Difference between revisions of "Karous"

**Karous**
Developer:	Milestone/RS34
Music:	Daisuke Nagata, Kou Hayashi
Program:	Manabu Matsumoto, Junpei Isshiki (Milestone)/Jiro Hamaya (RS34)
Release date:	Arcade ; JP : November 15, 2006 ; Dreamcast ; JP : March 8, 2007 ; Milestone Shooting Collection 1 (Wii) ; JP : April 10, 2008 ; KO : 19 December 2008 ; US : 23 January 2009 ; Milestone Shooting Collection 2 (Wii) ; JP : December 30, 2012 ; Sakura Flamingo Archives (X360) ; JP: November 27, 2014 ; Switch/PS4/PS5:; JP:; November 27, 2025 ; Steam:; January 22, 2026
Previous game:	Radirgy
Next game:	Illmatic Envelope (Illvelo)

Revision as of 14:49, 26 May 2026

Karous (jap.: カラス, karasu) is a cel-shaded, vertical shmup from 2006 developed by Milestone. It was published by Sega and released November 15, 2006 in japanese Arcades on Sega’s NAOMI platform and later ported to Sega Dreamcast on March 8, 2007. It was the last Dreamcast game, that was officially licensed by Sega.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gallery

See Karous/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.

Gameplay Overview

Basic Game Info

Karous features 5 stages and 3 game modes:

Easy Mode: 3 stages
Normal Mode: 5 stages
Hard Mode: 5 stages and unlockable TLB

The game is played with an 8-way stick and three buttons.

The default extends are at 50 million and 200 million points.

A full run is 1 loop only and lasts around 25 minutes.

Controls

A : Shot
B : Sword
C : D.F.S. (when available)
Not holding A or B : Shield

The 2025 Ports also offer a rapid-fire option.

Interface

Top left blue vertical gauge : D.F.S. gauge (or SP gauge)
Top left yellow horizontal gauge : HP gauge
Top left three circles : Weapon levels
Top right white number next to "EXP" : Score
Top right red number : Total level
Top right small white text : Log
Long vertical red gauge on the right : Boss Durability gauge (only appears when fighting bosses)

Sometimes you receive a message and it is displayed on the bottom of the screen.

HP and Hazards

HP	Gauge
2
12
14
28
30
36
48
60

In the default settings, You have 30 HP at the start of the game. You take damage when you get hit by enemy bullets or lasers, but you do not take damage from touching enemies.

Hazard	Damage
Destructible bullets (square)	12
Indestructible bullets (round)	10
Lasers	8

A full HP gauge represents 30 HP. When you have more than 30 HP, the excess HP is shown by the second green layer of the HP gauge. Your HP does not exceed 60.

The HP gauge turns red when it is 12 HP or below. If you take damage and the HP reaches zero, you get a game over if you do not continue.

Continuing resets your score, your HP, and your D.F.S. gauge, but does not reset your weapon levels and experience points.

Log

When you get multiplied scores, it is shown in the log like

base score(total level)=score

where score = base score ×total level.

The log also shows when you take damage, when D.F.S. is ready, when a weapon level increases, and when an item is obtained.

Enemies Spawning

An enemy formation. Its captain is in the center.

Karous features a dynamic wave spawning system, where once all enemies in a wave disappear (either by being destroyed or leaving the screen), the next enemy wave spawns. A stage starts with a flying enemy table and a mid-sized enemy table starts a little later.

A wave in the flying enemy table consists of one flying enemy formation with one captain. A captain has a flashing outline.

A wave in the mid-sized enemy table consists of at least one mid-sized enemy. A mid-sized enemy has multiple parts you can destroy.

The tables are interrupted by midbosses in stages 3, 4, and 5. After a certain amount of time has passed, both of the enemy tables stop and a boss appears.

There are no ground enemies except for hidden item spots.

Weapons and Level-up Mechanics

Your machine (Defect) has Shot, Sword, Shield and a special attack called D.F.S. As you use each of Shot, Sword and Shield, you get experience points and level up that weapon. They start at level 0 and can be leveled-up to a maximum of 100.

You get experience points when:

You hit enemies/enemy parts with a weapon
You erase bullets with a weapon
Enemies/enemy parts get in the barrier D.F.S. generates
Defeat enemies/Destroy enemy parts

You get more experience if you defeat the captain enemy before any other enemies in the formation, or defeat all enemies in a formation.

If you do something that results in you getting experience points for a certain weapon, an experience chip of that weapon's color appears where that action takes place and starts flying towards the level display. The size and the appearance of the experience chip indicate how many experience points you obtain. When it reaches the level display, the experience point is added to your weapon, and the chip is converted to a D.F.S. chip and sent to the D.F.S. gauge.

Various shield experience chips: small stars, large stars, stones, small crystals, and large crystals.

Your weapons become more powerful as you level up, but the enemy tables also change and give you stronger enemies and trickier enemy patterns.

Shot

At level 0, Shot consists of a pair of forward shots and a pair of spread shots. forward shots are faster and stronger than spread shots. Shots become bigger, faster and hit harder in higher levels. They destroy square bullets upon contact.

Level-up threshold	Special Effect
10	A pair of spread shots are added.
26	The forward shots change their appearance.
30	A pair of spread shots are added.
50	A "Ver. Up+" effect is shown and your machine changes its appearance.
52	The forward shots change their appearance.
60	A pair of spread shots are added.

When you hold down your Shot button, forward shots are fired every 8 frames and spread shots are fired every 11 frames. The fire rate is boosted when you point-blank. If you use rapid-fire, all shots are fired every 6 frames and deal less damage to enemies. You can use rapid-fire for efficient leveling and filling up the D.F.S. gauge because of more shots hitting enemies.

Sword

Sword hits enemies near the front of your machine. Although it has a limited range, it can deal a significant amount of damage especially when it is leveled up.

You can use Shot and Sword at the same time, but doing so will make both attacks weaker.

Sword can also destroy square bullets.

Level-up threshold	Special Effect
20	The second slash with a greater range is added. A "Ver. Up+" effect is shown and your machine changes its appearance.
50	The third slash with an even greater range is added. A "Ver. Up+" effect is shown and your machine changes its appearance.

Defect keeps swinging Sword when you are holding the Sword button.

Shield

Shield blocks square and round bullets, and deals contact damage. Although its attack power is weaker than Shot or Sword, the reflect shots of high-level Shield make a good offensive and defensive weapon against bosses.

Level-up threshold	Special Effect
20	Shield changes its appearance and it reflects one out of every few dozen (depending on Shield level) bullets and shoot reflect shots, or "ref-shots." Ref-shots can delete bullets they touch. They are also fired when Shield is dealing contact damage. A "Ver. Up+" effect is shown and your machine changes its appearance.
50	Shield changes its appearance and it reflects every bullet it touches. A "Ver. Up+" effect is shown and your machine changes its appearance.

In the entire game, Defect can go through 5 visual upgrades. On DC and Wii versions, however, its form resets at the beginning of each stage due to a glitch.

D.F.S.

If the D.F.S. gauge is full, you can activate D.F.S. It deploys a barrier around your machine and makes you invincible for about 3 seconds. Enemies and enemy parts that touch or get in the barrier will be attacked by a D.F.S. worm it generates. When you destroy enemies under the influence of D.F.S., you earn more experience points and a greater increase in the D.F.S. gauge than when they are not infected. When you do not, the D.F.S. worms continuously deal damage for a few seconds after they get out of the barrier, then disappear with bloodshed effects. Also, all enemy bullets that get in the barrier are converted into experience points.

You can fully recharge the D.F.S. gauge while D.F.S. is still active, but you cannot use it until the current D.F.S. is deactivated.

Defeating an enemy with Shield gives you more D.F.S. refill than doing it with Shot and Sword. Also, you need to kill less enemies to level up Shield compared to other weapons.

Defeating all enemies in the very first enemy formation in Karous with Shot (left), Sword (middle), and Shield (right) while D.F.S. is activated. Only Shield can fully recharge the D.F.S. gauge and get to level 3.

Weapon Immunity

Some enemies are invulnerable unless they are hit with a specific weapon. They flash in a color of the correct weapon to attack when they are hit with incorrect weapons.

For example, enemies with rotating propellers do not take damage if you do not use Sword. Box enemies (F5) have a variation of all weapon immunity, including those that do not get hurt unless they are affected by D.F.S.

Items

Normal Items

A small point item spawns when you defeat all enemies in a formation of flying enemies or when you defeat enemy captain first. 10 small point items and a D.F.S. Charge item spawn when you take a damage. Slashing a normal item with sword pushes it upwards and can change it into another normal item.

Item	Item (translated)	Description	Log
		Point (small and large): Increases your score. A small and a large point item have a base score values of 500 and 3000, respectively.	Small: 500(your level)=score Large: 3000(your level)=score
		Experience Points: Gives you experience points. The color of the item corresponds to a specific weapon with a similar color.	Shot: SHOT EXPERIENCE GET! Sword: SWORD EXPERIENCE GET! Shield: SHIELD EXPERIENCE GET
		Auto Shield: Deploys a shield in front of your machine for about 6 seconds. After that, the shield is retracted and you have to wait the usual shield deployment duration to use it again.	AUTO SHIELD ON!
		Bullet Conversion: Changes all enemy bullets on the screen into small point items.	ITEM CHANGED!!
		Recovery (small and large): Recovers your HP gauge a little. A small recovery item increases your HP by 1. It has a larger variant that gives you 5 HP. Your HP does not go higher than 60.	Small: RECOVER!!(+1=your HP) Large: RECOVER!!(+5=your HP)
		D.F.S. Charge: Completely fills your D.F.S. gauge.	SP GAUGE FULL!

Career Items

A career item is spawned when you defeat an item career. Slashing a career item changes it in a more predictable way.

Item	Description	Log
	Shot Level-up: Increases your shot level by 1 and keeps your current experience points. Slashing this item will change it into a sword Level-up item.	SHOT LEVEL UP!(your shot level)
	Sword Level-up: Increases your sword level by 1 and keeps your current experience points. Slashing this item will change it into a shield level-up item.	SWORD LEVEL UP!(your sword level)
	Shield Level-up: Increases your shield level by 1 and keeps your current experience points. Slashing this item will change it into a speed-up item.	SHIELD LEVEL UP!(your shield level)
	Speed-up: Increases your movement speed by one level. Slashing this item will change it into a speed-down item or a shot level-up item.	SPEED UP!(1.0)
	Speed down: Decreases your movement speed by one level. Slashing this item will change it into a shot level-up item.	SPEED DOWN!(1.0)
	Recovery: Gives you 10 HP. Your HP does not exceed 60. When you reach a score extend threshold, this item flies to your machine. If you already have 60 HP, a level-up item appears instead. Recovery item also has a small chance to spawn from an item career or slashing a career item.	RECOVER!!(+10=your HP)

Hidden Items

Each stage in Normal Mode and Hard Mode has one hidden item on the ground. The spots where the items are hidden react to the player's weapons, but only one weapon can uncover each one of them.

The hidden item locations and the weapon to uncover it is indicated in Shigi's message.

The hidden item appears as a 3D Milestone logo in Milestone releases, an SFL logo in Sakura Flamingo Archives, and a cicada in RS34 releases.

Playing in Hard Mode, collecting all 5 hidden items, and defeating the boss in stage 5 without Time-out are required to see the TLB.

Difficulty Modes

Easy Mode

You can play the first 3 stages in Easy Mode. Enemies only shoot a small amount of destructible square bullets. One notable feature is that no player input is required to clear this mode. If you start an Easy Mode game and do not use any controls, the flying enemy table is just 9 formations looping for the most part of the game. This happens because you only slowly level up Shield and the enemy tables are stuck at the easiest one. When your Shield reaches level 23 near the end of stage 3, the enemy tables change to the 2nd ones and a different enemy formation appears. Enemies in the 1st and the 2nd enemy tables do not shoot anything, so only item carriers and bosses throw bullets in this no-input playthrough. If you do level up and get harder enemy tables, the enemy attack patterns are still designed so that all enemy bullets either do not hit Defect or are cancelled by Shield if you do not move from the starting position, which is not true in Normal Mode or Hard Mode.

If you play this mode normally, you can quickly enjoy the destructiveness of high-level weapons, thanks to the faster leveling.

Normal Mode

You can play all 5 stages in Normal Mode. Enemies are more durable and shoot many more bullets including indestructible round ones. Some bosses in later stages also shoot lasers. Lasers cannot be cancelled by D.F.S. or Shield.

Hard Mode

You can play all 5 stages in Hard Mode. Enemies are even more durable and enemy bullets are bigger. The bullet count is not increased, so you do not recharge the D.F.S. gauge quicker.

Characters

Karous (カラス) – Player's ship pilot
Shigi (シギ) – Navigator
Akahara (アカハラ(赤原))
Hakugan (ハクガン(剥眼))

Scoring/Strategy

The main strategy is to fill your D.F.S. - gauge as quick as possible and use the D.F.S. to absorb bullets, destroy enemies for score and level up your preferred weapons early. High scoring requires a very aggressive playstyle.

Also try to make use of the score items as much as possible by "juggling" them and picking them up at their maximum worth.

Bigger enemies, midbosses and bosses have destroyable parts, so you want to destroy them piece by piece.

You can earn a lot of points from bossfights, by destroying single parts and absorb bullets with your D.F.S. The bosses can be milked, but time out pretty quickly so if you take to long you won’t earn points for destroying the boss.

This also makes it pretty easy to dodge the bossfights by sitting on the bottom of your screen and hiding behind your shield.

Ports / Releases

Milestone Shooting Collection 2 - 2010, Wii (JP)
Sakura Flamingo Archives - 2014, Xbox 360 (JP)
Karous - The Beast of Re:Eden - 2015, 3DS (JP/NA/EU)
Karous - 2025 by RS34, Steam (JP/NA/EU), Switch/PS5 (JP)

References

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

@@ Line 106: / Line 106: @@
 The HP gauge turns red when it is 12 HP or below. If you take damage and the HP reaches zero, you get a game over if you do not continue.
+Continuing resets your score, your HP, and your D.F.S. gauge, but does not reset your weapon levels and experience points.
 <br>
@@ Line 144: / Line 146: @@
 You get more experience if you defeat the captain enemy before any other enemies in the formation, or defeat all enemies in a formation.
-If you do something that results in you getting experience points for a certain weapon, an experience chip of that weapon's color appears where that action takes place and starts flying towards the level display. The size and the appearance of the experience chip indicate how many experience points you get. When it reaches the level display, the experience point is added to your weapon, and the chip is converted to a D.F.S. chip and sent to the D.F.S. gauge.
+If you do something that results in you getting experience points for a certain weapon, an experience chip of that weapon's color appears where that action takes place and starts flying towards the level display. The size and the appearance of the experience chip indicate how many experience points you obtain. When it reaches the level display, the experience point is added to your weapon, and the chip is converted to a D.F.S. chip and sent to the D.F.S. gauge.
 [[File:Karous_experiencechip.png|frame|none|600px|Various shield experience chips: small stars, large stars, stones, small crystals, and large crystals.]]
-Your weapons get more powerful as you level up, but the enemy tables also change and give you stronger enemies and trickier enemy patterns.
+Your weapons become more powerful as you level up, but the enemy tables also change and give you stronger enemies and trickier enemy patterns.
 ====Shot====
@@ Line 170: / Line 172: @@
 |}
 When you hold down your Shot button, forward shots are fired every 8 frames and spread shots are fired every 11 frames. The fire rate is boosted when you [[point-blank]].
-If you use rapid-fire, all shots are fired every 6 frames and deal less damage to enemies. You can use rapid-fire for efficient leveling because of more shots hitting enemies.
+If you use rapid-fire, all shots are fired every 6 frames and deal less damage to enemies. You can use rapid-fire for efficient leveling and filling up the D.F.S. gauge because of more shots hitting enemies.
 ====Sword====
@@ Line 202: / Line 204: @@
 ====D.F.S.====
-If the D.F.S. gauge is full, you can use the entire gauge and activate D.F.S. It deploys a barrier around your machine and makes you invincible for about 3 seconds. Enemies and enemy parts that touch or get in the barrier will be attacked by a D.F.S. worm it generates. When you destroy enemies under the influence of D.F.S., you earn more experience points and a greater increase in the D.F.S. gauge than when they are not infected. When you do not, the D.F.S. worms continuously deal damage for a few seconds after they get out of the barrier, then disappear with bloodshed effects.
+If the D.F.S. gauge is full, you can activate D.F.S. It deploys a barrier around your machine and makes you invincible for about 3 seconds. Enemies and enemy parts that touch or get in the barrier will be attacked by a D.F.S. worm it generates. When you destroy enemies under the influence of D.F.S., you earn more experience points and a greater increase in the D.F.S. gauge than when they are not infected. When you do not, the D.F.S. worms continuously deal damage for a few seconds after they get out of the barrier, then disappear with bloodshed effects.
 Also, all enemy bullets that get in the barrier are converted into experience points.
@@ Line 209: / Line 211: @@
 Defeating an enemy with Shield gives you more D.F.S. refill than doing it with Shot and Sword. Also, you need to kill less enemies to level up Shield compared to other weapons.
-[[File:Karous_weapon_conparison.gif|frame|none|Defeating all enemies of the very first enemy formation in Karous with each weapon and D.F.S.]]
+[[File:Karous_weapon_conparison.gif|frame|none|Defeating all enemies in the very first enemy formation in Karous with Shot (left), Sword (middle), and Shield (right) while D.F.S. is activated. Only Shield can fully recharge the D.F.S. gauge and get to level 3.]]
 ====Weapon Immunity====
@@ Line 241: / Line 243: @@
 ====Career Items====
 A career item is spawned when you defeat an item career.
-Slashing a career item changes it in a more predictable way, so you are likely to get what item you want.
+Slashing a career item changes it in a more predictable way.
 {| class="wikitable"
 |-
@@ Line 270: / Line 272: @@
 ===Difficulty Modes===
 ----
+====Easy Mode====
+You can play the first 3 stages in Easy Mode. Enemies only shoot a small amount of destructible square bullets. One notable feature is that no player input is required to clear this mode. If you start an Easy Mode game and do not use any controls, the flying enemy table is just 9 formations looping for the most part of the game. This happens because you only slowly level up Shield and the enemy tables are stuck at the easiest one. When your Shield reaches level 23 near the end of stage 3, the enemy tables change to the 2nd ones and a different enemy formation appears. Enemies in the 1st and the 2nd enemy tables do not shoot anything, so only item carriers and bosses throw bullets in this no-input playthrough. If you do level up and get harder enemy tables, the enemy attack patterns are still designed so that all enemy bullets either do not hit Defect or are cancelled by Shield if you do not move from the starting position, which is not true in Normal Mode or Hard Mode.
+If you play this mode normally, you can quickly enjoy the destructiveness of high-level weapons, thanks to the faster leveling.
+====Normal Mode====
+You can play all 5 stages in Normal Mode. Enemies are more durable and shoot many more bullets including indestructible round ones. Some bosses in later stages also shoot lasers. Lasers cannot be cancelled by D.F.S. or Shield.
+====Hard Mode====
+You can play all 5 stages in Hard Mode. Enemies are even more durable and enemy bullets are bigger. The bullet count is not increased, so you do not recharge the D.F.S. gauge quicker.
 == Characters ==