- Kamui
- RefleX
- ALLTYNEX Second
- Raid Wind 2: ALLTYNEX
The year is 2192. A worldwide administration AI called ALLTYNEX suddenly goes berserk, and within just a few days an army of unmanned drones under its control wipes out almost the entire humanity. Those fortunate enough to survive flee to the outer reaches of the solar system, but hostile conditions mean that the population is slowly dwindling, so 40 years later the remaining humans are just a single fleet around Jupiter. In a desperate bid they prepare their ships of to serve as a decoy and draw ALLTYNEX’s attention, and construct 108 fighters called Armed Saboteurs, essentially flying coffins packed with as much firepower as possible, whose only mission is to break through and destroy ALLTYNEX before the humanity is wiped out completely.
ALLTYNEX Second is actually not a completely original game, but instead a remake, a rather faithful one at that, of an old FM Towns game called Raid Wind 2: Alltynex, made by one of SITER SKAIN’s founders. It is also the first fully 3D SITER SKAIN game, and it survived the technology leap mostly intact. Overall, it has a bit more in common with KAMUI, than it does with RefleX, sharing some design points like multiple lives, a form of powerup, a homing weapon, and a powerful beam weapon, but in the end it is still its own thing, distinct from the previous two games.
For one, the player ship is definitely unlike the KAMUI or the Phoenix. The Armed Saboteur possesses two combat modes: the ranged mode, and the blade mode, each with a basic attack and a special attack. The ranged mode behaves like a typical space fighter, the basic attack being a “gatling” gun pretty similar to the one employed by the Phoenix, and just as tied to the ship’s power bar, while the special attack launches familiar homing lasers that drain the ship’s power bar at a moderate rate. Both attacks are rather weak – this is balanced by the ship’s other mode. The blade mode slows the ship down noticeably, makes it automatically turn towards the nearest “strong” enemy, and brandish two large laser blades that will deal massive damage to everything, including bosses. The special attack in this mode is a powerful and useful beam attack called the Buster Rifle, that will drain the ship’s power reserves very quickly. Both attacks are also the ship’s main defense mechanism – while Armed Saboteurs start with an active defensive layer, it will only allow to survive a single hit and is not replenishable. Instead, blade attacks and beam attacks will instantly cancel many types of bullets they hit. That’s a good thing, too – in order to deal any noticeable damage to boss enemies, the player will have to either rely on a very limited supply of power to spam Buster Rifle, or to find just the right spot and time to get in close and deal maximum damage.
The aforementioned power bar, combined with the scoring system, serves to complicate things even further. By itself, the ship very slowly recharges its power up to gatling level 5. The process can be sped up by collecting crystals dropped by destroyed enemies and cancelled bullets. This is a rather difficult task in blade mode, but the fighter mode automatically and near instantly attracts all crystals, rewarding swapping modes in a firefight. Further incentive is presented via the scoring system – chains of enemies destroyed in fighter mode give increasing point rewards (up to 25 600 per enemy) and raise blade mode score multiplier from the base 2x up to 16x. Thus the fighter mode favors long chains of weak enemies, while the blade mode is most effective score-wise against strong enemies, and maximizing stage score will depend on careful juggling of both. This time around scoring high even holds an extra incentive for 1CC runs: unlike in KAMUI or RefleX, there are extra lives awarded at certain point milestones.
ALLTYNEX Second is not a long game, 5 stages of, admittedly very fast paced, action is all it can offer, although there are various difficulty levels, an extra ship to unlock that plays quite differently, and a “return shot” mode that makes every killed enemy fire off one last curtain of bullets. The stage design sadly isn’t as imaginative as it was in RefleX, though it still has its moments, for example Stage 2 consists of systematic destruction of a space station’s defenses before taking on its main cannon literally just as it is about to fire on the human fleet, while the final leg of Stage 4 has the player speeding close to the ground, dodging around an orbital beam cannon blast in a pretty spectacular charge.
Like in KAMUI, the graphics and sound are the weakest element of the game. The game is in full 3D, but it’s not very advanced in that aspect, especially for a game released in 2010. Aside from an occasional lens flare, there simply aren’t that many special effects applied, and the model and texturing work is on the simpler side. Instead, the processing power goes to make sure the action stays very fast and smooth. It helps that the game doesn’t bother to shove its 3D right in the player’s face, like some other titles do, keeping its playfield readable instead, enemy bullets and enemies sharply distinct from the background most of the time. Apart from cutscenes and the Replay Mode, where it is an option, there are very few perspective shifts, and those that are there, serve to help the player avoid enemy attacks. The music is an obvious homage to FM Towns in its style, but while some tunes are quite catchy, the most the player will remember will probably be the annoying synth guitar and shrill synth organ dominating most of it.
Overall, ALLTYNEX Second is probably the most complex and challenging out of the three. The scoring mechanics are a bit more complex than usual, the ship takes a while to get used to and is very fragile compared to the Phoenix or the KAMUI. While it doesn’t have an off-the-charts difficulty spike like RefleX, there are two bossess that are significantly more challenging than the rest – one’s understandably the final boss, Satariel, but the other is Ajattara, the Stage 3 boss, which is much harder than anything before or after it, possibly even Satariel itself. Other than that, it’s still a pretty good game, just not as tight as KAMUI, or as brilliant as RefleX.
As of late 2024, ALLTYNEX Second remains the last game published by SITER SKAIN, although the company is still active. The current project is Drag Arms (ドラグアームズ), and seems to be a 360 degree shoot-’em-up, but other than an occasional dev screenshot, there isn’t much information available on the title.