Huxley:
One thing: the sound might be great for the majority of the game (especially the music...love those jungalistic beats!), but has anyone noticed how bad the sampled sound is during the cutscenes? That one cry of 'Cecilia!!!' has me in stiches every time. I'd swear it's one of the developers putting on an OAP voice!
dude, I love that scene
"Onee-chan!"
"Ceeeciliaaaaaaaaa! (....ceciliaaaa.... ceciliaaaaaa....)"
okay, so it took my lazy ass long enough, but here is the location of the route branch for Valley 5.
sorry for the relatively crappy pic, but I took this from one of my recordings
anyway, there will be three weapon boxes there, and then a part of the background that can be destroyed at the top of the screen.
To take the "factory" route, head up to the top of the screen. You might have to wait a few seconds if you've left a weapon or two on the screen. After the weapons disappear, you will head into the factory.
To take the "alley" route, just move to the right at any time and the screen will automatically scroll over that way.
So what's the difference?
The factory route is relatively easy to get through, and doesn't have many enemies. At the end of it you will encounter the clawed minibosses again. If you can easily take care of them on Jungle 3, you won't have any problem with them here either. When they're killed, you exit and then get placed at the stage boss. Dispatch them with close-range kills and you can have two fresh lifebars going into the difficult boss battle, a major plus!
The alley route is much harder. Enemies appear in close quarters with some land mines on the ground semi-obscured from view, making it easy to accidentally step on one if you're not looking out for them. There's a lot of enemies leading up to the boss and even some tanks, but there is a plus side - there are TWO bomb pickups (one of them is left by a tank), and a rare Speed-up to boot. Usually I've used some bombs on previous bosses so it's nice to get a lot more of those back for the boss battle and the final stage. Also, it's worth pointing out that if you take this route, regular enemies will come out every few seconds when you destroy the boss tank and fight the super-soldier boss! They're not much of a threat since they walk quite a bit before firing at you, so they're some easy points.
So which route is better? Well, if you're going for survival, the factory route is much easier and gives you a chance at some lifeups before the tough boss. If you're going for points, it's the alley route all the way. Simple as that.