Now that we're in the second half of the game, it's time to get to work. In this entry, we face Sword Man and Search Man and attempt to get all the Bolts that we can.
Sword Man
Walk up to the button at the beginning to open up the temple. Watch out for the bats that fly out.
When you enter, there will be four areas above the ladder. Touch the orbs to enter them. You'll have to enter all four of them to open up the statues that block your path.
Before you climb up, look at the symbols on the wall. There's a whirlwind (Tornado Hold) on the upper-left, ice crystals (Frost Wave) on the upper-right, thunder (Thunder Claw) on the lower-left and the Flash Bomb (Flash Bomb) on the lower-right. You'll need the first four Robot Master weapons to get through here.
The lower-left area has spiked ceilings coming down on you. Get rid of the totem statues that move back and forth (there's a lot of them in this stage) and shoot the switch so that the lever is to the left to shut the ceiling off and open the door before you get killed. The Thunder Claw will knock the lever to the other side in one shot.
The green bats will try to latch onto you and suck your energy dry for a few seconds if they connect...so stay away or get rid of them.
The skull-head totems (they look like skull heads) shoot fireballs at you. At least they're stationary.
The lower-right area is pretty dark. Hit the totem enemies with the Flash Bomb to temporarily light up the room. You'll want to do this with all three rooms, because the three pictures you'll see through these three rooms will be the order you'll need to hit the switches...and it will be random every time. At least you have infinite chances despite having to kill totem enemies while you do it.
The red bats have three babies that you'll have to destroy.
The upper-left area has you pushing floating platforms into a like-designed mechanism on the ceiling to open doors. Position them below the mechanism with the Mega Buster, then raise them up with the Tornado Hold.
The upper-right area has those skull-totems, but this time they're firing molten lava from their tops. If the lava touches you, it's instant death...so fire the Frost Wave and hurry to the right so that you can keep from getting burned as you temporarily freeze these totems.
When you beat all four areas, you'll take on the mini-boss: a large gear with a dodecahedron inside that fires fireballs. You have to fire at this dodecahedron to destroy it. It's pretty easy to avoid the fireball and strike this thing, but halfway through the fight, you'll have to stay on the move as the platform you start with is destroyed by a hammer robot in the background. This hammer in the hit the three remaining platforms in the lava, and if you're in the strike zone, it's going to be sending you down into the lava with them. If it's moving. you know it's about to strike, so stay away from it as you continue to fire upon the dodecahedron.
Beating this mini-boss will give you Rush Bomb, which lets Rush drop bombs from one side of the screen to the other for a limited time.
The next section has you traveling on a platform on instant-death lava. You'll have to get the platform on the large plumes of lava that rise up in order to go further up. There are two buttons on these platforms: one on the left and one of the right. The left button lets you go left while the right one pushes you right. Don't touch the flumes, as they also cause instant death.
After that first plume, you'll have to deal with those platforms from the mini-boss segment...and the hammer robot! The Rush Bomb ability can help here, but you'll still have to shoot some enemies while avoiding being hammered into the lava.
After a set of two lava plumes (watch out for the spikes!), you'll be making your way toward a lava waterfall. The platform here doesn't require that you keep jumping, and this lava river will take you to the end. Near the end, there's a wall with a Flash Bomb symbol on it. Destroy it with the Flash Bomb and climb the ladder to find a Bolt.
At the end is Sword Man. He has a few attacks:
A force field that rises up as soon as he plants his sword into the ground. This leaves him invulnerable, so stay away.
A dash attack where his legs move to the other side as upper half moves up to follow him, followed by a sword strike. When he says "Final Strike," jump over his legs, then stay away and hit him with Water Balloon.
A spinning sword attack where his upper half spins towards you, strikes at the wall and returns. When he says "Fire Slash," slide under him when he spins towards you and doing it again when he returns to his body. He's invulnerable during this attack.
Jumping into the air to send a statue at you. Stay on the move so that the statue doesn't hit you.
His weakness is the Water Balloon, and sometimes he'll be stunned and overheating if you hit him with it as he stands in one spot.
Beating Sword Man gives you the Flame Sword. It's a short-range flamethrower, basically. Despite acting like a sword, it has ammo.
Search Man
The blue robots that carry boulders will chuck them at your current position. Get rid of them as soon as possible. The boulders are also destroyable, but that won't help you against the green ones that throw spiked balls.
The electric thorns can be destroyed with Flame Sword. Thankfully, they're not insta-kill.
The trapeze platforms in the third sections aren't necessary to cross, but it does make going through that section easier. You'll meet a new enemy here: green robot birds that fly from one side of the screen to the other. You'll have to use them in the fourth to get past the flying spiked balls.
In Section 4, there is a set of trapezes that you'll have to use the Mega Ball double jump to reach. If you can swing off all of them and grab the ladder at the end, you'll find a Bolt.
You'll also find another Bolt at the bottom of Section 4. Destroy the electric thorns with Flame Sword to get it.
The rhino robots will fire missiles down at you. They take a good amount of abuse, but they are destroyable.
If you're playing the Sega Saturn version, you'll come across a set of doors lead to a mini-boss battle with Wood Man. He still has the same strategies as he did in the second game: the four leaves raining down as he fires Leaf Shield at you. Thankfully, Leaf Shield is easier to jump over. Hit him with Flame Sword whenever you get close to him. (If you're playing the PS1 version, ignore this. You'll be going straight to the loading screen and Section 5.)
Shoot the doors with the white-and-yellow caution stripes to open them. You'll have to be quick in order to get past them while they're open, as they'll quickly close again. You'll have to be good with the Thunder Claw swinging if you want to get the Bolt near the end. For best results, use the Thunder Claw as soon as you start dropping downwards to latch onto the second hook.
The brown throwing robots toss actual boulders, followed by the usual balls that the blue guys through.
At the end is Search Man. He'll try to fire three missiles on you and also send a disc flying across the room, lowering to the floor as it bounces off the walls. You can destroy the disc (and Search Man) with the Flame Sword.
Every so often, three bushes will drop down. One of them contains Search Man, and the other two contain decoys that explode and can damage you after a few seconds. Strike the bushes with Flame Sword. If you get the one with Search Man, he'll be exposed...and set on fire, stunning him and setting you up for more damage.
If he says "Deadly swarm" and floats in mid-air, he's going to fire a ton of missiles. The missiles can be easily destroyed, though.
Beating Search Man gives you Homing Sniper. It's a homing missile.
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