RefRain Prism Memories

[Mischief Maker]

If I'm not mistaken, and Google translate isn't steering me wrong, the final game's just been confirmed for c80

[Mischief Maker]

I've been spending some quality time with the trial and I must admit my enthusiasm is drying up fast.

I have a Banshiryuu disc that includes both the c67 original and the c74 total conversion. I'm amazed at the quality difference, the c67 version even LOOKS better. More importantly, I'm actually dodging through patterns in the c67 version as opposed to bombing through them (even if the c74 bomb is a lesser bomb).

Suffice to say, the Refrain demo doesn't remind me of Samidare at all, it's much closer to Banshiryuu, and even then it reminds me of the inferior c74 version. I haven't had the patience to dredge the manual through google translate one paragraph at a time, but is there some scoring reason not to just alternate the 4x super shot and the bullet-transforming bomb throughout the boss fights and not even bother dodging? Even then, the patterns look impressive, but they're preceeded by so many warning signs you really have to be sleeping not to dodge them.

Then the trailer seems to indicate that the version due in august is only 4 levels long, they're sticking with enemy art that I thought were merely placeholders (the level 1 boss is a gigantic version of Samidare's dragon but the rest are just abstract wireframe shapes?) All in all, enh. The menus are neat, the in-game graphics are reminiscent of Hellsinker, and the music is good (though not up to Samidare's standards); I'm just not seeing the gameplay to match the presentation. I suspect this game suffered from too many cooks spoiling the broth over the years and now it's being shoved out as-is to get things over with.

I would love to be proven wrong.

[LtC]

I've been spending some quality time with the trial and I must admit my enthusiasm is drying up fast.

I have a Banshiryuu disc that includes both the c67 original and the c74 total conversion. I'm amazed at the quality difference, the c67 version even LOOKS better. More importantly, I'm actually dodging through patterns in the c67 version as opposed to bombing through them (even if the c74 bomb is a lesser bomb).

Suffice to say, the Refrain demo doesn't remind me of Samidare at all, it's much closer to Banshiryuu, and even then it reminds me of the inferior c74 version. I haven't had the patience to dredge the manual through google translate one paragraph at a time, but is there some scoring reason not to just alternate the 4x super shot and the bullet-transforming bomb throughout the boss fights and not even bother dodging? Even then, the patterns look impressive, but they're preceeded by so many warning signs you really have to be sleeping not to dodge them.

Then the trailer seems to indicate that the version due in august is only 4 levels long, they're sticking with enemy art that I thought were merely placeholders (the level 1 boss is a gigantic version of Samidare's dragon but the rest are just abstract wireframe shapes?) All in all, enh. The menus are neat, the in-game graphics are reminiscent of Hellsinker, and the music is good (though not up to Samidare's standards); I'm just not seeing the gameplay to match the presentation. I suspect this game suffered from too many cooks spoiling the broth over the years and now it's being shoved out as-is to get things over with.

I would love to be proven wrong.

I share your opinions about pretty much everything you've said.

Banshiryuu C74 version is a mess, while C67 is enjoyable.

Samidare is great. Refrain is a mess, the whole game is a big disappointment to me.

[Mischief Maker]

New trial 1.001 out with 3 stages. http://www.rebrank.org/ Still feeling iffy but that soundtrack is awesome.

Word on the street is the full game has 5 stages but no extra.

[mjclark]

From what I've seen, the trials don't do justice at all to the full version which is very polished and balanced. The latter stages also throw shit at you that you'd never seen coming from the trials.
For sure it's too short but don't be put off by all the messy trials. It's a nice production which was well worth the wait

[AimeeSH]

I had ordered a copy which has arrived today.
Along with Ether Vapor C80 and Satazius not pictured.

Haven't have a chance to play it yet but here is a picture of the games.

[Pyongyang]

Very cool! I pre-ordered Prism Memories a few weeks ago, just got told my copy dispatched today, looking forward to it! Did you order from Paletweb?

Can you possibly post more photos of your copy? It looks great!

[AimeeSH]

I had left the camera at the office, so I took some from a phone so picture quality isn't the best.
Ordered from eurotaku.

Nothing on the other side.


Front of the box


Back of the box


Front of the jeweled case


Back of the jeweled case

[Pyongyang]

Thanks for the snaps! Looking forward to receiving my copy soon!

[Observer]

What I love of RebRank is their focus on design. I work for an agency focused in branding and advertising, this kind of stuff is what we are usually looking for: designs that stand out from the crowd. The package design of this, Samidare and Samidare Archive are superb.

Well, the games and OSTs rock too of course.

[AimeeSH]

Out of the Doujin's games I have RefRain has by far the best packing and looks.

One other thing I should note is if you hold the disk in the air you can see right though the disk, apart from the outline's drawn on the disk. It's completely clear!

Haven't manage to finish a run yet. Keep in mind I'm fairly new at the playing shmups so my skill level isn't that good yet.
I die out early in stage 5, and also the music in this game is really good.

[Observer]

Well, by request I will drop a VERY small guide on how some of the scoring aspects of RefRain work. There is much more like the skip bonuses, the bonuses awarded when killing a boss during a M.E.F.A2 level 4 attack+stun lock (a crazy multiplier only god knows how it works), time bonuses and more.


The Divers

There are three ships available once you unlock them by playing the game up to certain stages (can't remember which ones, I think it's clearing stage 3 for Tee and stage 4 for Mews):

- Bronx Terror (Mews ship) lets you arrange the options in a focused laser fire pattern or in a spread and more open pattern that cuts everything. Alternate fire is what I like to call "Protoss Carrier" mode since your options fly to the closest enemy like interceptors and beat the shit out of it.

Her special offers from a simple missile barrage (clears everything in a line and behind the ship) to a gigantic display of pyrotechnics and the biggest stun aura of all. Brutally overpowered when used correctly since it has nearly full screen coverage with its festival of lasers and missiles.

The slowest ship of the lot, with the slowest M.E.F.A2 recharge time.

- Blitz Lester (your loli Madoka-lookalike Tee) offers options that surround your ship with quite a beefy front power. The alternate fire spreads options in a circular pattern that will bloody brutalise anything that enters in range. Your front weapon changes to a nearly-melee/Ketsui-like weapon. Pretty powerful.

The specials of this ship go from a simple laser that clears everything IN FRONT (beware of this, I fell for it) of your ship to various guided laser barrages and bombs.

The ship is the fastest of the lot, has the fastest M.E.F.A2 recharge and, apparently, it's the best for scoring. You'll engage yourself in fast exchanges of heavy ordnances while moving really fast.

- Must Viper (Miria's ship) offers following options and a modest firepower. It's the "average" ship with a secondary shot that locks all the options to a single target but they do it so slowly, unlike Bronx Terror, that it becomes a bit pointless.

The specials involve from a simple bullet-clearing laser to a brutal full screen beam and a pack of 6 bombs. Big damage, quick and precise coverage.

The ship, as mentioned, has the medium speed and medium recharge. Ideal for beginners it seems.

Now, the key concepts:

"Motion-Emotion Feeling Affect Attack" (M.E.F.A2)

This is the infamous name you see us throwing all the time. The key system to score and do all the fancy stuff you see. There are four different levels of attacks, from simple bullet clearing stuff to a brutal, overpowered cataract of heavy flak. Ideally, you want to trigger this strategically rather than blindly press the button in a spray-and-pray fashion. You can still do it though and it makes the game considerably easier when you don't have to micro dodge 900 blurry bullets.

Up to six levels can be charged and released at any time. The system makes a noise every time you acquire a level.

However, M.E.F.A2 needs to be used with:

Concept Reactor

By collecting the yellow point items you will increase a bar above the M.E.F.A2 indicator. You can get up to three concept reactor levels and trigger them at any time. What does this thing do? Cancels out every bullet on screen except for a select few (lasers mainly) and turns them into destructible items for points and quicker M.E.F.A2 recharge.

The combo

Explained in the tutorial, duh. Wait until you have a level 4 attack. When a boss or something big fills the screen with bullets and you are about to get blown to digital bits, launch it. Your character portrait will show up. As that happens, trigger a concept reactor to cancel out all the bullets. Your M.E.F.A2 will destroy everything on screen, including the cancelled bullets and, voila, you got another level 4 attack ready to stun lock the boss again. Who's the boss now? TIME TO GET RAEP'D.

The stun lock leaves the boss/enemies unable to move or fire for a brief moment, in which you will start collecting dozens of point items to refill your concept reactor. Voila, now you can launch another concept reactor again! Rinse and repeat.

There seem to be many other tricks, especially by doing point blank attack on regular enemies for maximum value on the point items, the skip bonus for pwning a boss so hard that it couldn't even trigger a second pattern. In the mid-bosses case, it causes additional enemy waves to show up at hilarious speeds to kill you.

Absolute Defenders

I see what you did there, RebRank. The Absolute Defenders are several enemies and bosses that cannot be damaged with your regular weapons. You need to attack them with the M.E.F.A2, which will of course make short work of them.

The ship can take ONE (1) single hit before going boom. Your screen and ship will turn reddish when this happens so you know that if you take another one you are toast. This is similar to the Defense Field of Alltynex2nd with the difference that if you got hit and survive the Central, you get your ship repaired. They better don't fix that if it wasn't intended.

Stages are called Centrals, yeah. Pilots are called Divers, yeah. And this appears to be the RayCrisis episode of the series. M.R.S. is the wife of Garland from Hellsinker, yeah.

[hzt]

If the red loli is the best for scoring does that mean they've changed it so that the slow glasses girl's level 4 attack isn't way overpowered for scoring on bosses? The last version of this I remember playing that slow moving black circle made scoring with her so much easier and - as far as I could tell - more profitable there didn't seem any point in bothering with the other two.

[Observer]

If the red loli is the best for scoring does that mean they've changed it so that the slow glasses girl's level 4 attack isn't way overpowered for scoring on bosses? The last version of this I remember playing that slow moving black circle made it so much easier and - as far as I could tell - more profitable for scoring there didn't seem any point in bothering with the other two.

Apparently, it seems they adjusted Tee a bit so she gets a slightly slower lock moment and, with the fast charge, she can collect a bunch of hits/items just as well. I'm not so sure myself, hence the "it seems to be". I watched some Nicovideo replays and most seem to be using Tee.

Perhaps that'll change later on?

[hzt]

Perhaps that'll change later on?

Who knows... maybe I should get around to playing this game. I only ask because first time I used glasses girl (the release that introduced her I guess) I demolished the scores I got with the other characters without really trying, but then I'm not convinced the scoring ever worked quite right in the trials.

[mjclark]

Nice summary Observer! Thanks

[O. Van Bruce]

I'm foreseeing so much fun making score runs on this game... quite simple but very tricky score system, plus it's difficult.

Besides, it has a proper loli on it

[SupremeBogus]

I honestly have no idea if this score is decent or not, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to post it anyways. (Normal Mode)

Does anyone know what the prism counter is supposed to do? (I'm guessing that it has something to do with score, but my theory ends there.)

[Aisha]

Prism Count is basically a measure of how well you're playing, and it does factor into score significantly, although the manual does not explain how. It increases when you're hitting enemies, destroying enemies, hitting stunned enemies, converting bullets with the Concept Reactor, and when you're collecting items. It decreases when you die (etc) or fail to destroy enemies--though I'm not sure if that means letting them fly off the screen or failing to pass a boss phase within the timer.

The game also has a rank system, in addition to the difficulty setting, and it wouldn't surprise me if Prism Count was related somehow, simply because the types of actions that increase Prism Count are similar to actions that increase rank in other games.

[ZenErik]

How do I full screen this game? Having a hard time figuring it out in the config.

Edit: Nevermind. Figured it out. Either way, picked up a copy from rancor and am loving it.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I really liked playing normal mode but one thing that really put me off playing is that you can only fight the final form of the boss if you play the special mode which has suicide bullets. Considering point blanking is a main feature it really doesnt work imo.

Normal mode is ok as there are very few suicide bullets to dodge. But since normal difficulty is on the easy side I wanted to play in a harder difficulty which have much more suicide bullets.

There might be a final final form of the last boss, maybe only accessible on the hardest mode with suicide bullets. Has anyone beaten the game in this mode?

[ZenErik]

Man. I love playing this game. Normal mode is a bit too easy, even for me, but the visuals and music are great.

Edit: Okay. Easy was ridiculously easy. 1CC'd that first try. As a shmup noob I guess it should feel kind of like an accomplishment, but it really doesn't at all.

[SupremeBogus]

I really liked playing normal mode but one thing that really put me off playing is that you can only fight the final form of the boss if you play the special mode which has suicide bullets. Considering point blanking is a main feature it really doesnt work imo.

Normal mode is ok as there are very few suicide bullets to dodge. But since normal difficulty is on the easy side I wanted to play in a harder difficulty which have much more suicide bullets.

There might be a final final form of the last boss, maybe only accessible on the hardest mode with suicide bullets. Has anyone beaten the game in this mode?

If you kill an enemy at pointblank range, it will not spawn suicide bullets. There are a few exceptions (Stage 4 popcorn during the turret section), but this should apply to all difficulty levels.


Extremely terrible run on normal mode with the third ship. 1.5 billion should be fairly easy at this point, given the number of deaths on this run.

(I still haven't figured out how the Prism counter relates to scoring.)

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Really? damn I hadnt noticed that Because I try to kill them asap I thought the reason they werent shooting bullets was to do with time.

Thx for enlightening me, ill give the game a 2nd go at a later date

I still haven't figured out how the Prism counter relates to scoring

When it comes to most doujin shmups your best bet is doujinstyle for info. This place here is mostly Arcade/ Console / MAME based which is a shame, most doujin guys that frequent this forum tend to talk about PC / doujin shmups on doujin forums like Doujinstyle and Shrinemaiden.

I kinda hate refering ppl to other sites but when I comes to finding out the more complex aspects of a doujin game its always worth asking them if you cant get an answer here.

It is a shame more folk here (especially the skilled players) dont play doujin games but there is too many good shmups on PC and console and not enough time to play them all.

Still its worth visiting the highscore section for doujin games on this site. (Ive never ran a highscore board myself but fuck it im gonna start one for this game in a couple of days. Ill post here when I have it up and running)

IIRC my score on normal was around 1.8 mill (edit I mean billion)

[SupremeBogus]

Here's an example video of how to make stage 1 extremely trivial (nullifying 90% of the suicide bullets) on extreme mode. Early shotgunning takes care of pretty much every threat there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7NhUh4tCok

[TrevHead (TVR)]

While I havnt yet played properlly with Tee point blanking is how I usually play with the other ships.

Looking at that vid it looks like it probably is just the fact youre killing them quick instead of what I thought your ment which was some hidden proximity mechanic.

Next time I play ill experiment to find out for sure. Quickly destroying those big ships on stage 2 far away and point black (those that spew suicide bullets on normal) will show if there is.

Either way I still think suicide bullets in a proximity based game is pants as it leaves you little room for error and makes it a memorisation fest. Exceed 3rd Black Package did the proximty / memorisation thing so much better imo

[SupremeBogus]

In order to prevent suicide bullets from spawning, you need to be roughly half a ship from the center of the enemy. It works for every enemy except for the popcorn during the stage 4 turret section (the ones that spit out those stupid pink knives upon death). The stage 2 fatties also have suicide bullets that can be nullified with pointblanking, but it is a lot more difficult to get close to them due to their large collision size (not to mention the fact that it's pretty much impossible to pointblank them if you don't start shooting at them as soon as they enter the screen). So in other words it only works if you have memorized their spawn location and spawn time. I'll put up a video of it later I guess.

The problem with this game is that your score tanks quite a bit from just getting hit (note: not actually dying, but just getting hit and using up the shield), which makes score-running extremely difficult for me.

[SupremeBogus]

Here's a quick demo of how to negate suicide bullets from the large ships in stage 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ChmJmHWRik (advanced mode)

[Mischief Maker]

So just what is the story to this game? Is this another Weapons test by Ersatz Skynet? Is this Humanity taking back the surface? Is this a computer simulation that the 3 protagonists are taking part in to train for retaking the surface?

Inquiring minds want to know

[Aisha]

Assuming this screenshot isn't edited, it's actually possible to counterstop this game--http://i.imgur.com/CMcKn.jpg

The manual only describes what causes the Prism Count to increase and decrease. It doesn't even hint at the relationship between it and score, but someone who is good with numbers might be able to come up with something.