Overview
Armed Police Batrider is a vertically-scrolling shoot-'em-up game, released only in arcades. Its gameplay incorporates many elements from its predecessor, Battle Garegga, as well as one of Raizing's other earlier games, Mahou Daisakusen.
In addition to a roster of nine original characters, all the old characters from Mahou Daisakusen and Battle Garegga are also selectable, though they must first be unlocked via a button code or a dip-switch setting. One additional "returning" (though previously non-playable) character from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen also makes an appearance. All together, there are 18 different playable characters. In the vein of The King of Fighters, players can choose from pre-set three-character "teams," or build their own custom team via Team Edit mode. It's also possible to stick to just one character, if simplicity is preferred.
Four gameplay modes are available in total, though, again, some must be unlocked via codes or dip-switch settings before becoming accessible:
- Training Course (3 stages, auto-bomb)
- Normal Course (5 stages)
- Advanced Course (7+ stages)
- Special Course (boss rush)
Playable Characters
Police Team
Psychic Team
Criminal Team
- Gain
- Chitta
- Miyamoto
- Bornnam
- Car-Pet
- Silver Sword
- Grasshopper
- Flying Baron
- Wild Snail
Gameplay
Many of the gameplay elements seen in Battle Garegga make a return in Batrider: namely, the complex rank system, and a deep scoring system that focuses on methodical boss destruction, destroying enemies with specific weapon types, and secret destructible scenery targets.
Primary Controls
- A button: Shot
- B button: Bomber (bomb/special weapon)
- C button (if present): Option formation (Garegga ships only)
Secondary Controls
- Start + A / C: Raise/lower Shot autofire frequency
- Start + B: Toggle point value display for destroyed enemies
- Start + Left/Down/Right: Change color of enemy projectiles
Alternative Controls
Because Batrider can be played on both two-button and three-button cabinets, there are a variety of workarounds available for commands that would normally use the C button when the game is played on a two-button cabinet. For example, Start + Up can be used to lower the Shot autofire frequency instead of Start + C, and there are a variety of Street Fighter-like directional input commands that can be performed to switch Option formations in lieu of using the C button.
- Front: Up, Down, A
- Back: Down, Up, Down, A
- Spread: Right, Down, Down-Right, A
- Trace: Left, Down, Down-Left, A
- Rotate: Left, Down-Left, Down, Down-Right, Right, A
Weapons and Ship Subtypes
All player ships have a few different methods of attack at their disposal:
- Shot: Primary shot, fired by holding the A button. Usually resembles a machine-gun or some sort of rapid-fire energy blast.
- Option: Support pods that fire alongside the player's ship whenever the main Shot is fired. Must be activated by picking up at least one Option powerup. Each ship's Options have different characteristics, and Battle Garegga ships can manually change their Options' firing formation by using the C button.
- Bomber: Area-effect special weapon, activated with the B button. Can be used to destroy enemy bullets for safety, to deal damage, or to destroy destructible scenery for points and to reveal hidden items.
- Aura: When the player ship stops firing for a brief period of time, a glowing cloud will appear on the ship's nose. This cloud can be used as a melee attack by touching enemies with it. When enemies are killed in this fashion, the same amount of points are awarded as if the enemy had been killed with a Bomber, allowing the player to conserve bombs in some situations.
- Charge Shot: After the Aura has grown to full power, if the A button is pressed, a Charge Shot will be unleashed, locking the player's Options in place temporarily and firing at maximum power for a few seconds. An active Aura can be manually canceled by pressing the Start button if the player doesn't want to use a Charge Shot.
Additionally, the button used to select each player ship on the ship selection screen will alter its weapon characteristics accordingly:
- A button: stronger Shot
- B button: stronger Options
- C button (A+B on two-button cabinets): stronger Shot and stronger Options, but lower speed
- Start button: weaker Shot and Options, but faster speed
Scoring and Extends
Like Battle Garegga, extends are given out at fixed score thresholds, with no limit: in Batrider's case, extends are given every 1,500,000 points. Unlike Garegga, however, extends take the form of power-up items which spawn in the place of the next Medal after reaching each score threshold. Because Extends must be picked up, it's also possible to miss them, losing the extra life entirely. As with Garegga, scoring well enough to earn frequent Extends (and suiciding or dying before new Extends are earned) is central to keeping the difficulty manageable into the late-game.
Unlike Garegga, however, picking up an Extend item also significantly increases the game's rank (especially if picked up with multiple lives already in stock), meaning that players will typically want to suicide to their last life just before picking up an Extend item, in order to keep the difficulty from growing out of control.
If three extends in a row are missed, the game will spawn a "Special Extend" that refills the player's life stock back up to three lives with the rank penalty of only a single Extend, but confident play is required to be comfortable missing three extra lives in a row!
Most of the player's score comes from the following elements:
- Collecting Medals (gradually increasing in value from 100 points to 10,000 points as more are collected, and resetting back to 100 points if one is missed)
- Destroying destructible parts on bosses, and killing bosses and enemies
- Destroying destructible stage scenery
- "Tick" points from shooting at targets (shooting invulnerable boss parts to "milk" points while delaying the boss's demise is often possible)
Bosses
As with the roster of playable characters, Armed Police Batrider also includes a slew of crossover bosses from Mahou Daisakusen and Battle Garegga, many of which are hidden and can only be fought if certain secret conditions are met during gameplay.
- Metropolis: Conflict
- Sky High: Boredom
- Secret Boss: Bashinet (Mahou Daisakusen)
- Sewage System: Deviate
- Secret Boss: Black Heart (Battle Garegga)
- Airport: Bazzcok
- Secret Boss: Gob-Robo (Mahou Daisakusen)
- Colosseum: Bashinet Mark II (Mahou Daisakusen)
- Secret boss-only stage, only appears under specific conditions
- Highway: Sobut/Blunt/Envy (varies depending on conditons)
- Secret Boss: Tsumuji-Maru, Hayate-Maru (Mahou Daisakusen)
- Airport (II): Black Heart Mark II (Battle Garegga)
- Secret boss-only stage, only appears under specific conditions
- Zenovia City: Grubby
- Night Flight: Bashinet-R (Mahou Daisakusen)
- Secret boss-only stage, only appears under specific conditions
- Night View: Glow Squid (Battle Garegga)
- Secret boss-only stage, only appears under specific conditions
- Gigantech Building: Discharge
Secrets
Stage Edit
- Highlight the game mode of your choice
- Press A + B Button at the same Time
Unlock Secret Ships
On the Title Screen, insert a coin and enter the following code before pressing Start:
- [UP] [UP] [DOWN] [DOWN] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [A] [B] [Start]
Unlock Player Select (single-character mode)
On the Title Screen, insert a coin and enter the following code before pressing Start:
- [UP] [UP] [DOWN] [DOWN] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [B] [A] [Start]
A fourth Menu Option should now be available.
Unlock Special Course
On the Title Screen, insert a coin and enter the following code before pressing Start:
- [UP] [DOWN] [UP] [DOWN] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [A] [B] [Start]
Items
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