Kaikan

Kaikan
Kaikan is a doujin PC SHMUP released in 2013 by Zakichi, who has released several games under the name ©-kigekiyahonpo-. The game is inspired by Raizing games where medal collection occurs, but with a focus on vacuum effects on medals instead of needing to collect them by touching them like in a Raizing game. The game was created solely within Shooting Game Builder and features royalty free music from various artists to fill in the game's soundtrack.

Controls
Kaikan is a 3-button game as follows:


 * Fire: This is what you press to deploy the fire of your main and subshots.


 * Bomb: This is what you press to deploy a bomb when the bomb meter is full.


 * Focus: Holding this button shows the ship hitbox and alters properties of the subshot for whichever ship you select.

Ships
All ships have a standard forward shot, the ship picked determines what kind of subshot is powered up along the way.

Powerups
Periodically there will be bigger enemies that will drop power ups when shot. The player starts the game with no sub weapon, but each powerup collected will raise your sub weapon level by 1, capping at 4. Extra powerups collected without the player dying will give increased extra points for each excess powerup, starting at 10K and increasing 10K for each new powerup picked up. Dying lowers your power level by one and resets the extra powerup collection bonuses.

Medals
There are four types of medals the player will see in Kaikan:
 * Enemy Medals: The most common medals the player will see. These will spawn from structures that are shot at and from enemies destroyed with main, subshot and bomb.  Collecting these will increase the item rank a bit per Enemy Medal as well as fill the bomb meter a bit.  Letting off the Fire button will vacuum these medals to the player and will be collected as long as the player does not press fire again too quickly before the medals reach the player.
 * Ground Medals: There are seven hidden Ground Medals in each stage. These look like rounded shields and can only be uncovered if shot at long enough with the main shot or if a bomb hits them, and are worth an amount depending on your current item rank.  Once uncovered, the player has to collect the ground medal by flying over it.
 * Bomb Medals: These look like a warrior's shield and will spawn from enemies or bullets destroyed with a bomb and are collected automatically. Bullets turned into Bomb Medals do not contribute to bomb refill or item rank increase.
 * Boss Destroy Medals: These look like cross shaped medals and only spawn from bullets cancelled when a boss is destroyed. These can only be picked up directly by flying into them.

Count
Count is shown on the right side of the screen and tells how many medals you have collected in the stage. This slowly subtracts during boss fights. This acts as an end stage multiplier, where when a boss is killed, you earn (Boss Value x Count) Score.

Item Rank Values
Kaikan features an item rank system for medal point value, the higher your rank the more medals will be worth when spawned from destroyed enemies.
 * G Rank: 10 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 100)
 * F Rank: 50 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 110)
 * E Rank: 100 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 120)
 * D Rank: 500 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 130)
 * C Rank: 1000 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 140)
 * B Rank: 5000 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 150)
 * A Rank: 10000 Pts, (Ground Medal = Count x 200), A Rank medals collected add +2 to the Count per medal instead of 1.

Item rank is visually displayed by the colored bars that sit on the sides of the screen and indicated by letter on the left side of the screen. Collecting Enemy Medals will increase item rank and add to your total Count number visible on the right side of the screen.

Bombs
Bombing will spawn additional Bomb Medals from enemies destroyed with the bomb and converts any enemy bullets on screen during the bomb duration into Bomb Medals as well.

These medals are worth (Current Item Rank Point Value x 5) amount of Score and also give (Item Rank Count Value x 5) number of Count. Enemy Medals and Bomb Medals spawned due to the bomb usage will be autocollected to the player. If a bomb is in stock and the player gets hit, rank will drop to G Rank and the bomb will be expended and act as a one time use autoguard shield.

The size of a bomb unleashed will increase relative to the current rank the player has.

Bosses

 * All Bosses have extra parts that will display a number indicating Hit Points remaining on the parts the player shoots at. When these parts are destroyed, any enemy bullets on screen are cancelled into Enemy Medals that automatically collect.  Big cancels are necessary in boss fights in order to be able to refill bombs.
 * Destroying a stage boss will turn all enemy bullets on screen into Boss Medals that are worth (Current Item Rank Point Value x 10).
 * Points calculated for destroying a stage boss: (Boss Value x Count).

Item Rank Drop
Item rank will reset to G Rank anytime the player shields, the player loses a life, or when an Enemy Medal flies off the screen at the bottom.

Warning Assist
The entire playfield of the game does not fit into one screen, so there are moments that medals can spawn on sides the player might not be able to see at the current moment. Anytime there are off-screen medals, big orange arrows appear on the left or right of the screen to warn the player that there are medals off screen in that direction. Be ready to let go of fire to vacuum in Enemy Medals so that you don't drop one and lose item rank whenever these arrows appear.

Negative Penalty
When the Fire button is not held down, any Enemy Medals on screen will be vacuumed to the player and collected. If the player fires too soon before these vacuumed medals are collected, they will dim and go down one level. This is a cosmetic warning for the player to not repeat this mistake with the same medals again. If the player makes this mistake twice for the same Enemy Medal(s), the Enemy Medals will turn into a rusty red color, lose ALL point value, and will no longer vacuum to the player. The player will need to pick up these red tinted medals by flying directly into them before they fall off the screen to retain Item Rank.

Extends
An Extend is given to the player at 100M Score and then every 200M Score after the 1st. There are also two hidden extends:
 * In the middle of stage 3 after the lake portion, there is a giant rock in the middle of the screen that takes some firepower to destroy. Destroying this rock uncovers a swarm of robotic bugs that try to fly away, you must quickly destroy all of these bugs as they appear and an E Flag for an extend will appear in the center of the rock source.


 * In stage 5, you need to destroy the turret in the bottom right corner of the gunwall and destroy the big railings that appear in the middle of the gunwall section in order of appearance. The extend should appear upon destroying the turret and then the 2nd railing.

Game End Bonuses

 * No Continue Bonus: If you beat the game without continuing, you will earn 10 Million points.
 * Credit Bonus: When beating the game with continues, you are given a Credit Bonus of (Number of unused credits x 500,000) Score.
 * Remain Bonus: Remain Bonus is determined by (Remaining Lives x 50,000). You will get a 2x multiplier if you 1 Credit Clear the game.

General
The player will start at G Rank at the beginning of each stage, the main goals in each stage:
 * Hit A Rank as soon as possible and never get hit - This is the most straight-forward objective, shoot structures and enemies down and collect the Enemy Medals they drop to increase Item Rank.


 * Make sure you get used to letting go of the Fire button to vacuum in Enemy Medals.


 * Waiting as long as possible to pick up Ground Medals will net you the most possible points with as many medals as possible collected beforehand.


 * Destroy enemies quickly to spawn extra waves whenever possible.


 * Use bombs strategically so that enemy destruction and bullet cancellation is maximized as much as possible for more Bomb Medals. Since bombs do not cover the whole screen, it is a good idea to let go of Fire while the bomb is going off so that enemies outside the blast radius coming into the screen don't get killed before they run into the bomb and the player misses out on some Bomb Medals.


 * Destroy boss parts with optimal timings and as many bullets on screen as possible to maximize bomb recharges. KO Bosses when lots of bullets are on screen and maximize Boss Medal collection.  The point values earned from taking time on bosses to go for maximum bullet cancels outweighs the Count value lost during a boss fight.

Ground Medals

 * Ground Medal Locations

True Last Boss
There is a TLB that exists in this game if you clear all stages without wasting a conitiniue. After beating the TLB, Count becomes ([Remaining Lives x 1000] + 2000). For example, if you have 4 spare ship stocks showing at the right corner of the screen, you have 5 ship stocks currently and the Count becomes 5000 + 2000 = 7000. If a continiue is used before defeating the Stage 5 boss, the TLB will not show up and will show a text saying "Try No Continiue Clear".

Unlockables

 * Type E Ship: Finish the game (continues allowed).
 * Type F Ship: Play through the game with no continues used and make the True Last Boss appear. Once you see the True Last Boss for the first time and complete the run/credit, you will have Type F unlocked.  You may also continue to play through the boss and you will still get credit for unlocking Type F.

Bugs

 * If you quit the game during a replay, the game will save the unlock information and high score that the game has stored during that specific replay. For example if you have a 1 Billion high score and both E and F ships unlocked, but you watch Replay # 1 where you played the game for the first time without the 1 Billion high score or the unlocked ships and you were to quit during this replay, the game will save the high score shown during that replay and the E and F ships will be locked again.  Never quit the game in the middle of a replay. After a really good run is saved, you can game over in another run afterward to retain your latest information in case you mess up after your good replay and have no way for the correct high score/unlocks to display.


 * Sometimes when sitting at the very bottom edge of the screen and vacuuming medals, if too many medals are collected at a time it is possible for one to slip through unobtained and reset the current rank even though the player has let off the fire button for a couple seconds clearly. Try to get used to collecting medals a ways up from the bottom edge of the screen to avoid this issue.

Download
You can download the game for free through the author's webpage: https://zakichi.ojaru.jp/kaikan.html