Appendix G: Phoenix HD

Appendix G: Phoenix HD

Phoenix HD is found exclusively on the iOS / Mac App Store. You will require a minimum iOS or MacOS version of 11.0 to play. Android users CANNOT play Phoenix HD.

Phoenix HD's gameplay is very different from Phoenix 2.

Similarities

• Both are Japanese Bullet Hell shmup games, so expect LOTS of bullets.
• Both games share the ships Phoenix, Corsair, Trinity, Shogun & Mirage.
• They both use the same custom Firi Engine.
• The touch scheme is the same for both games, the ship follows your relative touch.
• They share many type of bullets, namely pellets, darts, shurikens, boomerangs and even MIRVs.
• The Phoenix HD ships Trinity, Mirage, Phantom & Flare have a Zen too.
  
  • The Zens for Trinity & Mirage work very differently from Phoenix 2, as elaborated below.
• There are leaderboards in both games, although they work very differently (elaborated below).
• There's in-game currency in both games, although used for very different purposes (elaborated below).
• Turrets can be destroyed in both games.

General Differences

All pointers relate to what is observed in Phoenix HD.

• Obviously, Phoenix HD has significantly fewer ships, at a count of only 8. The ships exclusive to Phoenix HD are Striker, Phantom & Flare.
• There are no daily missions. There is only one endless mode. Thus, one game on Phoenix HD typically lasts much longer.
• Ships are bought with real life currency, except for Phoenix which is permanently free.
  • Every other ship costs $0.99.
  • You can fly a random ship you have not bought for one flight every 24 hours.

Gameplay Differences

• More focused on dodging.
• There are 5 levels of difficulty, from to .
  • From to , for each additional star before starting a new game, the bullet speed increase per star is a factor of 0.08 while the score multiplier increase per star is a factor of 0.8.
  • You can only reset the difficulty to the minimum one star .
  • Most players play at maximum difficulty since score accumulates significantly slower at the lowest difficulty and it is generally easy to hit maximum difficulty after one game.
    • For every 250,000 score earned in-game, the difficulty set in the next game will be increased by one star.
• You have a finite health of 100.
  • Recover health by collecting health pickups that are spawned by destroying enemy ship turrets.
  • As your health goes down, everything except enemy bullets and your ship's cockpit starts to fade to black & white.
  • More fire starts to be emitted from your ship as your health goes down (which goes away as you recover health). The following are the health thresholds before the corresponding fire appears/disappears:
    1. 91
    2. 76
    3. 51
    4. 26
    5. 11 (Huge flames)
    6. 9 (Huge flames)
  • There is also a health bar at the top of the screen.
  • Only the Phantom does not have health, and dies in one hit like ships in Phoenix 2.
• For the 5 ships common to both games, the behaviour of the weapon systems are very different in Phoenix HD, since there are many more weapon systems.
  • The weapons usually feel weaker and are more spread out over different weapon systems, except for Shogun.
  • All ship upgrades are obtained during a game and only temporary. The default chance of a weapon upgrade drop appearing is 1/35.
• Zens in Phoenix HD work differently for Trinity and Mirage.
  • For Trinity:
    • You can let the time slowdown run indefinitely.
    • Trinity Teleport is instantly available after releasing touch.
    • Its weapon systems continue firing as per normal even with touch disengaged.
    • There is also no Charge Time or Charge Time Increase after repeated use.
    • You can only teleport if you tap on a spot that is far enough from your current location.
  • For Mirage:
    • The Nightfury has 3 stages in Phoenix HD (each dealing increasing DPS).
    • The Nightfury in Phoenix HD lasts significantly longer than the Nightfury in Phoenix 2.
    • The Nightfury is much smaller in width, even at Stage 3.
    • No time slowdown while Nightfury is firing.
    • Moving while the Nightfury is active immediately stops the Nightfury.
    • There is a Charge Time, but no Charge Time Increase after repeated uses.
  • Phoenix, Corsair & Shogun don't have a Zen.
• Auras are replaced by Power-ups.
  • Power-ups have to be collected first before it can be used.
  • These power-ups are dropped by destroyed Enemy Ships with a default chance of 1/35.
  • Phoenix HD has the following 8 power-ups (For all of the x Strike power-ups, they are different colors of this power-up pickup ):
    
    • EMP - Instantly converts all bullets on screen to coins.
    • Shield - Creates an invulnerable movable shield that encapsulates your ship for 5s.
    • Health - Fully restores your ship's health.
      • For Phantom, this pickup fully restores its Ghost Mode gauge.
    • Alpha Strike (Purple in color, derived from Phoenix's Tachyon Cannon projectiles) - Launches 12.5 bursts of fanned out Tachyon Cannon projectiles in a chevron pattern of 9 projectiles (last set has only 5 projectiles) over 1s, damaging Enemy Ships in its wake. Each projectile has a speed of 1000 and deals 1.4 damage. Maximum damage = 157.2.
    • Beta Strike (Orange in color, derived from Phoenix's Helix Cannon) - Launches 20 bursts of 6 forward firing orange Helix Cannon projectiles in a chevron pattern over 2s, damaging Enemy Ships in its wake. Each projectile has a speed of 750 and deals 1.2 damage. There is a cooldown time of 1.0s. Maximum damage = 144.
    • Delta Strike (Blue in color, derived from Shogun's weapon systems) - Launches 3 consecutive waves of 4 fanned out Tesla Coils each over 1s, dealing damage to Enemy Ships while a tesla coil is in range of an Enemy Ship. Each Tesla Coil has a DPS of 5 and a speed of 120, and the total damage varies based on how long each Tesla Coil deals damage. Generally, this power-up does the most damage.
    • Gamma Strike (Yellow in color, derived from Corsair's Wasp Missiles) - Launches 5 waves of 6 homing wasp missiles towards Enemy Ships over 1s. Each missile does 5.5 damage, has a speed of 200, an acceleration of 400 and a maximum speed of 700. There is a 1.5s cooldown time. Total damage = 165.
    • Lambda Strike (Magenta in color, derived from Mirage's Sweeper Lasers) - Fires 5 yellow sweeper lasers at Enemy Ships that last 2s. Each sweeper laser has a DPS of 12.5. There is a 1.5s cooldown time. Total damage = 125.
  • You can only hold one power-up at a time.
    • Getting another power-up activates it immediately unless you get rid of the stored power-up.
  • Tap with a second finger to use the stored power-up, just like using Auras in Phoenix 2.

Currency Differences

You earn coins in-game, which are sometimes dropped by destroying Enemy Ships or their turrets. Coins can be used to buy the following single-use boosts in the Armory that last for only one game.

• Extra Power-ups (250) - Power-up drops increased by 40%.
• Extra Health (750) - Health drops increased by 25%.
• Vulcan Drone (900) - Attacks enemy ships.

  Mobile	Fully Deployed

  • Moves around for 1.5s, goes into Fully Deployed form in 0.5s, fires for 1.5s and finally retracts back to Mobile form in 0.5s, before repeating the whole cycle over and over.
  • 113 bullets in each burst, each bullet with a speed of 1000 and 0.065 damage. Maximum Total Damage = 7.345
• Point Defense Drone (1,250) - Shoots down incoming bullets.
  • Fires 1 point defense laser every 0.13s to a random bullet within a range of 60.
• Phoenix Wake (2,000) - Skip the first 20 waves.
• Phoenix Revive (2,500) - One extra life.

You can buy coins for real life currency at the following rates below:

• 10,000 for $0.99
• 40,000 for $3.99
• 100,000 for $8.99
• You can also get a Coin Tripler which gets 3× coins per game at $1.99.
  • This is usually sufficient to buy most of the single-use boosts every game without ever running out of coins.
  • With this Coin Tripler, you should usually be able to earn back the coins spent after one game even if you buy all of Extra Power-ups, Extra Health, Vulcan Drone & Point Defense Drone (Total 3,150).
  • The additional Phoenix Wake (2,000) and Phoenix Revive (2,500) on top of all other boosts might use up coins quicker than you can earn, depending on your skills. You should probably only pick one of these 2. (Likely Phoenix Revive since Phoenix Wake is not very useful for high scores. However, Phoenix Wake does help make the game feel more fun since the initial waves can be very boring.)

Leaderboard Differences

Leaderboards are based on per Ship, and never reset.

• You get different medals for reaching Top x%, which is quite similar to Phoenix 2.
  • Diamond Medal for Top 0.0001%
  • Ruby Medal for Top 0.001%
  • Sapphire Medal for Top 0.01%
  • Emerald Medal for Top 0.1%
  • Platinum Medal for Top 1%
  • Gold Meal for Top 10%
  • Silver Medal for Top 33.3%
  • Bronze Medal for Top 50%
• The medals awarded to all players update as new records are registered.
• You can set high scores and get different medals based on:
  • City
  • Province
  • Country
  • Continent
  • World
• Phoenix HD uses your device's Location Service to place your score set in the correct city.
  • If Phoenix HD is not allowed to use Location Service, or Location Service is disabled when a game ends, Phoenix HD uses your IP Address to determine an approximate location.