W Double Rings thread

[PukeSter]

This game is probably even more unknown than Override. I couldn't find a single thread for it and even Runinruder doesn't have a review for it.

Has anyone here played this? From what I've played, it's an extremely interesting Gradius clone, except with a normal power-up system and less meticulous gameplay. The graphic effects in the backgrounds are beautiful too, despite the lack of parallax.

It also doesn't seem terribly difficult. Not Override easy, but I've managed to make it to Stage 5 on my first try (there are 7 levels). Stage 5 is a high speed level like in Gradius III, but you have speed settings like in Star Soldier so there are no speed icons.

[esteban]

This game is probably even more unknown than Override. I couldn't find a single thread for it and even Runinruder doesn't have a review for it.

Has anyone here played this? From what I've played, it's an extremely interesting Gradius clone, except with a normal power-up system and less meticulous gameplay. The graphic effects in the backgrounds are beautiful too, despite the lack of parallax.

It also doesn't seem terribly difficult. Not Override easy, but I've managed to make it to Stage 4 on my first try (there are 7 levels). Stage 4 is a high speed level like in Gradius III, but you have speed settings like in Star Soldier so there are no speed icons.

I haven't had any luck grabbing a copy.

Granted, I didn't try too hard, but the few opportunities that came by, I lost out.

I played it (emulation) before determining that I will buy it.

That means I played it 16 years ago.

[A Black Falcon]

First, the correct name of the game is W-Ring: The Double Rings.  What the "Double Rings" in the title refers to is anyone's guess; there is only one ring, not two, that circles around your ship.
 

Anyway, I love W-Ring, it's a great game!  Very good graphics, good music, fun gameplay, it's good stuff.  The game is short, but quite fun.  The game is sort of like a Gradius game, and that is great because Gradius is my favorite shmup series.  I really like W-Ring.  However....

Well, on the default difficulty, W-Ring is a very easy game once you've played it a bit.  I picked the game up a few weeks ago for the first time in a while and beat Normal difficulty on my first try!  That almost never happens for me in games, and really shows how once you've learned the basics, beating Normal isn't hard at all even for those only okay at this genre.

However, Hard mode is an entirely different story.  Hard mode is REALLY difficult.  The final level is a super-hard challenge; after several days of trying, I eventually had to give up.  I only managed to beat Hard thanks to the cheat mentioned in this thread about the game here on PCEFX: https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=13095.msg258757#msg258757

Without that code I did get to the final boss, and even almost killed him once, but one of the last bullets killed me, or something like that...argh, that was very frustrating.  And of course I couldn't manage it again.  I finally beat the game on Hard with the added shields that code gives you.  There's no additional reward for it -- it's the same exact ending as Normal, and the game just loops again on Hard. (When you beat Normal, it loops over to the beginning of the game on Hard after the end sequence.)

So what makes the game, that last level in particular, so insanely difficult on Hard? Well, that stage is very narrow, and the enemies shoot lots of bullets.  I'm sure some people could get through that with a lot less trouble than me, but I'm bad at bullet-hell games, and dodging a lot of tiny, fast-moving bullets which often blend in to the background becasue the colors are too similar is really difficult, particularly when you often have almost no room to maneuver in, and one single hit at any point is basically death, start the level over!  At least the game has infinite continues.  Sure, you have multiple lives, and hitpoints (if you get hit while you have a powerup you'll lose the weapon instead of dying), but if you want to actually finish the level, you basically NEED weapon powerups to make it through the waves of enemies and turrets unless you are VERY good at bullet-dodging, and there aren't a lot of them in this stage.  The early levels have powerups all over the place, but that's not the case in the final level, for sure.

Oh yeah, and level 6, the final level, is basically two levels in one.  You play through that level in the narrow tunnel, beat a boss at the end, warp to the weird space that is the final area, fight waves of enemies there, and then fight the final boss... but if you die in the weird-space "?" area and get game over?  You go back  ALL the way to the beginning of level 6.  There is no checkpoint in what is effectively the final level.  That's really, really cruel; if you could continue there after game over I'd have won for sure without needing the extra-shields cheat.

So yeah, W-Ring is kind of a weird case -- the game is very easy on Normal, but crushingly difficult on Hard.  I like it anyway, but trying to beat Hared mode was very frustrating.  It took longer than beating Zero Wing (TCD) did, and was less satisfying because I only managed to see the ending with that code.  I should note, Zero Wing for TCD does have a checkpoint at the start of its final level!  Had that game done what this game does and send you back to the start of the previous level if you die at the final boss... ARGH, that would have been so horrible... but this game does exactly that.  Gah. 

Overall I do like the game anyway, but maybe slightly less than before -- the bullets are too hard to see sometimes and blend in way too well with the backgrounds; the ring is hard to rely on as a shield because it's such a small target that I often just had to rely on chance for whether a bullet was going to harmlessly bounce off of the shield or hit me and kill me or take out my powerups (I didn't mention it above, but this is a huge issue!  It makes the game hard to predict at times in ways that are very frustrating in such a precision-based genre.); and the enemies are too hard to kill unless you have powerups.  This game is not balanced like Gradius so that the game is playable without powerups if you play well -- bosses will take longer to kill without powerups, etc.  So yeah, it's a good game and I do really like it, but it's not quite as great as Gradius games are, it sometimes felt a bit random and unfair.  The game is quite short, too; this is on the shorter end of shmups for the generation. 

Still, the gameplay, weapons, graphics, music, variety, secrets (the hidden alternate versions of stages and weapons for example), usually good level designs, interesting enemies and bosses, etc. are all good, and it's a very fun game to play up until you reach level 6 of Hard difficulty.  But getting through that last stage will quite likely take longer than the whole game up to that point; even with the code, it's really hard.  Of course you could just say 'Normal is good enough, you don't get any additional reward for beating it on Hard or anything', and that's fair, but Normal is so easy that I, at least, wanted an additional challenge.  Well, it sure delivered.

[esteban]

OK, if the HARD mode isn't a cakewalk, then this game did it right: offering something for all different skill levels.

I wish all games did this (offered a challenging mode for the veteran players), because then everyone is happy.

[PunkCryborg]

First, the correct name of the game is W-Ring: The Double Rings.  What the "Double Rings" in the title refers to is anyone's guess; there is only one ring, not two, that circles around your ship.

Well if you read my review then you would see where "the double rings" come from.

Also I found out there is a cheat to make a ship barrier that is kinda cool. Go to the sound test and listen to tracks 7, 9, 3, 10 then start the game and you get a second ring that acts as a shield for a lot of bullets. I guess that's the second ring in "the double rings".

The code you input adds a second ring around your ship making two ring shields. I imagine this was how the game was intended to be played originally but was probably too easy so the hid it via a code in the test menu.
I love this game. The best stage is the alternate high speed level. New music and super fast Gradius speed stage style. Naxat made some really solid games

[Samuray]

I picked it up when it was offered on another forum, basically knowing nothing about it except its genre.
And I was pleasently surprised, by the visuals especially. Highly recommended!

[_Paul]

In a nutshell: Cool music. Nice colour-cycling. Good game!

[A Black Falcon]

First, the correct name of the game is W-Ring: The Double Rings.  What the "Double Rings" in the title refers to is anyone's guess; there is only one ring, not two, that circles around your ship.

Well if you read my review then you would see where "the double rings" come from.

Also I found out there is a cheat to make a ship barrier that is kinda cool. Go to the sound test and listen to tracks 7, 9, 3, 10 then start the game and you get a second ring that acts as a shield for a lot of bullets. I guess that's the second ring in "the double rings".

The code you input adds a second ring around your ship making two ring shields. I imagine this was how the game was intended to be played originally but was probably too easy so the hid it via a code in the test menu.

I did read that review, that's where I got the code from that I needed to finish the game on Hard, as I said; that's why I linked the thread.  But as for that being the reason why it's called "The Double Rings", I"m, not sure; the thing is, you do have one ring shield around your ship at all times that protects you from some fire from above and below.  Then with the code, you get two more spherical shields that rotate around you a bit farther out.  Those two aren't just each a single ring like the one around your ship is, and adding them to that shield makes three, not two... so you might be right here, but there are still some unexplained elements to it.  I'd love for some Japanese speaker to read the manual and say if that says why the name is what it is...

I love this game. The best stage is the alternate high speed level. New music and super fast Gradius speed stage style. Naxat made some really solid games

The high speed stage's even faster but enemy-free alternate version is pretty cool too; it's a nice one because the normal stage is pretty tough, but the alternate version I find easier -- it is faster, but shorter and has no enemies.  Either way though, that boss is one of the harder ones from before the final stage, it's easy to die on that guy.  It is a good level though.  The coolest looking one is probably the one with all the waterfalls though, that one looks great... though level 6's highly-animated ship environment also does look cool, apart from how the background and enemy shots are almost the same color.

OK, if the HARD mode isn't a cakewalk, then this game did it right: offering something for all different skill levels.

I wish all games did this (offered a challenging mode for the veteran players), because then everyone is happy.

Yeah, Hard's really tough and will challenge about anyone.  It is nice to have the different options, but Normal mode could be a bit tougher, I think... it is maybe too easy.  Gradius games are still very hard even if you know what you're doing, but W-Ring is easy with some practice, on Normal... and then the difficulty spikes up way high once you try Hard mode.  But sure, it is good that they give you both options, a legitimate easy option or a definite hard option.

[ccovell]

I liked this game the few times I played through it.  But, doesn't this game have a hidden collectible on EVERY level?  Maybe it's only in difficult mode, but I seem to recall that the game won't finish until you collect each one on every stage.

[A Black Falcon]

I liked this game the few times I played through it.  But, doesn't this game have a hidden collectible on EVERY level?  Maybe it's only in difficult mode, but I seem to recall that the game won't finish until you collect each one on every stage.

There are two kinds of special (and usually hidden) collectibles, one which sends you to an alternate version of the stage you're in that is shorter but often harder than the regular one and has a different color palette, and another which changes your weapon into an alternate form -- so the shield weapon turns into a weapon which sends out spheres which bounce off of the walls, instead of just circling around you.  Those are the only two kinds of collectibles I know about, unless I'm missing something, and I don't know if every level has both of them -- there are some stages I've never found either one on.

As for endings, are you saying that there is some alternate ending if you get the alternate-stage-version item and beat the alternate versions of all the levels, presuming that alternate versions of all the levels actually do exist?  That would be really interesting if true, the ending as it is is fairly short... but no, there is an ending if you just beat the game normally, so maybe you're misremembering.  The game does loop back to the start after the ending (on the next difficulty up, if you played on anything below the top setting), of course.

Any more details would be appreciated, I know I haven't found everything in this game -- for one thing, there must be more stages with alternate version items hidden somewhere!

[PunkCryborg]

There is an alternate stage in every level. I haven't played in a couple years so I don't remember where they all are though. One is really tricky and is hidden in rectangle hole in a wall in the middle of the screen. You have to crash into the wall which makes you invisible for a moment and you lose your weapon and you fly right into the rectangle area

[esteban]

There is an alternate stage in every level. I haven't played in a couple years so I don't remember where they all are though. One is really tricky and is hidden in rectangle hole in a wall in the middle of the screen. You have to crash into the wall which makes you invisible for a moment and you lose your weapon and you fly right into the rectangle area

Ok, this game is sounding better and better.

I honestly don't remember ever doing something like this, which means I never played the alternate version of ____ stage.

Awesome.

[Bardoly]

I just played through and beat this game on both the 'Beginner' and 'Normal' difficulty modes, and I enjoyed myself.  I do agree that to an expert shoot-'em-up gamer, that the 'Normal' difficulty setting may be rather easy, but for those who are not experts, it does give a reasonable challenge.  If you can find a copy, then I would recommend it.