I know this is not fair, but if you want to finish Usas you can do this:

- Write 0A 01 into #C000 to pass next stage
- Or write stage number into #C21D

You can see the ending by selecting stage 4 (#C21D = 4) and passing to next stage (#C000 = #0A, #C001 = #01)
You can do it in a easy way using NO$MSX, and its debugger.

About the strange ending (nuclear explosion) Maybe we need to do "something" to see the right ending, like in Penguin Adventure where you need to pause the game 5 times (for example) to see the happy ending.

There's also a ROM image around with a cheat that makes you invincible, so you can finish it easily. Maybe there's a different way to get the right ending. I can't remember if I ever finished it without the Continue F5 cheat (by inserting a different cartridge in slot 2) or not. It's a long time ago...

From Usas intro:
"If they find 4 pcs of precious stone, some good thing will happen."

Is a nuclear explosion a good thing? Or are we missing something to see a good ending? :|

As I understood it, the 'nuclear explosion' is the God Indus being blown off-world. Indus was the guy who, in the very beginning 'banished Usas, the supreme Mother God and threw the four pieces of her jewel to the winds.' I guess reuniting Usas' jewel ends her banishment and the reing of Indus, the six-armed guy you have to fight in each of the shrines.
I, too, can finish Usas without cheating now, but it took me 9 years of trying to achieve that for the first time. Main tricks in stage 5 are indeed having an enemy bounce you back at the top of your (double -- Wit!) jump so you can get even higher, and using Wit instead of Cles. Also don't forget to change your emotion and thus weapon after you opened the door to the boss in ruins 2 and 3.

I always used cles in 'rolling-mode' for the 5th temple, each stage.. since rolling is defensive and attacking at once.. you only need to jump now and then..

For the rest of the temples:

1st: wit (you can shoot upwards and fast too!)
2nd: cles (rolling rocks when that bimbo is eating the room)
3rd: wit/cles (not so different enemy here)
4rd: wit (fast shooting for that rock-throwing bimbo)

anyone with the same or a different strategy?

I would seriously doubt Usas having another enddemo... I always thought the game would have one (particularly 'cause the first 2 times I finished the game I used the f1 spirit combo and the metal gear combo respectively). Then I thought well, maybe without a second cardridge... Same result! Then I thought, well maybe if you play it from the first set of ruins all the way till the end. In this case you also get the same demo.

My strategy was mostly the same as wolf's...

5th temple: cles (angry)
4th temple: wit (happy or if impossible normal; doesn't really matter)
3rd temple: wit (happy if possible so you can double-jump when the demo climbed up)
2nd temple: cles (angry: neigh invulnerable if you shot well enough)
1st temple: wit (or cles: happy)

Geiru... I think you got things wrong about the gods;
I don't know where you got that, if it's from the manual (which I haven't looked through in ages) you might be right and Konami got a little creative with some gods, otherwise:

Usas is the Goddess of Dawn (in Hinduism); her task is to clear the way for the sungod Surya (iirc).

I can't remember whether the enemy you have to slay in the fifth temple had 6 arms; if it did, it most probably was Vishnu... But it would make more sense for it to be Shiva (god of destruction and salvation).

All I know about Indus is that it was a river along which a series off ruins can now be found:

Harrappa ruins
Gandhara ruins
Mohenjo Daro

Does that ring any bells???

yeah, there's even a website called HARAPPA

check: http://www.harappa.com/har/har0.html for the ruins at the indus

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I, too, can finish Usas without cheating now, but it took me 9 years of trying to achieve that for the first time. Main tricks in stage 5 are indeed having an enemy bounce you back at the top of your (double -- Wit!) jump so you can get even higher, and using Wit instead of Cles. Also don't forget to change your emotion and thus weapon after you opened the door to the boss in ruins 2 and 3.

I always thought Usas was way too easy! The largest part, that is. The game isn't really balanced. The first four stages were a piece of cake, the last one (Mohenjo Daro) was quite hard because of the overkill of spikes (not much of a strategy necessary here - just don't jump wrong (and since this might still be too easy for some players, Konami decided to make the jumps of the characters quite inconsequent)). First tomb was no problem, second tomb was hard only because of the boss monster (eating ground with hardly any ground to eat), fourth tomb was hard only because it took much time before I found out the pitfall that leads you to the boss monster (I always thought this was a bug ) and the third tomb, that actually forms the only problem.

Actually this tomb is no problem at all, using the 'have the enemy bounce you to the second floor' trick described above, except for the room before the boss monster's room. It's really, really hard not to get your player killed by the up-and-down going elevator, which has the tendency to press you to death at the ceiling of the platform right to the left of it unless you have a REAL good sense of timing.

Apart from that elevator and platform trick, Usas is quite easy. It's a lot harder to finish Vampire Killer.

By the way, did you know that the right pronunciation of Usas is 'Oesjas' or 'Ushas'? That's why there's that reading mark (how do you call it in English?) written under the first S

WTF is wrong with people voting Metal Gear in stead of Aleste 2 or SD-Snatcher?!
I'm getting the idea the less frequent visitors are all Metal Gear addicts or something, because during the first 100 votes Aleste 2 had quite a lead on MG (and was just behind SD-S)... *sigh*

I think all four games have good reasons to vote for

Some pro's and cons a game

Aleste 2 - Awesome game in its genre, although the genre was not renewing anymore (Zanac 4 )
Metal Gear - The start of a new game genre, although there were still quite some improvements needed (most of them implemented in Metal Gear 2)
SD Snatcher - The most astonishing story ever implemented in an MSX game (or in any computer game??). Awesome music. Gameplay is sometimes a bit slow and it took a long time before the game was available in English (amateur translation). Some graphical effects could have been better (multilayer scroll as seen in Almost Real anyone?? )
Usas - Ultimate platformer. Hard, but not unbeatable. Some new elements (moods), great music. Highly addictive, yet a little monotonous. And highly frustrating if you're not very good at it (like me )

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..., like in Penguin Adventure where you need to pause the game 5 times (for example) to see the happy ending.

Yeah! What's up with that? How can you get the happy ending? I've once been told that you only get a happy ending if you use the slot machines as little as possible? Is this true?

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Take Salamander for instance, it took me a while to get the hang of the game. But after a while I got so good at it I could finish the game with one live.

Wow, how the hell do you get through Lavinia with just one live?

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>>..., like in Penguin Adventure where you need to pause the game 5 times (for example) to see the happy ending.<< Yeah! What's up with that? How can you get the happy ending? I've once been told that you only get a happy ending if you use the slot machines as little as possible? Is this true?

You have to press F1 -pause- (4*n)+1 times while playing. I.e: 1,5,9, etc...
Bare in mind that if you continue after game over, pause counter resets.

I don't see the variable 'n' labeled.....What is 'n'?

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I don't see the variable 'n' labeled.....What is 'n'?

Ok...

n=1 to (((34*PI/34)+34)*34/34+SQR(34))*infinity)

XD