When I first picked up Radiant Silvergun, I was surprised at the scarcity of information regarding the game's mechanics. The game itself tells you nothing, and most external resources are in Japanese. It's a shame, since RSG is full of unique and obscure mechanisms that can make or break the player's experience. The following starter's guide will help set you on the right path so that you can play and enjoy Radiant Silvergun the way it's intended.
1. Modes
1.Modes
In all of the home releases of the game, there are two modes, Arcade and Story. These are the stage orders for the different modes:
ARCADE MODE (STAGE 2 ROUTE): 3 > 2 > 5 > 6 > 1
ARCADE MODE (STAGE 4 ROUTE): 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 1
STORY MODE: 3 > 2 > 4 > 5 > 6+ > 1
If you're wondering why the game starts on "Stage 3", the story is told out of order, and the stage numbers follow the timeline of the story. Arcade Mode gives you the choice of going to Stage 2 or Stage 4 after the first stage.
Story Mode combines all of the stages, and also has a significantly longer and more difficult Stage 6. In Story Mode, you can choose to continue with the weapon experience that you got from your last run. You earn extends over time, which will be added to your next run
ARCADE MODE (STAGE 2 ROUTE): 3 > 2 > 5 > 6 > 1
ARCADE MODE (STAGE 4 ROUTE): 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 1
STORY MODE: 3 > 2 > 4 > 5 > 6+ > 1
If you're wondering why the game starts on "Stage 3", the story is told out of order, and the stage numbers follow the timeline of the story. Arcade Mode gives you the choice of going to Stage 2 or Stage 4 after the first stage.
Story Mode combines all of the stages, and also has a significantly longer and more difficult Stage 6. In Story Mode, you can choose to continue with the weapon experience that you got from your last run. You earn extends over time, which will be added to your next run
2. Controls/Weapons
2.Weapons
The original arcade game used 3 buttons, A, B, and C. Each button is mapped to a weapon, and each button combination is also a weapon. In the home ports of the game, you can assign macros for the combination weapons.
You have 3 EXP bars corresponding to each of the 3 primary weapons. Damaging enemies will give you EXP proportional to the amount of Score generated. When using a combination weapon, EXP is distributed among the shot types. For example, using the Plasma will gain experience for A and B, distributed equally between the two.
As weapon levels increase, in addition to damage, weapons also gain other properties. The Vulcan becomes wider, Homing becomes bigger, Spread explosions have a larger radius, Homing Plasma has a wider sweeping range, Back Wide becomes wider, Lock-On has a bigger lock-on radius.
- Vulcan (A) - Basic forward shot. When you tap fire, you shoot a single bullet. Good for DPS and precision.
- Homing (B) - Two streams of homing green bullets. Low damage, but hard to miss with. Only useful in a few sections.
- Spread (C) - Two flanking bombs that detonate when you release the fire button, leaving behind a lingering explosion. It does good damage and covers your blind spots nicely. Also good for point blanking.
- Homing Plasma (A + B) - Two lightning beams that lock on to enemies and grow in power the longer they remain on target. It's a useful weapon for targeting down boss parts. Also goes through walls. If it latches onto something you don't want it to, you can get it to re-target by simply moving left or right.
- Back Wide (A + C) - Vulcan that fires one bullet forward and several bullets back. Self-explanatory, and not all that useful.
- Lock-On Spread (B + C) - 360 degree lock-on lasers. Goes through walls. Does good damage and is particularly strong against bosses with multiple parts. It's the only weapon that can reveal Merry Dogs.
- Radiant Sword (A + B + C) - Swings a sword 360 degrees around your ship that retracts as soon as you let go. If you hold it, it stays deployed, trailing behind you as you move. The primary use of the Radiant Sword is destroying round bullets to build up Hyper Sword energy. The Hyper Sword is your bomb; on max energy, using the Radiant Sword will instead deploy a high damage, invincible attack. You have no collision while using the Hyper Sword, so you can pass through walls and other obstacles. It does more damage if you're positioned on top of the enemy.
You have 3 EXP bars corresponding to each of the 3 primary weapons. Damaging enemies will give you EXP proportional to the amount of Score generated. When using a combination weapon, EXP is distributed among the shot types. For example, using the Plasma will gain experience for A and B, distributed equally between the two.
As weapon levels increase, in addition to damage, weapons also gain other properties. The Vulcan becomes wider, Homing becomes bigger, Spread explosions have a larger radius, Homing Plasma has a wider sweeping range, Back Wide becomes wider, Lock-On has a bigger lock-on radius.
3. Score
3.Score
Chain Bonus
The majority of your score will come from Chain Bonuses. When you kill 3 enemies of the same color, you receive a Chain Bonus equal to the value of the enemies killed. Chain Bonuses increase exponentially the longer the chain (the math behind it is a deep rabbit hole, so don't waste your time like I did). The Chain Bonus resets as soon as you kill an enemy of a different color.
In practice, this means you should choose one enemy color, usually Red, and avoid killing enemies of the other two colors. Unless you're playing on Ikaruga mode, you cannot switch colors and maintain your chain. Red has the most enemies, followed by Blue, then Yellow. The Chain Bonus resets after the Destruction Report of every boss.
Secret Chain
This is where you might get confused if you watch a scoring replay. If you kill a Red, a Blue, and a Yellow consecutively, you will activate a Secret Chain. Secret Chains start off at 10,000 and increase by 10,000 for every 3 Yellow enemies you destroy. Secret Chains are a nice way of getting a lot of points from very few enemies. Whenever you see a section with a glut of Yellow enemies, experiment with Secret Chains to see if it's better than a regular chain.
Destruction Bonus
Each boss has multiple parts. The more parts you destroy before killing the boss, the higher your destruction bonus. The Destruction Bonus also gives you weapon experience, so it's a good idea to learn how to get 100% destruction on the early bosses, even though doing so will make them harder. All bosses have a hidden timer; if you take too long to kill a boss, it can escape.
Weapon Bonus
You get a flat Weapon Bonus of 10,000 for fulfilling certain criteria with a weapon.
There are a bunch of hidden Dogs throughout the game that you can unconver using the Lock-On weapon. The best thing to do is just to watch a replay and memorize where they are. Some Merry Dogs will only appear if you got a prior dog.
Tick Points
Shooting enemies will give you 10 points per damage instance. The best weapon for milking Tick points is the Homing Plasma, since you can keep it on low damage by tapping the fire button.
Grazing
You get points for being near bullets, lasers, enemies, or even walls.
The majority of your score will come from Chain Bonuses. When you kill 3 enemies of the same color, you receive a Chain Bonus equal to the value of the enemies killed. Chain Bonuses increase exponentially the longer the chain (the math behind it is a deep rabbit hole, so don't waste your time like I did). The Chain Bonus resets as soon as you kill an enemy of a different color.
In practice, this means you should choose one enemy color, usually Red, and avoid killing enemies of the other two colors. Unless you're playing on Ikaruga mode, you cannot switch colors and maintain your chain. Red has the most enemies, followed by Blue, then Yellow. The Chain Bonus resets after the Destruction Report of every boss.
Secret Chain
This is where you might get confused if you watch a scoring replay. If you kill a Red, a Blue, and a Yellow consecutively, you will activate a Secret Chain. Secret Chains start off at 10,000 and increase by 10,000 for every 3 Yellow enemies you destroy. Secret Chains are a nice way of getting a lot of points from very few enemies. Whenever you see a section with a glut of Yellow enemies, experiment with Secret Chains to see if it's better than a regular chain.
Destruction Bonus
Each boss has multiple parts. The more parts you destroy before killing the boss, the higher your destruction bonus. The Destruction Bonus also gives you weapon experience, so it's a good idea to learn how to get 100% destruction on the early bosses, even though doing so will make them harder. All bosses have a hidden timer; if you take too long to kill a boss, it can escape.
Weapon Bonus
You get a flat Weapon Bonus of 10,000 for fulfilling certain criteria with a weapon.
- Vulcan, Homing, Spread, Wide Back - Hit enemies with a certain number of shots. Resets when you miss too many shots.
- Plasma - Target an enemy for a certain amount of time (you can let go of the fire button in between). Resets on target switch.
- Lock-On - Target enemies for a certain amount of time, divided by the number of targets (you can let go of fire in between). Resets on weapon switch.
- Radiant Sword - Hit for a certain amount of time. Resets on weapon switch.
There are a bunch of hidden Dogs throughout the game that you can unconver using the Lock-On weapon. The best thing to do is just to watch a replay and memorize where they are. Some Merry Dogs will only appear if you got a prior dog.
Tick Points
Shooting enemies will give you 10 points per damage instance. The best weapon for milking Tick points is the Homing Plasma, since you can keep it on low damage by tapping the fire button.
Grazing
You get points for being near bullets, lasers, enemies, or even walls.
4. Routing
General Routing Tips
General Routing Tips
- The game is a memorizer! Not only do you have to memorize the locations of enemies and obstacles, you also have to memorize the scoring chains and multitude of boss fights.
- Do not neglect chaining, especially in the early stages. The game's weapon experience system acts as a sort of reverse Rank system, where failing early leads to the game's later stages becoming unplayable.
- The game is meticulously designed with enemies placed in such a way that chaining is always possible
- Begin by trying Red chains, then experiment with Secret chains if you see a lot of Yellow enemies
- Bosses serve to break up the game into scoring sections, since your Chain Bonus resets after the Destruction Report
- Learn how to get 100% destruction on every boss
- Experiment with different weapons. The game is designed to encourage use of your whole arsenal.
- When you're under no pressure, graze walls/enemies and milk Tick points off of high health enemies using the Homing Plasma
- You earn an extend at 1,000,000 and 5,000,000 in Arcade mode.
- Watch one of the many available replays.
Stage 3
3A
Start with a Secret Chain by killing all of the first wave of Red zako, then 1 Blue zako, then all of the Yellows. Wait till they shoot before you kill them, since you want to build up sword energy.
Put some damage on the heavy Red enemy, but don't destroy it. Kill the Yellow zako that appear, then swing back to the center to finish off the heavy Red enemy and the Red zako (starting a Red chain). Mop up some more pink bullets to get Hyper Sword. Use the Spread and Vulcan to kill the final wave of Red enemies.
BOSS: AKA-0
You want to clear this boss quickly, since there are two caravan waves of zako that spawn afterwards. Start by point blanking with Spread, then use the Hyper Sword. Gun down any parts that are still intact after the Hyper Sword before destroying the center.
3B
Take the right path and destroy the Red zako with the Vulcan. Use the Spread to destroy the Red turrets on the left, then use the Vulcan to shoot out the three red enemies in the circle. There's a Merry Dog here that we'll ignore.
The next few sections are fairly self explanatory, since all of the enemies are Red. When you get past the 3 blue turrets, you want to position your guns so that they hit the far corners of the blocks, and damage the two heavy Red enemies on the sides of the screen.
Use your Homing Plasma to shoot through the barriers to clear out some of the Red enemies on the other side. Alternatively, you can Hyper Sword through the blocks if you have the energy. Then finish off the Red enemies and get some quick Secret Chain points by killing a Blue and some Yellows.
BOSS: MIKA-L
This boss is fairly straightforward. The two outer guns fire small blue star projectiles, the two inner guns fire lasers, and the two attached guns fire pink bullets. Kill the two weapons on the left side first, watching out for the lasers, then shift to the other side. Be careful not to get cornered when the boss fires its main laser cannon. Before you kill the two attached guns, make sure you fill up on Hyper Sword energy for the upcoming section.
Start with a Secret Chain by killing all of the first wave of Red zako, then 1 Blue zako, then all of the Yellows. Wait till they shoot before you kill them, since you want to build up sword energy.
Put some damage on the heavy Red enemy, but don't destroy it. Kill the Yellow zako that appear, then swing back to the center to finish off the heavy Red enemy and the Red zako (starting a Red chain). Mop up some more pink bullets to get Hyper Sword. Use the Spread and Vulcan to kill the final wave of Red enemies.
BOSS: AKA-0
You want to clear this boss quickly, since there are two caravan waves of zako that spawn afterwards. Start by point blanking with Spread, then use the Hyper Sword. Gun down any parts that are still intact after the Hyper Sword before destroying the center.
3B
Take the right path and destroy the Red zako with the Vulcan. Use the Spread to destroy the Red turrets on the left, then use the Vulcan to shoot out the three red enemies in the circle. There's a Merry Dog here that we'll ignore.
The next few sections are fairly self explanatory, since all of the enemies are Red. When you get past the 3 blue turrets, you want to position your guns so that they hit the far corners of the blocks, and damage the two heavy Red enemies on the sides of the screen.
Use your Homing Plasma to shoot through the barriers to clear out some of the Red enemies on the other side. Alternatively, you can Hyper Sword through the blocks if you have the energy. Then finish off the Red enemies and get some quick Secret Chain points by killing a Blue and some Yellows.
BOSS: MIKA-L
This boss is fairly straightforward. The two outer guns fire small blue star projectiles, the two inner guns fire lasers, and the two attached guns fire pink bullets. Kill the two weapons on the left side first, watching out for the lasers, then shift to the other side. Be careful not to get cornered when the boss fires its main laser cannon. Before you kill the two attached guns, make sure you fill up on Hyper Sword energy for the upcoming section.