V-V

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V-Five / Grind Stormer

V-V (AKA: V-Five, also known as: Grind Stormer) is a vertical shooting game developed and published by Toaplan in 1993. It was also ported to the Sega Genesis, under the title Grind Stormer. The game was programmed by Tsuneki Ikeda, who moved on to CAVE after the closure of Toaplan, and it is one of the last two games made by the company. Alongside Batsugun and DonPachi, it is an early progenitor of the bullet hell sub-genre of shooting games, with bullet amounts in later stages of the game amounting to between 70-80 on screen at once. It is considered a "spiritual successor" to Toaplan's earlier game, Slap Fight, due to similar gameplay mechanics.

V-V is unique among vertical shmups in the use of a power-up system inspired by Gradius, where the player collects diamond-shaped icons and presses a button to activate specific power-ups; Grind Stormer diverges from this power-up system and instead makes powerups random pick-ups that you collect, more akin to a more traditional shooter, and gives the player Bomb stocks that work much like bombs in other games. The Sega Genesis port released in North America includes an option to switch between "Grind Stormer" and "V-Five" mode in the Options menu.

The plot is about an insanely hard video game called V-Five, released in the year 2210, which abducts gamers and makes them hopelessly addicted to the game, unable to stop playing it. The player is a government agent sent to investigate and beat the game in order to free its victims from its clutches.



Gameplay Overview

V-V and Grind Stormer both utilize only two buttons for their gameplay. However, the critical difference between the two different game revisions is the functionality of the second button. There are six stages, and a second loop offering greater challenge and score gain. Stage progress is measured from 0-200% in the high score table.

Controls


  • A: Fires the equipped weapon (Hold the button for rapid-fire)
  • B (V-V): Activates the current power-up on the Upgrade Bar
  • B (Grind Stormer): Fires a Bomb, clearing the screen of bullets and dealing heavy damage to enemies, and making the player briefly invincible



Weapons / Upgrade Bar


Much like a game in the Gradius lineage, V-V uses an Upgrade Bar, which is comprised of 6 slots. When the player collects an Upgrade Item, the Upgrade Bar moves up one slot, and by pressing the B button, the player "activates" the power-up, and the Upgrade Bar is cleared. When the player dies, they will always respawn with the Upgrade Bar on the Speed-Up slot.

In Grind Stormer, this Upgrade Bar is instead replaced with a Bomb Stock, of which six can be held, and upgrades instead drop from carriers in a set order.

  • Speed-Up: Increases the movement speed of the ship. If the ship's speed is already at the maximum, this slot becomes Speed-Down instead.
  • Shot: Switches to the Shot weapon (red ship).
    • Default weapon on game start, and on respawn. A combination spread shot and laser weapon.
    • When not holding A, moving upwards will adjust the options outward, increasing the shot spread, and moving downward will move them inward, making the shot spread narrower
    • When the options are at a straight angle, the shot becomes a powerful laser
  • Search: Switches to the Search weapon (pink ship).
    • Options lock on to the nearest enemy and point-blank them
    • If there is only one target on screen to lock onto (such as in boss fights), one option will lock onto the target, and the second will rotate around the player
  • Missile: Switches to the Missile weapon (blue ship).
    • Fires powerful missiles from the options, which follow the player by emulating their movements
    • When not firing, the player's options quickly return to underneath the player's ship
  • Power: Increases the strength of the equipped weapon. Power upgrades also carry over between weapon types.
  • Shield: Represented by a ?. Activates a forcefield around the player, which can absorb one hit of damage.




Items


There are two types of items to collect in V-V. As mentioned above, upgrades in Grind Stormer are relegated to item pickups, but function the same, and will not be covered here.

  • Upgrade Item: Diamond-shaped pickups that adds an active slot to the Upgrade Bar.
    • These add to the player's Bomb Stock in Grind Stormer.
    • When the player loses all of their lives and hits continue, a Gold Upgrade Item will drop from the screen, which activates one Speed-Up, Shield, and three Power upgrades.
  • Score Item: Self-explanatory; collecting these items adds to your score based on the value of the item.
    • Some enemies and objects drop score items that cycle between different point values, and the point value awarded is based on when you collect it.




Rank


Rank in V-V is not currently actively researched, but does seem to exist, and increases the difficulty of the game, from increasing enemy bullet speeds to some enemies shooting more dangerous bullets, and more aggressive shooting patterns. An excellent example of how rank affects the game can be found in Stage 2. If the player has not died up to the boss, the turrets at the start of the fight shoot giant fireballs at high speed, and the second form's attacks are fired at almost double the rate.

What we do currently understand:

  • Rank definitely increases by completing a stage without dying.
  • Rank is potentially affected by the Upgrade Bar.
  • Activating a Shield upgrade seems to have the greatest effect on the rank.
  • Rank decreases when the player dies. How severe the rank increase is, is currently unknown.




Scoring


Scoring in V-V is very simple, rewarding the player with points for destroying enemies and collecting score items.

Dealing damage to enemies rewards the player with 10pts per hit of damage.

Enemy missiles can be shot down by the player's weapons, and are worth (x)pts each.

Every enemy has its own point value that the player receives when the enemy dies.

In Grind Stormer only, the player is awarded 10000pts for collecting a duplicate Weapon item / extra Power item.

A significant amount of score items can be collected by the player in Stage 3 and Stage 5.



References & Contributors

  1. Primary info and page formatting provided by CHA-STG

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