INSTRUCTION BOOKLET

Thank you for downloading the Nintendo Entertainment System D-PAD HERO 2 ROM IMAGE.
Please read this instruction booklet to ensure proper handling of your new game, and then save the booklet for future reference.

SAFETY PRECAUTIONS

Please take time to read the important instructions in this booklet. Observing the step-by-step instructions and complying with the warnings will be your personal guarantee to greater game satisfaction over a long period of time.
  1. Avoid subjecting this high precision ROM IMAGE to extreme temperature variances. Store at room temperature.
  2. Do attempt to disassemble your ROM IMAGE.
  3. Use of thinners, solvents, benzene, alcohol and other strong cleaning agents while playing this ROM IMAGE is discouraged.
  4. For best results, play the game a distance away from your screen.
  5. To avoid eye and hand strain, pause for five minutes every hour of continuous game playing.

STORY

In the year of X010, the land of PADMANIA has been sent into chaos after a mysterious force came and split the MASTER PAD into six (6) pieces.

Each piece was placed in the possession of an evil guardian ("D-TARD").

You, once a highly regarded D-PAD HERO but now just old and washed up, has suddenly become PADMANIA's last hope. Take control of the BACKUP PAD, challenge the six (6) D-TARDS and win the pieces back!

Failure to restore the MASTER PAD to an operational state will surely cause this world to go under! Go forward dauntlessly!

GETTING STARTED

Load the D-PAD HERO HERO 2 ROM IMAGE. The title screen will appear. Press the controller's START button. (Seriously, you shouldn't be playing this game with a keyboard.) At this point, you may choose the number of players. By pressing the control pad down or up, you can choose either one or two players. Press the A button once you are satisfied.

If you chose one (1) player, you will be asked to choose the difficulty level. By pressing the control pad down or up, you can choose either BEGINNER, NORMAL, or EXPERT. To begin the game, press the A button.

If you chose two (2) players, you will be asked to choose the game mode. By pressing the control pad down or up, you can choose either CO-OP (co-operative mode), or VERSUS (competitive mode). To select the game mode, press the A button. At this point, you may choose the difficulty level. (You should know the drill by now.)

At any point, you may press the B button to go back to the previous menu.

HOW TO PLAY: 1 PLAYER

SONG SELECT SCREEN: When the game starts, the SONG SELECT screen will appear. There are a total of six songs. Initially, all the songs are locked (indicated by question mark blocks), i.e. not playable.

A song can be unlocked by using TOKENS. Use the control pad to move the flashing box that indicates the selected song. The number of tokens it costs to unlock the song, and your current CREDIT, are displayed below. Your initial credit depends on the difficulty level. You can earn more tokens by completing CHALLENGES for a song. Press the controller's A button to unlock the selected song (if you have sufficient credit).

After a song has been unlocked, a picture of its D-TARD (pad piece guardian) will appear. A preview of the song will start to play, and information about the song will be displayed. The information includes the number of challenges that have been completed for this song (initially none), out of a total of eight (8) possible. Press the A button again to select the song for play.

CHALLENGES SCREEN: After selecting a song for play, the CHALLENGES screen will appear. Here you see the eight (8) challenges that can be completed by playing the song. The challenges are essentially the same for all songs, although some parameters, e.g. score limits, may vary between songs and difficulty levels.

Challenges can be completed in any order, and multiple challenges may be completed in one play.

Once a challenge has been completed, its title will appear dimmed before subsequent plays, indicating that there is nothing to gain by completing the challenge again.

The table on the next page describes the challenges.

Title Description
MAKE IT TO THE END Finish the song without dying.
SCORE OVER XXXXX Achieve a score greater than or equal to the listed value.
STREAK OVER 100 Hit 100 or more consecutive ORBS.
SPELL D-PAD HERO Hit the 8 GREEN ORBS (each represents a letter).
FIND 3 FAKE SKULLS Hit the 3 FAKE SKULLS.
BLOW UP ALL POWS Hit all POW blocks.
DON'T USE ANY ITEMS Finish the song without using POW blocks, clocks or stars.
END WITH MAX HEALTH Finish the song with a full heart meter.
Once you have an idea of which challenge(s) you wish to complete in this play, press the A button to start playing. Alternatively, you may press the B button to go back to the SONG SELECT screen.
SONG PLAY SCREEN: The following image indicates the components of the song play screen.
CONTROL FUNCTIONS
  • Left: Lane 1 (left-most) evaporator.
  • Right: Lane 2 evaporator.
  • Select: Lane 3 (center) evaporator.
  • Start: Pause/unpause.
  • Button B: Lane 4 evaporator.
  • Button A: Lane 5 (right-most) evaporator.
  • Up & Down: Reserved for future expansion.
GAMEPLAY
As the song plays, objects will travel down the 5 LANES (lines) towards the PAD at the bottom of the screen. The pad has five (5) EVAPORATORS that can be triggered by pressing the corresponding button on your controller. The objective is to trigger the evaporator when a desired object is positioned directly on top of it -- no sooner, no later.
OBJECTS
The following table shows the objects you may encounter in a song.
Depiction
Name
Description
Blue Orb Worth points.
Red Orb Worth points.
Yellow Orb Worth points.
Depiction
Name
Description
Green Orb Contains one of the letters of "D-PAD HERO".
Skull Avoid at all cost. You will take damage if you hit it.
Fake Skull Three (3) of these are hidden in each song.
POW block When hit, it will cause all objects on the screen, except fake skulls and green orbs, to be destroyed.
Clock Slows down the song and objects to half their original speed for a limited time.
Star Enables you to "lock" two arbitrary lanes for a limited time. When a lane is "locked", all objects except skulls will be hit automatically by the evaporator. The evaporator will start to flash when the star power is about to expire.
ENERGY
The HEART METER indicates your energy level. There are three potential reasons for your energy being depleted:
  • Failure to hit a red, blue or yellow orb.
  • Triggering an evaporator when there is no object within its range.
  • Hitting a skull.
Hitting other types of object (e.g. POW blocks and letters) is optional; you will not take damage if you skip them.

If you are lucky, hitting an orb will reveal a heart, which will partially recover lost energy.

When your energy level reaches "0", you die. You then have the choice of either playing the song again from the beginning, returning to the SONG SELECT screen, or quitting the current game.

SCORING POINTS
Points are scored by hitting red, blue and yellow orbs.
Initially, orbs are worth 25 points each. However, by hitting several orbs in a row, you can cause the POINTS MULTIPLIER to be increased. When the points multiplier is 2, each orb is worth 50 points. The maximum achievable multiplier is 4, such that each orb is worth 100 points.

Maintaining long, uninterrupted chains of orb hits (STREAKS) is crucial to achieving really high scores. (Note that hitting special items does not affect the streak, except for orbs that explode due to a POW block being hit.)

As soon as you miss an orb, the points multiplier will be reset to 1, and you have to build it up "from scratch" again.

Energy left at the end of a song is added to your score (100 points per half-heart).

SONG COMPLETION
As the song progresses, the PROGRESS METER will steadily fill up. When the meter is full, you have reached the end of the song. At this point, you will be presented statistics of your play-through, and the list of challenges that were successfully completed.

For each completed challenge, you earn 1 TOKEN. Additionally, when you've completed a certain number of the song's eight challenges, you will receive a piece of the MASTER PAD.

After returning to the SONG SELECT screen, you may use your newly earned tokens to unlock a new song.

MASTER PAD COMPLETION
When all six pieces of the MASTER PAD have been acquired, a new challenge will be presented. To find out what it is, you'll just have to play diligently!

HOW TO PLAY: CO-OPERATIVE MODE

In Co-operative Mode, you work together with a friend to complete challenges. Controller #1 operates the evaporators of lanes with BLUE indicators, and controller #2 operates the evaporators of lanes with RED indicators.

Periodically, a YELLOW ORB will arrive in the center lane; this orb will AUTOMATICALLY swap the BLUE and RED lane indicators (and the colors of on-screen orbs!). It's half the control, but twice the fun, some say!

Attempting to hit a target in a lane assigned to the other controller will cause a loss of energy; both players share the same heart meter.

Other than the new control mechanism, the rules and challenges are the same as in the 1 player game.

SONG PLAY SCREEN: The following image shows the song play screen in co-operative mode.

HOW TO PLAY: VERSUS MODE

In Versus Mode, you compete with a friend or foe to stay alive the longest in the song.

The control mechanism is the same as in co-operative mode (with lanes control regularly being "swapped" by yellow orbs), but each player now has a separate heart meter.

At regular intervals, the tempo will increase. If the end of the song is reached without either player dying, the song will loop from the beginning until a winner is decided.

The POW block behaves a bit different in this mode: It will only affect objects in the lanes currently assigned to the player that hit it. The star, on the other hand, can be "stolen" by the other player, i.e. used to lock his/her own lanes.

SONG PLAY SCREEN: The following image shows the song play screen in versus mode.

TIPS & TRICKS

  • Keep cool when many objects arrive in a short time frame. Focus on mastering the lanes on one side, and once you have those "in your fingers", handle the remaining lanes as well on subsequent plays.
  • Remember that you don't have to use all special items. Sometimes it can be wise to skip a POW block in favor of a star, for example. Also, as you get more experienced, you probably won't need the clock as much.
  • When you get a star, be mindful of which lanes you lock. On the first play, it can be difficult to see which lanes are preferable; however, once you have memorized which objects are coming up, you will have a better idea of how the star power can be put to good use.
  • When you get a star, grouping the locked lanes (e.g. 1 and 2, 4 and 5) might be a good idea. This enables you to focus on only one side of the screen while the star power is in effect.
  • Failure to hit a red, blue or yellow orb causes more damage to your health than making an error (tapping the wrong lane). Just don't do both things at the same time.

A MESSAGE FROM THE D-PAD HERO TEAM

Thanks again for selecting D-PAD HERO 2. We've been working hard to make this game even better than D-PAD HERO 1, and many of the enhancements are directly due to your feedback. We've added more songs, introduced difficulty levels, a challenge system, special items, multiple endings, co-operative and versus modes, and improved visualization. We think that you will find it much more long-lasting and challenging than the first game. Have fun!

Yours truly,
The D-PAD HERO 2 team
http:/www.dpadhero.com