Surpass Your Limits
Jet Lancer is a side-scrolling Shoot 'Em Up developed by Code Wakers and published by Armor Games Studios, with music by Fat Bard
. It places you in the boots of Ashlyn "Ash" Leguinn and the cockpit of the hyper-advanced L4-NC-3R fighter jet.
The story opens with Ashlyn and the Captain having purchased the Lancer for a suspiciously low sum; the seller was in an awful hurry to get rid of it, and, well, Ash really needs to pay off that 350 million she owes the government after blowing up one of their ships by accident and losing her own plane in the process. However, the Lancer quickly turns out to be more than it seems, especially when the two are joined by Lem, a feline engineer of the four-legged variety.
It was released onto GOG, Nintendo Switch, and Steam on May 12th, 2020.
Tropes present in Jet Lancer:
- Ace Pilot: Ashlyn isn't an ace, at least officially. She washed out of piloting school, because she diverted from a training exercise to rescue some civilians. She clearly has the skills to be one though.
- Action Bomb: One enemy type looks pretty much exactly like a Tomahawk Cruise Missile. They have no ranged attack, but will constantly try to fly into you and release a spread of projectiles when destroyed.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: AEGIS, good lord. Its first act is to convince Pierce to remove the 'Autonomy Governor', and you can probably imagine exactly how things go from there. It turns out AEGIS is basically responsible for... well, everything being the way it is.
- Arrange Mode: Well, Arcade Mode. Every other wave you get to pick from three bonuses (such as increased special weapon recharge speed, a new charge weapon, or replacing your dodge-roll with a deadly dash), and every fifth you fight one or more of the main story bosses. Scoring points allows you to unlock alternate pilots to play as, each with their own plane and unique primary weapon.
- Chekhov's Gun: The L4-NC-3R's Power Limiter, naturally. Both in that the Black Knight's is disabled, and that Ash ends up disabling the L4-NC-3R's in order to save the world. In the regular end, this kills her, as she uses the void manipulator it unlocks to destroy the Final Retort, somehow also sending the jet back in time as the Black Knight and (mostly) destroying her body in the process. In NG+'s Golden Ending, the void manipulator is instead used by the Black Knight again to destroy the orbital railgun in place of Ash herself, sacrificing itself in order for Ash to take on the Steel Riposte's Omega form. The L4-NC-3R is badly damaged upon a crash-landing (one of its wings visibly broken in half at the very least), but Ash herself survives alongside Pierce.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Two themes; the anti-AEGIS weapons are all in hot pink/red, and all of AEGIS' weapons are in dull slate/dark grey with orange trim.
- Cool Plane: The L4-NC-3R.
- Dash Attack: One possible upgrade turns your dodge-roll move into a damaging forward dash. This actually makes it possible for you to destroy incoming missiles by ramming them, and you won't take damage because you're invincible whilst using the dash maneuver.
- Deadpan Snarker: Ash and Lem take turns at snarking.
- Death Seeker: The Black Knight (and by extension, the Lancer itself) implies Ash is one of these, and tells her that she needs to protect herself if she wishes to protect others.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Certain attacks and events will cause the entire display to change to pure black and white for emphasis. Most also completely mute sound and either dampen or mute the BGM.
- Destructible Projectiles: Homing missiles and certain other large projectiles can be shot down, though this is rather difficult.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Captain, aka Orson Ratskeller, is known only as such until you meet Gin, one of the leading Sky Pirates. She turns out to be his older sister.
- Failure Hero: Peter, the son of Colonel Hardaway. An early mission sees you babysitting him in a jet. It becomes this when he's assigned first to the STERN REBUKE and later the Space Elevator Fleet, failing to stop Ashlyn both times.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: Lem's plane in Arcade Mode uses a flamethrower. Whilst it lacks the range of the Lancer's standard armament, it deals a lot of damage within that shorter range and sets enemies on fire for damage over time. The wide spread and way it works makes it, theoretically, better at shooting down incoming missiles.
- For Want Of A Nail: Odds are, none of this would have happened if Lem hadn't accidentally powered up two of the anti-AEGIS weapon systems, and then powered up AEGIS itself. To be fair to Lem, though, AEGIS also wouldn't have been a problem if Pierce didn't blindly trust AEGIS and allowed it to melt the Royal Air Force down into the Steel Riposte.
- Golden Ending: Via New Game Plus. Instead of destroying the Black Knight, you need to use the NG+-exclusive Advanced Decryption Mod equipment to hack it, which gives you an alternative sequence of final missions in which you break the Stable Time Loop. The Knight uses its Limiter and Void Manipulator to destroy the orbital weapons platform, leaving Ash to destroy the reincarnated/reassembled OMEGA RETORT.
- Hollywood Hacking: One mission objective type involves staying close to fixed towers (or in one mission, moving planes) to acquire or transmit data. There's also enemies which can hack the guidance systems of your missiles and redirect them back at you! A module allows you to turn that against them, and an upgrade in Arcade mode also allows you to automatically hack nearby missiles whenever you dodge-roll.
- Humongous Mecha: Most of the bosses are giant robots of one kind or another.
- Lightning Gun: The primary weapon of Gin's plane in Arcade Mode. Its range is fairly average and it has the lowest immediate damage of the lot, but it has the benefit of chaining between enemies that are close enough together, and can inflict ruinous damage on the multi-section bosses.
- The Slow Path: And boy must it have been a slow one.Black Knight: "We have had thousands of years to analyze the decisions you made. At last, we understood."Black Knight: "And so here we wait, to stop you from making the same mistake again."
- Macross Missile Massacre: Your starting secondary and charge weapons are guided missiles, and in the case of the charge, a outright swarm of them, allowing you to unleash a veritable maelstrom of rocket-propelled, heat-seeking death upon your foes. Or maybe yourself, if an enemy Electronic Warfare plane is around. There's even an achievement for having a certain number of your own missiles redirected back at you during a single mission.
- Magnetic Weapons: You can use two; Pierce's plane in Arcade Mode uses a rapid-fire railgun as its primary weapon, and you can get a slower-firing near-infinite-range railgun as a special weapon in both Campaign and Arcade Modes, though only in New Game Plus for campaign.
- Meaningful Name: The Lancer, being the copy of the Black Knight. Or is it?
- Military Mashup Machine: The SWIFT REPLY, a submersible aircraft carrier with cruise missiles.
- Mirror Match: The penultimate boss, Black Knight; an AI-controlled 'copy' of the L4-NC-3R that turns out to be the L4-NC-3R itself from another timeline; that being from the regular run. It isn't quite a mirror match though; the Knight's Power Limiter is disabled, and it can redirect your missiles back at you if you launch them from too far away. Said redirection is unlocked after beating the Knight as a module.
- Mirrored Confrontation Shot: Every boss fight opens with a shot of the Lancer on the left flying towards the opponent, who is on the right. This is usually accompanied by the Lancer's onboard computer attempting to communicate with (or just identifying) the boss in question.
- New Game Plus: After beating the campaign, you can start over in NG+ mode with all of the stuff you unlocked before. You also immediately receive the ACE module, which turns you into a One-Hit-Point Wonder in exchange for improved speed and maneuverability. Several modules can only be unlocked in New Game Plus, such as the (new) Railgun and Alt Fire Switch. Enemy wave/group composition in missions is mixed up, and enemies (especially bosses) gain new attack patterns and moves as well, to keep things interesting.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Each boss releases an ominous black orb when defeated, save the twins and the Knight. This power was stolen from AEGIS in the past and used to create the weapons that brought it down; and now AEGIS has reclaimed the stolen cores, bringing it back up to full power.
- Oh, Crap!: Peter's reaction when he realizes who he's about to face at the Naval Blockade is priceless.
- And later in NG+, when Ash realizes she only has five minutes to stop the nuke before it hits the city and causes unnecessary (and for that matter pointless) civilian casualties.
- Psychotic Smirk: Ash gets a bit of one before kicking Peter's ass at the naval blockade.
- Royal "We": Curiously, the Black Knight speaks like this;Ash: "You're... me?"Black Knight: "We are, for a given value of you. Our designation is LANCER_01."
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Ashlyn's whole motivation, pretty much. In her case it leads to her getting busted out of flight school before passing because she broke away from a training exercise to rescue civilians, which perhaps foreshadows that the 'Royal Air Force' isn't all as nice and benevolent as you might expect. It's also Pierce's motivation, but he's lead astray by AEGIS.
- Shockingly Expensive Bill: At the start of the game, you're on the hook for somewhere on the order of 350 million credits after sinking a Royal Navy ship by accident.
- Shout-Out: A couple of achievement names. 'Blue Plate Special' in particular is a Tribes reference; a nod to the Spinfusor in both name and the challenge itself; hitting fast-moving aerial targets with unguided projectiles.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The fight with the Black Knight is set to a fairly somber piano-heavy piece, in contrast with the fairly intense music used in most other missions.
- Super Prototype: The L4-NC-3R, of course. Turns out it's not quite one-of-a-kind though; there's actually another one. Sort of.
- Talking Animal: Your engineer, Lem, is a cat who uses an artificial vocoder in order to communicate.
- Tank Goodness: The STERN REBUKE, a gigantic Wave-Motion Gun sporting siege tank. Shame they gave it to Peter.
- Theme Naming: The two 'themes' of bosses each have their own theme names; the anti-AEGIS platforms seem to be chess or tarot themed (FOOL, TOWER, EMPRESS, LANCER/BLACK KNIGHT) whilst AEGIS' own are more abstract (SWIFT REPLY, STERN REBUKE, STEEL RIPOSTE, FINAL RETORT.)
- Variable Mix: Each track consists of 3-4 'layers', which are faded in and out as needed for intensity. This is played with in bossfights.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Expect to see these used several times. You can get your own, but it's more of a snapshot rather than the sustained beams that bosses get.
- Weaponized Exhaust: You're not told about it, but if you perform a quick reversal (a sudden 180 assisted by the dodge roll) then begin thrusting/boosting again, your plane will fire out a vicious backblast from its thrusters, dealing massive damage in a small cone behind you. It's hard to intentionally pull off though.
- Wronski Feint: A perfectly viable way of getting rid of missiles that are coming at you, and a little easier to do if you remove the autostall system as it'll let you skim lower. Just make sure you don't crash.
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