Battle Marine Advance!

From the Devs

Game Overview

Battle Marine Advance! is a single-screen shooter where you fight using horizontal movement, jumps, rapid-fire shots, and a powerful laser.

Keep landing your shots, build combos without taking damage, and collect medals to increase your score multiplier. Accuracy matters, but so does knowing when to use your laser—which makes you temporarily invincible—or jump to automatically collect items.

Battle Marine Advance! supports Steam Achievements and online leaderboards.

You can also watch replays submitted to the leaderboards.

Launch Options

• No Filter (Raw Pixel): Launch without screen filter

• CRT Filter: Launch with CRT-style screen filter

• LCD Filter: Launch with GBA-style LCD screen filter

Controls

This game is optimized for use with a game controller.

Keyboard controls are also supported.

Note: You can customize the keyboard bindings by editing the keymap.ini file generated in the game’s installation directory (right-click Battle Marine Advance! → Manage → Browse Local Files).

Shots and Score Multiplier

Repeatedly press the Shot button to fire.

Keep hitting enemies to increase your score multiplier, up to a maximum of ×16. Missing a shot or taking damage makes it harder to maintain your multiplier.

Aim carefully and destroy your enemies without wasting a shot.

Laser

Hold the Shot button to charge your laser, then release it once fully charged to fire.

You are invincible while firing the laser, and all medals on the screen are collected automatically.

Use it not only as a powerful attack, but also as a defensive tool for breaking through enemy fire.

Jump

Press the Jump button to jump.

While jumping, you automatically collect all medals on the screen. However, health items are also converted into medals, so choose your timing carefully.

Medals and HIT Combos

Enemies release medals when destroyed.

Collecting medals increases the Medal Rate displayed in the upper-left corner of the screen.

• Collect a standard medal directly: Medal Rate +2

• Collect a medal automatically by jumping or using the laser: Medal Rate +1

• Collect a gold medal: Medal Rate +3

Keep destroying enemies within the time limit without missing a shot or taking damage to build your HIT combo. Once you reach 100 HIT or more, standard medals turn into gold medals and are collected automatically.

Your score is determined by your Medal Rate and Score Multiplier. However, missing a shot or taking damage reduces your Medal Rate by 21.875%.

Maintain your accuracy, avoid enemy fire, and aim for a high score.

Life and Recovery

Battle Marine Advance! uses a life-based health system.

Taking damage reduces the Life gauge in the lower-right corner of the screen. The game ends when the gauge is completely depleted.

When your Life gauge is not full, destroying an enemy causes a health item to appear. Collect it directly to recover Life. If you jump, however, the health item is converted into a medal and collected automatically.

Decide whether recovering Life or earning more points is more important in each situation.

There are no invincibility frames after taking damage. If you touch another enemy projectile during the damage animation, you will lose additional Life. Finding a safe position is especially important during the final stage, where enemy fire becomes particularly dense.

Ranks

When the game ends, you receive a rank based on your performance.

• E1–E9: Enlisted (Beginner)

• W1–W5: Warrant Officer (Intermediate)

• O1–O6: Officer (Advanced)

• O7–OB: Flag Officer (Expert)

• Special Rank: Legendary Seaman (Normal/ALL)

• Special Rank: Poseidon (Master/ALL)

Skill Score

Ranks W1 and above are generally determined by your Skill Score.

Your Skill Score is calculated as follows:

• 1 point per stage reached (maximum 10 points at All Clear)

• 1 point per 100 HITs in your highest combo (maximum 20 points at 2,000 HITs)

• 1 point for every 10 seconds a combo of 100 HITs or more is maintained (maximum 20 points at 200 seconds)

• 1 point per 25 successful hits (maximum 20 points at 500 hits)

• −1 point per missed shot (no maximum penalty)

• 1 point per 30 enemies defeated (maximum 20 points at 600 enemies)

• 1 point per 100 points in your highest Medal Rate (maximum 20 points at 2,000)

• 1 point per 300 points in your cumulative Medal Rate (maximum 10 points at 3,000)

• −1 point per 5 recovery items collected (no maximum penalty)

• If the calculated score is below 0: 0 points

• If the calculated score exceeds 120: 120 points

If your Skill Score is below 30, you will instead be awarded a rank from E1 to E9 based on the stage you reached.

How to Achieve a High Rank (Experts Only)

For experienced shooter players, simply clearing the game—unlocking Legendary Seaman and Poseidon—will probably feel relatively easy.

However, the difficulty jumps to an entirely different level when you aim for a high rank.

That is where this game reveals its true form.

You can do it...

Here are some tips for conquering every rank:

• First, ignore ranks entirely and clear Normal Mode (ALL) to unlock Master Mode.

• Master Mode is not a “high-difficulty mode”; it is a mode that makes high ranks easier to achieve:

  • No recovery items appear, so you cannot lose rank from recovering Life!

  • Missing a shot also causes damage, so the missed-shot penalty is finite!

  • You have more frames before your combo breaks, making it easier to reach 2,000 HIT (the maximum score)!

• The laser is powerful, but relying on it too heavily reduces the number of shots fired per unit time, which you need to increase the successful-hit portion of your Skill Score. If you have fired fewer than 500 shots by the time you clear Master ALL, revise your route to be more selective about when you use the laser.

• The position of the first crab that appears in Stage 6 is determined by the direction pressed on the very first frame immediately after Stage 1 begins. (Left input = appears on the left; right input = appears on the right; no input = randomly appears on the left or right.)

• A perfect Skill Score of 120 is impossible with even one missed shot, so finish with 0 missed shots if you are aiming for Rank 29 (the highest rank). (Be sure to fire at least 500 shots, however.)

• Using a rapid-fire controller is not recommended:

  • Missed shots are more likely.

  • You are more likely to get caught in secondary explosions.

  • You do not need to keep 16-shot rapid fire going throughout the run to reach 500 shots by ALL; relaxed bursts (around three shots per attack) are enough.

• With a perfect score of 120, Rank 29 takes priority over Legendary Seaman (Rank 27) and Poseidon (Rank 28), even if you clear ALL, so it is fine to complete the game.

• If you are aiming for Fleet Admiral (Rank 26), avoid clearing ALL and achieve a Skill Score of at least 100.

• E1/E2 are easy to unlock in Master Mode.

• E3–E9 are easy to target in Normal Mode by intentionally missing shots or collecting recovery items.

How to Enable Rapid Fire

In Battle Marine, we do not recommend using rapid fire because of its impact on gameplay, so no rapid-fire button is assigned by default. However, whether to use it is up to the player. If you would like to enable it, follow the steps below.

• Keyboard: Edit the keymap.ini file in the installation folder and set RAPID_B to the key you want to use (for example: RAPID_B = C).

• Game controller: On BMA!'s page in your Steam Library, click the controller icon and select Controller Layout. Click the gear icon next to the button you want to configure, select Settings, and enable Hold to Repeat (Turbo).

Steam Version Features

Battle Marine Advance! is based on the GBA version of Battle Marine included with Battle Marine, with additional features developed specifically for Steam.

• Steam Achievements

• Online leaderboards

• Leaderboard replay playback

• In-game switching between fullscreen and windowed modes

• An Exit Game option on the title screen

About the GBA Version

The GBA ROM that can be used with original hardware or emulators remains included with Battle Marine.

Battle Marine Advance! does not include a ROM file for use with external hardware or emulators.

If you require the ROM file, please purchase Battle Marine.

Streaming and Content Usage Policy

You may create and publish videos, livestreams, gameplay commentary, articles, social media posts, fan works, and other content featuring this game without prior permission.

This applies to both commercial and non-commercial use, regardless of whether the content is monetized.

However, individual assets from the game—including images, sound effects, and music—may not be redistributed or reused as standalone content.

Suggested credit: Battle Marine Advance! © 2013–2026 SUZUKI PLAN

License

• This application was developed using Dewpoint Advance.

• This application includes mGBA, licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL 2.0).

• The corresponding source code covered by MPL 2.0 is available in the “suzukiplan/dewpoint-advance” repository on GitHub.