Come back when your spaceship shooter have a giant skull monster boss!
Rendering Ranger: R2 is a 1995 side-scrolling action game developed by Manfred Trenz and released by Virgin Interactive Studios for the Super Famicom in Japan only, where ever since its release in the mid-90s it has been one of the Super Famicom's most obscure titles until later-re-releases to the Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Gameplay-wise, Rendering Ranger follows a mixture of two side-scrolling formats, between a Horizontal Scrolling Shooter and a Run-and-Gun arcade-style action game. You are an elite Super-Soldier called the Rendering Ranger (R2), one of humanity's last survivors, and it's up to you to battle your way past hordes and hordes of hostile aliens in levels either on foot, or in outer space when you get to blast apart alien ships en masse.
See also the Turrican series, which comes from the same developer, where this game shares a premise, setting and gameplay format with.
Rendering Ranger: R2 cointain examples of:
- After the End: The game is set after an alien invasion turns most of earth's cities into ruins, and the Ranger needs to defend humanity from the invading army.
- Alliterative Name: Rendering Ranger R2.
- Assist Character: In the spaceship levels, the Ranger can obtain a pair of hovering probes attached to each side of his ship, which will provide cover fire for him. They can even shoot backwards which proves to be extremely useful in trickier situations.
- Asteroid Thicket: A lot of the spaceship-themed levels, including the very first one, have your Ranger, piloting a stolen fighter jet, battling enemies in the middle of an asteroid field. One of the bosses is even fought in between two gigantic asteroids (and will use it's hooks to pull to asteroids together in an attempt to smash you)!
- Background Boss: The fifth boss of the spaceship levels is an alien Humongous Mecha fought in the background, where you'll need to contend with its' attacks and return fire when it swoops at you.
- Battleship Raid: The sixth level, where the Ranger's starfighter takes on an alien battleship on his own, targeting turrets, enemy ships, and make his way from the bottom to the top until destroying it.
- Boss Bonanza: The fourth level throws a number of never-before-seen bosses - the alien Combining Mecha, Skull Crab, the trio of Blocks, The Skull and finally the Core, one in each area, with barely any breathing space in-between.
- Combining Mecha: One of the many bosses in the final stage, a gigantic alien mecha that takes up half the boss area, where it's wings turns out to be two other mechs attached to it. They can split into three to attack simultaneously.
- David Versus Goliath: Regardless whether the Ranger is on foot or piloting a starfighter, the bosses simply towers above him, effortlessly taking up a massive chunk of the screen.
- Emerging from the Shadows: How the alien's massive Chicken Walker boss introduces itself. The Ranger makes his way into the heart of the alien base, the coast seems clear, and then the tall back wall lifts open to reveal total darkness before a set of red eyes belonging to the robot starts glowing. Followed by the robot stepping out.
- The Faceless; The Rendering Ranger's true face underneath his helmet is never seen at any point of the game.
- Fighter-Launching Sequence: You get treated to one of these whenever the Ranger gets aboard a space fighter and took off, leading to the following stage which will be a horizontal shooter.
- Giant Mook: Giant-sized alien starships will sometimes appear, including a number of fast-moving Lightning Bruiser-type red-and-white alien ships appearing in the city area who can speed in and out of the screen with rapid speed despite their size.
- Jet Pack: Some of the aliens wears hover packs, attacking you while staying afloat.
- More Dakka: The amount of dakka the game allows is insanely generous. What takes the cake is likely the eight-way shooter that allows the Ranger to fire fully-automatic rounds all around the screen, raining hell for enemies in the way.
- No Name Given: None given to the player's hero, he's just the Rendering Ranger.
- Palette Swap: On the character customization screen, you can adjust for the Ranger's uniform to be in red, yellow, blue, green, purple, you name it. His character uses the same model regardless of colour, and doesn't impact gameplay in any way.
- Spread Shot: The classic side-scrolling power-up is one of the many goodies available for the Ranger to collect as a power-up, which allows him to fire up to arcs of eight bullets per shot when upgraded. This type of weapon is available in the spaceship-themed levels, too.
- Stationary Boss: The last two bosses, the Skull and the Cube, are fixed in a single area, respectively in the back wall and in the center of the stage, unable to move around and instead retaliates by sending their projectile attacks on you.
- Waddling Head: One of the bosses in the final stage, some giant alien-skull thing larger than your ship who moves on four spindly crab legs.
- Wave-Motion Gun:
- One of your most powerful weapons in spaceship form, which fires a thick energy beam taller than your ship itself.
- For then bosses, there's a gigantic fish mecha who spews a massive jagged yellow beam from it's mouth as an attack.
