Прошёл RayForce без использования продолжений. Великолепная игра от Taito, вышедшая на аркадном автомате в 94-м году.

В этой игре есть воздушные цели, уничтожаемые обычной стрельбой, и наземные цели, уничтожаемые вторым оружием - прямо как в TwinBee и Xevious. Но именно в RayForce это работает следующим образом - вместе с передвижением корабля игрока передвигается и прицел, наведение прицела на врага оставляёт на нём метку, можно оставить до восьми меток на одном или нескольких врагах, а затем по нажатию кнопки уничтожить их самонаводящимися лазерами. К каждому следующему уничтоженному лазером врагу подряд применяется увеличивающийся множитель - за второго уничтоженного врага дают в 2 раза больше очков, а за восьмого в 128 раз больше. Дополнительную жизнь можно заработать за один и два миллиона очков.

Уровни в игре разнообразные - сначала летим в космосе, потом приземляемся на планету, а потом и вовсе углубляемся в целый подземный город, а на следующем уровне оказываемся в базе. Всё это с эффектными плавными переходами между уровнями и в самих уровнях, с приближающимися и отдаляющимися многослойными фонами и объектами. Боссы атакуют игрока не только россыпью пуль, но также прямыми и самонаводящимися лазерами, а также у них много уничтожаемых частей. Боссы меняют набор атак в зависимости от того, что им уничтожили, но не только - например цепляющегося за стены босса четвёртого уровня можно уронить, уничтожив ему две ноги с левой или правой стороны. В игре нет похожих боссов - одни уничтожаются стрельбой, другие самонаводящимися лазерами или сразу обеими оружиями, у того же босса четвёртого уровня есть взрывающиеся снаряды, поэтому с ним надо быть осторожнее, а босс последнего уровня и вовсе создаёт подвижную и притягивающую к себе чёрную дыру.

И если этого недостаточно - в игре потрясающий саундтрек. И он как будто написан так, что прекрасно сочетается с происходящим - мелодии цепляющие, атмосферные, тревожные, настолько же разнообразные, как разнообразен дизайн уровней, но всегда очень и очень крутые. В итоге это выдающаяся во всех аспектах игра, ни в чём не провисающая и пожалуй одна из лучших аркад середины девяностых.

AKA Layer Section AKA Galactic Attack

Went in only knowing “its that shmup with the lock-on mechanic,” so I was taken off-guard by what a well-realized journey the game takes you on. There aren’t any intermissions or score breakdowns between levels, just a moment to decompress before the title of the next stage appears on-screen. It’s complemented well by how natural the transitions are, your ship breaking through the atmosphere or descending into the hollow world you’ve been sent to destroy.

There’s also a great tactile quality to everything, maybe best exemplified by the Stage 4 boss, a crab-thing that’s held up by four claws that can each be individually destroyed; go for score and you’ll need to endure a barrage of tough attacks, but take out the appendages on one side of the screen and you’ll send it plunging to an early death. Most of the game is full of these clever moments and surprisingly dynamic backgrounds, but as others have mentioned, there’s a pretty harsh difficulty spike when you get to Stage 6- the screen full of lasers and kamikaze drones that will happily eat through your credits.

I can almost buy this as an appropriate use of the setting, the exciting and detailed locales of the early levels giving way to sterile metallic corridors: a final, brutal line of defense before the last level. At the same time, it’s also hard to shake the, “Alright, you’ve had your fun, now get off the cab” feeling the crops at a similar place in many other arcade games. Maybe it’s just the fact that you can’t bomb, so there’s no way of recovering from being caught out, especially when you’re suddenly being bombarded with so many projectiles. Even more than most shmups, it’s a game that rewards multiple playthroughs, your chances of survival improving dramatically as you learn the choreography and start to preempt enemy waves with your lock-on.

But I imagine that these are issues that will fade with time, and didn’t detract much from my experience with it. In fact, I think this might be a new favorite of mine- left feeling like I had had a much fuller experience than the 30-minute runtime might hint at.

A really gorgeous shmup—the big, colorful sprites just jump off the screen, and the 3D backgrounds provide a fantastic sense of depth. Evocative Zuntata soundtrack, simple power-up system, satisfying lock-on mechanic... what more could one want, honestly?

What holds Rayforce back from GOAT status is its rather obnoxious difficulty curve. Everything up through stage 5 feels just right, and then you run into a massive wall as it seemingly realizes that, oh yeah, it's an arcade game, and it would rather have your money than let you keep enjoying yourself. Enemy spawns begin to feel thoughtless and haphazard, whereas in the game's first half they feel so carefully-crafted to induce maximum fun. Bosses take FOREVER to die, even at full power.

And, despite my best efforts and practicing a lot, and despite LOVING the game visually, I still had a little trouble tracking its two-layers of action, which resulted in a lot of "what the fuck even hit me?" kind of deaths. Not something I generally like at all in a shmup... but honestly, this game has enough other amazing qualities that I can pretty much wholeheartedly forgive it.

Vertical shoot em up. Upgrades for your main forward shot, secondary attack is a laser that locks onto targets that are below you in the environment that can be upgraded to alow for additional lock-ons. Ground forces, parts of large ships and bosses, flying enemies that are moving to attack you on your level, etc. The laser attack is fun to use, the game looks great, and having a focus on enemies at different angles makes things visually interesting and it's one of the best looking shoot em ups I've played. Enemies have some unique attack patterns due to a wide assortment of weapons but it can sometimes be difficult to tell when they attacked or where an attack will even come from. That combined with enemies that really like to fly quickly towards the bottom of the screen to escape or actively try to ram you can make things a bit overly difficult unless you know exactly what to expect as you are a bit slow and a fairly large target.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1348636611668369411

Bem massa. A Taito prova de novo que, no quesito estético, é difícil de competir com ela. Mais importante, provando que não é só uma empresa que faz gimmicks estranhos bonitos, a Taito trás com Rayforce um shmup com level design fantástico e reapropia a ideia quase sempre esquecida de Xevious de ter inimigos no solo ou abaixo de você de maneira fantástica, trazendo mais uma dimensão de considerações sobre o posicionamento de sua navinha em campo, que tem o dobro de repercussões ofensivas e defensivas se comparado a outros shmups.

Understands a beautiful line between the brevity of arcade shmup design and the lofty cinematic flair of its console sisters. The fantastic scaling and depth effects create a world with a real sense of gravity - you not only feel like you're there, but you experience that awe and discomfort that comes from the vastness of space. Definitely one of the most visually-powerful vertical shooters ever made.

And the lock-on mechanic's just cool as shit: Very well-integrated into the game's visual style. And to trade-off the increased difficulty of having to manage two visual spaces at once, the game eases up on the speed and claustrophobia of the bullet patterns compared to other shooters. It's still hard as shit, but it's not immediately overwhelming in the way other games could be.

Top-tier shmup that EVERYONE needs to try.

Wew this one was brutal!!!

It was difficult really NOT to credit-feed, although what makes this game so difficult is a bit hard to place. Some of it has to do with new bullet patterns that give you like a second-at-most clarity before they fire and you better react fast or you're fucked. There's also a bit of left-brain right-brain of sorts in terms of keeping your eyes on the enemies and bullets in front of you and the background enemies that you can only do damage to with your secondary fire. Led to me getting a lil dizzy a couple times.

Also there's an eerie energy to the whole thing. Just a light narrative throughline that complements your destruction of what was once beautiful. It's not exactly riveting or interesting but it gives a unique 'edge' to it all.

Overall a pretty enjoyable shmup. Not a banger or a trailblazer but certainly a scorcher.