Bust-a-Move 2 - Saturn FAQ Ver 1.0 by Matt Bennett Contents 1. What is Bust-a-Move? 2. Special Bubbles and Obstacles 3. Scoring System 4. Puzzle Game 5. Player vs. Player 6. Player vs. Computer 7. Endings 8. Codes 1. What is Bust-a-Move? Bust-a-Move is a puzzle game in the tradition of Tetris. Instead of matching puzzle pieces together, you must match up at least 3 bubbles of the same color which then pop and fall off the screen. You can control where you shoot your bubbles using a pointer. Similar to Tetris, you can see what the next or "on-deck" bubble will be so you can plan your strategy as necessary. Also similar to Tetris, the playing field grows smaller as time passes by. As you continue shooting bubbles on a level, the ceiling begins to drop, pushing the bubbles down. If you clear all of the bubbles on a stage, you go on to the next level. If you shoot a bubble that ends up below the dead-line or the bubbles on the screen fall below the dead-line, you lose a credit and start that level over. When you start a game in BaM2, you get a dotted line extending from your pointer that shows where the ball will go. This helps you to bounce the bubbles off the walls to get them in the proper position. Once you move on to the next level, your guide line is gone. If you lose a level, however, you will get the guide line back when you continue (for one level only of course). There are two different games, BaM2 and BaM2X. So far, the only difference I've seen is that the levels are different. One doesn't seem any harder than the other. 2. Special Bubbles and Obstacles Special Bubbles Star bubble - The Star Bubble bursts all the bubbles that are the color of the first bubble it touches. If you hit two bubbles at the same time, it will not burst bubbles of both colors, only one (I've tried to pull this off). Bowling Ball - The Bowling Ball pops all bubbles in its way as it makes its way to the top. You can bank the Bowling Ball off the walls to clear out a larger path of bubbles. Obstacles Jama Bubble - A clear bubble that cannot be busted. You have to pop the bubble(s) that are holding it up to get rid of it. Jama Block - This block will never disappear. If you shoot a bubble at it, it will stick to it. Jama Blocks make up the boundaries of some of the levels. *Note: There is a bug in the game on one level in which a Jama block will cause you to have to reset the game. If you do not complete this level before the Jama block in the middle gets pushed onto your pointer, you will not be able to shoot any more bubbles and you will not die. The game will just sit at that level forever or until you reset. The only way to get past this is to kill yourself if you see that it is about to happen. 3. Scoring System You get points by popping bubbles. If you match 3 touching bubbles of the same color, you get 10 points for each bubble popped. This gives you a minimum of 30 points for each match. The big points come from dropping bubbles off a matched group of bubbles. Here's an example. Say you have 2 red bubbles on the bottom row with a blue bubble stuck to the bottom of them. (R)(R) | (B) | You get a red bubble and make the match. (R) You will get 10 points per popped bubble, in this case 30 points, and you get 20 for the blue bubble you dropped off the reds. As you can see, the first dropped bubble is worth 20 points. For each bubble after that, you double the amount of the previous bubble. 1 - 20 7 - 1,280 13 - 81,920 2 - 40 8 - 2,560 14 - 163,840 3 - 80 9 - 5,120 15 - 327,680 4 - 160 10 - 10,240 16 - 655,360 5 - 320 11 - 20,480 17 - 1,310,720 6 - 640 12 - 40,960 1,310,720 is usually the highest score you can get on a level but sometimes you can score 5,242,880 or even 10,485,760! I'm not sure why you can get these but it seems to happen when it's a level where one shot (a hard shot) can bring down the whole stack and you knock the whole stack down quickly. In addition to scoring points off the bubbles, you also score points based on how much time passed on the level. The scores break down like this: 5 seconds or under: 500,000 ?? ?? So the way to score big points is to drop big stacks of bubbles and do it fast. This is easier said than done on the later levels. 4. Puzzle Game Puzzle Game is the normal 1 player game in BaM2. There are 6 stages with 5 rounds each for a total of 30 rounds. Of course each stage gets progressively harder. In BaM2 you get to choose which path you want to take on your journey to the last round. The map looks like this: U V W ? X Y Z \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ / O P Q R S T \ /\ /\ /\ /\ / J K L M N \ /\ /\ /\ / F G H I \ /\ /\ / C D E \ /\ / A B 5. Player vs. Player Player vs. Player mode is a split screen competition between two people. Whichever player has his/her bubbles drop past the dead-line first loses. The rounds can be set to 1, best 2 of 3 and best 3 of 5. The object of player vs. player is a little different than in Puzzle Game. In player vs. player you still want to match bubbles up, but you also want to bury your opponent in stacks of bubbles to make it harder on them. The way to do this is to drop bubbles off the matches you make. Yep, the way to score big is also the way to bury your opponent under a pile of bubbles. As you drop bubbles off a match, they will go over to your opponent's side and appear on their playing field. Therefore the more bubbles you drop off a set of matching bubbles, the worse you make your opponent's life. The main weapon in a player vs. player game is building a "bomb". Setting up a bomb consists of building a tree of bubbles off of two matching bubbles ("the trigger") such that when you finally get the matching bubble, you can drop the bomb on your opponent. Here's an example. (R)(R) / (B)(O) / (O)(B) -- the bomb / (G)(G) / (O) (R) Just be careful when bombing players because your bomb can build up fast. If you don't get the color you want or you accidently block the path to the "trigger" you can quickly find yourself falling below the dead-line. One way to avoid this and still bomb effectively is to build secondary triggers into your bomb so that you have a way to get rid of some of it if space is becoming limited. 6. Player vs. Computer Player vs. Computer is the same as player vs. player except you play a computer opponent (duh!). You travel across the land of BaM2 challenging each computer opponent. These matches are best 2 of 3. The computer opponent gets harder and harder as you successively beat each one. The game ends once you beat the last opponent. The rules of play and strategy are the same as player vs. player. 7. Endings If you don't want to know the endings to BaM2, don't read this section. U - You find the treasure V - Relax and be free W - You are getting married ? - You are now king X - You make new friends Y - Relax and be free Z - You get the Medal of Honor If anyone knows if the endings change depending on which path you take (I don't think they do), please email me. Also, I haven't seen a difference between BaM2 and BaM2X endings so email if you know differences. 8. Codes I only have one code for Saturn BaM2. When you beat the game it will give you the code (X, left, right, X). If you do this code at the "press start" screen (after the demo), a little ghost will appear down by the credits. Now the game will have all new levels with new backgrounds. The PSX BaM2 has a few other codes so I think the Saturn version has more. Keep looking and I'm sure we'll find some. __________________________________________________________________________ Please email any suggestions/corrections to: mdb2294@gemini.tntech.edu and I will try to include them in a new version of the FAQ. Feel free to post at your site, just please give me credit. -Matt Bennett, 1996 Bam2 - Saturn Ver 1.0