Does anyone know how to fully play Darwin 4081?

[nebrazca78]

This is one of my favorite shooters for the Mega Drive/Genesis. The only problem is that it was only released in Japan and so of course the manual is in Japanese. It's rather hard to play and I haven't been able to make it past level six which seems to be about half way through. The boss on this level was so hard I resorted to youtube to see if anyone had made a video of beating it, and of course they had. The thing about that is, not only did they die on the first try, but the second time through they used some sort of powerup which I am not familiar with. You evolve your ship using DNA and an alien life force called Evol. I have this down for the most part, but in the video the player somehow powers up to a form called "Black Deam," and I have no idea how to do this. It seems to make you invulnerable for a short period of time, which is exactly what I need to beat the final part of that boss. I haven't even seen the form "Art Deam" that the player gets right before "Black Deam." If anyone has a better understanding of the evolution system in this game and could explain it that would be great. Here's a link to the youtube video, the part I'm talking about begins at 14 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQG8yiRkJRY

.

[Amos]

I'm just guessing, because I've never played any of the Darwin games, but it looks like you have to evolve up to the Deam form, then avoid picking up power-ups until you "de-evolve" back to Shallu. Once you've done this, the next power-up you collect will take you into a different branch of the evolutionary tree (it looks like Measa > Malto > Seas > Art-Deam). If you then "de-evolve" from the Art-Deam form, you should become Black Deam instead of going back down to Seas.

According to GameFAQs, you get the "Black Deame" form in Darwin 4078 by reaching the "Deame" form (which is also on a secondary evolutionary branch), then allowing yourself to get hit by an enemy projectile. But I didn't see the guy in that 4081 video take a hit before becoming Black Deam.

Let us know if this works...

[nebrazca78]

I'm just guessing, because I've never played any of the Darwin games, but it looks like you have to evolve up to the Deam form, then avoid picking up power-ups until you "de-evolve" back to Shallu. Once you've done this, the next power-up you collect will take you into a different branch of the evolutionary tree (it looks like Measa > Malto > Seas > Art-Deam). If you then "de-evolve" from the Art-Deam form, you should become Black Deam instead of going back down to Seas.

According to GameFAQs, you get the "Black Deame" form in Darwin 4078 by reaching the "Deame" form (which is also on a secondary evolutionary branch), then allowing yourself to get hit by an enemy projectile. But I didn't see the guy in that 4081 video take a hit before becoming Black Deam.

Let us know if this works...

I'll let you know if this works and thank you but I do have to say getting to your most powerful form in this manner is retarded.

.

[Amos]

Maybe so, but I kinda like how it's counter-intuitive. It's the kind of secret that arcade game designers used to put in their games, just to keep players guessing (and putting in quarters).

Here's a stage-select cheat, if you just want to skip the level you're having trouble with:

At the options menu, highlight the Sound Test option and select sound #32. Press A, B or C to listen to the sound as many times as you wish, then press START to exit the options menu. (Don't choose the "EXIT" option or the code won't work.) When you start the game, the number of levels you skip will be the number of times you listened to sound #32. For example, to start at Stage 10 (the last stage), listen to sound #32 nine times.

[nebrazca78]

Maybe so, but I kinda like how it's counter-intuitive. It's the kind of secret that arcade game designers used to put in their games, just to keep players guessing (and putting in quarters).

Here's a stage-select cheat, if you just want to skip the level you're having trouble with:

At the options menu, highlight the Sound Test option and select sound #32. Press A, B or C to listen to the sound as many times as you wish, then press START to exit the options menu. (Don't choose the "EXIT" option or the code won't work.) When you start the game, the number of levels you skip will be the number of times you listened to sound #32. For example, to start at Stage 10 (the last stage), listen to sound #32 nine times.

Thanks for the cheat, I may have to use it in the future, but for now I'm going to try and beat it clean, I didn't even watch the youtube video past level 7. Trying to get to Black Deam is very hard and so far I haven't been successful. Putting the game on easy instead of hard or super hard to hasn't even worked. While I haven't been able to get Black Deam or Art Deam, I did discover that I can beat that boss on easy. Additionally, playing on easy also allowed me to learn how to beat it. On the first part of that boss you have to hit the outside squares, then the middle square. But on the second part you have to hit the middle square first and then hit the outside squares. I should be able to do that on a harder difficulty at some point. But of course I would still like to be able to get Art Deam and Black Deam! I'll keep trying.

.