Thexder II: Firehawk Level Maps

[goatmeal]

Many thanks to Tawmis of LarryLaffer.net for hosting these files, and to The Sierra Help Pages for allowing me the opportunity to post and link to those files on this forum.


Thexder II Firehawk Maps.zip


MISSION 0


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 0 Area 1


MISSION 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 1 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 1 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 1 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 1 Area 4


MISSION 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 2 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 2 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 2 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 2 Area 4


MISSION 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 3 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 3 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 3 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 3 Area 4


MISSION 4


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 4 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 4 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 4 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 4 Area 4


MISSION 5


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 5 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 5 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 5 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 5 Area 4


MISSION 6


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 6 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 6 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 6 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 6 Area 4


MISSION 7


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 7 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 7 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 7 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 7 Area 4


MISSION 8


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 8 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 8 Area 2


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 8 Area 3


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 8 Area 4


MISSION 9


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 9 Area 1


Thexder II Firehawk: Mission 9 Area 2


Keywords: Thexder, II, 2, Firehawk, Fire, Hawk, Second, Contact, Map, Maps

[notbobsmith]

Thanks for posting these. I got a copy of Thexder 2 not too long ago. I really should give it a playthrough sometime.

[goatmeal]

Thanks for posting these. I got a copy of Thexder 2 not too long ago. I really should give it a playthrough sometime.

You're very welcome. Aside from a few "maze-like" levels, it's really a rather straightforward game. I was really surprised that no one had made any maps for it over the last 31–32 years...

A few things:

1. I colored a number of the destructible blocks to make them more obvious.

2. Some maps have repeating areas that you can reach later on within the same level, even if it doesn't make logical sense when following the (x,y) position coordinates. (Perhaps they did it for the purposes of design "filler"?)

For example, you can see an unreachable energy pod on the side of the screen, come to that area later on in the level, zap it with your laser to use it, then return to the original area; the formerly unreachable energy pod will now be gone (!)...

For those repeatable areas, I colored them a medium gray. They are found in the following levels:

• Mission 2 Area 2
• Mission 2 Area 3
• Mission 3 Area 1
• Mission 4 Area 1
• Mission 4 Area 2
• Mission 5 Area 2
• Mission 7 Area 1
• Mission 8 Area 1
• Mission 8 Area 2

3. While every map is accurate following the (x,y) position coordinates perfectly, a few map areas will look different during actual game play. Why?

I had to make some editorial decisions, based on conflicting map designs. Reviewing my work files, for example, in Mission 5 Area 3, the bottom of the middle section looks like this:



And the two green blocks don't show up here until AFTER you loop around this section:



The area UNDER that looks like this, with a large portion of blocks above it:



Together, they would look like this when merged together -- and they don't match up!

[MusicallyInspired]

Nice. I never got past Mission 7. Always had nothing for health by that point. The boss of Missions 5 and 6 were brutal. Half the time I wouldn't even make it to Mission 6.

[goatmeal]

Thanks! Knowing that you're a Thexder fan, MI, I new you'd appreciate them.

Instead of the single extra energy tank that's allowed in the game, I was able to hex edit the saved files to give myself a maximum of 99 extra energy tanks at the start of each Area 1 Mission, along with maxed-out Energy Level, equipment modules, and missiles. You can see it in my DOSBox screen shot above.

I only did it for the purposes of making these maps. Having never made it much beyond level 2 or 3 back in the day (early '90s), making this complete map set would have been nigh impossible for someone of my limited skill set.

[Tawmis]

Instead of the single extra energy tank that's allowed in the game, I was able to hex edit the saved files to give myself a maximum of 99 extra energy tanks at the start of each Area 1 Mission, along with maxed-out Energy Level, equipment modules, and missiles. You can see it in my DOSBox screen shot above.

What did you use to hexedit? I am looking for something easy to use for some hexediting.

[goatmeal]

What did you use to hexedit? I am looking for something easy to use for some hexediting.

Most recently, I used HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor for the Firehawk project and was perfectly happy with it. Its last update was Feb 2021:

https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/


In the distant past, I used a version of FrHed from 2000 to mod some TRON 2.0 saved games. Definitely fewer frills -- at least with the 2000 version -- but its last update was 2009:

http://frhed.sourceforge.net/en/

[MusicallyInspired]

I also use HxD. I particularly like how it can compare two files byte-by-byte either from the beginning or at any arbitrary position (in case say some data in the header of one file is larger than another but are otherwise identical, or some other byte block). There are also numerous options for displaying the data (in 8-bit bytes, 16-bit byes, 32-bit bytes, 4-bit bytes, etc)

Instead of the single extra energy tank that's allowed in the game, I was able to hex edit the saved files to give myself a maximum of 99 extra energy tanks at the start of each Area 1 Mission, along with maxed-out Energy Level, equipment modules, and missiles. You can see it in my DOSBox screen shot above.

:O

Also, just looking at you last post there about map tiles not matching up until after. They must have had some kind of dynamic loading system in play. I guess that makes sense. Thexder 1 did that in certain places of maps IIRC.

This thread has gone and made me all nostalgic now and makes me want to listen to the Fire Hawk soundtrack again.

[goatmeal]

Instead of the single extra energy tank that's allowed in the game, I was able to hex edit the saved files to give myself a maximum of 99 extra energy tanks at the start of each Area 1 Mission, along with maxed-out Energy Level, equipment modules, and missiles. You can see it in my DOSBox screen shot above.

:O

Also, just looking at you last post there about map tiles not matching up until after. They must have had some kind of dynamic loading system in play. I guess that makes sense. Thexder 1 did that in certain places of maps IIRC.

This thread has gone and made me all nostalgic now and makes me want to listen to the Fire Hawk soundtrack again.

I was able to find only a single reference for hex-editting Firehawk: Stefano "TheRuler" Crespi's version 4 from 2017:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/935279 ... faqs/74848
https://www.neoseeker.com/fire-hawk-the ... cking.html

The curious thing is that for each saved game slot, not only does it contain data for the current level, but it must also contain data for the _previous_ level (!).


As far as the music, which is wonderful, I really like that each Boss Level has its own theme music (which can be heard as the second part of each "jukebox" track).

[MusicallyInspired]

Yes! The music was great. The original Japanese Thexder II game on the MSX had a slightly different soundtrack to the Sierra/Western-released version. Rob Atesalp took the music and rocked it up a little more and gave it MT-32 compatibility. All the same themes, but he added more of a guitar/rock element to it. Super cool.

[goatmeal]

If anyone is interested, here is the hex-editted SAVEGM.DAT file I made (empty or full, it's a constant 315 bytes):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YQh606 ... sp=sharing

Each saved game slot (Missions 2–9) starts you at the beginning of Area 1 for that level. Because the game only autosaves at the end of each completed Mission, you always start out at beginning of the following Mission.

(And that's why there's no Mission 1 saved game slot: simply starting a new game accomplishes the same objective.)

FIREHAWK LOADOUT (Area 1 for Missions 2–9):
• Starting Energy Level = 999
• Maximum Energy Allowed = 999
• Energy Tanks = 99 @ 500 Energy per Tank
• ECMs (Electronic Counter-Measures) = 99
• Stoppers = 99
• Missiles = 99

Simply place the file in your Thexder2 Firehawk game folder and enjoy! (That is, if cheats are your thing!)

[goatmeal]

A final few words about the Fire Hawk maps...

Okay, I have to admit it: I initially started making these Fire Hawk maps out of selfish, not noble, reasons.

I wanted to recreate the fonts from the early Game Arts/Sierra On-Line games Silpheed, Zeliard, and Fire Hawk. Fire Hawk uses two distinct sets of fonts: One for the credits, copy protection screen, help menu, and restore game screen, while the other is for the start menu, in-game menus, character interactions, and on-screen displays.

Getting all of the characters and letters for the first typeface was easy -- simply type in every letter for the copy-protection screen and cycle through the copy protection screen a few times to eventually get all 10 numbers; the remaining punctuation comes from the other listed screens.



Now for the second typeface, that was a little trickier. I was able to get most of the alphanumerics and puncuation early on in the game. Unfortunately, I soon realized that to get those last few missing letters used in the communication messages, I'd have to continue playing through the game until I happened upon them. That's when I struck upon the idea of making maps for the game.



While I still wasn't able to find the letter J used in any screen or message (which is strange, since I was able to find the seldom-used letters like Q, X and Z), I make an assumption as to what it would look like, based on the designs aesthetic, to complete the alphabet.

And, as a result, we now have the entire game mapped out for everyone to enjoy as well.

You can find these video game fonts and many more on my FontStruct page.

https://fontstruct.com/fontstructors/140159/goatmeal

I am part of a small group that rescues these lost video game typefaces, known informally as the Video Game Font Preservation Society™. We recreate typefaces from coin-op arcade games, computer games, and home console games. Here you can see what we have archived and curated:

https://fontstruct.com/gallery/set/144/game-recreations

And for those who are interested, here's our write-up (me and my cohort) about WHY it's important that we save these lost font designs:

https://fontstruct.com/news/2018/10/19/ ... n-society/

Many, MANY thanks to Tawmis and everyone here at Sierra Help Pages for indulging me.

[Collector]

Want to add some of this to the Thexder pages on the Wiki? I can setup an account for you and add stub pages for the games that you can work from.

[goatmeal]

Want to add some of this to the Thexder pages on the Wiki? I can setup an account for you and add stub pages for the games that you can work from.

I'll consider it, but after working on these projects over the last 4+ months, I think I need to take a little break...

[Tawmis]

A final few words about the Fire Hawk maps...
Okay, I have to admit it: I initially started making these Fire Hawk maps out of selfish, not noble, reasons.
I wanted to recreate the fonts from the early Game Arts/Sierra On-Line games Silpheed, Zeliard, and Fire Hawk. Fire Hawk uses two distinct sets of fonts: One for the credits, copy protection screen, help menu, and restore game screen, while the other is for the start menu, in-game menus, character interactions, and on-screen displays.
Getting all of the characters and letters for the first typeface was easy -- simply type in every letter for the copy-protection screen and cycle through the copy protection screen a few times to eventually get all 10 numbers; the remaining punctuation comes from the other listed screens.
Many, MANY thanks to Tawmis and everyone here at Sierra Help Pages for indulging me.

Actually that's not a selfish reason - that's actually a noble reason - perhaps more so than just wanting to play the game.

That said - what would be cool would be a zip file of the fonts you made here -
https://fontstruct.com/fontstructors/140159/goatmeal

Rather than individual files, since there's so many.