RayCrisis

RayCrisis is a vertically scrolling shooting game developed by Taito for the Taito G-NET arcade hardware and released in Japanese arcades in 1998. Acting as a prequel to 1994's RayForce, RayCrisis details the rise of the malevolent Con-Human supercomputer.

The game is notable for its unusual structure, featuring 42 different variations of the game map.

Gameplay Overview
RayCrisis is a 3-button game with 8-way movement. The game takes place within the interior of the Con-Human supercomputer, which is laying siege to mankind. The player takes the role of a virus known as a Wave Rider attempting to shut down the computer from within, while defeating the computer's various defensive systems.

Game Structure
The game takes place across 3 main stages, which are bookended by a short introductory sequence (referrred to as "Self Part"), and a final confrontation with the last boss, Dis-Human.

The three main stages are chosen from a pool of 5 possible stages, which are referred to as Intelligence Part, Memory Part, Consideration Part, Consciousness Part, and Emotion Part.

The game has 42 different Maps, with each one containing a different combination of the above stages. When playing for the first time, the player is randomly assigned a Map. On subsequent credits, the player can choose to replay the previous map, or play a new randomly assigned map. When all maps have been played, Map Select becomes available (this can also be accessed via a Secret Code). Progress in unlocking Maps is linked to a player's User Code.

Maps will never contain two instances of the same stage, and will never contain both Intelligence and Consideration Parts.

Controls

 * A Button: Shot (Hold for autofire)
 * B Button: Laser
 * C Button: Fire Round Divider (depletes Round Divider gauge)

Weapons
Main Shot

Basic, rapid fire shot that shoots directly forward and only hits enemies in the foreground layer.

Lock-on Laser

The Lock-on Laser is the central mechanic of the Ray series. By making use of the targeting reticle located directly in front of the player craft, it is possible to lock-on to several enemies at once, and pressing the B button then shoots homing lasers at each of the acquired targets. The exact mechanics of the Laser depend on the ship type chosen.

When locking on to multiple enemies, an escalating score multiplier is applied to each enemy within the lock on, meaning that this mechanic is crucial to both scoring and survival.

If the player uses all of their lock-ons on a single target before firing, then a devastating Hyper Laser will be fired, which does additional damage, and also deals splash damage to nearby enemies (only possible with WR-01R and WR-02R ships).

Round Divider

A screen-clearing bomb that is charged by destroying enemies. Can be used when the Round Divider gauge is full.

Ships
There are three playable ship types in RayCrisis, referred to as Wave Riders. Two are selectable by default, with the third being unlocked via a secret code entry (see Secret Codes)

WR-01R

WR-02R

WR-03

Encroachment
Encroachment is a dynamic variable that is displayed on the top right part of the HUD. It directly influences the game's Rank (ie. difficulty), and affects which ending the player receives after defeating the final boss (see Endings). Keeping a low encroachment value is required to reach the true ending, but rank is inversely proportional to Encroachment, so this makes the difficulty higher.

Encroachment increases naturally over time, with the rate increasing when enemies are on screen. Allowing enemies to leave the screen also causes Encroachment to increase, so killing all enemies as quickly as possible is an important way to keep Encroachment low. Killing enemies with large lock-ons decreases Encroachment more than killing them one-by-one, and destroying enemies with the Hyper Laser produces an even larger drop.

Defeating each of the stage 1-3 bosses within 30/50/70 seconds respectively will reduce the Encroachment rate by 20%. If the player takes longer than the allocated time, then the bonus will decrease by 1% for every additional second taken.

Laser Multiplier
When the player locks on to multiple targets, an escalating score multiplier is applied to each enemy. In general, the player should aim to always lock onto as many enemies at a time as possible, with the the most valuable enemies (ie. highest base value) in the later slots. The multipliers for the player ships are:

WR-01R

WR-02R

WR-03

Each hit with the Photon Torpedo increments the photon chain counter, and the score multiplier is equal to size of the counter when enemies are destroyed. The multiplier increments up to a maximum of x255. The counter resets if no torpedoes are fired at any locked targets for 1.5 seconds.

Items
Once the player has reached max shot power, each additional shot powerup collected will award a point bonus instead. The bonus starts at 1000, and increases by 1000 for each additional powerup collected, up to maximum value of 10000. The same is true of laser powerups, which also increase in value up to 10000. The value of the excess powerups resets when the player dies.

Endings
There are three possible endings in RayCrisis - commonly referred to as the Good, Bad and True endings.

The Good ending is achieved by beating the game normally.

The Bad ending is achieved by allowing Encroachment to reach 100%. When this happens, the player is immediately taken to the battle with Dis-Human, and the Bad ending follows thereafter.

The True ending has two conditions - first, a certain number of maps must have been unlocked on the player's user code. Beating the game 5 times while selecting a 'New' course on each run is sufficient to meet this condition. On subsequent runs, reaching Dis-Human with less than 25% encroachment will trigger the True Last Boss, Infinity. Defeating Infinity will then lead to the True Ending.

Secret Codes
After inserting a credit, enter the following button sequences on the "Push Start Button to Start" screen to unlock the desired effect.

Unlock the hidden ship WR-03: ↑ → ↑ → ↓ ↑ ← A B Unlock all 42 Maps: ↑ → ↓ ← A A A B C C C C Set the game rank to maximum: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ A A A B B B B B B

Ports
RayCrisis was ported to the Playstation 1 in 2000 under the name RayCrisis: Series Termination. A Windows version based on the PS1 port was later released in 2001. .

The entire Ray series was ported to the Nintendo Switch and Sony Playstation 4 consoles in March 2023, in a single collection entitled Ray’z Arcade Chronology.

Video References
Video index for RayCrisis