Sky Force Reloaded is a 2006 Shoot 'Em Up game by Infinite Dreams Inc., and the second game in the Sky Force series. The game starts off with you in control of a rather weak plane that can only slowly fire one shot at a time, but it can be gradually upgraded with stars you collect in the levels for much greater firepower, both by increasing the power of your main weapon and unlocking new ones. This in turn enables you to complete later levels and higher difficulties, which reward more stars to upgrade with, and so on. There are also temporary power-ups to be found in every level, including weapon upgrades which can increase your fire rate up to ten times, and the shield, laser, and megabomb power-ups which can be used on demand for temporary invulnerability, a piercing attack, and a Smart Bomb, respectively. Other unlockables include parts for new planes with special abilities, technicians that can provide their own unique advantages, and cards, which can provide various permanent or temporary boosts.
Sky Force Reloaded contains examples of:
- Beehive Barrier: The energy shield power-up, which provides temporary invulnerability to almost everything on use.
- Charged Attack: One of the permanent cards unlocks this ability, allowing you to stop firing temporarily to build up a massive burst. It's a bit dangerous though, as charging for too long will cause the plane to self-destruct.
- Early Game Hell: At the start of the game, your plane is incredibly weak, making even the first level a relative challenge. It isn't until you've unlocked all your weapons and upgraded the main cannon some that things get easier.
- Final Boss: The Omega, an AI controlled aircraft with numerous weapon systems including a massive laser attack.
- Final Boss Preview: The end of the intro level has you encounter the Final Boss early, who's impossible to defeat at this point.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Octopus plane replaces your missile weapon with a swarm of mini rockets. While each does less damage than a standard missile, they're generally much more useful as they can attack many enemies at once, rather than having all that firepower go to waste to take down a single enemy plane. On the PC version, the Charged Attack takes this up to eleven, firing loads of rockets rather than bullets.
- One Hit Poly Kill: The wing cannons, in addition to dealing higher damage per shot than the main cannon, can pierce enemies, making them very effective against lines of enemy planes. The laser power-up can also do this.
- Sequential Boss: Most of the bosses have multiple phases of combat as you destroy their weapons and they start using new ones, before you're finally able to put them down for good.
- Smart Bomb: The Mega Bomb. On use, it destroys all nearby projectiles and does major damage to enemies. It can be upgraded to increase its radius and damage.
- A Taste of Power: The game starts you off by throwing into combat with a well upgraded plane, but it's inevitably destroyed by the end of the level no matter how well you do. You're then given a replacement plane that has to be upgraded from the ground up.
