REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR (WBW)

you just gotta look at things differently sometimes, maaaaan

Before I begin, I'd just like to say that I'm not going to type REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR over and over.  From now on, the game is called Revolver360.

If you've quickly glanced at the screenshots or are familiar with Japan's rather limited taste in games, yes, this is another shoot em up.  Yes, that means 4 out of 11 of the games in this bundle are shoot em ups.  It's a genre with a very narrow scope in terms of what you can change from game to game, but Revolver360 did its darndest.

Revolver360 is half shoot em up, half craaaazy perspective game.  You know, like Echochrome and its many ripoffs.  You see, the game treats everything within the playfield as if it's been smashed up against your screen, which from your perspective it has.  All objects exist at the same depth no matter how much you or the camera appear to move around.  In a way you could kind of call it a puzzle game.  Here's how.

The two main ways in which this perspective-based gameplay come into effect are thus.  For one, sometimes you, like in the ALLTYNEX series, will be presented with a solid wall of bullets, like this:

This isn't the best example; just pretend there are no breaks in the circle.

What do you do?  Why, change your perspective, chum!  By pressing (what I bound to) L1 or R1, the camera revolves around your ship.  Or more accurately, your ship rolls and the camera follows.  Do a quick roll in the above situation and what happens is this:

Yes I got hit, but only because I needed to take a screenshot.

Suddenly that circle of death now contains mad gaps due to being squished.  Even though the bullets are now actually traveling perpendicular to you, you can still be hit by them, but the ones on the top and bottom will barely move at all from your point of view.  This is, in fact, the only way to not take damage in some circumstances without burning overcharge.

Overcharge works like this.  Like apparently every shoot em up these days, you've got a bar that slowly fills as you play.  Once it's full, press the shoot and the EMP button to let loose a blast that clears the screen of bullets and most enemies.  You can also press the EMP button by itself to shoot a little EMP blast which clears yellow and blue bullets in a line.  You've also got a self-recharging laser which is like the EMP blast but slightly crappier - it doesn't pierce larger enemies and it can only clear yellow bullets, not blue.

So yes, it's another one of those "deal with the bullet hell in myriad ways" games, but this time you've got to put more thought into it.  Revolving has no meter, so it's best to use it whenever the other two aren't necessary.  It can, however, push you directly into an enemy and their beams if you're not careful.

Like what happened here.

There's one more perspective-based mechanic that comes into play quite frequently.  Your ship is surrounded by two blorbs that constantly rotate around you.  Some enemies have a red box around them, signifying that if you fly your blorbs within range of them you'll lock on and let loose a barrage of homing missiles when you fire.  But remember, everything is on the same 2d plane here...except when it's not.

Some objects are, in fact, in 3D space.  You can usually tell what these objects are by the red box, or by the fact that they're attached to/crawling around on the background.  The only way to attack objects like this are with your lock on missiles.  Usually it's something fairly inconsequential like a laser turret or a crate that contains health, but sometimes enormous objects like asteroids will hurtle toward you.  In this case you'll get an on-screen warning.  Rotate the camera around so those objects are behind you and take them down quickly, or else they'll smash into you and do considerable damage.

A huge battleship is approaching fast!

Gimmicks aside, Revolver360 is a well made, smooth shoot em up with a lot of polish and blue.  Sometimes orange, but usually blue.  I'd say its primary downfall is that it requires a lot of knowing what's about to happen.  If you don't know what you're supposed to be looking at and you get a "huge object" warning, you'll often rotate yourself right into a bullet while looking for what's about to break off 20% of your health.  With practice the game becomes significantly easier, but to a newbie it's a confusing neon mess.