Border Down
Title screen
| Developer: | G.Rev |
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| Music: | Yasuhisa Watanabe |
| Program: | Katsuyuki Fujita |
| Art: | Hideyuki Kato Tsukasa Kado |
| Release date: | 2003 |
| Next game: | Senko no Ronde |
Border Down is a horizontal scrolling shooting game released by G.Rev in 2003 for SEGA's Naomi arcade board.
G.Rev, founded by Hiroyuki Maruyama, and staffed by former Taito employees that worked on games in the Darius and Ray series, was created to develop arcade shooters. Maruyama developed Border Down with the intention of creating a spiritual successor to Metal Black. The team's past work appears in many of the game' mechanics. The most notable, the beam duel, shows influence from not only Metal Black, but also G-Darius, and the homing lasers on tapping are similar to mechanics in the Ray series. As in the Darius games, there are multiple stages, but the path is determined by the player's decisions in playing each stage, as well as their overall scoring in each stage.
The game was first released in arcades on the Naomi GD board in April 2003, later getting a limited release on the Dreamcast in September 2003.
For replay videos, visit the Video Index.
Contents
Gameplay Overview
- Horizontal orientation
- 1 player
- 8-direction movement with 3 buttons
- Lives tied to Border mechanic
- No Loop. Average run lasts around 40 minutes
Controls
- A (Press): Fires a single shot forward and a homing shot. The amount of homing lasers is based on shot level.
- A (Hold): Auto-Fire forward shot. The width of the forward shot is based on shot level.
- B (Press): Fires the laser for a brief period of time.
- B (Hold): Fires the laser until released or power is depleted.
- C: Cycle speed level.
Weapons
While "Breaking" enemy bullets and dueling enemy beams, the rate that the beam depletes the shot power is reduced.
Items
There is one type of item in Border Down, orbs that power up your ship's shot level. These orbs can be found by destroying certain containers, which will always cause two orbs to spawn.
When the player borders down, two orbs are spawned on restart.
Rank
Rank is determined in three ways
- The initial choice of border
- How well the player is performing
- Bordering Up or Down
It affects the number of enemies that appear[1][2].
For Bosses rank affects shot types and the amount of shots or total complexity of a pattern.
On game start, the player is offered three choices of difficulty, Green being the easiest and Red being the hardest.
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Each stage is broken up into three sections
- Part A
- Part B
- Boss
If the player passes a section without Bordering Down, the rank will increase.
If a player is hit during a section, and they are not on Border Red, they will Border Down, and the rank will decrease.
If the player earns enough score by stage end to get the NORM clear, choosing to Border Up will cause rank to increase.
| Score Breakdown of Stage 2 | Detail of Border Path | Rank Explanation |
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In this image, stage 2 has just been cleared on Border Red, with the NORM clear fulfilled. The player began on Yellow Border and did not Border Down in the three sections of stage 1, increasing the rank over each section. The player then Bordered Up to Green, increasing the rank, then Bordered Down to Yellow, decreasing the rank for section 2 of stage 2, and then Bordered Down to Red, decreasing the rank on the boss of stage 2. With the NORM clear requirements satisfied, the player may choose to Border Up to Yellow, increasing the rank. |
Scoring
In addition to destroying enemies and obstacles, scoring is multiplied by two important modifiers
- "Breaking" enemy bullets with the laser
- How close the Timer is to 0 when a boss is killed
When using the beam, the player can "break" enemy bullets, as well as start a beam duel with enemy beams. Both of these situations increase the Break meter in the lower right corner, which is added to the score twice: first, when an enemy is destroyed by the beam while the break multiplier is active, the flat score value is multiplied by the break value; second, the game adds up a total Break amount for the stage, which is then multiplied by 5000 on stage clear.
| Breaking Enemy Bullets | Dueling Boss Beams |
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When fighting bosses, a timer counts down in the upper right corner. The closer to 0 the timer is when the boss is defeated, the more bonus points the player receives on stage clear. Going over will decrease the total amount of bonus points possible, and at a certain point, the timer bonus will go into the negatives, with that being subtracted from the break score on stage clear. If the timer reaches -30, the stage ends, whether or not the boss has been defeated, and no bonus points are rewarded.
| Timer Above 0 (Early) | Timer Above 0 | Timer Below 0 | Timer Below 0 (Late) |
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| Defeating the boss with a large amount of time left provides decent bonus score, but not enough to satisfy a NORM clear. | When much closer to 0, the bonus score, alongside the break bonus, is enough to satisfy a NORM clear | When a boss is defeated after the timer has passed zero, the amount of bonus points starts decreasing, but when combined with a decent break score, the NORM clear requirements are satisfied | If the timer ticks too far beyond 0, the bonus is subtracted from the total score, ruining any chance of satisfying the requirements for a NORM clear. |
Strategy
See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.
This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.
(Currently evaluating whether or not this specific section should even include information outside of the separated Strategy pages. Worth thinking about as a community.)
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
The Dreamcast port has stage select and a Remix mode.
Trivia
- The "POWER-UP" voice clip comes from RayStorm.
Gallery
See (Template Page)/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.
References & Contributors
