Lightning flashing column : Shooting power increases
Blue ball(s) flashing column : provides psycho ball(s) for psycho shooting and defense shield
Red beam flashing column : Increases psycho energy
Skull flashing column : AVOID. drains your psycho energy (doesn't kill you) Flashing rainbow square - Better jumping response and dexterity
Red Sword : break stone with one hit, allows fire through stone and walls
Large blue ball : Turns all enemies in psycho balls and their projectiles into balloons
Orange ball with blue center : Increases fire speed
Infinity sign : Ability increase : ???
Arrow up : AVOID. Upgrades enemies into more advanced enemies
Arrow down : downgrades enemies
Large red skull : AVOID. Takes away all extra powers and leaves you with basic powers
Large red ball with "F" : Instant maximum psycho energy
Pillar formations : shoot these and a floating balloon or saucer comes out. Grab for bonus points. The longer you wait before grabbing, the higher the point value (up to 8000 points).

* Movement : Move Athena or Kensu left or right along platforms. Make them move up or down to jump to other platforms. They will not get hurt by long falls.

* Forming Pillars : Don't walk on them. You'll trip and be vulnerable to attack!

* Attacking with Psycho Bolts : Press the primary fire button to standard bolts of energy. These can punch through stone as well as through enemies. If you break a stone and it contains a lightning capsule, you can power up your primary attack.

* Using the Psycho Balls : Sometimes you'll find balls floating on the screen. If you grab them, then they will circle around Athena. By pressing the secondary fire button, you can launch them at your enemies. They can destroy anything in their path short of a boss or some of the later creatures. Your ammo is listed at the bottom of the screen, above your life count. Using psycho balls does drain some energy from Athena. The more energy you have, the more powerful the ball attack is. Psycho balls also act as a limited form of defense. The more energy you have, the faster they revolve around your character. They can block small projectiles and small flying creatures.

* Using the sword : A sword is hidden in some blocks. When you get a sword, your shots will now pass through stone. You must walk up to a stone and hit it with the sword to break it (use the fire button). The sword lasts for a while (probably a set number of strikes). The sword may also be used against enemies at very close range.

* Becoming the Psycho Creature : If your energy bar is full and you have collected lots of psycho balls, you should break stones until a green egg pops out. When you break the egg, a special item will appear that changes Athena into a phoenix (Kensu becomes a green dragon). The phoenix has a powerful breath attack and can ram enemies to kill them. The breath attack has no penalty for use, but you use energy whenever you ram an enemy or you get hit by a projectile. If your energy bar is not full, or you don't have enough psycho balls, the egg will release a large number of maggots. Therefore, try not to be close to an egg when you break it. If you're too close, the maggots will swarm you.

0.35b8 [Carlos A. Lozano, Phil Stroffolino]

Artwork available

Bugs:
- psychosj psychos: MAME is not showing a graphics glitch on the left side of the screen. Stefan Lindberg (ID 02910)

WIP:
- 28th May 2012: Mr. Do - Thanks to Mikonos, he touced up Psycho Soldier.
- 0.129u4: Nicola Salmoria fixed title screen graphic glitch in Psycho Soldier. Changed visible area to 400x224.
- 27th December 2008: Mr. Do - Kiltron knocked a few bezels out this month including Psycho Soldier courtesy of the BYOAC/CAG artwork.
- 0.127u7: Stephane Humbert checked inputs and dipswitches via Z80 code analysis for Psycho Soldier and clone.
- 0.127u1: SNK rewrite [Nicola Salmoria]: Fixed sprite-sprite priorities. Converted to tilemaps, proper memory map, fixed input and added DIP locations etc. Changed visible area to 3686x224.
- 0.126u5: Fixed gfx3 rom addresses to $8000/10000/18000.
- 0.36b16: Renamed (psychosa) to (psychosj). Removed the YM-3526 and added 2nd Y8950 (4MHz).
- 0.36b14: Replaced YM-3812 sound with YM-3526.
- 0.36b13: Fixed sound in many SNK 8-bit games (Guerilla War, Psycho Soldier, Ikari Warriors, etc.) [wwtk@mail.com].
- 26th December 1999: wwtk@mail.com and Matthew Conte fixes to SNK games sound.
- 0.35b12: Changed description to 'Psycho Soldier (US)' and clone '(set 2)' to '(Japan)'.
- 0.35b8: Carlos A. Lozano and Phil Stroffolino added Psycho Psycho Soldier (set 1) (SNK 1987) and clone (set 2).

LEVELS: 6

Romset: 1381 kb / 29 files / 629.8 zip