Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon _____ _ _ _____ _ / ____| (_) | / ____| | | (___ __ _ _| | ___ _ __ | (___ | |_ __ _ _ __ ___ \___ \ / _` | | |/ _ \| '__| \___ \| __/ _` | '__/ __| ____) | (_| | | | (_) | | ____) | || (_| | | \__ \ |_____/ \__,_|_|_|\___/|_| |_____/ \__\__,_|_| |___/ __ _ _ _ / ) |_ _. |_ _. |_)_.._ o _ / ||_|\/\/(_| ||_|\/\/(_| | (_|| ||(_ / /___ ___ __ | /\ | | |--- /--\ | \| | / \`--\ Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2 Frequently Asked Questions Written by: Jacob Poon ASCII art by: Jacob Poon Preface ======= Availability ------------ The latest version of this FAQ is available at: Goldart's Home Page: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Dojo/1997/ GameFAQs: GameFAQs/ Needed help on: --------------- Better ASCII art title. To be speific, the font for 'Sailor Stars' text should be more cursive. Currently Figlet doesn't seem to provide satisfactory results. Need to fill in character quotes. Revision history ---------------- 1.0 (1998 Oct 6) - Initial public release Introduction ============ The game -------- Bandai's 4th (and last known) Sailor Moon puzzle game now returns as a Sufami Turbo title. The Magical Drop style game play is still intact, but the game rules had been changed. As before, you got SD characters to play with. Game specs ---------- Platform: Super Famicom w/Sufami Turbo Developer/Publisher: Bandai Size: ?Mbit ROM/0kbit SRAM SRP: <4000yen w/o Sufami Turbo Release date: 1996 Genre: Puzzle Save: Password Explanations of Game Menus ========================== Title screen ------------ After pressing start, you get 4 options: Story mode Start Continue Versus mode 1P vs 2P 1P vs COM Puzzle mode Start Continue Option Press A to confirm selection, and B to exit submenus. Game play explanations ====================== Fuwa Fuwa settings ------------------ In Fuwa Fuwa 1 mode, it allows you pop any non-grey large balloons. This is the popping style used in the prequel. In Fuwa Fuwa 2 mode, can only pop up non-grey large balloons that are horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally, beside another non-grey large balloons of the same colour. In other words, you must pop balloons in lumps. Story mode ---------- At first you will get to choose either FF1 (left) or FF2 (right) mode (this setting affects both 1P and COM). Then you choose your character. Then you will battle through various opponents in 2-win matches, with Super Sailor Chibi Moon at last second, and yourself as the final boss. Between matches, you are prompted for continue (upper choice) or quit (lower choice). Quitting will give you the password for your progress. If you lose a match, you will still continue your game, and playing against the remaining opponents. The won matches are marked with yellow stars and lost matches are marked with grey stars. The game ends after you lost 3 matches or played 9 matches, whichever comes first. VS mode ------- You can choose between all characters. After choosing your player, you can set the FF option for each player. Press select you will find following options which affects both players: Number of rounds per match. Available choices are 1, 3, 5. Default is 3. Colour or balloon. It determines how many unique balloon colours (except grey) will be available during the game. Available choices are 3, 4, 5. Default is 4. 3 colours include red, yellow, blue, equivalent to the 'easy' setting in prequel; 4 colours include all colours in '3 colours' setting, plus green, equivalent to the 'normal' setting in prequel; 5 colours include all colours in '4 colours' setting, plus orange, equivalent to the 'hard' setting in prequel. Note: This setting can directly affect the colours of balloons generated by Venus Love and Beauty Shock, and Star Sensitive Inferno. Power ratio. It indicates how many balloons you need to pop in one shot to build up balloon gauge. Available choices are 2, 3, 4, 5. Default is 3. Return (modoru). Exits the menu. This is equivalent to press Start in this menu. Note: After you exit this menu, all character and FF mode selections are automatically undone. In story mode, it uses the settings of 3-round match, 4 colours, and power ratio of 3. Puzzle mode ----------- This is the puzzle challenge of this game. Initially, you can either hear Diana's instruction (bottom choice) or just play the game (upper choice). Puzzle challenge involves popping all balloons on screen with limited number of shots. FF2 rule is enforced so you have to pop in lumps. There are 60 stages in this game. But if you can finish them with 99 or fewer misses, you can play 10 more stages. Option ------ Configures the following: Key settings: Attack (fuusenutsu): Key for popping balloon. Special (hissatsuwaza): Key for doing specials. BGM: Hear BGM. SE: Hear sound effects. VOICE: Hear character voices. Sound: stereo (sutereo) or mono (monoraru) Special (hissatsuwaza): automatic (jidou) or manual (shudou). If automatic is chosen, your character's own special will be used automatically after balloon gauge has filled up. This setting also affects COM players. Exit (modoru): Exits option screen. Glossary -------- Balloon mapping legend: R/r: Big/small red balloon Y/y: Big/small yellow balloon B/b: Big/small blue balloon G/g: Big/small green balloon O/o: Big/small orange balloon S: Gray/grey/silver balloon ?: Randomly chosen balloon .: Unaffected balloon, if exist _ or ' ': No balloon Game mechanics ============== Screen layout ------------- For story and versus modes: _____________________________________________________________________________ | ___________________________________________________________________________ | || c _ | _ || || ____ / a-/\ |^|||^|-b /\ ____ || ||| |__/\____/\____/\_____/ \___|^|||^|___/ \_____/\____/\____/\__| ||| ||| |\@@@@/\ /\ /\ /|^||| |\ /\ /\ /\ /| ||| ||| | >@@< >__< >__< \ 19 / | ||| | \ 06 / >__< >__< >__< | ||| |||____| ' ` ' ` ' ` / _,._ \ `-'|`-' / _,._ \ ' ` ' ` ' ` |____||| || /-' `-\ _ | _ /-' `-\ / || || _ _ _ _ _ _ | ||| | _ f || || / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ | ||| | _ _ / \ _ \|/ _ || || ( )( )( )( )( )( ) | ||| | (_) (_) ( ) (_) -*- (_) || || \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \ | ||| | \_/ j-/|\ || || _ _ |>| ||| | _ h _ || || / \ _ / \ / | ||| | _ / \ \ / \ || || ( ) (_) ( ) |o||| | e (_) ( ) ( ) || || \_/ \ \_/ d-|o||| | | \_/ \_/ || || _ g |o||| | / _ || || / \ |o||| |<| / \ || || ( ) |o|||o| \ ( ) || || \_/ |o|||o| \_/ || || _ |o|||o| || || / \ |o|||o| || || ( ) |o|||o| || || \_/ `-'|`-' || || _ | || || / \ * o--m || || ( ) \ -+- || || \_/ \/ | \ || || _ ^ || || / \ / \ || || ( ) | || || \_/ ^ i | || || _ / \ / | || || / \ (_^_) | || || ( ) | || || \_/ | || || _ | || || / \ | || || ( ) | || || \_/ | || ||_____________________________________|_____________________________________|| | | | | | | | n | | | | _ _ | | / \ / \ | | ( ) k ( ) | | | \_/ / \_/ | | | | / | | | `---+---. .---+---. | | | | l--| | | | | ^ | | ^ | | | / \ / \ | | / \ / \ | |_____________________________________________________________________________| Legend: a=Balloon counter. This indicates how many balloons you will need to clear. b=Timer. When it is empty, balloons will be drained from the balloon counter. It counts up to 99 balloons and the excess is lost. c=Stars. Each filled star represents a round won by respective player. d=Balloon gauge. When it is full, top 10 balloons in the gauge turns blue. Depleted gauge no longer causes the respective character to de-transform. e=Balloon gauge indicator. It shows how many balloons you will have if next shot pops a sufficiently large amount of balloons in one shot. f=Item box. It shows the item you own or in effect. g=Small balloon. Normal or arrow shot will enlarge it. h=Big balloon. Normal or arrow shot will pop it, if it is not grey. i=Projectile. Its shape varies depending on the character. j=Popped balloon. k=Shooting character. She cannot move when in this stance. l=Standing character. She can move when in this stance. m=Chibi Chibi Moon. She appears if one is attacking without a full balloon gauge. n=Bottom line. It flashes red if the lowest row of the field is not empty. Game controls ------------- In game: (Based on default key map) Shoot: Press A Attack: Press B Manually raise a wave of balloons: Press up. Note: If a column already reaches the bottom line, no balloon will be added to that column. Also, it does not empty the timer as in prequel. Pause: Press Start. During the pause, the field(s) will be covered by the available items you can activate within current game mode. Give up (in puzzle mode): Press Select Victory condition ----------------- In story mode and vs. mode, you win by causing opponent's balloon(s) to stack below the bottom line of the field. In puzzle mode, you win a stage by popping all balloons in the field within limited number of shots. Balloon gauge ------------- If you pop up a sufficiently large amount of balloon in one shot (3 in story mode), you can add balloon(s) into your balloon gauge, which allows you to attack. In this sequel, you can accelerate the growth of the gauge by popping large lumps continuously. For the nth streak of popping a large lump, you add n balloons to the gauge, until the gauge fills up. For example, if you pop a large lump in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd shot, you will add up to 6 balloons to the gauge. The streak continues even when you pop in large lump with a full gauge, but excess balloons are lost, until your balloons are consumed then continue the streak. The streak ends if you pops fewer balloons than the minimum group size requirement in one shot, or if you use any shot but the regular shot or arrow shot to pop a balloon. However, in first case, you don't add balloons to your gauge and the second case does (if it pops up a sufficiently large group). There are exception on the rules in above paragraph. If your shot (any kind) disappears before contacting a balloon or goes to the top of the field (eg opponent is attacking when you are shooting), that will not break your current streak. You can build streak by popping balloons of different colours in one shot, with above restrictions, as long as you can pop sufficiently large amount of balloons. A classic example will be following: RRS If you pop either R with only a normal or an arrow shot, you will also pop up the S balloon, for the total of 3 balloons, enough to start or continue the streak in story mode. In any case, popping streak cannot be carried into next round/match, and balloon gauge is disabled in Stage Clear mode. Unlike the prequel, the gauge won't lose balloons by popping grey balloons. De-transformation is also gone in this game so just pop away as many grey balloons as you need/want. Items ----- As in prequel, you get an item by popping a lump of non-grey balloons of same colour, arranged in specific patterns, by using only normal or arrow shot. The grey balloons adjacent to the coloured balloons do not affect the dropped item. Here are the ones used in this game: Pattern Effect *** Destroys one row of balloon(s). Duration: 1 shot. * Destroys one column of balloon(s). Duration: 1 shot. * * ** Receipient fires arrow shots, which behave the same as normal ** shots, except they can pop isolated balloons. Useless if you play by FF1 rules. Duration: Limited by time (how long?) *** Destroys all balloons of same colour, regardless of size. * Duration: 1 shot. * Receipient's future waves of rising balloons will have the *** same colour. Colour of balloons is the same throughout all affected waves. Duration: 2 waves. * Completely fills up receipient's balloon gauge. Duration: *** Permanent. * Other lumps Empties receipient's balloon gauge. Unlike the prequel, it of 4 that can no longer de-transform receipient. are not mentioned For those who noticed, the item which allows the recepient to control projectile's direction is gone in this game. If you already posseses an item, getting another item will lose the current item and disable its future effects. Charater attacks ---------------- By popping balloons in groups of 4 or more (including grey ones or lumps of different colours, but not using character attacks) in one shot, you can add balloons to opponent's counter, as well as remove balloons from your own counter. If you attack before filling up the gauge, Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon shows up and destorys one balloon at each column. The exact row for each column of balloon is chosen randomly, but she always hits the rows with balloons, if the column is not empty. Such attack uses 3 balloons from the gauge. If you attack with full gauge, your character will do her own type of attack. Such attack uses 10 balloons from the gauge. Character specific attacks are much more powerful than in the prequel. Also, those attacks no longer directly changes attacker's field in any way, shape, of form. Eternal Sailor Moon: Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss Effect: Turns opponent's all non-grey balloons into small ones, if exist. It may also add balloons to opponent's counter. Super Sailor Mercury: Mercury Aqua Rhapsody Effect: Turns opponent's field into following pattern: bSSSSb SSbbSS SbSSbS SbSSbS SbSSbS SSbbSS bSSSSb ...... Super Sailor Mars: Mars Flame Sniper Effect: Turns opponent's field into following pattern: SrSrSr rSrSrS SrSrSr rSrSrS SrSrSr rSrSrS S.S.S. ...... Super Sailor Jupiter: Jupiter Oak Evolution Effect: Randomly adds 3 columns of grey balloons of depth 7 to opponent's field, starting from the topmost row. Any existing balloons in the selected columns are replaced, except the ones touches the bottom line. Super Sailor Venus: Venus Love and Beauty Shock Effect: If there colour of balloon is set to 4, it turns opponent's field into one of the following patterns: YRGBYR BGYRBG SSSSSS SSSSSS BGYRBG YRGBYR SSSSSS SSSSSS YRBGYR BGYRBG SSSSSS SSSSSS ...... ...... ...... ...... If there colour of balloon is not 4, it turns opponent's field into one of the following pattern, where '?' replaced by large non-grey balloons, with colours chosen randomly from the available colour set associated with the colour of balloon setting: ?????? SSSSSS ?????? SSSSSS ?????? SSSSSS ...... ...... Sailor Star Fighter: Star Serious Laser Effect: Randomly adds 2 columns of grey balloons of depth 8 to opponent's field, starting from the topmost row. Any existing balloons in the selected columns are replaced. Sailor Star Maker: Star Gentle Uterus Effect: Adds 99 balloons to opponent's balloon counter. Sailor Star Healer: Star Sensitive Inferno Effect: Fills all of opponent's empty cells with randomly chosen non-grey balloons of any size. Super Sailor Chibi Moon: Twinkle Yell Effect: Turns 12 opponent's balloons into grey ones, starting from the one at the rightmost column of the lowest row, changing in order of rightmost to leftmost column of same row, then lowest row to highest row. For example: Oooooo OooCBA OO ooo -> 98 765 o O O 4 3 2 O 1 Where numbers 1 to C are the order which balloons are turned. The attack skips empty cells, but not existing grey balloons (they are just turned into grey again). Small balloons turned into large ones (ie no small grey balloons). If fewer than 12 balloons exist in opponent's field, the attack will not affect future ballons shown in opponent's field. This attack may also add balloons to opponent's counter. If a player uses an attack, all the rising balloons and ongoing projectiles of both sides immediately disappear. If a player is firing special shots (other than arrow shots), that player will lose the shot as well. If a player managed to control future colours of balloons, that means that player can lose 1 wave of balloons of same colour! Attacks that drain attacker's balloon gauge do not break the popping streak already in progress. Strategies ========== Attacking --------- Because now you can build up balloon gauge quickly by popping in large lumps continuously, that means you have 2 ways to attack, either by building a huge lump of same colour and popping it, or by popping just enough balloons per shot to build up the gauge quickly enough to unleash character-based attacks quickly. Winning in story mode --------------------- There is only a limited set of initial balloon layouts in story mode, so it is not difficult to fill up balloon gauge faster than COM does. By filling the gauge faster, it can prevent opponents from attacking you (except Sailor Star Maker, and Sailor Star Fighter and Super Sailor Jupiter for lesser extents). Remember, COM is not always perfect on choosing the most lethal order (ie the order that builds up the gauge most quickly) for popping initial set of balloons. Therefore there are opportunities to win match quickly. If you have trouble of winning with better endings, try the password feature, or starting a new game with FF1 mode, or even try switching character. Grey balloons ------------- Unlike the prequel, most balloons emptied from the counters are not grey. Therefore it is almost impossible to overwhelm opponents by filling their bottom rows with those balloons. In this game, the grey balloon tactics that worked so well in prequel has become a risky plan. Not only because popping them will not lower the balloon gauge, but attacking with grey balloons can actually help opponents by allowing them to build up their gauges faster, and allowing them to counterattack by adding more balloons on your balloon counter. For opponents playing with FF2 mode, grey balloons are tremendous help for them. AI flaws -------- Although no SNES titles (even with Super FX2 and DSP2 chips) can match the adaptive intelligence of an average human brain, a major AI flaw is all it takes to ruin the gaming experience. Unfortunately, this game has some flaws that shouldn't have happened: In some rare occasions, if COM's cells are completely filled, COM character sometimes may just stand around and do nothing, even if all of the following conditions are true: - Bottom row does not have grey balloons. - COM has enough balloons in the gauge to clean up a row or two. - COM has enough time to pop up at least a row manually. - COM is playing under FF1 rules. This happens more frequently if no horizontally adjacent balloons have the same colour and/or size. This bug rarely occurs, but you will notice it when it happens. When the balloon gauge is too low, COM may not clean up the lower corners when the balloons in there are piled down to the bottom line, even when: - COM is playing under FF1 rules. - The balloons at lower corners are not grey. - COM is at the corner that needs to be cleared immediately. COM seems to be a sucker against Sailor Star Maker and Sailor Star Healer. In case of Sailor Stars Healer, COM may come to a halt with above bug, by using Star Sensitive Inferno; in case of Sailor Star Maker, COM tends to lose for unable to empty the counter quick enough after receiving Star Gentle Uterus. However, I do give a break for the programmers on neutralizing Star Gentle Uterus. After all, even seasoned players playing by FF1 rules with a full timer have a hard time to empty all 99 balloons in the counter. Fuwa Fuwa 2 strategies ---------------------- Avoid balloons get stacked down at the edges. This is especially important in FF2 mode since isolated balloons in lower corners are really hard to pop. For that matter, don't expect Chibi Chibi Moon to be very helpful in such case. If you happened to have isolated balloons reaching the bottom line, don't be afraid to raise a row or two of balloons manually, since no balloons will be added to those columns. Besides, this may be the only way to clear them without CCM. Don't forget to enlarge all lowermost balloons on each column first before raising a row. Timing strategies ----------------- If you are attacked by waves of balloons, use CCM to clear out the balloons when the shadow balloons are still rising. This clears out two rows of balloons instead of just one. To deliver maximum damage for a character specific attack, do it when opponent's timer is empty and remains in the draining phase, with balloon gauge is low. If you can't met all conditions, try to attack with opponent's low balloon gauge gauge or while there are enough balloons in opponent's balloon counter, depending on your attack and opponent's gauge and counter. The best way to ruin opponent's colour matching item is to attack while opponent is raising balloons (manual or otherwise); similarly, the best way to ruin opponent's special shots (except arrow shots) is to attack while opponent is shooting. Balloon gauge strategies ------------------------ Continuously popping in large lumps allows you to fill the gauge faster, and recover more quickly from an attack. If you want greater control over the timing of character specific attacks, try manual attack instead of automatic one. However, opponents can do the same if switching attack type to manual. Character Ratings ----------------- Starting from easiest to hardest, it indicates the difficulty of winning in story mode with 9 wins and no continues: Very Easy: Sailor Star Maker, Sailor Stars Healer (due to AI flaw) Easy: Eternal Sailor Moon, Super Sailor Chibi Moon Normal: Super Sailor Venus, Super Sailor Mercury, Super Sailor Mars Hard: Sailor Star Fighter Very Hard: Super Sailor Jupiter (try using her in FF2 mode!) Codes ===== Play as Super Sailor Chibi Moon ------------------------------- To use her, as soon as you see the game's title screen appeared with the 'start' prompt, press only the following keys, in sequence: X, A, B, Y, L, R. If you do it correctly, there will be a sound sample is played, and you can play as her in all game modes. If not, you will need to reset the game. If you use her in story mode, you won't play against her at the 8th match; you only play against her at the 9th match. This code is effective until the hardware is reset. Ending ====== Story mode ---------- Depending on your performance, you will get the following endings: Condition: 0 win 3 loss. You will see Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon in Super Sailor Mars's stage. Condition: 1 win 3 loss. You will see Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon in Super Sailor Mars's stage, but with different words. (Hey, where are Princess Fireball and Galaxia?) Condition: 2 win 3 loss. You will see Luna in Super Sailor Jupiter's stage. Condition: 3 win 3 loss. You will see Artemis in Super Sailor Jupiter's stage. Condition: 4 win 3 loss. You will see Diana in Super Sailor Venus/Sailor Star Healer's stage. Condition: 5 win 3 loss. You will see Tuxedo Mask in Super Sailor Venus/Sailor Star Healer's stage. Condition: 6 win 3 loss. You will see Super Sailor Uranus in Super Sailor Mercury/Sailor Star Fighter's stage. A different BGM from the above conditions is played. Condition: 7 win 2 loss. You will see Super Sailor Neptune in Super Sailor Mercury/Sailor Star Fighter's stage. Condition: 8 win 1 loss. You will see Super Sailor Pluto in Eternal Sailor Moon/Sailor Star Maker's stage. Condition: 9 win 0 loss. You will see Super Sailor Saturn in Super Sailor Chibi Moon's stage, with 'omedetou' (congratulations) text moving behind the movie box plane. In addition, another BGM is played after the first one. After the ending is shown, press A or Start returns to title screen, except for 9 win 0 loss, which will move to credits section. Puzzle mode ----------- If you miss the puzzle for more than 99 times, your game is over after solving stage 60. If you miss the puzzle for 99 times or fewer after solving stage 60. Diana will ask you whether or not to play special challenges. If yes you can play 10 more levels, if not it will give you password, which allows continuing at level 61 with same amount of misses. If you finish stage 70, you will see a group picture of all playable characters (except Super Sailor Chibi Moon) with 'omedetou!!' (congratulations!!) title. Then you can skip to the credits. Credits ------- [You see credits texts appears and disappeared at the transparent sidebar at left, with Eternal Sailor Moon at right in victory pose blinking her eyes, and a Moon at background.] [After the credits texts are finished rolling, a circle closing in covering everything else outside the circle in black, until Eternal Sailor Moon's head remains.] Eternal Sailor Moon (in words): 'Owari' (the end) [If you play story mode and did not activate the code for playing Super Sailor Chibi Moon, the circle will expand a moment later and uncover the layers behind. The sidebar now contains instructions of playing as Super Sailor Chibi Moon. Otherwise, further waiting has no effect.] Miscellaneous ============= History Background ------------------ During Bandai's initial launch of Sufami Turbo, Bandai's SFC add-on unit, during 1996, the company had launched a series of games designed for this unit, and this game happened to be one of Sufami Turbo titles. However, with competitions from next generation platforms at that time (what can you expect? It's 1996 AD), Sufami Turbo was unsuccessful. Combined with the low ratings of the respective show, this game has become the only known licensed video game for the Sailor Stars series. Unused music ------------ Apparantly music 12 and 16 are not used in this game. Are they really accessible in normal game play at all? And for that matter, are there different revisions of this game that actually uses these songs? Credits ======= In no particular order, thanks to: Pocky : Without his/her/its once great effort for digging up this game, the entire western world might never know of its existence. Bandai : For building the only Sailor Moon Sailor Stars game. Quite frankly, Bandai's SM puzzle games are better than Angel's mediocre SM fighting games. Legal elements ============== This FAQ is copyrighted by Jacob Poon. All rights reserved. Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2 (c) Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha/TV Asahi (c) Bandai 1996