======================================================================= Nin2-Jump Score Attack Mode Guide v1.2 by Hiryu no Ken hiryunoken7@yahoo.com ======================================================================= The information contained in this FAQ is intended to be free to read and use. However, please do not plagiarize my writing - if you need to reproduce this information elsewhere, do it with your own words. If for some reason you still find it necessary to copy my words, please provide the proper credit. ======================================== Table of Contents ======================================== A. Opening ---------------------------------------- A1. Version History A2. Thanks B. Differences from Adventure Mode ---------------------------------------- B1. Goal B2. System B3. Scoring and Chaining B4. Getting Hurt C. Movement ---------------------------------------- C1. Falling C2. Hit Stun D. Using the Kusari ---------------------------------------- D1. Lift D2. Speed D3. Floating on Release D4. Using Enemies E. Power-Up ---------------------------------------- E1. Power-Up Canceling E2. Collecting Scrolls F. Hyper Power-Up ---------------------------------------- F1. Gaining and Losing F2. Canceling Properties This guide assumes some familiarity with the basics of the main part of the game, the Adventure Mode. If you haven't completed that yet, go do so - it teaches you fundamentals you'll need in this mode too. Many of the principles mentioned here can also be helpful if you're trying to reduce your stage times in Adventure Mode - just remember the elements that don't apply in each (you have to worry about things like spikes, switches, etc. in Adventure, but not here). ======================================================================= A. Opening ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A1. Version History & Thanks ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 08/15/2016: Version 1.2 Nin2-Jump is now backwards compatible with Xbox One! A few points have been clarified and added to the guide: Goal - Emphasizing the importance of chaining for high scores. Scoring and Chaining - More emphasis on Sushi and chaining. Using Enemies - Added a bit on enemy spawn points. Collecting Scrolls - Added a bit on the scroll counter. 06/02/2014: Version 1.1 Almost two years after I first noticed I made a mistake, I'm finally remembering to update this - F2. has been changed from "No Canceling" to "Canceling Properties", as the Hyper Power-Up can actually be cancelled if you get hit by a reaper. Do not know how I overlooked this one. Nin2-Jump does have a Ver. 1.00 and a 1.01 after a patch, but it's the same in both. 02/12/2012: Version 1.0 I don't fancy myself to be any kind of expert at this game, but with the lack of anything about how it works on GameFAQs or...anywhere, for that matter, I felt compelled to get something out there. Plus, I'm hoping that should there be someone out there that knows of things I'm missing, perhaps my blindness to this or that will encourage them to come forward and correct me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A2. Thanks ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - Zargon - Double checking a number of things for accuracy. ======================================================================= B. Differences from Adventure Mode ======================================================================= The basics remain the same - jump, slow your jump by pressing the button again, use the kusari to latch onto things and propel yourself, kill enemies using Power-Up. The differences are big enough to require a different mindset though: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- B1. Goal ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Survive for as long as possible and rack up a big score along the way. Score is dependant on HIT Chain count (number of enemies defeated without being hit) and activation of the new Hyper Power-Up, which yields the best score items from defeating enemies while active. Since the regular enemies are killable and as dumb and slow as ever, your main enemy here are the reapers, who are still invincible no matter what and will follow you around. They will appear periodically and up to three can appear at a time. (Although you can't kill them, you can push them away - see E1. Power-Up Canceling) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- B2. System ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -Hyper Power-Up: There's now a counter below your power meter that, once it reaches 1,000 will say STANDBY - press the Power-Up button during this and Hyper Power-Up will activate instead (see: F. Hyper Power-Up). ---It works exactly the same way as Power-Up does, only it can't be canceled manually or by getting hit, and you get a more points. -Scrolls are not finite - they will regenerate once all on the stage have been collected (see: E2. Collecting Scrolls). -There are also things you can do in Adventure Mode, but never really needed to to get through it that are now essential here, chief among them being Power-Up Canceling (see: E1.). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- B3. Scoring and Chaining ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -You now collect food when killing enemies - onigiri (rice balls) when bumping into them while in super mode, shrimp tempura when attacking them from the chain weapon, and sushi when in Hyper Mode. At base, the groups of food you get are worth: Onigiri = 100 Points Shrimp Tempura = 300 Points Sushi = 1000 Points -Chaining: You now have a HIT counter whenever you kill an enemy. The higher the HIT counter is when you kill an enemy, the more food (and the more points) you get. ---It will slowly decrease when time passes between kills. ---The chain will end instantly if you get hurt. -Since Sushi dropped while Hyper Power-Up is active is by far the most valuable food, this means score is dependant mainly on how many times you can activate Hyper while having a high HIT chain. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- B3. Getting Hurt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- You have three hearts just as in Adventure Mode, but getting hurt sucks a lot more for reasons beyond the obvious: -You lose a big chunk off your Hyper Power-Up counter. (About 200) -Your HIT chain will end instantly. -The damage animation you go into (see: C2. Hit Stun) may end up getting you stuck in a situation difficult to recover from. Most of your score comes from the Hyper Power-Up (how well you do revolves around how many times you get this activated) and amped up even further by Chaining. So whereas getting hit might be a "whatever" situation in Adventure, you don't want to get hurt in this. At all. ======================================================================= C. Movement ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- C1. Falling ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an important factor when you're running around. Consider: -When you're falling, you go very fast. Important for getaways. -Although there aren't any spikes, because you're going so fast, it's easy to fall on top of an enemy without time to move away. You have two basic options to deal with this: 1) Press the jump button (multiple times even) to slow your descent. 2) Activate Power-Up to kill anything you land on. -Since you're not going to want to lose your speed and it's good for keeping up a chain anyway, you'll almost always want to go with the second option, save for situations where you have no Power-Up meter. -This does mean activating your Power-Up blind, which may seem like a waste, but see E1. Power-Up Canceling - you can just turn it off afterwards and not lose much meter. -Because the game hints at the location of reapers with the little cloud bubble, you'll always know where they are, so this scenario shouldn't be happening with them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- C2. Hit Stun ----------------------------------------------------------------------- When you get hurt, you'll switch into a stunned frame of animation, during which you can move around. You'll also generally get bumped in one direction or another somewhat (similar to D3. Floating on Release when using the kusari). This will also happen if you try to use the kusari on a shield which some enemies have or the shell enemy (see: D4. Using Enemies). The difference between the situations is after being hurt, you'll be invincible for the duration of the frame, but after a failed kusari toss you'll remain vulnerable. Things to keep in mind: -All normal actions do work during this animation - you can activate Power-Up, slow your descent with the jump button, and use the kusari. -You lose any momentum you may have had, since you're getting slightly bounced off the enemy instead. -This makes getting cornered especially bad, as that speed reduction coupled with getting bumped into a direction you may not want to go in can result in you getting stuck. -Post damage, although you're invincible for a time, it only last so long, meaning you need to use this opportunity to move away from enemies so you won't just get hit again when it's finished. -It's easy to get flustered and change your mind on which direction you want to fall in, but not committing one way if you're right on top of enemies might waste the invincibility time while you end up not far from where you started. ======================================================================= D. Using the Kusari ======================================================================= Pressing X throws the kusari either forward or whatever of eight directions you're pressing. It connects with walls and anchors and sends you flying in that direction. Normally, it ignores enemies and will pass right through them. When Power-Up or Hyper Power-Up are activated, it latches on to them, and you will kill them on contact (resulting in Shrimp Tempura for more points in Power-Up - you still get Sushi as expected in Hyper Power-Up). You move much faster than usual when flying around using the kusari, making it an essential tool. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- D1. Lift ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course, you need this to lift yourself higher to navigate each stage and to get away from enemies. Things to keep in mind: -The anchor symbols all over the place may seem unnecessary, but using them instead of walls when you can is much faster. This is because you don't bounce off the wall once your body reaches it (see also: D3. Floating on Release). -In Adventure Mode, it often works fine just to mash the button to send out the kusari multiple times in order to scale a wall without having to go in any other direction. This is still sometimes handy in a pinch, but you'll want to avoid doing this for the most part as it's much slower than a clean swoop from a single wall/anchor connection. -This means it's worth your while to explore stages and find more efficient ways to lift yourself up in certain sections you'll need to. For instance, from the bottom of the Winter stage, if you have to go up and to the right, there's an anchor you can use, but then it seems the only way to go further up is to latch onto the walls, a bit awkward and maybe requiring multiple throws. In fact, if you just throw it straight up, you'll latch onto the ceiling just off screen and go right up. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- D2. Speed ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -As mentioned before, you move a lot faster when using the kusari, so remember you can use it not only to lift yourself up, but also forward and even down. -Learning how much distance the kusari actually has is important for this reason - you'll get the hang of it just by messing around, so make sure to take the time learning the stages and don't be afraid throw it out in different ways to see how it sticks. -When you find yourself using it so often, it may seem like you're just flipping out of control - remember you can keep using it over and over to reposition yourself, but spamming it to scale a single wall is slow (and once again, see D3. Floating on Release). -Throwing it down is, of course, a great way to make quick escapes and quickly crash into enemies below you while Power-Up is active (often better than just letting gravity slowly drop you on them). You also won't bounce off the floor, as mentioned below in D3. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- D3. Floating on Release ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -When a zip along the kusari ends with your body hitting a wall, you'll bounce off the wall a little and briefly float. -This is of course excellent for getting over walls, allowing you to do so with only one throw. It also gives you some time to reposition yourself for another throw if necessary. -If you're just using it against a wall to move in that direction rather than get over the top of that wall though, it's a different story. -The time you're floating in the air, you're moving very slow and generally staying in the same place. Potentially dangerous. This is also why you'll usually want to use anchors instead of walls. -Throwing out the kusari again can make up for this, but this is another reason why anchors are preferable - they're positioned so when you use them, you'll be going in the same direction rather than having to reposition after a bounce. Plus, there's somewhere to go, which may not be the case from any random solid wall. -You'll still need to do single throws against walls to get around of course, so try to figure out where you can go during that post bounce float that'll get you moving faster. -If you find you really need to scale a wall using multiple throws, riding the bounce float between each throw will make it a bit faster. -It actually does not happen when throwing down and latching a floor, or throwing up an latching onto a ceiling. Something to keep in mind when you need to make a clean escape. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- D4. Using Enemies ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -While Power-Up is active, you can latch on to enemies - not only effective for quicker killing, but also rushing around the screen and making snappy escapes that normally aren't possible. -Once again, remember, the reaper is invincible and the kusari will not work on them for latching either. -Three types of regular enemies cannot be latched on to: Ones with shields on their top and bottom, ones with shields on their left and right, and turtle shells. You cannot latch onto the shields on those enemies, but you can latch on to their body from the open part. Turtle shells cannot be latched onto at all. -When attempting to latch onto ones of the above enemies and failing, you won't take damage, but will go into a hit stun frame (see: C2. Hit Stun). -Because of the shadow puppet aesthetic, every active sprite in the game (characters and scrolls) have a little handle sticking out at the bottom. In situations where you need to pop up quick, you may only be able to see a handle above you, expect an enemy, and try to latch on to them. Since you can't determine what exactly you're going to get, this can be risky should you be trying to make a desperate escape and end up hitting a shell. Be prepared to correct yourself and remember where the scrolls are. Otherwise, try to get a little higher before committing to another throw at whatever it is or rely on the stage itself and knowledge of it instead. There's generally no risk of running into a repear this way though, as after all the game hints where they are with the little cloud bubble. -There will be a smoke effect where enemies are about to spawn. This can be useful to determining where to go if enemies dry up and you need to continue a chain, but keep in mind it is entirely possible for a repear to spawn in that place, unless one recently appeared already. ======================================================================= E. Power-Up ======================================================================= When Power-Up is active, you will kill all regular enemies your body comes in contact with, yielding Onigiri for points. When you make contact while latching onto an enemy with the kusari, you get Shrimp Tempura for more points. Once again, reapers are invincible. Power-Up functions as it does when you have all your tools at the end of the main game: -Your power gauge slowly fills up on its own, but you get loads more by collecting scrolls. -Once active, the background will turn blue and the meter will decrease. The blue background, actually a circle, will decrease in size around Nin-Ja as well to indicate you're running out of time. -It does not have to be full to activate, although you need a minimum for it to turn on (and obviously it won't last long then). -You can actually cancel it by pressing the button again (see E1. below). You activate it two ways: 1) Pressing the Power-Up button. 2) Getting hit by a regular enemy who can be killed (not reapers) while you have the minimum meter to turn it on. This will happen instead of taking damage. It also carves off a huge chunk of the meter if you had a decent amount, though. Although it acts as a handy back up should you screw up, the meter reduction is bad news, so you always want to activate it manually. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- E1. Power-Up Canceling ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There are three ways to turn off Power-Up: 1) Get hit by a reaper. 2) Run out of meter, as it depletes naturally when active. 3) Press the Power-Up button again to cancel it. Number 3 is what this section is about - it's a hugely important tool. -When canceling Power-Up manually, all enemies are pushed back away from your position. That includes reapers. -This can keep reapers away from you when they get too close to escape from or are otherwise difficult to escape from. Very very very important. -You will find situations where doing it multiple times will keep them at bay. However, they move fast enough that it will do that and no more, and you still need to come up with a way to increase the distance between you (usually by taking advantage of the kusari's speed boost). -It saves meter to turn it on to kill enemies, turn it off, then turn it on again when you need it. Although you'll be constantly pumped full of meter by scrolls (see: E2. Collecting Scrolls), not having meter just when you need it to keep reapers away can make all the difference in the world. -Before you become too cancel happy, remember that this blowback works on all normal enemies. Although it's usually not far enough to adversely effect your chaining ability, turning it on and off over and over keeps them away from you, and may screw with perfectly good enemy kusari latching situations. It will knock ground based enemies off of ledges. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- E2. Collecting Scrolls ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Although you do gain meter over time, it's very little, and so you need to be collecting scrolls to keep it up. -Scrolls do regenerate, but only after all in the stage have been picked up. Miss even one and the others will not reappear. -For this reason, you should be picking up all the scrolls you come across. -In order for that to work, this means you'll end up making laps around the stage in a big circle. This is also actually helpful in avoiding the reapers, as this'll keep them in the center of that big circle. -There is a scroll counter in the upper left corner. When it hits zero, all scrolls regenerate after about 5 seconds. -If you think you got all the scrolls but they're not reappearing, check the counter. Look for the cloud bubble with a scroll on it, indicating where the remaining ones are. ======================================================================= F. Hyper Power-Up ======================================================================= Exclusive to Score Attack Mode, you now have a Hyper Power-Up. Under your Power-Up gauge is a counter you'll see is usually in the hundreds - when this reaches 1,000, it'll say STANDBY, and when you press the Power-Up button, it will instead activate Hyper Power-Up. This mode functions the same as Power-Up, except for the multi-color background and how killed enemies now yield Sushi, which grant many more points than usual. The bulk of your score will generally come from when you've activated Hyper Power-Up. Because of this, the game basically revolves around how often you're able to activate Hyper Power while alive and how big of a chain you have when you do. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- F1. Gaining and Losing ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -Your Hyper Power-Up counter increases when you kill enemies. -You lose a big chunk of it if you get hit. -When enough time passes and it's over, you will return to your regular state with nothing activated. Do note that because you'll actually still be gaining Power-Up meter during Hyper Power-Up, you'll be able to activate a normal Power-Up immediately afterwards should the situation call for it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- F2. Canceling Properties ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -You cannot cancel Hyper Power-Up manually. -The lack of the Power-Up canceling push back option (see: E1. Power-Up Canceling) means you have to rely on other methods to escape from reapers, making life that much more difficult. -Since you can't control the rate you gain numbers on Hyper Power-Up's counter (short of not killing enemies, which means you'll just be getting nowhere), this means you may find yourself in a situation where you want to do a cancel but can't because it'll just activate Hyper Power-Up instead. Be mindful to see how much you have on it and look out for when it says STANDBY (which fortunately they make hard to miss from the way it flashes). -While active, if you get hit by a reaper, it'll be cancelled, and a chunk of the Hyper Power-Up counter will be depleted (about 200-300). The counter will still continue to go down all the same, however. If you press to acivate it again while it's still going, the mode will resume. That means regardless of whether you opt to continue it, the counter will still deplete. ----------------------- If you have any questions, comments, or possible additions, feel free to e-mail me at hiryunoken7@yahoo.com. Make sure to mention the FAQ in the title. ----------------------- Copyright 2012 Hiryu no Ken All trademarks and copyrights referred to in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.