Hacha Mecha Fighter is a two-button game with a regular joystick: A: Shot (with internal autofire) B: Bomb It's worthwhile to have an autofire A button at 30Hz, as it is much faster than the internal autofire. The player can choose between an otter (game start on 1p side) or an aardvark (game start on 2p side). These two characters are sometimes referred to by their Japanese designations Kawauso and Tsuchibuta respectively. There are no gameplay differences between the two so the choice can be made purely on visual preferences. All shot levels of the otter are sea animals while the aardvark has a vegetable/fruit theme. The shot power starts at level 1 and can be gradually increased by picking up Power Up items up to level 7 (1p side: sunfish; 2p side: daikon radish). The game starts with 1 option accompanying the player sprite up to a maximum of 4 options. The options follow the player along and fire the same shot as the main sprite. Using a bomb temporarily increases the size of the character sprite and hitbox. For the duration of the bomb the player becomes invincible and the shot power jumps to level 7. There are no item pick ups to gain extra lives. The player is awarded with an extra live once for reaching 1,000,000 points and a second time for reaching 77,777,777 points (effectively 77,777,780 points). Rank in Hacha Mecha Fighter is tied to survival time and increases by +1 every 17 seconds. It mainly affects the number and the speed of enemy bullets. Dying reduces rank by -4. After the 1st loop, rank is fixed at 15 (maximum rank) and cannot be lowered again. Apart from obvious scoring sources such as destroying enemies, the scoring system revolves around two main mechanics: Wall hugging and fruit items. Pressing into the right edge of the screen makes the player earn 100 points per frame, which is pretty significant, but also hard to leverage. For example, on a lot of (mid)bosses this can be exploited and the player can spend the majority of the fights hugging the edge instead of fighting the bosses. Moreover, on stages with a floor (except stage 8), touching the ground will trigger a walking animation (pushing into it is not required, just touching it is enough) for 10 points per frame. These two things can be combined in the bottom right corner of stages with a floor for a total of 110 points per frame. Fruit items are worth 1,000 points each on pick up and result in an additional 10,000 bonus for every fruit collected at the end of one stage. The end of stage bonus for number of fruits is capped at 99 fruits. Every additional fruit item beyond that is only worth the 1,000 on pick up. There is also a special bonus of 1,000,000 points when the player manages to not pick up a single fruit during a stage. As one fruit item is essentially worth 11,000 (1,000 on pick up and 10,000 end of stage bonus), going for fruit collection is preferred for scoring from 91 fruits onwards (total gain 1,001,000). Otherwise, obtaining the special no fruit bonus is better for scoring. The game can be counterstopped at 99,999,999 points. When the player loses a life in stages with water (stage 2 and stage 5), 300 points per frame are awarded for every option after they have dropped into the water for a total duration of 66 frames. This means that a death with 4 options yields 79,200 points. The same 300 points per frame are awarded when an option falls on the ground and runs away to the left side of the screen. This animation takes longer depending on how far to the right the player has died (vertical position does not matter), resulting in a maximum run animation of 87 frames for a straight run to the escape point. As the options sometimes slip in their running animation, the time frame the player is awarded with points extends to 96 or 97 frames, which is particularly prone to happen with 3 or 4 options. This results in a maximum point gain of about 115,000~116,000 points. If the options neither fall into water nor drop to the ground (e.g. in stage 1 or the beginning of stage 3), no such points are awarded after a death. All things considered, these points are negligible in the main game but they can become crucial for scoring high in the Caravan mode of the port. Hacha Mecha Fighter loops infinitely. Any loop after the first one is a simple repetition of the second loop. Therefore, the difficulty stays the same. There are only two changes from the first to the second loop All enemy HP values are increased by x4. The rank is fixed at maximum value and cannot be decreased again. These two changes lead to a drastically different approach to the game. For instance, from 2-4 onwards a more pacifist play, leaving certain enemies behind is the only viable way to survive. Facebook: / insertcoinarcadeofficial Email: insertcoinarcade@outlook.it
