[レイフォース/レイヤーセクション/Ray Force/Layer Section] Consumer ALL CLEAR [Score: 3,385,200] [CC Commentary]
12I, LOVE, IT! There is no question Ray Force is one of the best shmups ever made!
It's not without cheap jankiness though, but that's for the CC Commentary.
Ray Force is a symbol of polish and precision. People often tout that the game is "innovative" just for the laser lock on thing. While on one hand it's right, what they don't tell you is the game is as primitive as heck! You can only shoot (includes in-game rapid fire at 20 presses per second, don't worry) and the ground lock-on laser! Have you noticed what's missing?
NO BOMBS! NO DIFFERENT SHOT TYPES!
Bombs exist since 1985. Taito themselves put in bombs on their older titles! While Ray Force? Nope! It's back to the Xevious era! In exchange of that the stage design is given polish beyond measure. Well, not the most polished but the variety, routing, openness to various strategies for the same problem, it's both tight and lenient. That's a real feat! Bombs exist to give leeway for the players when they make route mistakes. Meanwhile Ray Force says nope! Plus, the game only gives you 4 lives in total. 5th hit and you're done for. Brutal!
To soothe in the brutality, it has some of the best OSTs around and the visuals, especially when playing with depth, is breathtaking. It still looks great to this day! The depth thing is not only for eye candy. It's part of the stage design. Many enemies flank you from the ground. Some enemies that go underground also can be damaged from above with the laser lock on. Miss some them? You gotta deal with them on air!
The game is the Nintendo Switch port of the Sega Saturn port called Layer Section. City Connection is notorious for their not-so-good ports, but this one is one of their better ones. Good input lag, stage select where the original Saturn release don't have any, the option to toggle super shot on and off (Many other plays actually play with the 30 times per second rapid fire than the in-game rapid fire) and even selecting how the rank behaves like going all low rank or going max rank all the way. No replays, but these are neat!
Certainly give Ray Force a try! But it is very spicy and unforgiving. Be careful!
One more critical difference. Regardless of it's in Consumer or Arcade mode, the extend scores are 0.5mil and 1mil. That means you need to deal with the high rank far earlier than the arcade original. Yikes!
Nintendo eShop:
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/layer-section-and-galactic-attack-s-tribute-switch/
#stg #shmup #nintendoswitch