So apparently I had not posted a blog entry for everything I had done after all! Apparently I missed Bucky O'Hare for the NES despite having the guide completed in 2019 and forgot all about it. Well, it's here now. Let's look at this difficult but incredible licensed NES game from Konami.
The story starts with Bucky O'Hare and his crew - Blinky, Jenny, Deadeye and Winky - saving the universe from the Toads. One day, Toad forces attack their ship, the Righteous Indignation, and Bucky's comrades are kidnapped and trapped on four different planets. Now Bucky must save his comrades and beat the Toad forces.
Green Planet
You'll be playing as Bucky in the beginning. B lets you fire, and A lets you jump. Left and Right let you move around, Down lets you duck, and Up lets Bucky aim upwards. Bucky is the only playable character out of the four who can aim upwards, and he is also the only character who can fire downwards in mid-air if you hold Down and press B to fire you gun while in the air.
Holding B allows Bucky to fill up his power gauge at the bottom of the screen. By filling it up and letting go of the B button, Bucky can perform a Super Mario Bros. 2-style super jump.
At the bottom of the screen, you'll have your current score, your high score, your current health, your power meter that is used to charge up special moves and the mount of lives that you have. If you lose all your lives, the game is over. Thankfully, there are infinite continues in this game, and when you do continue, you start back at the beginning of the act where you died.
The first section - or "act," as the game calls them - is an introduction to the gameplay. You'll be shooting down Toads as well as some eight-way turrets that do their best to track where you are and fire in the necessary direction.
Spinning circles with "1-Up" on them gives you a 1-Up, but you can also get an extra life every 10,000 points. Solid green circles give you 3,000 points, so that helps. Green hearts with an "L" on them increases the maximum health of the character who picks it up, and you can extend a character's health twice.
The second act has you jumping upwards to climb a tree. Watch out for spiders with eight-way explosion attacks, hornets, worms and even and hornet nests.
The third act has streams, falling tree platforms which are slightly brighter than the ones, logs that you can ride and even fish that will jump out at you. The P icon increase the power meter of the character who picks it up, making their special ability better in the process. Like the life extensions, you can only apply two to any specific character, but unlike the life extensions, they don't disappear when you lose all your lives and they are even saved in your passwords.
The dark green Toads actually shoot at you, unlike the light green Toads.
The log platforms will either be a pair of pulley-like "scale" platforms where one will go lower and the other higher and will break after standing on one for too long, or they will be individual platforms that swing back and forth. Regardless of which type you come across, be careful jumping to them.
To get the extra life above the stream, get on the log, then use Bucky's super jump to get back up to safety. On the set of three streams, don't move. That way, you won't fall into the water and instantly die.
To get the other 1-Up above the stream after this, walk off the edge onto a log, then stay put as you go left. When you're about to grab the 1-Up, charge up Bucky's super jump so you can land someplace safe.
The fourth act is a waterfall, and if you know what you're doing, you can grab a ton of power-ups. The debris falling from the top will still hurt you, but not much. You can also shoot at the flowers at the sides.
The fifth act is a salvo of Toad ships. Avoid the bullets they shoot as well as their downward laser blasts as you head to the right, and make sure not to get hit in mid-air. If you do, you'll be stunned and you won't be able to move again until you hit the ground. If you're above a pit when this happens, you're doomed. You can super jump onto the Toad ships with Bucky, however, and you can do that to get a life extension as well as a power extension. If you've grabbed all the extensions that you can with Bucky - or any character, should you play this is any order other than what I've chosen - you won't have to power them up anymore.
The boss here is a purple guy who throws huge boulders. When he leaps, he will catch a boulder when he lands. If the boulder hits you when he throws it, you will die. Instead, get close to him to avoid getting crushed, then get away from him and jump over him to avoid the tackle attack, which is also instant death. When the boss is stunned after the tackle, hit him in the back a few times, then prepare to avoid him and his attacks again. The debris that comes out after the rock hits the ground as well as the debris that comes down from the top of the screen after the tackle attack only does very minor damage, thankfully. It won't be long until you bring this guy down and save Blinky. Blinky's special ability is the ability to fly with a jetpack by holding the B button to power up the power meter, and he also shoots grenade-like bullets that can break ice and stone.
Red Planet
If you have more than one selectable character, you can switch between them by pressing Select.
In the first act, you'll be avoiding instant death lava and the rocks that come in and out of the lava. There will also be volcanoes in the background, and if you see them erupt, move back to avoid getting hit by the rocks that come down.
In the second act, the boulders will act as a way of traversing lava pits and other places that you normally wouldn't be able to get across. If you need to, walk into them to push them to where you need them to be. Also, don't touch the ceiling spikes; they will instantly kill you.
The third act is the toughest. As you go down, lava will drop down and flow towards the bottom, giving an interesting twist to the Quick Man instant death beams sections from Mega Man 2. The first lava flow is bad enough. As soon as you have a choice between left and right, go right or you will die. Drop down, then go left. Go right after the drop-off point with the points icon that would be suicide to grab. After dropping off two "steps", immediately go left or you will die. Keep going left, and when you can't go left any more, immediately go to the right. Go left at the drop, and keep going left. When you drop to the left again, immediately go right or else you will die. After that, go right and drop, then left and drop, then right and drop, then left and drop, then right until you get the heck out of there. And yes, that description was not only easier said than done, but a tad difficult to type out and hard to understand unless you've played this section before.
In the fourth act, there's some power we can get for Blinky (good think I got that other one from the second act!), as well as those Gradius-esque lava arches that you have to duck to avoid getting hit by.
The fifth act just has you going to the right. There are Toad enemies that will roll at you, but they are easy to destroy. You can walk back and forth across the room to farm lives if you need them (which I'll recommend doing). Go to the right, and you'll have moving platforms to deal with. You'll have to find gaps to jump through if you want to make it to the top. As you do this, you'll have to shoot down Toads and also avoid the blue instant death spikes on the sides. Also, take care not to fall too far down, as the bottom of the screen acts like a bottomless pit as soon as you start climbing up.
The seventh act has you standing on top of rolling boulders to get over spike pits. As always, the spikes are instant death. At least you don't have to jump from one boulder to another if they are close to each other; you can just walk into the next one. As a matter of fact, if you perform the jump, you'll die.
In the eighth act, you'll have to alternately avoid and ride on top of the green ball in order to get through the act. This one takes some trial and error to get used to the steps you'll have to undertake to get to solid ground at the end (where the green ball won't come back), but at least it's not the hardest thing in the world.
The boss here is the green ball you just saw. It will open itself up to reveal that it is a robot, then throw green projectiles and fire lasers at you. Thankfully, they can be easy to avoid. When the robot opens up, it will also reveal a Toad at the controls. Jump and shoot at the Toad repeatedly to take him down and beat the boss, and if it closes up, use a fully-powered super jump from Bucky to get over it when it not only rolls to the left, but also when it returns, or else you will die. (Luckily, I got it in one cycle.) Beating this boss will unlock Deadeye, who the ability to stick to walls for some wall climbing and jumping for a few seconds. Just charge it up and he'll be able to do that and also climb up and down the walls while his power meter empties.
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