W Ring: The Double Rings

Overview

W Ring: The Double Rings is a shoot 'em up developed and published by Naxat Soft for the PC Engine platform. The player makes their way across horizontal levels collecting power-ups from fallen foes.

The game has three difficulty modes which determine the amount of enemies and their health: Beginner, Normal and Expert.

Gameplay

Each power-up provides a different weapon to the player depending on the color, and collecting subsequent power-ups increases the power of that weapon. If the player switches colored power-ups, they'll acquire the stronger versions of those power-ups. If the player gets hit, they'll lose the current power-ups they have; if they don't have a power-up, they'll lose a life.

In the standard mode, the ship fires a stream of horizontal bullets and bombs that fall at a slight angle. The various power-ups emphasize one or both of these fire modes:

• Red: Red adds options that fire along with the player. More power-ups increases the number of options.
• Blue: Blue fires a long laser that moves with the player's ship, allowing the player to sweep the screen as long as it's being fired. More power-ups increases the vertical range with additional beams.
• Purple: Purple is the spread shot, which first branches the main weapon into three directions and expands to five (which extends to behind the player's craft) to eight with additional power-ups.
• Green: Green changes the main weapon into much larger rings that cover more of the screen.
• Orange: Orange adds additional bombs that rise upwards, increasing the amount of screen that the two bomb streams cover. Additional levels increase the number of bombs fired per second.