ULTIMATE GUIDE

TAITO HAS AN EXEMPLARY RECORD WHEN IT COMES TO CRAFTING EXCITING SHMUPS, BUT A CONFUSING CHOICE OF NAMES ACROSS DIFFERENT REGIONS MEANS THAT ONE OF ITS BEST PROBABLY ISN’T AS WELL-KNOWN AS IT SHOULD BE. RETRO GAMER FLIES IN TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

WORDS BY DARRAN JONES

Gamesare often known by different names across international regions and Taito’s confusingly named shmup is a good example. Originally known as Layer Section during development, the 1994 game eventually debuted in Japanese arcades as RayForce, before being renamed to Gunlock for the European markets. By the time RayForce made its way to the Saturn a licensing dispute meant its name reverted back to Layer Section. Its name changed yet again for its Western release, to the rather pedestrian-sounding Galactic Attack. Thankfully, RayForce is amazing no matter what moniker you know it by.

The success of Street Fighter II in arcades meant that the market was saturated by one-onone fighters during the mid-Nineties. According to Shmuplations.com’s informative RayForce making of, Taito’s arcade division was split into three teams at the time: one based in Yokohama, one in Osaka, while the RayForce team was based in Saitama as part of the Kumagaya Research Group. The company wasn’t interested in making an STG (Shooting Game) and told each team that they would be working on games based on other genres instead. Tatsuo Nakamura, RayForce’s director, designer and programmer wasn’t happy with this decision and pushed ahead with his STG project. After presenting it during a meeting, Nakamura got the go-ahead to make his game.

When playing RayForce, purity is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s arguably everything most players love about the shoot- ’em-up genre, but distilled into its simplest form. There are no complicated power-ups to master, no curtains of bullets to navigate (although it does get quite hectic on later levels) and, somewhat controversially, no smart bombs to hide behind once things inevitably get tough – it’s just pure unadulterated blasting and it works exceptionally well.

“WHEN PLAYING RAYFORCE, PURITY IS THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO MIND”

At the heart of RayForce’s intense shooting is the lock-on laser of your RVA-818 X-LAY, which is guided by an aiming reticule similar to games like Namco’s Xevious. As with Xevious the action of RayForce takes place on two planes and you’ll use conventional guns to take out any enemies on the same field as you, while destroying any enemies below you. While Xevious and similar games used bombs, RayForce utilises lock-on homing lasers instead. Granted, it’s not the most original game mechanic, but it’s the implementation that makes RayForce feel so satisfying to play. While you can simply loose off lasers to tackle enemies as they appear, you’ll soon understand the benefit of letting the play area fill up with foes.