Cho Ren Sha 68K

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Cho Ren Sha 68k

Box art^?

Developer:	Famibe no Yosshin
Official site:	yosshin4004.github.io
Music:	Loser Kashiwagi
Release date:	1995

Cho Ren Sha 68K (超連射68K "Super Rapid Fire 68K") is a doujin vertical game released for the Sharp X68000 in 1995, and eventually ported to the Windows Operating System in 2001. It has remained popular since its release and has influenced several later doujin games. The game received many updates after its original release, polishing up its visuals and adding new features.

The game is widely considered a prime exemplar of the pseudo-manic subgenre, emphasizing player movement and rapid pacing with moderate bullet counts.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Controls

• Fire: Z or Ctrl. Fires shot volleys semi-automatically. A fast tap rate is not necessary to achieve maximum fire rate, with about 4 taps per second being enough to fire as quickly as possible. In the Windows v1.10 and later, auto-fire can be enabled in the settings menu.
• Bomb: X or Shift. Uses up one of the bombs in the player's possession, dealing a large amount of damage, and granting invincibility for the duration of the explosions. The bomb's damage drops off for enemies that are farther away.
• Start: PageUp (Windows). Pauses the game.
• Select: PageDown (Windows). Holding select and start at the same time forces a game over, allowing for a quicker restart.

Items

Item triangle

Every stage in the game features destructible carrier ships which drop items when destroyed. Items appear in a triangular arrangement, which slowly floats down, disappearing off-screen if not collected in time, with the items spinning around the center of the triangle at a random speed.

Item	Description
	Power up Raises power level by 1. Caps out at power level 5, obtained after picking up 4 power ups.
	Bomb Increases bomb stock by 1. Caps out at 5 bombs.
	Shield Grants a shield. Caps out at 1. The shield breaks when hit, releasing a blast which deals damage and removes projectiles in a radius around the player, granting invulnerability for a brief moment as well.
	1up Grants 1 life. Appears for every 1 million points earned, replacing the shield in the next item triangle. If the player does not have a shield, the 1up will not appear until they do. If the player fails to collect the 1up after it appears, it will be lost.

Collecting an item will cause the other two to disappear, as well as render the player invulnerable for approximately 1.5 seconds. If the player has reached max capacity for a given item, picking it up will grant points instead.

It is possible to pick up all three items by maneuvering inside of the triangle and remaining there for a few seconds. The items will start to spin rapidly, before being collected simultaneously.

Ship

The game features one controllable ship, which has a white hull and bright red cockpit. The ship's equipment is as follows:

• A vulcan weapon, which fires one green stream forward and two yellow side streams that fan inward to outward. The projectile count and damage can be increased by picking up power ups, with damage at power level 5 being 1.375 times greater than at level 1. The player is reset to power level 1 upon losing a life.
• Up to 5 bombs, with the bomb count being reset to 3 upon losing a life.

Loops

The game normally consists of two loops, with no special requirements for accessing loop 2, which simply begins after the player goes through the first 7 stages. The second loop introduces suicide bullets, but is otherwise identical to the first. Smaller enemies fire a singular medium pink projectile aimed at the player after death, while larger foes generally fire several projectiles, with some bosses firing them during the death animation itself. The True Last Boss emerges out of the large player-like ship at the end of 3-0 (final stage of loop 2).

On hard mode the game takes the player through loops 3 and 4, starting on 3-1 and ending on 5-0. Enemies produce different suicide bullet patterns on each loop, with loop 3 featuring long streaks of thin pink bullets, while loop 4 introduces bursts of medium-sized flashing projectiles at erratic angles.

Further loops can be accessed either by continuing after finishing a run, or by setting them manually.

Scoring

Score from the first enemy wave, plus any suicide bullets, for loops 1, 2, 3 and 4.

• Collecting excess items grants increasing score bonuses, which start out at 100 points and double with each subsequent pickup, capping out at 25,600 points. This bonus applies to all excess items, and is reset upon losing a life.
• The game features a stage end bonus, awarding the player for conserving their resources:

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

• Damaging enemies produces tick points. The green bullets fired by the vulcan weapon grant more tick points than yellow ones. Ramming enemies while invincible produces even more tick points. Bosses generally grant tick points even if temporarily invulnerable, such as during phase transitions.
• Each spawned suicide bullet produces points. Suicide bullets immediately cancelled by a bomb still give points, but sealed bullets do not.

Story

While the game has little in terms of explicit plot, the player's ship seems to be part of some repeating cycle, with the visuals seen upon starting a run implying that they had already gone through at least one loop before the game started. The brief ending sequence added in version 1.10 sheds a bit more light on the lore - after beating the TLB, the player's ship transforms into a plane before landing at a runway crowded with people. The on-screen text seen during the ending suggests that the player's ship was stuck in some kind of simulation, and has finally made it out by defeating the TLB.

Strategy

• Cho Ren Sha 68k strongly emphasizes never getting hit and rarely bombing, as collecting full item triangles leads to point bonuses that increase exponentially per item pickup. Successfully performing a triple item pickup with max power, 5 bombs, and an active shield allows the player to increase the excess value three times, maxxing out at 76,800 points per item triangle. If picking up a full triangle safely is impossible, it is generally worth it to use a bomb to still be able to get it.
• Stage end bonuses further underline the importance of never dying and being careful with bombs as much as possible. There is no cap on the number of lives the player can have, so holding onto them allows for the stage end bonus to exceed 1 million point during the later parts of the game, in turn granting more lives which make it even easier to obtain more 1ups, greatly expiditing score gains.
• Stage 1 features a pair of bonus enemies which appear if the two large enemies found in the first half of the stage are speedkilled. When close to death, these enemies release a large amount of destructible spinners worth 1000 points each, and should be kept alive as long as possible while in this state. These enemies also make an appearance in stage 3, with a slightly more powerful orange variant appearing in stage 6.
• Some bosses may be approached in a particular way in order to maximize score:
  • The stage 1 boss releases debris when destroyed, which may be shot or bombed for extra score. The large charge-up projectile periodically released by the boss can damage its opposing parts, granting points. Baiting the projectiles properly allows for both parts to be destroyed nearly simultaneously, while bombing as soon as the 2nd part is destroyed maximizes the score gained from the debris.
  • The stage 2 boss will run out of missiles after repeating its attack pattern twice, after which it will begin releasing spinner enemies until the end of the phase. Additionally, if the first phase times out, the boss will release 8 unique enemies during the phase transition, which are worth a considerable amount of points.
  • Each wing part during the stage 4 boss is worth 10k points, but only if destroyed individually. This means that the core of each ship, which grants 5k points, should be destroyed last whenever possible.
  • The side parts of the stage 5 boss can be prioritized over the core in order to maximize score, however this strategy may prove tricky due to the difficulty of the overlapping patterns.
  • The capsules found on the sides of the Stage 0 boss will release spinners as well as destructible missiles during phase 2 if left alive for long enough. If leaving both capsules alive renders the attack patterns too chaotic, leaving just one capsule for phase 2 can still grant a notable amount of points.

Development History

Cho Ren Sha 68K was first developed for the Sharp X68000 by Koichi "Famibe no Yoshin" Yoshida, who was said to have been inspired by various arcade shoot 'em up games while brainstorming ideas for the design of his game. As outlined in his development notes, Koichi wanted 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 Tatsujin Ou. Wanting to preserve the tactile feel of manual fire, but worried about players struggling solely because they could not tap fast enough, he ultimately settled for a semiauto shot, where pressing the fire button once releases a couple shot volleys and tapping the button slowly still produces a standard rate of fire.

The game saw an initial release in 1995 for the Sharp X68000 home computer. 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 48 (1995). Doujin release for X68000. Early prototype. 150 sold.
• 0.25: Comiket 49. 240 sold (for X68000)
• 0.35: Comiket 50. 400 sold (for X68000)
• 0.37: Osaka Pasoke 49. 30 sold (for X68000)
• 0.45: Comiket 51. 420 sold. (for X68000)
• 0.46: Comiket 51. Bugfix release. (for X68000)
• 0.60: Comiket 52. 520 sold. (for X68000)
• 0.61: 1997 9/6 Osaka Pasoke (for X68000)
• 1.00: Comiket 53 (1998). 500 units sold (for X68000)
• 1.01: Comiket 53: Bugfix release. (for X68000)
• 1.01: Windows port
• 1.10: Major revision for X68000 and X68000Z, later adapted to Windows.

1. 2001: Initial port to Windows. Added 60 FPS support
2. 2005: Update for 1.01 which added a Hard rank difficulty and various bug fixes.
3. 2017: Another update for 1.01 which improved sound issues and compatibility with Windows 10 systems.
4. 2023: 1.10 released. Unique backgrounds for every stage, some enemies redrawn, borrowed sound effects replaced, better performance via build with newer GCC, countless other small changes.
5. 2024: 1.10-Windows released. Implements the changes from 1.10 with additional technical improvements, reworked settings menu, and reworked replay system.
6. Source for the X68000 versions are available in the README of the X68000 disk. This has a lot of info on changes between versions too.

Secrets

• Kakus[h]i Menu: This menu features a variety of different options, and is accessed differently in the Windows and X68000 versions. In Windows v1.10, it appears to not exist.^?

Before v1.10 Windows: In the main menu within the config screen, hold UP for 4 seconds. Holding UP for 4 seconds again brings back the default config menu.
X68000 (v1.10 only): There are two ways to activate this menu; the joystick method requires a controller with a SELECT button (FM TOWNS-style):

1. Select CONFIGURE on the title screen while holding RIGHT and TAB on the keyboard.
2. Select CONFIGURE on the title screen while holding RIGHT and SELECT on the joystick.

Once open, the menu provides the following options:

1. VWAIT: No known effect.
2. MUTEKI: Grants invincibility when set to 1. A sound effect will still play when hit, but the player will not die.
3. STAGE: Alters the starting stage when continuing. 1-7 picks stages 1 through 0, while setting the number to F grants access to Show Time (described in more detail below).
4. ACCHO: Determines the starting loop. This setting is 0-indexed.
5. TD_SPEED: Affects enemy bullet speed.
6. JK_SPEED: Affects player movement speed.
7. BOSS_ONLY: Causes each stage to consist solely of the boss fight when set to 1. The player remains stuck at initial equipment due to the lack of any powerup carriers.
8. DEBUG: Displays various information during gameplay depending on the set value, including enemies values when destroyed.
9. KASEGI (Windows-only): Cannot be changed and does nothing.
10. SAVE DEMO.REP (X68000-only): Writes the game demo to disk.

• Debug Mode: In X68000 v1.10, the debug mode described above can be activated on startup without entering the Kakushi menu by holding both joystick action buttons or CTRL+SHIFT on startup. The inputs can be released when the game starts printing asset loading messages.
• Show Time: A special boss rush consisting of three bosses which alternating indefinitely. Two of the bosses share sprites with ones found in the game, but utilize different attacks, while one boss is entirely unique and not found anywhere in the main game.

Download

The game is available as freeware and can be downloaded from https://yosshin4004.github.io/x68k/crs68k/official/index.html. The Sharp X68000 version will run in an emulator (such as RetroArch's PX68K core) at 55 FPS. The Windows version runs at 60 FPS, and notably features a reworked replay system.

Older versions

The following link has all 3 Windows versions, plus the original Sharp X68000 version: https://web.archive.org/web/20190927084456/http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~yosshin/my_works/download.html

Tools

Stage select cheat

Set this address to the desired stage number, then select "Continue" on the main menu. Loop 1 stages are 1 to 7, loop 2 stages are 17 to 23.
Download premade Cheat Engine table

Alternatively, attach Cheat Engine to the running Cho Ren Sha process, select "Add Address Manually", and paste the entry below matching your downloaded build of the game:

Game version	Type	Address
Windows 2025/01/19 WIP15	4 byte	cho_ren_sha_68k.exe+536D90
Windows 2025/05/25 WIP18	4 byte	cho_ren_sha_68k.exe+63CCB8
Windows 2025/06/15 WIP19	4 byte	cho_ren_sha_68k.exe+63CCB8

Trivia

• In versions prior to 1.10, the default high score table is populated completely with the names of other Toaplan games: Slap Fight, Tatsujin, Hishouzame, Kyuukyoku Tiger, Same3!, Tiger-Heli, Batsugun, Dogyuun, OutZone and V-V. As of 1.10, it defaults to a message thanking players and STG developers, although entering an empty name will instead produce the name of an X68000 model or type of accelerator board.

The leaderboard message added in version 1.10.

• ZeroRanger contains several references to Cho Ren Sha, including the shot weapon of its Type-B ship, and enemies based on the Stage 0 boss and player ship.
• The powerup carriers are referenced in Graze Counter. The Triple Item Grab technique is also used in Graze Counter GM.
• The powerup items seen in Crimzon Clover are a reference to the Cho Ren Sha item triangle.

Gallery

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  Soundtrack booklet

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  Soundtrack booklet, featuring a silhoutte of the TLB's 3rd form

References

1. Famibe no Yosshin's web site
2. Cho Ren Sha 68K Development Postscript, translation on Shmuplations

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