bombs become more common. Sparkster is composed of six stages, with each stage ending with a boss fight. The introductory sequence begins with a mech battle that can be skipped by pressing Start; however completing it is necessary to achieve the good ending of the game. Sparkster can find various items in the levels, including apples and meat (apples restore two hit points while meat restores all hit points), gems, rocket pack items that automatically make him perform a screw attack when collected, extra lives, and a power-up capsule that increases Sparkster's attack power until he is hit. The introductory sequence of the game and boss fight of the fifth stage involves Sparkster controlling his robot mech, named the "SparkRobo", to battle the mech of Sparkster's arch-rival, Axel Gear. SparkRobo can throw a direct punch, an uppercut and can block Axel's punches and projectile attacks. If the Down direction is inputted, the SparkRobo will charge a more powerful attack. Across all the stages, there are seven buried swords known as "Keys to the Seal" scattered throughout the levels (with Axel holding the seventh and final one; it is obtained by defeating him), which allows Sparkster to transform into Gold Sparkster if all of them are collected by the end of the Axel Gear fight of the sixth stage, which is necessary to achieve the "true" ending of the game. Gold Sparkster can deal more damage and can charge the rocket pack faster; however he is still able to sustain damage. The game features multiple endings, with extended endings shown the harder the difficulty is. The "true" ending can only be seen if the game difficulty is set to Hard or Very Hard. Plot Following the events of the first game, the kingdom of Zephyrus (labelled as Zebulos in the international manuals) comes under attack from the Gedol Empire, led by King Gedol. Seeking to control the kingdom, Gedol dispatches Sparkster's arch-rival, Axel Gear to kidnap Princess Cherry, the cousin of Princess Sherry, as a way to lure Sparkster to his doom. During a search for one of the Keys to the Seal, Sparkster encounters Axel and his robo mech, prompting the two to fight. Sparkster emerges victorious at the end, retrieving the key. Later on, during a reunion with Princesses Sherry and Cherry, Axel Gear appears and kidnaps Cherry. Sparkster sets off to rescue Cherry by travelling to the Kingdom