The catch is that if you die you can't pick up any special weapons. The scene is quasi-random as the paratroopers each fire two bullets at you depending on where you are and which direction you're moving, so a slight difference in timing can mean curtains. I find my best success occurs when I start in the center and jump to the left. It fools the paratroopers into thinking I'm higher up than I am, and a lot of shots go harmlessly off the left side of the screen. Even if they don't and go into the corner, you may be able to creep back to the right. If the paratroopers reach the ground and you are not trapped by bullets, the rest is easy, since they turn into shooters. Crouch at the left side and knife to the right. Often you can jump over bullets and quickly duck if you need to. It may take practice to keep your head with all the bullets flying around. Continue to level six. LEVEL 6 If you stay on the top platform, this is not too bad, if you remember the standard tricks. The bottom has mines without any special weapons guys, so it might be a nice challenge after you've solved the game. There is of course a standard assortment of twists. You will want to stop short of the first ladder as three jumpers come in at awkward intervals. Jump straight up and knife them to get rid of them. Also, after three jumpers in a row there will be a shooter. The first ladder past the first gap you must jump over holds a shooter followed by jumpers, whom you'd be well-advised to rush at. At one point there will be two jumpers side-by-side and there may be a soldier traveling at the same speed they are(if you're lucky, he'll be slower.) Jump over the soldier if you must. You'll have to jump left and knife them, jumping over the soldier. There's also a shooter past the second gap to jump over--take your time jumping! At the end of the top platform(i.e. there will be a gap you can't jump over to stay on top--you will see something weird on the ceiling, which will shoot lasers at you in short order) wait 'til the soldiers have passed by and make a similar run to the one you made at level 2. You'll probably need to turn around and jump in midair over the soldier that's running with the jumper(which is sometimes, if you're lucky, just a plain soldier,) but once you do, you're at the final scene. It's a bunch of waves of soldiers, always in the same order. Weapons, jumper, jumper, fast soldier, jumper, weapons, jumper is the order they come out in, but of course the weapons guys will eventually tag along behind. My advice is to find a place where you can knife everyone by jumping straight in the air--you can always move back between jumpers. I found a good starting place under a part of the blinking control panel near the center that looks like follows: .. ..... Face right from the second dot from the left and jump straight up and down. You'll want to jump early to avoid the annoyance of getting killed by a weapons guy. Plan to hit the jumper in back of the soldier early and you won't get killed by the soldier. Also, if you can, you should knife the weapons guys in two different places. When all but a weapons guy and a jumper are dead, just back up a bit and let them come at you, jumping straight up and knifing. That'll give you two missiles. Once you've got missiles, if you can also time your missile shots so that you can kill the first five opponents, it is easy to kill the final two and get another missile, but if not, you can start over again. You will need to shoot the rocket in the background twelve times before you blow it up. Then enjoy the finale! QUIRKS These are quirks related to game control, not shakiness of plot(i.e. stuff like You Sure Jump High For Wearing Combat Boots :).) You can jump while crouching if you hit up very quickly. On the second level, I mentioned an invisible ladder on a truck. Unlike the arcade, there is no time limit on NES. Also unlike the arcade, the harbor boss scene isn't very involved. There are no guys in coats pointing at you for the dogs to attack. Get killed while you're jumping and you jump even higher to start. Ammo that you don't use at the end of the level disappears at the start of the next. Soldiers don't die from their own shots/grenades, etc. If you jump and hit a grenade, it won't kill you. If you jump, the shooter following you on a different level will, too. You can make him miss his ladder that way. The shooter may also go off the screen if you can get him to climb a ladder to the very left and then run right. If you run RIGHT at a jumper, he'll go over you. You can knife people jumping off platforms from behind, but it's a bit risky. If you throw a grenade and run forward, the explosion won't get you. Regular soldiers come out from the sides at the same level you're on. So if you are climbing a tall ladder in level 4, they'll make some dramatic jumps! If you're lucky/skillful you may be able to knife a jumper without jumping. But you will need to have tracked back left a bit. Weapons guys who are blown up turn into shooters briefly before dying. This might not belong in quirks, but I'm wondering what the LOWEST possible Rush 'n Attack score is. I can get under 300K. ********************* END OF FAQ PROPER ********************* Version info 1.0.0 submitted to GameFAQs.com 11/19/2000 1.1.0 touched up all parts 12/20/2000 Credits none yet send comments to schultza@earthlink.net