METAL SLUG 4 BOSS FAQ
written by EDISIM
hayabusalug@yahoo.com
Date (y.mm.dd) and Version: 2.08.03


Words in "quotation marks" are my attempts at humor.


Mission 1
"Mmmm, Blimpie. Man, I could really go for a sub-sandwich."

First part.
Easy. A walk in the park.
Shoot/kill any and all soldiers. Shoot the ones who walk in first--they like to
roll grenades. Just keep shooting up, even as you're avoiding and jumping over
the missile. Stand in one position (near the middle of the screen) and jump
when the missile gets close. Easy.

Second part.
Stand directly under the first set of cannons. The shots will go straight down.
If you stand between the shots, you'll be fine. Just aim up and fire, fire,
fire! You can jump and shoot to the right to destroy the bouncing bombs (dark
spiky round explosive things), or try to position yourself under the arcs in
their bouncing pattern. I prefer to shoot, shoot, shoot. After the first
cannons are destroyed, do the same thing to the second set. Then fire at the
bomb bay where the bouncing bombs come out til the whole thing is destroyed.

Third and final part.
Watch the sweeping mini-gun/gatling (big gun) as its bullets hit the ground,
and stand between two of these points between the rocket launchers and the gun.
The gunfire will not hit you as long as you're standing there. (If you jump,
you might get shot so watch out.) Shoot up, occassionally jumping and chucking
(throwing) a grenade at the rocket launchers to destroy some rockets and attack
the blimp simultaneously. Shoot straight up. Watch the sweeping gatling (big
gun) and jump when the gunfire is aim at you. (watch the bullets hitting the
ground.) When the rockets get close, throw a grenade or two. It will destroy
the rockets, and the blast plume will hurt the blimp.

If you have Rockets (from top route--motorcycle sidecar on the speedway), this
boss can be defeated in seconds.

Heavy machine gun (from the bottom route--became a monkey) also makes this
easier. Just shoot straight up at the blimp. Hold up on the joystick and keep
pressing shoot, occassionally letting the joystick return to center so it fires
diagonally and horizontally to destroy bombs or rockets.




Mission 2
"Tower of Power, or something"
The Super Soldier returns! He's back, baby! OHHH, YEAH! Well, sort of.. You're
lead into believing you'll get to face off against him--man to man--once again
as you get to the bridge but.. He's got a modular five piece tower of
destruction. You'll have to destroy at least three pieces before you can attack
the top piece with the super soldier at the controls.

DON'T destroy the bottom piece (no. 5). It's your friend. It fires its big slow
twin cannons at regular intervals, and does nothing between shots. You could
just stand there and it would never hit you. If you have the Slug, use the
vulcan (the blue colored shots that look like heavy machine gun fire) to
destroy the two pieces resting above. The twin cannons seem to fire about every
3 seconds. If you're in the Slug, duck. If aiming, then firing, then ducking,
then repeating again and again is too slow or tedious for you, jump and use the
Slug cannon on the piece atop module 5, or get out of the Slug and jump onto
the platform and empty your heavy machine gun (or Rockets, or even Iron
Lizards) into the tower.

Module 4 has a bazooka grunt (he aims but it's easy to avoid getting hit), and
a small opening for short scud missiles--but these only fire when the module is
on the ground.

Module 3 has two diagonal-upward pointing spouts that hurl fireballs. You don't
have a lot of space to manuver here so the fireballs can be difficult to avoid
while maintaining any kind of sustained attack on the tower. It's possible to
destroy this piece while it's still stacked on pieces 4 and 5 (you can see the
bottom half of it at the top of the screen) using the Slug vulcan, or by
jumping up off the slanted platform and firing rockets or throwing grenades at
it. The fireballs have are large and have a sizeable plume so use caution when
trying to avoid them.

Module 2 is similar to module four but has no ballistic missiles. Also it has
two soldiers instead of just one: a bazooka grunt and a rifle grunt.

Module 1. This is the top piece. You can't hurt it until it comes full into the
screen and sheds its protective cover. The super soldier is sitting at the
controls on the right. It launches a slew of parachuting bombs that rain down
like... well, rain. Raindrops. Big ass explosive raindrops. It also has a BIG
cannon. Once you're down to this piece and piece number 5, destroy the bottom
piece (#5, the twin cannons) as quickly as possible. Module 1's cannon and
parachuting bombs are difficult to avoid in the slug. Standing on the platform
(as a human) is dangerous as the cannon fires at an angle that closely matches
the slant of said platform, making evasion while the bombs are raining down
very difficult. But with module 1 being the bottom piece, resting on the
ground, it's cannon is basically useless against you while you're on the
platform. It's blast plume can hurt you if you're at the left most edge of the
platform though. Just shoot and grenade the bastard as if you were in a
shootin' and grenadin' contest. Avoid the parachuting bombs, or shoot up to
destroy them. Repeat til dead.The crates are power-ups. Get all the rockets,
even when you're in the slug. Rockets kill fast.

Don't worry, you'll get your fight with the Super Soldier later... If you've
ever wondered how he keeps coming back after being killed over and over (No,
the games don't take place in hell.), you shouldn't. This is an action game--a
shootem' up. We don't need no steenkin' story. ... But they gave us a good
explanation anyway.. The answer is revealed during your classic-styled one on
one battle in the final Mission.



Mission 3
"MORDEN!--Shave that stupid mustache!"
He's back, too. This time, he's got a big badass tank. This is my second
favorite boss battle in the game. (The Super Soldier, one on one, will always
be my favorite.) He follows a strict pattern so he's not too hard to beat
(without dieing even once). As with most bosses, be sure give him all your
grenades right up front. You can't really use the grenades for simultaneous
offense and defense this time anyway. The mini rockets cannot be destroyed by
the blast plume--the helicopters can be hurt this way, but it's not worth the
trouble.

Morden fires two bazooka shots. Jump to avoid the first and he'll miss the
second. Fire up at helicopter. Watch out for tank's extending spinning blade
("buzz saw"). It will knock weapons out of your hands and send you flying. If
you don't have a weapon, you'll just get knocked back. This offers momentary
invicibility. (It's basically useless because it's so short-lived.) You can
jump over the saw to avoid helicopter fire if need be. New helicopters will
come in to take over when the current copter has been destroyed. The tank then
fires three flashing blue shots. Easy to avoid. One way is to stand next to the
tank, then run left when the shots come. Next come the homing rockets--four
volleys each time. Stand next to the tank then walk left some for the first
volley. Then left some more for the second. The tank will kick up some dust as
it revs up to ram forward (left). Be as far left as possible when this happens.
As it backs up, run forward and under the third and maybe fourth volleys.
Sometimes there will be some rockets that are flashing blue. Destroy these for
weapons. You can also destroy the non-flashing rockets, but it's a waste of
ammo unless they're about to hit you. Getting these weapons (usually rockets,
or Heavy machine gun) will make the battle end sooner (one way or the other).
Don't get rammed trying to get the weapons; they'll be there after the tank
backs up. Then the pattern repeats. I like to shoot the helicopters, just to
damage them some, and destroy them when the rockets come. It's easier than
trying to dodge the rockets AND the helicopter fire. There's a few seconds
before the new copter comes in, so you might as well make use of that time.



Mission 4
"A.I. gone wrong"

Don't shoot the faceplate. While it's on, soldiers won't jump out at you. It
will come off on its own as you destroy the arm. Note that you can run
"through" the arm once it's on the ground when it's trying to crush you. Get
power-ups (weapons, medkits, potions) by shooting the blue bubbles. Shoot or
destroy as many bubbles as you can. If one falls on you, you'll become a
zombie. For this boss, it might be a good idea to save a few bombs/grenades so
you can use the all powerful zombie breath to destroy bubbles (esp the blue
ones) and attack the boss until you become human again. Watch out for the Scud
missiles when you're a zombie--your jump has a delay, and sucks--and also
watchout for bubbles that your zombie breath missed--your slower than shit as a
zombie. Throw grenades onto the box/second arm to hurt to boss and destroy
bubbles, esp blue ones, with the plume. Power-ups will automatically fall
within reach even when it looks like they won't/shouldn't. The grunts who jump
out of the head can also be killed with the blast plume. They're not a threat
even if they make it out. (Grunts are almost never a threat.. except in huge
herds.)



Mission 5
"Speed 2, but on a really slow boat"

Jump off (or walk off) the broken ship down onto the sub. Stand next on the
first "hump" the the left of the gunner and unleash onto the sub. (Once, firing
all my rockets and grenades, I destroyed the sub in seconds!) Stand next to the
gunner and shoot, shoot, shoot! When the rockets start flying, destroy them if
you a power-up weapon (heavy machine gun, rockets, enemy chasers, etc), or
dodge them if you don't. It's not that difficult. Pay more attention to the
rockets than the sub (the sub ain't going anywhere). If you have Heavy machine
gun, just tap up to shoot diagonally to destroy the rockets. Destroy the
flashing blue rockets for weapons and grenades. When the gunman and gunstation
retreat into the sub, this means ballistic missiles (those long vertical
missiles) and sidewinders (those smaller horizontal missiles) are next.
Position yourself on the right half of the port cover (the thing with the wheel
where the soldiers come out) or get back on the broken ship. You don't have to
worry about the sidewinders as much on the sub as you would on the ship, but
you absolutely have to be in the right spot or you'll get killed by the
vertical missiles. On the ship, you can change elevation to attack or evade the
sidewinders easier (it actually doesn't help that much). Most of the time, you
can destroy the sidewinders but there are some that come at your feet and are
very difficult to shoot unless you have heavy machine gun. Watch out for these
and jump over them. You could just jump over most of them to save ammo, but you
run the small risk of jumping into a higher sidewider. By the by, you can still
shoot the sub during this whole missile barrage. Just jump up and shoot down.
Highly recommended if you've got anything other than a standard pistol. When
this stops and the gunman and gunstation come out to play, get back down next
to it and blast away at the main body of the sub (face left). Time your
grenades so that the blast plume kills soldiers who jump out of the sub and/or
get onto the broken ship's deck. Or just jump up and shoot them as their
climbing out.
Get all powerups and avoid the rockets.



Final Mission
This game ends too soon... You get to fight the Super Soldier one on one
though. (He's a terminator-like robot! How cool is that?) You also get to fight
Morden, man to man. Only, it turns out he's a robot, too. At least this one is.
Oh, and the next three are, too.. It's almost as if Mega/SNK was teasing us..
BOOOO!! I boo you Mega/SNK! Anyway... The final boss is the same business man
that we saw in Metal Slug 2 Mission 4. He's trying to take over the world
somehow (computer virus, or some crap), so we gotta kick his ass. The timing of
this game and the Enron scandals and Worldcom and Martha Stewart and all that
corporate greed and nonsense makes me wonder when the game was started or when
it was finished. Oh well, who cares?


Super Soldier.
Damn, I love fighting this guy.
There's probably more than one way to beat him, but I like to stay above him
and shoot down at him, occassionally chucking a grenade. I stay on the top
platforms and follow his horizontal movements on the ground and even the middle
platforms, jumping from top right platform to top left platform as necessary,
all the while shooting down. It's actually a little easier this time around.
It's just him; there are no grunts or anything. Also, his formally lethal
ammo-whip move now just knocks you back on your ass (like the extending of the
spinning blade from Mission 3's boss), so there's less chance of dieing when
he's close. Watch out for his grenades when close though.


The fight is split into three parts.
Robot 1 (right), Robot 2 (left), Robot 3 (center). It's all just pattern
recognition and learning and reacting.

Robot 1.
Stand close to the robot so the rockets fly right over you and into the ground.
Don't get too close or the arm/claw will get you. It moves slowly so you should
be able to avoid it as long as you don't get fixated on some other part of the
screen. The energy balls are way slow. Totally easy to avoid. Just don't stay
in the left corner. If you do, run back in before the rockets start flying. You
can't jump over all dem rockets, man. The green energy hoops from MS3 are back.
They follow a strict movement pattern. Learn it. It's easiest if you stay close
the the robot (same spot where you avoided the rockets and claw). Stand where
the first two horizontal hoops come straight down and stand in the middle. Jump
as it moves left. Then back up slightly and jump forward through the next two
vertical hoops. Shoot the flashing blue rockets for weapons and grenades.

Robot 2.
The gatling gun (the big gun that comes out from its chest) doesn't aim. It
just shoots at one angle then the next. There are five angles. 1) Straight out;
ignore it, just don't jump. 2) Slightly above the corner; you can't jump over
this, so duck. 3) Slightly below the corner; you have to jump sideways over it.
4) Some diagonal angle; stand at the far right. 5) A really close-to-itself
diagonal angle; you know what to do. For the first three, stand (or crouch if
you like) close to the bot and keep firing. After the third stops, run and/or
jump to the far right corner. Keep shooting. When the "slightly below the
corner" shots come, jump over them from right to left. Run back in close. Keep
shooting. Watch out for the claw/arm. When he shoots those things that turn
into green shot shooting satellites, destroy the satellites for grenades and/or
weapons. When the saw comes, jump over it but be wary of getting stuck where
the satellites or gunfire combined with the saw will trap and kill you.

Robot 3.
Shoot the two lame bots to your left and right. They give weapons. Shoot the
main body. When vertical and diagonal laser satellites/sentries come, position
yourself between the two sets of vertical firing lasers. Stay there and keep
shooting. This is the only safe place to be when the big circular energy blast
comes. (You could try to destroy them instead, but it's a waste of ammo, and
risky.) Watch the charging/exploding animation and jump when the three dome
things flash orange. If you had been between a vertical laser and a diagonal
laser, you would have jumped right into the lasers. Avoid the ricocheting
purple shots. (Stop shooting if necessary.) I usually walk toward the left
corner, then face right and jump over the lower shot and fall back (left) to
avoid the higer shot, then walk back to the middle and shoot up at the bot.
Watch out for the giant white beam. It will attack the position you were at
when you survived the ricocheting purple shots. Sometimes the vertical
scrolling horizontal firing lasers come instead of the beam. Duck or jump over
the series of horizontal lasers as appropriate. Keep shooting up at the main
body. If the lasers don't fire when they get to just above head level, they're
going to fire at your feet, so jump before they even reach feet level. Shoot,
and maybe chuck some grenades while you're jumping. If the laser comes on
before it gets to you, stop firing immediately and duck. It will turn off
before it hits you. You can't hide at the edges of the screen to avoid these
lasers. Don't bother trying to destroy them; it's doable, but a waste of ammo.
Repeat til dead.

Now you have to run out of the building before the explosions catch up to you.
No, wait... you don't actually have to. The game ends and you get the same lame
ending whether you make it out or not.

I might be writing and submitting a review of this game. Look for it on
GameFAQs soon.