AngerForce: Reloaded
Title screen
| Developer: | Screambox Studio |
|---|---|
| Official site: | Screambox Studio |
| Music: | Person A |
| Program: | Person B |
| Art: | Person C |
| Release date: | 2019-04-02 |
| Previous game: | AngerForce: Strikers |
| Next game: | Ancient Abyss |
AngerForce: Reloaded is a vertical scrolling shooter by the Chinese indie studio Screambox Studio. It is very remeniscent of 1990’s arcade shooters (e.g. from Psikyo), but it includes a lot of its own character, such as through its high-definition cartoonish look and by including an interesting mix of mechanics.
Contents
Gameplay Overview
Controls
On Nintendo Switch:
Movement is 8-way via left analogue stick or the D-pad.
- A (tap): Single shot main weapon
- A (hold): Charging energy
- B: Bomb
- Y: Auto-shot main weapon
- L: Left special attack
- R: Right special attack
- ZL: Slow down movement
- ZR: Speed up movement
Modes and difficulties
There are three single-player modes in AngerForce: Reloaded and a Local Co-Op mode.
Campaign
Campaign is the story mode and its biggest difference to the Arcade mode is that it has an optional leveling-up system in place. During the game certain enemies will drop blue-ish glowing orb pick-ups. These can then be spent between the stages to buy health, bombs, and/or energy charge. Should you die, you can use a certain amount of orbs to buy a continue. Continues can be used once per stage and the higher the stage, the more costly they are.
After you die/finish your run, you can spend any remaining orbs to level up either specific character’s skills (e.g. faster special attack) or general skills skills shared between all (e.g. temporary immunity). For descriptions see AngerForce: Reloaded/Campaign Upgrades.
Beating the game at each difficulty presents the player with a new story cutscene for the character they play as, and unlocks a difficulty above it.
- Noob difficulty consists of 3 stages and has a moderate amount of bullets of relatively slow speed.
- Normal difficulty consists of 5 stages and has a moderate mount of bullets at normal speed. The bosses now include an additional enraged mode.
- Veteran difficulty consists of 7 stages and apart from that makes bullets faster and denser than in Normal mode.
- Expert difficulty consists of 7 stages with the addition of new random enemies that appear in each stage. Contains faster and denser bullets than in Veteran mode.
Practice
Practice mode lets you play through the stages and difficulties that you already unlocked in Campaign mode, and all upgrades that you enabled in Campaign mode apply.
Arcade
In Arcade mode there is only one difficulty and it spans all 7 stages (I assume, I haven’t beaten it yet). In addition there are no continues, so you either 1CC it or die trying.
Between each stage you may chose one of three upgrades offered to you.
If you collect more health points than your characters maximum health, you will start saving up for unlocking a new HP. See Items.
Local Co-Op
Like Campaign mode, but for two players.
The upgrades, score, combo counters and continues are shared between the players.
Health, energy and bomb stock are per player though.
Characters
There are four playable characters:
- Asimo
- Echo
- Samhill
- Shin
Each character has their own stats and weapons. They each have their own stories and reasons why they are angry, but their individual stories intertwine into a coherent overarching explanation of what happened to the world they reside in.
Asimo
Asimo is an intelligent robot who is out for revenge to track down and annihilate whomever killed his human family. His play style can be described as a tank, as he has the most health.
Character stats:
- attack: 3-4
- health: 4
Asimo’s main weapon is a reletively weak wide spread shot that has 5 prongs and at its furthers span ⅔ of the screen width.
His Left special weapon is a Laser Gun that Asimo deploys on the screen (it stays static), which damages all enemies that come into contact with its forward shooting beam, with the following stats:
- radius: 5
- power: 2
- energy cost: 2
His Right special weapon is called Chain Lightning and it shoots two lightning balls that are connected with a chain and progress forward. It damages all emenies in its path, and has the following stats:
- radius: 5
- power: 3-4
- energy cost: 4
Asimo’s bomb is a powerful laser that Asimo shoots and can move with him for as long as it lasts. As all other bombs in this game, it clears all the bullets on the screen. To acquire a bomb on an empty stock, Asimo needs to fill up the bomb gauge in Campaign mode to 35, for the second bomb to 38, then 42 for the third, 46 for fourth, etc. In Arcade mode the bombs are much more expensive and limited to just three stock, with the first bomb costing 57, the second 62, and the third bomb __.
Echo
Echo is the dauther of the owner of Masck industries – the largest intelligent machine manufacturer – who was assassinated. She grew up with her grandfather in the countryside. After her grandfather died, people started accusing her family of being responsible for the Robot Rebellion, which made her angry and pushed her to pursue the truth. Her play style can be described as a glass cannon assassin, as she has the strongest attacks, but least health.
Character stats:
- attack: 5
- health: 2
Echo’s main weapon is a powerful straight shot.
Her Left special weapon is a Shotgun that deals damage to all enemies within its short (cca. ½ screen height) conical shot range, with the following stats:
- radius: 2-3
- power: 4
- energy cost: 2
Her Right special weapon is a Mine that slowly floats upwards and exploads on impact with the first enemy. Upon explosion it deals a great amount of damage to all enemies within its range, and has the following stats:
- radius: 4
- power: 5
- energy cost: 5
Echo’s bomb drops several bombs in a random pattern. As all other bombs in this game, it clears all the bullets on the screen. To acquire a bomb on an empty stock, Echo needs to fill up the bomb gauge in Campaign mode to 35, for the second bomb to 38, then 41 for the third, 46 for fourth, etc. In Arcade mode the bombs are much more expensive and limited to just three stock, with the first bomb costing 57, the second 62, and the third bomb __.
Samhill
Samhill grew up on the street until the Doctor took him in. One day the Doctor was assassinated in front of Samhill’s eyes, which lead him to grow angry at himself for not being powerful enough to save the Doctor. That anger lead to his vendetta against the (robot) world. Samhill plays like a good all-rounder.
Character stats:
- attack: 4
- health: 4
Samhill’s main weapon is a relatively powerful straight shot.
His Left special weapon is a sword Slash that deals great damage to all enemies within its melee range (cca. ⅓ screen height), with the following stats:
- radius: 3
- power: 4
- energy cost: 3
His Right special weapon is to cast three Fireballs that shoot upwards, and have the following stats:
- radius: 5
- power: 3
- energy cost: 2
Samhill’s bomb covers the whole screen. As all other bombs in this game, it clears all the bullets on the screen. To acquire a bomb on an empty stock, Samhill needs to fill up the bomb gauge in Campaign mode to 31, for the second bomb to 34, then 36 for the third, 40 for fourth, etc. In Arcade mode the bombs are much more expensive and limited to just three stock, with the first bomb costing 49, the second 54, and the third bomb __.
Shin
Shin belongs to a race of island-dwelling race of short, nature-magic-wielding, antropomorphic fox-like people. After an unknown perpetrator attacked their forrest village and stole their sacred artefact known as the Miracle, Shin has agreed to accept the role of his people’s Guardian and to retrieve the Miracle by any cost – even his own life. Shin can be desribed as a wizard-style character to play.
Character stats:
- attack: 3
- health: 3
Shin’s main weapon is a weak slightly spread shot, which has 5 almost vulcan-like prongs that at its furthers span cca. ½ of the screen width.
His Left special weapon is a melee Leaf Shield that deals some damage to enemies and neutralises bullets within its melee range (cca. ⅕ screen height). In Campaign mode you can upgrade it so for every 4 (upgradable down to 2) amount of bullets neutralised this way a weak homing shot will trigger. These homing bullets can be very beneficial on Veteran difficulty. This special has the following stats:
- radius: 2
- power: 3
- energy cost: 3
His Right special weapon is to summon The Ancient Guardian who upon appearance stays static and casts a wide (cone?) attack in front of him, with the following stats:
- radius: 4
- power: 5
- energy cost: 4
Shin’s bomb is a leaf storm that covers the whole screen. As all other bombs in this game, it clears all the bullets on the screen. To acquire a bomb on an empty stock, Shin needs to fill up the bomb gauge in Campaign mode to 39, for the second bomb to 43, then 46 for the third, 51 for fourth, etc. In Arcade mode the bombs are much more expensive and limited to just three stock, with the first bomb costing 63, the second 69, and the third bomb __.
Weapons
Each playable character has a different main shot and two secondary special attacks, which each consume a different amount of charge. The bomb also differs from character to character, but they are all of the screen-clearing type.
You collect energy charge either by collecting the purple gems or charging by pressing your main shot (not the auto-fire). The amount of energy needed for each special attack is shown next to its attack’s icon. For better usability, you can also see on the left and right side respectively of your character with your current charge how many special attacks of each type you can spend.
Whenever you use a special attack, the bomb gauge charges up by as many charge points as you consumed to fire thas special attack. Once the bomb gauge fills up, you gain an extra bomb. The amount of energy needed to be consumed to gain a bomb varies from character and how much bombs you currently have in stock – the more bombs you have, the higher the cost of a new one (see #Characters for details).
Items
Purple gems charge up your energy.
Before a boss battle you can choose between two: health pods on the left; bomb pods or charge pods on the right.
In Arcade mode, whenever you pick up (or buy) an extra health pick-up while your health is already at its current maximum, a second bar will start filling below your actual health bar. If you fill up that second bar (i.e. collect as many extra health pods as your max health currently is) you will gain one more health point to your actual health bar.
Example: Shin has 3 HP at first, if he gets 3 extra HP at full HP, the maximum HP number will grow to 4. And then he will need to get 4 extra to grow to 5, etc.
(In Campaign and Practice mode extra HP pick-ups turn into bonus score points though.)
Scoring
The game presents score page per stage and per full run in both Campaign and Arcade modes.
The score consists of:
- enemies shoot down and stars/medals/HP/bombs collected?
- bonus for a high shot down rate culminating at all enemies cleared – 50.000 for above 80%, 100.000 for aboxe 90%, 180.000 for above 95%, and 300.000 for an “all kill”
- combo bonus
- bonus for remaining bombs 50.000 points/bomb
- bonus for remaning HP, starting with 5.000 for 1 HP left and doubling that score for each additional HP (e.g. 10.000 for 2 HP, and 80.000 for 5 HP)
Silver stars are worth 500 points. Silver medals 1.000 points Gold medals are worth 2.500 points. Medals are obtained by killing enemies with specials or bombs.
Any HP or bomb picked up over your full stock is worth 10.000 points.
Killing enemies with special attacks raises your Special Kill Rank, which acts as a score multiplier that can go up to 5x.
Combo bonus is achieved by chaining special attacks. Each time you hit an enemy with a special attack, you gain a bonus and then a countdown starts. If you hit another enemy with a special attack before it runs out, you continue the combo. (As discussed in Weapons section this also counts towards the bomb gauge.)
At every stage and run it gives you a rating spaning from D to SSS.
Unlockable Secrets
By playing Campaign you can unlock story-related information for each character, by collecting scrolls hidden in the level. These are obtained by shooting a drone carrying a letterbox that pops up somewhere in the level.
By finishing the Campaign mode with each character on different difficulties, you learn more and more about their story as well.
The memories contained in the scroll items and the animations from the story can be found under Collection in the main menu.
Strategy
See AngerForce:_Reloaded/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.
In general the big ballancing act is between conserving energy to power maintain a steady supply for special attacks and using said special attacks to kill enemies as often as possible in order to keep up the combo chain, raise the score multiplier and charge up extra bombs.
Story
Basic story breakdowns, plot information, and endings are included here.
If there is no story at all, or any information about the setting, then this section can be omitted. Try to include at least small things here when you can.
Development History
If available, you can include information here about the hardware, the development of the game, and its general reception. Try to have as much information in this section cited as possible.
Version Differences
- Include information here about differences in a game between various versions. This includes regional differences, patch updates/bugfixes, and the like.
Trivia
An earlier version of this game was first created for mobile iOS under the name AngerForce: Strikers, which explains the “Reloaded” part of the name. While visually very similar, Strikers does seem like a much earlier iteration of what later turned out as Reloaded, as not only polish but also a big overhaul of the game mechanics and stages has been done in Reloaded.
Gallery
See (Template Page)/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.
Other
The game (at least on Nintendo Switch) has also support for vertical screen orientation both in 90° and 270° rotation, which makes it compatible with the FlipGrip. Unfortunately this only applies to the action part of the game, and not the menus; so the orientation flips back and forth in Campaign mode.
References & Contributors
- ”AngerForce: Reloaded Review” video by Shmups On Switch
- The Search for the Greatest Shmup: Episode 9 – AngerForce: Reloaded
- Personal experience by Hook and enquiry of the developer on this topic, also recorded in this thread on shmups.system11.org forum
