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Thunder Cross II (サンダークロスII Sandā Kurosu II?) is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game released by Konami in 1991 in Japan. It is the direct sequel of Thunder Cross. The game was released worldwide as part of the Arcade Archives on April 18 2021 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Plot[]

Three years after their defeat, the Black Impulse Empire tries once again to conquer the galaxy. They have used these years wisely as they have many new ships and creatures in their larger attack armada.

Figuring they would try again, we have spent this time further developing the "Thunder Cross" fighters. Brand new in the previous war, it only had one weapon and a bomb. Now the Thunder Cross has four different weapons whose power can be increased to unheard of magnitudes. Furthermore, we have given you control over your options.

Find the brains of the enemy empire and destroy the Black Impulse once and for all.

Gameplay[]

Thunder Cross II is a space-themed horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up video game in which the player once again takes control of the powerful Thunder Cross spaceship to fight against the Black Impulse invading enemy forces through seven stages, each culminating with a battle against a large boss. The game features more weapons and more varied enemies than its predecessor.

The player's ship starts with a basic weapon that fires repeating projectiles. More firepower can be obtained by picking up power-up capsules. These are dropped by destroying entire yellow enemy formations, as well as hovering yellow pods. A power-up capsule displays a letter on it representing the power-up it yields, which will change to another letter every few seconds, cycling through the entire arsenal available in the game. At the beginning, power-up capsules will begin their letters cycle with the most basic weapons and speed upgrades; these also provide the ship with Option drones to aid them in battle. However, once the player's ship is powered up enough, the capsules will start their letters cycle with the uber-weapons instead.

Options shoot a copy of the player's current weapon, providing additional firepower and coverage. Up to four Options can be active at a time. These will start adopting a standard formation as they are obtained, with the final alignment being two options above and two below the ship. By holding down the secondary button, the player can adjust the distance at which the Options are from the ship. These will start moving closer and then away from the ship (that is, up and down) until they reach their distance limit, and repeat the process as long as the button is pressed, holding their position around the ship once the button is no longer pressed. This versatility is quite useful in many situations, as the drones can be set to have wider coverage to attack enemies that are out of the reach of the player's ship, as well as provide concentrated fire when required (for example, to deal a great amount of damage to a boss's weak point in a shorter time).

Standard weapons range from repeating cannons, lasers, ricocheting projectiles, autofire, etc. In addition to these, Thunder Cross II introduces the new uber-weapons. These usually are variants of the standard weapons, but at a much greater scale. Uber-weapons appear as large bold letters on the power-up capsules. Unlike regular weapons, they have limited fuel, shown via a gauge bar that appears on the lower-left corner of the screen once one of these weapons is acquired. Uber-weapons generally fire a large set of projectiles that deal massive damage and cover a wide area. However, when an uber-weapon is acquired, all Options will cease fire, leaving the player to defend themself only with their basic weapon in the meantime, in a risk-versus-reward mechanic. The Options will start firing normally again once an uber-weapon's fuel has been completely depleted, if the player picks up a standard weapon, or if they lose a life.

Other improvements[]

  • The stages see an improvement as two of the stages have multiple paths. For example, Stage 2 is a cave, but you can take the normal cave route, or go through the cyber cave below it. The enemies are vastly varied than the first game.
  • New creatures and ships show up in each stage, but like the first there are still enemies that are taken from Gradius.
  • The bosses are no longer weaklings and the difficulty is a little more substantial.

Stages[]

Stage Name Boss Music
1 Air Battle Eggerdroid Air Battle
2 Machine Fortress Ragamuffin Kartus-Part 2
3 Space Fortress Redcraw Monster Heavy Metal Bomber
4 Waste Factory Dinosaur Jr. Dog Fight III
5 Large Battleship Brookrans Works Battles of Battleship
6 Star Light Laze Zoguylum Star Light
7 Front Base Sprouts Layber At The Front

Gallery[]

Packaging artwork[]

Screenshots[]

Promotional artwork[]

Thunder Cross/Thunder Cross II
Ships and characters Blue Thunder M-45 and Red Thunder M-24Black Impulse
Thunder Cross stages First AttackSkyscrapper CityMachine GraveyardGreat BattleshipEndless LabyrinthFire CavernFinal Base
Thunder Cross II stages Air BattleMachine FortressSpace FortressWaste FactoryLarge BattleshipStar Light

Front Base

Thunder Cross bosses EggerGangerGarch JaegerBiggerBoggerFiggerMachinegar
Thunder Cross II bosses EggerdroidRagamuffinRedcraw MonsterDinosaur Jr.Brookrans WorksLaze ZoguylumSprouts Layber
Gradius video games
Gradius series GradiusGradius IIGradius IIIGradius GaidenGradius IV: FukkatsuGradius GalaxiesGradius VGradius ReBirthGradius: The Interstellar AssaultGradius NEOGradius NEO Imperial
Spin-offs Salamander (Life Force) (MSX ver.)• Salamander 2Nemesis 2 (Nemesis '90 Kai) • Nemesis 3Nemesis (Game Boy)Cosmic WarsSolar Assault
Parody games ParodiusParodius Da!Gokujō Parodius!Jikkyō Oshaberi ParodiusSexy ParodiusParo WarsOtomedius (Otomedius Gorgeous) • Otomedius Excellent
Other games ScrambleThunder CrossThunder Cross IISpace ManbowForce Gear
Pachislot Gradius: The SlotCR Parodius Da! EXGokuraku Parodius!
Cancelled Vic ViperGradius ArcSalamander HD Remaster



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