Solite Spirits

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Solite Spirits

Title screen

Developer:	Team Muhaha
Publisher:	Promat
Director:	Sung Jung Woo
Producer:	Lee Hyung Kee Sung Jung Woo
Music:	Lee Seung Woo
Program:	Sung Jung Woo
Art:	Kim Tae Wook Lee Dong Ik Woo Sang Gyun
Designer:	Sung Jung Woo Kim Tae Wook Lee Dong Ik
Release date:	1999

Solite Spirits is a vertical scrolling shoot em' up developed by Team Muhaha and published by Promat in 1999.

1945k III, a later revision of the game, was published by Oriental Software the following year.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Solite Spirits uses 2 buttons. It has 6 stages with a single loop. Pretty much the entire gameplay is based on Psikyo's Strikers 1945 series (Strikers 1945 II and Psikyo are even mentioned during the credits).

Controls

• A button (Press): Fires the player's weapons.
• A button (Hold): Fires the player's charge shot.
• B button (Press): Activates the player's bomb.

Weapons

Shot

The player's primary weapon. It increases in width and gains a sub-shot by collecting power-ups. It takes 4 power-ups to max out the shot, afterwards every item collected grants 10,000pts.

Charge shot

A higher damaging attack can be performed by holding the A button, determined by the gauge at the bottom of the screen. The charge gauge has 3 differents levels: blue, yellow and red. Charge shots can be used as long as the gauge is above blue and become stronger the more it is filled. Higher levels deplete a larger amount, with a maxed out charged shot depleting the entire gauge.

Enemy collision isn't deadly, but drains about 1/4 of the charge gauge.

Bomb

Bombs can be activated as long as the player has bombs in stock. They mostly consist of support planes that block enemy attacks and may fire back.

Ships

F-15
Speed: Slow. Shot: Narrow. Sub-shot: Missiles that travel forward. Charge shot: Fires a continue wave beam. Bomb: Summons 2 large bomber planes that shoot at enemies.

EF2000
Speed: Slow. Shot: Narrow. Sub-shot: 2 projectiles that travel forward. Charge shot: Fires a phoenix that pierces through enemies. Bomb: Large piercing laser.

Rafale
Speed: Fast. Shot: Narrow. Sub-shot: Releases homing boomerangs. Charge shot: Fires a plasma orb that stops in place once it touches an enemy. Bomb: Summons a large bomber plane.

SU-37
Speed: Fast. Shot: Narrow. Sub-shot: Orbs that move in a zig-zag pattern. Charge shot: Releases a drone that fires at enemies. Bomb: Summons a large bomber plane that fires at enemies.

F-14
Speed: Medium. Shot: Wide. Sub-shot: Bullets fired diagonally in sets of 2. Charge shot: Miniature F-14 stays in place shooting. Bomb: Summons 4 planes that fire forward.

F-22
Speed: Fast. Shot: Wide. Sub-shot: 2 small missiles travel forward. Charge shot: Time stop. Bomb: Several planes carpet bomb the screen.

F-2A
Speed: Fast. Shot: Wide. Sub-shot: Releases homing orbs. Charge shot: Option that stays in place using a flamethrower. Bomb: Summons 6 planes that shoot forward.

Tornado
Hidden ship #1. Speed: Slow. Shot: Wide. Sub-shot: Releases homing boomerangs. Charge shot: Fires several missiles forward. Bomb: Summons 5 large bomber planes that shoot forward.

SE-11L
Hidden ship #2 Speed: Fast. Shot: Narrow. Sub-shot: Releases homing boomerangs. Charge shot: Fires a missile that behaves like Rafale's plasma orb once it collides with an enemy. Bomb: Same as Rafale's.

There aren't any secret codes to select either of the hidden ships. However, the random selection always highlights in the same order, being possible to develop a timing for it.

Items

Item	Description
	Power-up Powers up the player's weapons.
	Bomb Adds a bomb.
	Bonus Score item.

Scoring

While there is a major scoring bug, the scoring system revolves around picking up bonus items with the right timing. These are found in spades throughout the game via destructible scenery and defeated enemies. The items go through several slot machine bonuses each awarding a different value, following a cycle of Plum->Bell->Watermelon->Cherry->Bar->7. This cycle then goes in reverse and starts over. Each bonus lasts for 8 frames.

Icon	Points
	100
	200
	500
	1,000
	2,000
	3,000

Bugs

Scoring bug

Scoring bug present in the stage 3 boss. For whatever reason, the phase transition during this encounter can only happen after the boss performs its laser attack. The bug occurs when the player has dealt enough damage to defeat the boss before this forced transition, causing the boss to instead award its destruction value (30k) every frame it is taking damage for the remainder of this phase. The general setup is to use a maxed charge shot + bomb, although due to damage differences not every ship will earn the same amount of points. For example, the Tornado and F-22 can achieve the most out of this bug, while the Rafale is at a massive disadvantage because its bomb deals no damage.

A demonstration of this bug can be seen here (timestamp 6:00):

Others

• Sometimes, the B button stops activating bombs, even if the player still has bombs in stock. This disappears after the player either loses a life or finishes a stage.
• When playing as the F-14, crashing into an enemy will make the ship's sprite change to the Tornado. This bug also happens with the F-22, the F-2A and the Tornado.