ST - TWilight RefrAIN

For posting and requesting strategic gameplay tips on shmups!
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Goshi
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:13 am
Location: Hihoukan

ST - TWilight RefrAIN

Post by Goshi »

Sequel to TWilight INSanity. To quote myself:

"Its a much needed improvement over TWINS, sporting harder bullet patterns, better music, even more gorgeous graphics. You only get 1 life this time though and getting hit and using Auto Magic is a huge penalty."

Anyway...

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TWilight RefrAIN

Characters

Kirishima Brothers
The equivalent of the Haneita Team. Despite one of them being female the team is called brothers. Awkward.

... Unless Mizuki is a trap!!! O_O

Anyway...

Narumi's shot is the basic 5-way shot. Nothing too special. When he uses magic with Mizuki present an option will stand in place of Narumi's previous position and constantly shoot powered up versions of Mizuki's shot.

Mizuki's shot is exactly the same as Shinya's from TWINS. Wave shot that fire forward. Her magic works exactly the same as Narumi's only the option fires a powered up version of Narumi's shot.

Mikahashi Sisters
The equivalent of the Saijou team from the TWINS only they now have an easier time lowering P-Rate. Like the Saijou team they're the fastest characters in the game. However their shots are different.

Rurika's shot is a 6-way. How wide it is depends on your movement. The wider the range the less firepower the shot has. Her magic causes a quick laser to fly forward. The laser has very high firepower.

Ririka's shot is just 3 bullets flying forward. However their range can be effected by moving around.Like Rurika's narrower means more firepower. Her magic causes large yellow orbs to bounce around the screen, very useful.

Shizukuishi & Tsugomori
The equivalent of the Hoshimimi sisters... only they're just nowhere near as good. Like the Hoshimimis they have low firepower but make up for it by having an easy time lowering P-Rate. Their magic has some pretty neat defensive properties you could utilize though.

Asa's shot is the same as Maiha's only its capable of wider angles at the cost of not being a concentrated shot at all. Instead its several bullets at random sizes spreading out. Very difficult to use. Her magic causes 3 moons to circle her

Shizu's shot is a 5-way shot.... only all her bullets home. Yes she's the best character in the game for normal stages. Its really too bad Asa drags the team down. Her magic causes a large moon to slowly fly forward.

Gameplay Basics

Controls (Default)
Z - Tension/Cancel
X - Switch characters
C - Shoot
Enter - Pause/Confirm
Esc - Exit

Basic Movement
Think Imperishable Night. Standard vertical shmup with character switching. One character has a straight shot, the other has a wide shot. At each level there's dialog and you have to select between several choices. Depending on choices made depends on which level you go to. C type levels are much harder than be B or A and are needed to reach the best ending.

Replay
(Copy/Paste)When you complete the game or get a game over you'll prompted if you wish to make a replay. Relays do what they say, replay what you've done during that play through.

Options
When you start you'll be given 3 choices on options. Balance is the default and offers no special abilities.

Attack increases your firepower but increases the amount of spirit needed to use magic.

Defense lowers your firepower but also decreases the amount of spirit needed to use magic.

Magic and Auto-Magic
Magic is the game's method of bombing. Using magic will have your other character use a special attack and improve the range and firepower of your current one. Its wipes out all bullets on screen as well. Bear in mind that you're only invincible for a half a second so don't think you can run into bullets happily without getting hurt. Using magic costs a certain amount spirit which is shown on the status meter.

If you have enough spirit for it and get hit you'll activate auto-magic which activates your magic and lets your character still live. As good as it sounds their are several negatives to it. For one, your P-Rate will go up. Secondly, you'll use up far more spirit than using magic normally would use, it will also lower rank by one whole level very nasty and lastly the ugly words Auto Magic will appear, scarring your precious replay.

Crystals
Enemies will drop two type of crystals. Small yellow ones which fly toward you and big green ones. The yellow ones are used to gain more spirit for you to use. The faster you kill an enemy the more spirit you get. The large green ones are only used for score. The amount of score they give increases as your rank gets higher.

P-Rate
You'll notice a gauge saying P-Rate to the right of the screen. The lower your P-Rate the better. You can lower it by killing enemies quickly and by through a boss' magic. Your P-Rate will rise when there's enemies on screen, when you get killed, when you use auto-magic and constantly during Stage H.

Lower P-Rate means more choices will become available to you during the storyline and they usually will net you more Rings. You also get more score by having a low P-Rate.

Getting 100% P-Rate means Game Over so be careful.

Rings
Rings are used to determine the route you take this time instead of P-Rate. The more rings the better. You will lose rings if your rank is lower than the rank you started with.

To gain rings simply choose the right choices or get a high rank.

Enemy Magic
These work like spellcards in Touhou games. They're a harder attack that you must avoid. If you clear it without getting hit or using a tension you'll get a Magic Break which will help lower your P-Rate by a significant amount. Stage I's enemy magic always gives you the bonus regardless of what you do.

Buzz
Another term for grazing or friction. In other words, getting the hitbox very close to a bullet. Getting high buzz (Heh heh... buzz) helps you gain more tension.

Multiplier
Each time you kill an enemy a multiplier indicator is shown. Like TWINS, the faster you kill an enemy the higher the multiplier. Through this method you can get x4 from an enemy. Unlike TWINS you can increase this beyond x4. To get up to x8 you need to be closer to the enemy as well as destroy it quickly. How close you need to be is pretty easy to tell against bosses. You just need to be inside their magic circle.

Secret Magic
Each boss has two types of Magic. The normal kind, and the Secret kind. Secret Magic is a much harder version of the regular magic the boss would normally use and has different requirements in each stage. Which are:

Material-Blue - Have more than 1000 Crystals
Mai Mizushina - Have more than 2600 Crystals
Material-Pink - ???
Uh... Stage B's boss. I never go there so I forget her - Yeah.
Material-Orange (C1) - Collect 45 or more Score Items (The green crystals)
Chira Highway (C1) - Collect 130 or more Score Items
Material-Orange (C2) - Maybe the same?
Chira Highway (C2) - ???
Material-Gray - ???
Adolfine - ??? (Pretty sure it involves Buzzing)
Material-Green - Destroy more than 30 enemies with a x6 multiplier
Mimi Auth - Destroy more than 50 enemies with a x6 multiplier
Material-Violets - ???
Cyndy & Cynthia - ???
Material-Black - ???
Yuuna Tobari - ??? (Maybe the same as Yomi?)
Yomi Azuma - Have a P-Rate of 5% or less
0??n %??$ - ??? (Maybe the same as Yomi?)
Demi - Have more than 23000000 score
Saki Ugetsu (Sequel) - Have a P-Rate of 20% or less AND have more than 2 Rings (Technically this is a Secret Magic)

The Ending Factor
To get a Good Ending simply 1CC the game. That's it. Twin Rate also affects what ending you get as well.

The Chapter 7 Factor
To reach Chapter 7 just clear Stage G2 or G3. Stage H is the same evacuation stage from TWINS. Lots of enemies and your P-Rate will rise at a rapid rate you can only reach Stage H from G2.

Stage I on the other hand is Saki's Twilight Refrain spell which will cause your P-Rate to hit 0% when you clear it. You can only access this from G3.

Sequel Stage
If you updated the game to 2.00 you can access this stage. Like in TWINS its basically the equivalent of Touhou's extra stages. This stage has it's own set of endings. One if you don't 1CC it and one if you do and you see Saki's ultimate attack. I think there's a another if you 1CC it but don't see Saki's ultimate attack... I'm not sure.

Related Links
http://www85.sakura.ne.jp/~loop/ - Official website

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Again, feel free to contribute any additional info.
Last edited by Goshi on Fri Feb 12, 2010 4:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
Goshi
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:13 am
Location: Hihoukan

Post by Goshi »

Apparently like in TWINS there's a Final Magic. The only difference is that every boss has it, not just just the 5th stage boss. If anyone knows more info on this I'd appreciate this.

From what I know it depends on your Buzz Rate I think.
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Malek86
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:40 pm

Post by Malek86 »

Hi. I've been playing this game for a while, and I can say some more things. Keep in mind that I'm not so sure on many of these, I'm just basing them on my several playthroughs.

The ending you get depends on the number of stage G. And the number of the stage G depends on the amount of rings you have by the end of stage F (but apparently Gx doesn't depend on Fx; e.g. you can still go to G2 after reaching F3). For example, if you have 6 rings, you'll go to G1 and get Normal ED. If you have 11 rings, you'll go to G2/H and get Sad ED. If you have 13, you'll go to G3/I and get True ED. I don't know the exact number of rings needed, but it should be something like: 0-8 (Normal); 9-12 (Sad); 13-up (True). Might be wrong.

The number of rings changes at each end level, and apparently depends on some things: your rank compared to the rank you chose in the beginning, your twins ratio (if it's between 45 and 55, or so, you might get rings, if it's more than 80 you'll probably lose rings), and your choices. It's a bit complicated though, so I can't say for sure.

The appearance of a Secret Magic depends on a different stat for every level. For example, on stage C it depends on the amount of score items you got. On another stage, I noticed it depended on the twins ratio. On another stage, it might indeed depend on the buzz score. I also got one based on time, but I don't remember where.

One thing I'd like to know, is how to get the last good ending. In the records screen, every team has six proper endings and two bad ones. Shizuka and Asa, however, seem to have seven proper endings and three bad ones. I already got all the proper ones for every character, I'm only missing the bad ones.
User avatar
Goshi
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:13 am
Location: Hihoukan

Re: ST - TWilight RefrAIN

Post by Goshi »

To celebrate Alternate Sphere I updated this at long last. I'll need help with some of the Secret Magic requirements though (Especially since I never play Stage B or G1 >_>)
One thing I'd like to know, is how to get the last good ending. In the records screen, every team has six proper endings and two bad ones. Shizuka and Asa, however, seem to have seven proper endings and three bad ones. I already got all the proper ones for every character, I'm only missing the bad ones.
The Sequel stage has its own endings. You'll need to do it with every character (At least it's easier than TWINS' extra stage).
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