DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I loved the ending sequence

Same.

Spoiler

Poor Gehnie, tho. ;w;

It reminds me of some of the cool perspective tricks Battle Traverse does during the Stage 2, 3, 5, and TLB bosses. There's some really neat stuff hori doujins have experimented with that I can't think of in any arcade games. Having a gigantic enemy chasing after you in the background is intense stuff.

Maybe not your cup of tea, but I quite enjoyed it, and to reduce it to "trash" is quite something.

Really, the only issues with the difficulty are for the hardcore/arcade style players. It's perfectly fun even if it's on the easier side, and the customization is nice to mess with. The difficulties honestly do a great job of making the game approachable for more beginner/casual players.

[Jonpachi]

PSA: There IS an Arcade mode hidden in here. You have to slog through two loops of the main game, but then you'll get a few unlocks:

[Bassa-Bassa]

So Ridiculous and Arcade hard aren't available from the get-go even after the update!?

[Jonpachi]

So Ridiculous and Arcade hard aren't available from the get-go even after the update!?

I don't think so. I was doing this just the other night, and had to beat the game fully to unlock them. I'm on Switch.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's probably meant to avoid the criticism by the casual market that complains about lack of game length or worse, plays on the highest difficulty from the get-go and then complains it's too hard. Regardless, unlocking them just takes one playthrough and clearing the story mode isn't exactly a difficult task on the default difficulty mode. It's hardly an issue.

The weird thing is Arcade Hard is actually a bit easier than Story Ridiculous is; Story Ridiculous throws some attacks at you in loop 2 that Arcade Hard does not, and boss health is considerably higher, so it's the harder mode for a no-miss clear. Arcade Extended using easier damage rules where you're simply depowered on hit is a weird design choice, I'd have just made it equivalent to Story Ridiculous without the story elements.

[Bassa-Bassa]

It's probably meant to avoid the criticism by the casual market that complains about lack of game length or worse, plays on the highest difficulty from the get-go and then complains it's too hard.

We discussed this on page 1:

They probably want to broaden mass appeal and avoid the problem that sometimes happens where someone claims "this shmup is too short and too easy because I can credit feed the hardest difficulty in 30 minutes".

Then don't let them credit feed in that mode? Otherwise, it's like they're doing two wrongs in order to make a right, and that never works.

Or complain because they're the sort that says they (stubbornly) only play games at the highest difficulty, then complain when it's too hard for them. As strange as it sounds, it is a thing some people who aren't into shmups have genuinely complained about.

These latter cases are beyond any help, I'm afraid. Hopefully they're just a few.

Regardless, unlocking them just takes one playthrough and clearing the story mode isn't exactly a difficult task on the default difficulty mode. It's hardly an issue.

As I mentioned, it obviously is:

This may sound like alien language, but there're people who just don't want any spoilers, which is the only thing these perfectly unchallenging modes serve for.

It's indeed a natural thing to enjoy unlocking stuff with progress, but stuff like new stages and with actual effort. Extra difficulty modes by completing dumb-easy tasks just doesn't belong to this genre.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

So, a kind viewer reached out to me on Youtube and it turns out there may be a secret ending that I've not seen anyone trigger yet where

Spoiler

Gehnie is reborn after disappearing

I'm doing a bit of research, all of the text for the game in every language is contained in plaintext in the dial_[letter].txt files. dial_e.txt has all the English dialogue and it does contain two sets of text I haven't seen before:

Spoiler

#S21
$01402001
Irina, come with me!
We're heading off to the future...!
$13402002
Geh-... Gehnie!
You're alive?!
But... but how...?
$01402001
Unfortunately Ver. 01 is no longer with us; you created me, in the future.
$13502002
Do you remember anything?
Like heading to Earth with me, stuff like that...
$01402001
Technically they aren't proper memories,*but I do retain bits and pieces of info on Ver. 01's experiences.
$01402001
But more importantly, your powers are needed in the future.*Will you come with me?
$13402002
What's going on??
$01402001
I'll explain on the ship, now hurry!
#end

It confirms that the person you see talking to Gehnie in the future who looks suspiciously like Irina is in fact Irina and was responsible for sending Gehnie to the past to help past Irina.

I'm not sure how to trigger it though. No recordings on Youtube manage to do it. Event S21 is placed immediately after the ending dialogue (event S20). However, there's a potential answer in another line of dialogue I've never seen in-game:

Spoiler

"We haven't enhanced or bolstered the Drainus at all...*But we still managed to neutralize the Kharlal Empire army,*which had been reinforced under Izumo's orders. It's all thanks to your piloting, Irina.* You really were a brilliant pilot after all."

It's positioned after the the text for beating the first loop but it may trigger upon beating both loops. If Irina were such an amazing pilot that she didn't need Gehnie's extra help, maybe that's what serves as the trigger for the future to change and Gehnie version 02 to be born?

So there does appear to be a secret ending, but it seems the trigger requirements are more complex than simply collecting every recording. I suspect it may be tied to the dialogue that you're supposed to get if you beat the game without upgrading? Things to test would be:

1) Beat the game without upgrades and collecting/watching all recordings.

2) Beat the game on Ridiculous without upgrades while collecting/watching all recordings.

3) Don't die at all, beat the game (possibly on Ridiculous) without upgrades, collect and watch all recordings.

Given that the game's default modes are intended for a more casual audience, and given how damn hard Ridiculous is as it is relative to the default difficulty, I doubt the intention was to lock part of the story behind the hardest difficulty mode, so I'll try to do a no upgrade, no death, all recordings run tonight of Normal and Hard and see if one of those trigger an alternative ending.

[BurlyHeart]

Interesting stuff roo! Good luck with the runs and hopefully we'll see a video in future.

[Darkseed_5150]

Is this game supposed to come out on PS5?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Beat Normal without upgrades. I died a couple times to the stage 5 boss which I find to be the hardest boss. The third form of the 2-5 fight is particularly long and tedious without upgrades. Didn't go into the upgrade menu at all during stages just in case. I chose not to get any of the recordings as I was curious if they were bonus content or if they're required for the secret ending

Spoiler

where you can revive Gehnie.

Doing a no upgrade run changes two major events, namely the dialogue at the end of stage 2-2 where Gehnie comments that the enemy's power is tied to Irina's awesome dodging skills (instead of the ship itself being powered up) and during the final ending sequence where Gehnie comments that it was amazing that you were able to defeat the Kharlal Empire without ever upgrading. I'm not sure if buying upgrades locking you out or if equipping them technically does? Energy Tanks actually max out at 99 and you stop gaining them from there.

Sadly, the ending where Gehnie is revived was NOT triggered. I'm not sure what the conditions are, but I have a few more things to test:

1) No upgrades, all recordings watched, maybe need to no-miss as well? I'd be surprised if this required a specific difficulty mode given how tedious no upgrades gets in the loop. There's a few tanky enemies that'd make getting all the recordings tricky!

2) Ridiculous Difficulty with all recordings watched before the ending, hopefully doesn't require a no-miss. (I could've sworn I'd done this before but maybe I skipped though the plot at the end accidentally? On my no-miss run of Ridiculous I actually missed the very last recording so that's no help.)

Possibly the dialogue in event S21 can't actually be triggered in-game. Maybe it's leftover data or something they were going to use for a secret ending event or something but decided to remove from the final build or who knows what? It's possible... No other footage on Youtube or Nicovideo exists that shows an ending event taking place after the normal ending, and nowhere does anything suggest what the trigger requirements might be.

edit: beat Hard mode without upgrades and all recordings... or at least I tried to, but apparently pausing the game to listen to the recordings in the middle of each level breaks the no upgrades thing. To trigger the no upgrades dialogue you must not go into the menu at any point in the middle of a level, even if you never touch the upgrade section. I think you can safely still listen to recordings in between levels after each boss (but it means you can't listen to the 2-6 recording and trigger the "no upgrades" dialogue after the final boss). No secret scene yet.

No upgrades gets really tedious due to how long bosses take to kill so I'm going to try Ridiculous with all recordings and aim for a no-miss again if possible and hope that something like that will be the key.

edit DEJA VU: Beat the game on Normal without upgrades, all recordings obtained and watched only in-between levels, without dying. The special dialogue triggered in 2-2 and 2-6 as expected but nothing after the ending.

Spoiler

THIS TIME THE DEFINITELY LAST EDIT:

Beat the game again on Ridiculous, all recordings watched before the final boss, used powerups. No secret scene. If scene S21 is supposed to be accessible in game, that means the requirements are ultra strict and therefore silly such as:

1) You need to no-miss Ridiculous while getting all recordings. This is much harder than it sounds as the recordings in Stage 6 are both positioned by turrets that can kill you very easily as they pop up.

2) You need to beat Ridiculous without upgrading and possibly some other combination of requirements? I haven't done this yet as it'd be silly and I'd be sad if a "true ending" scene or something were locked away behind this.

3) You need to beat Easy mode...? I've actually not really touched Easy mode, I'm not sure why an additional story scene like this would be exclusive to it, which strikes me as extremely odd in the unlikely chance this is the case.

Or, and this is the possibility I'm leaning towards more given my testing has proven fruitless:

3) Scene S21 may not actually be accessible. It may be leftover text that they decided to not use and never made accessible in-game. Making Gehnie come back alive as Gehnie Ver 2 and then be sent back in time by Irina suggests that the Kharlal Empire is somehow still around in the future, contradicting the recording where future Irina sends Gehnie back initially. The whole goal of the ending is achieving a future where the Kharlal Empire and thus Izumo no longer exist, so Gehnie would never need to be created and sent back.

I'm kinda burned out on Drainus at the moment as I've been playing it several times trying to see if the text in scene S21 is accessible in-game to no avail. So, if anyone else uncovers it, let me know, but I think I'm done!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

MYSTERY SOLVED:

spoiler alert: it's dumb

To trigger the secret ending sequence, you need to beat the game with every single weapon purchased. This isn't possible in a 1CC as you simply won't get enough energy tanks even with aggressive milking, so what you need to do is after you beat the game (possibly on any difficulty, I tested on Ridiculous), go back into the save file and replay the game on any stage (Stage 5 Deja Vu seems to be the most lucrative, Stage 4's also good) and grind until you can buy every single upgrade in the game. Then, once your ship's fully upgraded, level select to Stage 6 Deja Vu and beat the game. After the ending sequence you'll see the secret ending.

And here I was convinced it would be something that would require a 1CC... I only thought to try this after the person on Youtube I was chatting with commented that they didn't know how they triggered it, they just remembered finding all the recordings and buying all weapons and powerups to complete the game. Gah.

edit: Here's the link if you wanna watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPibYIDXagE

[Bassa-Bassa]

it's dumb