ST: Revolver360 Re:actor

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Zaarock
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ST: Revolver360 Re:actor

Post by Zaarock »

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Official website: http://crosseaglet.xii.jp/game/R360R/index.html

Online leaderboard: http://crosseaglet.xii.jp/R360Reactor/i ... actor.html
(The 'R' column indicates that a replay can be viewed from the ingame leaderboard)

Demo version and updates: http://crosseaglet.xii.jp/game/R360R/download.html
The demo version allows you to play stage 2 and challenges 1-10.

Strategy guide for REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR, a doujin shmup for PC by Cross Eaglet. The game was released at the end of 2013 at Comiket 85.
The game builds on the mechanics of its predecessor, Revolver360, which was released on XBL Indie Games and PC.

Please reply with any corrections or new info in the thread. This is very much still work in progress, especially regarding the scoring system and strategy.


The game has three modes:

Reactor - play through all four stages, no continues
Sector dive - stage select mode, but it has significant scoring system differences to reactor
Challenge - short but difficult stages where you need to reach certain requirements. The first few can be thought of as the tutorial to the game.

This guide doesn't cover strategies for the challenge stages, but it may be added in the future.
The challenges are basically puzzles using the games system, revealing the solutions would just make them trivial.


System

Controls

Movement control
&
5 buttons:
Shot
Laser
Overdrive/EMP shot
Rotation 1
Rotation 2


Revolving

The game's main gimmick. You can rotate the camera around your ship 360 degrees with two rotate buttons, allowing you to change the form of bullet patterns and enemy formations on your screen, as well as make background enemies visible and attackable.

All foreground enemies and all bullets have a position in 3D space, but your ship and attacks will collide with them regardless of their distance from the camera. Background enemies cannot collide with your ship. Collisions always take place on 2D view that you see while playing.

A simple example of using rotation:
an enemy shoots a spread pattern based on your viewpoint. You rotate the camera 90 degrees so you can see this pattern from directly above or below. As a result the bullet pattern becomes a straight cluster of bullets on your screen, allowing you to easily dodge it or cancel it into items with a laser shot.

Image

The same principles apply for enemies, line them up and you will be able to kill them with a big multiplier using your laser shot.

note: enemies usually fire flat 2D patterns based on your viewpoint, but some fire 3D patterns which are more complicated to manipulate. The rare purple-colored bullets are not affected by rotation.


Attacks

Shot (button 1)
Regular forwards shot. If there are enemies in the background inside the circle around your ship you will fire lock-on shots at them.

Laser (button 2)
Uses one laser charge of a maximum of 6. Cancels orange bullets in front of you into items and does a fair amount of damage. The laser charges regenerate over time. The laser's hitbox also covers a small area around your ship, using this is the only way to damage enemies in the foreground that aren't directly in front of you.

The laser lasts a while, so you can move while it's active. However your ship gets pushed to the left by recoil and your speed is reduced. You can compensate for the recoil by moving to the right while firing.

EMP shot (tap button 3)
uses 1/4 overdrive gauge, pierces all enemies, cancels all bullets into items and weakens enemies so that they die from a few normal shots. It cannot destroy enemies by itself. Unlike the laser this fires and disappears immediately, so aim carefully.

Use this to setup larger enemies to be killed with a large group of popcorns for a big laser multiplier.

Overdrive (hold button 3)
requires full overdrive gauge, cancels all projectiles on screen into items and puts you into overdrive state. In overdrive state your lock-on shot powers up and you rapidly reload your laser gauge, allowing you to rapid-fire laser shots. Your multiplier will not drop from laser kills while in overdrive.

In sector dive mode overdrive state removes the limit on your multiplier.


Display

Life: top left
Laser and overdrive gauge: marked around your ship

Score: top right
Multipliers: bottom right. Laser multiplier is only shown on top of enemies.

Lock-on area: spinning reticle around your ship
Background targets are marked with red circles.

The used multiplier and final score value of each destroyed enemy is shown in the bottom left of the screen, along with various other messages.

Your angle of rotation in relation to the playfield is shown on the far left of the screen. If there are enemies offscreen their direction is marked with a red arrow.


General system

Gauges

You have a lifebar with the maximum value of 100. It goes up slowly by collecting score items and in large increments by collecting Repair items. Crates and midbosses carry items for recovering your laser, overdrive and life gauges.

The laser charges are recovered over time while your overdrive gauge can also be recharged by collecting items. Get items by destroying enemies and cancelling bullets.

The overdrive gauge recovers faster over time in sector dive mode.


Bullet cancelling

Your laser can cancel orange bullets while the EMP shot can also cancel blue and purple ones. Using overdrive cancels all projectiles, including lasers.

Enemy lasers get cancelled into items when you kill the enemy firing them. Destroying certain background objects, such as crates or rocks, will cancel all projectiles on screen. Some larger enemies such as midbosses also cancel all projectiles.

Damaging enemies to low enough health that they blink red will alter their firing pattern, almost always increasing the amount of bullets fired. Use this to your advantage and you can get bigger bullet cancels than normal.

In Sector dive, all large enemies and some popcorn enemies release suicide bullets if destroyed with the normal shot.


Various

There are multiple paths throughout the stages in the form of 'junction points', here you can select a direction by placing your ship in a certain part of the screen. There are also hidden paths triggered by destroying certain background objects or midbosses (this is easily noticeable on stage 1).

Sometimes throughout the stages there are background targets that will damage you if you don't destroy them in time. This is always accompanied by a big warning message.

Some midbosses and all bosses allow you to hit them in the background as well as the foreground.

Getting damaged doesn't seem to affect scoring in any significant way.

There are hidden 'Eaglet' background targets spread around the stages. They don't have any score value but finding all of them will give you an achievement.


Multipliers

Points awarded by destroying an enemy = Enemy value x Base multiplier x Situational multiplier x Laser multiplier

Base multiplier
The small multiplier in the bottom right carries throughout the game and is raised by collecting items, this is the base multiplier for all enemies and items. The other multipliers multiply this one. The best score for Reactor mode so far gets over 110,000 on this multiplier.

Situational multiplier
The big multiplier in the bottom right of the HUD multiplies the base multiplier. It goes up if you destroy enemies with the normal shot or collect items. It goes down when you kill an enemy with a laser or destroy a background enemy, as well as dropping over time. If you have overdrive active the multiplier doesn't drop from laser kills.

In Reactor mode the maximum value of this multiplier is 16x.
In Sector dive this limit gets uncapped if you are in overdrive and can go up to 100x!

Laser multiplier
Destroying many enemies and/or bullets with the same laser shot will multiply the score given by enemies, up to a maximum of 50x. The laser multiplier doesn't work on bosses, it is instead replaced by a multiplier based on the time left until timeout.

==================================================================================================


Strategy

General

Try to get large enemies to be a part of a laser multi-kill, this will reward you with a massive score boost since larger enemies have bigger point values. Using the EMP shot is usually the best way of setting this up.

All visible bullets can hit you, so avoid flying on top of background enemies at bad angles.

Various enemies are worth milking for bullet cancels, this includes popcorn enemies so try not to kill waves before they fire. Remember that if you make an enemy blink red it will shoot more bullets.

Use crates and other objects to cancel all bullets on screen at opportune times.

Don't spam lasers without spawning a lot of items or using overdrive, otherwise your situational multiplier will drop

If there is a good spot to rapid-fire lasers (as in there are tons of enemies being spawned), use overdrive because your multiplier will get locked at 16x instead of dropping.

There are situations where using a well-aimed EMP shot can boost your overdrive gauge more than the shot itself uses. This is much more common in Challenge mode, though.

Bullets canceled by overdrive give more points? (this seems to be the gimmick of challenge 37)


Enemy specifics (may add pictures)

4-armed rotating satellite:
You can stay inside the pattern if you synchronize your rotation with it. This is mostly useful for challenge mode, but it's also the best spot in the pattern to get normal laser cancels from and deal damage to the core. Destroying the core cancels all bullets on screen.

Round-core (w/ cross-slash shot):
The cross pattern is 3D, and the only way to fully cancel it with the laser is to pointblank it right after it's fired. Make the enemy blink red before doing so and you'll get at least 30x laser multiplier on the enemy in addition to getting the cancel.


Sector dive mode

Since your multiplier can go up to 100x in overdrive mode, timing overdrive uses before high value enemies is extremely important.

Try to incorporate the added suicide bullets into your laser kills.


Stages

Sector 1

Hidden junctions:
- s1: destroy the first hatch in the background before the large enemy that fires blue bullets appears
- s2: destroy the helicopter midboss without being damaged (?)

Optimal junction route:
s1 - left - s2


Sector 2

No hidden junctions

Optimal junction route:
right - right - left


Sector 3

Hidden junctions:
- s1: clear the row of fans without being damaged

Optimal junction route:
s1 - down - up


Sector 4

No junctions


Bosses

All bosses are targetable in the foreground as well as the background, so try to get into lock-on range. The lock-on shot gives you items per hit and will keep up the situational multiplier.

If you use the laser just to deal damage your multiplier will drop.

Bosses and their parts get a multiplier based on time left, so use everything you can to deal damage faster. Remember that overdrive boosts the power of the lock-on shot.

Killing all boss parts seems to always net more points than just speedkilling the core.

Sector 1 Boss
- You can target all parts easily with the lock-on shot
- The blue spreadshot fired by the boss will always miss if you are holding a rotation direction.

Sector 2 Boss
- Appears to be the only boss worth milking for multiplier because of its laser-mine attack.
- Use the EMP shot to weaken the mines or they will be nearly indestructible. Don't use overdrive, destroying a mine will cancel all lasers on screen anyway.
- Before the boss fires the mines another train car appears on the opposite side of the tunnel, destroying it is optional but worth it.

Sector 3 Boss
- Attack pattern seems to be random but also affected by destroying parts
- You can target the rear legs more easily if you rotate to the top of the boss

Sector 4 Boss
- Your overdrive gauge charges very quickly in the second form, abuse overdrive and it should be easy to destroy all of its parts.



==================================================================================================


Challenge mode

Ranking system

The ranking system seems to be based on how much you surpass the requirements for clearing a challenge.
If you want an easier time getting high ranks, try to surpass the requirements equally.

Example, Challenge 38:

Requirements: Destroy all enemies, get 0.3 billion points and reach 1,000x base multiplier.

Getting 1.4 billion and over 4,000x multiplier will net you 999 rank.
Getting 1.7 billion and 3,600x multiplier will give you ~950 rank.


Strategy

None of the challenges has to be 'brute forced' to receive the 999-rank, you shouldn't need a super optimized route or execution.

If you're getting lower ranks you probably just have a bad strategy/route, try thinking of another approach. It's best to think of the challenges as puzzles using the scoring system.
Last edited by Zaarock on Sun May 25, 2014 11:11 am, edited 4 times in total.
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adversity1
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Re: ST: Revolver360 Re:actor

Post by adversity1 »

Just wanted to say that I'm playing this too and I appreciate the ST topic.

Since the game is so hectic and there's so many branching routes to explore, I'm still trying to optimize my paths.

So far just learning a lot from watching replays...
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Zaarock
Posts: 1877
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2005 4:18 pm
Location: Finland

Re: ST: Revolver360 Re:actor

Post by Zaarock »

Nice to see someone else trying to figure the game out. Watching replays can go a long way yeah, I bet someone will get over 100 billion on Reactor eventually..

Could you (or anyone else who can read japanese) check if the ingame manual explains the multiplier system differently from what I wrote?
Since I don't know japanese it's still based on speculation and testing. I probably have something wrong.

I'll try to start fleshing out the actual strategy section more soon. It's confusing that stage select has a different scoring system though, makes for very different routes.
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