Video Game / ALLTYNEX Second

Guess who.

The first chapter in SITER SKAIN's The Tale of ALLTYNEX trilogy, ALLTYNEX Second takes place before the events of RefleX and Kamui, despite being released after both games. It is a remake of an FM Towns Marty game called ALLTYNEX, developed by a man named Satoshi Yoshida, who later went on to form SITER SKAIN, with massively upgraded graphics and some game design changes (the original game had power-ups, the remake does not); the original FM Towns game was also the sequel the obscure PC-98 game Raid Wind from the same creator.

The fighter the player flies in ALLTYNEX Second has four different weapons: a vulcan spread-shot and RayStorm-esque homing lasers in its fighter form, and can transform into a slower mech that has two bullet-cancelling swords and a Wave-Motion Gun. Mastering switching between the forms and knowing which weapon to use when is essential.

The story follows that mankind's defensive super-computer, ALLTYNEX, one day goes rogue and uses its control over military hardware to start waging war on humanity. In the face of its onslaught, humanity is driven off of Earth and to the very edge of the solar system. In desperation, several "Armed Saboteur" fighters are dispatched to destroy ALLTYNEX before it destroys everyone else.

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This game contains examples of:

• The Ace: Guehala Dennis.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: The player's craft is called Armed Saboteur and every boss' name starts with an A: Aseliel, Adonis, Ajattara, Alacran, and, finally, Alltynex. The Final Boss breaks this trend, being named Satariel.
• Alternate Universe:
  • ALLTYNEX only became sentient (and evil) after it was networked with seven other ALLTYNEX units in parallel universes. The unit in this universe is designated "ALLTYNEX Second", hence the name of the game.
  • After you destroy ALLTYNEX, the Ophiuchus Core yanks out Satariel from one of the parallel universes in which ALLTYNEX does not exist.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: An omnipresent trope in this series. ALLTYNEX itself being the primary example.
  • In reality subverted to hell and gone, as ALLTYNEX rampage was planned out and deliberate in order to both help awaken the Ophiuchus core as well as to thin out Earth population to make it easier to unite and control. Double-subverted when the power of the core took control of ALLTYNEX and started a rampage for real.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Followers of Yuda, in control of the Senate, set ALLTYNEX's rampage in order to reduce humanity to a controllable level. "Ancient" because the Yuda Clan had stolen ZODIAC Ophiuchus millennia ago in order to colonize Earth — leaving the Raiwat without any real way to counteract the other ZODIACs. They knew the Raiwat would be looking for revenge, and so decided that at some point, they needed to ensure humanity could be properly mustered.
• Apocalypse How: Societal Disruption/Collapse — 85% of the human race is wiped out in 72 hours by ALLTYNEX's first assault.
• Armored Coffins: Since this is basically a Suicide Mission the Armed Saboteurs had their ejection systems removed in order to lessen weight and costs.
• Battleship Raid: The Zoldyzant Base.
• BFS: They are twice as big as your ship and you dual-wield them.
• Boss Subtitles: Most of them are simply "Guardian Soldier", but ALLTYNEX gets "Mother Brain" and Satariel gets "Visitor from Qliphoth".
• Bullet Hell
• Call-Forward:
  • The final line of defense before ALLTYNEX is a ZODIAC: the shell of Ophiuchus, to be exact. A remix of "Raiwat Virgo" also plays during the battle.
  • The credits also briefly mention the other ZODIAC units, and reveal that the player character is the same Dr. Dennis that invents the Phoenix Mk-II.
• Color-Coded Multiplayer: In the original FM Towns ALLTYNEX, which had a co-op mode for two players. Player 1 was red while Player 2 was blue.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss: ALLTYNEX itself.
• Cosmetic Award: ALLTYNEX Second has its own in-game Achievements for completing certain tasks, but prior to overseas localization, many had to resort to the Internet for fan translations of them.
• Degraded Boss: ZODIAC Ophiuchus is nowhere near as powerful as the ZODIAC's seen in RefleX, but that makes sense, as Ophiuchus is lacking its core... which is being used to power ALLTYNEX and later Satariel. Said core is dug up in RefleX and used to build the Phoenix Mk-II.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Advanced Ship.
• Difficulty Levels: In the original game, the difficulty goes from Very Easy to Very Hard. In ALLTYNEX Second, there's only Easy, Normal, and Hard at first until you unlock the Suicide Bullet difficulty.
• Disc-One Final Boss: ALLTYNEX is built up as the Final Boss due to being the main antagonist, but then Satariel shows up.
• Every 10,000 Points: The only game in the series to have extra lives or health through Scoring Points.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Satariel, the Final Boss, had basically no foreshadowing throughout the game, and only appears for the final battle to serve as a host for the fleeing, dying ALLTYNEX. That said, the guidebook reveals that the winnowing program the Followers of Yuda installed in ALLTYNEX was itself called the Satariel system.
• Gone to the Future: Dennis was flung forward 200 years after the defeat of Satariel.
• Gratuitous English: The boss warnings. "An enemy plane of the ALLTYNEX operation system deployment model is coming close. I shift into a phase with the second battle mode. I fight back immediately and please overthrow it. A goddess of the victory smile at you." Averted in the international release, which corrects the use of Engrish.
• Harder Than Hard: The Suicide Bullet difficulity.
• Hit Stop: Killing enemies with the swords gives this effect. The game is also one of the few games that allow you to turn it on or off.
• Kill Sat: ALLTYNEX whips one out near the end of Stage 4. You, unfortunately, are not in orbit at the time, and so just have to dodge around the giant beam of death.
• Lightning Bruiser: Alacran, and being a Call-Forward to Scorpio it has to be.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Sometimes launched against you, mainly because the swords are not fast enough to block large numbers of missiles.
  • The advanced ship can launch these as well.
• Meaningful Name: Satariel, the name of both the program that impelled ALLTYNEX to assail humanity and the extra-dimensional vessel it hijacks as a new host, is the name of one of the leaders of the renegade Grigori who precipitated the Nephilim disaster in the Book of Enoch. The disaster in question killed nearly all humanity, save for Noah and his family — the Flood wasn't so much about extirpating sinful humanity as an emergency measure to destroy the Nephilim before they ate the whole planet. In like measure, the Followers of Yuda intended the Satariel System to destroy a good chunk of humanity so they could better control humanity against the Raiwat.
• Mickey Mousing: The Area 5 theme speeds up and segues into an arrangement of "Raiwat Virgo" right as you encounter the midboss, the shell of ZODIAC Ophiuchus.
• Mighty Glacier: Your fighter's Armor mode. It is very slow, but both its swords and giant beam weapon can cancel bullets and do huge amounts of damage.
• Nintendo Hard: Even on Easy, the game is still pretty fiendish. Ajattara, the Stage 3 boss, will probably be one of your biggest hurdles.
• Nonstandard Game Over: If the Omega Javelin fires off in stage two. It's instant, no retries, and you get an Achievement for it. This is because the Omega Javelin's cannon is aimed at the human fleet; destroying it pretty much cripples the entire military's chances of victory.
• Odd Name Out: The final boss, dragged in from a parallel universe, is named Satariel, the only boss name that doesn't start with 'A'.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: Just like the original so does the remix of "Raiwat Virgo" have these.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Not quite. The ship's Defense Shield can absorb one and only one hit, and it cannot be restored unless the player dies.
• Outside-Context Problem: Satariel. In a last ditch effort to survive, ALLTYNEX yanks Satariel out of one of the parallel universes and controls it.
• Power-Up: In the original game, they increased the spread of your main shot and saves you from losing a life once. Take a bullet though and you can kiss your spread shot goodbye.
  • Earlier alphas of ALLTYNEX Second originally had power-ups just like in the FM Towns ALLTYNEX but SITER SKAIN later opted this out with an energy meter mechanic similar to RefleX instead.
• Prequel: Of of another prequel, no less.
• Roboteching: All over the place. This time the player has roboteching homing lasers of their own.
• Shout-Out: The third form of Adonis is looking strangely familiar.
  • The player ship's beam weapon is apparently called the "Buster Rifle".
• Single-Use Shield: Unlike in the previous two games, the player's ship has only one point of shielding, and no way to get it back if it's lost until the next life.
• Suicide Mission: All the Armed Saboteurs are launched to basically run a gauntlet and hope that at-least one reaches and destroys the core of ALLTYNEX. Therefore they sacrificed almost all defense for offensive power.
• Tank Goodness: Ajattara.
• Theme Naming: every boss other than Alltynex itself is named after a mythological creature:
  • Aseliel is a variant of Asariel, the archangel of water and earth
  • Adoni(s) is the greek demi-god of beauty and desire
  • Ajattara is the finnish evil spirit said to be the mother of the devil
  • Alacran is a translation of Scorpius, who in greek mythology was the killer of Orion
  • Satariel hails from cabbalistic tradition, representing "The Concealment of God".
• This Is the Final Battle: In the original ALLTYNEX, Final Target ALLTYNEX OS appears on screen when you fight the malicious super-computer.
• Tomato Surprise: As revealed in the ending, the pilot is Guehala Dennis, who helped develop the Phoenix.
• Transforming Mecha: The player's ship can transform into a mecha. Most bosses will also go through several transformations during battles.
• Video Game 3D Leap: The first game in the series to use 3D graphics. The replay mode has a special "Game Camera" that shows off various camera angles of your performance. The gameplay is still in two dimensions, however.
• Video Game Remake: Of ALLTYNEX for the FM Towns Marty.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Ajattara.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The mech form of the player's standard ship has one. Lots of bosses have them as well.
• Wham Line: In the ending, we see a list of those who were killed in action. One name is that of the protagonist: Guehala Dennis.
• What a Piece of Junk: The Armed Saboteur's is basically just a flying piece of garbage with most of it's armor stripped of and the only thing that was fixed on them was their firepower.

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