RayForce
Title screen
| Developer: | Taito |
|---|---|
| Producer: | Yukio Abe |
| Music: | Tamayo Kawamoto (Zuntata) |
| Release date: | February 1994 (JP) |
| Next game: | Raystorm |
RayForce is a vertically scrolling shooting game developed by Taito for the Taito F3 arcade hardware and released in Japanese arcades in 1994. The game is notable for it's multi-layer gameplay, requring the player to engage with enemies in both the foreground and background layers simultaneously. It has been released in several regions, and under several different names, including Gunlock, Layer Section, and Galactic Attack.
Contents
Gameplay Overview
RayForce is a 2 button game with 8-way movement. The player pilots the RVA-818 X-LAY craft across 7 stages to defeat the malevolent Con-Human supercomputer.
Controls
- A Button: Fire main shot. Hold for autofire.
- B Button: Fire laser
Weapons
Main Shot
The main shot is a linear, rapid fire shot that shoots directly forward, and only hits enemies in the foreground layer. The weapon has 6 power levels, and it can be powered up by collecting red or yellow items during stages (decreases by 1 level on death).
Lock-on Laser
The Lock-on Laser is the central mechanic of Rayforce, and is used to destroy or damage enemies in the background layer. By making use of the targeting reticle located directly in front of the player craft, it is possible to lock-on to several enemies at once. Pressing the B button then shoots homing lasers at each of the acquired targets. The player begins with the ability to lock onto 5 enemies at once, but this can be increased to 8 by collecting the appropriate powerups (decreases by 1 level on death).
When locking on to multiple enemies, an escalating score multiplier is applied to each enemy within the lock on, meaning that this mechanic is crucial to both scoring and survival.
Items
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Red Shot Powerup Collect 3 to power up the Main Shot by 1 level |
 |
Yellow Shot Powerup Collect 1 to immediately power up the Main Shot by 1 level |
 |
Laser Powerup Collect to increase the number of lock-on lasers by 1 |
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Recovery Capsule Appears after dying. May contain either a Red shot powerup, or a Laser powerup |
Stages
STAGE 1: "Red power to pierce through"
STAGE 2: "The gravity of blue side"
STAGE 3: "The phantasm of silver"
STAGE 4: "The fissure of consciouness"
STAGE 5: "Toward the darkness"
STAGE 6: "The end of deep layer"
STAGE 7: "Releasing infinitely"
Scoring
Laser Multiplier
When the player locks on to multiple targets, a score multiplier is applied to each enemy, according to the following table:
| Laser | Multiplier |
| 1st | x1 |
| 2nd | x2 |
| 3rd | x4 |
| 4th | x8 |
| 5th | x16 |
| 6th | x32 |
| 7th | x128 |
| 8th | x256 |
Therefore, the player should aim to always lock onto 8 enemies at a time, and the locks should be constructed such that the most valuable enemies (ie. highest base value) are the final targets to be acquired (ideally in the 7th and 8th slots).
Extends
An extra life is awarded at 1 million points, and then again at 2 million points.
Video References
Ports
Legacy
References
- Primary info provided by JayLab
- Official logo from https://www.taito.co.jp/classics/rayforce
