Strikers 1945 II



Strikers 1945 II (ストライカーズ1945II) is an arcade game developed and published by Psikyo in 1997. It is the second game in the Strikers 1945 (Series). The first game being Strikers 1945 and later being followed up by Strikers 1999 (Strikers 1945 III). In 1998, the game was also ported to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn.

Gameplay Overview
Each ship has a couple of mechanics to them that are unique to them. They can either have a main shot that is either a Wide shot type or a Forward shot type. These get stronger with each power up item they pick up. Besides that, every ship has a unique secondary shot they get after picking up power ups. You can increase these up to 4 times. After that, picking up any items will instead just give 4,000 points. Touching flying enemies won't kill the player. Instead they will lose one of their power ups.

Ships will start out with 2 bombs in stock. These vary in functionality between ships. You can hold up to 9 bombs in stock. Picking up any more after that will give 10,000 points instead. If the player gets hit while holding 5 or 6 bombs, the ship will drop 1 bomb when it dies. If the player gets hit while holding 7 of more bombs, the ship will drop 2 bombs when it dies.

Attacking enemies and dealing damage also increases your charge meter. After reaching a certain threshold, the player can choose to use a charge shot. Effects differ with each ship. After all the green bars have been filled, the player can use a LVL 1 charge. After all the yellow bars have been filled, the player can use a LVL 2 charge. After all the red bars have been filled, the player can use a LVL 3 charge. The game will automatically use the highest level charge available. After using one, the meter will be lowered. How much depends on the LVL of the charge that has been used. LVL 1 charges generate the most quickly and can be used very often. LVL 2 charges take a while longer to charge and are usually a lot stronger. LVL 3 charges can take up an entire stage to fully charge, so the player has to make a real effort to get these.



Progression
This game takes place over 8 stages. The first four of which are randomized in order. This is important, because the stages still get progressively more difficult. This is because of the rank system the game has.

After killing the final boss in stage 8, the player gets to see a result screen that grades them on their performace. It judges how fast you cleared each level, how many medals the player has picked up (the timing of the medals is irrelevant) and how many enemies the player has killed. If the player did alright in these areas, they'll receive a silver medal. If the player did it (nearly) flawlessly, they'll recieve a golden medal.

After the results screen is over, the game starts the second loop. In the loop, rank is increased even further, meaning bullets start to get much faster. Most flying enemies will also shoot revenge bullets when they die. Again, the stage order of 2-1 to 2-4 has been randomized, but rank will at this point be maxed out and there is no difference in how these four stages will play.

Controls

 * A: Fire the player's Shot weapon. Each ship's shot button has a different function. If the charge meter has reached LVL 1, the player's ship stops shooting and instead will charge a special attack. To keep shooting, the players has to start pressing the button repeatedly to prevent the ship from performing a special attack. Special attacks vary between ships.
 * B: Releases a screen-clearing Bomb. Bomb functionality varies between ships.

Ships
DH-98 Mosquito

F5U Flying Pancake

Focke-Wulf Ta152

J7W Shinden

Ki84 Hayate

P-38 Lightning

Medals
By killing certain ground enemies or destroying scenery, the player can uncover Medals ⠀that are hidden throughout the game. They are worth points when players pick them up. The value is determined by how close the player is to picking them up when they are glowing. When the sprite is glowing, the medal will be worth 2,000 points. If they are a bit off, it will be worth 1,000 points. If they are even more off, it will be worth 500 points. If it's not close at all, the medal will only be worth 200 points.

Medals are the single biggest source for high scores. One loop contains 134 medals, worth 268,000 points if all of them were to be picked up when they are at their highest value.

Respawn Glitch
If the player does not deal enough damage to the boss before they time-out, the boss will explode itself and release revenge bullets. However, all the bullets remain on screen and don't disappear. Normally when a boss is killed, all the bullets from the screen will be removed, but not when it times out.

If the player manages to die right before they would lose control over their ship, they will respawn but won't lose their extend or bombs. But the death animation will still happen and the ship will drop their items (see Gameplay Overview). When the ship respawns on screen, they won't have control and the ship leaves from the top of the screen. If they pick up the items they dropped while on their way, they collect them and recieve any potential score bonuses. It should be noted that by doing this, the player won't recieve points from killing the boss. Meaning this is only worth doing if the score (and or items) are more worth it than just killing the boss before it times out.

The only thing that will reset upon this death is the charge meter, which will be set to have a LVL 1 charge available, the same as if the player would've normally died.

Most bosses (but not all) will not have bullets on screen during the period where the player needs to die. The most common way to perform this glitch is to let the boss time out and kill a zako enemy which will shoot a revenge bullet. Then try to get hit by the revenge bullet when the time is right. The position where you die is also of crucial importance. The items need to be in the right place when the ship respawns and goes up the screen. Remember that you don't have control over the ship when it respawns. Certain enemies, like the Flying Pancake, have an easier time with this trick because they can sit in the right position and have their homing lasers shoot an enemy that might not be in range with the ship's main shot.

An example for how much this trick is worth; if the player has all their bombs in stock when they die, they'll drop 2 items and 2  bombs. Picking up all these items on the way up will be worth 28,000 points. Subtract the amount of score a normal boss kill would've given you (10,000 in most cases), and the result will be how much score you've gained by doing this glitch.

Boss milking
Most bosses will repeatedly spawn zako enemies during the fight (or other unique enemies). The player can decide to keep the boss alive for longer to kill more of these enemies for extra points. In most cases, they'll try to kill the boss just before it times out. Otherwise they miss out on the bonus of killing it, which is always worth more than a couple of extra zako waves.

These zako waves are not always the same. For example, during the fight against Syumi Type-0, the next wave of zako will spawn a few seconds after the previous wave was killed or flew off the screen. Killing these enemies quickly will thus result in more waves. The types of waves and where they come from is also randomized. On the other hand, during the fight against Iron Casket, the enemies will always come in the same formation in a static pattern. These always comes at a set time, regardless of how quickly the previous wave was killed.

Bosses that can be milked include; Syumi Type-0, Graf Zeppelin, Gliath, Iron Casket and Rommel. Cross Sinker also spawns zako enemies, but only in the second loop.

This trick does not include milking enemis that spawn from the player being at low power. That can be done on any boss, but it will override any zako planes that would come on the screen. This is not worth doing for various reasons if the boss spawns zako waves by itself.

Quick killing certain waves of enemies
During stages, there will be certain enemies that keep respawning when you kill one. This doesn't happen very often, each of these instances can be found here: Strikers 1945 II/Notable Scoring Sections

This is not referring to killing zako waves during bosses mentioned in the last section, but it works the same. With the exception that the is no randomness involved.

Powering down for extra enemies
If the player is at the power level where they have picked up 1 item or none at all, the game will spawn a specific group of zako enemies the next time it can. This group consists of 3 blue ships who are worth 200 points each. Follow by the blue ships, there is a red ship. This one is also woth 200 points, but also drops a item when it's killed. If there is a stretch of gameplay where there are no zako spawning, the player can choose lose their power ups by touching flying enemies to have these waves of enemies spawn. This is mostly done during boss fights that don't have zako coming in during the fight, but there are some exceptions.

It should be noted that if there are items flying on screen, they will prevent more waves of power up carriers spawning.

Max bomb bonuses
Picking up a bomb while already having the maximum amount you can carry (that being 9 bombs), rewards the player with 10,000 points instead. Through the game, 16 bombs will be dropped by enemies (one for each stage). Not including bombs that drop when the player dies. If the player can survive without using bombs, they can start getting these bonuses. They can stack up to 90,000 points in bonuses if the player goes through the entire game without using one.

End bonus
If the player has managed to clear both loops, they will be rewarded a score bonus that depends on how many extends and bombs they have remaining as well as the power-up level they are on. The amount they get will be:

For example, if the player has 3 extends and 9 bombs when clearing (the maximum you can have), they will be rewarded:

End Bonus = (20,000 * 3) + (10,000 * 9) + (5,000 * 4) = 170,000 points

Strategy
While the scoring tricks mentioned so far are mostly used throught the game, there are some specific sections that are worth highlighting. For more details on these tricks are: Strikers 1945 II/Notable Scoring Sections

Video References
Replays for this game can be found in this Video Index.