Index:
Page One: Story and How to Buy
Page Two: Gameplay Tips & How to Play
Page Three: Missions & Walkthrough
Page Four: Weapons and Enemies
Page Five: Navigating Menus
Page Six: Trophies
Gameplay
Controls
Here are the default controls. Buttons can be changed in the Controls menu under Game Settings.
- Movement: D-Pad or Left Stick
- Fire: R2 button
- Switch weapon: R1 button
- Boost: L2 button
Powerups
Enemies can randomly drop four types if items when killed. You can also get items at the end of Shoot-Up Time and during some phases of boss battles.
- Weapon: Green box. The weapons received from green weapon crates at the end of a mission are randomly determined based on the mission and difficulty level. If you die before completing the level, any weapons collected will be lost.
- Armor: Red box. Each armor box collected adds on point of armor (health) to your overall total after successfully completing a level. If you collect armor boxes but die before completing the level, you’ll receive a reduced portion of the armor collected.
- Small Health Pack: Instantly restores a small portion of armor (health). The amount of armor restored depends on the difficulty level.
- Large Health Pack: Instantly restores a large portion of armor (health). The amount of armor restored depends on the difficulty level.
Energy
Firing most weapons or boosting consumes energy. Energy recharges quickly when not firing or boosting. Fully depleting your energy will temporarily reduce movement speed and prevent firing and boosting until your energy completely recharges. Thus, you’ll need to pay attention to energy consumption and try not to hit rock bottom.
Boosting
The new Wing Diver flight unit can boost in any direction at high speeds, although this consumes energy. Boosting makes you temporarily invulnerable, so use it to avoid otherwise inescapable attacks.
Combo
Each consecutive shot you land on an enemy within a short time adds to your combo count. Taking damage or failing to hit an enemy will cause the combo to end. Once the combo ends, you’ll receive a score bonus. The bonus increases when your combo reaches 100, 500, or 1,000 hits.
To get the Trophies for 1,000-hit and 2,000-hit combos, equip the Cyclone Laser (level 50) and head to Mission 5 on Easy difficulty. This mission has several stretches in which you can reach 2,000+ hits simply by firing, letting up briefly to recharge energy, and dodging enemy fire.
Shoot-Up Time
Every mission has a special sequence called Shoot-Up Time. During this time, enemies will swarm the screen. The goal is to reach certain kill thresholds before the timer at the top-right corner of the screen expires. For reaching the target kills counts, you’ll get:
- Lowest target: Small health pack
- Middle target: Large health pack + Small health pack
- Highest target: Weapon + Large health pack + Small health pack
Farming
Like other Earth Defense Force games, a big part of Wing Diver the Shooter involves farming armor and weapons until you become powerful enough to survive higher difficulties and missions. Initially, playing through Mission 1 on the highest difficulty that you can survive is a pretty good way to build up (or the lowest difficulty if you only want armor). But the best farming mission is Mission 6: Star Cluster.
The third section of Mission 6 pits our heroine against two gigantic cannons at the same time. While fighting these cannons, two rows of panels rotate in the background and fire energy beams. These panels sometimes drop items, and killing them doesn’t deplete the health meter of the cannons. Thus, you’ll want to finish off one of the canons but leave the other one intact while you destroy all the panels. You’ll usually get one weapon and several armor powerups from this battle.
Once you’ve reached the third section of a stage, you can choose to start directly on that section from the Mission Select menu. So even if you can’t survive the entire Mission 6 on a high difficulty, you might be able to start at the boss and beat it. This will let you earn high-level weapons in a relatively short time, especially if you skip the cinematics and credits sequence upon completing the mission.
Continue onto Page Three to view our missions guide.
Use the code “PSLIFE” at checkout to get $3 off your purchase.
