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Stage Sheet
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School name: Shore High

Description: As per usual, you start off in the school's practice grounds, 
and well...you start racing! Unlike other schools, this section is a bit 
longer than others, so the ones with faster speed will get an advantage 
at the start since you can't fight inside the school's grounds.
Upon the second map, you'll find yourself (and other competitors) on a 
beach. Here, you can have some fun by picking up a few large beachballs 
and throw it HARD at a certain direction. To make this place more fun, 
these beachballs will make the opponent dizzy even though they don't 
really deal that much damage (if they manage to hit an opponent anyway). 
And once the fun in the beach ends (it's a relatively short stage), it's 
time to go SWIMMIN!
Before I continue, here's a note: Underwater stages does not use the 
usual beat-em-up point of view, instead you are treated to the Super 
Mario Brothers' point of view of a fishtank or whatever. Remember, you 
can only stay underwater for a period of time until your lifebar starts 
flashing, which means you'll need to rise out of the water immediately 
to get some air, or else your character will start losing life.
Back onto the progression, the water starts off kinda shallow but the 
ground is going down on a smooth slope, so your character can still walk 
for a short while before really going to swim. Advancing forward, you 
can find various weapons lying at the bottom of the stage, you can grab 
it if you wish. This section is mostly for getting used to the 
environments, so it's best to try out the controls here, since it's 
going to be much nastier in the next section.
After some swimming, you'll reach the next section of the stage. You'll 
start finding some corals, but they are really more like obstacles. If 
you feel like breaking them, feel free to do so, but they don't drop 
anything at all. You must break a coral using a weapon, bare arms won't 
do the job at all. What benefits will you get if you break a coral you 
ask? Well we'll see later, but for now there's nothing special about it 
aside from damaging the environment. Swim further along and you'll find 
a shark or two. These sharks normally won't hurt anybody unless somebody 
takes damage, or somebody hits them, in which they'll chase the attacker 
until the end of the section, with relentless effort but decent speed. 
You can also find some jellyfishes near the corals as well - don't touch 
them! They are able to poison anybody who manages to touch them, which 
is...well, bad. And they tend to stay at higher regions of the sea as 
well, which means you might touch a jellyfish on your way up for fresh 
air. It's still quite basic, so you shouldn't have many troubles getting 
through this area.
The second area has even more corals, to the point where you must attack 
one of the corals just to pass through (the guys in front without a 
weapon cannot pass). Furthermore, the sharks are aggressive now, and they 
really like to gnaw on anybody who gets close enough. Add that to the new 
enemy, divers (with a sexy harpoon that they can throw at you with full 
speed), and the first part of this section is one hectic place to race. 
Yup, that's all the stuff happening in the first section, before the 
coral barrier I mentioned before. After you break the coral barrier (you 
cold-blooded filth), the real fun starts! Tide currents are starting to 
work against your favor, and when I mean against your favor, it means 
that you're swimming with a very strong resistance and you'll waste a 
good load of stamina swimming forward. Anyhow, at the end of the section, 
there is one big piece of coral at the sea floor. Use a weapon to attack 
it, and an alternate path is opened! Hint: Breathe before getting into 
this path. This alternate path also only allows 4 people max as well.
Going the route of the normal path, you'll reach the next section. Upon 
entering this short section, you'll find out something...the ground is 
sloping upwards! So get out of the water and enjoy some sunshine by 
entering the next screen.
In this screen/section you'll be on a lone moundish island (and back to 
the original perspective so you won't think you're in SMB) which is as 
wide as the screen, with a coconut tree in the center. And you found out 
that you can't really leave this screen yet! Why? It's because of some 
funny programming which gives you 2 minutes of group fighting! When the 
slowest guy reaches the island (and none of the leading swimmers can 
leave the island too for some bizarre reason), a timer appears, counting 
down from 2 minutes. Within these 2 minutes, you must beat the crap out 
of each other. Furthermore, weapons and items will start dropping from 
the sky somehow. And for those who has a jump rating of 4 or higher, they 
can grab onto the coconut tree to avoid some possible conflicts. However, 
the tree can only hold two people, and when a third person holds onto 
the tree, it'll wiggle and all three of them will drop back to the island 
immediately. In this section, if one is KOed, they will revive with 10% 
life instead of losing the race. This determines on who will get back to 
swimming first. Obviously, the one with the most life (and/or least KOs) 
after the time over will be getting into the water first, the second 
place going next, and so on. You will reenter the underwater region again 
with the SMB perspective. The next screen is also where the two paths 
merge as well.
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ALTERNATE ROTUE: I cannot stress enough about breathing before entering 
this route, since your character will be travelling in a natural water 
tunnel below the sea base. You'll first have to sink downwards vertically, 
and there is some resistance from below (water pressure), so you'll 
expend more stamina as well. After a while going down, the water tunnel 
will make a U turn to the right (i.e. the tunnel is going down, then 
turns right/forward, goes on for a bit and goes back up again). And then 
you'll finally be out of the goddarn water! You can now enter the next 
section.
But not all is well since you and your fellow swimming runners enter the 
base of a secret military army with a leader who's bent on taking over 
the world (and no, his name's not Emmy =P). This section also returns to 
the normal perspective (i.e. beat-em-up), and the leader (promptly named 
Mr. Leader...blame the translation team for this please) will be standing 
on a tall platform with some camps in the background, while there are 
a few of the army personnels standing around (the setting is a really, 
really big cave as a reference). Upon noticing you and your fellow 
swimming runners' arrival, he sics a small troop on you! His troop 
consists of Paratroopers (who doesn't parachute down), Rocket Launchers, 
one Ryuuhaku Todoh (WTF?), a few Toilet Terrors and Mad Dogs. Don't say 
I didn't warn you though - your life is probably quite low at this point, 
and your stamina is well...low. Thankfully these enemies drop items at 
a pretty decent rate, so you shouldn't have much trouble. They also tend 
to drop weapons too. Anyhow, once you cleared out the enemies (and 
cooperating with yor rivals for once), the boss will jump down from the 
uber-tall platform (and doesn't hurt himself) and try to punish you and 
your fellow swimming runners by himself! He might look like a boss but 
he's weaker than you think, and the match between your side and him 
should be over pretty quickly. Before his death, he decides to blow up 
his super-secret base...it's time to start running again (you and other 
runners will exit this section automatically after the leader guy decides 
to blow up the base)!
This next section is about running away from the explosion, which chases 
you and your fellow runners. If you get hit by the explosion, your life 
will be decimated by a large chunk! And if you feel like doing it, you 
can throw one of the runners into the pit of flames for added fun! After 
going through half of this section, some falling debris will start 
appearing, some being big rocks. If you get hit by a big rock, you'll 
not only be stuck for a short while, you'll also receive a good load of 
damage as well (for those who are wondering, yes, the falling rock and 
explosion combo works, and it will take off at least 70% of a full life). 
Thankfully these rocks are easily noticible before they fall, so you 
don't need to be a psychic to evade most of them. At the end of the 
screen you'll find a 'pool' of water. Jump in! Hint: If you're the last 
guy who jumps in you'll see a cool cinematic of the explosion hitting 
the wall. After this section, you'll be automatically transported back to 
the section where both routes merge.
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This section is where both routes merge (and feel like you're playing 
SMB again), and if you're going the alternative route the coral near the 
start of the map will bust open, and if you're going the normal route, 
you'll have to go down the slope underwater first. Swimming further will 
lead you to the aggressive sharks and floating jellyfishes, as well as 
an ever-changing current (i.e. you'll be swimming against it at times, 
but with it otherwise). Swim for a while, then a few divers join the fun 
as well. This time around, they are even harder to deal with, since they 
can poke you with their harpoons when you're close. At the end of this 
section the ground slopes upward again. Yup, it's almost the end of this 
stage!
Upon exiting the water (and the SMB perspective), you'll find yourself 
on the beach. The finish line is right ahead, but you know that something 
is missing so far...the street thugs and BS:FM Fanatics! You'll get to 
meet them in this map, where some street thugs start greeting you with a 
beach ball to the head. At the end of the beach you'll find the finish 
line. Congrats!

Enemies found: Shark, Jellyfish, Diver, Paratroopers, Rocket Launchers, 
Ryuuhaku Todoh, Toilet Terror, Mad Dog, Mr. Leader, Street Thug, BS:FM 
Fanatic
Weapons found: All
Items found: All
Traps found: The falling rock debris in the alternate route.

Strategy/Comments: This is obviously the stage where you must swim a lot, 
and a few characters will get a home court advantage as well. This stage 
is more about swimming than fighting, but if you want a fight, you can 
try the alternate route. Just remember to catch a breath once in a while, 
since your character might just die underwater if you're not noticing. 
The alternate route is just paying homage to beat-em-ups and Metal Slug, 
if nothing else.

Creator: Penguin