Reactance 2 (shooter)

Reactance 2 by Matt Parzyk is a shooter, or more accurately, a bullet hell shooter. The player controls a ship out to blast other ships. During that, lots of bullets will fly in all sorts of patterns all over the game screen.

Not a bullet hell, yet.

One notable feature is how clear the bullets are represented. The player's bullets are less visible while the opponent's dangerous bullets are bright. This makes it easier to tell immediately where the danger is.

The player's ship's contact area is allegedly 0.5 pixels large. This makes it possible to 'squeeze' between bullets. There is a slow time function that allows the player to, well, slow time to help with the squeezing. This function consumes Focus so it will not last forever.

The setting I use to beat levels without damage.

The player's ship may be customized with different weapons and mods. There are different weapons, each with different attack patterns and damage potential. There are also different ship hulls available. Along with that, there are mods that give different abilities to the ship and the weapons.

Now it's a real bullet hell.

For the most part, the game is pretty simple. It only started to get challenging on the fourth boss, Hyperion. However, the final boss, Atropos, is a real challenge compared to the earlier part of the game.

There are achievements in the game that award the player with bonuses such as extra damage or HP. Beat each boss with the Warp Core equipped to charge the Warp Core for one of the achievements.

To summarize, Reactance 2 is a well-made bullet hell game. The amount of polish that goes into the game makes it enjoyable to play. The real fun is in the boss battles, where the challenge is to learn the pattern of attacks and figure out the safe spots. Plus, the game has good music too.

Warp Core at 100% and still nothing!?

I am still working on getting the Warp Core to 120%. To do so requires beating the Boss Run with the Warp Core equipped. This is very difficult, requiring lots of patience and skill. I am still training to accomplish that.

Update 21 June 2012:
This is the setup I use for the Boss Run:

Setup for Boss Run.

I tried using the armor hull for the boss run. While HP regenerates fast, the ship is slow. This presents a lot of trouble against Hyperion 2.0. Some of Hyperion 2.0's attacks are best avoided by zooming to different ends of the screen and the armor hull is too slow for that. At least, the armor is thick enough to take the resulting damage.

Also, note that Hyperion 2.0's guided missiles detonate if they hit the edge of the screen. So dodging at the last moment at the edge of the screen can reduce the number of annoying missiles.

The armor hull is way too slow to avoid Atropos 2.0's whip. Though the armor hull can take a few hits from the whip, I was hard pressed to survive. It was much easier to dodge with the speed hull.

Currently, my best is Atropos 2.0 at around 35-50% of its thicker HP bar left. Still a long way to go to beat the boss run since I have not gone up against Atropos 2.0's 'cage' attack where two of its glow orbs form a cage around the ship.

Update 22 June 2012:
I've been challenging Atropos (the normal final boss), in order to study his attacks in preparation for Atropos 2.0. Each of its attacks has a method to avoid.

Atropos drops glowing green flowers.

For example, for Atropos' 'field of flowers' attack, there is a path in between the rows of flowers where the ship may follow safely. In the screenshot above, the path continues in the eight o'clock direction.

Hold still for the first part of Atropos' 'cage' attack.

For Atropos' 'cage' attack, there is a minimum safe distance to be. At that distance, hold still, then dodge the second wave of projectiles. As soon as possible, get to the minimum safe distance again and hold still. The next 'cage' attack will come soon after the second wave of projectiles.

Atropos 2.0's may have faster and/or more projectiles. At least, the projectiles in the boss run seems that way to me.

Update 23 June 2012:
Beat Atropos 2.0. I got this unlocked:

Best ship hull!

The unknown hull makes the boss run much easier. Plus it's innate weapon does considerable damage too. The hull is definitely needed for this challenge:

Hidden Boss!

Tartarus appears after Atropos 2.0 in the boss run. Not sure if the Warp Core has to be equipped to face Tartarus - too lazy to find out. Tartarus looks like the player's ship in the original Reactance.

Finally done with the Warp Core!

Beating Tartarus finally charges, or rather overcharges, the Warp Core. The Warp Core then provides the following bonus:

The Warp Core has some use.

I have no idea what the secret code does. I tried typing it in the game. I tried selecting levels according to the code. Nothing. Or maybe it unlocked something but did not tell me.