So this Saturday, my copy of RayCrisis arrived in the mail. I’ve been playing it during whatever downtime I can get. This is to RayStorm as Raiden Fighters Jet is to RF2; short, with variable stage order and a few new scoring gimmicks thrown in for good measure. I mainly use Wave Rider 01 since it’s easier to pull of the Hyper Laser with it, it having only 8 lock-ons instead of WR02′s 16 or WR03′s 24.

Speakinf of WR03, I noticed an interesting observation today. In the clubroom I hang out at regularly, there is a TV with a GameCube and PS2 hooked up to it. Taking advantage of periods of time when the clubroom wasn’t playing Super Smash Bros. Melee, I decided to play some RC. Some of my friends took notice, and started watching me play. I had a couple others want to play, so I let them have a shot. Both of them chose WR03. I’d think that since WR01 is the simpler ship, that they’d choose that; I guess they chose quantity over quality ease of use. I don’t blame them; when I started playing RayStorm, I found myself using R-Gray 2 for the longest time.

I wondered how a. they were able to tame the WR03, and b. able to score decently with it, when I’m not so good with WR03 myself. I just realized this now. Now normally, them spamming the laser button would be detrimental to their scores; with WR01 and 02, the only ship type in RayForce, and R-Gray 1 and 2 in RayStorm, getting multiple enemies locked on before firing will reward the player with score multipliers that go all the way up to x256; thus, it is disadvantageous to mash the laser button, as it prevents the multiplier from being employed. But with WR03, spamming–which is what those two were doing–is encouraged, multiplier isn’t based on enemies locked on at once; it’s based on consecutive killed enemies; 1 hit is x1, 10 hits is x10, 50 hits is x50, and so on, all the way up to x256 for 256 hits. I’m having some second thoughts about this, as it seems to encourage mashing the laser button instead of waiting to get a large number of lockons before firing lasers; scrubby play is thus encouraged. So by laser-mashing, my friends were able to get about 40-50-hit combos going, while I, more used to RayForce/RayStorm-style chaining, had trouble getting my combo up because I would let the combo expire.

I’ll have to test this mash theory later.

ALSO, NO PENALTY FOR CREDIT-FEEDING. THAT IS JUST GROSS.

UPDATE (10/14): I have tested my theory. Yes, spamming = higher combos = higher score. Thus, Wave Rider 03 can burn in ship hell.

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approaching huge anti-body: sem-slut