PrinceWatercress plays Quartet (SMS) - Part 1 of 3

This one is hard, but it's fun.

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Believe it or not, not only is the Master System version of this game different from the arcade version, but it has a completely different story, too.

It's thousands of years into the future. And by now mankind has established space colonies throughout the galaxy.

Most of them are peaceful, productive places to live. Most of the time. But once every few centuries or so, something somewhere goes amiss.

This time it happened on the beautiful Colony Number Nine, renowned for the contributions of its late, great ruler, Queen Cynthia.

What's happened? The colony has been invaded by a group of awesome ALIENS of the nastiest kind. Despite state-of-the-technology protection, the ALIENS have entered Queen Cynthia's tomb, confiscated her casket, and are about to destroy the rest of the colony.

There's very little time left.

But there's still a lot of hope. Hope placed in the spiritual powers of the famous MARY and her partner, EDGAR.

Together only they can wipe out the ALIENS. And purge the colony of their vicious evil. For good.

Round 1

Player 1 is always Mary, while Player 2 is always Edgar (spelled "Edger" in-game).

Left and Right let you move left and right. Down crouches. Down-Left and Down-Right let you duck walk. Button 1 shoots. Button 2 jumps.

You start out with two lives and 10,000 units of energy that go down in units of 10, and you'll lose quite a bit of energy if you touch an enemy in any way. If you get sent to zero from an enemy hit, you'll lose a life. 

Stay low at the beginning and defeat the enemies by shooting at them. By shooting enemies, they will leave point balls; always collect the point balls, as you'll need them for skill upgrades and bonuses. Get the jetpack as soon as you see it; you'll want to keep the jetpack on you to make it easier to get around and more easily avoid and shoot things, as there will be a ton of fireballs being shot into the sky by the mushroom-shaped turrets in the stage. You also won't risk falling into pits, either. Make sure you don't get hit with the jetpack, as you will lose it and have to get it back.

There is a yellow star out in the open. Pick it up, as you'll need all five starts in the game to enter Round 6 and beat the game.

The yellow clock freezes enemies for a brief amount of time, allowing you some easy shots to increase your score and get to another rank. (More on that later.) A good amount of the enemies are pretty easy, though some are a bit difficult; the more difficult enemies will get a mention.

The Phoenix-like bird at the exit door flies up and down, and it will shoot eight bullets at you at various angles if you shoot it. Take it out from a fair distance so you can avoid the projectiles. When you shoot the bird down enough times, you will get a key, and you can press Up at the exit door to go through the exit and enter the next round. If you have the jetpack equipped, you can press Button 1 instead, but only if you're wearing the jetpack.

When you complete a stage, you'll get a medal for defeating the boss, then see your current and total score. 

Round 2

From here on out, there are two worlds in each round: the normal world and the underworld. You'll start out in the normal world, and you'll have to make your way to the underworld.

You'll need to head to the far right to get to the underworld at the start. Along the way, there are a few enemies worth mentioning. The eyes with the red orbs in the corners are called Mabacks; they will open up and fire immediately when you are lined up with them.

The brown medicine bottle gives you temporary invincibility, but certain ones can also increase your energy level.

The yellow item that looks like a water bottle is really a screen-clearing bomb; grabbing it will get rid of all enemies currently on-screen.

When you see the ventilation shaft at the far right end, press Up to enter the underworld. The normal world has brown walls here, while the underworld has blue. Go left and stay low. Get the jetpack and fight the boss. You'll want to fly around and shoot it down while also avoiding the many projectiles that the boss spits out. When the boss is defeated, grab the key to unlock the exit. 

Near the boss are three Mabacks. You'll need to carefully take out the ones at the top and middle, then head left to get some more energy from the medicine bottle as well as the second star. You must take out at least the top Maback in order to get the star. I just get rid of two to make it easier to move. From here, you can head back into the normal world and then head for the exit.

Before I leave, I bring my score to 40,000 points to go from Sergeant to Captain. At Captain, your gun's range is extended.

At 80,000 points, you'll reach Major and earn an extra life. At 120,000, you'll reach Colonel, and your gun's range will be extended again. At 200,000 points, you'll reach General, which increases the speed of your bullets. I don't get all the rankings in this game, as I want to keep my energy high.