TWilight refrAIN

TWilight refrAIN is a 2008 shoot-em-up video game made by AQLOOP, and the sequel to TWilight INSanity.

The game has a drastically different vibe than its predecessor, being less sci-fi and more fantasy themed. That said, just like the previous game, this one still revolves around pairs of twins and plays fairly similarly.

Gameplay

Difficulty Options

Just like TWINS, this game features three difficulty modes.
In this game they're called Student, Mage and Master.
The difficulty setting affects your Rank (how hard the game is), and its Adjust Rate (how quickly the difficulty adjusts based on how well you play).

The game is quite difficult even when playing on the lowest option.

Playable Characters Kirishima Twins - One has a spread shot, the other a focused vertical shot.

Mikahashi Twins - Basically the same shot type as the Kirishimas.

Shizukuishi / Shigomori Pair - One has a focused bubble shot which adjusts its angle depending on how you move, the other has spread homing bullets.

Magic Focus When starting a run, you will also be asked to select a type of Magic Focus.
The options are: Attack -> Balance -> Defense.

Attack Magic Focus grants more powerful shots, longer Magic duration, and wider Buzz Radius.
Meanwhile, Defense Magic Focus has cheaper Magic and Auto Magic, as well as a wider Item Draw Radius. Though it comes with the cost of less damage, less Magic duration, and less Buzz Radius.
Balance Magic Focus is the middle ground between the two.

If you're unsure which one to pick here, just stick with the default one (Attack).

Mechanics

Spirit, Magic and Auto Magic
Spirit is a very important resource which you can expend to use Magic.
Using Magic will unleash an extra-strong attack, destroys all bullets on the screen, vacuums items, and temporarily makes your shots stronger.
The game will automatically use Magic when you get hit by an attack. This is called Auto Magic, and it's about twice as expensive as using a Magic manually.
This is the system the game uses instead of lives. If your Spirit ever hits 0, it's game over.

Ring & Story Paths
Just like TWINS, this game has multiple different endings you can get for each pair of characters.
However, in this game, the paths and endings are much simpler to navigate and attain.

In this game, the routes are decided by your Ring Count.

Routes go in this order: Normal, Sad, True.

The higher your ring count is throughout the run, the higher up on that list you'll end up.
Each stage has its own Ring requirement to stay on the higher routes, and if you fail to meet one you'll end up on the route below it.
So, if you want to get the True ending, you must meet every stage's Ring requirement.

To get Stage G3 (True ending), you'll need to have 13+ rings.

Things that affect Ring count:
Dialog choices. Each choice gives a certain amount of Rings, from +0 to +3.
After having chosen a dialog option once, its ring count increase will be permanently revealed (you don't have to remember).
(There is an endings guide linked at the bottom of this page, which tells you how much rings each dialog choice gives.)

Low Corruption Bonus
At the end of each stage, should your P-Rate be below a specific thereshold, you will get +1 Ring.
On the other hand, should P-Rate be too high you will get penalized and lose -1 Ring

Poor Teamwork Penalty Should your twins rate be leaning way too much to either side at the end of a stage, you will lose -2 Rings.

P-Rate P-Rate (or Corruption) is a value that constantly increases, as long as there's enemies on the screen.
The lower your P-Rate, the more Rings you get. So if you're going for the true ending, you'll want to have it as low as possible.

To keep it low, you'll want to defeat enemies as quickly as you can.

After defeating an enemy, a number will appear from them, indicating how fast you defeated them.
The number additionally increases the closer you are to the enemy when it is defeated.
It goes up to X6 on normal enemies, but can reach up to X8 on mid-bosses and bosses.
Specifically, to get the X8, you must be inside the circular zone around the boss.

So, the higher that number is, the more Crystal the enemy has dropped.
Crystal is a small item that is automatically collected, and collecting them lowers P-Rate.

Buzz
Getting close to a bullet makes the counter go up by 1.
At the end of each stage, it will contribute to your score and then reset to 0.

Continue
When you get a game over, you're asked if you want to continue your adventure.
There are unlimited continues, but using any will result in getting a bad ending.

English Patch

Just like TWINS, this game had an English Patch done by Seiha Translations. Later in 2019, two people called 7TC7 and sqrt improved the patch by fixing a crash as well as adding translations for all the bad endings.

Characters

Main article: TWilight refrAIN/Characters

Music

Main article: MELancholy Of DYnast -TWilight refrAIN SOUNDTRACK-

Links

English Patch Patch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M650AzPaxUc Endings Guide by Kiutgh2: https://www.reddit.com/r/shmups/comments/1n4y3y1/twilight_refrain_endings_guide/