After Burner II

Hold Left + B on Controller 1 and A on Controller 2 at the same time before the title screen appears (at the console power up/reset sequence or after the game over screen). Press Left or Right on Controller 1 to change the menu options. Press Up or Down to select the menu option. Press and hold Select to hide the menu.

When you get a game over and you're at the blue Afterburner screen, press A, A, A, A, B, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Down and Down. If done right, you'll continue where you left off.

At the beginning of the stages 3, 5, 11, 16 and 21, while refueling/reloading weapons on the ground, press and hold the corresponding button code from the table below, and hold it during take off.

At the beginning of the stage 5, while refueling/reloading weapons on the ground, press Up + Right on Controller 2 and A + Start on Controller 1 at the same time and hold it during the take off. You'll get an extra 40 missiles.

At the title screen, hold Right + A + B + Select on Controller 1 and Left + A on Controller 2 at the same time, then press Start on Controller 1.

Once you've beat the game, press any button to continue to the Main Menu again. Now, when you start playing again, you'll be in a harder mode. The game won't tell you this, but you can see by harder enemies in the first stages who you'd normally come across only in later stages.

Before starting your game, plug in a controller to slot 2. Hold A and B on that controller, and then tap START on the controller in slot 1.

To activate reversed mode on the Japan release, hold A and B on Player 2's controller and start the game.

At the title screen press and hold the A button then press Start.

During gameplay, press Select to pause it, then press Down + Left + A on Controller 2 and Down + Left on Controller 1 at the same time. Press Up or Down to select a stage, and press Select to play. This cheat can be done in all levels except 8 and 17.