Legendary Wings (NES) Playthrough
2This game took around 1 hour 30 minutes to beat. Ill provide some details that might not be clear in the video, to help those interested. The only edit in this video is stage 4 where I lost alot of continues. I left the continue screen in to show the edit transition. Youll also notice I start that level without any of my power ups and the default lives. That was the challenging part.
Initially the hard part was the first level. That took some tries. Once I beat the first level I blazed through to the 4th (semi final) level without losing any continues. Ill explain how continues work farther down. I spent maybe 19 or 20 minutes on the first level before beating it. I didnt use any save states to practice the game, just to reset to the title screen when I was doing badly on level 1.
Thats because I was fully powered up and managed to find the bonus stages which allow you to earn extra lives on points , more continues (hearts) and power up your weapon. Hearts give continues and can only be found in these bonus stages. Take note of where the bonus stages appear in my playthrough (this is fixed and never changes). They are easy enough to find yourself, just kill the turrets in most levels using the ground bombs. There is usually a tornado hidden in one of those that will bring you to the bonus stage. Let it hit you. Dont get hit by the tornados that come out of the large stone faces though. These make you play an extra area that has no real benefit. You dont need the points that bad.
As mentioned, I beat the first level then got to the semi final fourth stage before losing my lives. This became challenging because the level starts out dense, fast and in a very small space, plus I lost a continue meaning I started with no power ups. Once I survived that I was able to get to the bonus stage and power up and get to the final stage, which I beat without using a continue.
Its best if you can power up fully and stay like that. Doing that you can beat the game without using any continues. If I played it again I could pretty easily beat it without losing a continue. You can earn a good amount of lives from the bonus stages. Next Ill explain how the power ups work.
When you collect the "P" (shoot the flashing orb to reveal it, it moves quick), it powers up your weapon. Making it more powerful and firing more shots. This serves a few purposes.One is the more powerful weapon but second is that it gives you hit points. Instead of dying in one hit you can take extra hits for each P you collected. It will demote you a weapon level for each hit you take. Here is the key though, get 4 or 5 of them and you will be fully powered up. This is not only very powerful but now you can take multiple hits before you get any weapon level demotions. This means you basically have alot of hit points for that life. The key is to maintain this maxed out form by collecting more P's. Even if you take some hits in the maxed out form you can restore it back to full, especially in those bonus stages.
The bonus stage in level 4 is underneath an overpass. Not sure exactly what enemy kill triggers it but be aware its not on a turret.
The mid and stage bosses are always the same. The stage boss just gets faster. Use the method of getting close to the stage boss and moving around his spread shot, and deal with the eyeballs when not focusing on hitting the exposed boss. For the dragon its best to wait until he fires two bullet sprays and then get some shots in but watch out for his lunge. He goes down fast when fully powered up.
The final boss is extremely easy. When he appears get a few shots in and move. Be aware that you will travel through the stage boss and get damaged if you are not expecting it, on the final stage, stage 5, before the final boss.
I also reccomend rapid fire set to both buttons as you will otherwise be mashing constantly. I made save states but never ended up using them to practice. I just used load state to reset quickly when I fucked up on stage 1. I use rapid fire whenever I have it available and find it beneficial for a game. Im not into constantly mashing.
May try the arcade version soon which looks much harder.
Stay tuned !!