| Any cheat codes | Browse by game: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y 0-9 |
|
Kotobuki cheats / Kotobuki hints / Kotobuki faqs / Kotobuki solutions Kotobuki hints Character Selection: I've played with Pino almost exclusively, so this FAQ will be biased in that way. The differences between the two characters are that Pao only starts with only three numbered balls; Pino, five. This means that Pino starts with a big advantage. However, when you play as Pao, the enemies also get about a 50% increase in hit points. This means that the enemies that Pao faces are much more dangerous. But they also award roughly 50% more points, too. One more factoid. Play the game twice with each character. They do say different things in the beginning and ending. The second ending seems much better to me. ===== Basic Movement Hints: During any ball motion, you can't use any of the buttons to do anything. Also, other than the cue ball, any numbered ball in motion is extremely deadly to touch. Even if it is going as slow as a slug, brushing against one will kill you outright. When you are digging holes or getting power-ups, your character freezes for a second. During this time, you are vulnerable. Any enemy that touches you or shoots you during that time will kill you. You can use the balls as defense. Most will not attack unless you are in the line of sight of them. In other words, they have to be facing you and there can be no solid objects between you and them. Pool balls are considered "solid objects". And almost all enemy shots can't penetrate pool balls. Dropping a ball and standing on it (don't move) will provide instant--and near indefinite--protection against most enemies. It does not work against some end bosses. Using the straight shot (A button) on any other ball other than the cue ball will cause ALL balls on the screen to vanish (i.e., resets the balls). Using the jump shot (D), will cause ONLY that ball to vanish. This is so you can place and remove balls with ease. Be careful to make sure that you don't strike the cue ball. If you do, it is possible to run yourself over and die. Jump shots over a wall will result in your cue ball vanishing instantly unless there is a ball there. You cannot harm enemies by jumping the cue ball over walls and hitting them. Some levels will have automatic doors; i.e., doors that open and close at random intervals. Standing in the doorway when it closes will kill you. Finally, after you kill a boss, sometimes there is a few seconds where the game continues for a bit. For instance, if one of your balls is still in motion. It is very possible for you to get killed by any remaining enemies roaming the screen for that time. I found this one out in the most painful way. ===== Power Up Hints: Power-ups will appear already on the screen when you start, or hidden in breakable objects. They aren't random; they will always be at the same locations every time you play. Keep in mind that power- ups are not blockades; enemies and your pool balls can pass through them without any problem. Be sure to stop on a power-up if you want it. It is very possible that you can almost walk through a power-up before the game recognizes, "Oh, did you want that?" And with speed skates, you literally can run past a power-up without grabbing it. Also, remember that you pause again as you do the "victory pose" as you grab a power-up. The point is, if you've got an enemy right behind you, don't think that you can just walk over an invincibility potion and everything will be fine. Invincibility potions (actually, they are "power drinks" often drunk by exhausted Japanese salarymen) will make your character completely invulnerable. You can't even fall down holes! During this time, you can touch any regular enemy and kill them instantly--but you will get zero points for killing them that way. You can't use the potions to injure bosses. One additional note is that when you are invincible, you can only walk around; all button actions are disabled. A gold cue ball will do the damage of a 3-ball, but it will not give you the scoring of a 3-ball. Any kill done with a gold cue ball is always 50 points (except when you play as Pino, where some unique instances you can get more). Incidentally, normally a cue ball does about half the damage of a 1-ball. The power pill doubles your ball movement. At full charge, this makes a cue ball travel 36 spaces. This distance is roughly twice the length of the board. As a result, this power-up is extremely dangerous because any mistakes you make will result in the ball flying all over the screen. Dig plenty of holes if you have this power-up... It's very likely that you'll pocket a ball even if by accident. Also, any jump shots on the cue ball should jump two spaces with the pill. Speed skates double your speed, but also lets you walk the wrong way on moving walkways. I love this power-up because you can run away from enemies and projectiles much easier this way. Hiking shoes negate terrain effects. For instance, some terrain makes your character (and enemies) walk really slow on them. But with this, you'll walk through it at normal speed. More importantly, these let you walk the wrong way on moving escalators, and I think that you might even be able to stand still on them (!). Some keys won't open but one door on a level. To open a door, you have to hit some ball near the doorway. You don't even need to shoot at the door--it'll open if you strike a ball next to a door. ===== Kotobuki's Bizarre Physics: The game does not follow normal laws of Newtonian physics. It is very possible to make a ball turn 90 degrees without hitting anything. With a proper setup, you could make balls zigzag around the maze and hit targets that aren't even facing you. The explanation gets complicated. Any ball that runs into an intersection will go through a formula. If a numbered ball is located within a straight line from that intersection, it will TRY to head in that direction. To simplify this concept, think of the balls as magnetic. The 1-ball is more magnetic than the 2-ball, etc. They will travel in a straight line as long as they do NOT get near another ball. If the other ball is close enough, the ball will change direction and head toward it. Given a choice between several balls, it will head toward the lower numbered one. The point is, if you do NOT want to hit the lowered numbered balls (like, when you are setting up a big combo), then put the lower numbered balls somewhere really far away where their "magnetic" properties won't affect your setup. Finally, there is not a requirement that says that the cue ball has to hit all nine balls in order. In fact, it's best to hit them out of order because it is less complicated that way. If you hit a numbered ball out of sequence, any of the smaller numbered balls will vanish. ===== Scoring: I cannot figure out the formula used to calculate scoring. It is too complicated for me, and I can't play Kotobuki enough to figure it out. Each time that I come up with a theory, the scoring defies what I think that it should be. So I can only give you general information. The basic rule is: Cheesy moves get you very little points, but major trick shots get you ridiculously high scores. The scoring is put on an exponential scale, so if you pull off a few big combos, it is worth more than many simple moves put together. You don't get any points unless the game prints it on the screen. The only exception is hitting any breakable object. For every object you smash, you get 10 points. Cue ball hits and kills are very easy, and therefore award very little points. It's 10 points for every hit, and 50 points for every kill. For Pino, the scores can be multiplied for combo hits, but it's still not much. Pino is also not penalized for killing bosses with the cue ball. Numbered balls award points for hitting enemies, 100 points times the ball number--but only up to the "kill score". Each enemy is worth only so much when killed. This means that you could get more points by hitting enemies with low numbered balls to get a "hit score", and then killing them. The game instructions say that you get more points for hitting enemies with larger numbered balls. This is only true when you hit enemies more than TWO times with one strike. When you hit a second enemy, you'll just get double the regular points. But on any additional hits, you'll get a large score--typically exponential of the normal score. The exact score will depend on the number of the ball you used. The large scores, as the game states, is for pocketing the balls. Pocketing means that you must either hit or kill an enemy and then drop a ball into a hole in one move. The hole can be one of yours or an enemy's. If you hit an enemy but don't kill them, pocketing the ball gets you 500 points times the ball number. Cue balls that are pocketed award 250 points. If you kill any enemy and then pocket the ball, this gets you 10,000 points times the ball number. Cue balls get you 500 points in this case. Now, if you hit at least two enemies (one MUST be a kill) AND you pocket the 9-ball, then you get what I call the "Kotobuki Maximum Combo". Normally, pocketing the 9-ball will award you 90,000 points. But in this case, you will get 500,000 points. This is the highest score that you can get in the game. You will know when you get it since "KOTOBUKI" will print on the screen. Keep in mind that an extra life is awarded at a score of 50K, 150K, 300K, and 500K. After that, one is awarded every 250,000 points. But you can only have up to five extra lives. Some enemies are especially annoying, and can be killed by being hit with any ball (including the cue ball). These are always worth 50 points regardless of the ball value. Pino will have more of these; some enemies become stronger in Pao's games. Some enemies give you no points for hitting them. This means that they are "guardian" characters meant to protect the end-boss on that level, and they can't be hurt or killed. They will pause if you strike them and many can fall into holes. Don't annoy them by hitting them again and again; eventually they will get agitated and will hunt you down and kill you. Rarely, you'll see the "mini-boss". These are characters that are on the boss levels and can absorb a large amount of damage. They do award a good number of points when you kill them, and can be used to get pocket bonuses repeatedly if you trap them. The first mini-boss would be the large penguin stuffed animal on the sixth level of the Fatal Relations world--don't mess with this toy unless you are greedy for points. ===== Enemy Information: There are over 20 types of enemies that you'll see in this game. Some can throw things at you. Some are stationary, and others can teleport. Some can float over holes, others can dig them. It's a long list, and although I tried to record them all, it would take forever to go through each enemy. And most are pretty obvious anyway. Let me just point out some major opponents. The first one that you should fear is any enemy that appear to be carrying a stick. These enemies are armed with pool cues. These enemies can, if they want, push your balls around. Or they can reset all the balls on the screen (make them disappear) by hitting a numbered one. Any ball set in motion by them--including the cue ball--is deadly to you. The other opponent is the enemy that looks like Ayanami Rei. She can raise an A.T. Field if she sees a ball coming directly at her. This will cause a ball to reverse direction, and she takes no damage. This is dangerous because reversing the direction of the ball usually means it is heading right back toward you. The hardest boss that you will fight is the second-to-last boss on the Gloria world. When she loses her clothes, you'll notice that if she gets her clothes back, then it only takes only one hit to remove her clothes again. Don't waste time making large combos to remove her clothes. She won't take any additional damage for doing that. Save large hits for when she is in her underwear. ===== Maximizing Scores: Dead-ends and breakable objects are great for setting up pocket bonuses. These two things will always reverse the ball movement. Stick a nine ball behind you with a pocket behind that. Whacking a high number ball into the alley when an enemy is in it almost always guarantees you at least a 90,000 pocket bonus. Try to break as few of the objects on the screen. You'll need the cover, and the objects also restrict enemy movement. This means that you can set them up for big combos easier. Another good trick is to dig a hole and then put a low number ball in front of it. This will prevent any enemy from stupidly falling into the hole and messing up your pocket bonus. Since hitting a high number ball will automatically make all lower numbered ones vanish, it shouldn't interfere with your play unless you aren't careful. My favorite is using the cue ball to fence in enemies. As you gently do small hits with the cue ball, you can actually fence a few enemies into a small area. They won't have anywhere to go, and you can set up a monster combo. Other Kotobuki cheats hints faqs solutions: |