Cyvern: The Dragon Weapons
Cyvern: The Dragon Weapons
サイヴァーン
Title screen
| Developer: | Kaneko |
|---|---|
| Music: | Katsuya Yoneda |
| Program: | K.Minegishi Hiyorinn.S Sho-Chan Osapan |
| Art: | U-Zool Hiroki Narisawa Endo Chang Ryo.Kimura Ishi-Ryu Gomez Marukeni |
| Release date: | 1998 |
Contents
Cyvern: The Dragon Weapons サイヴァーン is a vertically scrolling shoot'em up game developed by Kaneko and released in 1998 on Kaneko Super Nova System. It has 5 stages and 2 loops.
Controls
- A: Shot
- A (Hold): Special Weapon ("banish")
- B: Bomb.
Characters
There are three playable dragons. Depending on whether you play as player 1 or 2, name and color of the characters change but not their speed nor weapons.
1. Altair (red) / Veqa (purple) : shot with homing elements, banish = flames
2. Schwarz (blue) / Vais (orange) : wide shot, banish = lightning bolts
3. Ferious (green) / Serene (yellow) : narrow shot with missiles, banish = focused laser beam
Weapons
Each dragon has three weapons: a shot, the special weapon "banish" and a bomb. The bomb is identical for all three dragons.
Shot
Use it to destroy pop-corn ennemies or to refill the banish gauge. When you reach a high power level, shot get additional elements depending on the character: homing lasers for Altair/Veqa, additionnal shots for Shwarz/Vais, missiles for Ferious/Serene.
Special weapon "banish"
Use it to score and destroy multiple/strong enemies. The use of the special weapons empties the "banish" gauge. When it is empty, the special weapon is completely inoperative. To fill up the gauge you must shoot enemies, pick up powerups or die (dragon respawns with a full banish gauge and two bombs).
The special weapon is very different depending on the character and changes drastically the gameplay.
Altair/Veqa = flames with medium DPS
Shwarz/Vais = lightning bolts with weak DPS but covering a large part of the screen. You can focus your power by point-blanking enemies.
Ferious/Serene = powerful laser beam that shoots straight forward and slants to the right or to the left depending on the direction you take.
Bomb
Explodes mid-screen in front of you. Use it to destroy ennemies, cancel bullets and get some invicibility frames.
"Death explosion"
When you die, a bomb-like explosion occurs. Seems less powerful than an actual bomb but it can be use as a weapon.
Items
Big powerup : equivalent to 4 small powerups. It strongly fills the banish gauge and increases firepower by one full level.
Small powerup : equivalent to a quarter of a big powerup. It slightly fills the banish gauge and increases the firepower.
Powerups are usually dropped by orange ships. Get a big one by destroying them fast, otherwise you'll get only 2 small powerups.
Bomb : usually dropped by blue ships.
You can also get items by destroying parts of some bosses or dying.
Rank
Game contains a rank system depending on how many extends, bombs and powerups you got. Manage the rank is crucial for the score. See strategy sections for more details.
Loops
Game has a second loop you enter by just finishing the first one. No requirement needed and no TLB. Second loop is quite identical to the first one but with a very high rank: more and faster bullets, more resistant enemies. No revenge bullets though.
Scoring
Scoring is based on two main elements: medals and bosses. "Banish" is the key to get points: using shot or bomb won't give you any bonus points. In general, "banishing" enemies will give you about twice as many points as destroying them with shot or bomb.
Medals
Build the chain
Game has a medal system. You must build a chain of medals composed of 6 values: 50 points, 100, 500, 1 000, 5 000, 10 000.
Destroy ground enemies (tanks, buildings etc.) with the "banish" to reveal the medals. You must pick at least 5 medals to get to the next level. If you reveal more than 5 medals at the same time, they will all have the same value. So, ideally, you'd want to reveal 5 medals, collect them, then reveal 5 more, collect etc.
If at least one medal goes off screen, even when you're dying/respawning, chain is broken and you restart from the very bottom (50 points medal). Even if you rebuild ideally the chain 5 by 5, it's a 200 000 points loss at the very least.
Special 100 000 points medals
Five 100 000 points medals are hidden throughout the stages. To get these, it is necessary to destroy (with the "banish" as always) some enemies in a particular order and collect the medal. A special sound will notify you of the collection.
Stage 2 : At the beginning of the stage, two big planes are rolling. Destroy the one on the left first, then the one on the right.
Stage 3 : After the cloud of flying insects, two big bio-mechanical tanks appear. Destroy the one on the right first, then the one on the left.
Stage 4 : you'll fight a mid-boss composed of a core and 4 turrets. You must destroy the 4 turrets first then the core with "banish".
Stage 5 : when three big tanks appear side by side, first destroy the ones on the sides, in any order, then the middle one last.
Stage 5 : You'll meet again the two bio-mechanical tanks from stage 3. Same strategy: destroy the one on the right first, then the one on the left
Bosses
Last hit
A big bonus awaits you if you destroy the boss with the "banish". The difficulty lies in the fact that they do not have a lifebar. If you give the last hit with a shot, a bomb or a "
Strategy
See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.
This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.
(Currently evaluating whether or not this specific section should even include information outside of the separated Strategy pages. Worth thinking about as a community.)
Story
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If there is no story at all, or any information about the setting, then this section can be omitted. Try to include at least small things here when you can.
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