Appendix G: Phoenix HD

Glossary

Appendix G: Phoenix HD

The predecessor game of Phoenix 2, Phoenix HD
Phoenix	Corsair	Trinity	Shogun	Mirage
	Striker	Phantom	Flare

Phoenix HD can be found exclusively on the iOS / Mac App Store only. Android users are currently unable to play this predecessor game. Do understand that the gameplay of Phoenix HD is very different.

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 you 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, 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.

Differences (All pointers relate to what is observed in Phoenix HD):

General:

• Obviously, Phoenix HD has a lot lesser ships.
  • 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 that you have not bought for one flight every 24 hours.
• Leaderboards are based on per ship, and are never reset.
  • You get different medals for reaching Top x%, which is a bit 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%
  • These medals update as new records are registered.
  • You can set high scores and get different medals based on different:
    • City
    • Province
    • Country
    • Continent
    • World
  • Phoenix HD uses your device's Location Services to place your score set in the correct city.
    • In the case Location Services is not allowed to be used by Phoenix HD, or Location Services is disabled at the time the game is ended, Phoenix HD uses your IP Address to determine the approximate location.
• You earn coins which are sometimes dropped by enemy ships. 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.
  • Point Defense Drone (1,250) - Shoots down incoming bullets.
  • 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.
• Your adversaries are just called Enemy Ships instead of Invaders. Below shows the list of all enemy ships in Phoenix HD:

Gameplay:

• More focused on dodging.
• There are 5 levels of difficulty, from to .
  • The higher the difficulty, the faster bullets will move.
  • The difficulty is automatically adjusted at the end of each game.
  • You can only reset the difficulty to minimum, not to anywhere in-between.
  • Most players play at the maximum difficulty since the score accumulates significantly slower at the lowest difficulty and it is generally easy to hit the maximum difficulty after one game. The condition is most likely to hit a score of 1,000,000.
• You have a finite and sizeable amount of health.
  • 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).
    • When your health is low enough that hitting one more bullet will kill you, the flames become very big, which is easy to recognize.
  • 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 feel much 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 potential DPS of all ships (except Phantom, whose DPS is significantly higher) are approximately the same, at the start of a game without weapon upgrades and when the weapon is fully upgraded.
    • Some ships have more levels of weapon upgrades than others.
• The 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.
    • Damage from its weapon systems is still being dealt 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 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 change 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 sometimes dropped by destroyed enemy ships.
  • Phoenix HD has the following 8 power-ups:
    
    • EMP - Instantly converts all bullets on screen to coins.
    • Shield - Creates an invulnerable movable shield that encapsulates your ship for around 5s.
    • Health - Fully restores your ship's health
      • For Phantom, this pickup fully restores its Ghost Mode gauge.
    • Alpha Strike (Derived from Phoenix's weapon systems) - Launches a short burst of fanned out purple energy, damaging enemy ships in its wake.
    • Beta Strike (Derived from Phoenix's weapon systems) - Launches a forward stream of orange energy, damaging enemy ships in its wake.
    • Delta Strike (Derived from Shogun's weapon systems) - Launches waves of fanned out Tesla Coils that will deal damage to enemy ships while a tesla coil is in range of an Invader.
    • Gamma Strike (Derived from Corsair's weapon systems) - Launches a bunch of homing missiles towards enemy ships.
    • Lambda Strike (Derived from Mirage's weapon systems) - Fires a bunch of orange tracking lasers at enemy ships that last around 3s.
  • 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.
• Bullets behave very differently.
  • Bullets are much faster at maximum difficulty.
  • There are 2 variants of bullets - brighter and darker red ones, the latter dealing more damage than the former. (Remember that you have actual health in Phoenix HD.)
  • Phoenix HD has a special bullet that spawns pellets to the left and right sides as the special bullet travels vertically downwards.
  • MIRVs trigger after a fixed amount of time and cannot be triggered by going near them.
  • Boomerangs work like actual boomerangs that will reverse after some distance.
• Turrets in Phoenix HD have very different firing patterns.
• Enemy ships have no Doomsday Weapons (so no Super MIRVs). They also do not have any type of lasers.

Phoenix

All-round fighter with a diverse arsenal of weapons.

Corsair

Missile cruiser with the special ability to lock on turrets for extra deadly barrage.

Trinity

Experimental ship that slows down time and can teleport over short distances.

Shogun

An advanced ship for elite pilots. Its weapons are powered by flying dangerously close to enemy bullets and ships.

Mirage

Laser frigate equipped with the Nightfury laser which activates when the ship does not move.

The ships below are exclusive to Phoenix HD:

Striker

Tactical assault ship with multi-lock missile launchers.

Phantom

A fragile ship with high firepower and the ability to go into Ghost Mode.

Flare

Classic ship with a destructive Overdrive ability at the expense of hit points.

Trivia: Flare is also the titular ship in an even older game by Firi Games, Flare Elite.