Introduction

This game is a top-down run-and-gun style shooter for the Sega Master System. This was also released in Japan as Ashura (阿修羅) and as Secret Command in Europe. All versions allow for one or two players at the same time.

Versions

All three games only have minor differences in sprites and level end screens, so runs in these games should be the same.

Rambo and Secret Command(o) are pretty much the same except for some sprites and the main screen music. Need to do some research to confirm that

The original japanese version, Ashura, has different enemy count & bomb timer for the end part of each round. Any runs for the japanese version should be a different category

More details in Version Comparison guide

Gameplay

It is vertically scrolling and only scrolls on movement upwards; it does not scroll downwards. This is important to remember as you cannot go back to collect items or free hostages.

The players start with three lives, and one hit of any danger always takes a life. One extra life is awarded when a stage is finished, and there are life pickups as well. Colliding with enemy do not harm the player, except for tank and motor bike.

The player can only fire in 5 directions and cannot fire towards the bottom of the screen. pressing down, or down + right or left, only results in facing directly forwards. There are only two actions. • Button 1 shoots the main weapon, M-60, only two of your bullets can be on the screen at the same time. • Button 2 fires a bomb arrow that does a small explosion that all enemies around, only one arrow at the time

Level Structure

Everyround has the same height of 1920 pixels, or 30 x 64 pixels. Maps are available HERE.

The last part of the level, the end screen, has a blocked / locked gate. In order to complete the round, the player needs to kill a number of enemies to make the gate flashes and throw a grenade arrow to open it. depending on the round, the count can be 16 (round 1), 24 (round 2) or 28 (round 3, 4, 5).

The end screen of the last round has 3 targets with a life of 10 each. the side targets need to be destroyed before the middle one

Poweups

Only one powerup can be on the screen at a time. If a powerup is already on the screen, then no new ones can be spawned. After each death, all the powerups are reset back to zero

Main Weapon / Gun

There are two main weapon powerups:

• [L] gives the player long range bullets,
• [S] allows bullets to go through multiple enemies. These appear after kill 21 enemies.

They also each give 2 more grenades to the player. When a player loses a life, all powerups are also lost.

Hostage Huts

There are huts with hostages in the first 4 stages, then police cars in stage 5 and rocks in stage 6, that give out items after a short pause when hit with a grenade arrow.

These give out items in a sequence during a single life:

1. 5 more grenade arrows (2 arrows ),
2. 1st question mark destroys all enemies on screen (? on blue)
3. super grenades powerup that cause a much larger explosion (flashing arrow)
4. 5 more grenades again
5. 2nd question mark gives an extra life (? on red)
6. 5 more grenades again
7. 3rd question mark gives an extra life (? on yellow)

The game will just keep giving more grenades after that. The sequence restarts when the player loses a life.