Here is the plot of the game, courtesy of
Wikipedia:
The game is set in Angel Land, which is a fantasy world with a Greek mythology theme. Before the events of the game, Earth was ruled by Palutena (Goddess of Light) and Medusa (Goddess of Darkness). Palutena bestowed the people with light to make them happy. Medusa hated the humans, dried up their crops, and turned them to stone. Enraged by this, Palutena transformed Medusa into a monster and banished her to the Underworld. Out of revenge, Medusa conspired with the monsters of the Underworld to take over Palutena's residence the Palace in the Sky. She launched a surprise attack, and stole the three sacred treasures — the Mirror Shield, the Light Arrows and the Wings of Pegasus — which deprived Palutena's army of its power. After her soldiers had been turned to stone by Medusa, Palutena was defeated in battle and imprisoned deep inside the Palace in the Sky.
With her last power, she sent a bow and arrow to the young angel Pit. He escapes from his prison in the Underworld and sets out to save Palutena and Angel Land.
From here, Pit - who used to be in charge of Palutena's personal bodyguards according to the instruction manual - has to get the three sacred treasures, defeat Medusa and save Palutena and Angel Land.
World 1-1
The D-Pad lets you move left and right with Left and Right, aim upwards by holding Up and crouch and jump down from platforms by holding Down. B attacks, and A jumps. Select switches weapons, and Start pauses the game and opens the menu.
You start out with no hearts, and you only have a little bit of health. In order to increase your health, you'll need to get a lot of points. To do that, you'll need to defeat enemies. As you defeat enemies, you'll not only gain points, but you can also get hearts. Hearts will be used to buy things in the store.
The snakes with the wings (they're called Shemums) will head in one direction, then turn around if they hit a wall. If they reach the edge of a platform, they will drop down. Wait for them to come your way before hitting them with your arrows and taking their hearts. As much as they seem to limitlessly spawn, there is a limit to how many will drop down before you've fought them all in the current spot where you're at before you have to make your way forward.
By walking into a door, you can enter it. Sometimes there will be nothing in the room, while others will contain enemies, shops and treasure rooms.
The screen is wrap-around. If you walk through the side of the screen, you'll end up on the other side. In other words, if you walk through the right side of the screen, you'll end up on the left side, and vice-versa.
The first world's stages are vertical, and you'll have to jump your way up and carefully make your way to the top to reach the exit. If you fall beyond the bottom of the screen for any reason, the game is over and you'll have to replay the level. You only have one life, but you have infinite continues. If you die at any time, you can get a password, which will keep track of all the points, health, hearts and items that you've collected.
The red, one-eyed flying creatures (Monoeyes) fly in groups of four, and they give more points and drop five hearts each. The bigger the heart, the more it is worth.
The heart turns any enemies that pop up on-screen into mallets for a limited time. The mallets are used in the labyrinths to rescue warriors turned into stone back into flesh to assist you. This will be mentioned more in detail at the first labyrinth.
You'll want to get close to 20,000 points by the time you get out of this level. If you can do that, you'll go from the Bronze Arrow - which you start with - to the Silver Arrow, which is a little more powerful. Also, you can get arrow upgrades from defeating a lot of enemies and finding a room where someone will give you an arrow if you've been fighting hard enough.
The Grim Reaper (Reaper) slowly moves back and forth. If he sees you, regardless of how far away you are from him, he will send his own flying mini-Reapers (Reapettes) after you, and he will keep doing that for a limited time, complete with "panic" music that plays when he does this. When in doubt, lay low. If you can defeat him, that will also stop the mini-Reaper attacks. The best way to beat them is to hit them from behind, then wait for them to look away again and go back to minding their own business before hitting them.
The enemy rooms will be full of flying enemies that look like flying eyes with big noses (Specknoses), much like those funny looking glasses with the big nose connected at the bottom. The more of them you can defeat before they disappear, the more points and hearts you can get. The hearts you get from these enemies will be full, big hearts worth ten hearts each.
The wine goblet will refill one whole unit of health.
The room with the pots is a treasure pots. By shooting down pots, you can get the treasures inside, but you'll want to wait until you shoot down all the pots to get all the treasures, or you'll be warped out of the room the instant you get something. The treasures - which are all either mallets or hearts - are placed at random, and if you get the tiny Grim Reaper, you'll wipe out all your progress and you get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir.
In these rooms, you'll want to shoot down the top two pots on the left and the pot on the bottom-right below the door. The number of mallets you get will tell you which one to hit last. If you don't get any mallets, it's the pot on the lower-left. If it's one, it's the pot on the upper-right corner. If it's two, it's the pot directly above the door. If it's three, it's the one in the middle. Hitting the one you're supposed to hit last before last will give you the tiny Grim Reaper (known in the manual as "The God of Poverty"), ruining your whole progress in that room. If you do manage to hit the one you're supposed to hit last at the very end, you'll get a nice treasure.
The bottle with the liquid in it will revive you if you die. You'll only get a little bit of health left, but it's better than nothing. You can only carry one at any given time, but you can carry more.
On the purple square platforms, do not do a running jump. Just jump to the left or right, or else you run the risk of the game eating your jump inputs.
The red, one-eyed frogs (Nettlers) will move much like the snakes with wings, and they will duck for a second whenever you shoot at them. As long as you aren't super-close to them, the arrows will still hit them when they stop ducking.
There is also a red flame enemy that can pop out of the floor and shoot a projectile (they're called McGoos). Shoot them if you can, but watch out for the projectile.
When you reach the end of the stage, the amount of points you got in the level will be added to your total score.
Your health does not refill between stages. Keep this in mind.
World 1-2
You'll see the store here for the first time. If you have enough hearts, you can buy things at these stores. The barrel is the Water Barrel, which allows you to carry eight of the health bottles. (The chalices and the bottles contain the Water of Life, which increase your health, with the chalices restoring health immediately and the bottles reviving you upon death.) The feather is the Angel Feather, which will bounce you back up if you fall beyond the bottom of the screen.
If you can reach 28,200 points, you can get a second section of health when you complete the current level.
You'll see some moving platforms near the end of the level.
Also near the end of the level, there will be red octopus enemies that will come up from the bottom of the screen (Commylooses). Shoot them down if you can, but watch them carefully as they move to the side on the way up.
If you have enough points when you reach the door near the end, you can get the Silver Arrow.
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