[レイストーム/RayStorm] R-GRAY 1 Arcade NeoHD ALL CLEAR (Rapid Fire ON) [Score: 5,089,700] [CC Commentary]
6RayForce is great and all, but how to make it... better?
From legend to myth, of course!
Enter RayStorm, its 3D sequel that cranks everything RayForce have to 11! When I said everything, this includes THE JANKS! As far as my clears go among the shmups, this game received my highest degree of both LOVE and HATE! Yeah, the Stockholm Syndrome is in high gear here!
With R-Gray 1 on the surface RayStorm is RayForce but in 3D and 4:3 playfield. Shot and laser are still intact. But there is more than that. The most notable one is the addition of Bomb, dubbed Special Attack. It's your usual bomb but while it can be recharged, you can only stock up 1 at a time. You can only recharge it by hitting things with the lock on laser, which makes fun routing considerations! Yes, compared to its peers like DonPachi and Battle Garegga, it's VERY STINGY with its bomb! Granted, the bomb returns to full when you die and likely you can recharge your bomb back at 50% of the stage progress, but if you deploy the bomb at the wrong time, you're screwed. No, don't think this game as a no-bomb game like DoDonPachi. You MUST USE BOMBS! Otherwise you'll go insane! In fact, I think the team was forced to implement bombs. Bombs were in vogue when RayForce was out, after all, and the stage design showed. They don't like bombs, so they would treat the bomb as get-out-of-jail free ammo for specific moments.
Wait, there is more! There are important properties to consider about the bomb:
1. The i-frames are instant. Thank goodness.
2. On the AoE it gives good damage.
3. It doesn't cancel out any bullets.
No, take a good look. THE BOMB DOES NOT ERASE ANY BULLETS! Considering the game, I don't hate their decision. Overall as a defensive tool the bomb in this game is still very useful. Also still being able to read the bullets is actually great at maintaining the pattern rhythm? But be careful to not be in the cluster of bullets when the i-frames are gone.
There are 2 new movesets that you can use. Now you can lock on to aerial enemies! This opens up attacking options significantly! Though on the other hand if you're not aggressive with it you're out. Then the Hyper Laser. If you manage to land all of your available lock ons unto a single target, the lock on lasers will EXPLODE, dealing not only great damage, but also gives out AoE explosion which is far more important than you think! On several moments, it's far more beneficial to home in the Hyper Laser than rapidly launch the laser. Good stuff!
But at what cost? No extends. 3 lives only! Strike 3, YOU'RE OUT! Well, ok, there is the very reliable bomb, so not that big of a deal. As you may guess, the reason to its notorious difficulty is the stage design! How bad can it get?
- Random spawns
- Very noticable max Rank
- Random bullet patterns
- Tight patterns sprinkled with randomness!?
- Random Stage 5 boss attacks!!??
- R-GRAY 1'S RANDOM HYPER LASER AoE!!!!!????
- EVEN WHEN IT'S NOT RANDOM, THE ROUTING IS BRUTAL!!!!!
- CRYPTIC SOLUTIONS!?!?!?!?!?!?
- SUPER DUPER CRYPTIC FINAL BOSS WITH INSANELY CRYPTIC WEAKPOINT(S)!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????!!!!!#q@#$@#
People often mention Gradius III to be the most notorious within the Gradius series. It's jank! But it has this super precise jankiness that makes it super satisfying to beat and solve. RayStorm is like that, albeit not in Gradius III's degree. Hitbox exploits, specific routing, different strategies depending on your Rank, it's a special feeling where you can say SCREW YOU!!! to the game with glee. And since it's a polished game, there is enough consistency to find out consistent ways to deal with the cursed RNG spots. And at a basic level, it's just feels great to play. Feels so wrong, yet so right!
Not to mention, the OST is as usual, godly. I even shed tears on one of the tracks. It's that beautiful :'( The graphics look kinda outdated thanks to the PS1 artifacts, but it's alleviated by its great camera direction that is surprisingly more helpful than not because unlike Eschatos it won't put you in danger when the camera is going crazy, and while the slanted angle is very weird, it's not that hard to adapt and very useful at aiming ground enemies!
If you ask me which is the better game, certainly RayForce! It's very fair in comparison! But RayStorm is just much more fun the more you dig into it. RayStorm is for junkies only! BEWARE!
This is the Ray'z Arcade Chronology port by M2. No stage practice but there is the lock on timer widget and the RANK WIDGET. Strategies change depending on your Rank, so being able to clearly see your Rank is a godsend! There is also the flavor text widget that describes the stage, which is adorable! MUCH RECOMMENDED!
Disappointingly though, at the time of release playing as R-GRAY 2 would randomly crash the game. That is the worst thing M2 has ever done :( I think R-GRAY 2 fares better on later stages.
Nintendo eShop:
https://store-jp.nintendo.com/list/software/70010000053679.html
#stg #shmup #nintendoswitch
Other Videos By Weeb Nerd Gaming
Other Statistics
RayStorm Statistics For Weeb Nerd Gaming
Weeb Nerd Gaming presently has 218 views for RayStorm across 1 video, with his channel publishing less than an hour of RayStorm content. This is less than 0.30% of the total video content that Weeb Nerd Gaming has uploaded to YouTube.