Giga Wing 2
Title screen
| Developer: | Takumi |
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| Music: | Yasushi Kaminishi |
| Program: | Yoshitaka Kobayashi Naoaki Hashimoto Yuichirou Sarou Kazuo Ikeda Ryo Hasegawa |
| Art: | Kei Toume |
| Release date: | 2000 |
| Previous game: | Giga Wing |
| Next game: | Mars Matrix: Hyper Solid Shooting |
Giga Wing 2 (ギガウイング2) is a vertical shooting game developed and published in 2000 by Takumi. Developed for Sega's Naomi board, it is a 3D sequel to Giga Wing. It was eventually ported to the Dreamcast. Players take control of one of four pilots to quell a civil war in the nation of Serbenia, where the two sides fight for control of an ancient Ark of great magical power. The battle rages over seven stages, from the streets of Serbenia's capital to the mysterious tower where the Ark is held.
Like its predecessor, Giga Wing 2 utilizes the Reflect Force mechanic, which allows players to activate a shield and reflect enemy bullets back to create medals. Generating enough medals on-screen at once will result in a large explosion of point items dubbed a "Volcanon." Grabbing score items increases your multiplier, which every enemy's value is multiplied against. This results in the series trademark of truly "Giga" scores, jumping into the quintillions of points.
The Dreamcast port is unique in that it offers 4 player cooperative play, a rarity in the genre.
For replay videos, visit the Video Index.
Contents
Gameplay Overview
Giga Wing 2 is a 2 Button game
- A Button (Press): Shot; light tapping will result in a full stream of fire.
- A Button (Hold): Reflect Force (when meter is full; recharges over time)
- B Button: Bomb (limited quantity)
The Dreamcast port adds a button for dedicated autofire.
Reflect Force
The series' main mechanic is the Reflect Force. Holding down the shot button will cause a shield to envelop the player ship. While this shield is activated, the player is invulnerable to enemy fire (including non-bullet attacks; e.g. missiles, lasers, fire). Depending on the type of Reflect Force chosen, bullets absorbed by the shield will react in different ways.
- Reflect Barrier: The mainstay mechanic of the series. When the Barrier is activated, bullets that hit it will reflect back towards enemies. If the player is not moving, the bullets will fly back at the angle they hit the ship. If the player is moving, the bullets will be guided along at the angle the player moves. Because the player can control and manipulate enemy medal spawns with more precision, the Reflect Barrier is often the weapon of choice for more advanced players.
- Reflect Laser: New to Giga Wing 2. When activated, the Reflect Laser's shield will absorb enemy bullets, rather than reflect them back. This charges a homing laser attack; the more bullets absorbed, the more enemies targeted/the stronger the laser. These lasers generate medals from enemies. The Laser is generally seen as friendlier towards beginners since no angling of enemy bullets is needed. However, this lack of control comes with a scoring tradeoff. While scoring potential is lower on some stages and bosses, others (e.g stage 4, the Sanctuary) seem to offer higher potential for the Reflect Laser vs. the Reflect Barrier.
Approximately 3/4 through the Reflect Force's activation, the shield will contract before growing rapidly and dissipating. The player needs to carefully manipulate this short window of time to reposition the barrier hitbox to hit more enemy bullets in order to maximize its effectiveness.
Items
Certain enemies will drop items when destroyed.
| Item | Base Score Value | Description |
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Stages
The game takes place over 7 stages. The stage order of the first three stages (Cloud Sea, Factory, Capitol) is determined by your choice of pilot. While enemy formations remain the same regardless of order, stage placement alters the amount of bullets fired by enemies, which affects each character's overall scoring potential.
| Character | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 |
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Unlockable Secrets
Characters/Ships
Giga Wing 2 offers 5 playable characters, and each character has 2 ships, for a total of 10 selectable ships. Each character starts with a default ship, and their secret ship is unlocked by 1ccing the game with the default ship (or by entering the unlock code in the Unlockable Secrets section). Every character has a unique bomb and stage order for the first three stages. Additionally your choice of ship will affect your main shot and movement speed.
| Kart | Default Ship | Secret Ship |
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| Bomb: SPAAAAAARK BOMBAAAAAAA
Stage Order: Cloud City | Factory | Capitol Both of Kart's ships have easy to use shots, and he starts with the Cloud City stage which is arguably the easiest to get a high score multiplier out of. This makes Kart a great choice for both beginner and advanced players. However both of his ships have the worst movement speed in the game, which makes optimal medal collecting difficult at the top level. | ||
| Romi | Default Ship | Secret Ship |
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| Bomb: Wing Bomber - Damages everything to the left and right of Romi
Stage Order: Factory | Cloud City | Capitol Romi has two very appealing ships. Sparrow has fast movement speed and a precise shot that's good for taking out single targets. On the other hand Porchka Dash is a good beginner ship due to its homing missiles. Unfortunately she has the worst stage order in the game, which hampers her scoring potential. | ||
| Limi | Default Ship | Secret Ship |
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| Bomb: Wing Bomber - Damages everything to the left and right of Limi
Stage Order: Capitol | Factory | Cloud City Raven is a rather unremarkable ship, but Neo Stranger is without a doubt the strongest ship in the game. It has by far the highest damage output at max power, and it also has the fastest movement speed. Unfortunately like her sister Romi, Limi's stage order is hard to optimize for score. She's the highest scoring character at the top level, but getting those high scores requires a lot of precision. Don't let that stop you from using her though, as her high damage is great for anyone looking for a clear, and her score routes are rewarding to anyone willing to put in the effort. | ||
| Chery | Default Ship | Secret Ship |
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| Bomb: Prominis Bomber - A blast of fire that damages everything in front of Chery
Stage Order: Cloud City | Capitol | Factory Chery has strong ships for both survival and scoring. Stork is a good survival ship thanks to its homing shot, although its low damage means enemies and bosses will stay on screen a bit longer. On the other hand Carmine Plus' high speed is good for medal collecting, and like Kart she starts with the Cloud City stage which is great for racking up a high score multiplier out of the gate. | ||
| Ralugo | Default Ship | Secret Ship |
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| Bomb: Gravity Bomber - Summons a black hole that damages everything near the center of the screen
Stage Order: Capitol | Cloud City | Factory Both of Ralugo's ships have unique shot types that differ greatly from the rest of the cast. Albatross deals damage to everything in close range, while Widerstand 2's mines can be aimed to the sides for some large screen coverage. Ralugo is the least straightforward of all the characters to play, but offers some interesting routing to anyone willing to experiment with him. | ||
Scoring
Score Multiplier
The primary driver of score in Giga Wing 2 is the Score Multiplier. Every time you kill an enemy, pick up an item, or do something else which increases your score, the base score value is first multiplied by the score multiplier. This applies to everything from killing enemies to picking up medals to even tick points.
Because the score multiplier can go as high as 999,999,999, increasing your score multiplier can quickly cause your score to skyrocket. You increase your score multiplier by picking up medals, as described below.
Medals and the Medal Combo
Medals have both a base score value and a medal combo value. Every time you pick up a medal, the combo value is added to your current medal combo; your total medal combo is then added to your score multiplier.
For example, say you pick up three +1 medals followed by a +5 medal. Your score multiplier would increase by 1, 1+1, 1+1+1, then 1+1+1+5, resulting in a final increase of +14.
The medal combo resets to 0 at the beginning of each stage or after every death. Because each medal adds the total of your medal combo, later medals will be worth much more than earlier medals. The first medal you pick up may only add +1 to your score multiplier, while a single medal at the end of a stage can be worth tens-of-thousands if you manage not to die.
Medals stop adding to your score multiplier once the multiplier maxes out. However, you still get the base point value from picking up medals.
Most enemies drop a medal when they're killed. However the main way to generate medals is with the Reflect Force. For the Reflect Barrier, you get a +1 medal for each bullet reflected at an enemy. For Reflect Laser, you get a +1 medal each time the laser hits an enemy. Reflect Laser does 1 hit for each bullet you absorb (up to a max of 256).
Volcanons
Unique to Giga Wing 2 is the Volcanon mechanic. Anytime at least 110 medals are displayed on screen, all of the medals on screen will explode into 10-13 volcanon medals. Due to the aforementioned Medal Combo system, properly triggering volcanons will quickly increase your score multiplier, as the more medals you pick up, the more you'll get to add to your score multiplier.
The number of volcanon medals a single "regular" medal generates is based on the type of medal it is. Also note that volcanon medals don't count towards the 110-medal requirement, nor do volcanon medals split into more volcanon medals.
Medal Values
| Base Score Value | Combo Value | Volcanon Medals Generated | |
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