ST: Rayforce

[Randorama]

2025/09/10

I deleted the material in the first post(s) of each ST/GD, as threads cannot be deleted once there are replies. The rest of the thread will remain in place, this being a measure of some sort that prevents people from doing something illegal (e.g. posting links to roms and such) and then deleting proof of their heinous crimes. Since I also want to retain control over my own posts, especially when they do not infringe any rules, I have deleted them now in order to avoid that somebody may quote them and keep them online without my consent. Those who are interested in the original post may contact me via PM, and we can arrange ad hoc solutions regarding the OP for this thread.

[MovingTarget]

woa much thanks randy(dun mind me callin ya that do ya )

just thought this could do wit bumping, as i'll also be wanting to check it out again soon

[Randorama]

Glad to see you find it useful, of course if you have any questions, please ask

[BulletMagnet]

Two small things I think I noticed...

1) Really minor thing, but for new players it might be good to note (IIRC) that in this game, unlike in Raystorm and Crisis, you can ONLY lock on to enemies on the plane below you, and not those on your plane. At least that's how I remember it, I might be wrong...

2) Another minor thing: it's not good for score, but you can kill the 4th boss quicker just by blasting off both of its legs on either the right or left side: it'll lose its grip on the wall and fall into the pit below to its demise.

[Randorama]

Two small things I think I noticed...

1) Really minor thing, but for new players it might be good to note (IIRC) that in this game, unlike in Raystorm and Crisis, you can ONLY lock on to enemies on the plane below you, and not those on your plane. At least that's how I remember it, I might be wrong...

Damn, corrected, thought i wrote it. thanks for the feed-back.

2) Another minor thing: it's not good for score, but you can kill the 4th boss quicker just by blasting off both of its legs on either the right or left side: it'll lose its grip on the wall and fall into the pit below to its demise.

Yes, but i prefer to leave the cheap tecniques for discussion (GDs, in case) or RQ threads, i prefer to treat only the best tecniques in STs. So, do you need other quick kills tecniques, in case :/ ?

[BulletMagnet]

Yes, but i prefer to leave the cheap tecniques for discussion (GDs, in case) or RQ threads, i prefer to treat only the best tecniques in STs. So, do you need other quick kills tecniques, in case :/ ?

"Cheap?" I prefer "Dismantling-Challenged." But I only mentioned it because, to the best of my limited knowledge anyways, that's the only boss in the game I've seen in which you can kill it quicker by shooting the "extra" parts instead of the "main" part. Maybe there are others like it, but I thought it might deserve a mention: if you're only including the top-scoring techniques then don't bother.

[Randorama]

Ah no, all bosses can be quickly taken down, the difference is that the fourth one has the longest (to do) tecnique. For instance, you can trigger quickly the second boss last form by quickly destroying all of his parts, same thing for the third , fifth and sixth bosses (they will actually time out quickly if you're not fast, the actual challenge is to destroy all sections for points before they time out). Only the fourth and final bosses give you a lot of time for the scoring tricks, which can be easily skipped (the last boss' trick is a nightmare to do properly).

[MovingTarget]

Just! ..... Cant! ...... Dragmyselfawaysouky!!!

I'm dying to play this game, but I hate having several games on the go at the same time

[Neon]

Thanks for the guide.

I noticed in the HS section you said the saturn came default on normal and you would have to move it up to 'hard 1' to be on the arcade level...but I've noticed in MAME that it defaults on normal there as well. This is the 'Gunlock' version, thoe.

[Randorama]

You're welcome


BTW:This a problem of the Saturn version...like Sokyugurentai, they slightly toned down the difficulty for the port. The main difference lies in rank, as it starts at a lower value and maxes out a bit later...

Again, difference is not that big, but in case,it's better if you start on Normal and then you switch to hard 1. Please consider that the original PCB version had differen system, i.e. every stage has a default level which can be raised by rank (if you go in the test menu you can see how does it work).

[stratos]

I'd like to see a sample video of the siuciding technique on the first stage. I can't really figure it out by myself...


I can't understand where to suicide and against on wich enemy... I use another strategy, that's less rewarding: I lock on the first five little ships, then shoot them down, take the sixth laser, and lock on the other five little ships + the great one. then, I lock on FOUR little ships and two big ones, and destroy the last little ship with the regular vulcan laser... it's better than regular strategy, but I'd like to implement the suiciding one, because it sounds easy and more rewarding...


I suppose there is a video also on super-play.co.uk, but it's probably an all video, not to mention I've always troubles with big downloads on that site.


Please let me know, thanks

[CIT]

Yeah, the ALL video by Fukuda on Superplay demonstrates this technique.

[stratos]

Yeah, the ALL video by Fukuda on Superplay demonstrates this technique.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL


I often have serious trouble like download stall and something like that downloading from that (very good) site... so, an hour ago I tried for the next time and... this time it worked... but I downloaded the Ben Shinobi video instead!!!!!!! He uses a very similar to mine technique


Lol, I'll try to download that vid tomorrow (Super-play.co.uk admins ask users to download a single file a day). However, if you can explain I'm glad


Thanks for the information

[stratos]

Lol I managed to download the vid by Fukuda (I did at 250bps... Can't belive) and I noticed that the arcade version is a bit different from the Saturn port also for enemy positioning... it is a bit disappointing because I can understand that the Saturn couldn't handle the soundtrack or the graphics, but not the enemy location... I don't even know if it's possible to execute the suiciding technique at start.... I'll try


But this is a bit disappointing

[Randorama]

Lol I managed to download the vid by Fukuda (I did at 250bps... Can't belive) and I noticed that the arcade version is a bit different from the Saturn port also for enemy positioning... it is a bit disappointing because I can understand that the Saturn couldn't handle the soundtrack or the graphics, but not the enemy location... I don't even know if it's possible to execute the suiciding technique at start.... I'll try


But this is a bit disappointing

You need to raise the difficulty to hard 1 or hard 2 to get the right enemy sequence, I think the whole explanation is here or in the score thread.

[stratos]

I always raise the difficulty to hard 1. It is probably possible to do the trick at this difficulty, but enemy location is different in some spots, so I'm a bit disappointed because the game is QUASI arcade perfect... However it seems very playable end anjoiable, so I don't mind very much about it, but still... I can't understand why they didn't put enemies in the right spots


Ah, talking about difficulty, is hard1 the correct arcade rank, or I have to play at hard2 ?


Thanks

[Randorama]

I always raise the difficulty to hard 1. It is probably possible to do the trick at this difficulty, but enemy location is different in some spots, so I'm a bit disappointed because the game is QUASI arcade perfect... However it seems very playable end anjoiable, so I don't mind very much about it, but still... I can't understand why they didn't put enemies in the right spots


Ah, talking about difficulty, is hard1 the correct arcade rank, or I have to play at hard2 ?


Thanks

I think it's arcade 2 then, I never experienced the wrong enemy placement on that difficulty.

[stratos]

LOL, I checked better this time: the enemies seemed to be placed right, it was me that moved differently if compared to Fukuda's play... he stays in the lower section of the screen so the meteorite doesn't get off the ground, for example, and so on I suppose...


But the doubt remains: what is the real arcade difficulty on Sat version?


By now, however, I have to say the game seems to be not too difficult if played only for survival at hard1 rank; and scoring shouldn't be a problem once you have figured out your solid patterns; however the game rocks


By now, I can reach the fifth boss, and I'm learning some easy pattern to defeat him, and I'm too curious to see what's coming next This game has some atmosphere, Taito designers were real artists And also Zuntata were


I can also see some Garegga bosses' "ancestors", like the third flying manta boss, for example... Lol, you can damage the wings and the tail, and he has the two spinning turrets: Nose Lavagghin And the Black Heart diving burners attack

[stratos]

Lol this game seems to be sooooo accessible... and I can't get to stage six yet! I get there one time only on 1CC and ended with something about 2.5XX.XXX.


All the strategies are perfectly in my mind, but yet I die in random spots... my recurring misses occur especially during stage three, at the midboss, at the point with three waves of missile launcher ships, against the turret barrage at the end of the stage and at the boss. Then I have some random deaths during stage four, and against the turretts on the streets of stage five... luckily I memorised all fifth boss patterns so I shouldn't have more problems reaching stage six in these days


Then, stage six... lol it seem you are launched into a more modern manic with tons of bullets filling the screen


Guys, this game is not easy... but it's fxxxxxg great

[stratos]

Of course, our green-haired pilot won't survive to the explosion...

Uhm... I'm aware of the fact that this game is old and well known, but... it's not polite to spoiler the ending without any f*****g warning!!!


Lol, I think that calling you "Spoilerama" for the rest of your life shoul'd be a good punishment for what you did

[EmperorIng]

I would like to express my admiration of this topic, for this is possibly my favorite Taito shooter (one of their very best in any case), and the sections about score and rank (rank especially!) help out immensely when I do my practice runs (I can get to stage six on one credit, on Hard 1).

This is done mainly by doing some purposeful suicides on stages 1, 2, and 3, while keeping myself at all times in range of getting an extend by getting as many laser chains as possible. That way, I'm not making a real net gain, nor a net loss, on lives, but the difficulty maintains at a reasonable pace. By stage 4, all deaths are no longer purposeful! And at that point, the difference in rank is minuscule, so the focus switches to survival and laser-chains.

However, the later posts in this thread have me a bit puzzled, so I will resurrect this thread not only in the hopes that it will spring some more discussion (and assistance) on this fantastic game, but help out when I eventually attempt a spot on the score board.

Does anyone know exactly the arcade difficulty of the Saturn port? Is it at Normal, Hard 1, or Hard 2?

For years I played it on normal (and mind you, this game is damned hard already), but because of lurking this topic I've recently bumped it up one, and haven't noticed a significant change in anything. But it's nice to keep things even and equal, all things considered, and if it'd be nice to judge my scores with some of the arcade scores.

[Ruldra]

When we had a competition years ago, Saturn players were told to set difficulty to Hard 1 to match the arcade version.