Talk:Shinobi (arcade game)/@comment-68.227.52.47-20160907061138

A couple of things -

Not all levels award the weapon power-up. Off the top of my head, I know Mission 3 level 1 has no weapon power up. There may be others.

It is not possible to beat bosses 2, 3 or 4 without throwing stars, BUT you can still get the bonus. Each time the player throws a star, it increments a counter. The counter is an 8-bit variable with a maximum possible value of 255. If the bosses are defeated on the 256th throwing star, the counter resets to 0. The game checks that number, assumes no throwing stars were used, and awards the 20,000 point bonus.