Every Extend Extra

That's right. Your ship, when you went into hyperspace (or wherever the game takes place) was not equipped with a proton cannon. I'm terribly sorry. You might be thinking "Then how do I kill enemy's?" Well...that's where the game concept gets interesting.

You see, your ship was equipped with a...suicide feature. You, by pressing square, circle, x, and triangle, can blow up your ship. That's right. And, to make it a little easier on you, the game makers made it so you can also charge up the explosion, by pressing and holding down any of the buttons. By releasing the button, you explode your ship.

When your ship explodes, if it's charged, it releases a big shock wave. If it isn't...it's a not so big charge. When the shock wave hits an enemy, the enemy also explodes, releasing it's own little shock wave. In this way, you can get combos.

Now, you might be wondering how many lives you have. Well...that's up to the combos you get. If you score a high combo, then you can get a "1-up", which is added to the overall count of lives you have, which is called 'stock'.

And if that little, minor feature wasn't enough, there's more. There are special types of enemy's. There are four types, in addition to the normal enemy's. There are Speeders, Time Bombs, Mini-Bosses, and Stage Bosses.

The Speeders and Time Bombs are more of friends then foes. Speeders are just like normal enemies, except pink. And for the fact they drop little pink power ups that make the enemies faster. That's right. The enemies get faster, and come in more quantity. But that's good for you, when you are low on stock/lives, and when your fighting bosses. So you want to collect the power ups. The Time Bombs, when hit by the shockwave, stop moving, and start shaking. After a couple seconds, they explode, releasing a quite large shockwave. Don't worry. It doesn't hurt you.

The Mini-Bosses come up ever level. The better you do, the more numerous they come. Don't worry. A good explosion can kill them. The type differ, like all of the enemies, from stage to stage.

The bosses are something else, though. After fighting in each stage for a while, the screen will display a weird name, the timer will stop, and a large opponent will come and greet you, with a flurry of projectiles. The timer then will start, and everything will be normal. Besides the giant boss attacking your ship. You have to follow the instructions displayed on the screen, that change as you follow them, to damage and kill the boss. The first boss is a weird light-machine that uses colorful bursts, that are quite annoying. The bosses difficulty changes according to how well you were on the other parts of the stage.

And, of course, when you fight the boss, there are three elements that determine your victory. Time, Speed, and Stock. In other words, while your fighting the boss, the timer is still ticking away, you need to hit the boss with chain attacks, which are produced by enemies, which come in large numbers if you have high speed. And, of course, you automatically lose if you don't have stock.