Border Down =========== Play Manual by Alan Kwan v1.3 on 4 Dec 2003 Introduction ------------ This guide summarizes the basic controls and the game system of (Japanese import) Dreamcast game "Border Down". It is intended to help players understand the game so as to get fuller and smoother enjoyment from the game. This document does not contain a walkthrough, as that is too much work. And you shouldn't need one, thanks to the "sample play" feature. If you keep dying and can't clear the game, watch the sample play, use the "practice" mode, experiment, and persevere. Do not write me to ask for help. I suck at shooting games, and you can get better help from the sample play. The information here has been compiled from the Japanese manual, the official website, some bulletin boards, and experimenting with the game software. G.rev official website: http://www.grev.co.jp/ This document is intended to be a free aid for people who have purchased a legitimate copy of the game. If you are playing a pirated copy (or plan to get a pirated copy to play), stop reading here and do not print this document and do not save this document on your computer. Failure to obey these instructions will cause unhappy consequences to your afterlife. This document is intended for non-commercial use. An exception where you may distribute this document for commercial purposes is if you are a game retailer or distributor, and you distribute this document together with a legitimate copy of the game, to your customer who is purchasing the game. In all cases, full attribution must be given (to me). This documented can be downloaded from my website: http://home.netvigator.com/~tarot/Games/Border01.txt and from GameFAQs: http://www.gamefaqs.com Game Modes ---------- Besides the "arcade mode", the Dreamcast version also has a "remix mode". The remix mode gives you different enemy patterns, and generally more items and juicier high-scoring opportunities. With both modes, you can use the practice mode to practice any stage you have accessed in the normal game. You can adjust the difficulty, and can warp between areas and freely cause items to appear. However, you can area skip only to an area you have accessed during the current practice run. (In effect, the L button is a quick shortcut for retrying, and the R button is probably useful only when you have pressed the L button by mistake.) If you find the "border down" system distracting, the practice mode is very useful towards getting familiar with a stage, because here you won't border down when you die, but instead will just replay the same border. Also, you have unlimited ships. Practice mode special controls: L button: area skip back R button: area skip forward Y button: generate item Everything in the option menu is in English. At this point, it's still not clear to me how to increase the max credits. The very useful sample play mode can be found in here. (Note: if you have re-assigned the buttons with "option", any un-assigned button(s) will automatically have the "generate item" function in the practice mode.) Option -> Display Setting: Indicator Position: If your TV cuts off the top and bottom and you can't see the gauges, change to "TV1" or "TV2". Moving Range: If your TV cuts off the top and bottom and your ship moves off the screen, change to "TV". This reduces slightly the (vertical) area your ship can move in, so you won't lose sight of your ship. Border Rate: Displays on the screen the ratio among the time you spend in the borders, and the number of times you have cleared the stage norm. Useful for working towards a specific version of stage 6. Basic Controls / Weapon System ------------------------------ The +-key moves your ship. The analog stick is not used. Press the X button for speed change. Three speed levels. Unlike many horizontal shooting games, you won't die immediately even if you touch a wall. But you will die if you keep bumping into the wall for a while. The faster your ship speed, the quicker you'll die for bumping into a wall. (Speed 1 is quite safe.) Thus, while you should avoid running into walls, you should not be afraid to move around in narrow places when you have to dodge other enemy attacks. If you are 'squeezed by the scrolling', you will die immediately (even during break laser invulnerability). The A button fires your main shots. Hold down the button for auto-fire high-firepower forward shots. Tap the button repeatedly for "full-range" low-firepower homing shots. The fire rate is low, so you don't have to jam the button too madly. The B button fires your ultra-powerful "break laser". You can control the duration of the laser by holding down the B button. Using the break laser drains your level gauge. The break laser can pass through most walls. The level gauge is in the lower center of the screen. When you fill the gauge, your main shots go up a level (max level 5). The gauge automatically fills slowly with time. It also fills by some amount when you destroy an enemy with your shots. (It isn't filled for partial damage to an enemy: you get the energy when you eventually blow up the enemy. You do get energy for destroying boss parts and small enemies released by the boss, though. You don't get refill for destroying enemies with the break laser.) There is only one type of item in the game, carried by some larger enemies. Each gives you half a gauge. If you pick up an item when your gauge is full, you get 10 000 points. (Use your break laser instead. The break bonus is easily worth much more.) When you fire the break laser, you consume the gauge in proportion to the duration of the laser, at a rate of half a gauge for every one second. The minimum charge is half a gauge, for 1 second. So, if you don't have at least half a gauge above level 1, you can't fire the laser. When you are firing the laser, you are invulnerable for up to 4 seconds. The invulnerability wears off when you cease fire, or after 4 seconds, whichever is sooner. Some bosses and other enemies will fire break laser too. If you interfere by shooting your laser against it, you will create a huge energy field around where the lasers meet. The energy field causes large damage to enemies (about 167% the damage of the break laser itself). Note that if you want to damage an enemy with laser interference, you need to actually scorch it with the energy field. Thus if the enemy laser is horizontal, you need to move closer (to the right); if the enemy laser is diagonal or vertical, you need to position your ship so that your laser intersects its laser near its 'base'. You can deliberately do the opposite, if you want to spend longer on laser interference without destroying the enemy too soon, in order to get more break bonus. Hit detection: You will be killed by enemies and bullets only if you are hit squarely in the center of your ship (just like many other recent shooting games). However, you will be considered bumping into a wall if any part of your ship touches the wall. Border System ------------- This is a unique system which combines "ships left" with "stage select". For every stage, there are three "borders": green, yellow, and red. They are kind of like parallel zones. For example, stage 2 is about a concerted attack on a space station by 3 ships. Each ship takes a different route through the station, and each of the three borders represent one of these routes. In different borders, you will find different enemies and often different terrain as well. The borders also represent your lives. If you die in green, you "border down" to yellow. If you die in yellow, you border down to red. If you die in red, it's game over. Each stage is divided into three areas. If you die in the first or the second area, you will border down and restart, in either the current area or the next area, depending on how far you have reached before dying. If you die in the third area (the boss fight), you will reappear right there and continue the fight. At the beginning of the game, you can select any border to start in. This not only affects how many lives you have, but also will affect the starting difficulty "rank". By starting in yellow or red, you can get more challenge and more high-scoring opportunities. Note that, the border has a direct impact on the game difficulty only here in the starting choice. Otherwise, the red border areas are generally not particularly harder to clear than the green border areas, but rather, the difficulty rank is a larger factor on the fierceness of enemy attacks. When you clear a stage, you may be offered "border select" depending on whether you have cleared the "stage norm" (par score). The stage norm is displayed on the lower right corner of the screen. If you have made the stage norm, you may shift up or down one border for the next stage. But if you fail to make the stage norm, you have to continue going in the same border. Note that since you can intentionally border down any time by dying, there is no need to use border select to enter a lower border, even if you want to play a stage in a certain border, as long as your main concern is to clear the game safely. The game has a difficulty "rank" as a hidden parameter. When you die, the rank is lowered. Thus, if you want to play a lower border, you can enter a higher border and deliberately die, and this will reduce the rank. Also, the stage norm depends on the entrance border for the stage, so this way the stage norm is lower. You use border select to enter a lower border if you don't mind more challenge, and want more fierce attacks against you so that you can get more break bonus. Otherwise, you'll normally want to border up when given the chance, so the stage norm is effectively a requirement for replacing a lost ship (1UP). One strategy of keeping the difficulty rank lower is to deliberately die once per stage, and use border select to get back up. But of course you need to fulfill the stage norm. Experts call this the "G-G-GY" route. Scoring System -------------- Each enemy has a basic score value. This value is doubled in the yellow border, and tripled in the red border. (You still get this multiplier benefit even if you get there by dying and border down, and even in the middle of a boss fight in area 3.) However, the basic score constitutes only a very small fraction of your total score. You can get very high scores through the two kinds of bonuses. When you fire the break laser, the number of enemies and bullets you destroy with one blast becomes the score multiplier. (See scoring example below.) If you can apply a large multiplier to a high-scoring enemy (such as the stage boss), this can be a significant amount. In addition, when you clear the stage, you receive a "total break" bonus of 5000 points per break count. Thus, while it is very rewarding to execute a well-planned break for a large multiplier on valuable enemies, it is nevertheless useful (and safe) to fire a short break when you are threatened by a dense stream of bullets. (The total break count is displayed on the LCD screen on the visual memory.) When you enter area 3, the boss timer and life gauge appears in the upper right corner. When you beat the boss, *the closer the timer is to zero*, the higher your boss time bonus score. The maximum is 3 million, when the timer is exactly zero. max bonus = 3 000 000 points per +1 sec = -60 000 points deduction per -1 sec = -300 000 points deduction If the boss timer is below -10 sec, the time bonus will be negative. The amount will be subtracted from your break bonus (down to a minimum of zero). If the boss timer is above 50 sec, the time bonus will be zero. When the boss timer reaches -30 sec, you'll clear the stage automatically (and get -6 million for the time bonus). To get a high time bonus score, you often need to drag out the boss fight. This means that you have to dodge more of the boss's attacks, which is more dangerous than just killing the boss quickly. Scoring example: In stage 1-3 yellow, you use the blast laser to wipe out 40 blue bullets (10 points each) and then blow up the first part of the boss (5000 points). For the bullets, you get 10 + 10x2 + 10x3 + 10x4 + ... + 10x40 = 8200 points For the boss part, you get 5000 x 41 = 205 000 points Since you are in yellow border, the above scores are doubled, for (8200 + 205000) x 2 = 426 400 points When you clear the stage, these 41 break will give you an additional "total break" bonus of 5000 x 41 = 205 000 points So this use of break laser yields 631 400 points Compared to using normal shots to destory the same enemies, which gives (10x40 + 5000) x 2 = 10 800 points You can see that good use of the break laser can make a huge difference! Game Story ---------- The story takes place in the future, when human has colonized Mars. One day, some aliens appeared and wreaked havoc. They are called "F.A", for "First Approach". To fight them, "R.A.I.N" (Remote Artificial Intelligence Network System) was developed. By uploading the pilot's brain data onto the main system (artificial brain) of the most advanced fighter "Antares", it has overcome the shortcomings of previous unmanned or remote-controlled weapons, while enjoying all the advantages of unmanned weapons. Now, the system is undergoing testing. Stage Settings [spoiler] -------------- The following information has been gathered from the official website (http://www.grev.co.jp/) and from the Japanese manual. Please visit the official website for the original, more complete and graphically better presentation (in Japanese). Stage 1: This is a virtual simulation for the purpose of testing and training the R.A.I.N system. The simulated situation is that an F.A has occupied the underground section of the city, taking over many weapons and machines, and the pilot is to reach and destroy it. The boss is recreated from data collected during the Vesta incident (the mining small planet where trouble first appeared). Stage 2: This is another virtual simulation. This time, three fighters carry out the mission simultaneously through different routes. This is a recreation of the Vesta incident, in which three F.A has taken over the unmanned security system. Stage 3: This is yet another simulation for simultaneous operation of multiple fighters. Three fighters take on the 3rd Fleet of Mars. Green unit is the decoy which takes guriella action around the fleet. Yellow unit attacks the battleship directly. Red unit flies inside the mother ship and destroy its core. The mission is supposed to end with the destruction of the core, but the action is too intense and causes the pilot's brain to be overloaded. The system goes out of control, and the three planes fight each other. So here the bosses are the two other planes, which come with illusionary options (attached parts) generated by the overloaded system. Type "G" has options which fire lasers. Type "Y" has detachable options which attack in various formations. Type "R" has 3 huge arms which surround the player ship. Stage 4: Now this is a real operation. The huge weapon "Osiris" is out of control and has invaded a colony. Osiris must be destroyed in order to prevent further damage. (The mission plan shows the colony, and Osiris is a huge ship inside the circular tube.) Green unit is to enter the tube and chase Osiris. Yellow unit enters through the center shaft and joins Green. Red unit enters also through the center shaft and takes another path to get in front of Osiris so as to encircle it. The boss is the core of Osiris, taken over by a SEED, with a bunch of attached stuff. Stage 5: The enemy has taken over the orbital elevator. The planes have to blast their way through to the control core and disable it in order to stop the F.A from using its energy to reproduce. However, they are supposed to attack the core in moderation, because too much damage will cause the entire system to explode, and cause the orbital elevator to collapse. Unfortunately, after disabling the core (first two steps), the pilot again is overloaded, and he sees the hallucination of the core continuing its attack using the methods of previous bosses (third step) ... Stage 6: (No data.) Stage 6 [spoiler] ------- There are four versions of stage 6. Which version you enter depends on the ratio among the time you spend in the borders, and the number of times you have cleared the stage norm. If you spend over 50% of the time in a certain border color (green, yellow, red) /and/ you have cleared the stage norm 4 or more times, you will enter 6B, 6C or 6D respectively. Otherwise, you will enter 6A. (Special thanks oxtsu and "Mirai no Tobira" website. http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/himemako/urawaza/shutting/bd.htm ) In order to see the ending, you have to destroy the last boss before time expires. If time runs out (-30 sec), you see the game over screen instead. You cannot play stage 6 in practice mode. Also, there is no sample play for stage 6. Trivia ------ The very observant may notice that a small detail is missing in the Dreamcast version. In the arcade version and on the screenshot on the DC version package, one can see a flock of birds taking off along with the player ship at the beginning of the game. The birds are missing in the Dreamcast version. I have asked G.Rev through e-mail, and here is their official explanation (posted on their website). They have faithfully recreated the birds in arcade mode, and by design they intend to remove the birds in remix mode. But by mistake, the birds got removed from arcade mode also. Because by then, they have already finished working on arcade mode and were busy working on remix mode, they did not double-check arcade mode. And so, the birds do not appear in the final release version. Special thanks to G.rev for unveiling the mystery. --------------- END OF DOCUMENT ---------------