Cho Ren Sha 68K

Cho Ren Sha 68K

Cho Ren Sha 68K is a vertical shoot 'em up game that has retained popularity over many years and has been referenced in different games released at a later date such as Graze Counter and ZeroRanger. The game started development on the Sharp X68000 home computer due to the popularity of doujin games for the system and had it's initial release at the 1995 Comiket. Cho Ren Sha 68K became popular enough to eventually see a port to the Windows Operating System in 2001. The game still managed to receive some updates over the years, with the latest release in 2017 making the game more compatible with Windows 10 machines.

Controls

---

• Fire: Tapping the Fire button will unleash a couple of shot volleys with a semiauto rate, meaning you can tap the fire button at a slower speed to get the full shot speed.
• Bomb: This uses up one of the bombs in the player's possession, deals a lot of damage, and grants invincibility during the bomb duration. It is worth noting that the further away an enemy is from a bomb, the less damage the bomb will do.

Weapons

---

The player ship "Zanki" is equipped only with a vulcan set of shots with one forward-firing shot and side shots that fan forward to outward. There are 5 levels of power which will increase shot frequency and damage for each powerup collected. If the player ship is destroyed, they are reset to power level 1. The ship can also use any bombs that are picked up along the way to destroy enemies more quickly and to grant temporary invincibility.

Items

---

Items in Cho Ren Sha 68K come in the form of a triangle shaped drop that powerup carrier ships will leave behind when destroyed. There are three possible pickups in this triangle:

• Powerup: Raises power level by 1 or gives excess points if at max power.
• Bomb: Increases bomb stock by 1 or gives excess points if the player already has 5 bombs in stock.
• Shield: Grants a shield or gives excess points if the player has a shield already.

• 1up: For every 1 million points earned, the following shield that appears will instead be a 1up. If the player accidentally collects another powerup or the 1up flies offscreen, it is gone.

Loops

---

There is a 2nd loop with no requirements except to complete stage 0, continues can be used. At the end of loop 2, a True Last Boss will emerge from the wreckage of the stage 0 boss.

Scoring

The most significant aspect of Cho Ren Sha 68K involves the scoring system. The player has to take risks to fly directly inside item triangles and remain inside them long enough to get the best rewards. It is a tricky technique to get down consistently and while in the middle of the action as well.

End stage bonuses are also responsible for a lot of points:

• Bomber Bonus: [20,000 x Bombs in stock]
• Shield Bonus: 50,000 if the Zanki has a shield up during the end stage tally.
• Zanki Bonus: [50,000 x Lives in stock]

Strategy

WIP

This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.

Development History

Cho Ren Sha 68K was first developed for the X68000 by Koichi Yoshida, who said to have been inspired by various arcade shoot 'em up games while brainstorming ideas for the design of his game. While creating the game, Koichi wanted the game to have a manual firing system as it was a dying trend during development and autofire started to become implemented in other games he had seen such as Batsugun and Truxton II. He ultimately settled for a semiauto shot, where pressing the Fire button once releases a couple shot volleys and tapping the button slowly would still produce a standard rate of fire.

Cho Ren Sha 68K saw an initial release in 1995 for the X68000 Sharp system. As the game gained popularity in the Doujin scene, it would later be ported to Windows in 2001. This Windows version port allowed the game to be played at the original 55 FPS or at 60 FPS. In 2005 a patch was released to address issues with modern hardware and improve compatibility with newer Windows machines. In 2017 another patch was once again pushed out for Windows 10 systems while continuing to fix various compatibility issues.

Version Differences

• 0.10: Comiket 1995 Doujin Release for X68000 Sharp System.
• 1.00: Completed and released as 1.00 in 1998.
• 1.01: Windows ports

1. 2001: Initial port to Windows. Added 60 FPS support
2. 2005: Update for 1.01 which added a Hard difficulty and various bug fixes
3. 2017: Another update for 1.01 which improved sound issues and compatibility with Windows 10 systems.

Secrets

WIP

Gallery

WIP

References

1. Cho Ren Sha 68K Development Postscript [1]: http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~yosshin/my_works/postmortem.html

• This page was assembled using a template provided by CHA-STG and Plasmo.