Although the RAY series is a trilogy of shoot 'em ups about piloting a space fighter armed with lock-on weaponry, underneath that surface are tragedies of planetary proportions.
Warning! Unmarked spoilers below as per Spoilers Off wiki policy!
- The endings of all three games are bittersweet at best and heart-wrenching at worst.
- RayForce: Earth is so corrupted by Con-Human that the only option left to save humanity is to blow up the entire planet; this is the objective over the course of the game. Which succeeds. Our un-named heroine dies when the resulting explosion hit her RVA-818-X-LAY fighter, destroying it along with Earth. The final seconds of the credits pans to what remains of the wrecked fighter, and then we see the dashboard displaying Mission Complete just before the ship's power finally dies.
- RayStorm: In order to stop the Secilian rebellion, the R-GRAY squad destroys the entirety of the colony of Secilia, and it is implied that all seven billion inhabitants die; who knows how many of those seven billion are innocent civilians who want nothing to do with the entire conflict? 13-Ship Mode is even worse, as The Stinger reveals that Earth was wiped out too!
- RayCrisis: The fact that this is a prequel to RayForce should clue you in on how successful the efforts to stop Con-Human were (which is to say: not at all). Even the normal ending also ends on a somber note and the music that plays only adds to its depressing tone. Although the Con-Human's plans to eradicate all organic life has been delayed, you've only managed to prolong the inevitable; sooner or later, everything on the Earth and the few remaining humans that escaped to space will eventually die at the hands of the Con-Human.
