Billy Hatcher Mission Rankings/Scoring FAQ
I can take no credit for this information. It was all posted on the message
board by people who are far more skilled at the game than I am. I just took the
liberty of organising it and posting it as an FAQ before it scrolls of the
board. So all the credit for discovering this information goes to a couple of
folks who call themselves 'Emperor Dodd' (drdewar@shaw.ca) and netPikatron
(jmdewar@shaw.ca) - I am guessing they are related as they share the same
surname and email address.
Please email me at inobleuk@yahoo.com with anything else you think should be
included here.
Each time you complete a mission in the game, you are awarded a ranking letter
(S, A, B, C, D) and a scoresheet for the mission.
To get a particular ranking you need to score a certain number of points within
a certain time.
If you die during a mission you lose all the points gained but you retain your
time (not good for your ranking!)
To get the highest ranking you should aim not to die at all during the mission.
Boss levels are slightly different, once you have gone through the dark portal
you don't lose your points if you die. However it is still a good idea to
survive as you get a special bonus.
The different categories on the scoresheet are made up as follows.
Enemy bonus: Points for each enemy you defeat, plus more for comboing them.
Egg Bonus: Points for each egg you hatch that isn't empty, plus 100 more for
each egg you hatch
that is neither empty nor cracked ("nice hatch!")
Combo Bonus: For having 3+ combos going at once (4+ if not of same variety)
(chicken says
"Hard Boiled!" or "RAINBOW!")
Mission Bonus: Varies, see below.
Hatch Chicken Elder: No known Mission Bonus
Beat a boss: 1500 points for not losing a life after
entering the dark gate (unknown if it is more for the final boss)
Find a hidden Emblem: No known Mission Bonus
Defeat 100 Crows: No known Mission Bonus
Mini-Game man: 200 points for each coin you collect.
Race of Honour: Points for how far behind the opponent is when you win
Rescue a friend: No known Mission Bonus
Open the Rainbow Gate: No known Mission Bonus
You get further information about your score on the right hand side of the
screen
Defeat: Enemies killed (unknown if boss counts): adds to enemy bonus
Hatch: non-empty eggs hatched: adds to egg bonus
The following are all for seperate combos, rather than combo size, and are
therefore inaccurate
representations of contributing to enemy bonus, as well as the sole foundation
of Combo bonus.
Shoot: For ricocheting a small enemy into another enemy, which does not survive
the impact. You can even do this with the large cat creatures providing you are
not too close.
Driver: Hold A in midair to slam yourself into the ground--the shockwave must
kill at least three
enemies in order to be a combo.
Dunk: press B in midair to throw the egg down at enemies below--same rules as
Driver.
Tame: when you have an animal buddy kill three or more enemies in one attack.
Note that you don't get any bonus for simply rolling the egg into an enemy.
The actual scores are:
100 points for each Shoot, Driver, Dunk, or Tame (scored under Enemy Bonus) (eg
you get the
number up to 8 when it says "Nice Shoot!" you get 800 extra points under Enemy
Score)
100 points for each enemy killed under Enemy Score.
100 points for each non-empty egg hatched under Egg Score.
An additional 100 points per egg for non-cracked eggs being hatched.
500 points for reaching "HARD-BOILED" or "RAINBOW" level of chain-combo (eg
getting three "Nice
shoots" in a row gets 500 points, four shoots in a row gets 1000, six shoots in
a row gets 2000)
under Combo Bonus
Some more information on scoring and combos comes from John Harris
Many thanks John!
1. If you manage to get three different types of enemy kills during one
combo, you get an "Omelet" bonus, worth 1,000 points on the Combo Bonus
at the end of the mission.  These are usually pretty hard to do.
However, it's possible that a Nice Hatch in the combo period may
contribute to it.  One good place to try this is the Rescue 8 Chickens
mission in the ice world, in the frozen-over pit filled with monsters.
2. To get a Nice Shoot with the large Cats, distance isn't as important
as damage already done to them.  A shoot that takes him down to zero
energy causes him to tumble just like the little enemies do.  This is
especially useful because a big tumbling enemy will usually take out
bouncing small enemies along its path.  If you shoot one when he's
close and at low health, there's a good change you'll accidentally squash him
before the actual attack begins and thus get no combo.  This seems to
be the only way to start an Egg Shoot combo with a big monster.
3. In other cases, bouncing small enemies are a lot harder to Shoot
than normal roaming ones because eggs so often pass under them.  Even if you
hit one with a Shoot, when he bounces around he tends to have an
airborne component to his travel, causing him to pass over enemies he'd
otherwise take out.  Usually it's better to try to Dunk or Driver them.
The size of the egg is very important in these cases, since the enemies
that are killed are those that get caught by the "splash" when the egg
hits the ground, and larger eggs produce much larger splashes.
4. You also get a Nice Shoot when you hit to kill two or more enemies
with the same egg.  This almost always this happens by shooting the egg
out, missing on purpose, then moving so that the enemies are between
you and the egg, so when the egg returns it take them out.
5. There are some levels that have an enemy that produces an endless
stream of small roaming monsters.  If you milk these for points you can
get huge Rainbow combos without much effort.  I've gotten one combo
over 70 hits on these guys.
6. The rank score on each level appears to be come combination of score
and time.  I don't know for sure, but I believe that bad times can be
made up if enough points are scored.  In effect, bad times make it so
you need more points to get an 'S.'  This can be observed on levels
with the small-monster-making big enemy on them, if you stick around for a
long time milking them for combos you can get scores of 100,000 and
higher and get an 'S' rank, even if you have an awful time.
7. The Mission Bonus for beating the last boss without losing a life is
only 1,500 points.  It's a nice bonus, but usually on these levels it's
killing enemies and making combos that gets you the S.
Strategies for getting good scores:
- There are, overall, two kinds of normal levels.  (Actually just one,
but I'll get to that.)  The kind where you want to roam around killing
every monster, getting as many points as you can, before getting the
Emblem, or the kind where you want to progress quickly toward the goal,
earning whatever points you can along the way.  In fact, you can think
of there being a line between killing monsters and level progress.  If
you have trouble getting a good rank on a level one way or the other,
you might want to try the other tactic, playing fast if you were going
for kills, or playing kills if you were going for time.  Most levels
are easy to get an 'S' rank on with practice, if you don't lose a life.
You get most of your points on a level from killing monsters and petty
(non-Hardboiled, Rainbow or Omelet) combos, but egg hatching and named
combo bonuses can help you squeak past the line for an 'S'.  Still,
neither should get in the way of monster mashing.
- The two non-trivial kinds of missions you can get Mission Bonuses on,
Races and Coin Collecting, tend to require a different strategy.  On
both of these kinds of levels monster kills tend to be relatively
unimportant compared to the Mission Bonus.  Both of these levels do not
start until you talk to a character, so it's possible to run forward
into the level and hit switches and kill monsters before starting the
mission.  Overall, however, this is a bad idea, because these levels
also have fairly strict limits on the amount of time you can spend on
them before you rank suffers.  Practice makes perfect on these levels.
Races tend to have at least one or two shortcuts on them, and sometimes
more.  Sometimes shortcuts will get you past doors that would typically
require clearing an area to open, these should not be ignored.  Note
that Rescue The Friend missions don't have Mission Bonuses, so your
rank there depends sometimes on how close you can shave the line on the time
limit, earning points killing monsters.
Getting good Egg Shoot combos is a matter of some skill.  The angle at
which the shot egg strikes the enemy determines the way it tumbles.
Shoot it on the right side and it'll take off to the left, and vice
versa.  It's kind of like playing pool.  In some enclosed arenas it's
actually harder to take out a bunch of little monsters with multiple
shots than with one, because the first monster tends to bounce off of
walls hitting lots of foes, which each take off and kill others,
quickly
clearing the area.  If you want to get a Combo Bonus in a room filled
with bunches of small monsters, try to get a Driver or Dunk first, then
quickly do a Tame with a slow but through me lee-combat animal like
Oritta (they can keep the Combo number up for a long time if there's
lots of fodder for them), then before the animal takes out too many
foes, start Shooting.  It takes a lot of practice to get good shots
off, but eventually becomes a lot of fun.