Mr. Heli

Overview

Mr. Heli, sometimes Mr. Heli no Daibouken ("Mr. Heli's Great Adventure") or Battle Chopper, is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up from Irem. It originated in the Arcade in 1987 and in 1989 was ported to the PC Engine by Irem and to various Western home computers by Probe Entertainment and Firebird. The PC Engine version of the game was added to the Wii's Virtual Console in 2008 while in 2013 the Arcade original became part of Irem Arcade Hits for Mac and PC.

Mr. Heli would make cameo playable appearances in the Game Boy game Shuyaku Sentai Irem Fighter as well as R-Type Final.

Gameplay

In each stage, Mr. Heli makes his way through a horizontal level fighting enemies coming in from either direction. Mr. Heli can turn around, but cannot progress backwards through the level. At the end of each level is a boss encounter.

As well as the standard forward-firing gun, Mr. Heli also has a missile which fires directly upwards and bombs which roll across the ground before exploding. With these two weapons, the player can destroy bricks above and below Mr. Heli to reveal gemstones, which add to the player's money total and power-up icons, which require the notified amount of money before they can be used. Power-ups will increase the strength of any of Mr. Heli's weapons, and can provide other benefits.